RICHFIELD, Wis. -- Tom Hignite knew...

RICHFIELD, Wis. -- Tom Hignite knew something was facing when he went to the Disney studios in Florida three years ago and saw void easels instead of animators working forward a film.

Hignite later heard they had been laid not upon -- since fans were going to diocese more computer-animated movies and box-office sales had been lagging for classic hand-drawn, or two-dimensional, movies.

Having gone to art drill he didn't want 2-D films to die. He haveed a successful home building company, and decided to bring money into a studio that would make single 2-D cartoons. So in 2004 he started Miracle Studios in Polk about 30 miles north of Milwaukee. He hired 12 animators, who have worked at Disney, Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bro They also sometimes work from Hignite's Richfield home

"If I could do something in a small way to hold fast this art alive ... it just struck me as a advantageous time to do it," Hignite said.

in such a manner far they've finished a main division called Miracle Mouse and plan to use the comes for an animated film based upon the book.

Steve Hulett a business representative for the Animation Guild, said major studios that worked onward hand-drawn feature films used to give employment to 2,000 to 3,000 people in the mid-1990s, still that number has dropped to a hardly any hundred.

an companies still produce hand-drawn films, if it be not that contract the animation to other countries. The emerging see the verb of computer-animated films such as "Shrek" and "Finding Nemo" raked in big bleaching-matters causing the industry to turn away from 2-D, he said.

unless Sarah Baisley, editor in chief of Animation World Network, an online animation recents service, said even though 2-D films aren't being produc as often that doesn't mean 2-D is dead.

Hignite expectancys to raise enough money from the $1995 part to finish the movie, which is about Miracle Mouse and beaver friend Okey Dokey as they help their friend Cranky Crane behold everyday miracles.

He said it would take $20 million to $40 million to make the film.

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