Credit: Edited by Inside the MagicWalt Disney Animation Studios might be the biggest name in the business, but animation can be anyone’s game.
Disney has been the center of the animated universe for practically the last century and has created some of the world’s most beloved cartoon characters. However, recent performances at both the box office and studio level have been anything but winning.
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As the studio grapples with critics, reviews, and shifting dynamics, some of Disney’s veteran animators have sought a new audience in the indie market, as icons of the studio like Andreas Deja, Andrew Chesworth, and even John Musker are branching out to make their own films to rival the House of Mouse. While Disney struggles with its current identity crisis, these three artists reveal what fans genuinely miss about the company.
Disney Animation Done Right
The world of indie films might be shamefully overlooked, but giants of the animation industry have taken up arms (or ink and paint) to match wits with the Disney studio, and the results are undoubtedly magical. Currently, three Disney greats have created their own short films with more of a Disney flavor than Disney itself, one of which (at the time of writing) is being eyed for an Academy Award.
John Musker (of Musker and Clements) releases I’m Hip (2023) on the indie scene. The film is a call back to the stylish animal cartoons of the ’60s, and it concerns (as described by Cartoon Brew)” a self-absorbed cat who tries to convince the world of his ‘hipness.” Clearly, Musker has not lost that sense of animated humor that served him so well in films like Aladdin (1992) and Hercules (1997).
Brought to life by Lion King (1994) animator Andreas Deja, Mushka tells the story of a young girl and her friendship with an abandoned Siberian tiger. Not only is the short animated and designed in homage to Disney’s classic visual style, but it also features new music by Richard Sherman, who wrote a laundry list of Disney hits with his brother Robert for Walt himself. Deja himself spoke Inside the Magic about the project, and his commentary can be found here.
On the more modern end of the spectrum, Andrew Chesworth of Big Hero 6 (2014) created and directed The Brave Locomotive, a musical short film with more than a few similarities with Disney’s adaptation of The Brave Engineer (1950) with notes of the Little Toot segment from Melody Time (1948). This musical adventure about a train and his loyal engineer is an absolute delight and is currently in the running against both Disney and Pixar for this year’s Academy Award for Best Short Subject.
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There has been a recent outcry from audiences for Disney to return to its roots and back to the traditional stories and styles fans knew from the studio’s heyday. Although that’s practically an impossibility on multiple levels, that doesn’t mean the ones responsible for said heyday aren’t still in the business of making magic.
Inside the Magic reached out to the animators for comment, but no response was received at the time of publishing.
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