With Prod. 2428 - Plight of the Bumble Bee

Just a quick addition to the current internet talk on the Mickey short for which we have seen the penciltest on YouTube, a scoop by Thad.
I received a copy of this 1972 recruitment brochure from Dave Smith during my first visit to the Disney Archives August 14th, 1978.
[I am mistaken! I received it in 1977 as part of a "keep drawing, then who knows, some day..." reply by Don Duckwall on some drawings I sent to the Disney studio. I still blush when I think of those!]

I only scanned the cover here: the drawings were taken from the modelsheet that Fred Moore drew for Prod. 2428, Plight of the Bumble Bee. I do have this modelsheet, but I happen to be on the wrong continent. Still, as they are some of my favorite drawings,
I thought you might like to see them. I certainly find them more appealing than the final designs in the film...

[Addition: I found a scan of the original sheet! It is numbered "850-" so it was photographed August 1950 - exactly 60 years ago. I went through my files and there it was! As you can see, in 1972 they used all of the model sheet, but they rearranged the drawings.
Thru the years, I have seen tracings of several of these Mickeys...]

By the way, I do have a draft for this film, but it is sadly very incomplete and all I remember is that the beginning of this film was animated by Hal King.

(I advise you to click the images to enlarge!)

Note on Plight of the Bumble Bee

In a message that accompanied the animation and the storyboards of the Plight of the Bumble Bee, Jack Kinney himself, the director of the film, wrote this comment on the film he thought was his best:

"The best Mickey ever was never finished. It was called The Plight of the Bumble Bee, and it was all finished in animation. It had an awkward length, but Fred and Sib agreed that it could not be cut, so it was shelved."

In other words, it was shelved because of length, not because of story problems or "substance abuse." So, somebody in charge at Disney, here is your chance to finish it! Just call down to the ARL and tell them that Prod. Nr. 2428 is still in production!

Plight of Fred Moore

Here is a bit of animation, the penultimate scene of the shelved Prod. 2428, The Plight of the Bumble Bee, directed by Jack Kinney in 1951, animated by Fred Moore. The drawings were originally only marked with Fred's name, but it has been mentioned previously on a forum following my sending a few images to Cartoon Brew (and which ultimately made me start this blog) that the last part of the scene may have been finished by Cliff Nordberg. More on Didier Ghez' blog.

In the files (a QuickTime and an animated .gif) I have not held the drawings until the next ones, as that gives a false timing - I have inserted blanks. There are several schools of thought on this...
I exposed the drawings according to the numbers, though this may be too quickly, as I believe the dialog to be something along the lines of "Oh, boy! A violin virtuoso! With his talent and my brains, we'll hit the tops, heh heh heh!"

©Disney

[Addition: Keith Lango brought up an interesting point: that CG animators aren't used to seeing linetests with inserted blanks. Somehow, I do feel that one should get an eye for timing using only the available keys. I learned to add blank sheets of paper between my keys before flipping my drawings, to not cheat myself on estimating my timing - and I heard this was done at Disney's as well by several animators. But for those of you who do not have the feeling for this yet, here are the two files again, but this time with the drawings held until the one following it. It looks more smooth, but still...

©Disney ]

Note that some viewers may not support animated GIFs!
Remember to have a look at the A. Film showreel while you are here!

Prod. 2428 - Storyboard

In 1951, four years before One Froggy Evening, Disney's Prod. 2428, The Plight of the Bumble Bee was shelved, after having been completely animated (see the Mickey animation I posted yesterday).
The entire storyboard for it is presented here for educational purposes - so we know what we are talking about!

Having worked with yesterday's scene myself not long after I started in animation 30 years ago (counting from when I bought my first Neilson-Hordell ACME pegbar), I know how exciting it will be to use this film as training ground for new animators at Disney's "newly recreated" Shorts Department! Start breaking this down and cleaning it up - and thus finish a "new" (albeit now 56 year old) film with the company mascot animated by Fred Moore, Hal King, Cliff Nordberg...
Wouldn't that be cool, Mr. Lasseter? Just please don't forget to also put the original rough penciltest on the DVD...
[Update 5/07: hear Burny Mattinson talk about this!!!]

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Please note that as always the images are 'property of Walt Disney Productions', and as such do not go about vicariously copying them.

Folks, I think this may be my most special posting for a LONG time...

[Addition of 8/26/2010-1/30/2012: Did you see the pencil test?]