Ric Sluiter On Art Direction And More

Ric Sluiter Art Director of Mulan,Lilo and American Dog and Sheridan Alumni, was over at the college to give a little talk on Art Direction.
As expected ,cameras were required to be switched off once he started sharing artwork, so unfortunately i have nothing to show...but maybe i could just share some of the things he said and talked about.
His presentation was based on the work he was doing for an animated feature at the Florida studio, which was scrapped/cancelled/put on hold when the studio was shut down.
Many of u may know of it...though its title was ever changing...some of them were "My Peoples", "Angel & Her No Good Sister" and finally "A Few Good Ghosts".
He showed concpet art, final designs, test shots created for publicity etc etc. and they were very cool.
The humans etc were all 2d and the hero (Elgin), he made puppets of his ancestors and they were made up of things like brooms, buttons ,gloves etc etc and those were CGI.
The backgrounds were all 2d but painted in Photoshop.
The look was very different, specially the opening prologue which talked of a family curse and was very inspired.
Also i thought the heroine (Rose) was probably one of the most beautiful Disney Heroines yet...reminded me a bit of Tarzan's Mom (human one, not Kala) , who i think surely wins the "Hottest Disney Mom Who Dies In The First 7 Mins of the film" award!!
The story was a bit like Romeo and Juliet with Love Vs Fear being the theme.
Had the voices of Dolly Parton among others as one of the puppets.
It looked cool enough for me to want it to be finshed some day..hopefully it will!

Other things he briefly touched upon (some old, some new) which other animation/ disneyphiles might wanna know are:
1.He was working on Toy Story 3 before it was shut down. He just moved to American Dog .
2.Disney seems poised for a come back and everyone is very upbeat.
3.No more sequels.."...we wont be ruining Peter Pan anymore"
4.Stuff he has seen from Glen Keane's Rapunzel just blows his mind away..."...Its like watching beautiful Glen Keane drawings moving in 3D"
5.Rapunzel story has been reverted back closer to the classic story rather than spoof-ish take on it.
6.Ron n John are back at disney to make a film (2d maybe?)!
7.Eric Goldberg is on his way back too!!!
8.He loves Photoshop and paints only on that now!

I think thats all i can recall for now...and yes...i got him to sign my Lilo & Stitch 2Disc DVD from region 2 which has a lot of him and his work and the Mulan Sp. Edition too..i unfortunately did not have my Art Of books here with me...tragic!
But i got to speak with him for a short bit so it was cool and fun!:-)