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Comment by froo | Hacker News Reader

One of my alltime favourite quotes that I think is relevant is:

"I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied with my work. I resent the limitations of my own imagination"

- Walt Disney

Also, perhaps this one might work too, also by Walt.

"Somehow I can't believe that there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C's. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way."

- Walt Disney

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I would say constancy is more important that confidence. It's simply dull, constant practice that gets you to be perfect in a certain skill, not confidence (and I'm speaking with experience as a hard sciences student). Advice from business-people is inapplicable to us science students most of the time.

The times when I made the most improvement in a particular skill comes from not-dull, constant practice. Hard, yes, repetitive, yes, but never dull. If your attention wanders while you are practicing, you're not getting the most out of the practice.

Lacking confidence tends to distract as much as over-confidence. The person practicing stops paying attention to what he is practicing.

I'd say, transfer of learning (taking advice from one context and figuring out how to apply it in a different context)is a form of resourcefulness. (Though I'm more of the opinion that resourcefulness applies to both internal and external obstacles).

Advice from business-people is inapplicable to us science students most of the time.

Walt was an innovator first, businessman second.

Did you know he invented the multiplane camera that revolutionised the Animation industry?

Or perhaps that he insisted on having the pegs on the Animation Discs down the bottom where it was the standard at the time to have them up the top? This was so they could do rolling, a small change but a huge revolution at the time

Every chance he got he tried to push the envelope of what was possible - in fact, this nearly sent him broke in the early days.

I think if Walt was born in this century, you'd see the guy in Silicon Valley doing what a lot of us are trying to do now.

Anyay lastly, I think I should finish this off with another quote of his, which kind of underlines the point I'm trying to make.

"I don't make movies to make money. I make money to make movies"

- Walt Disney

That's surprisingly ironic considering Disney's attitude towards the public domain and copyright extension.

You're confusing the "secret" Walt is referring to. He's not talking about intellectual property. He's talking about the so called "secret to success".

"Disney" is a Corporation. Walt Disney was a (human) person.

... That's actually a result of everything that's happened since Walt's death in 66, especially the terrible reign of Michael Eisner from 84 to 05 which nearly killed Disney's animation.

There's a book called "The Illusion of Life" that was written by Two of the "Nine Old Men" of animation who were with Walt from the early days.

When you read some of the early chapters, Disney held a lot of the values that many Hackers hold including iterating quickly, being open with information (within his own organisation that is) and always pushing the envelope with what was possible.

> especially the terrible reign of Michael Eisner from 84 to 05 which nearly killed Disney's animation.

Say what you want about the end of Eisner time, but Disney was circling the drain in 84.

Animation was still on a 3 year schedule when Eisner arrived and the quality was going down. Under Eisner, both production and quality went up.

Eisner didn't have time to affect Great Mouse Detective and Oliver and Company is no great shakes, but Little Mermaid through Mulan is pretty good. Yes, things went downhill from there (I liked Lilo and Stitch).

Eisner also did the initial Pixar deal.

The following comes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_theatrical_anima...

