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Monday, November 02, 2009

Prod.2001- Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (XII)

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Seq. 7-A "Queen Leaves Mirror - Prepares Disguise"
- Queen by Bob Stokes and Art Babbitt, Hag and Raven by Norm Ferguson, Mirror by Woolie Reitherman. The first two scenes (seemingly afterthoughts, judging from their numbers) credited to background painter Sam Armstrong. Effects scenes credited to George Rowley, Campbell Grant (of Model dept.), Stan Quackenbush, Eric Larson (hands) and Josh Meador. Who is "Tony" in sc. 32?

After the sequence with the dwarfs at the tub, we get back to the core story with this ominous sequence. Scene 21 was split into five very memorable effects scenes, that together with scene 26 lead into one of the most frightening scenes of the picture, scene 26A -
"A Perfect Disguise!"

I thoroughly enjoy Fergy's theatrical acting - it is big and flamboyant, and deeply entertaining! Interesting also to see the queen as animated by Bob Stokes. We saw him share Gepetto with Babbitt, as well as having animated Bo-Peep in Mother Goose Goes to Hollywood and scenes in Ferdinand the Bull. He animated on Fantasia (1940), and passed away in Palm Springs in 1980 aged 71, so this begs the question, what did he do in between?

For a particularly interesting article on the drawing of Snow White and a bit on Bob Stokes, as well, read "The Four Faces of Snow" by David Johnson.

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7 Comments:

Anonymous Paul Reiter says...

Actually, Ferguson died in 1957, at the age of 55.

I like this sequence myself, but I have to admit I think the effects animation is very important and in some ways overshadows Ferguson's animation.

Monday, November 2, 2009 at 12:02:00 PM PST  
Anonymous Hans Perk says...

Paul, please note that I was talking about Robert George "Bob" Stokes!

Monday, November 2, 2009 at 12:20:00 PM PST  
Anonymous John V. says...

Tony = Rivera again?

Armstrong = James, rather than Samuel? As an effects animator, maybe?

The draft doesn't mention the rats in scene 5. Quite a few effects artists are uncredited as well.

Both Campbell Grant and Stan Quackenbush are credited on scene 21B. I wonder which animated the transforming Queen and which the effects?

Interesting Pinocchio parallel - the use of hand close-ups and shadows to portray a body transformation are similar to what they did with Lampwick, and they both had Eric Larson working on them (although Larson didn't animate the hands changing in Pinoc).

Monday, November 2, 2009 at 1:25:00 PM PST  
Anonymous John V. says...

Oh, and I was surprised to see Fergy himself animated the Raven, who I assumed had been assigned to one of the lower-order animators.

Monday, November 2, 2009 at 1:26:00 PM PST  
Anonymous Paul Reiter says...

Sorry, misread on my part.

Monday, November 2, 2009 at 2:29:00 PM PST  
Anonymous Hans Perk says...

John, I guessed Sam Armstrong for two reasons: first, because these are basically background shots, secondly because Alberto Becattini on his well-researched listings has Jim Armstrong's start date c39. Now, this may be a guess on his behalf, I can only add that I can not place a Jim Armstrong at Disney around December 1936...

Monday, November 2, 2009 at 2:50:00 PM PST  
Anonymous Steven Hartley says...

I thought that John Lounsbery did the raven, since he was Fergie's assistant at the time, well maybe John was just cleaning up Fergie's drawings.

Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 11:42:00 AM PDT  

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