Progress City, U.S.A.

It’s been a while since things went rather quiet at Walt Disney Animation Studios in the wake of several canceled projects, awkward renamings, and general confusion and lack of direction. All that remained on the studio’s animated slate were this year’s Tangled, next year’s Winnie-the-Pooh, and Reboot Ralph – the computer animated film that has mutated from ex-Disney artist Sam Levine’s Joe Jump. It left the animation community wondering… what’s next?

Word has started to emerge that the gears are turning at Disney once more. King of the Elves, a fantasy based on a story by Philip K. Dick, was originally scheduled for a 2012 release before development was scrapped. Happily, allegations have recently emerged that work has resumed on this project. Even better is the recurring rumor that the film has been retooled as a traditionally animated feature, giving Disney’s artists something meaty to work on after Pooh.

Animation fans were further intrigued recently when word emerged, most notably on the Animation Guild blog, that a new project had been greenlighted for development. Note that this is only a go for development, not production, and that innumerable projects have traveled that road without making it to theaters. But if this is a project new to development, and not a revived concept like Elves or the still-dormant Snow Queen, what could it be?

Would you believe… Jack and the Beanstalk? That’s what I’m hearing, at least. As part of Disney marketing’s panicked flight from all things female in the wake of Princess and the Frog’s underperformance, the next animated film to go into development at Disney is a “boy” film.

Haven’t we seen that before? Some dude with mouse ears? In Fun and Fancy Free? Ah, well.

You should consider this information ultra-dicey at the moment, but some rumors are too good not to share. And remember – while I definitely trust my source, things change on the ground all the time. Is that CYA? You bet, but it’s also true.

Have you heard anything about Jack and the Beanstalk? If so, shoot me an email…

UPDATE: This is apparently director Chris Buck’s new project, following the cancellation of Snow Queen. Again, please remember that being greenlighted for development is not the same as getting the go-ahead for production.

UPDATE THE SECOND: Sources report that Chris Williams (Bolt) is now in the director’s seat for the revived King of the Elves. Also, I have some doubt as to the earlier rumors that it would be traditionally animated; it’s looking more likely that it will be another CG production. This leaves only Winnie the Pooh on the hand-drawn slate, although Ron Clements and John Musker are said to have a few new proposals in the pipeline.

Herb Ryman greets a papagaio who will soon become famous – Rio de Janiero, 1941 (LIFE photo)

When young Herb Ryman, frazzled from the Hollywood grind and frustrated by his lack of worldly knowledge, decided to see the world, he did it right – with a circumglobal cruise that took him to many exotic ports of call in 1936-37. More on that later. Upon his return he visited many of his old haunts, and took a side-trip to Maine to visit a former female classmate with whom he was friendly in his days at the Art Institute of Chicago.

While he continued to work with MGM when he returned to Hollywood, his attention was mostly devoted to his painting. Working in various media, Ryman recorded a number of the sights he’d encountered in Europe, the Orient, and in Maine. A friend of Herb’s, one Vernon Caldwell, was at the time the head of the Chouinard Art Institute, and proposed an exhibition of Ryman’s work. Reviews of the show were positive, and eventually caught the eye of someone at the Disney studio.

Walt Pfeiffer, a childhood friend of Disney’s who had come to work at the studio, contacted Herb via Chouinard and asked if, after the exhibition had closed, the Disney studio could borrow Ryman’s artwork to aid in the training of the animation staff. Ryman consented, and his artwork was put on display at Disney’s old Hyperion studio. Again the reception was positive, especially to Ryman’s watercolors from Maine. Disney was, at that time, working on Bambi, and Ryman’s paintings of the eastern woods perfectly evoked the atmosphere that the studio was trying to achieve. The word came from Hyperion to Herb – Disney wanted him to interview for a job.

