An animatronic replaced an artist, and it’s a great thing for humanity.
There’s controversy around Olaf Draws at The Magic of Disney Animation, which brings the Animation Academy drawing class back to Hollywood Studios. The previous version had an animator teaching you how to draw Disney characters live, in person. That artist has been replaced with an Olaf animatronic and one of 9 pre-recorded lessons from 9 different Disney animators.
A lot of people are upset about removing a real person from the room.
But, and I say this as a longtime fan of Disney World’s drawing classes (I have decades of terrible drawings to prove it): this is the best version of the Animation Academy Disney’s ever done.
You get to learn from amazing animators, as they share their approach to drawing. Like Disney Legend Eric Goldberg teaching you how to draw his signature character: the Genie.
The Olaf animatronic is great, with genuinely funny dialogue. It all makes the class really fun, especially for kids.
And this is where it goes from an upgraded attraction to something I think will have a real impact on the next generation of artists.
Right now people are rightfully worried about what technology and AI will do to art and creativity. What’s the point in drawing Olaf when you can just generate a picture of him with AI?
When Eric Goldberg and Dan Abraham were asked what advice they would give to young artists, they said simply: just draw.
That’s why it’s so important that this tactile experience with pencil and paper has been leveled up with an animatronic. Olaf will get more families coming through the door, and kids are going to have more fun drawing because Olaf is drawing too. Two of my friends were on the verge of tears watching their very young kids engage with art this way for the first time. There are going to be kids who discover they love drawing thanks to this, and leave wanting to find out more about who Eric Goldberg is, or what’s that book Olaf’s sitting on.
Olaf Draws is going to help ignite a spark of creativity in a new generation of artists, because the tech is teaching you how fun art can be, not doing art for you. And that’s why, in this case, a robot taking a human’s job is a great thing for humanity.
The Magic of Disney Animation soft opened today, and officially opens September 14.
Is an Olaf animatronic a fair trade for a live artist? Let me know. ☃️
#Animatronics #Imagineering #DisneyWorld #HollywoodStudios #DisneyParks
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Screw the kids…bring back the animators…Disney sucks now.
I’m excited to draw with Olaf as it’s my moms favorite character, but starting off with that “clickbait” take is imo a little too far
I can't wait to do this.
I'm olny worried about potential updates of the attraction ; Let's say their next movie – hexed, makes a billion dollars and they want to add the main character to the attraction
That would mean recording new tutorial and bringing Josh gad back for new lines Specific to that character, unless Josh recorded thousands of hours of random sentences that could potentially be used in such cases
Nope. Nope. Nope. The newer DCL ships do this exact thing and I hate it. It ruins the fun so much. Why would I pay hundreds of dollars to watch a screen and follow along. I can do that on YouTube for free. I understand that this is for children and not experienced artists like me, but getting live feedback and praise from someone was the best part of the drawing academy. Not to mention that with a live person they can change up every class. What happens when you run out of videos? There’s no value in revisiting. This is just so Disney can save some money and not have to hire and teach someone to draw hundreds of different characters.
We get it….. You're on the media list
🙄🙄🙄
This is emotionally biased
Saying Olaf has any funny dialogue and is not just sandpaper in your ear canal is a BOLD take. I don't disagree with the points of this video mostly, but do wish they had chosen a less obnoxious character.
Wrong. Absolutely wrong. You have no idea what it's like to learn from a physical artist. If they want us to learn from the OG animators, play a short vid at the start. The human could have talked to Olaf, but saying a physical person in there is stupid and rediculous.
Wait for a few months when those animations are done with Ai
Well imagine the artist continually doing this again and again for how manybtimes this class ride thing goes on all day. No sane person can keep up will and positivity all day and repeat the same script for hours and hours..
I will say during these times in the 2000’s this has been the only good child and adult creative idea that has happened in such a long time. Beyond refreshing and smart.
Boo it took away someone’s job! Get rid of it and give the person back their job.
I had that book as a kid. My first introduction to squash and stretch!
When a substitute puts on a vhs video so the class can watch it and a parent says “this is better than an actual education!”
Hopefully this will work well. When my daughter was 7 she left the drawing class at Animal Kingdom in tears because she just couldn't keep up. Hopefully this will be more accessible for children 🎉
Nah. Disney are spending billions on AI. They want those jobs replaced. They could've gone with a more dynamic approach and kept the animator and also added Olaf to interact with to make it more engaging but they went with the automated route as much as possible so there's as few people involved as possible.
I prefer a real artist with a beating heart and soul to draw and interact with the guest !!
Man youtube gotta bring back dislikes cus damn this vid deserves them all
Ok so… how many actual artists were let go because of this? They couldn’t have had a live person in the room as well?
Vlogger is right. Here comes the whiners who hate change. Love the new show with the animatronic!
I want olafs desk
You’re a sick puppy. Why are you assuming that packing more butts in the seats for Disney is better all in all than an interactive human based experience. Especially considering most of Disney has become animatronic based anyway lmao, you can get animatronics anywhere at Disney there is nowhere at Disney you can sit down with a Disney animator and truly learn from them. It’s ridiculous to propose the point of this attraction is to teach people to draw no bro it’s to allow a meet and greet with a Disney animator, replacing them with a cold animatronic voids the aspect of drawing with an animator that is exciting. I can go anywhere on the internet and learn to draw from a robot, I have to go to Disney to meet a Disney animator so tell me how is this attraction any different than watching a video of this attraction on the internet. You’re now in for the same experience every Time.
