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Layout by Don Griffith and Dan Hansen.
This FINAL draft dated 5/4/1981 by secretary Charlene Rogers.
Animation by Hendel Butoy, Jerry Rees, Heidi Guedel, Cliff Nordberg and Ed Gombert.
Jerry Rees and Cliff Nordberg share the comedy bird and caterpillar scenes pretty seamlessly, though it seems Jerry Rees gets more bird-like behavior out of Dinky. Nordberg is very much up to his old tricks here. Maybe not thinking about the bird-like qualities as much as about "general entertainment."
The late Heidi Guedel-Ballreich-Garofalo noted that Tod was one of her favorite characters to draw - she drew him in my copy of her autobiography "Animatrix--A Female Animator: How Laughter Saved My Life." She seemed very nice, but somewhat... eccentric.
Although skilfully animated by Rees and Nordberg, the subplot involving the birds has always been one of the weaker pieces in the film for me (Chief surviving his rail collision is another story). Sequence director Ted Berman isn't very ambitious in executing comedy to its fullest potential. Re-watching the sequence: the gags are predictable and the staging/timing lacks comedic vigour (Sc. 25.5 could've been more passable with faster camera panning). Nevertheless, the animation is fun to watch.
ReplyDeleteJust my two cents.
Establishes that Jerry Rees was part of Cliff Nordberg's Bird Unit.
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