A. Film L.A.

Dick Lundy

2012-01-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

One of the animators mentioned in my previous posting was Dick Lundy. Richard James Lundy was born in Michigan on 8/14/07 and died 4/7/90 in San Diego County. Starting as cel painter and inbetweener in 1929, he worked at Disney until 1943 (though his IMDb credits also include Mickey Mouse Disco in 1980, but this "clip show" used his early work). After Disney he worked on lots and lots of Hanna-Barbera series, as well as features like Charlotte's Web, and even Bakshi's Fritz the Cat. We have, of course, encountered Lundy many times on this blog.

We didn't see Lundy at bat in the winter 1930/31 Disney studio Softball game. But above image links to a caricature of Lundy at bat, so we know how that looked. I do not know who drew the caricature - but it is obviously contemporary and came from Jack Cutting's files.

My old mentor Børge Ring once asked Bob Maxfield, animation director on the first Dutch animated feature "Dexter the Dragon & Bumble the Bear" (a weird title, but the Dutch "Als Je Begrijpt Wat Ik Bedoel" isn't much clearer) released in 1983 (with some minor animation by me), how it was to work on a feature film with old stalwarts like Dick Lundy (and with Volus Jones on Heavy Traffic). Maxfield, who himself started at Disney in the mid 40s, answered "They couldn't do it anymore. Too many years of just doing head-turns."

Prod. CM8 - The Picnic

2012-01-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Burt Gillett.
Released 10/23/30, this FINAL draft dated 9/13/30.
Animation by Dave Hand, Jack King, Charlie Byrne, Norm Ferguson, Dick Lundy, Johnny Cannon, Les Clark, Ben Sharpsteen, Tom Palmer, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Cutting and Frenchy de Trémaudan.

Found on the Treasures DVD Mickey Mouse in Black and White, Vol. 2 Disk 1 or on YouTube, though in very low quality here.

A cute little film, this is actually a landmark in animation history. "Can I bring Rover?" Little Rover is, of course, none other than Pluto! Fergy's scene 27 is often "quoted" when discussing the origins of this the most famous of cartoon canines.

It is very interesting to see the difference in drawing styles. Fergy tries to draw a dog and mostly does a very nice job. Compare this with e.g. Palmer's attempt in the final scene. It is a "funny cartoon balloon animal," a much more simplistic and symbolic way of drawing. Palmer, Cannon and Lundy seem not to be quite up to the standards that Walt was striving for during this period. Maybe this went for most anybody. Then again, with Ub Iwerks gone only some seven months before this film was animated, everything was up for grabs, in this for the studio so incredibly important yet oft forgotten period - and Fergy led the way.

Dave Hand starts off with some very clear simple statements in the very first scene (until it gets a little weird), but he also gets quite a bit of technical animation in this film, with cycles upon cycles. And don't you just love the sound effects during the rain pour? "Blubblubblub..."

We have seen the background to Jaxon's scenes 20 & 26 before, on Emil Flohri's desk in the first Hyperion Ave. studio in 1931!

More of Walt's Gulfstream...

2012-01-13T14:00:00.000-08:00

Here is another reason I love paper shows!

Here we have a rare postcard of the interior of Walt's Gulfstream airplane, his much-loved toy that he had the fun Mickey sign made for that I showed you recently! The card even shows that the plane had its own logo! "In flight aboard Walt Disney Productions' Gulfstream N732G!"
The front bottom right reads "© 1964 Walt Disney Productions."
(To see the image more correctly, I have descreened it: )
Note that the N-number N732G has NEVER been assigned to Disney; it is currently assigned to a 1969 Beech aircraft registered in North Carolina. Before Disney took it over, the plane was registered as N707MP and then it became N234MM, a tailnumber it still has to this day, as seen on the images in my previous posting. Where, then, does the number N732G on this postcard stem from??

What is interesting to note also, is the fact that Walt had this exact image in his working office at the time of his passing. Here is the pertinent part of an image taken in his office in January 1968, 13 months later, while the office still stood untouched - note the four photos leaning up against the large aerial image of Disneyland:

For the sake of clarity I have adjusted their perspective so you can see them all head-on. It is the second photo from the left.

These photos show that the actual interior was much less yellow/brown than shown on the postcard. The walls and ceiling seems to have been white. Why they printed them yellow on the card, I have no idea. Maybe white was considered too boring?
The colors look like they have aged, but on a printed postcard?

The above row of images shows that there were basically two "rooms" divided by a semi-transparent divider with curtain. The postcard image (image 2) was shot from the position seen in image 1, while image 3 is as shot through the curtain, its counter shot is image 4, through which you can see the backside of the postcard image.
I count 13 seats...

Some time ago, the Disney Archives showed the following images on the D23 site: a jet model that was on Walt's desk in his official office, Walt's phone from the Gulfstream plane, and the plane's altimeter.

Neither the Gulfstream, nor the earlier Queen Air or King Air planes resemble the jet model, though. Looking at an image from Walt's formal office (left photo, also January 1968), I can see the plaque reads "Grumman Gulfstream 2," which to me sounds like a letter to Santa: "Dear Roy, I want one!" Then again, in Walt's working office (right photo) were both a model AND a photo of the "current" plane!

You can still see Walt's open briefcase in the floor behind his desk...

In Wade Sampson (Jim Korkis)'s very interesting article you can read more about Walt's planes, including this excerpt:
Over the years, there were actually three company planes that Walt flew in: Queen Air (Beechcraft) February 1963 - July 1965 (propeller driven); King Air (Beechcraft) 1965- 1967 (prop jet); and the Gulfstream (Grumman) bought 1963, in service May 1964, retired to WDW October 8, 1992. This is the plane you see on the backstage tour and, yes, Walt did fly in it to search for a site for Walt Disney World.
What I do not see in the article, though, is the intense involvement in Walt's plane from another flier in the company, Jack Cutting, who was Mr. International Dept. and one of Walt's closest advisers in this matter, helping writing the safety manuals. The top hand-written added phone number in his Disney phonebooks (of which I have a few) was the Burbank Airport, followed by the weather bureau.

(For information on the current Disney air fleet, check the info on their company Earth Star Inc, 500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank.)

Prod. UM1 - Mickey's Nightmare

2012-01-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Burt Gillett.
Released 8/13/32, this draft dated 4/20/32. Nearly four months!? Could it be because this film was the first Mickey in the United Artists series?

Animation by Norm Ferguson, Jack King, Tom Palmer, Johnny Cannon, Gilles Armand "Frenchy" de Trémaudan, Ben Sharpsteen,
Les Clark, Hardy Gramatky and Dave Hand.

Another classic with the animators unknown - until now!

Drawing in 3D - anno 1949

2011-12-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

I was wondering what Paul Satterfield had been doing after he left Disney. He was not involved in the infamous strike of 1941, and information is scarce at best:

Paul McKinley Satterfield was born 3/27/1896 and died 8/14/1981.
Alberto Becattini had this info for Paul Satterfield:
Animator: CARLSON 19-21 (The Gumps 20-21); DISNEY c36-38 (Mickey Mouse 38, Silly Symphony 38-39 [Farmyard Symphony 38, The Ugly Duckling 39], Donald Duck 39)
Sequence Director: DISNEY c38-41 (Fantasia 40, Bambi 42)

Thus I was very surprised to find at a paper show recently a set of cards dated 1949 with 3D drawings on them that show they were made by P & C Satterfield. Am I right in deducing that this "P" may be said Paul Satterfield?

The sets include five whole series and two incomplete ones. Some (like the one above) are very cartoony, others are more realistic Lone Ranger-type sets. If there is more interest among you, I may scan a few more...

Technically, note that these are not the cross-eyed type: the left image is for the left eye, the right for the right eye. Thus, if you size them so the images are no more than the difference between your eyes apart, you should be able to see the depth (with some practice). You can also use your old stereo viewer. You DO have one, don't you? Else, I have made a version that can be seen cross-eyed, here:

It tends to be easier to see stereo images cross-eyed, as it does not strain the eyes in the same way and the distance between the images can be larger than the standard "about 2.5 inches" which means that you can see larger images. In the image just above I switched the left and right eye images, so the left eye sees the right image. With a little training (possibly moving your finger slowly towards your face while looking at it with both eyes) you can get the left and right-eye images to coincide, and the brain will take over and show you the depth information.

It is actually quite helpful to train this, as you can find more 3D images on the web that work this way. Also, for those of you making 3D CGI, placing two images next to each other this way makes it possible to see them in 3D without glasses (and without their inherent loss of light and color!) Some programs that present 3D video from two separate sources let you view the images side-by-side, and cross-eyed you can often see any mistakes more clearly than using 3D glasses. I used this on our own "Olsen Gang Gets Polished" feature, which four of us made into a 3D presentation in about four months, two years back.

Prod. UM12 - Ye Olden Days

2011-12-22T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Burt Gillett, music by Frank Churchill.
Released thru United Artists on 4/8/33.

Sadly the first page is missing on my copy, but what is left shows us the following animators: Ben Sharpsteen (supervising Art Babbitt, Marvin Woodward, Ham Luske, Johnny Cannon and probably more), Norm Ferguson, Dick Lundy, Les Clark, Tom Palmer and Jack King.

Sharpsteen was in charge of the up-and-coming animators in this period, which is why so many scenes bear his name. As an example, scene 21 has only his name indicated, but we have seen recently that it was animated by Ed Love. Only with access to more documents like this animation layout can we find the actual credits for Ben's scenes. [Addition:] Seconds ago I was thumbing through the Layout & Background book in the Archives series, and here I see that scene 11 is by "Ben/[Harry ]Reeves, while the layout for scene 33B has "Ben/[Jack ]Kinney" written on it!

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (XVII) - Seq. 19.6 - Ending - Seq. 03.0 Sec.B

2011-12-19T14:00:00.000-08:00

Seq. 19.6 - Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Al Zinnen. Animation by Harvey Toombs, Clair Weeks, Henry Tanous and Jack Boyd.

Seq. 03.0 Sec "B" - Directed by Special Process (Ub Iwerks' dept.), layout by John Hench. This sequence ends the Toad draft, which continues into the (separate) Ichabod draft.

These Final draft pages are dated 5/12/49.

This is the end of this film. Remember what I wrote about the historical value of these documents in my "Standard Disclaimer!"
Still, they give a great insight into the film. I wish they started to make a separately super-imposable subtitle track for the DVD and Blu-Ray editions. I guess that the Powers That Be do not see any financial benefit in it, but I should also never say never...

Back soon with more interesting stuff!

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (XVI) - Seq. 19.5 - Fight (part 2)

2011-12-18T14:00:00.000-08:00

Continued from yesterday:

(Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Al Zinnen.
This Final draft is dated 5/11/49.)

More Reitherman, Sibley and Lusk...

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (XV) - Seq. 19.5 - Fight (part 1)

2011-12-17T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Al Zinnen.
This Final draft is dated 5/11/49.

Animation by Murray McClellan, Henrey Tanous, John Sibley, Woolie Reitherman, Hal King, Harvey Toombs, Don Lusk and Ed Aardal.

Ever in need of material to post, and with very little time on my hands, I split this sequence up in two parts, and leave the commenting to you!

Icons of Animation Auction (VI)

2011-12-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

Here is another contender for my favorite item at tomorrow's big animation art auction:

502. ORIGINAL CONCEPT ARTWORK BY DAVID HALL OF CROCODILE SNIFFING CAPTAIN HOOK’S CIGARS FROM PETER PAN. (Walt Disney Studios, 1953) Original concept artwork by master concept artist David Hall accomplished in watercolors over ink and dry-brush on a leaf of illustration board measuring approx. 9 ½ in. x 12 in. featuring a crocodile in a swamp sniffing two of Captain Hook’s disposed cigars. Conceived, executed and signed by David Hall in 1939, fourteen years prior to the eventual release of the Disney film. This painting was reproduced in the February 1999 issue of Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge in a story titled “The Year that was 1939, David Hall Revisited.” From the collection of Bruce Hamilton.
$6,000 – $8,000 [Did not sell.]

Now, you'll ask, "What is that crocodile crockery on the right? He certainly isn't part of the auction!" Here is a revelation that I was witness to recently: David Hall's great crocodile painting MUST have been the model for the croc bank on the right, which was produced in at least four different color schemes as merchandise for the 1967 musical The Happiest Millionaire! Again I say: how great is that?
Look at that happy smiling expression, and the direction of his eyes! Anybody looking for a painting to give as present for my 50th birthday in two weeks, here it is...

Oh, and his name is George!

Remember, if you are not bidding, get the catalog while you can!

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (XIV) - Seq. 16.1 - Secret Tunnel

2011-12-16T17:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Charles Philippi and Al Zinnen.
This Final draft is dated 5/11/49.

Character animation by Marc Davis, effect animation by Jack Boyd.
A whole sequence of over 40 scenes by Davis!

Icons of Animation Auction (V)

2011-12-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

One of my absolute favorite items in Saturday's auction!

272. ORIGINAL PAINTED WOOD MICKEY MOUSE THAT HUNG ON WALT’S PERSONAL 1963 GRUMMAN G-159 GULFSTREAM I AIRPLANE. Original hand-painted Mickey Mouse, doffing his cap and wearing pilot’s attire. This unique sign was mounted on the retractable stairs of Walt Disney’ personal airplane, a 1963 Grumman G-159 Gulfstream. Walt Disney and his Imagineers used this place to scout out the location for Walt Disney World in Florida. The sign is constructed of wood with a tail of rubber, completely hand-painted and detailed. It measures 22 in. tall x 21 in. wide. The “welcome aboard” portion of the sign is no longer present, exhibits slight scuffing and wear; otherwise, remarkable condition. A wonderful piece of Disneyana, certainly one of the most unique items ever to come up for auction. $6,000 – $8,000 [Did not sell.]

How cool is that??? The Gulfstream was later also used to fly entertainers like Fulton Burley around the States to different promotional venues, then was repainted and re-upholstered during the 90's, and now is retired and rests in Walt Disney World as prop on the back lot tour through Disney's Hollywood Studios.
At least it was there in November 2008.

Ever the tourist...

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (XIII) - Seq. 15.0 - Christmas at Rat's House

2011-12-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Charles Philippi.
This Final draft is dated 5/10/49.

Animation by Don Lusk (most of the sequence), Hal King (both drew Toad, Rat and Mole) and Hugh Fraser (weasels and Winkey), and one scene each by Clair Weeks, Marc Davis (really?) and Bob Youngquist.

Icons of Animation Auction (IV)

2011-12-14T20:00:00.000-08:00

Here are a few more interesting items from Saturday's auction.
Pressed for time, I'll let the descriptions speak for themselves. Some very interesting and fun items that I show here only as a sampling of what the auction has in store. If you SHOULD feel the need of bidding and donating these to me, I will not say you nay! (As if...)

First, an animation layout that shows the scene is credited to Ben/Love, in other words animated by Ed Love under Ben Sharpsteen's supervision. As we have seen on early drafts on this blog, Ben Sharpsteen was put in charge of new talents, so the credit Ben/[New Guy] is very common in this period.

298. YE OLDEN DAYS ORIGINAL PAN PRODUCTION LAYOUT. (Walt Disney Studios, 1933) Original pan production layout drawing featuring a castle wall and turret from Ye Olden Days. Accomplished in pencil and red crayon with blue pencil images of Mickey Mouse to show his movement on the background. Image measures 8 in. x 15 ¾ in. on a 10 in. x 16 in. leaf of illustration paper. Numerous hand-
written production notations in the lower margin. $1,000 – $1,500 [Did not sell.]

Then we have an early Carl Barks!
I have seen this one before, but I don't remember where.
A companion piece can be seen in Funnyworld #16.

318. ORIGINAL CARL BARKS ARTWORK SUBMITTED TO WALT DISNEY STUDIOS WHILE APPLYING FOR A JOB AS ANIMATOR. In 1935 when applying for a job at Walt Disney Studios, Carl Barks submitted four original pieces of artwork to show his artistic ability. After Disney received the art, Barks was hired. The artwork pictured above is one of the four pieces submitted by Barks to Disney and is his take on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Along the bottom of the piece is Carl’s Minneapolis address and on the verso of the art is a handwritten note from Carl (done many years later), that reads, “This drawing, submitted to Disney’s in 1935, helped get me hired,” and is signed “Carl Barks.” Indeed, after submitting this in November, 1935, Barks was hired, and he moved to Los Angeles to begin his long association with Disney. An amazing and incredibly rare item! The art has an image area of approximately 12 ¼ in. x 9 ¼, and has been drawn in ink, graphite, and pale blue wash. The art is in Excellent condition. An incredible opportunity to acquire a true piece a Disney history! $10,000 – $15,000 [Did not sell.]

Finally Nine Old Signatures:

220. WALT DISNEY: THE ART OF ANIMATION SIGNED BY WALT DISNEY, DISNEY’S “NINE OLD MEN” AND OTHER ANIMATORS. Walt Disney – The Artof Animation: The story of the Disney Studio contribution to a new art. By Bob Thomas with the Walt Disney staff, with research by Don Graham. Golden Press, Inc., New York, (1958). Quarto. Pictorial paper covered boards. Signed by Walt Disney in black ink on the verso of the front free endpaper.
Also signed by Disney’s “Nine Old Men” including John Lounsbery, Les Clark, Eric Larson (twice), Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Wolfgang Reitherman, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas and Ward Kimball. Additionally signed by Ken Anderson, Don DaGradi, Bill Peet, Joe Rinaldi, Tom Oreb, Xavier Atencio, Bill Justice, Ernest Nordli, Don Griffith, Tom Codrick, Gerry Geronimi, and Mac Stewart. A very handsome book with only slight rubbing along lower board edges. Hinges remain sound. Dust jacket exhibits typical delamination commonly found with small chips at flap folds and spine panel ends. Very Good. $4,000 – $6,000

I fixed some spelling mistakes in names. But hey - Tom Oreb? Ernie Nordli? MacLaren Stewart? Haven't seen their signatures a lot. Oh, yeah - it was signed by Walt, as well...

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (XII) - Seq. 19.4 - Train

2011-12-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Lance Nolley.
This draft named Revised Final is dated 5/19/49.

Character animation by Ward kimball and Harvey Toombs, while Ed Aardal, Jack Boyd and George Rowley animated effects (if, in the case of Rowley, Toads hand can be called an effect).

Of course we find Ward Kimball at the train sequence! Could this be called autoanimagraphical? The attribution is by no means unexpected on stylistic grounds either, as his drive to do things differently leaves us with some rather typically wild animation, like the cops shooting.

Icons of Animation Auction (III)

2011-12-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

More fun stuff from Saturday's auction!

Number 529 is a very special item.
529. WALT DISNEY SCRIPT AND THREE PAUL BUNYAN DRAWINGS. (Walt Disney Studios, 1958) Very unusual collection of three concept drawings for Paul Bunyan along with the transcript of the story meeting with Walt Disney at which these were drawn. Walt would call together his key story men when working out a production, and during this meeting they would discuss the story and work out some design. The extremely rare transcript gives us a look into the great deal of influence and input that Walt Disney had in his productions.
A unique collection. $2,000 – $3,000 [Did not sell.]

I have the good fortune to have been allowed to present a few pages to you, so here are the first five (of eleven) of the transcript of 11/5/46 (and not 1958):

It is always wonderful to read story notes: you get a good sense of how the films were put together, and especially how HUGE a driving force Walt Disney himself was at these meetings. He pushes for personality and pathos, but also for getting the story structure right, while the others in the meeting are just trying to keep up! A fun fact about this item: I happen to know this set just ends with "'j" and WE, blog readers, know who that is! Secretary Jane (presumably) Sinclair.

There are, as stated above, also three sheets of drawings included. Here is a close-up of part of one of them.

Not quite what he ended up looking like, huh?
This early version was obviously to be directed by Jack Kinney, probably using the same crew as Mr. Toad. But it ended up, twelve years later, directed by Les Clark and designed by Tom Oreb and Eyvind Earle, with story by Lance Nolley (we met him before as layout arist) and Ted Berman, very much a different film.

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (XI) - Seq. 19.3 - Escape

2011-12-13T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Al Zinnen.
This draft named Revised Final is dated 5/16/49.

Animation by Woolie Reitherman (it is an action sequence after all), Don Lusk (What did do?) and Jack Boyd (light effects). A very atmospheric sequence with another pack of dogs by Woolie.

Why would they revise the Final draft? Add Don Lusk's credits? Change scenes after a preview? Pure speculation, of course...

Icons of Animation Auction (II)

2011-12-12T19:00:00.000-08:00

Here are the next items on my Christmas list: two storyboard panels from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!

First item number 364:

364. ORIGINAL PRODUCTION MODEL DRAWING OF LOG ALLIGATORS FROM SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. (Walt Disney Studios, 1937) Rare model drawing of the log alligators from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Measures 6 ½ in. x 9 in. with overall dimensions 10 in. x 12 in. $600 – $800

In this case, I just like the image, such a clear way to symbolize Snow White's inner feelings about her predicament, by anthropomorphizing her surroundings.

And then item number 351:

351. ORIGINAL GUSTAF TENGGREN CONCEPT LAYOUT FROM SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. (Walt Disney Studios, 1937) Stunning original pencil layout attributed to Gustav Tenggren from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Measures 5 ½ in. x 12 ¼ in. on a leaf of 8 in. x 12 in. animation paper. $10,000 – $15,000

Not much to say about this. A concept layout is not an animation layout, it is more a glorified storyboard drawing exploring possible camera angles and movements. I do not know enough about Tenggren's pencil drawing style to be able to confirm the attribution to him, but it is a pretty image at any price. Still, at this price, the item at the top sounds like a steal! And as long as I cannot afford them anyway, I may as well put them both on my Christmas list.

The copyright stamp in the bottom is the same as on a few Ferdinand the Bull animation drawings I have, and tells me it was probably sold through Courvoisier Galleries. (Which, I hear, should be pronounced "Kewr-voh-si-ehr," obviously not the way it would sound in French.)

Remember to check out the Icons of Animation Auction site and order or download a catalog!

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (X) - Seq. 19.2 - Jail

2011-12-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Charles Philippi.
This draft named FINAL 3 is dated 3/14/49.

Animation by Ollie Johnston and Hal Ambro. I always liked the scenes with Toad in remorse, and I was glad - and not all to surprised - to see it was Ollie who animated this.

Harold "Hal" Ambro, in July 1946 in room 1G-12, was at Disney from 1945 to 63 and again in 66, according to Alberto's page. In between he worked on Gay Purr-ee, and afterwards on, among others, Charlotte's Web and Raggedy Ann. Like with so many other animators, I'd like to hear more about this man. In this case, several of you "out there" may have worked with him, so feel free to comment!

Icons of Animation Auction (I)

2011-12-11T17:00:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa! This Saturday is the next auction of amazing animation art and memorabilia organized by reputed animation gallery owner Mike van Eaton, under the name Icons of Animation Auction. From that link you can download the catalog and get to the Bid Online pages! The next few days I will show you some of MY highlights, so you know what to stuff into my stocking on Christmas!

First, item number 466:

FRED MOORE ORIGINAL ARTWORK FROM THE THREE CABALLEROS, SIGNED. (Walt Disney, 1944) Original artwork by Fred Moore accomplished in pencil, ink and watercolor on an approx. 14 in. x 19 in. leaf of illustration paper featuring a Mexican dancing girl and the Three Caballeros: Donald Duck, Panchito and Joe Carioca. Inscribed at the lower right, “To Mary – with high heels, Frederic Moore.” Despite minimal formal art training, Fred Moore rose to prominence at Disney very quickly in the early 1930 due to his great natural talent and the appeal of his drawings. Moore is best known for redesigning Mickey Mouse in 1938 for his landmark role as “the Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” a look which remains Mickey’s official look to this day. Moore was also well known for his drawings of girls, which is evident in this work. Housed in a wooden frame and mat measuring 17 in. x 21 in. Not inspected out of frame. $3,000 – $5,000

I love Fred Moore's linework! This item so clearly shows his appealing drawing style. Look, for instance, at the shapes that form Panchito. Beautiful stuff!

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (IX) - Seq. 11.3 - Winkey's Double Cross

2011-12-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Charles Philippi.
This FINAL draft dated 5/9/49.

Animation by Ollie Johnston and Rudy Larriva, with one scene by
Al Stetter (unless some smartypants here knows anyone called Atetter...)

During the 1964 background inventory, four scenes were added under the heading Seq.13.

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (VIII) - Seq. 10.1 - Cyril's Testimony

2011-12-10T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by James Algar, assisted by Jack Bruner, layout by Charles Philippi and Hal Doughty, secretary Dessie Flynn.
This draft number 2 dated 11/18/48.

Animation by Hugh Fraser (44 scenes) and Rudy Larriva (1 scene of four seconds).
This is Jim Algar's first sequence in this film as director. In 1946 he occupied room 2B-6, next door to layout men Philippi and Doughty in 2B-5 while Hugh Fraser was downstairs in 1B-6.

Note that the film's title here is "Magnificent Mr Toad."

