Lilo & Stitch: Collected Stories From the Film's Creators
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(c) Disney
Story Rules the Day
A New Book from Disney Press Gives Added Hope for a Return to the Reign of the Story
Artist
Review by Rhett Wickham
- Lilo (and later, Stitch) in "Lilo & Stitch"
On a quiet Saturday morning this spring, a young animation story artist approached the lectern at Forest Lawn’s chapel in Burbank to remember the late Bill Peet. Peet -- who passed away in May -- was truly unique in the history of Disney animation. He was the first and only artist to storyboard an entire film on his own - "101 Dalmatians." His was the very first screenplay, per se, for an animated feature film and was followed by his often under-appreciated screenplay for "The Sword in the Stone", an adaptation of T.H. White’s A Once and Future King which Peet storyboarded practically solo as well.
This very simple and fairly small gathering of Peet’s neighbors and friends was oddly under-attended by animation industry folks. This unassuming, soft spoken young man with long prematurely silver hair had driven down from San Francisco to attend the service because, as he whispered into the microphone, he "had modeled (his) career on Bill Peet." He said he wanted people to know that at Pixar, story artists still had the primary responsibility for shaping the story or "script" of the films. He said "still" because this previously long standing tradition was rather abruptly usurped in the 1980’s at Disney with the arrival of Jeffrey Katzenberg who brought his experience in live action to bear on the animation production process.
It proved a successful marriage in many ways. Even after Jeffrey’s departure Disney feature animation brought in some very talented screenwriters such as Noni White, Bob Tzudiker and Tab Murphy who made significant contributions to films like "Tarzan" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Suddenly screenwriters ruled in animation, but it was obvious that these screenwriters had not come from the traditions of personality or character animation. The best of them adapted quickly and many of them were and still are very outspoken about how much they learned about the collaborative process while working at Disney. However, for over two decades the craft of writing was out of the hands of a generation of gifted women and men such as Brenda Chapman and Roger Allers, who like Bill Peet were truly gifted story tellers, and screenwriters often appeared to be held in higher regard. Story artists remained very involved and I don’t want to underplay their role or imply that the Disney or any other studio didn’t value them, but theirs was not the role it had been through Disney’s great Golden Age and I sincerely believe that they were not trusted enough and under-valued, or at the very least under-nurtured. The practice of story being crafted solely by story artists had all but vanished. Many critics have noted that the stories being told in animated films have become predictable and flat, bearing no unique stamp that makes them different from live action films. Is it possible that this criticism points to a quieting of some of the most original voices in the industry - animation story artists?
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