More than three years and 11,000 individual drawings later, “Snow Bear” \u2013 about a lonely polar bear in search of friends on the arctic expanse \u2013 is now available on YouTube<\/a>. It\u2019s a love letter to the craft, on par with Richard Williams\u2019 Prologue<\/a> or Glen Keane\u2019s The Duet<\/a>, as well as a tear-jerking swan song of an artist at the end of their career and the top of their game. It\u2019s also incredibly nostalgic. Not just for those who grew up watching 2D animated films, but for the people that made them as well. Both technically and thematically, “Snow Bear” can\u2019t help but make you reflect on how a timeless and beloved art form \u2013 the bedrock of Disney as a brand and company \u2013 all but disappeared in the wake of technological innovation. <\/p>\n Truly, it\u2019s hard to overstate just how disrupting the emergence of CG was to traditionally-trained animators like Blaise. Many had dreamed of working at Disney ever since they were old enough to hold a crayon, and thought they\u2019d stay with the studio until the day they retired. While some adapted to the new norm, others stayed behind, searching for hand-drawn work in TV or as freelancers, or leaving the industry altogether. Though many of them, like Blaise, loved watching CG films, they just didn\u2019t enjoy working on them. For animators like Blaise, their heart was in 2D, not 3D \u2013 and 2D, sadly, was on the out. <\/p>\n While blockbuster CG-animated films like Toy Story 5<\/a> dominate the big screen today, let’s take a look back at how hand-drawn animation succumbed to this new form.<\/p>\n Above: Former Disney animator Aaron Blaise is still drawing by hand. His short film “Snow Bear” is available on YouTube now.<\/p>\n End of an Era<\/p>\n The history of CG goes back further than you\u2019d think. At Disney, the technology was being deployed in a noticeable way in its animated films as early as 1986, for the many rotating gears inside Big Ben during the climax of The Great Mouse Detective<\/a>. Throughout the Disney Renaissance, CG helped render scenes too complex or cumbersome to draw by hand, from the wildebeest stampede in The Lion King to the moving camera of the ballroom sequence in Beauty and the Beast<\/a>. Then in 1995 came Toy Story<\/a>, the first feature-length film to be animated entirely using computers \u2013 no drawing involved. <\/p>\n Everyone in the industry who saw Woody and Buzz butt heads knew that a new era was about to begin, though what exactly that era would look like remained \u2013 for the time \u2013 unclear. \u201cDisney had a distribution deal with Pixar, so us 2D guys actually got to see an early test screening,\u201d Blaise tells IGN over Zoom, seated near the very desk where he drew “Snow Bear.” \u201cI still remember walking out of the room and someone going, \u2018Well, that\u2019s it. We\u2019re done.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n They weren\u2019t alone. According to Tom Sito, an animator and animation historian who worked on The Prince of Egypt, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and many Disney Renaissance films, practical effects artists had felt the same way after seeing the groundbreaking CG in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan<\/a> back in 1982. \u201cThere go our jobs,\u201d they\u2019d said, Sito tells IGN. \u201cSome stuck their promotional posters in the garbage as soon as they left the theater.\u201d<\/p>\n Above: The Project Genesis animation from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.<\/p>\n Not everyone was in low spirits, though. A self-described \u201ceternal optimist,\u201d Blaise belonged to a camp of animators who believed that \u201cthere was enough room for both of us\u201d \u2013 that, moving forward, Disney was going to produce both 2D and 3D animated films, working together side by side like The Lion King\u2019s Timon and Pumbaa. <\/p>\n \u2018I Feel Like a F#@king Puppeteer\u2019<\/p>\n To their credit, for a while it seemed like this would indeed be the case. While Disney\u2019s animation studio in California switched over to CG during the 2000s, their other location in Orlando \u2013 near the Disney World Parks \u2013 continued work on 2D projects like Lilo & Stitch<\/a>, The Emperor\u2019s New Groove<\/a>, and Brother Bear. But the more these films struggled to keep up with the critical and commercial success of Toy Story, Ice Age<\/a>, and Shrek<\/a>, the clearer it became that this division of labor would not last. \u201cIn hindsight,\u201d Aaron admits, \u201cthe pessimists saw the writing on the wall a lot earlier than I did.\u201d <\/p>\n Above: “Technological Threat,” an Oscar-nominated short about 2D animators being replaced by computers, lost \u2013 poetically \u2013 to Pixar\u2019s “Tin Toy.”<\/p>\n Disney went through several rounds of layoffs during this time, each of them heartbreaking to those involved. \u201cAround 1999, we were called onto the sound stage where they had filmed Mary Poppins,\u201d an animator who spoke to IGN under condition of anonymity (and described themselves as \u201clow on the totem pole\u201d) recalls. \u201cHundreds of us were going to be let go in chunks. I was fortunate to be among the first to leave, because friends who stayed told me things got really ugly. It\u2019s human nature, I suppose \u2013 desperation brings out the worst in people.\u201d<\/p>\n Those who weren\u2019t let go set to work learning CG. Though some adapted quicker than others, the transition was far from easy. For one, animators had to familiarize themselves with a variety of intimidating and constantly evolving programs, including Softimage and \u2013 later \u2013 Maya. Beyond that, CG animation is just fundamentally different from its 2D counterpart. In 2D, each pose is drawn from scratch, then filmed together with other drawings to create an illusion of movement. 3D, by contrast, is more like the virtual equivalent of Claymation: You set up your model in one pose, then move on to the next. <\/p>\n Different though it was, some welcomed the change. Sandro Cleuzo, a Brazilian animator who worked on Space Jam<\/a>, The Iron Giant<\/a>, and \u2013 more recently \u2013 Netflix\u2019s Nimona<\/a>, had a friend who was among the first to make the switch. \u201cHis hand-drawn work is amazing,\u201d he tells IGN, \u201cand yet he told me, \u2018Sandro, I love CG because I no longer have to draw!