Bill Plympton: The King of Independent Animation

     In the early ninties, Walt Disney Studios was amping up production on a few new features, and were looking for some fresh new talent. The eighties had not been great for the studios, between the poor releases of films like The Black Cauldron, and Don Bluth startig a rival studio. Sp they needed to quickly switch direction, and they figured some new faces could do that.



    While on the hunt, they heard about a young independent animator with an oscar-nominated short film Your Face, and decided to make an offer. His film had alot of metamorphasis, which would be very useful in their new film Aladdin, so they decided to make him an offer. One million dollars for his work on the production on Aladdin over the next three years. It was more money that he had ever dreamed of, he couldn't believe it, Disney, the dream of every young animator, came knocking had his door with a truckload of money. The was only one problem...

    ...he said no.

    "I took one look at the contract and was appalled. Have you read it? They own every doodle, every thought, every funny anecdote. And they could have put me on anything. I could have ended up doing “Duck Tales”. I just couldn’t sign. I couldn’t."

    - In His Own Words: Bill Plympton on Disney, Jim Korkis, Cartoon Research


    Bill Plympton had a million ideas brewing in his young head, and he couln't imagine Disney owning all of them. He wanted to use that money to finance his future films. That wasn't Disney's style, and he knew full well that it wasn't his style either.

    He gladly turned down their offer and set work on his next short film. Over the next decade, Plypton Wrte, produced, directed, and animated dozens of short films.


    In 2002, Bill Plympton to start work on his most ambition project to date, Hair High. Hair High was going to be put together just like all of his short. He would write, direct, produce, and animate, essentially completely the entire feature by himself. This was not only impressive for the time, it was ungeard of, even by today's standards. The films took years of work, and probably years off his life, but in the end he had a truly awe-inspiring work of animation, something he could hang his hat on and truly call his own.

    Bill Plymton still works in his studio and produces animated shorts and features. He, thankfully, hads a small crew now, but they're still entirely his. He has managed to produce animated films his way for decades, without studio uinterferance. He is not wealthy, but he is rich in creatuve freedom, something most artists can only dream of now.




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