Animation

The Walt Disney Studios and Pixar were the big winners at this year's International Animated Film Society's Annie Awards. Overall, Disney and its related companies picked up 17 Annie Awards. The Annie is the animation industry's equivalent of an Academy Award.

Disney/Pixar's newest animated feature Inside Out arrives in movie theaters next month and during a recent press junket studio chief John Lasseter said the animation studio is working hard to create stories about more diverse characters.

During the past couple of weeks reports began surfacing about impending staff cuts at The Walt Disney Company, and by the end of the week the cuts became official as nine veteran animators from the hand drawn animation team were let go.

Tom Bancroft, a former Disney animator, tweeted out the names of the animators from his personal account on April 11. Several online sites also listed the names. The veteran hand drawn artists who lost their jobs are: Nik Ranieri, Ruben Aquino, Frans Vischer, Russ Edmonds, Brian Ferguson, Jamie Lopez and Dan Tanaka.

It's a book that's been four years in the making, and now it's almost ready to make its debut in Disney Parks Stores. "Poster Art of the Disney Parks," the creation of Disney Imagineers Vanessa Hunt and Danny Handke, showcases posters utilized by Disney to convey the essence of its theme parks and attractions.

The book includes over 300 posters and concepts, including some "never before seen" prints and almost all of the original 1950's Disneyland posters. Says author and Imagineer Hunt about her book: