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

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

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

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

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)

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)

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

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?