Disney Slashes 160 From Its Animation Staff

This might seem to make sense, since Disney merged with/bought/was taken over by Pixar and Pixar already has a staff of 800 animators. Disney had a staff of 800 animators too so suddenly the company had 1600 people working on animated films. But none of Pixar's team is being cut and both units will remains separate (but equal!) and are expected to turn out 1 movie a year. It's just that the Disney side will have to do it with 640 staffers and Pixar will do it with 800. A sad day, as was the move by most studios to focus solely on digital animation -- people don't care whether a film has a hand-drawn look or stop-motion or cheapo like "South Park" or high-tech like the Pixar films. All they care about are good movies and good animated movies come in all shapes and styles.