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...And More Dalmatian Art

May 8, 2016, 10:58 pm
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I could never figure out why this scene from 101 Dalmatians shows an out of focus background. Throughout the film all of the line drawing in the BGs are as crisp as the character drawings. But for some reason this close up of Pongo is accompanied by a soft, blurry background.
The previous feature Sleeping Beauty also contains a couple of scenes like this one, when Samson, the horse, is shown in front of an out of focus Eyvind Earle background...strange!
Maybe someone can come up with an explanation.




Frank Thomas animated this scene in which Pongo offers Anita's hat, as he feels somewhat guilty for the "wet" situation involving Roger and Anita.





I am not sure if this artwork is actual production, but the xerox line overlay sure doesn't register with the color painting. Beautiful color choices though.





An Art Stevens scene with major drawing help from Milt Kahl, who supervised the character of Roger.




A fun color model cel, featuring several characters in their early stages of visual development.





John Lounsbery second assignment involving buddies, this time around bad ones, Jasper and Horace. Just a few years prior John animated the Italian characters Tony & Joe in Lady and the Tramp.






It's astonishing to see how Marc Davis' rough animation remained intact on the screen. No clean up needed, which makes Cruella even more expressive.





Again, I'm not sure if this is final production artwork, but it is a beautiful depiction of the town of Dinsford, where the film's climax begins.
101 Dalmatians, one of the greatest movies of all time!

Some images Heritage Auctions.


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Rubbing elbows...

May 10, 2016, 10:51 pm
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...with Angela Lansbury last night during a panel at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. We celebrated the 25th anniversary of Beauty & the Beast.
It was wonderful to see everybody again after so many years. From left to right:

The Academy's Randy Habercamp, Angela Lansbury, yours truly, Richard White (voice of Gaston),
David Ogden Stiers (narrator and voice of Cogsworth), Robby Benson (voice of the Beast), Glen Kean, Mark Henn, Page O'Hara (voice of Belle),  Brenda Chapman (story), Roger Allers (story), Gary Trousdale (co-director) and Don Hahn (producer).



I told the story of how my first scene with Gaston (above) was met with criticism by Jeffrey Katzenberg, who told me that the acting was ok, but Gaston didn't look handsome enough. In the original pencil test I had drawn him with a large jaw and a mustache...much cartoonier looking.



I remember enjoying animating this scene, in which Gaston puts down Belle's love for books.
Here Belle was animated by Ken Duncan.



It was important to me that the character -despite the demand for realism- had moments when we could exaggerate his poses. Story material and voice recordings just called for that kind of an approach.


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German Expressionism and Disney

May 12, 2016, 10:29 pm
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Someone needs to write a book on this topic. German Expressionism in film peaked during the 1920.
The still above is from the 1926 film Faust, directed by F. M. Murnau. The similarity to Disney's Night on Bald Mountain is not coincidental. German films from that period were screened and analyzed at the studio. The nightmarish imagery in its stylized form with an emphasis on frightening looking shadows influenced early Disney films like Snow White, Pinocchio and Fantasia.
Studio artists like Kay Nielsen and others applied these visual principles to the Chernabog sequence.






















Disney's most frightening, haunting animated film making. More on Bald Mountain here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2015/05/chernabog.html


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Flying Hands

May 14, 2016, 3:08 pm
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This is the drawing that ended Tim Burton's career as a Disney Feature Animation artist.
Tim had produced endless designs for The Black Cauldron, all of them in his unique, personal style.
When it came time to come up with a look for the monster birds, the Gwythaints, most of us thought of conventional dragons types that would look for and kidnap the oracular pig Hen Wen.
Tim had this great idea for bat-like creatures with a hand shaped head. Everybody was pretty excited about this unusual idea, including myself.
But in the end the producers commented that it reminded them of the surreal 1968 animated film YellowSubmarine, a style they deemed  inappropriate for The Black Cauldron.
Tim left the production shortly thereafter, and produced a beautiful animated short stop motion film called Vincent.
It wasn't until after he left Disney that he became THE Tim Burton, when he was given the chance to put his mark on many live action as well as animated films alike.