Hugh Duncan Fraser was born in Butte, Montana on 08/15/1904 and passed away at age 89 on 01/06/1994 in Contra Costa/Walnut Creek, CA. Alberto has the following data on him: "Animator: DISNEY c38-54 (Pinocchio 40, Fantasia 40, Dumbo 41, Saludos Amigos 43, Victory Through Air Power 43, Goofy 43-44/46/48/50-53 [Victory Vehicles 43, How to Be a Sailor 44, How to Play Golf 44, A Knight for a Day 46, Double Dribble 46, The Big wash 48, Hold That Pose 50, Lion Down 51, Cold War 51, Tomorrow We Diet 51, Get Rich Quick 51, No Smoking 51, Father’s Lion 52, Hello Aloha 52, Man’s Best Friend 52, Two Gun Goofy 52, Teachers Are People 52, Two Weeks Vacation 52, How to Be a Detective 52, Father’s Day Off 53, Father’s Week End 53], Donald Duck 45-46 [The Eyes Have It 45, No Sail 45, Frank Duck Brings ‘Em Back Alive 46], Make Mine Music 46, Fun and Fancy Free 47, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad 49, Cinderella 50, Alice in Wonderland 51, Peter Pan 52, Lady and the Tramp 55)." I cannot find any info on what he did between Lady and the Tramp and the 1960 Popeye series he worked on for director Jack Kinney.

Rudolph (Rudy) Larriva was born 02/12/1916 and passed away at age 94 recently on 2/19/2010. Last residence Irvine, CA.
Someone must have interviewed him, one would think...
Alberto's info about his time at Disney does not mention his work on Toad: "Animator: DISNEY 25 Feb 46-28 May 47 (Song of the South 46, Melody Time 48)." In July 1946 his room at Disney's was 1E-11.

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (VII) - Seq. 11.2 - Trial - Defense

2011-12-09T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Charles Philippi.
This draft called FINAL 4 is dated 4/20/48.

Animation by Ollie Johnston (Judge & D.A.), Eric Larson (Toad), Marc Davis (Ratty, Mole & MacBadger), Wetzel "Judge" Whitaker (Toad & Cyril) and Harvey Toombs (D.A, Judge & Cyril). Hasn't it been some time since we last met Eric Larson?

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (VI) - Seq. 11.1 - Trial: Rat, Mole, MacBadger Testify

2011-12-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Charles Philippi.
This FINAL draft dated 4/20/48.

Animation by Ollie Johnston with Bob Youngquist and Al Stetter. We have seen some beautiful poses of Ollie's D.A. in The Illusion of Life from scenes on these pages. Al Stetter we have met working on Put-Put Trouble and drawing thorns in Sleeping Beauty. In 1946, we found him in 1D-10, Frank Thomas' future office. An anonymous commenter noted on the day after it happened that "Al Stetter passed away on January 27th, 2008...at the age of 100."

[Albert Alvin Stetter was born 5/21/1907. His SSN was issued in his birth state of Pennsylvania, and Burbank was his last residence.
Alberto's page does not list Stetter's feature credits: "Animator: DISNEY c39/55-57 (Donald Duck 40 [Put-Put Troubles], Pluto’s Day 56, The Truth About Mother Goose 57, How to Relax 57)." IMDB shows he also animated on two episodes of "Matty's Funnies with Beany and Cecil." It seems he also painted, e.g. this seascape up on eBay.]

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (V) - Seq. 19.1 - Bedroom

2011-12-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Al Zinnen.
This FINAL draft dated 5/9/49.

We have met the animator, Harvey Toombs, many times before, also on the bowling team with his future wife and Imagineer "Madam" Leota Wharton. Harvey F Toombs was born on 2/6/09 and passed away 3/18/68. He was one of the many animators whose work for more than a lifetime has been in the shadows of the Nine Old Men.

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (IV) - Seq. 04.0 - Motor Mania

2011-12-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Charles Philippi.
This FINAL draft dated 5/5/49.

Animation by Frank Thomas, Marc Davis, Bob Youngquist, Bill Justice, Al Bertino (he wasn't "just" a story man!), Harvey Toombs, Hal King.

Here is a case where I actually asked Frank once how far his influence went with regards to this sequence, and he told me he basically planned all of the business, even those scenes that were then issued to others to animate. That should give you some more insight into the function of a directing animator!

Winsor MacCay Award to Børge Ring!

2011-12-05T22:00:00.000-08:00

Just got the Annie Award nominee list and I read: "Special juried awards honoring career achievement and exceptional contributions to animation will also be awarded: Winsor McCay Award Walt Peregoy, Borge Ring and Robert Searle for career contributions to the art of animation" - how about that?

Congratulations, Børge! Oh - the others, too, of course.

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (III) - Seq. 03.0 - Merrily Song

2011-12-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Charles Philippi. Animation by Hugh Fraser, Murray McClellan, Harvey Toombs and Wetzel "Judge" Whitaker.
This FINAL draft dated 5/4/49.

Somehow, I expect that the sequence had a supervising animator, as well. Pity that the drafts do not give us that information either way.

I share the song's sentiment, as I myself am Merrily On My Way these next 9 days. This should not inhibit my ability to post, though! For those of us who care: Happy Walt Disney's 110^th birthday! For my Dutch friends: Prettige Sinterklaas avond!

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (II) - Seq. 02.0 - Mac Badger and Bills

2011-12-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Charles Philippi. Animation by Harvey Toombs, Milt Kahl and Ollie Johnston.
This 5th draft dated 4/19/48.

Classic performances by Milt and Ollie, with a secondary scene by Toombs. After the assistant's opening sequence we go back a year to get to the good stuff by the masters.

Prod. 2011 - The Fabulous Mr. Toad (I) - Seq. 03.0 - MainTitles & Seq. 19.0 - Opening

2011-12-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

The first part of the film "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad" is this, at first wholly separate, production 2011, called "The Fabulous Mr. Toad." These final draft pages are dated 5/2/49.

Seq. 03.0 (Main Titles) is directed by the Special Effects department, layout by John Hench. This page also notes that there are two other sections to Seq. 3, one between Toad and Ichabod, and one at the end of Ichabod. They are the glue that pulls these two films together as one.

Seq.19.0 (Opening) Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Al Zinnen, and of special note is the fact that the secretary, "'jane" (there was a Jane Sinclair in the room next to Kinney back in 1946) acts as assistant director, as well. [See Joe's comment!]

Animation by Clair Weeks, Henry Tanous, John Sibley (one action scene) and Harvey Toombs. Not what you could call a star-studded array of animators, especially Weeks and Tanous had by this time still not too much experience animating, but it must be said that they kick off the film nicely. Obviously, this would not be the first bit animated, so they would have a supervising animator to go to. Tanous and Weeks knew each other at least from across the hall.

As usual, I begin my postings with my "standard disclaimer:"
"Animation drafts were never meant to be historical documents. They were meant as go-to documents, showing the responsible artist for a certain scene, who might be able to help in case there would be any need for this further on in the production line. Therefore we often see e.g. that animators who left have been replaced by others, often their assistants, in later versions of a draft. Also for this reason it is most often the actual animator, not the supervising animator, who is mentioned. The drafts may also be directly inaccurate - showing early assignments where the animator actually changed when the scene was finally handed out. Keeping all this in mind, though, the drafts can give us some sort of hands-on insight into the inner workings of the production of some of the most "magical" (in itself an over-used word) motion pictures of all time." This draft originated (as most of my feature drafts) in the Background Morgue, originally situated in the basement under the Ink & Paint building on the Burbank lot.

At last... Toad.

2011-12-02T13:00:00.000-08:00

I guess I can't keep this from you any longer - tomorrow it's TOAD time! We'll see the draft of production 2011, "The Fabulous Mr. Toad." The draft is by itself, even though it eventually became the first half of the film "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad."

Notice the curious sequence namings. In between there is Seq. 19, which actually is the opening of the film!

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (XIII) - Seq. 10 - Epilogue

2011-11-12T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Gerry Geronimi assisted by Ted Sebern, layout by Tom Codrick.
This FINAL draft dated 1/18/49.

The final page of the Ichabod draft shows animation by Ken O'Brien and Hugh Fraser, with effects by Eustace Lycett, Ed(win) Aardal and George Rowley.

This concludes the film - but we haven't even started it!
So - next up: Toad!

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (XII) - Seq. 9 - "The Ride" and "The Chase"

2011-11-11T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Gerry Geronimi assisted by Ted Sebern, layout by Tom Codrick. This FINAL draft dated 1/18/49.

Animation by Frank Thomas, Ward Kimball, Woolie Reitherman and John Sibley. Effects by Ed Aardal (clouds, ghosts, owls, shadows, crow) and George Rowley (pumpkin splatter).

Frank animates the scared Ichabod, carefully and slowly riding his horse while whistling dryly (something he often demonstrated on stage while talking about character development), while the others take care of the action scenes. Some of Sib's scenes need to be studied frame-by-frame to be believed!

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (XI) - Seq. 8 - "Story Telling"

2011-11-10T18:00:00.000-08:00

Directehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd by Gerry Geronimi assisted by Ted Sebern, layout by Tom Codrick.
This FINAL draft dated 2/7/49.

Today's posting is ceremonial at best: I have already shown you this sequence five years ago! I post it here, however, to keep the series going in the same format, in case someone cares...

Animation by Milt Kahl (Brom Bones), Harvey Toombs, John Sibley, Hal King, Hal Ambro (all doing Ichabod and "incidentals"), Ken O'Brien (Katrina) and Ollie Johnston doing a 15 foot comedy scene with Ichabod. Effects by George Rowley.

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (X) - Seq. 7 - "The Dance"

2011-11-09T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Gerry Geronimi assisted by Ted Sebern, layout by Tom Codrick and Don Griffith. This FINAL draft dated 2/7/49.

A slew of "Old Men" animated this one. Credited are: Ollie Johnston--alone and with Ken O'Brien and Hal Ambro--, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Woolie Reitherman (alone and together) as well as John Sibley and Hal King, and effects animator George Rowley.

Milt animates Brom and "the fat girl," while each of the others animate most other characters. Of course, Sib and Woolie handle some nice action stuff.

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (IX) - Seq. 6 - Dressing for Party

2011-11-08T12:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Al Zinnen.
This FINAL draft dated 5/17/49.

Animation by Jack Boyd (two effects scenes), John Lounsbery (most of this sequence: Ichabod - and Katrina in one scene) and Hugh Fraser (another bit of Ichabod riding off on a horse).

Of course, Lounsbery's scene 3 of Ichabod primping is iconic!

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (VIII) - Seq. 5 - Rivalry with Brom

2011-11-07T14:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Thor Putnam and Al Zinnen.
This FINAL draft dated 7/16/48.

Animation by Frank Thomas, Hal Ambro, Ollie Johnston and Hugh Fraser. It seems Frank and Ollie share the directing animator role in this sequence where they both animate Ichabod, Katrina and Brom Bones and incidentals in 17 and 30 scenes respectively. In his five scenes, Hal Ambro also animates all, while Hugh Fraser does the three scenes with the double Ichabods.

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (VII) - Seq. 4.2 - Shopping Tour

2011-11-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Charles Philippi. Animation by Fred Moore (Katrina & boys, but also Ichabod at times), Hal King (Brom Bones and horse) and John Sibley (Ichabod, but also Brom and Katrina on horse).
This FINAL draft dated 5/16/49.

Even though the assignment of animators is generally rather clear cut, scenes 42 and 44 have Fred Moore animating not only the fair Katrina van Tassel, but also Ichabod. He animates Ichabod with clear poses that show his personality and general lankiness. As one of the key moments in the film, I seem to have seen images from these scenes rather often.

On the other hand, John Sibley animates scene 45, with Brom and Katrina riding off - an action scene he would be better at pulling off than the others.

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (VI) - Seq. 4.1 - Dream

2011-11-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Al Zinnen. Animation by Harvey Toombs and effects animator Jack Boyd (gold coins).
This FINAL draft dated 5/16/49.

A little self-contained sequence where Ichabod dreams of his ambitions. We get an insight into what drives his passions...

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (V) - Seq. 4 - Picnic - Katrina Song

2011-11-04T16:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Lance Nolley & Thor Putnam. Animation by Fred Moore (19 scenes of Katrina and boys), Marvin Woodward (1 scene of Ichabod) and Les Clark (2 scenes of Ichabod).
This FINAL draft dated 10/5/48.

Here is part of the song's demo that few have heard before you!

Katrina Song: original production acetate (part) 1947.

What can I say: a pretty girl by Freddy Moore!

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (IV) - Seq. 3.3 - Singing Lesson

2011-11-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Lance Nolley and Thor Putnam. Animation by Ed Aardal ("incidentals"), Les Clark, Ollie Johnston, Harvey Toombs (Ichabod & girls) and Hal King (Brom Bones & boys).
This FINAL draft dated 10/4/48.

I would think it fair to guess that Ollie was the Supervising Animator for this sequence. Again a lot of reworking: scenes 3 to 21 out of the picture?

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (III) - Seq. 3 - School Room --- 3.1 - Eating --- 3.2 - Social Calendar

2011-11-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Al Zinnen, animation by Eric Larson, Hugh Fraser, Jack Boyd (efx) and Harvey Toombs.
These FINAL drafts dated 10/4/48 and 10/13/48.

It is interesting to note the scene numbers - and see how much they have rearranged stuff here...

Ichabod mosaic already started!

2011-11-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

Great news: Sanek has started the Ichabod mosaic!

