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Friday, August 13, 2010

Prod. 2519 - The Rescuers (II)  - Seq. 001 - Rescue Aid Society - Part 1

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This FINAL draft dated 3/29/77, other header info same as yesterday:
Directed by Woolie Reitherman, assistant director Jeffrey Patch, layout Don Griffith, secretary Lorraine [Thilman].

Not only is this quite an extensive sequence, the draft is also written so that normally only five scenes are described per page, in contrast to the earliest drafts where all ten lines had separate scenes. Please excuse my taking the liberty of spreading sequences over several posts - but it is my blog and my draft, so there! It saves me from having to come up with something clever by myself...

We start with effects and crowds by Dick Lucas, Dale Baer and Gary Goldman, with opening mice by Don Bluth and John Pomeroy, as well as a scene credited to Glen Keane, Ed Gombert, Randy Cartwright and one of two credits of Tad Stones, who is not credited on the "Verified as Complete" IMDb Full Credits page for The Rescuers.

Admittedly, I have never been a big fan of the scenes with the human characters in the beginning of this sequence. Once down in the trunk things start shaping up: the Supervising Animators obviously are Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. They are "supported" by John Pomeroy, Gary Goldman, Don Bluth, Randy Cartwright, Ron Husband, Chuck Harvey, Bill Hajee, Ed Gombert and Heidi Guedel/Ballreich.

Just how much Frank and Ollie planned this sequence before the actual animation handouts, I do not know - I would venture to guess they planned as usual: thumbnailing the entire sequence, then doing rough drawings to cover much or most of the scenes which were then handed out as "rough animation layouts" to the asigned animators, keeping the "juiciest" scenes needing most delicate attention themselves.

An example of the roughness of the drawings could be the key I posted four years ago, that Frank drew of the chairman.

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5 Comments:

Anonymous Steven Hartley says...

Pomeroy, Cartwright, Bluth, Goldman, etc. We've all seen them in the 'Small One' draft.

I'm slightely confused: was Dick Lucas effects animator or character animator, because it says in his credits that he's both!

Friday, August 13, 2010 at 10:41:00 AM PDT  
Anonymous Steven Hartley says...

I must admit I quite like the song to the "Rescue Qid Society", and I like some of the scenes with Bernard and the hair comb animated by the legend - Ollie Johnston!!

I like John Pomeroy's Chairman scenes - now I know that name!!

I quite like this sequence, and I like Woolie Reitherman's work, even though sometimes he reuses work, but I think its a clever idea because it saves money!!

Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 10:54:00 AM PDT  
Anonymous Zartok-35 says...

Tad Stones is the guy who is usually associated with The Resucers, I believe. At least, thats what it reads on Wikipedia.

Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 11:49:00 PM PDT  
Anonymous Steven Hartley says...

I like Eva Gabor's Hungarian accent what she did with Bianca - she also did the voice in The Aristocats with Phil Harris.

The Chairman has a nice voice and I didn't realise it was Bernard Fox when the other day I was watching 'Titanic', and Fox makes a cameo as a famous Titanic passenger named Archibald Gracie IV, and when I heard his voice in the film again...it sound quite similar to the Chairman!!

Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 2:13:00 PM PDT  
Anonymous John V. says...

Zartok - Tad Stones is usually associated with Recuse *Rangers*, I think. :)

Apparently the long-shot of Bernard sweeping was Glen Keane's first piece of animation at Disney. He asked Eric Larson for advice and, while he was expecting technical advice, he got acting advice instead!

Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 1:50:00 PM PDT  

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