More of Tim's work here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/09/tim-burton.html

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Jungle Vultures

May 16, 2016, 11:05 pm
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I am not sure who painted this color key for the opening of the vultures sequence for The JungleBook, but the dark mood beautifully represents Mowgli's emotions. He is wandering alone through this part of the woods, before the vultures spot him in the near distance.
Milt Kahl animated all introductory scenes of these birds, and the following drawings from seq. 9, sc. 20 represent a glimpse into the mind of an animation genius.
One of the vultures, Ziggy, encourages the other three, Dizzy, Buzzie and Flaps to fly down the tree in order to examine this strange looking creature, which is walking on two legs.

"C'mon, lads, c'mon! Let's have some fun with this little fellah, this little blokey."
During this line of dialogue Ziggy moves toward the other three, repeatedly pushing on Dizzy, until one after the other looses their balance and stagger downwards.
A "tour de force" scene, to say the least. The overall motion is all on ones, as one bird after the other is being affected by Ziggy's pushy moves. A friend of mine commented that only a mad man could put all of this together and make it look natural.


















This is why I love drawn animation, there is nothing like it!
Part II of the scene coming up.


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Jungle Vultures II

May 18, 2016, 1:20 pm
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Here is part II of Milt's incredible scene which involves all four vultures. Those two posts only show a few of the main key drawings. From what I can tell, Milt did about every other drawing, twelve drawings for each second. His assistant (likely Dave Michener) then added in-betweens, so the action would be on ones, resulting in twenty-four drawings per second. 
Whatever you think about Milt Kahl as an animator, that man worked HARD! Not only is the intricate animation perfect, each single drawing is a masterpiece in design, and so full of personality!














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Pinocchio at the Walt Disney Family Museum

May 20, 2016, 4:54 pm
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On Tuesday the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco hosted a reception in connection with the opening of a  new exhibition which sheds light on the production of Walt Disney's crown jewel Pinocchio. Several hundred pieces of original art are on display. Here are some of the highlights:

- rough animation drawings in sequence by Bill Tytla, Frank Thomas, Milt Kahl, Ollie Johnston and John Lounsbery. Monitors show these drawings as pencil tests.

-stunning production backgrounds as well as cel set ups.

-enlarges wall-sized storyboards

-vintage audio of Frank Thomas lecturing how (and how not) to animate the character of Pinocchio

This is a breathtaking, world class exhibit, curated by John Canemaker. It will run until January of next year. So, plan a trip to the Museum and prepare to be amazed, enlightened and inspired.
Here is the official link:

http://waltdisney.org/exhibitions/wish-upon-star-art-pinocchio






The two pieces above are not part of the exhibition, but the model of Monstro, the whale, is.




An unusual magazine article to promote the film's original release. It contains more than you ever wanted to know about Pinocchio's conscience Jiminy Cricket. And no...Jiminy is not gay.





Opening night: the Museum's executive director Kirsten Komoroske, Ron Miller (my first boss and Walt Disney's son in law), John Canemaker and myself.



For a Milt Kahl pencil test from a previous post, go here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amI7HHnlBiE

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Sullivant 13

May 22, 2016, 2:09 pm
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It's been a while since I posted any T.S. Sullivant art. With the hope that I am not including any repeats, here are a few more samples of his always awe-inspiring work.







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The Frank Thomas Style

May 24, 2016, 4:19 pm
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I don't know what Frank is working on in this photo, as he poses with the Oscar the studio has just won for Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. Perhaps a gag drawing, since the main production at the time was The Aristocats. There are mounted character sketches of Scat Cat on the upper right corner.
It is always interesting to take a closer look at Frank Thomas' rough animation drawings. Unlike some of his colleagues, he rarely thinks about creating a graphic design in his drawings. The source for his inspiration is strictly the character's personality and its entertainment value in a particular scene or sequence.
For his rough animation pass, he would do more drawings than most other animators at the studio. More often than not Frank created ALL drawings for his scenes. This meant that there really wasn't much time left to finesse each key drawing to perfection. This is an animator with the conviction that each drawing is part of the overall performance. "Suitable for framing" was the farthest thing from his mind. As a result many of Frank's rough animation drawings look "less intimidating" than -let's say- the work of Marc Davis, Milt Kahl or Kimball.
But make no mistake, a Thomas pencil test has a magic all to its own. The quality of the performance as well as acting choices appear completely natural. The character lives on his own on the screen, detached from an animator's creative process. A tremendous achievement.