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (II) - Seq. 2 - Intro & Ichabod Crane Song

2011-11-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

This first sequence, numbered "2," was directed by Jack Kinney and laid out by Charles Philippi and Thor Putnam. Kinney directed the first half of this picture, Gerry Geronimi directed the remainder.
Note that James Algar is also credited as director on the final "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad." This was, however, because he directed a few sequences of Toad.
This FINAL draft is dated 9/28/48. The film premiered 10/5/49.

Animation by John Lounsbery (Ichabod and villagers), Hal King and Milt Kahl (Brom Bones) with two animal scenes by Volus Jones.
I would say it is fair to suggest that Milt Kahl was the lead on Brom Bones here, with Hal King animating around him.

I say "suggest," because the drafts are, as always, not necessarily correct - thus, my "standard disclaimer" applies:
"Animation drafts were never meant to be historical documents. They were meant as go-to documents, showing the responsible artist for a certain scene, who might be able to help in case there would be any need for this further on in the production line. Therefore we often see e.g. that animators who left have been replaced by others, often their assistants, in later versions of a draft. Also for this reason it is most often the actual animator, not the supervising animator, who is mentioned. The drafts may also be directly inaccurate - showing early assignments where the animator actually changed when the scene was finally handed out. Keeping all this in mind, though, the drafts can give us some sort of hands-on insight into the inner workings of the production of some of the most "magical" (in itself an over-used word) motion pictures of all time." This draft originated (as most of my feature drafts) in the Background Morgue, originally situated in the basement under the Ink & Paint building on the Burbank lot.

Prod. 2062 - Ichabod (I) - Cover

2011-10-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

On this, the 99th anniversary of dear Ollie Johnston's birthday, we will start to look at the Ichabod and Mr. Toad drafts! Beginning with 2062 Ichabod, just because it is first in the title and it fits the time of year. Toad's production number is 2011. Here are the cover and the sequence breakdown on its inside.

Selling Nabisco in 1939

2011-10-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

After a few months of radio silence, here is an item you might find interesting: a piece of promotional line art from "Mickey's Surprise Party," the "made-to-order" film shown in the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) exhibit at the 1939 New York's World's Fair.

This shorter-than short film was first released on video on the VHS release The Spirit of Mickey. Because of the then-current corporate affiliations with competing baking consortiums, Disney opted to (all-to-obviously) re-dub the ending of film with Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor to get rid of the Nabisco references, and they altered the artwork, obliterating the Nabisco labels.

It was restored to its original glory when on December 4th, 2001 it was released as an Easter egg on the first wave of the Walt Disney Treasures DVDs, on Mickey Mouse in Living Color, disc 2.

On Wikipedia we can read: "This is the only Mickey Mouse cartoon, and one of only two Disney cartoons in general to be in the public domain, and is freely distributed across online video websites such as YouTube." Though - I doubt that Disney Legal would see it that way...

Personally, I am still very busy, directing the stop-motion feature Miffy the Movie - but keep an eye on this space, because I promise that within two weeks I will start a new feature film draft, one that may offer some new insight into, well, whodunnit!

Prod. UM19 - Giantland

2011-08-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

Originally called "Mickey and the Giant," the short Giantland was directed by Burt Gillett, released 11/25/1933. Animation by Les Clark, Cy Young, Johnny Cannon, Dick Huemer, Ham Luske (one scene with Dick W[illiams]), Bill Roberts, Fred Moore, Gerry Geronimi, Gilles Armand "Frenchy" de Trémaudan, Ben Sharpsteen, Ugo D'Orsy.

Through the magic of eBay, I was able to get the following modelsheet of the giant, originally the one that Burt Gillett himself had used (see my archives for more on the Burt Gillett "stash").

For those of you following my blog, I am sorry I have had VERY little time to update these past months! I am more busy than ever, directing my stop-motion film, and that takes most all of my time.
I will return here once in a while with more fun things, I promise!

Five years old today...

2011-05-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

It had gone past me, though I meant to mark it:
I have been blogging for five years, starting May 22nd, 2006!

(Thus the "today" in the title is somewhat misleading:
I am actually posting this two days too late. Oh, well...)

May I suggest you check out some of the older postings?

Now my favorite version...

2011-05-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

...of my favorite song! Remember that name: Molly Freer!

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (XX) - Seq. 06.0 - Epilogue

2011-05-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Ham Luske, laid out by Charles Philippi. Assistant director Larry Lansburgh, secretary Ruth Wright.
This final draft dated 9/22/49.

We continue George Rowley's bells from yesterday.
Then Dan MacManus'clock striking twelve.
Cindy and Prince by Les Clark.
King and Duke by Norm Ferguson.
Birds by Don Lusk.

That concludes the draft for Cinderella. With an eye on my usual disclaimer, we can say that the film does keep to a rather strict form for character casting, with few exceptions and few surprises. Still, i am glad to have been able to bring these to light here!

What's next? I really do not know. I am quite busy with the stop-motion movie i am directing. It may take a bit of time before I can get another large item up here. But I WILL be back soon, believe you me!

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (XIX) - Seq. 05.1 - Slipper Fitting (2)

2011-05-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Same production info as yesterday.

We start off this second installment of this sequence with Cindy by Les Clark, Lucifer most likely by Norm Ferguson (!) and mice by Woolie Reitherman and Marvin Woodward. Then a grouping of scenes with Lucifer, Gus and Jaq by Ward Kimball and Cliff Nordberg, interspersed with birds by Don Lusk, while Bruno and the Horse are animated by John Lounsbery.

Dissolve over 32 frames to Stepsisters by Ollie Johnston, Stepmother by Harvey Toombs, the Duke by Hal King with close-ups of the slipper by Ed Aardal. Milt Kahl takes over on the Duke, Ollie Johnston takes the lackey again, Norm Ferguson animates Bruno and the horse. Stepmother by Frank Thomas, and more mice by Woolie Reitherman and one more scene with them by Marvin Woodward. Slipper dissolves into George Rowley's wedding bells...

For those of you who wondered how we knew of Woolie's involvement in the mice's part in this finale, we remember that Frank and Ollie have this sequence on a double page spread in The Illusion of Life.

As to the horse - a few years ago I sang the song "Horse Sense" that was written for him and Bruno but not used in the movie. If that interests you, check out the books on Disney's Lost Chords written by the eminent Russell Schroeder!

[For early readers: excuse my forgetting page 128!]

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (XVIII) - Seq. 05.1 - Slipper Fitting (I)

2011-05-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Gerry Geronimi, laid out by Tom Codrick and Don Griffith. Assistant director Ted Sebern, secretary Marie Dasnoit.
This final draft dated 11/3/49.

First part of this sequence. I need to spread it out a bit...
Duke: Hal King, Harvey Toombs, Milt Kahl
Mice: Marvin Woodward, Woolie Reitherman
Stepmother: Frank Thomas, Harvey Toombs (Hand: George Rowley)
Stepsisters & Lackey: Ollie Johnston
Effects: Ed Aardal

The film seems to be in two parts: a Jackson/Luske beginning, and a Geronimi ending...

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (XVII) - Seq. 05.0 - Cinderella Locked Up

2011-05-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Gerry Geronimi, laid out by Tom Codrick and Don Griffith. Assistant director Ted Sebern, secretary Marie Dasnoit.
This final draft dated 11/2/49.

Cindy: Les Clark
Stepmother: Harvey Toombs, Frank Thomas
Stepsisters: Ollie Johnston
Mice: Marvin Woodward

At last we find that Ollie Johnston has something more substantial to sink his teeth into, sharing scenes with Frank Thomas. The first appearance in this draft of Marvin Woodward!

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (XVI) - Seq. 4.2 - Duke Awakens the King

2011-05-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Gerry Geronimi, laid out by Don DaGradi, Tom Codrick and Don Griffith. Assistant director Ted Sebern, secretary Marie Dasnoit. A whole new production crew takes over.
This final draft dated 11/1/49.

Duke by Frank Thomas, Norm Ferguson, Woolie Reitherman, Milt Kahl
King by Woolie Reitherman, Norm Ferguson.
Town square crowd by Josh Meador

A very enjoyable Duke by Frank. He must have enjoyed animating the caricatured Duke, as a contrast to his very realistic stepmother...

Auction Results!

2011-05-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

The auction has ended!
Some thing didn't sell, some were cheap, some VERY expensive.
Walt's note to Clair Weeks: $11,210.
Sleeping Beauty cell & BG: $94,400!!
Walt's letter to Ub Iwerks: $247,800...

That ends an amazing auction of great animation stuff.
See the results on iCollector.com!

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (XV) - Seq. 4.1 - Clock Strikes

2011-05-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Ham Luske, laid out by Lance Nolley and Ken O'Connor. Assistant director Larry Lansburgh, secretary Ruth Wright.
This final draft dated 11/25/49.

Cindy: Eric Larson, Marc Davis, Hugh Fraser
Prince: Eric Larson, Marc Davis
Duke: Frank Thomas, Hal King
Footman: Judge Whitaker
Mice: Phil Duncan, George Nicholas
Horse & Bruno the Dog: Hugh Fraser
Effects: George Rowley, Josh Meador

Interestingly, Frank and Ollie in their Illusion of Life show the model that layout man Ken O'Connor had made of the coach, which served as model for the animators. Certainly worth having a look at again.

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (XIV) - Seq. 04.0 - King & Duke at Ball

2011-05-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Ham Luske, laid out by Charles Philippi and Lance Nolley. Assistant director Larry Lansburgh, secretary Ruth Wright.
This final draft dated 11/22/49.

King and Duke by Milt Kahl, partly reissued to Hal Ambro
(One scene of Duke by Frank Thomas)
Cindy by Marc Davis
Prince by Eric Larson and Les Clark
Stepmother by Harvey Toombs
Stepsisters by Judge Whitaker
"Girls" by Les Clark
Court Announcer by Fred Moore
Crowd by Luske (Don Lusk again?)
Curtain by George Rowley

Description: "Prince & Cinderella fall in love." Sort of says it all.
Eric Larson's prince is well-drawn but rather stiff. Somewhere in between the prince in Snow White and Milt's Prince Philip in Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella's prince has very little business. A song and a dance - and a bit of yawning.
Milt's King and Duke are, of course, excellent!

Yesterday's post disappeared for over a day as Blogger had severe maintenance problems. I am sorry about that, I couldn't help it. Anyway, I restored it, so happy reading!

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (XIII) - Seq. 03.0 - Fairy Godmother

2011-05-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

With a BIBBIDI - - - BOBBIDI - - - BOO!!!

Directed by Ham Luske, laid out by Ken O'Connor and Charles Philippi. Assistant director Larry Lansburgh, secretary Ruth Wright.
This revised final draft dated 1/20/50.

After Cindy's total abjection, we prepare for her evil stepmother's comeuppance with great relish and a classic musical number, this time directed by Ham Luske and animated by:
Cinderella: Marc Davis
Fairy Godmother: Milt Kahl, Hal Ambro ("will co-animate")
Mice: Fred Moore and (transfigurating) Don Lusk
Reanimated pumpkin: George Rowley
Horse & Dog: Hugh Fraser, John Lounsbery, Fred Moore, Jerry Hathcock - and incl. Birds: Luske. I guess this is Don Lusk.
(Luske or Lusk - throughout Frank & Ollie's book "Too Funny For Words" they credit Don Lusk as Don Luske...)

Great, controlled animation by Milt Kahl and Marc Davis, based on stats, but knowing them, only for reference. George Rowley's pumpkin animation is a classic piece of effects animation. But for the actual credits on the transfiguration of the characters, there is nothing better than just looking at above pages - otherwise, however I try to write them, it still seems confusing to me.

Remember to check out Michael Sporn's great postings on Cinderella!

Again, if you can't find your DVD, I found this on YouTube:

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (XII) - Seq. 2.5 - Sisters' Bedroom

2011-05-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Ham Luske, laid out by Lance Nolley and Ken O'Connor. Assistant director Larry Lansburgh, secretary Ruth Wright.
This REVISED final draft dated 11/23/49.

Cindy: Les Clark (shadow), Eric Larson, Marc Davis
Stepmother: Frank Thomas, Harvey Toombs
Stepsisters: Judge Whitaker - Close-ups by Marc Davis
Birds: Don Lusk
Effects: Josh Meador and George Rowley

The extreme abjection of Cindy happens here in extreme close-ups by Marc Davis. With Cindy, our hopes were up - we saw a chance for her - and now it is all dragged through the mud; her dress in tatters, she cannot get any lower. We really hate the stepmother and stepsisters for doing this. "Goodnight..." Poor Cinderelly!

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (XI) - Seq. 2.4 - Dress Building

2011-05-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

More music, thus again directed by Jaxon, laid out by Mac Stewart. Assistant director Mike Holoboff, secretary "Toby" Tobelman.
This final draft dated 10/5/49.

