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SPECIAL REPORT: Cinema Expo 1997<br />
CELSMANSHIP<br />
Disney Animation president Peter Schneider is honored with<br />
Cinema Expo's International Creative Achievement Award<br />
by Pat Kramer<br />
Peter Schneiderjoined Disney<br />
Since<br />
12 years ago, the company has<br />
achieved phenomenal commercial<br />
and artistic success with such animated<br />
fare as "The Lion King," 'Toy Story,"<br />
"Beauty and the Beast," "Aladdin" and<br />
"The Little Mermaid." Under the generalship<br />
of Schneider and Disney Co. vice<br />
chairman Roy Disney, the studio has continued<br />
its long distinction of being the<br />
world's animation leader It's deserved,<br />
then, that Schneider — president of Walt<br />
Disney Feature Animation and Walt Disney<br />
Theatrical Productions—is this year's<br />
recipient of Cinema Expo's International<br />
Creative Achievement Award.<br />
Schneider insists that the glory is not all<br />
his. "This award is not for me, per se," he<br />
says, "but is symbolic of [the wori;] diat<br />
both Roy Disney and I have overseen."<br />
Schneider says he's less excited about his<br />
name being on the award than by the fact<br />
diat animation is finally being honored<br />
globally. "I'm thriUed for the artists being<br />
recognized by the international community.<br />
I feel animation is a very collective<br />
art form in many, many ways. These artists<br />
are truly spectacular in what they've<br />
done. I'm proud of all of them."<br />
Under Schneider's leadership, the animation<br />
division has grown tenfold in size, produced<br />
12 features and received 10 Academy<br />
Awards. Commercially, those animated films<br />
have generated more than $2.5 billion in<br />
boxoffice. Disney's first animated feature<br />
under Schneider, 1986's "The Great Mouse<br />
Detective," earned $25 million; 1 988's "Oliver<br />
& Company" did $53 million. Through "The<br />
Lion King," each successive film beat (he past<br />
record: 1989's "The Little Mermaid" did $84<br />
million, 1 991*8 "Beauty and the Beast" $146<br />
million, 1992's "Aladdin" $217 million and<br />
1994's "The Lion King" $313 million.<br />
Those results, Schneider says, comes from<br />
a collaboration among the wizards of illustration,<br />
writing, technology and song. "Animation<br />
is a visual medium first—it's the written<br />
word and the visual word, in a sort of marriage,"<br />
Schneider says. "But it's the animation<br />
artist, the animator, who knows how to make<br />
things move and give the perception of movement.<br />
[Even] if you have great stories, great<br />
SPECIAL REPORT:<br />
CINEMA<br />
EXPO<br />
1997<br />
characters, great music and great technology,<br />
it takes great artists to do that. When you have<br />
a combination of all these things, I think you<br />
ultimately make successful movies."<br />
Schneider comes fiiom a strong theatrical<br />
backgniund, having spent<br />
15 years cTeating<br />
theatrical productions. A graduate of Purdue<br />
University, where he majored in theatre<br />
directing, Schneider earned his credentials<br />
doing plays at New York's The<br />
WPA, Playwrights Horizon and Circle<br />
Repertory. From 1976 through 1980, he<br />
served as managing director for<br />
Chicago's renowned St. Nicholas Theatre,<br />
where he produced and managed<br />
more than 60 dramas and musicals.<br />
Schneider next moved to London to<br />
serveasgeneral manager for Apollo Theatre<br />
Productions. In that capacity, he was<br />
involved with a number of notable productions<br />
on the West End. In 1983, he<br />
headed to Los Angeles to direct the 1984<br />
Olympic Arts Festival. The following<br />
year, he was named president of Walt<br />
Disney Feature Animation; in 19%, he<br />
took on the additional role of president of<br />
Walt Disney Theatrical Productions.<br />
Crediting that background for his success<br />
at Disney, Schneider cites the similarities<br />
that exist between live theatre and<br />
feature animation. "In animation, which<br />
I feel is more analogous to running a<br />
theatre company than running a movie<br />
business, a lot of things I learned in the<br />
theatre business are being applied," he<br />
says. "It's very much like running a repertory<br />
theatre—the actors, the whole thing. And<br />
we've been very successful at developing new<br />
material, whether it be 'The Lion King,"<br />
'Beauty and the Beast' or 'The Little Mermaid.'<br />
And that's using the same skills one has<br />
to have to be successflil in theatre: the ability<br />
to develop materials with a collective process."<br />
Looking back on the changes that have<br />
taken place in the animation industry over the<br />
past decade, Schneider says animation has<br />
again become a legitimate business. "At Disney<br />
[in the early '80sl, no one cared about<br />
animation. There were only 150 to 200 artists<br />
working in animation. Today, there are more<br />
than 2,200. Clearly, the movies were not grossing<br />
any money, maybe $10 million or $20<br />
million.<br />
Now they're grossing hundreds of<br />
millioas of dollars."<br />
One can expect more of the<br />
same fiwrn<br />
Schneider in the ftjture. Even as "Hercules" is<br />
beginning its global release, Disney has eight<br />
animated features currently in production.<br />
Walt's grand tradition lives on.
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