\u2019 I was so surprised by that. I always say 2D animation is a combination of drawing and acting. I love both, but some people just want to focus on the acting. And with CG, they could do that.\u201d<\/p>\n ‘I was doing everything on paper, with watercolors, but the executives couldn\u2019t see how my vision would translate to 3D. That\u2019s when I realized I had to bite the bullet.’\u201c<\/p>\n Others, meanwhile, despised computer animation for this very reason. \u201cI remember when Pres Romanillos, a great animator who died of cancer way too young, moved to DreamWorks to work in CG,\u201d Sito says. \u201cI asked him, \u2018What\u2019s it like?\u2019 And he goes, \u2018I feel like fucking puppeteer.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n Cleuzo felt similarly about CG: \u201cI did the training, and was a quick learner. Colleagues who went on to work at Pixar and DreamWorks looked over at my desk and went, \u2018How are you doing that!?\u2019 I didn\u2019t find it difficult \u2013 just boring. I didn\u2019t like the idea of animating with a mouse.\u201d <\/p>\n Blaise also struggled with CG. \u201cI was doing development for a computer-animated film,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnd I was doing everything on paper, with watercolors, but the executives couldn\u2019t see how my vision would translate to 3D. That\u2019s when I realized I had to bite the bullet.\u201d Like Cleuzo, though, he never finished his training: CG just wasn\u2019t as rewarding. \u201cHand-drawn is more spontaneous. With CG, there are so many steps you have to go through before you actually start animating. But in 2D, I can have an idea, draw it, and \u2013 boom \u2013 it exists. It\u2019s magic.\u201d<\/p>\n While Blaise doesn\u2019t regret sticking with 2D, others say they do. \u201cThey were teaching us to work with Maya,\u201d the anonymous animator says, \u201cbut I never went further than learning how to bounce a ball. I don\u2019t know why. But now pretty much all of the jobs are in CG, and I realize it doesn\u2019t matter what tool you\u2019re using. 2D or 3D, it\u2019s about the performance \u2013 about bringing characters to life. I guess I was just stubborn.\u201d<\/p>\n The 25 Best Disney Animated Movies Eventually, Cleuzo also lost his job at Disney. He was asked to learn CG so he could work on Chicken Little<\/a>, the company\u2019s first CG feature, but declined. If he wouldn\u2019t adapt, two options remained: draw storyboards for other CG films, or move to Florida to work on My Peoples<\/a>, a film which \u2013 in that short-lived spirit of coexistence \u2013 would include both 2D and CG animation. Cleuzo chose the latter, but sadly the film never made it to cinemas: Several months into development, the project was cancelled, and the Florida studio \u2013 the would-be home of Disney\u2019s 2D animation moving forward \u2013 closed its doors.<\/p>\n \u2018We Thought Nothing Could Stop Us\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to understand if you weren\u2019t there, what it meant to people,\u201d the anonymous animator continues. \u201cIt was our identity. I had wanted to work at Disney since I was eight. I applied three times and finally got hired to work on Pocahontas<\/a>, and thought I was going to be there until I was old. People were depressed. I heard rumors there was a suicide. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true, but I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if it was. You take away someone\u2019s identity, they have nothing left. They feel like life\u2019s not worth living.\u201d <\/p>\n Above: “A Computer Animated Hand,” one of the first bits of CG footage.<\/p>\n The industry changed quickly. \u201cBack in 1994, when The Lion King came out, we were at the top of our game,\u201d Blaise reminisces. \u201cWe thought nothing could stop us, that we\u2019d never go away. And yet, several years later, we were gone.\u201d In retrospect, though, he isn\u2019t all that surprised at how things turned out. \u201cCG was this cool, shiny new thing, while our 2D stuff was becoming\u2026 I wouldn\u2019t say formulaic, but there was definitely a formula, and the Broadway musical thing was just getting old.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou could almost set your watch to them,\u201d Sito adds. \u201cFirst 10 minutes \u2013 the \u2018I want this\u2019 song. Twenty minutes in, the funny side-character song \u2013 \u2018Friend Like Me\u2019 and the like. Then the villain song, the love duet, the fight song, and then the credits. When they did Toy Story, they really had to fight. \u2018No music,\u2019 they insisted. The suits couldn\u2019t believe it. \u2018What do you mean, no music!?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n Just about every person IGN spoke to for this article agrees: Pixar didn\u2019t beat Disney at the box office because audiences preferred 3D over 2D, but because Toy Story was a damn good film \u2013 so good, Sito emphasizes, that you actually \u201cforgot you were looking at a computer-generated image.\u201d Pixar\u2019s subsequent successes \u2013 on par with the Disney Renaissance \u2013 weren\u2019t due to the fact that CG is somehow inherently superior to hand-drawn, but because the company gave its employees the creative freedom to deliver the very best films they possibly could. <\/p>\n Ironically, CG now appears to be facing many of the same challenges that 2D was all those years ago. \u201cEverybody\u2019s getting tired of the \u2018Pixar look,\u2019\u201d Sito notes, \u201cthe dough-faced kids with the little bean mouths. I can\u2019t tell one from the other, and don\u2019t ask me what happened in Wish<\/a> or Elio<\/a> because I don\u2019t remember, though I can still recite all the lyrics from The Little Mermaid. Once again, there\u2019s all this sameness because executives don\u2019t want to mess with the recipe. \u2018Let\u2019s do Toy Story 5!\u2019 No. Toy Story ended with Toy Story 3. When they gave the toys to that little girl \u2013 that\u2019s it. It\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n