Mice and birds: Hugh Fraser, John Lounsbery, George Nicholas,
Don Lusk and Fred Moore
Cindy: Marc Davis and Les Clark
Stepmother's shadow: Harvey Toombs
Stepsisters' shadows: Judge Whitaker
Lucifer: John Lounsbery and Charles Nichols

This is, of course, the second part of the most famous bit of this film. I always enjoyed scene 231 where the girl mouse threads the needle by sticking her whole arm through it. Another wonderful Fred Moore scene.

Yesterday's YouTube clip includes the second part of this sequence. The first part is often removed in compilation edits, obviously with the feeling that the exposition is uninteresting, keeping only the fun with the mice building the dress.

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (X) - Seq. 2.3 - Work Fantasy (Mice Sing Work Song)

2011-05-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jaxon, laid out by Mac Stewart. Assistant director Mike Holoboff, secretary "Toby" Tobelman.
This final draft dated 10/12/49.

A classic, musical sequence, best left to Wilfred Jaxon.
We start off with Cindy by Eric Larson and birds and mice by Don Lusk; Phil Duncan takes over. When the part that we all know so well from Christmas shows etc. ("Poor Cinderelly - Every time she find a minute...") starts, it's John Lounsbery (Gus & Jaq) and Hal King (Suzy and girl mice), complimented by George (Nick) Nicholas and Fred Moore - last scene by Hugh Fraser. Effects by George Rowley.

I always liked the pantomime in Scene 63 - it's classic Fred Moore.

If you can't find your DVD, I found this on YouTube:

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (IX) - Seq. 2.1 - Bubble Sequence and Music Lesson

2011-05-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Ham Luske, laid out by Lance Nolley and Ken O'Connor. Assistant director Larry Lansburgh, secretary Ruth Wright.
This final draft dated 11/25/49.

Stepsisters: Judge Whitaker and Phil Duncan,
Stepmother: Harvey Toombs and (supervisor) Frank Thomas,
Lucifer by Cliff Nordberg
Cinderella: Eric Larson, Marc Davis and Les Clark,
(her feet by George Rowley),
mice: Phil Duncan and George Nicholas and the
Lackey in one scene by Ollie Johnston.
Bubbles by Josh Meador.

It could look like scenes 101 to 121 have been added after the sequence was originally planned (it even mentions specifically that scene 1 of Draft #1 is out of the picture). It would just have started with the stepsisters singing horribly, then Cindy coming in with a message. Adding the start we see even better how Cindy is abused - and how she takes it in her stride. We like her more. We also witness the arrival of the message, and see Cindy sing beautifully.

Scene 108, the 40 second (and one frame) bubble scene is, of course, the highlight of this sequence. Some call it the highlight of the film. The writings here are interesting: "BLOW DOWNS on girls in bubbles" and "WASH OFF will have many blow down sizes." Wash off? Anyway, Marc Davis starts this sequence (10 1/2 sec), Eric Larson continues it (14 1/3 sec). "Animator to use own repeats..."

I think that the numbers below the descriptions are the takes and frames of the (rotoscope) live-action. So "Sc.1025 T-2 00394-00466" would be Scene 1025 (which includes material for several different scenes of this sequence), take 2, frames 394 to 466. From 394 to 466 are 73 frames. The scene is 4-08 ft, which is 72 frames. Erh...

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (VIII) - Seq. 02.0 - Introduction of King & Duke

2011-05-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Ham Luske, laid out by Charles Philippi, Lance Nolley and Ken O'Connor. Assistant director Larry Lansburgh, secretary Ruth Wright. This final draft dated 8/2/49.

Animation by Norm Ferguson, Woolie Reitherman, Cliff Nordberg and one scene by Marc Davis; effects by George Rowley (breaking glass - did he do pigeons, too?)

Marc Davis doing hands and bookends???
I wonder how Woolie and Cliff Nordberg shared their scenes...

I must admit I am surprised that these drafts are not gathering more readers. Especially since this IS the first time this information is put out in the open. Anyway, and as always, feel free to comment!

Thanks as always to John V., Zartok-35 and Steven Hartley!
Without you guys I'd feel I'd only be posting these to myself...

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (VII) - Seq. 01.6 - Serving Breakfast

2011-05-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

The last sequence in the first segment directed by Jaxon, laid out by Mac Stewart. Assistant director Mike Holoboff, secretary "Toby" Tobelman. This final draft dated 10/27/49.

Cindy again by Eric Larson, Cat and mice by Kimball. Then halfway, when Frank Thomas animates the Stepmother, Les Clark takes over some of Cindy's scenes and John Lounsbery animates Lucifer - smug at first, then a big take as he hears he is to be bathed. Again a few shadows by George Rowley.

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (VI) - Seq. 01.5 - Shell Game

2011-05-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jaxon, laid out by Mac Stewart. Assistant director Mike Holoboff, secretary "Toby" Tobelman.
This final draft dated 10/26/49.

Animation: Lucifer and mice by Phil Duncan and Ward Kimball, Cindy by Eric Larson and call bells by Blaine Gibson.

Here we basically have two separate masterpieces of entertainment: Phil Duncan's fun business with the mice and the corn, and Kimball's "shell game." One could argue that this is what character animation really is about, at least for very caricatured characters like Lucifer and the mice...

Here is a cel setup, minus Gus, from this sequence - scene 32, animated by Phil Duncan.

(Item #383)

It is for sale at the upcoming auction on May 14th. [Did not sell!]

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (V) - Seq. 01.4 - Mice Decoy Cat

2011-05-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jaxon, laid out by Mac Stewart. Assistant director Mike Holoboff, secretary "Toby" Tobelman.
This final draft dated 10/10/49.

Much of this is Ward Kimball's sequence, with (rather surprisingly) a few scenes by Fred Moore. The animation is credited thus: Cindy by Eric Larson (her hands by Ed Aardal). Lucifer the Cat by Fergie, Hugh Fraser, Phil Duncan and Ward Kimball. Mice by John Lounsbery, Hugh Fraser, Fred Moore and Ward Kimball. Chickens by Don Lusk.

And now you know the names of the other mice! We not only have Gus and Jaq, but also Luke, Mert and Burt.

[Quick note: I may not be able to moderate new comments until some time Friday.]

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (IV) - Seq. 01.2 - Introduction (part 2)

2011-05-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

Second part of the introduction. More Cindy by Marc Davis, Les Clark and Eric Larson. Mice by Ward Kimball, cat and mice by Phil Duncan, cat and dog by Norm Ferguson. One scene with Stepmother by Frank Thomas, two times shadow effects by George Rowley.

I really like the cat - and in this case, it isn't Ward Kimball who animated him, Phil Duncan and Fergie did! The entire sequence is wonderfully character-driven, and shows the predicament that Cindy is in - and her way of coping with it.

As always, if you are in doubt how many seconds the footage is, you can use the Calculation fields in the right sidebar! Note that footage needs to be entered in the top right-hand box in a certain format: e.g. '6-08' (6 feet 8 frames) must be entered as '006-08' (without the quotes). Then press next to the fields to see the result in frames. Enter this in the second line on the left to see mm:ss:fr (minutes, seconds and frames. (These functions use JavaScript).

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (III) - Seq. 01.2 - Introduction (part 1)

2011-05-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

First part of the introduction, directed by Jaxon, laid out by Mac Stewart. Assistant director Mike Holoboff, secretary "Toby" Tobelman. This final draft dated 9/26/49.

Animation: birds by Don Lusk, Cindy by Eric Larson, Marc Davis and Les Clark, mice by Hal King, Phil Duncan and Ward Kimball, effects by George Rowley and Ed Aardal.

"A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" is doubtlessly one of the standards of the Disney opus, a fine song my Mack David, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston. Cindy is here animated by Eric Larson, the birds by Don Lusk and the mice by Hal King. A classic that I even hear our CG animators hum once in a while - out of the blue.

The other half of this sequence follows tomorrow...

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (II) - Seq. 01.1 - Prologue

2011-05-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Here we go. The Prologue, directed and laid out by John Hench and McLaren "Mac" Stewart. Assistant director Mike Holoboff, secretary Toby, most likely Eloise "Toby" Tobelman (whose office was next to Holoboff). This final draft dated 11/2/49.

Disney writers Bill Peet, Ed Penner, Ted Sears, Winston Hibler, Homer Brightman, Harry Reeves, Ken Anderson and Joe Rinaldi adapted the Cinderella story from the original written by French author Charles Perrault. Credited as directors were Clyde "Gerry" Geronimi, Wilfred "Jaxon" Jackson and Hamilton "Ham" Luske. Ben Sharpsteen supervised the production; Don Halliday edited the film.

In contrast to most other Disney features which used on-staff composers, music and lyrics for Cinderella were written by well-known song-smiths Mack David, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston. The score was written by Oliver "Ollie" Wallace and Paul J. Smith, orchestrated by Joseph "Joe" Dubin and Edward H. "Ed" Plumb, with as Vocal arranger Lyn Murray. Music editor was Al Teeter.

Back to the prologue: one could argue that it possibly really was directed by Jaxon, who had Holoboff as his assistant director (and Toby as his secretary) but why would they write differently then?
We can see that John Hench was responsible for the first scenes, with animation by Eric Larson (Cindy), Frank Thomas (stepmother), Ollie Johnston (stepsisters) and Don Lusk (birds), with effects by George Rowley and Dan McManus.

The scene numbering is interesting:
1-2-3-4-(no 5 through 50)-51-52-53-54-55-56.
Was the original sc. 5 subdivided into six scenes?

As always, my "Standard Disclaimer" applies:

"Animation drafts were never meant to be historical documents. They were meant as go-to documents, showing the responsible artist for a certain scene, who might be able to help in case there would be any need for this further on in the production line. Therefore we often see e.g. that animators who left have been replaced by others, often their assistants, in later versions of a draft. Also for this reason it is most often the actual animator, not the supervising animator, who is mentioned. The drafts may also be directly inaccurate - showing early assignments where the animator actually changed when the scene was finally handed out. Keeping all this in mind, though, the drafts can give us some sort of hands-on insight into the inner workings of the production of some of the most "magical" (in itself an over-used word) motion pictures of all time." The annotations on this copy were made in 1964 when the Background Morgue (where this copy is from) was keeping track of its inventory. Not too much writing, though.

Talking of drafts - did you check out the mosaics that were made for these? Here are the features that I know of thus far (note that Mark Mayerson also posted many short film mosaics):

Pinocchio - Mark Mayerson
Fantasia - Steven Hartley
Dumbo - Mark Mayerson
Alice in Wonderland - Steven Hartley
Sleeping Beauty - Chris Doyle (still working on it!)
101 Dalmatians - Mark Mayerson

A lot of work went into making these, so they are certainly worth your time checking them out. And on these, my own pages, you can find the original documents that these features and most short mosaics were made from (82 short film drafts so far!) Check out the Category Labels in the right sidebar. You may find things you didn't know you couldn't live without knowing about! How about original transcripts of so far 19 different lectures from the 30's?

Prod. 2063 - Cinderella (I) - Draft coming up next!

2011-04-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

(Item #33)

This one is up for grabs, too, signed by Walt and all. Paint a bit chipped, but that can probably be repaired...

Ok - enough about the great auction coming up: how about we see who animated what on Cinderella? Starting tomorrow, we'll find out!

Today, we see the front page of this draft, which originally came from the BG morgue that was situated under the Ink & Paint building, as well as the inside of the cover: the list of sequences and a separate list marked "cels" which is stuck to this cover. It does not mention what this list was for.

This will be the twelfth feature film draft on this blog! Enjoy!

Auction (XI) - Horvath

2011-04-29T08:00:00.001-07:00

(Item #274)
[Did not sell.]

In the upcoming auction, we saw works of Mary Blair, Gustaf Tenggren and Kay Nielsen. One of the least famous of the Great Inspirational Artists of the Disney studios has so far been missing in this list: Ferdinand Huszti Horvath. (Well, and Al Hurter, too).

Horvath is represented in the auction with above artwork. On the web, one can read: "Born in Budapest, Hungary on Aug. 28, 1891. Horvath was primarily a book illustrator. He lived in Hollywood, CA in 1937-47 and died in Riverside, CA on Nov. 11, 1973." After the outbreak of WWII, he worked for American Aviation and the Howard Hughes, "in a technical capacity on confidential designs." Joe Campagna found out that Horvath was buried in Hemet, CA.

In 1976, Russ Cochran sold a whole lot of Horvath's drawings, and issued a magazine collecting his works, Graphic Gallery 8.

In it, we find these:

First page at $150 per drawing, the other two pages at $250 each... Those were the days!