 These two Merlin key drawings are somewhat of an exception to what I just described. Because these poses needed to be held for a brief time in order to sell the comedy in the action, Frank made sure that they hold up as individual poses, with clear staging and silhouette.






Ollie Johnston and Milt Kahl drew Mowgli in a more appealing way than in these images, but the scene's motion feels like real life. A kid trying to get away from a Python's grasp, everything has proper weight, timing and most importantly - emotion.



Frank did all drawings for this King Louie scene in order to control the subtle, musical bounce, as the  character turns his head toward Flunky, who mimics his singing technique.
Assistant Dale Oliver cleaned up the loose drawings on new sheets of paper.




A simple character sketch of Edgar from The Aristocats. This single drawing doesn't sell the scene, but in sequence with all the other drawings magic happens.




One of Frank's last scenes before putting down the pencil. From then on teaching Disney principles and philosophy (through books) became the focus of this master animator. 


A list of Frank's animated achievements as put together by The Disney Archives years ago.


Many more of Frank Thomas' drawings in this earlier post:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/06/frank-thomas.html


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Hook, through the eyes of Five Animators

May 27, 2016, 12:03 am
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We know that animator Frank Thomas was responsible for bringing Captain Hook to life with nuanced as well as broad acting. Frank would say that it took him a little while to find the right balance between comedy and villainy. Actor Hans Conried  provided live action performances that served as a springboard to rich character animation.
Originally it was Milt Kahl, who thought he would be perfectly cast on the character. He created model drawings like these that show how he would handle Hook in design and animation.





But in the end Walt Disney wanted Thomas to take over the part of this villain, even after Milt had put down some of Frank's early test animation. Walt knew that Milt's talents were needed on the film's title character...and the rest is history.
Frank's acting on Hook is superb, we constantly know what the character is thinking from the first time we see him in the film. Here is a link to the clean up pencil test of that scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB7IqNgufk0






Occasionally Frank asked for Ollie Johnston's advice when it came to finding the best staging for a scene with Hook. The note on the bottom right says: Ollie did this for me.




John Lounsbery animated a few Hook scenes early on in the film, like this one, when Hook calls for action against Peter Pan, who has just been sighted.
Beautiful rhythmic drawings.





Woolie Reitherman focused mostly on action/fighting scenes. As you can see he is in these two roughs, Woolie is full control over the charter's broad motion range.

 



But...Woolie was perfectly capable of handling the occasional acting close up. Most Disney animation aficionados credit Frank Thomas for animating this extraordinary scene, but this is Woolie's animation. It is seq. 14, sc. 79. Hook climbs up the rope ladder in pursuit of Peter Pan: "Ha, ha, ha, you wouldn't dare to fight old Hook man to man. You'd fly away like a cowardly sparrow."



A film frame from one of my favorite Thomas Hook scenes. A controlled pose just before he is about to explode in response to Smee's suggestion that shooting a man in the middle of his cadenza ain't good form.



More on Hook here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/05/hook-has-cold.html

and here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/02/hook-and-smee.html


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Just a Phrase...

May 28, 2016, 7:05 pm
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A few years ago I ran into Oscar Grillo at CTN Expo in Burbank. Oscar is an an extraordinary, award winning  animation artist from Argentina, who made London his home a long time ago.
Five minutes into our conversation we started to debate the current state of the animation industry.
When I mentioned how disappointed I felt about the overall change from pencil animation to CG animation Oscar looked at me and said:
"THE INVENTION OF THE AUTOMOBILE MADE THE HORSE LOOK NOBLE!"

The statement blew me away, and I've been feeling great ever since.



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Sheep Dog

May 29, 2016, 10:20 pm
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A while ago I posted Milt Kahl's designs for the archery tournament characters in the film Robin Hood. One of them was this image of a sheep dog archer.
Recently I came across these sketches of the same character by John Lounsbery. It's interesting to see his take on the sheep dog concept. He definitely refers back to the Colonel dog from 101Dalmatians, a character he animated years earlier.







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Perdita

May 31, 2016, 9:14 pm
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Most of the animated scenes featuring Perdita from 101Dalmatians show her as a caring mother to her pups. Frank Thomas animated this gem early on in the film, when Perdita is still single. It reveals a rich personality moment, absolutely beautifully executed by an animator who knew how to crawl into his character's mind.