19 The Jungle Book October 18, 1967 20 The Aristocats December 24, 1970 21 Robin Hood November 8, 1973 22 The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh 3, 4 March 11, 1977 23 The Rescuers June 22, 1977 24 The Fox and the Hound July 10, 1981 25 The Black Cauldron 7 July 24, 1985 26 The Great Mouse Detective July 2, 1986 27 Oliver & Company November 13, 1988 (premiere) November 18, 1988 28 The Little Mermaid November 15, 1989 (premiere) November 17, 1989 29 The Rescuers Down Under November 16, 1990 30 Beauty and the Beast 1, 8 November 13, 1991 (limited) November 22, 1991 31 Aladdin November 11, 1992 (limited) November 25, 1992 32 The Lion King 7 June 15, 1994 (limited) June 24, 1994 33 Pocahontas June 16, 1995 (premiere) June 23, 1995 34 The Hunchback of Notre Dame June 19, 1996 (premiere) June 21, 1996 35 Hercules June 14, 1997 (premiere) June 27, 1997 36 Mulan June 5, 1998 (premiere) June 19, 1998 37 Tarzan June 18, 1999 38 Fantasia 2000 3, 4, 8 December 17, 1999 (premiere) January 1, 2000 (IMAX) June 16, 2000 (regular) 39 Dinosaur[1]3, 8 May 13, 2000 (premiere) May 19, 2000 40 The Emperor's New Groove December 10, 2000 (premiere) December 15, 2000 41 Atlantis: The Lost Empire June 3, 2001 (premiere) June 8, 2001 (limited) June 15, 2001 42 Lilo & Stitch June 16, 2002 (premiere) June 21, 2002 43 Treasure Planet 8 November 17, 2002 (premiere) November 27, 2002 44 Brother Bear October 20, 2003 (premiere) October 24, 2003 (limited) November 1, 2003 45 Home on the Range March 21, 2004 (premiere) April 2, 2004 46 Chicken Little 8, 9,10 October 30, 2005 (premiere) November 4, 2005 47 Meet the Robinsons 9, 10 March 30, 2007

1 DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp August 3, 1990 2 A Goofy Movie April 7, 1995 3 Doug's 1st Movie March 19, 1999 (premiere) March 26, 1999 4 The Tigger Movie 1 February 11, 2000 5 Recess: School's Out February 10, 2001 (premiere) February 16, 2001 6 Return to Never Land February 10, 2002 (premiere) February 15, 2002 7 The Jungle Book 2 February 9, 2003 (premiere) February 14, 2003 8 Piglet's Big Movie 1 March 16, 2003 (premiere) March 21, 2003 9 Teacher's Pet January 16, 2004 10 Pooh's Heffalump Movie February 11, 2005 11 Bambi II 2 January 26, 2006 (Argentina) February 7, 2006 (U.S. video premiere) April 24, 2006 (United Kingdom) May 26, 2006 (Australia)

Nightmare Before Christmas 1, 2, 3, 4 October 9, 1993 (premiere) October 13, 1993 (limited) October 29, 1993 2 James and the Giant Peach 2, 3, 5 April 12, 1996 1 Toy Story 1, 2 November 22, 1995 2 A Bug's Life November 25, 1998 3 Toy Story 2 1, 2 November 24, 1999 4 Monsters, Inc. November 2, 2001 5 Finding Nemo May 30, 2003 6 The Incredibles November 5, 2004 7 Cars June 9, 2006 8 Ratatouille June 29, 2007 9 WALL-E 4 June 27, 2008

It's true, Eisner was doing the initial pixar deal but negotiations fell through several times.

Actually Bob Iger (Michael Eisner's successor) successfully negotiated and finalised the Pixar deal after he came to the realisation that all of the popular characters in recent memory in their theme parks were (in large) a result of Pixar's work. He came to this conclusion watching a parade while attending the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland.

He was more ready to do a proper deal that didn't screw over Pixar (which Eisner had gotten quite proficient at during his time). This resulted in Ed Catmull (then Pixar CEO and Pixar co-founder) becoming president of Disney Animation, John Lasseter (co-founder and director of many fine Pixar films) becoming Chief Creative Officer of Disney Animation and Steve Jobs getting a seat on the Disney Board.

Anyway, Eisner did nearly kill disney animation (It's not good when they're selling off equipment...) and his predecessor didn't do a very good job either when they decided to drop the use of multiplane camera's to reduce costs.

Also the later cel animated Disney films that people loved (beauty and the beast onwards) were helped in part by software that Pixar created (but the name of it escapes me at the moment)

So there you go :)

> It's true, Eisner was doing the initial pixar deal but negotiations fell through several times.

The "initial pixar deal" was all Eisner, which got Toy Story and so on, happened before 95, which was before Disney purchased ABC (which is how Iger got to Disney).

Eisner did flub the final pixar deal, but that happened at the end of his time.