One of the most interesting things in this 54 page magazine, though, I found to be the following, directly copied from Horvath's scrapbook:


SURPRISE IN GAGS

by Ferdinand H. Horvath

In m.m.o. (here and hereafter this abbreviation stands for: "my modest opinion") the most effective gags are those that will take the audience by complete surprise. The absurdity of the situation is an important factor.
Take for instance Captain Noah (in an old Fable Cartoon) diving overboard his ark to save his crew. Nobody in the audience knows what his purpose might be going overboard. We follow him to the bottom of the waters keying up suspense. He reaches the bottom and without much fumbling, pulls out a plug. The flood waters start to whirl and to drain off rapidly in the best bathtub fashion, and the water running from beneath the ark leaves it high and dry atop a convenient cliff. I have never seen any gag yet in all these years that went over in a bigger way.

This in m.m.o. is a typical example of a surprise gag: it seems logical, there seems nothing impossible about it, it is easily put over, clearly comprehensible to anyone, and yet the audience would expect anything else in the world to happen but that. There was no prop visible that would have given the gag away. It is for this reason that I think that gags of this sort are always superior to gags that necessarily need a lot of planting. Gags around convenient props that naturally lend themselves to gag situations are more or less anticipated by the audience. Take a sack of potatoes spilled on the cellar floor, and you will expect'some character to take a spill when coming in contact with them. Flypaper ditto...precariously balanced dishes...garden rake to be stepped upon.

Referring to some outstanding gag sequences, which were also mentioned in the "gag tip sheet", as for instance Pluto's skating sequence, Mickey with the rubber nipple, and Pluto1s flypaper sequence — all of these in m.m.o. are only mildly funny as gags themselves but they do offer good chances to the animator. However it depends on the animation whether a sequence of this sort will appear funny or not. Pluto is known as a clumsy.dog. Add Pluto, plus skates, plus ice and it takes no imagination to expect him to slide about, tumble, and do most of the things he actually did. Introduce Pluto and the flypaper and you know that he is apt to get tangled up with it. Anticipation gratified to the nth degree. Mickey with the overworked nipple gag is another example.

It has become more or less a rule to take any awkward character to place him near enough to something that might trip him, or punch him or cause him other bodily discomforts the audience will anticipate such, and it will be dished out to them ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

Good surprise gags, well timed, and not being touched off to order when the audience expects it are the laugh getters, because they keep you on edge in expectant mood, they keep you guessing and fool you in the end. (As a fine example I want to mention the little pig unexpectedly reopening the door to pull the "Welcome" mat in.)

Take a gag situation in one of our recent pictures (The Clock Cleaners which at the writing of these lines has not been released yet) The Goof, after being knocked coocoo by too much Liberty, walks in a daze over exposed scaffolding, narrow ledges, etc. He finally walks toward the camera on a horizontal ladder, on which very evidently one of the rungs is missing. Everybody chuckles in advance waiting for the Goof to step into space when he will have advanced far enough to set his foot on the missing rung. Sure enough the Goof does exactly that. It is funny as it is, because the whole sequence is so very well animated, and it surely won't misfire, but in m.m.o. we passed up a completely ideal surprise gag situation. It might have been so much funnier if one of the rungs, two or three notches ahead of the gaping hole would have given away, and the Goof would have dropped quite unexpectedly. Or after stepping safely over the hole caused by the previously established missing rung when naturally everybody expected him to drop into space, have him negotiate this dangerous spot successfully, keep him going for one or two more steps and then have a rung break afterwards when nobody would expect it. Here would be surprise, because people kind of expect him to fall where he won't. There would be a laugh when the Goof failed to fall through the most logical trap in the world the audience would laugh at being knowingly kidded, and then there would be immediately another laugh probably a much heartier laugh, after the Goof promptly broke through when everybody thought him safe. This, I believe illustrates clearly how a gag can be improved by its unexpectedness and correct timing.

Outline No. 10 dealing with the Fox Hunt pointed out as an example one of my gags in that picture: the fox, hard pressed by the pack of dumb hounds, suddenly slides to a stop (I hope without screeching brakes this time), and starts to scratch. The dogs do the same. If I am not dead wrong this gag should get a laugh because it comes as a complete surprise, is natural action and totally absurd at the same time. The audience does expect the fox to outwit the pack, to dive, to dodge, to double back and trick the dogs in numerous ways but they will hardly expect him to play follow the leader.

February 22, 1937     F. H. Horvath

Now - I don't think he is COMPLETELY right in this, but it certainly is worth considering!!!

Auction (X) - A Note from Walt

2011-04-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

(Item #445)

A few years ago, the ASIFA Animation Archives presented the Clair Weeks Goodbye Book: in August(*) 1952, assistant animator Clair Weeks, who started at Disney in 1936, left the studio on an invitation to start India's first animation studio, in Bombay. On the eve of his leaving, he found above note on his desk...
Another fine item found in the upcoming auction!

In revisiting the ASIFA Archives, I noticed a blog posting dated two days ago: Animation Archive Temporarily Suspending Operation - I’m sorry to announce that due to lack of funding, the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is temporarily suspending operation.
I am aware that opinions about these archives and its leadership are quite strong in either direction. I must say that for some years I felt that the archive's blog's focus should have been more on animation-archive work than on rather obscure illustrators, so as to arouse interest in animation instead of giving the impression that it wasn't in itself interesting enough to concentrate on - but that is my personal feeling about it. Anyway, let's all not comment here on the archives, just take note of its situation. And let's not forget they presented us with nice scans of above mentioned Goodbye Book and of Jerry Beck's copy of the first edition of Preston Blair's book Advanced Animation!

(*) Note that the Clair Weeks book is dated August 1952 on the cover, but the only dates found inside are from September 2nd. 1952, so the above note could well be of that date, which by the way was about half a year before Peter Pan was released.

[Sold for $11,210 incl. 'Buyer's Premium...']

Auction (IX) - Ub Iwerks (II)

2011-04-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

(Item #448)

So - Ub Iwerks arrived in Hollywood and started at Disney Bros. Studio in July 1924, as we saw yesterday. The upcoming auction has another landmark document for sale, one that, I believe, has had as big an impact on the Disney future as did the fact of Ub arriving: on January 22nd, 1930, while Walt was in New York negotiating with Pat Powers, Ub quit the studio! Roy Disney then had him sign the release (note: he signed "Ubbe E. Iwwerks"), witnessed by his would-be successor Burt Gillett and an Edythe Vosburgh, and calculated his part of the studio as $2,920, for his share that now would have been worth billions of dollars. These are the papers up for sale!

As animator, Ub's resentment with the studio seems to partly have stemmed from Walt re-timing his drawings, something that may seem trivial to anyone but those in the business. Some artists deal with this matter-of-factly, others go through the roof. It seems Ub kept most of this to himself, then, just as he was about to boil over, he was offered a studio to run, so he resigned.

The whole deal with the new studio had been misrepresented to Ub, who at the time of his resignation wasn't aware that Pat Powers had orchestrated it all. This made him sorry about the whole thing from the start. Walt had a hard time being cross at Ub, just mentioning that the poor guy didn't know what he was in for, as he was no businessman. This turned out eventually to be proven correct, and Ub's studio folded after half a decade with Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper. In 1940, through the intervention of Ben Sharpsteen, he returned to the Disneys, becoming the renowned special effects wizard famed for his optical trickery and inventiveness. When he passed away in 1971, he had left a legacy (and several sons in the business) that will stand through the ages. Of course, you can see all about Ub in his grand-daughter Leslie's wonderful documentary, or read about him in Leslie and John Kenworthy's great book "The Hand Behind the Mouse."

Now for the part that interests me most, but may be most contentious: it is my sincere opinion that, just like Ub's arrival in 1924, his leaving Disney in 1930 was arguably the best thing that could have happened for the studio, where everyone relied on his facile draftsmanship and animation expertize. All of a sudden, from January 1930, the good folks at the studio had to figure out things for themselves! The film Just Mickey, a.k.a. Fiddlin' Around, shows a definite low point in the studio artists' abilities. The film was released a month late and was by all standards below par. It wasn't for lack of trying: I have a flippable stack of animation drawings from this film that shows they worked very hard on it! But they had lost a lot of knowledge when Ub left.

From that moment, one could call it the beginning of the Golden Age of Animation, any little advance in the art and craft of animation registered with the crew, any invention was considered ground-breaking. One of the greatest proponents of this was Norm Ferguson, who became the big innovator, and not only by being the first to use moving holds: eventually he was the first to show the inner life of the characters in his famous Pluto and the Fly Paper sequence. Had Ub remained with Walt, I doubt if we would have seen these advances; I doubt we would have seen the growth from the low in mid 1930 trough the beginnings of Snow White in 1934 to its premiere in 1937.

On the other hand, would Ub have been able to remain at the studio throughout the 30s when eventually his style went out of vogue? Would he later have become the renowned effects wizard anyway?
We will never know. On the other hand, Ub Iwerks doubtlessly deserves our sincere respect, a legend of the animation industry.

For many of you out there: Happy Second Day of Easter!

Auction (VIII) - Ub Iwerks (I)

2011-04-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter, Friends!

(Item #450)

Today we look at Ub Iwerks, who is, of course, all over my blog.
Ub and Walt Disney went back a long way in Kansas City between 1920 and 1923 when Walt left for Hollywood. Then in 1924, June 14th to be exact, Walt wrote a letter to Ub, suggesting how he could get to California, all expenses paid. Recently shown on Cartoon Brew, this landmark letter is now up for sale at the upcoming auction!

Ub had already made up his mind when Walt wrote this happy letter to him asking him not to change his mind about it. One can clearly read how small the studio was - Walt and one assistant doing all drawings, two girls inking and painting, and Roy doing the books -
Disney Bros. had quite a way to go to becoming the empire of today!

On the last page, "The boys at the Arabian Knights" refers to the Arabian Nights studio ("A Thousand and One Laughs") formed by Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising and Max Maxwell, the "left-overs" of Laugh-O-grams, Walt's K.C. studio, who started their own outfit after Walt left, buying their equipment and furniture from the estate. Harman and Ising would later join Walt, of course, and then have their own illustrious careers as starters of several other famous animation studios.

The ending of the letter is maybe most famous: "Don't hesitate - Do it now - P.D.Q. [Pretty Darn Quick] - P.S. I wouldn't live in K.C. now if you gave me the place - yep - you bet - Hooray for Hollywood - !!"

After reading the letter, he packed up his mother and traveled Out West, in Virginia Davis' father's Cadillac, as suggested by Walt in the letter. The auction catalog sports two fun images of Ub and his car, but I do not know enough about cars to say that this is that Cadillac...

[Sold for $247,800 incl. 'Buyer's Premium...']

Auction (VII) - Kay Nielsen

2011-04-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

(Item #427)

Another famous illustrator of children's books who made inspirational works for the Disney studio was, of course, Danish Kay Nielsen.
I have previously written about him (first here, then here and here), announcing a new book about him, which has since been delayed and delayed. I can see it is now scheduled for October 2011. Over four years late...

I admit I like the above Fantasia storyboards for the Night on Bald Mountain sequence more than the horseman concept for that same sequence:

(Item #428)

but opinions may differ on that point. All are worthy of a loving home, which I am sure the upcoming auction will provide them.
[But no: none of Nielsen's works sold!]

Auction (VI) - Gustaf Tenggren

2011-04-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

Gustaf Tenggren -
Was he right or left-handed?
<< Image from auction catalog, and
...as seen elsewhere on the web. >>

Gustaf Adolf Tenggren (1896-1970) is a legend not only in Disney lore, but in children's book illustration, as well. Aged 22 he took over the Swedish series Blandt Tomtar Och Troll after the famous John Bauer who died in a Swedish lake in a storm in 1918.

Tenggren moved to the US after a successful exhibition of his works in 1920, never to return to Sweden again, and in 1936 was hired by Walt Disney to make inspirational works for his feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, followed by Pinocchio, as well as several short films. He left Disney in 1940 and would never paint in the Rackham-Bauer inspired style again: from 1942 to 1962 he made a name illustrating many Little Golden Books.

(Item #394)
[Sold for $70,800!]

The first inspirational painting up for auction that I show here, is very much of the type that Tenggren is most well known for: a colorful rendition of how a sequence in Pinocchio might look. Pinocchio, as a real puppet with donkey ears and mitten hands (very typical Tenggren), under water asking the way to Monstro the Whale where he will find his "father" Geppetto.

(Item #400)[Did not sell!]

The second Tenggren item up for auction is more eclectic. It is a layout for the opening scene that transports us from the "Wishing Star" to Geppetto's house. Pencil on punched animation paper, with highlights in white paint and signed by the artist himself. Also note the pan indications for camera!

A famous scene, but in an early stage, not designed as a Multiplane shot. The final version actually has a longer, rather more intricate pan, which distorts perspective even more and gets away from the muddle of rooftops before getting to Geppetto's street where it can zoom in on his house from Jiminy Cricket's low, hopping point of view. (For the final version, see halfway down this page).

<< Click on them!

Yet, we HAVE seen a final rendering of the above pencil sketch - I just found one here, which I blatantly copied for my example, on the left - which I believe (but cannot right now verify, I will check) was used as illustration for a Pinocchio book. How this fits with the pencil drawing up for auction you can see in the image on the right: except for adding a bit on the bottom, and the position of the baby hanging from the stork's beak on the weather vane, it fits pretty darn well!

