Don Bluth

Don Bluth
Don Bluth, 2006
Born	(1937-09-13) September 13, 1937 El Paso, Texas, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Founder of Sullivan Bluth Studios and Film director, former animator at Walt Disney Productions
Known for	Various animation work with Disney and other companies

Donald Virgil "Don" Bluth (born September 13, 1937) is an American-born Irish animator and independent studio owner. He is best known for his departure from the Walt Disney Company in 1979 and his subsequent directing of animated classics such as The Secret of NIMH (1982), An American Tail (1986),The Land Before Time (1988), and All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), as well as his involvement in the laserdisc game Dragon's Lair. The competition provided by his movies is often credited for forcing the Walt Disney Company to improve from their streak of lackluster film efforts to the films that would make up the Disney Renaissance.

He has a brother named Toby Bluth who is also an animator who worked with him.

Early life and the Disney years

Born in El Paso, Texas, Bluth received a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Brigham Young University. Bluth became one of the chief animators at The Walt Disney Company in the 1960s. He first started as a directing animator for The Rescuers, 101 Dalmatians, The Fox and the Hound and as an assistant director on Sleeping Beauty and The Sword in the Stone, for all of which he was uncredited. He would not return to Disney until in the 1970s, when he was an animator on Robin Hood, The Aristocats, The Rescuers, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Pete's Dragon. His last involvement with Disney was the 1978 short The Small One. Along with fellow animators Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy, he set out in 1979 to start his own animation studio, Don Bluth Productions. He drew a few (uncredited) scenes for The Fox and the Hound but left early in production.

Independent years

Early critical success

When leaving Disney, Bluth brought several other Disney animators with him to form a rival studio, who like Bluth were allegedly upset with how the Disney animated features had "lost their charm" at the time. This new studio, Don Bluth Productions, demonstrated its ability in its first production, a short film titled Banjo the Woodpile Cat, and this led to work on an animated segment of the live-action film Xanadu (1980).

The studio's first feature-length was animation, The Secret of NIMH (1982), an adaptation of the award winning children's book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. The film grossed twice its (small) budget at the box office and many consider it to be Bluth's masterpiece. His movies tend toward rougher and more energetic portrayals than that of Disney films (a philosophy of his stating "children can handle just about anything as long as you attach a happy ending"). Often, his films also contain a mystical element, with mysterious, unexplainable forces at work throughout them.

Teaming up with Rick Dyer, Bluth then created the groundbreaking arcade game Dragon's Lair (1983), which let the player control a cartoon-animated character on screen (whose adventures were played off a laserdisc). This was followed in 1984 by Space Ace, a science-fiction game based on the same technology, but which gave the player a choice of different routes to take through the story (Don not only created the animation for Space Ace, he also supplied the voice of the villain, Borf), and Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, a sequel which was very rare in arcades.

Sullivan Bluth Studios was an animation studio established in 1985 by animator Don Bluth. The studio initially operated from an animation facility in Van Nuys, California, but later moved to Dublin, Ireland to take advantage of government investment and incentives. Mr. Bluth and his colleagues also started an animation course at Ballyfermot Senior College.

Affiliation with Steven Spielberg

His next film would have been an animated version of East of the Sun and West of the Moon, but was never made as the financial resources were drawn back. Teaming up with producer Steven Spielberg, Bluth's next project instead turned out to be An American Tail (1986), which at the time of its release became the highest grossing non-Disney animated film of all time, grossing $47 million in the United States and $84 million worldwide. The second Spielberg-Bluth collaboration The Land Before Time (1988) did even better in theaters and both are now widely considered animation classics. The main character in An American Tail became the mascot for Amblimation while The Land Before Time was followed by more than ten direct-to-video sequels.

Bluth broke ties with Spielberg before his next film, All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989). Although it had only moderate theatrical success, it was highly successful in its release to home video, becoming a cult classic. Nonetheless, by the end of the decade and through the 1990s Bluth films such as Rock-a-Doodle (1991), Thumbelina (1994), A Troll in Central Park (1994), and The Pebble and the Penguin (1995) were all critical and box office failures. This could be in part because in 1990, Don Bluth downsized his animation staff, cut ties with Spielberg, and as well as a possible case of innovation fatigue.