Roger Radcliff and Pongo have just passed by before settling down nearby under a tree. Perdita leans slightly forward to get a better look at Pongo, who glances at her at the same time. Feeling embarrassed for being "caught" she struggles to quickly get into a pose that reflects composure and disinterest. 
Sometimes I really don't know how Frank does it. He comes up with a series of sketches that have the essence of a particular emotion. Very subtle use of squash and stretch as Perdita's head nervously moves upward into the final pose, which is held for three eye blinks. 

My favorite Perdita scene and one of Frank's best.















The scene's gif looks a little wild without the connecting scenes, and the eye blinks at the end are missing. But you can see how not only the head, but different parts of her body are involved as well.




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What's Ollie drawing...

June 2, 2016, 7:12 pm
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I had been wondering for a little while what scene Ollie is animating in this vintage photo.
As it turns out, it is a scene featured in the Ollie Johnston chapter of my Nine Old Men book.
Does anybody recognize the other two gentlemen?





An absolutely gorgeous layout sketch for another one of Ollie's scenes.




Movie Life magazine published these scrapbook type pages in their issue from September, 1942.




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Arabian Dance

June 5, 2016, 12:09 am
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A gorgeous development sketch for the Arabian Dance section, which is a part of The NutcrackerSuite from Fantasia. Don Lusk (who will celebrate his 103rd birthday later this year) animated this elegant fish ballet. Interestingly he was never happy with the final color footage of his animation.
I had the chance to talk to him in 2014, and he was still venting about the dry-brush paint application on the cels with his fish characters looking just awful. He was in shock when he saw his animation in full color for the first time. What he had hoped for was a transparent look for the fish tails, which could have been achieved by double expose. The fish 100%, and the tails only 50%.
The dry-brush technique makes the tails jitter, particularly during slow movements.
I told him that I actually don't mind the way the sequence looks at all, but Don wouldn't have it.
Should have been double exposure, and that's it!




A model sheet made up of stunning key poses by Don Lusk. The resemblance to Cleo from Pinocchio is not coincidental. Prior to Fantasia Don helped Eric Larson to bring that character to life.




for my previous post on Don Lusk go here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/10/don-lusk.html


John Canemaker wrote a terrific analysis of the Arabian Dance on Cartoon Brew:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/classic/john-canemaker-unlocks-the-secrets-of-fantasias-sweatbox-notes-109312.html



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Roger Rabbit Scenes IV

June 7, 2016, 1:00 am
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I had a lot of fun with these two scenes. The first one shows the Weasel leader Smart Ass threatening Bob Hoskins. Originally his dialogue was: "Cut the bullish...!" And I did animate the character saying it. Soon thereafter when Roy Disney stopped by the London studio to check on some dailies (rushes), he almost had a fit when my scene came up. He said that even though this movie will be released under the Touchstone banner, no animated character needs to have this kind of language.
So...the line was re-dubbed to: "Cut the bull shtick!"
I didn't need to change the scene's lip sync, the two words were similar enough. The original animation worked with the new reading as well.

The next scene turned out to be one of my favorite assignments. Roger, who has been hiding from the Weasels in the sink's water, comes up, wringing his ears dry before saying something like: "Jeepers Eddie, you saved my life. How can I ever repay 'ya.." He then plants a super cartoony kiss on Hoskins. As I worked myself straight ahead through the scene, I felt that the kiss needed to go beyond lip contact. Roger's mouth is practically smothering Hoskin's whole face.
One added challenge was Roger's right hand, which always needed to be positioned according to the live action handcuffs.
Really loved animating this broad piece of animation.













This is an example of what a live acton photo stat looked like. We had to cover the wire holding the pistol with the animated character's arm. All this was done before CG and Photoshop. But we found ways to make it work. The whole team worked so hard on this film to create an almost perfect illusion. It was an amazing experience.



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Celebration

June 8, 2016, 11:53 pm
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Monday night at the Hollywood Bowl! The Little Mermaid in Concert! What an incredible evening.
Before the performance began, some members of the film's creative staff were asked to enter the stage for a bow, and I was thrilled to have been included. Then there was a pre-show with Susan Egan, Darren Criss and many others. 
The complete movie was shown on gigantic screens, only interrupted when a song was about to start.
The songs were interpreted by various artists such as Rebel Wilson, who performed Ursula. 