I noticed that the color illustration was probably lifted from one of Hans Bacher's great blogs. Here, you'll also find a good image of the final pan background, as laid out by Ken O'Connor. It seems all the non-auction images I show here ultimately originate from John Canemaker's great book "Before the Animation Begins," and the photo of Tenggren is from there, as well - left handed!

(Remember to click on the images for a version in a better resolution than the ones in the auction catalog!)

IMPORTANT: the artwork that is for sale in the upcoming auction will be on display in the Van Eaton Galleries in Sherman Oaks, California, from May 2nd through the 13th!

If I sound like an ad for Van Eaton Galleries, please note that I have no affiliation with them whatsoever - except that I have bought some incredible things from Mike, and I want to help get the word out on this auction, as there is some incredible stuff in there!

Auction (V) - A Little Milt Moment

2011-04-21T03:00:00.001-07:00

(Item #683)
[Did not sell.]

Milt Kahl, the "Michelangelo of animation," seems to have been proudest of his creation of Madame Medusa for the 1977 feature film The Rescuers.

The upcoming auction has above sheet up for grabs. It is Milt's thumbnail staging of a sequence where Medusa tells her henchman Snoops (a caricature of animation historian John Culhane) that he is too soft. Most drawings are of Snoops, and they show Milt's way of sorting out possible drawing problems - they show Milt's way of working in a quite interesting way.

E.g. see the Snoops in the bottom center: you see his mouth through his hand that is in front of his face. First Milt would have drawn the complete face; then he put the hand in front, carefully covering his mouth completely. I say this, because I know plenty of people who would have thought to not draw the mouth as "it won't show anyway."

Milt's control of shapes is, of course as phenomenal as it is legendary. Look at the simplicity of the shapes of Snoops' hands and fingers on the last drawing!

Check out the incomparable Michael Barrier's interview with Milt Kahl!

Auction (IV) - Politically Incorrect...?

2011-04-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

Remember the Disney shareholder meeting of last month? When asked "When will Song of the South come out on DVD" (by a well-informed person who had heard from Dave Bosschert that the film was restored and ready to be released), CEO Bob Iger said:
Now - I captured this - and you know the very first thing my software captured? Intro music - yes, you guessed it! "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah!!!" What are these people thinking? I revisited the film recently, and found that only the white people were "portrayed unfavorably," in this sweet story from the Restoration era, the period after the Civil War, after slavery was abolished. James Baskett, who so wonderfully portrayed Uncle Remus, received an Academy Award®! Walt Disney and his crew put a lot of effort into making this film! Enough said...
(Let's not make this a political discussion!)

(Item #691)
[Sold for $8,850]

The catalog of the upcoming auction shows a nice painting by Mary Blair of Bre'r Rabbit hopping on his way into the world, with bold strokes in an otherwise rather subdued watercolor. I find it more appealing than one of the many other Mary Blair items -

(Item #679)
[Sold for $7,080]

Johnny Appleseed - though he certainly has more gumption than the boyish old man from the final film...

Auction (III) - another Technicolor Example

2011-04-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

Here is another example from the upcoming auction, item #485, a nice, colorful background from the 1939 Donald Duck short The Autograph Hound.

Just as yesterday's example (with explanation), the original on the left, the "streched in Photoshop" version on the right. And again, the left version looks fine by itself, but compared to the stretched version it looks rather bleak.

I do need to add that on top of the background there would probably be four levels of cels, subduing the colors even more. Thus is becomes even more evident how much influence the Technicolor process in itself must have had!

A technical aside: in Photoshop's "Levels..." I have not even gone as far as choosing levels of 63 and 192 as one could suspect indicated by Sam Armstrong's lecture, since the whites would be burnt out. Still, with four levels of cels on top, it might start to make sense!

[Sold for $5,150 incl. 'Buyer's Premium...']

Auction (II) - a Technicolor Example

2011-04-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

I have previously talked about the use of Technicolor and how the artwork shot in animation was adapted to its use on the screen. This page has a document transcription from a 1936 Disney art class that explains just that. An example from the upcoming auction can maybe clarify this a little, as well. Here are two versions of item #21, a background from the great "Mr. Duck Steps Out," the 1939 short of which I posted the draft back in May 2006.

The left image is a regular scan of this wonderful background. What one notices is, that there is less contrast than one would expect to see in a movie background. I read in an explanation by Sam Armstrong (in a transcript I thought I had posted, but which seems to be on my to-do list) that the painters were asked to paint anything between around 25% to 75% of the color array. Technicolor would then stretch it out to from 0% (black) to 100% (white). Thus - no real whites and no real blacks; the painting gets a very elegant veil of low-contrast spread over it. Or graphically:

The right image is a "fake" I made in Photoshop: I noticed that the histogram had no peaks in left and right, so I stretched it using "Levels" which would do approximately what Technicolor did at least in its most basic form. We get a bright, very colorful image, which, if nothing else, I think goes to make my point.

Admittedly, the image on the left, the background as-is that is up for auction, would look prettier on my wall than the bright spray of colors I generated...
[This beautiful background did not sell at the auction!]

Amazing Auction Coming Up!

2011-04-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday, May 14th, 2011, at 10 am PDT, the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills. Mark that date, time and place: it is when one of the most significant animation auctions of these times will be held by Profiles in History!

Well, maybe not the greatest catalog cover, but still...

Mike van Eaton, everybody's favorite gallery owner and "the least offensive of all animation art sellers," whom through my dealings with him I would even dare call a friend, made me aware of this about a week ago, but I have been so very busy I have not had a second to properly look into this, only noting that some AMAZING things are going to change hands, like Walt Disney's 1924 letter luring Ub Iwerks from Kansas City to Hollywood or the 1930 document that released Ub as partner of Walt and Roy. Truly iconic material! It is my plan to show a few of MY favorite things here in the next days, well, basically so you know what to get me for Christmas.

Why, yes - I AM busy, thank you for noticing! I am currently directing a stop-motion feature movie called Miffy the Movie about a cute bunny girl originally drawn in Dutch graphic artist Dick Bruna's appealingly simple style, predating a certain Japanese kitty by some 20 years - and her friends. We are still in the start-up phase, so, yes, I'm busy, busy, busy! That's why I have not posted anything for nearly two months: not that I do not want to! Anyway, back to the auction...

The catalog is online, but I would like to highlight a few things, as I said, and I notice I have some of these items in a little higher resolution, as well, so here is a sample.

This is an original pencil model sheet for the 1933 Mickey Mouse short Mickey's Mechanical Man of which I have posted the draft nearly five years ago. I remember seeing this at Comic-Con in Mike's booth and wishing to myself that I at least could have a good scan of it to study and to post here! (#454)

Backgrounds to animated films are obviously much rarer than cels. Here is one from the 1935 Mickey's Service Station, the penultimate black-and-white Mickey short. (#482)

By the way, to indicate how very little time I have had to even browse the internet these days, I have NO idea if any of my fellow animation-history bloggers have recounted lots of these things already. I suspect they would have jumped on it many days ago, and honestly - that would only be GREAT, as I hope the auction will be a great success. Just don't bid on anything I might bid on!

Hearing Børge Ring Play

2011-02-25T17:00:00.000-08:00

Makin' Whoopee! played by Børge Ring in 1978.

This music means a lot to me! It was the opening of the March 1978 tv program called "Aan de Grenzen" (On the Borders) by Veronica tv presenter Tineke Vos, about Børge Ring's animation and Jazz music, and his wife Joanika's scuptures. It presented a film that was just finished called "Oh My Darling" before it went across the globe, winning the Jury Prize in Cannes and an Oscar nomination, to boot.

This was the very first time I heard of Børge as animator/film maker. Previously, I only knew that he drew a comic strip "Distel" for the magazine "Sjors." At the end of the program it listed among other things the town where Børge lived then, and to my surprise, it was only some three miles away from where I (then a 16 years old High School kid) lived, so I boldly called him up and asked if I could meet him, wanting to learn all I could about animation.

[From Wikipedia: "Makin' Whoopee!" is a jazz/blues song, first popularized by Eddie Cantor in the 1928 musical Whoopee!. Walter Donaldson wrote the music and Gus Kahn the lyrics for the song as well as for the entire musical.]
This is the beginning of the song, 58 seconds. Tineke asks Børge: "What do all Jazz musicians have in common?" to which he answers "Love for Jazz."

Børge Ring is 90 today!

2011-02-16T15:00:00.001-08:00

A Very Happy Birthday, Børge!

In Holland and Denmark, it just turned Thursday February 17th 2011, the 90th birthday of my old mentor Børge Ring. He isn't smiling for the picture: the little guilded man he is holding is really heavy!

As film maker, Børge created (among numerous other things) the short films "Oh My Darling," "Anna & Bella" and "Run of the Mill" as well as the animated series "Anton." As jazz musician he played guitar and bass with famous bands like Leo Mathisen and Svend Asmussen, just to name a few. A little paragraph like this cannot do Børge justice in either field, as he has filled them both since the late 1930s! In 1952 he moved to Holland to work for the Marten Toonder Studios; after 20 years there he went freelance. Now turning 90, Børge slowed down, but his mind is still one of the sharpest around!

Above picture I took a few days ago, to be precise last Sunday, when I visited Børge in his and his wife Joanika's home in Holland, chewing the fat for too few hours. Børge told me the great news that he currently has the Academy Award "on loan," won for his film "Anna & Bella," on which I, too, wore many hats, including as editor, assistant director, cel painter and doing some animation, as well.

I am thus also proud to have a picture of the three of us together, after all these many years: the film had its first screening in August 1984 in the Dutch city of Haarlem during an intermission in the wonderful program presented by the great Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. I had been in Denmark only two weeks working on the feature film Valhalla when I had to come back to Holland for the proceedings I had organized. It gave me great pleasure to be able to invite Børge to peruse the musea of Amsterdam with Frank and Ollie.
Of course it was Børge who first introduced me to the Valhalla studio, which was the reason I moved to Denmark in the first place...

Funnily enough, in his native Denmark, Børge is mainly known as bass player. Here he had his beginnings with Mathiesen and Asmussen. But in Holland, he is the Oscar-winning film maker, decorated by the Dutch queen for his work in animation. Just few months ago, Børge had his memoirs published, thus far only in Danish. Will we see an English version soon?

A Little Bit of Sterner

2011-01-25T01:00:00.000-08:00

Once in a while I take a book out of my bookcase and reread parts of it. This time it was John Canemaker's work "Paper dreams : the art & artists of Disney storyboards" (1999) in which I found many exciting sketches for Fantasia, drawn by a Robert Sterner. Canemaker notes that little is known about Sterner, except for the little info in his personnel file currently in the Disney Archives - his birth date.

A quick look around adds a little bit of info: the California Death Index shows some info that is corroborated on AskART, which shows:
Robert Joadrie Sterner was born in Arizona on July 9, 1899. By 1920 Sterner had settled in Los Angeles. He died there on November 11, 1947, aged 48. He was known in artist circles for being fashion illustrator and teacher, but his Fantasia work is not mentioned.
(Source: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"; City Directory; Census; Death Record.)

Just thought I would throw it in the mix...

Prod. 2218 - Goofy and Wilbur

2011-01-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

IMDb shows us that the film was directed by Dick Huemer, written by Otto Englander, with music by Paul J. Smith. This was the period where George Johnson had taken over from Pinto Colvig as Goofy's voice. This FINAL draft is just dated 1938, though the film was released 3/17/39, nr. 10 in the 2nd. RKO series (1938-39).

Animation by Woolie Reitherman, Bernie Wolf, Izzie Klein, Ed Love and Art Babbitt, with effects by Josh Meador.

For some of my dearest friends, this is the film they love to hate.
I am not mentioning names! Instead I just present this document and hope for your insightful comments!

Sound Track Reading: The Duck Hunt

2011-01-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

In conjunction with yesterday's posting on sound sync, here is a sheet prepared for the 1932 Mickey Mouse film Prod. CM22 - The Duck Hunt, from Burt Gillett's papers. It shows the breakdown of the dialog for scene 2A, seemingly recorded 1/6/1932, "Not a duck in sight!" punch 5, take 2. (At the top is written "1-15" - the actual length of the sound of this sentence is just that: one foot 15 frames.)

The sync mark would be on the beginning of the N of "not." The numbers on the left, 32B and 32C refer to the beat numbers of the music - Measure 32, Beat B & C. It is a quiet scene, on a 24 beat. Note that the dialog is edited to the word "duck" hits beat 32C! Coincidence? Maybe - maybe not!

Another thing of note is the date: if the recording date truly was January 6th, then it is especially noteworthy that 22 days later, on January 28th, the film was released to the distributor!

