Don Bluth
Don Bluth
Donald Virgil "Don" Bluthis an American animator, film director, producer, writer, production designer, video game designer and animation instructor who is known for directing animated films, such as The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heavenand Anastasia, and for his involvement in the LaserDisc game Dragon's Lair. He is also known for competing with former employer Walt Disney Productions during the years leading up to the films that would make up the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAnimator
Date of Birth13 September 1937
CityEl Paso, TX
CountryUnited States of America
When we originally made the game Dragon's Lair, we had no idea the impact it would have on the game market. It was something new at the time; it was the first of the laserdisc games, and random-access was a brand-new technology.
There's about 260 rooms in the new castle which you go through, but it's all about the game play.
If you look at the game and everything, it's not quite like looking at an animated film, because that's total character. This, this is really movement, but it's got funny little things if you look for the humor. They're actually getting to the character.
Shelf-life for a regular video game usually is about three to five years, and that's it.
But I've been surprised over the years. I mean, someone told me the other day that maybe 360 million people have played this game in the world. That's a lot of people.
We had this laserdisc before, you know, and now you just put it on this little teeny-weeny thing.
We figured out that we were going to have to do CGI and 2-D animation on screen at the same time. Sixty-five percent of the picture is CGI. That's a big mix. When you marry those two, they can either look very foreign to each other, or they look like they belong together.
The studios are not hiring right now, and they're beginning to have second thoughts about what they're producing. Even Dreamworks.
We didn't know any better, so we rushed in. We did the best you could. On Secret of NIMH, we had two layout people, three background people, and 10 animators. That's how we made the movie.
Computers have taken so much drudgery out of it. Just one to mention, painting the picture. It used to be that everything was wet, everything was with a brush. Everything was wiggle it in water, wipe out your brush, get a new jar of paint, spill the paint, mop it up.
Disney knows that they're in a formulaic rut, and they're trying very hard, I think, to find something that's different. They've got so much money, they can throw it at anything.
I think since all the studios have entered into the business, everything is about 'get it done, get it cheaper, get it faster, make more money, and please the stockholders.'
When I think about how fat the studios have become, I laugh. You have 24 people in the layout department-we're fat with personnel. All the rules and attitudes change in that kind of environment.
You know what, the second Dragon's Lair game... I think very few people saw it. And Dirk and Daphne did get married and they had children. They have 13 kids. And she still looks great!