Hearing Børge Ring Play

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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...? [I believe it is the case: someone guessed that Hand directed the film around 1971 when drafts were copied onto standard form draft paper!]

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. [Again, I believe the 1971 draft copy is the cause of this error.]

Prod. 2262 - Canine Caddy

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

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!

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)

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)

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)

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)

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!

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)

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!

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)

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)

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.

Early 1930s Storyboard Paper

In a comment on a posting about Mickey's Orphans on Michael Sporn's ever-inspiring blog, it was asked what the size of the storyboard drawings shown is. I happen to have some pages of this paper, and scanned one. It isn't a great work of art, but it shows the sheet, a standard sheet of 9.5" x 12" animation paper with three red rectangles printed on it. The rectangles are precisely 3" by 4". Hope this answered that question...

The rough sketch of a beached Clarabelle Cow is by Burt Gillett...