Three years ago animator Don Bluth, less than enchanted with the Disney Studios, went off on his own to provide some competition for Walt's heirs. His animated feature, the $7-million The Secret of NIMH opened last week. "The first Disney movie I saw was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," says Bluth. "I was so enthralled I never got over it, and that's why I'm an animator." With his film, Bluth has tried to "get animation out of the nursery," and is already in pre-production for his next project, an $11-million animated epic called East of the Sun, West of the Moon.
But Bluth, as much as he cherishes the memory and influence of Disney, warns that the studio has lost track of some of its "classic" animation techniques, such as "making water look wet" and contact shadows for characters. Such techniques, he says, fell into desuetude. While working at the Disney Studios, Bluth would ask old-timers who worked on pictures such as Bambi and Snow White how certain things were done. However, nobody could exactly remember, and the method hadn't been written down.
Sic transit gloria Disney. Unless TRON, which opens today, changes all that.