For more than a year, John Lasseter, a Disney animator, has been heading up a computer animation test project at the studio with fellow animator, Glen Keane. "Basically , we are combining computer animated backgrounds with traditional Disney-style character animation," he explains. "Eventually, we may let the computers handle some elements of the character as well."
Now, before you throw up your hands in horror at the thought of row after row of computers churning out "Disney" animation of the Saturday morning ilk, John Lasseter is quick to emphasize that this is certainly not the case. The Disney Studios are experimenting with computer systems in an effort not only to make the process of animation cheaper and more efficient, but to open up for an animator a variety of techniques which are normally too time-consuming, too expensive or too tedious.
"I refuse to talk to people whose only response to computer animation is 'How many jobs is it going to replace?'" Lasseter says. "It's ridiculous. Computer animation is a new tool . This is like the inception of the multiplane camera. Certainly, it's the first technical innovation since then. Xerox was a technical advance, but a lot of quality was lost with it.
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