Notes on Syncing Pencil Tests

2011-01-13T05:00:00.000-08:00

Just a few notes by Bill Garity and Burt Gillett to Disney's animators in the early 30s regarding putting sync marks on their drawings so the pencil tests that are shot overnight will be in sync when shown on their moviolas the next morning.

Trader Mickey's Director

2011-01-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

Here is an item that can clear up what seems to be an obvious mistake in the information I have seen so far regarding UM2, Trader Mickey. All sources (*) mention that Dave Hand was the director.
But this little document from 1932, from Burt Gillett's own papers, mentions Gillett as director...

I have previously posted the draft here, and a part of the bar sheet here - in both I mentioned Hand as the director, but above document, and the handwriting on the bar sheet, which looks like all other Gillett handwriting that I have, convinces me that Gillett directed it. Hand himself mentions that his directorial debut was on my favorite, Prod. UM7 - Building a Building. The fact that the Trader Mickey draft mentions Hand may be the reason for the mix-up...?

Note the other info on this sheet (click the image) - it shows the start and finish dates in 1932 on the five films mentioned (UM8 being Mickey's Good Deed). I suspect these were the dates that Gillett's involvement started and the films were finished. They were then released some two and a half months after that end date.

An arrow points between King Neptune and Babes in the Woods. I do not have my great Merritt/Kaufman Silly Symphonies book on me (I'm back in Denmark), so I cannot check this in detail, but my "All Pictures Book" has the same production numbers on these films as on this document. The fact that the dates are so precise and are called "started" and "finished" implies that it is not a forward-looking document, but one that describes what has happened; it shows which films Gillett has directed.

(*) IMDb, Leonard Maltin's Of Mice and Magic, the draft of the film, and even the filmography in Dave Hand's "Memoirs," which was compiled by the Walt Disney Archives.

Prod. 2262 - Canine Caddy

2011-01-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

It's been too long since we last saw the draft of a short film, therefor I here present the draft for Prod. 2262, Canine Caddy, in which Pluto caddies for Mickey but is distracted by a gopher.

Directed by Gerry Geronimi (who picked it up 7/20/40), assisted by Don Duckwall (who was at the studio still when I first contacted them in 1976, and had risen to Production Manager). Layout by Bruce Bushman. This draft dated 1/28/41. Released (during the infamous strike) on 5/30/41.

This draft is one of the most detailed ones I have seen so far, precisely outlining the effects animators and their effects. We find no Fred Moore or Ward Kimball on here, instead some folks we normally associate with other studios, like Ken Muse and Emery Hawkins, who had their beginnings in animation at the Disney studios. Like most of the other animators mentioned in this draft, both participated in the strike; at the time Muse's weekly salary was $67.50, Hawkins' $59.00.

Animation by Ken Muse, Morey Reden, Emery Hawkins, Charles Nichols, George Nicholas, Norm Tate, Volus Jones, Eric Gurney and Chic Otterstrom.
Effects by Jack Boyd, Jerome Brown, Andy Engman, Jack Huber, Brad Case, Reuben Timmins, Ed Aardal, Ed Parks, Fitzpatrick (again, see previously), (?) Kingman, George Rowley, Frank Onaitis, Jack Gayek and Paul Kossoff.

Wild Things 1983

2010-12-31T11:00:00.000-08:00

To end the year with a bit of a bang, here are some pertinent pages from the June 10, 1983 internal Disney Newsreel. They outline the "Where the Wild Things Are" test, which can be viewed on YouTube here. There is also mention of the Brave Little Toaster, a film that ultimately was made outside Disney, directed by Jerry Rees (who was, with Bill Kroyer, one of the animation directors on TRON).

I find this article especially poignant as I have just yesterday revisited Glen Keane's baby Rapunzel (now called Tangled, to make it more appealing to a male audience) in 3-D, which has a trailer for John Lasseter's Cars 2 in front of it (also Smurfs and Mars Needs Moms - Oh, boy, I'm countin' the days - NOT!). Whereas Cars 2 seems to be all about car racing (and thus selling toys to boys), Rapunzel was without a doubt the most beautiful, poetic and luscious CG movie I have ever seen, with amazingly controlled acting and animation, believable characters that never move like puppets. MoCap should turn around in its grave after this one!

My favorite scene? It's a tough call, but I really enjoyed the last scene of the reprise of the Mother Knows Best number. The controlled, scary poses capture the evil Mother Gothel's villainy while at the same time being subdued enough to not scare Rapunzel witless. But I also truly enjoyed the fun spirit of Rapunzel herself, and Maximus' dog-like behavior is hilarious, and very well received by the youngest audience members. For the first time I see acting as controlled as live-action can be, and with a simple twitch of a cheek or so, we understand the inner emotions, mostly of our main character--a huge step forward from Image Movers' stop motion of virtual corpses.

That said, I do feel the film has some inherent story problems that result in my not getting "hit in the gut" by it, as in Dumbo ("Baby Mine") or as Pixar has been able to do in films like Toy Story 2. First, the film takes a long time to get started, and could well have begun, after some explanatory narration and quick shots, with Flynn entering the tower. The "I Want" song could have followed it somewhere, preferably less a High School Musical number, and the film would have jump-started. Worse, Flynn Ryder does not ever get to show REAL authentic feelings, so Rapunzel's love for him, and the climax, seem rather postulated. Flynn's attempts to show these feelings are always either sidetracked or made fun off, as if the directors themselves were afraid of showing emotions. His one full attempt sounds so hollow it needed repeating "no, really, thank you!" and is immediately deflected. In the boat, he would rather do something obscure (to us) than kiss the girl. In the end, noone seems to care about him, so neither will we. Rapunzel herself is a fun girl, full of life and emotions, a great character, beautifully animated, but when, during the climax, we are asked to root for someone whose looks have changed radically, we disassociate ourselves and just look at the film with our eyes, not "with our heart." With her hair, it seems her free spirit is cut down, too, and she ends the film as a show-n-tell doll. I feel that all this could have been fixed with some cutting and pasting in the script - in my mind it is what will turn out to make all the difference at the box-office...

Still, with its lush Fragonard color scheme, its great use of 3-D, and especially its wonderful acting, it is a beautiful film that shows great promise for the future of CG animation. As a gentleman behind me in the theater said, beaming, as the credits had ended: "I didn't think they could make films like this anymore!" Yet with the rumored demise of the fairytale, the Disney Marketing Dept. may well have cut down the promising future in its prime. Let's hope not.

I hear the original story reel had beautiful hand-drawn animation and story sketches by Glen Keane. This I hope to see on an upcoming Blu-Ray, dear folks at Walt Disney Home Entertainment!

(Note: the scans are full 300 dpi, 2550 x 3300 px!)

Lastly, a nice little piece on Eric Larson being the first employee
(only at the parks they are Cast Members) to hit the 50 year mark.
[Bill Cotter reminds us that Larson actually was NOT the first to hit 50, for though Eric Larson was hired 6/1/33, Bill Cottrell's hire date was 2/15/29, and, as it stated on his Disney Legends page, he retired in 1982 "after 53 years of service" making him the first to hit 50 in 1979, four years earlier!]

Going into my own 49th year today, I wish all my readers a Happy New Year, and a GREAT 2011!

Links to Older Posts!

2010-12-29T12:00:00.000-08:00

Folks, I just found a posting about adding links to older posts at the bottom of the page, which I implemented - it works!!!

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (XXX) - Seq. 12 (Ave Maria)

2010-12-28T11:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Wilfred "Jaxon" Jackson, assisted by Jacques (Roberts). Layout by Terrell Stapp and Thor Putnam. This draft dated 10/16/40. (Final page: Directed by Sam Armstrong, layout Blair/Plummer, dated 10/2/40).

A John McManus effects tour-de-force. I always liked the story that the last scene was delivered to the cinema on the afternoon of the premiere, after there having been an earthquake and no time to re-shoot it...

This, of course, concludes the draft for Prod. 2004, Walt Disney's Fantasia. I hope you enjoyed it, and maybe learned something new!
{News Flash! Steven Hartley has begun posting the mosaic for Fantasia!]

As always, remember my "Standard Disclaimer" on drafts (see most of my earlier drafts). That's the one on drafts not being historical documents and not always correct and not always showing the Directing Animator etc. etc. They do give an interesting insight in the inner workings of the studio, the unit system (like the Jaxon unit in this and yesterdays postings), and they highlight animators otherwise possibly forgotten, one of the main reasons for my posting these drafts.

For those of you who "came here after the show started," you will find animator drafts here for thus far eleven features, one featurette and some eighty short films. Also check out my items on barsheets and my "Beatronome!" You find links to the items' labels in the right column... >>

...and then have a look at my company website!

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (XXIX) - Seq. 11 (Night on Bald Mountain)

2010-12-27T11:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Wilfred "Jaxon" Jackson, assisted by Jacques (Roberts). Layout by Terrell Stapp and Thor Putnam. This draft dated 10/3/40.

Character animation by Bill Tytla, Bill Shull, Bob Carlson, Les Novros and (Don) Patterson.

Effects by Cornett Wood, Frank Follmer, John Reed, John McManus, Sandy Strother, Ed Aardal, Don Tobin, Josh Meador, Milt Shaffer, Miles Pike, John Tucker and Jack Harbaugh.

This is, of course, one of Bill Tytla's masterpieces, Chernobog on the mountain top. Actually, this is much the same unit as the Stromboli sequence in Pinocchio and several sequences in Dumbo: Jaxon, Roberts, Stapp and Tytla...

Funny how scene 20 ia credited to its footage. Must be a typo...

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (XXVIII) - Seq. 11A (Interim Orchestra)

2010-12-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Sam Armstrong, assisted by Lloyd Richardson. Layout by Lee Blair and Elmer Plummer. This draft dated 10/2/40.

Deems Taylor's introduction to the last section, comprised of Night on Bald Mountain and Ave Maria.

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (XXVII) - Seq. 10.4 (Dance of the Hours: Alligator Ballet--Night)

2010-12-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by T. Hee, assisted by Larry Lansburgh. Layout by Ken O'Connor. This draft dated 9/9/40.

Character animation by John Lounsbery, Hicks Lokey, Preston Blair, Howard Swift, Norm Tate, Hugh Fraser, Art Elliott and Harvey Toombs.

Effects by Cornett Wood, George Rowley, Brad Case, Jack Gayek, Jim Will, Ed Aardal, George DeBeeson, John Reed, [John?] Fitzpatrick (for the ? see a previous posting) and Jerome Brown.

Merry Christmas, Folks!

2010-12-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

On the front of the A. Film homepage you can find this image, drawn by my friend Luca Fattore, of the "A. Film pigs" at their Christmas dinner. Merry Christmas, Everyone! Hope you get time to relax - and check out our homepage!

I especially want to extend my best wishes to my trusty commenters, Zartok-35, John V. (thanks for sorting out my Pattersons, guys!) and Steven Hartley who just finished his Alice in Wonderland mosaic, as well as my "blog friends," first and foremost Michael Sporn, whose blog continues to be an inspiration for all lovers of animation.

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (XXVII) - Seq. 10.3 (Dance of the Hours: Elephant Ballet--Evening)

2010-12-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by T. Hee, assisted by Larry Lansburgh. Layout by Ken O'Connor. This draft dated 9/9/40.

Character animation by [Ray] Patterson, Harvey Toombs, Howard Swift, Frank Grundeen, Hicks Lokey and Grant Simmons.

Effects by John Reed, Brad Case, Jerome Brown, Cornett Wood, Vernon Witt, Josh Meador, George Rowley and Ed Aardal.

An idea for your (late) Christmas shopping!

2010-12-24T01:00:00.000-08:00

I'll keep this at the top for a while. It may be too late for your Christmas shopping, but there is always January.
Here is my suggestion:

Russell Schroeder's great books on the "lost treasures from the Walt Disney Music Library" are not only filled with great songs, but have interesting stories you may not find elsewhere, as well! Click the image to get to the page that shows how you can order them!
(When Vol.1 came out, the late Roy E. Disney bought 3 copies!)

For those of you who do not read sheet music, there exists software in which you can scan the pages and it plays the music back to you! More info: click the image!

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (XXVI) - Seq. 10.2 (Dance of the Hours: Hippo Ballet--Afternoon)

2010-12-23T11:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by T. Hee, assisted by Larry Lansburgh. Layout by Ken O'Connor. This draft dated 9/9/40.

Character animation by Howard Swift, Preston Blair, Van Kaufman and Norm Ferguson.

Effects by Cornett Wood, Brad Case, Jack Gayek, George DeBeeson, Jim Will and Ed Aardal.

Prod. 2004 - Fantasia (XXV) - Seq. 10.1 (Dance of the Hours: Ostrich Ballet--Morning)

2010-12-21T13:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by T. Hee, assisted by Larry Lansburgh. Layout by Ken O'Connor. This draft dated 9/9/40.

Character animation by Howard Swift, Jerry Hathcock, Hugh Fraser, Norm Tate and George Nicholas. Effects by Cornett Wood, Brad Case and Jack Gayek.