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Donald Virgil "Don" Bluth (born September 13, 1937) is an American 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 films 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.
[edit] Early life and the Disney yearsBorn 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 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 scenes for The Fox and the Hound (where he was once again uncredited) but left early in production. [edit] The independent years[edit] Early critical successWhen 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.[citation needed] Their hope was that they would be able to return to making quality films or, as Bluth also claims, at least force Disney to increase their efforts.[1] 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.[citation needed] But a small number critics gave the film only faint praise (with criticisms that it was too fast-paced or overdone) perhaps unable to overcome the prejudice that only Disney could produce truly great animated films.[2][3][4][5] 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)[citation needed], and Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, a sequel which was very rare in arcades.[citation needed] [edit] Affiliation with Steven SpielbergHis 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.[6] 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.[citation needed] The second Spielberg-Bluth collaboration The Land Before Time (1988) did even better in theaters and both are now widely considered animation classics.[citation needed] 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 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.[7][8] 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 earning much less at the box office, and were less praised by critics.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] [edit] Work at Fox Animation StudiosBluth 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.[citation needed] Anastasia was produced at Fox Animation Studios in Phoenix, Arizona, which established 20th Century Fox as a Disney competitor. Despite the film's qualities however, it suffered from being yet another "princess" story at a time when even Disney seemed to abandon them. Bluth's troubles continued when he directed the futuristic space adventure Titan A.E. (2000). While many admired the film's combination of traditional and computer animation techniques, the film barely made $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.[citation needed] 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. Bluth was expected to direct Ice Age (2002) and the film was planned to be filmed in 2D animation like his previous films.[citation needed] Nevertheless, Bluth left the film as it was ultimately made as a computer-animated film after the financial failure of Titan-AE. Bluth has since not made another feature film and it is not known if he intends to return to film-making in the future. [edit] Recent workA recent attempt to capitalize on Dragon's Lair nostalgia by releasing the computer game Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair (2002) was unsuccessful; the game was panned by critics as being flat and uninteresting, despite 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.[9][10] 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. In 2004, Bluth did the animation for the music video "Mary", by the Scissor Sisters.[11] 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.[12] [edit] Bluth as an authorBluth 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. [edit] Filmography[edit] As director and/or producer or animatorIn the first 2 Disney films, Bluth is uncredited.
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