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Shere Khan meets Kaa

August 2, 2017, 12:26 am
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An original cel set up from The Jungle Book. Iconic! Beautiful background art and Milt Kahl's cutting-edge animation.
A German journalist told me years ago that part of the reason why he adores this film is the fact that you, as the audience, are spending time in the lush Indian Jungle for the duration of the movie.
What could be more soothing on the eyes? I had never thought about it in that way, I just love this movie.


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Vision Awards 2003

August 3, 2017, 10:49 pm
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This was one of Frank and Ollie's last public appearances together. On June 28, 2003 they both reveived VISION AWARDS at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. This is an organization that fights blindness, it awards "visionaries" in the fields of entertainment, the arts and technology.
I was lucky to receive an invitation to sit at the Disney table that night. I remember when it was time to honor Frank and Ollie, film clips were screened showing many of their animated accomplishments.
After a standing ovation the host stepped off the stage and approached our table. Talking into a mic Ollie had a few words of gratitude and Frank stated that "Pencil animation still holds a special kind of magic".
These photos were taken during guests' arrival. In the image above Ollie's son Ken shows the way.

Frank enjoys talking to a group of fans, some of them famous like actress Rosanna Arquette on the left. Note the colorful horn on Frank's walker.








Frank with actress Diahann Carroll, a fellow award recipient.



Frank Thomas died in 2004, Ollie Johnston in 2008.

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Let the Match Begin!

August 6, 2017, 5:41 pm
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Another great Milt Kahl scene from the film Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
The King is getting rid of his royal coat as he announces the start of the soccer game.
A couple of steps forward and a hop at the end help to punch the dialogue' accents.
And what great treatment on the folds of that coat. The way Milt draws and times its overlapping action gives the coat a real sense of weight. 

























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Disney Villains Stamps

August 9, 2017, 12:26 am
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The United States Postal Service just came out with these Disney Villains postal stamps.
Pretty cool to find among them a couple of characters I helped create. These images were inked and painted on cels at Disney, based on the original clean up drawings from the films.





When I see a pose like this one it takes me right back to when I animated the scene.
"Crazy old Maurice..hmm" , Gaston says here. I recall acting the scene out in front of the mirror in my office. As Gaston (Richard White) says the line I moved into camera placing my left hand on my chin. I tried to play it subtle, so it would look like Gaston is getting an idea about what he is going to do with Belle's father.




On this cel the eye direction was changed. In the movie Scar is looking back at Simba, who has just asked :"Uncle Scar, will I like the surprise?" "Simba, it's to die for!" Great dialogue writing, and great delivery from Jeremy Irons.



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Stepmother's Bedroom

August 10, 2017, 11:39 pm
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Probably my favorite sequence in Cinderella. Lady Tremaine is about to discipline her stepdaughter by demanding an overwhelming number of chores around the house.
This camera angle is from behind the night stand. The focus is on Cinderella, who is shown in the light. But the grid-like shadow (an effects level) gives the impression that she is in prison. Masterful staging.
Eric Larson animated Cinderella throughout this sequence, and Frank Thomas of course gave the Stepmother her ultra chilling performance.
Above is the film frame grab, below the actual background.




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Milt Kahl on Medusa's Cel Colors

August 12, 2017, 11:39 pm
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After leaving Disney Studios and before moving up to San Francisco, Milt Kahl reminisced about his work on Madame Medusa during a lecture. Here are a few interesting points relating to the amazing image above.

- Milt was a big proponent of the grey xerox line. To him it resulted in a slightly softer representation of the character animation. (During night scenes Medusa's cels were xeroxed in black, which makes perfect sense.)

- Originally the upper part of the towel wrapped around her head used to have the words "H O T E L    R I T Z" embroidered. The idea being that Medusa had swiped the towel from the hotel.
Only one scene shows the embroidering, when she removes her right false eyelash (screen left).

-There were several test cels being painted to explore the final look of Medusa's eyes after the removal of her false eyelashes. Milt was finally happy with what you see here. The outlines of her eyes were inked in flesh color, signaling that there aren't any of her natural eye lashes left at all.
Graphically this makes for a stronger "before and after" statement.

- Medusa's lipstick was painted on top of the cels, unlike the rest of her colors. In the image you can detect some tiny white specs on the half wiped off lipstick. The actual film frame doesn't show this.
But because a pile of cels used to include tissue paper between each cel for protection, some painted areas stuck to the tissue after filming. That's what you see here.

This cel is currently being offered at Howard Lowery:
http://auction.howardlowery.com/bidding.taf?_function=detail&auction_uid1=4736296


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Disney 1949

August 15, 2017, 11:13 pm
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UK PICTUREGOER Magazine published this article in December of 1949. Disney's latest feature film offering had been So Dear to my Heart. The writer was obviously dissatisfied with Disney having turned to live action/animation mix films. At that time general audiences, too, preferred full length animated feature films.
It is interesting that the absence of those films during the late 1940s is being discussed, financial difficulties at the studio.

As for myself, I always thought that the story in So Dear to my Heart is a bit saccharin. But the film is beautifully shot, and the animation is terrific. Milt Kahl's introduction to the Wise Owl character at the beginning of the film is unbelievable. Very appealing, inventive actions and timing.
The three main animated sequences deal with David and Goliath, Christopher Columbus and a couple of Scottish characters, including a spider. All feature spectacular effects animation.





Technicolor publicly thanks Walt Disney for working with them.