Work at Fox Animation Studios

Bluth scored another hit with Anastasia (1997), which grossed US$140 million worldwide and gained very favorable critical reviews, in part because it used well-known Hollywood stars as its voice talent and stuck closer to long-proven Disney formulas: a sassy and resourceful princess driven to become more than she is, a cruel and conniving villain who uses dark magic, a handsome and endearing love interest, and a comic-relief sidekick. Anastasia was produced at Fox Animation Studios in Phoenix, Arizona, which established 20th Century Fox as a Disney competitor.

Still, Bluth's troubles continued when he directed the futuristic space adventure Titan A.E. (2000) which failed badly at the box office. The film made less than $37 million worldwide despite an estimated $75 million budget and served as the last traditionally-animated film released by 20th Century Fox in theaters until the release of The Simpsons Movie.

In 2000, after the studio's third film Bartok the Magnificent (released direct to video as a spin-off of Anastasia and the only sequel directed by Bluth), 20th Century Fox Studios decided to shut down the Fox Animation Studio facility in Phoenix.

Recent work

A recent attempt to capitalize on Dragon's Lair nostalgia by releasing the computer game Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair (2002) yielded mixed results, with critics both praising and panning the controls and storyline. However, the visuals were widely enjoyed, using groundbreaking cel-shading techniques that lent the game a hand-animated feel. Don Bluth and Gary Goldman are currently seeking funding for a film version of Dragon's Lair.

Despite the failure of Dragon's Lair 3D, Bluth and Goldman continued work in video games when they were hired to create the in-game cinematics for Namco's I-Ninja, released in 2003.

In 2004, Bluth did the animation for the music video "Mary", by the Scissor Sisters. The band contacted Bluth after having recalled fond memories of the sequence from Xanadu.

In 2009, Bluth was asked to produce storyboards for, and later to direct, the 30 minute Saudi Arabian festival film Gift of the Hoopoe. However, he ultimately had very little say in both the animation and content of the film and asked that he not be credited as the Director or Producer. Nonetheless, defying his request, he was still credited as the director, possibly to improve the film's sales by attaching his name.

On February 3, 2011, it was announced that Bluth was working with Warner Bros. Digital Distribution and Square One to develop a modern reinterpretation of the 1983 arcade classic, Tapper. The new version will be titled Tapper World Tour.

Bluth as an author

Bluth has also authored a series of books for students of animation: 2004's The Art of Storyboard, and 2005's The Art of Animation Drawing. Additional books are planned.

Filmography

As director and/or producer or animator

In the first 2 Disney films, Bluth is uncredited.

• Sleeping Beauty (1959, assistant director - uncredited)
• The Sword in the Stone (1963, assistant director)
• The Jungle Book (1967, directing animator)
• Robin Hood (1973, character animator)
• Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1976, short film)
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977, short film)
• The Rescuers (1977, directing animator)
• Pete's Dragon (1977)
• The Small One (1978, short film)
• Banjo the Woodpile Cat (1979, short film)
• Xanadu (1980, animated segments)
• The Fox and the Hound (1981, head of character animation, uncredited)
• The Secret of NIMH (1982)
• Dragon's Lair (1983, video game)
• Space Ace (1984, video game)
• An American Tail (1986)
• The Land Before Time (1988)
• All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)
• Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp (1991, video game)
• Rock-a-Doodle (1991)
• Thumbelina (1994)
• A Troll in Central Park (1994)
• The Pebble and the Penguin (1995)
• Anastasia (1997)
• Bartok the Magnificent (1999)
• Titan A.E. (2000)
• "Mary" by the Scissor Sisters (2004, animated segments of music video)

Further reading

• John Grant, Masters of Animation, 2001, Watson-Guptill Publications, ISBN 0823030415

External links

• Official site
• Don Bluth at IMDb
• The Dot Eaters entry on Bluth and the development of Dragon's Lair
• Remembering NIMH An interview with Don Bluth Studios about the making of The Secret of NIMH