Much has been written about this event, which covered shows on three nights. Here is just one link:

https://www.timeout.com/los-angeles/blog/the-original-ariel-and-90s-nostalgia-make-for-a-grand-final-night-of-the-little-mermaid-at-the-hollywood-bowl-060716

An entirely different reason that calls for celebration is the fact that this blog started exactly FIVE years ago on the 11th of this month. Over 5 mill. page views! And the recent surge in viewers tells me that there still is a lot of love for the art and culture of pencil animation.

Here is a beautiful celebratory drawing by Heinrich Kley depicting Bacchus on his long suffering donkey. 




The blog will be updated again on Monday. In the meantime you might want to visit some of my favorite posts:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/06/john-lounsbery.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/06/how-they-felt-about-each-others-work.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/03/kathryn-beaumont.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/10/ken-andersons-robin-hood.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/07/disney-tigers.html


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Cinetopia

June 13, 2016, 10:16 pm
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Just got back from Cinetopia Film Festival, which took place in Ann Arbor. I was invited to introduce a couple of films along with the one and only Leonard Maltin.
The first film was: Tyrus Wong, Brushstrokes in Hollywood. This is a new documentary about the life and art of Tyrus Wong, who as many of you know, had a lot to do with the styling of Disney's Bambi.

You can find out more about this terrific film here:
http://tyruswongthemovie.com

The second film was Bambi, on the big screen. For many people in the audience probably for the first time.

I also gave my presentation on Disney's Nine Old Men, followed by a book signing. Leonard, who has authored many important books over the years about animated as well as live action films,  signed copies as well. We had a great time!

Here are more publicity illustrations from Bambi, plus a couple of dynamic story sketches.
Let me tell you, Walt Disney's classic animated films age beautifully. The audience was in awe watching Bambi.














On a much sadder, angry note, the past weekend was overshadowed by the horrific news out of Orlando. Today I am finding myself at a loss for words. Prayers to the families and loved ones of the victims. 

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Milt's Aristocats Drawings

June 15, 2016, 9:11 pm
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Another post on Mit's work for TheAristocats.
I love the drawing above, which I believe was done for an Ollie Johnston scene during a time when O'Malley's fur was supposed to show a striped pattern. Beautiful feline pose, nice weight and contact of the cat's soft body against the hard ground surface.

Milt did the drawings below over keys from a Frank Thomas scene. As with Bagheera earlier, terrific economy of lines.




Milt didn't like the way the film's story turned out, but he mentioned repeatedly that he enjoyed animating Edgar, the butler as well as George Hautecourt, the lawyer. He found them to be characters "you can get your teeth into".








The horse Frou-Frou gave Milt problem's as far as character design. He said that he felt he had run out of ideas on how to design a horse in a new way.
I love the animation, particularly the dialogue scenes.





Milt claimed he didn't get his teeth into this character assignment. From the beginning Madame Bonfamille had been thought of as being a nice lady who was fond of her cats. "Then again" he said, "it doesn't hurt to do a straight job once in a while".






A couple of previous posts on Milt's Aristocats work:



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Dumbo Art

June 17, 2016, 6:54 pm
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I noticed recently that I rarely put up a post on Disney's Dumbo. That doesn't mean that I like the film any less than other Disney classics. There really isn't a lot of art work from Dumbo around. For example I have never seen sizable numbers of rough animator's drawings offered for sale.
The movie's plot is as perfect as you can get. It is a short feature film, and the simple story line allows  for rich character development with deep emotions. I remember watching Dumbo for the first time when I was a teenager, and during the Baby Mine sequence my thoughts were: Oh boy, they are really overdoing the tear jerking thing here. How corny and sappy.
I have since then changed my mind.

A beautiful early character model from Joe Grant's department, when the designs weren't finalized yet.




Some of these drawings explore gags involving Dumbo's oversized ears. I don't know the artists, but later Bill Peet and Bill Tytla would refine the juvenile elephant's design.









Definitely a Bill Peet story sketch.




Pink Elephants on Parade, a dream sequence that set the bar for visual experimentation within the Disney animation style. Absolutely incredible!!





Pages from a 1941 Coronet Magazine article. Just by looking at a few main visual beats, you can't help but thinking: What a masterpiece of a film!


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