Eisner saved disney animation at the beginning of his time. Yes, it slid at the end (although it was still better than when he started).

Notice the pattern.

> Anyway, Eisner did nearly kill disney animation

The movie output (which I provided) doesn't support the "kill" hypothesis. Disney animation was on life-support when Eisner arrived. It got significantly better after he'd been around for long enough to have an impact and improved steadily for quite a while before tailing off at the end of his time. (Animation movies take three years.)

> Also the later cel animated Disney films that people loved (beauty and the beast onwards) were helped in part by software that Pixar created

Yup, but that's part of how Eisner re-animated disney animation.

2005 Eisner was arguably a disaster. However, 1985 Eisner was a savior and 1995 eisner was a genius.

> The "initial pixar deal" was all Eisner, which got Toy Story and so on, happened before 95, which was before Disney purchased ABC (which is how Iger got to Disney).

Yes, which resulted in Pixar having to give up 50% of the revenue for the films in exchange for Distribution... which is what caused all the friction in the beginning. Pixar felt like they were getting screwed.

> 2005 Eisner was arguably a disaster. However, 1985 Eisner was a savior and 1995 eisner was a genius.

> Disney animation was on life-support when Eisner arrived

Actually I think you have your people wrong.

You can credit Katzenberg with the success of those various films.

Katzenberg headed up the production of those films in the Late 80's/Early 90's that "saved" Disney animation. Eisner may have been CEO, but he was mostly concerned with operation of the theme parks.

It was around 94/95ish that Katzenberg left Disney (I'm not actually sure of the reason) and that's when you'll notice that shortly after Disney produced animation sucked for the most part.

Katzenberg ended up founding Dreamworks with Spielberg and they're doing quite well for themselves.

Ever noticed that from 94-08 Disney produced mostly poor animation films? Especially when you consider the great run of films that Disney had from 88 (The Little Mermaid) to 94 (The Lion King)... which funnily enough correlates to Katzenberg's time at Disney.

Bolt broke the drought and you can credit that to Lasseter's influence since becoming CCO of Disney Animation in 06 as part of the Pixar/Disney deal

Say what you want, but Eisner was ill-equipped to run Disney Animation. He just didn't "get it"

Bob Iger "gets it" with animation. I'd say this is partially why Dreamworks will now be distributed through one of Disney's subsidiaries in the future (this deal was done very recently)

The initial claim was that Eisner nearly killed Disney animation. When I provided evidence showing that Disney animation got significantly better under Eisner's reign, the claim becomes "someone else made it better" and that Eisner did nothing. Note the unstated retraction of "killed".

As far as Katzenberg goes, he wasn't created by Imagineering - he was hired by Eisner. And yes, he eventually left. That's what successful people do in Hollywood - they move upstream.

While the Pixar came to resent the original deal, that deal made them and it was a better deal than they could have gotten elsewhere. Everyone who breaks big has the same complaint about their early deals and they're all wrong.

> Katzenberg ended up founding Dreamworks with Spielberg and they're doing quite well for themselves.

Actually, Dreamworks is circling the drain. They sold the animation division in 2004. They sold the studio in 2005, and the "independent filmworks" division is having trouble raising money for a Spielberg film. The distribution deal with Disney is not from a position of strength, but to keep the company afloat. (If DW becomes a success, they'll hate Disney for that deal when it comes time to negotiate another.)

http://www.alexburns.net/2009/02/dreamworks-debt-finance-bat...

When I say Dreamworks, I mean Dreamworks in terms of PDI Dreamworks Animation SKG... the animation division.

That article you quoted is irrelevant, it talks about Dreamworks Pictures (the non animation division) which is doing horribly (can you name anything of late that they've released that did well?)

Perhaps instead of reading an article from a blogger and becoming an instant expert, it would be wise to read the annual reports sometime which are freely available. Or even just read some of the press releases from the company itself.. I'll give you a headstart.

http://ir.dreamworksanimation.com/dwa/opencms/company/news/n...

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