End of an Era With Animation Cuts

Re: “Disney Confirms Animation Cuts,” March 19:

When the last of the projected 250 animators to be laid off from Walt Disney Feature Animation makes her or his way out of the towering sorcerer’s hat on Riverside Drive in May 2003, so the book will close on Hollywood’s most promising and time-honored repertory company.

Disney management has stated publicly that this is not a signal that they’re abandoning traditional animation, simply that it’s more cost effective to hire on a “per project basis.”

That the studio most dependent on branding themselves through a product born out of carefully and lovingly building a family of artisans should so easily discard them is shocking.

Gifted artists of the “second generation,” who now make up the “old guys” at Disney, were mentored by the giants who pioneered great character animation. That’s almost a century of knowledge that can’t be taught over the course of one film.

Rhett Wickham

Los Angeles