Also, may I mention, that the animatronic allows for Disney to just have it run while their animators are working on movies, and if they need to make a new one, they just got to add a new video, and make some new animations for Olaf, it is a lot less of a hassle to do, which will probably keep the experience here for us guests for a lot longer.
So having Olaf instead of a human is better because humans cant engage kids? How rude
You saying olaf isnt making the art for them and thats why it's good. Im pretty sure the teacher of an art class never draws for the student. So this point is rather incorrect/not even something thats happening 🤔
Overall i dont see any benefit in removing a human who can answer questions in this live demo. I see no benefit to having an animatronic there. Im vasically just watching a video tutorial at that point and therefore. Theres no benefit to this demo.
They could have added Olaf without removing the actual artist. And they could have included the video of the animators too. I think that we are losing more than what we are getting…
I'd rather see both the animatronic and a live artist demonstration and interacting, that is the best alternative. This just feels like the mechanization of Animation Academy. The literal rest of the new animation building could have been used to highlight iconic animators and their stories/work… horrendous take.
2 Thoughts:
1. I can see both sides. On one hand, you want it to be fun and engaging for kids, and everyone remembers what it's like to be a kid and not want to listen to a boring adult. Drawing with Olaf makes it something kids WANT to do, despite there being a whole theme park outside. However, you are missing the benefits of learning from a real person, like individualized feedback. Based on this, I feel like maybe a better solution would be a hybrid with Olaf interacting with a real-life person, hosting both with Olaf sessions more directed toward younger kids and other sessions with the person directed at older kids, or something along those lines.
However, there's still my second thought…
2. How much is this a cost saving measure to keep this alive? With a real person, you have to have someone with a specific set of skills who will be paid every time they hold a session. With an animatronic, once it's built, you pay for repairs and the electricity to run it. Now, I'll admit this is the first I've heard of this, but is that part of why they're doing this? It's competing with rides and character meet-and-greets and everything else, so I could see this being kinda a niche thing that artists, hardcore Disney nerds, or Season Pass holders would do, but people who travel to go to Disney on vacation would skip it, potentially making it niche enough that executives would consider getting rid of it. Is it possible that the animatronic is a way of trying to meet in the middle of cutting costs and gaining interest to make this worth keeping around?
I love your room. It has such a cool vibe
I saw Eric Goldburg live at the DCA animation studio. He at the end of his presentation had us all draw the Genie. That was the FASTEST genie drawing lessen ever. 5 minutes… that is how long we got to draw the Genie!
I hope they keep the live artists at DCA, so much fun and they can move in other characters whenever they want.
it's so ironic that people are upset that there are no humans except everybody hates humans..
Wow, the comment section is a hot mess of misinformation. 😂 I don't think Olaf literally draws anything. It looks like documentary-style lessons from old Disney artists. Olaf is a stand-in for a real person because kids don't give AF who Random Guy is, but Olaf… that'll get them, at least, interested.
Also, I love how Olaf is left handed. That's amazing.
And those books… pretty sure I own all of them. 😳
I suppose the only insightful thing I have to say in regards to “what’s the point in drawing Olaf… when you can just generate a picture of him with AI”. It’s kinda good so many people are against AI. There’s probably positives and negatives, but it means there’ll always still be creative people doing the hard work as they enjoy it rather than generating “AI slop”
#noai
This is a bad take. The human element is crucial to this experience. You want someone to tell them to draw? How about the person who is teaching them to draw already. The animatronic can also be on stage learning from the human. But this is basically the argument that kids learn better from screens than teachers. Bad take.
Are the artists featured in the presentation still employed at Disney or were they laid off and replaced with AI? Because that happened this year, 1,000 artists were let go from Disney.
So the advantage is that Olaf is funny? Makes sense, there's never been a funny human. A human can't sit on a book and no human has ever been known to inspire anyone, so this all tracks 🙃
What a genuine loser
The book Olaf is sitting is a real book titled Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life (later republished as The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation) and it’s written by two of the Nine Old Men Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston
All you sit in your basement and complain on social media people drive me crazy. You're always asking for more animatronics in attractions, more animatronics in attractions, and now that you get one, you don't want it. Give me a freaking break.
Before people judge, go to it first, media previews have actually said that it's a lot better than what they expected
This has to be a joke, cause I’m not laughing 🙁
If they needed to force Olaf in there it should’ve been alongside an actual real life animator. The animator could have played off Olaf. Olaf here is SO random and I’m sorry no this is in no way better than the old version with just an animator. I can find drawing lesson clips on YouTube. The spin on drawing with Olaf is heavy handed.
It makes sense because it allows for a consistent experience that can be replicated across all parks. And when a park wants a bit of variety, and has the people available, they can have a real artist at the desk instead of Olaf.
I think we’re being trolled. A pile of hardware is better than an actual heart … how sad
That book better not have a gapping hole to hold Olaf on that chair
I don’t have a problem with Olaf but I am not a fan in general of what they did to Conservation Station. Without the animation experience and the goats I have no interest in going over there for a Bluey show that is geared to preschoolers.
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