Toon idea may not be goofy

A group of former Disney artists has said goodbye to Mickey Mouse to sign up with Miracle Mouse.

It was an unexpected career path for the seasoned Walt Disney Co. animators, who lost their jobs at Disney but never lost their passion for hand-drawn movies.

No longer needed at their studio as it shifted away from 2-D movies in favor of 3-D films such as "The Incredibles," eight artists with Disney experience, along with one from Warner Bros. and a recent graduate of the California Institute of the Arts, were recruited by Milwaukee-area homebuilder Tom Hignite and his wife, Jacquie.

Hignite said he hopes his Tom Hignite's Miracle Studios, located in the Town of Polk in Washington County, will help usher in a renaissance of the type of 2-D animated movies Disney produced.

"There is no reason why Wisconsin can't have the most successful animation studio in the world if it wanted to, other than the fact that nobody thought about doing it before," Hignite said.

A mousy mascot

Quietly running for about a year, the studio so far has created a short commercial for Hignite's business Miracle Homes, featuring the company's cartoon mascot, Miracle Mouse. The studio also has produced episodes of a planned weekly TV show focused on creativity.

But Hignite said a feature-length movie centered around Miracle Mouse and other animal characters is on the drawing board, although four or five years away.

The artists also help produce brochures, murals and commercials for Miracle Homes. That makes the increase in staff more affordable, he said. He said some workers whose pay reached six figures at Disney came to Miracle Studios for about half that amount.

"Here you have these people who have worked on 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'The Lion King,' and they've been happy to come up to Wisconsin just to be able to continue their art form," Hignite said.

Some of the Disney artists knew little about Wisconsin other than that its winters are cold.

Kathy Schoeppner, with 10 years of experience at Disney working on animated features such as "Mulan" and "Lilo and Stitch," was among those who headed to Wisconsin.

Animator Dan Daly, 40, who was involved with such films as "Beauty and the Beast," "Pocahontas" and "The Lion King," said he and his wife carefully considered whether to join Hignite's venture.

"We would hope that the move would be permanent, so we had to be sure that Tom's commitment level to this thing was strong," Daly said. "After interviewing him, we felt it was strong enough to make the move. And I'm glad we did because he seems to be very, very committed to this work."

Creating a 'dream setting'

Hignite, 45, said getting into the animation business is not as big of a departure from home-building as it might appear. Building homes is about being creative, he said, such as when including special "theme rooms."

"We're trying to create just a dream setting for people, and I think animation falls under that category," Hignite said. "In that business, you want to create dreams, a lot of fantasy and give people a departure from the ordinary. That's what we do with homes, and that's what we're looking to do with animation."

He would not disclose the cost of starting the studio but said he and Jacquie devoted a portion of their personal savings to it.

They also diverted part of his company's advertising budget into hiring the artists, he said.

Hignite started planning the studio about two years ago after he toured a Disney animation studio and wondered where the animators were. He checked and learned that their jobs were being eliminated.

Little experience

Hignite acknowledges he had relatively little experience in animation when he began planning a studio. It took about a year of research before he could start looking for artists, he said.

His home-building business, which he also began with little experience, started in 1993 with two home sales. Last year, it sold 220 houses with a total value of about $42 million.

Hignite said he got into the business by selling a home he built on a lot that had been given as barter to his father. Hignite then quit his job as advertising manager for a boat dealer and started building houses full time.

Hignite said he drew the Miracle Mouse character, which has appeared in promotions for his home-building business for several years.

Some observers say the hard hat-donning Miracle Mouse looks a lot like Mickey Mouse, but Hignite said the character is unique, and he doesn't think it infringes on any Disney copyright.

He pointed out differences, including the shape of the ears and what the cartoon characters wear, and Miracle Mouse has its copyright pending, he said.

"We haven't had a problem with him because he was created, in our opinion, to look like a unique character, not like Mickey Mouse," he said.