Ryman was unfazed. He was an illustrator, not a cartoonist. What could Disney possibly want with him? But, realizing that the extra income could prove useful, he went to interview. Still uncertain, he was glad to see his old friend Ken Anderson on the Disney lot; the two had started off together at MGM in 1932. Anderson overcame Herb’s skepticism when he described the creative climate at the studio; spurred by the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Disney was making big plans to push the artistic boundaries of animation. The artists were pushing their own technical skills to the limit, and the upcoming slate paid witness to the studio’s increasing sophistication: Pinocchio. Bambi. Dumbo. Fantasia. After wrapping up his teaching at Chouinard and some contract work at MGM on The Wizard of Oz, Herb signed on at Disney in the fall of 1938.

Herb Ryman works on a background for Dumbo, 1940

It was a whole new world for Herb. Accustomed to the buttoned-down atmosphere of MGM, he found Disney a freewheeling and informal environment, where one was on a first-name basis with the boss and you didn’t even have to wear a tie to the office.

Starting with Pinocchio, Ryman worked on all the films of Disney’s golden age. He made the move from the Hyperion lot to the new studio in Burbank in 1939, and took up residence in the story department doing layout work on Dumbo. He would later work with his friend Ken Anderson on the “Pastoral Symphony” segment of Fantasia.

Lee Blair, Bill Cottrell and Herb Ryman in Brazil, 1941 (LIFE photo)

Herb’s greatest Disney adventure would come in 1941. Toying with the idea of leaving the studio to resume his fine art work, Ryman was drafted as part of “El Grupo.” This group of Disney artists and writers would join Walt on a three-month tour of South America in late 1941, doing research for a series of films and attempting to spread all-American goodwill to counter the Axis threat that threatened to spill into our hemisphere.

A little something for the ladies: Herb Ryman, Frank Thomas and Mary Blair in South America, 1941 (LIFE photo)

Needless to say, Walt and his artists managed to handily beat back the wave of Nazi intrigue. In a series of appearances and events in Brazil and Argentina, El Grupo were treated like rock stars. When not mingling with the elite, they also managed to get some work done…

Ryman sketches a stork very similar to one that would later appear in The Three Caballeros (LIFE photo)

As well as an occasional bit of rest and relaxation…

Hazel and Bill Cottrell (L) share a quiet moment – and some brews – with Herb Ryman and Ted Sears (R). Story artist Jack Miller and Janet Martin are in the foreground. (LIFE photo)

The Young Man and the Sea: Herb gets a quiet moment in South America, 1941 (LIFE photo)

After touring Brazil and Argentina, El Grupo split up to better cover the continent. Ryman joined Lee and Mary Blair and Jack Miller, and later Janet Martin and Larry Lansburgh, in a far-ranging crew that would explore South America, travel up through Central America and Panama, and pass through Mexico on their way back to the United States. The result was an incredible amount of research that would soon be used to create Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros.

Lavandeira Waiting for Street Car by Herb Ryman, 1941

Mountain Village by Herb Ryman, 1941

And as for that papagaio…

An early sketch of the character that would later become Jose Carioca, 1941

Sadly, soon after El Grupo returned to the U.S., the nation was cast into World War II. Disney’s production ground to a halt, save for package features and training and propaganda films. Ryman considered joining the Navy, but Walt implored him to stay – someone had to stay and help him, Walt argued, because if the studio was forced to shut down it would never reopen.

Herb stayed. Or, in his words, he allowed Walt to convince him to stay.

The work wasn’t as exciting, though; working with his friend Ken Anderson on Victory Through Air Power, Herb’s talents were going to waste on sweeping arrows and tactical diagrams. After the war, in 1946, Herb would leave the Disney studio for a new project – one that tied in closely with his earlier adventures in the distant East. But that’s for next time…

Coming up: 20th Century Fox, Ringling Brothers, world travels, and Disney… again.

First, if you haven’t seen it already, go watch the new trailer for Rapunzel.

For years I’ve worried that executives and marketing slobs were ruining Disney animation. Now I’m starting to worry that they already have.

