Animators Start 2-D Movie Studio

By CARRIE ANTLFINGER, Associated Press Writer
Monday, August 28, 2006 03 50 PM

Tom Hignite knew something was off when he went to the Disney studios in Florida three years ago and saw empty easels instead of animators working on a film.

Hignite later heard they had been laid off — since fans were going to see more computer-animated movies and box-office sales had been lagging for classic hand-drawn, or two-dimensional, movies.

Having gone to school for art, he didn't want 2-D films to die. He had been successful owning a home building company in southeastern Wisconsin, and decided to put money into a studio that would make only 2-D cartoons.

So in 2004 he started Miracle Studios in Polk, about 30 miles north of Milwaukee. He hired 12 animators, who have worked at Disney, Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. They also sometimes work from Hignite's Richfield home.

"If I could do something in a small way to keep this art alive ... it just struck me as a good time to do it," Hignite said.

So far they've finished a book called "Miracle Mouse" and plan to use the proceeds for an animated film based on the book.

Steve Hulett, a business representative for the Animation Guild, said major studios that worked on hand-drawn feature films used to employ 2,000 to 3,000 people in the mid-1990s, but that number has dropped to a few hundred.

Some companies still produce hand-drawn films, but contract some or all of the animation to other countries. The emergence of computer-animated films such as "Shrek" and "Finding Nemo" raked in big bucks, causing the industry to veer away from 2-D, he said.

"I think the market is heavily tilted to computer-generated imaging," Hulett said. "I don't see that changing for the foreseeable future."

But Sarah Baisley, editor in chief of Hollywood-based Animation World Network, an online animation news service, said even though 2-D films aren't being produced as much, that doesn't mean 2-D is dead.

She said other countries have become more involved in animation such as France, Germany and Canada, with some even giving subsidies, grants and tax incentives to help support the industry. About 20 European features are coming out this year, but they don't have the marketing savvy of U.S. studios, Baisley said.

She said Bill Hanna of Hanna-Barbera was one of the first to contract studios in other countries in the 1970s and since then studios have followed suit.

Los Angeles area animation house Film Roman Inc., which produces "The Simpsons" and "King of the Hill," is working on a Simpsons film and another 2-D film by Rob Zombie called "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto."

Scott Greenberg, the company's president , said they have 300 or 400 animators working on their television and DVD productions. They do much of the animation in the U.S. but some is sent elsewhere, like to AKOM Production Co. and Rough Draft in South Korea.

"We do as much as we can in the U.S.," he said.

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