A spokeswoman for Disney said the company was looking into whether Miracle Mouse is too similar to Mickey Mouse.

The animators Hignite lured to Wisconsin have specialties within their craft. One artist, for example, does a rough sequence of drawings, while others refine and color them. Still others specialize in adding backgrounds and other enhancements.

Mike Oliva, a character animator with 30 years' experience at Disney and Hanna-Barbera, the studio behind "The Flintstones" and "Scooby-Doo," said he shares Hignite's dream of reviving 2-D motion pictures.

"I think, like the rest of us, we are in a position to show that 2-D animation is still a viable art form," said Oliva, 51, who came to Wisconsin from California. "It's truly an American art form, and we're really glad to be a part of it."

'He's being smart about it'

Troy Gustafson, 43, said it wasn't difficult to leave Orlando to join Hignite's team. Among his credits are "The Lion King," "Pocahontas" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."

"This is my forte. This is who I am. I am a special effects animator," said Gustafson, who drew the splashes, flames, smoke and other environments around Disney characters.

Disney once had more than 2,000 employees devoted to hand-drawn animation. But after layoffs in 2003, the company announced early in 2004 that it was closing Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida in Orlando, where about 260 employees still worked. Disney shifted its 2-D operation to Burbank, Calif., which today has about 700 employees. Sequels to 2-D Disney movies now are being done by animators in other countries.

Schoeppner interviewed with Hignite when he went to Orlando looking for artists.

"I was skeptical at first because I know people who have tried to start animation studios, and that's very difficult," Schoeppner said. "There's a lot of components that go into it. You have to have money or people to back you; you have to have the right kind of structure with management. You have to have people who are creative-leaning but people who also are willing to collaborate."

"He's being smart about it," she said. "He's growing the studio fairly slowly, only adding people when we get to the point where we really need them."

Bringing back tradition

But can an animation studio in suburban Milwaukee - about 2,000 miles from Hollywood and unaffiliated with a company like Disney - be successful?

Mar Elepano, an animation expert in the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television, said it could. Location doesn't matter, he said.

"What matters is you get the right kind of distribution, and that way you will get a massive audience," Elepano said.

It will be crucial that Hignite market his feature films internationally, not just in the United States, Elepano said.

"If he does that, he has something going," Elepano said. "He can keep this thing going to the point where perhaps he can fulfill the dream of bringing that tradition back where the premier way of telling the story is animation in feature length."

Hignite, whose home-building office in Richfield is decked out in Disney memorabilia and collectibles, said he has learned a lot in the last two years. He noted that even if a feature film never makes it to theaters and instead goes directly to DVD, it would make "a few million" dollars.

His hope, however, is larger than that. He wants to see high-quality 2-D stories back on the big screen, someday.

"Everybody who grew up with Disney animation, myself being one of them, has a love for it," Hignite said. "And you hate to see an art like that die."

"I didn't like the career climate in Florida anymore," said Schoeppner, 35.

easy to say now. wait until January

I prefer the 2-D animation to the 3-D. Good for them.

I really miss the Disney cartoon films. I really enjoyed the classics like Lady and the Tramp and Dumbo. I wish that they would do more of the 2-D classic animation as seen in Dumbo and Lady and the Tramp as opposed to The Lion King or Balto. And I use the "classic" term lightly as I'm not sure how to describe the difference, but there is one. Perhaps it has to do with the animators of the time. But enough of the computer animated stuff. Really.

easy to say now. wait until January

I was on a job interview trip and went out to look at houses in Orlando.

When I remarked about the heat/humidity the agent showing us around said, "You don't have to shovel humidity".

5 posted on 07/28/2005 1:32:56 PM PDT by IncPen (There's nothing that a liberal can't improve using your money...)

Sounds great to me. I liked THE INCREDIBLES, but miss old-fashioned 2D animation.

Hope it works.

6 posted on 07/28/2005 2:13:28 PM PDT by highball ("I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -- Thomas Jefferson)

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