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    Audiences feel differently about animated feature films than about live action ones, claims Don Bluth, producer of "The Secret of NIMH," an action fantasy in classical animation set to be released in July by MGM/United Artists Distribution and Marketing.
    The Aurora presentation is Bluth's first animated film since he  and partners Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy left Disney Studio with a handful of animators nearly three   years ago.
    The story of a widowed mouse who seeks the help of a mysterious, advanced civilization of rats to save her family, features the vocal talents of Elizabeth Hartman, Dom DeLuise, Peter Strauss, Derek Jacobi, John Carradine, Hermione Baddeley, Arthur Malet and Paul Shenar.
    "Audiences react more strongly to animation than to live action  films, "Bluth says.  "For one reason, they feel less
threat in identifying themselves and people they know with characters than they feel with human actors."

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    Another reason, he says, is probably that animated films done in the classical style deal with classic stories, ones that are timeless and apply to everyone.
    Bluth, whose future was assured as head of Disney's animation department until he defected in 1979 over creative differences, says there is something about animation that makes audiences feel they've more of a sayso about it, more of a stake in it.
     "Possibly," he says, "because people first become acquainted with animation as children. As we grow up, we adults learn to take a lot of disappointments.  But we all brinq the child in us to animated movies."
    He continues, 'There is a point at which audiences give themselves over to an animated film, and get engrossed in the story.  We call that the willing suspension of disbelief.  When we filmmakers take on that task, we have to be very sure that audiences don't feel cheated at the end of our story.
    "Movie producers have a big responsibility to the public," he says.  "Movies can shape lives and inspire dreams that can solve tomorrow's world problems, so we do have that to consider.  There is the public trust we hold in our hands, and we must simply be worthy of it."
    Dreams are important to Bluth, whose own backqround is a childhood that included milking 24 cows every day before school in Utah.  "As I look back, I am impressed with the tremendous role dreams play in each of our lives.  They seem to be the very stuff of which life is made, and the stronger the dream, the better."
    He adds that art can put the dreams to some use.  "It is the leavening of society, instructing us to be better people."

    The producer doesn't care if people know the voluminous amount of work that went into his animated film: the million-and-a-half drawings, the 300 gallons of paint, the 600 colors.,
    His aim, he says, "is to have one person's life lifted by seeing this movie.  If it affects one person, it might affect two, then a family, then a city, then, who knows?  Maybe the world. if what I'm doing here is going to affect others, I want my movies to have a good effect."
    "The Secret of NIMH" was produced by Bluth, Goldman and Pomeroy and directed by Bluth.  Jerry Goldsmith composed and conducted the songs and score and Paul Williams wrote the lyrics.  The story was adapted from the Newbery Award-winning novel, "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" by Robert C. O'Brien.  Rich Irvine and James L. Stewart are executive producers.