Has the vast studio bureaucracy – ranks upon ranks of Vice Presidents and marketing mavens – really salted the fields of creativity so that nothing will ever grow there again? I talk a big game but typically am willing to cut Disney a ton of slack, yet in this trailer there are things that really make me want to retch. That some of the cornball nonsense in this trailer can be presented with a straight face in the year 2010 nearly makes me give up hope altogether. I have no connection to Disney besides my fandom, but I would be embarrassed for my friends to see this trailer in the theater.

In my practice of finding at least one or two good things to say, I’ll say this: I really like Rapunzel’s design. It’s Glen Keane-y but has converted well to CGI. Her animation in this trailer, and some of the model sheets I’ve seen, at least indicate that she’ll be appealing to watch. The hair looks good too; in fact, the look of the film doesn’t seem hampered at all by its computer-generated origins.

However, the tone of the piece, the insanely derivative male lead, the “wacky” animal sidekick, that horrendous horse design, and the awful comedy beats just… discourage me. There are about a dozen cliches in pose, animation, and design in this that I’d like to see banished from Disney forever. And “the smoulder”? Really? Marketing can make a lousy trailer, but the animators at Disney really need to purge themselves of some of these affectations they’ve developed over the years. Some of these stock expressions have become very obvious institutional tics.

I’ll just close my eyes and cross my fingers and hope that this is mostly to blame on Disney’s amazingly inept film marketing department. After all, this is a trailer for a film once called Rapunzel that gives no indication that it’s about… Rapunzel. That’s right, go back and check – her name is not mentioned once in the entire trailer. Then again, she has… what, two lines?

I’m sure it will be worth it, though. Not mentioning that she’s Rapunzel means that now it’s certain that teen-aged boys will go see this at least a dozen times apiece. Because that’s how the world works, in the minds of Disney executives.

Trayas, from Nightingale, by Mike Gabriel

I recently mentioned the unmade film Ramayana, once rumored to be in the works at the Disney animation studio. I’ve yet to see any artwork for this project; instead, a lot of fan sites on the internet mistake concept art for another project as being from Ramayana. This other project, in development from around 2002-2003, was Nightingale, or The Emperor’s Nightingale, based on the famous story by Hans Christian Andersen.

The Emperor’s Nightingale has been placed in development multiple times at the Disney studio over a period of several decades, dating back to Walt’s time. At one point, famously, there was an attempt to adapt the story featuring Mickey Mouse in a starring role. But when the idea was revisited in 2002 it was placed in the hands of Disney animator Randy Haycock. Writer Robert Reece was brought in to write a treatment, and the film was put into development as a traditionally animated project.

In a story that seems to be far too familiar from that era, the film was re-envisioned as a computer animated project when Disney’s traditional animation unit was shut down in Spring of 2003. The project seems to have been shelved entirely in the Fall of 2003; it’s possible that Disney decided to go ahead with The Snow Queen as its return to animated fairytales instead.

Concept art for Nightingale by Colin Stimpson

As you might note, the development art for this telling of The Emperor’s Nightingale draws on Indian influences, very different than the Chinese setting of the original story. This explains why the art is so often mistaken as being from Ramayana.

While little else is known about the project, the development art shows that there was a great deal of potential in the story. These lush visuals by artist Colin Stimpson, and appealing character sketches by Disney veteran Mike Gabriel, make one regret that this project was abandoned. At the very least, it makes one hope that Disney revisits the idea of an Indian-themed animated feature in the future.

Some more development art by Colin Stimpson:

And now, some character sketches by well-known Disney artist Mike Gabriel:

So, people have poured into Progress City today from the four corners of the web looking for information about Ramayana, the long, long rumored animated feature based on the Hindu epic which I’ve previously mentioned in passing.

Now while I’ve been trying to collect information on this project, which to all outwards appearances seems long dead, I really haven’t come up with much. The few pieces of concept art that circulate online were actually created for another project entirely.

So the question I ask you, dear reader, is what do you know about Ramayana? Is this little-known project just an echo of Eisner’s abandoned plans to infiltrate the Indian media market? Is it a relic of a more ambitious age, consigned to the dustbin with Fraidy Cat, My Peoples and Don Quixote? And what about Scarecrow’s brain? And what will be your fate?