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Eric Larson's Cinderella

August 17, 2017, 10:23 pm
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Another example of how an animator's rough drawing gets translated for the final screen version.
All rough animation drawings were redrawn and cleaned up on a new sheet of paper (until the 1960s). That clean drawing was then inked on to a cel using multiple color outlines. The shapes were then painted with special colors on the back of the cel.
These drawing/final frame comparisons almost represent the same drawing number, perhaps one or two frames apart. Eric's drawings show a slightly different looking Cinderella from the cel version, as far as facial features are concerned, Nothing a good clean up artist couldn't handle though. I wished I knew who supervised the final clean up for the character of Cinderella.









Drawings were offered at Howard Lowery Auctions.


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Milt's Brom Bones

August 20, 2017, 10:21 pm
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This is the official clean up model sheet for the character of Brom Bones. He appeared in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow section of the 1949 film The Adventure of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.
Milt Kahl supervised the animation of this character. I call this perfect casting, even though he probably would have preferred to animate Ichabod, a much cartoonier character. Milt had this uncanny capability for combining realism with cartoony elements, in regards to design as well as animation. He just knew instinctively how to apply correct anatomy to a cartoon character.
These clean up drawings on the sheet are based on Milt's rough animation. The clean up artist was Iwao Takamoto.
Next up are a few of Milt's roughs.






Here is a previous post on From Bones:




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Mushka in Color

August 21, 2017, 12:29 am
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We are so ecstatic to move into final color on our film Mushka. In this scene above we find out that Sarah's and Mushka's sleeping quarters have gotten too small for a girl and a Siberian tiger. Mushka turns over in bed, causing Sarah to fall to the floor. A color pencil texture will be added in order to avoid the conventional cel-painted look. Our final color scenes rock!!
But in end the humanity of he overall story is what will really matters. And I think wo have that.
CAN NOT WAIT to share our film with everybody!!

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From Story Sketch to Final Frame

August 23, 2017, 11:09 pm
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It's always interesting to compare a story sketch to the way the final film frame turned out.
If you take story man Bill Peet's work, you'll find out that layout and animation poses are extremely close to what need up on the screen. That's because Peet gave a lot of thought in his sketches regarding character personality, scene continuity and overall staging.
Because of this the animators loved working from his story drawings, the scenes were practically half done.
The scene above was animated by Frank Thomas.

Next up is John Lounsbery with his beautiful animation of Madame Mim as a rhino and Merlin as a crab.





Eric Larson animated Mim as a dragon. Here she finds out that she cought a virus named Merlin.




Other story artists were often less thoughtful when it came to posing the characters or good staging in general. I have copies of some of the storyboards for the animated sections of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Here the animators had their hands full in translating the story sketches into quality images for the final animation.


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Sherry Sander

August 25, 2017, 11:20 pm
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I love great animal sculptures.
Especially when there is movement involved, or when the pose reveals the animal's character.
Sherry Sander is an American sculptor who has high standards and emerges through the often uninspired scene of midwestern wildlife art. There is a raw quality to her work that reminds me of Rodin and the great Rembrandt Bugatti. Sander travelled all over the world to study animals, and it is that research that gives her sculptures a beautiful sense of authenticity.

Here is the link to her website:

http://www.sherrysanderstudio.com











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Four Old Men & One Young Lady

August 27, 2017, 10:51 pm
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On February 13, 1957 the Disneyland TV episode was titled:
The Tricks of our Trade.
Walt Disney explains various production techniques, and how his animators study real life to achieve convincing results. At that time the studio was busy with the production of Sleeping Beauty.
In one brief film clip you can see Marc Davis, John Lounsbery and Milt Kahl, as they sketch actress Helene Stanley who is posing as Aurora. Her dress was made by none other than Alice Davis.






The color footage includes Milt Kahl, Marc Davis and Frank and Ollie. This part is scripted, and the animators act out certain situations. They pretend to do research for Fantasia as Helene Stanley acts out a few animal characters from the film. In one scene Ollie shows his drawing of a dancing ostrich to the other artists. Milt criticizes the size of the feet and proceeds to enlarge them right over Ollie's sketch. Again, all scripted, but this is the kind of thing Milt would do anyway.






Milt's version of the Fantasia hippo.













The whole TV episode is included in Walt Disney Treasures (DVD) :
Behind the Scenes of the Walt Disney Studio.
I am not sure if the episode can be found on any Disney Bluray disc.



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Filming at the Walt Disney Family Museum

August 30, 2017, 11:35 pm
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A couple of pics taking yesterday at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, during the filming of "The Making of Mushka". My exhibit "Deja View" will run until October 9, and we thought it might be a good idea to film a few interviews there before it ends.
That's Marina Villar Delgado in the first photo, she designs all exhibitions at the museum. An amazing talent. She has an eye for how artwork should be displayed to bring out the personality of the artist.
The second pic shows Sybil Byrnes, daughter of Milt Kahl...and me. We were discussing many things, including the influence of her father's work on my own animation.
It was an extraordinary day!





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T.S. Sullivant in Color

September 1, 2017, 10:42 pm
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A gorgeous Sullivant illustration from around 1905. His black and white work was mostly published in Life magazine, some in Judge magazine. But occasionally a color Sullivant cartoon such as this one would appear in newspaper print.
As always, there is charm, inventive caricature and...genius.

Here is the link to my first post on Sullivant, more than six years ago:
http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/06/t-s-sullivant.html

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Versions of Tigger

September 4, 2017, 2:33 pm
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It's kind of funny to see early concepts of Tigger, before the final design was set.
This is the cover of sheet music for the Sherman song "The Wonderful thing about Tiggers"
You can see that Winnie the Pooh is finalized, he looks like he appears in the classic short films.
Tigger not so much. Milt Kahl must have been busy with another assignment, he certainly had nothing to do with this temporary design, or the way story artists depicted the bouncy character.








There is a looong way from these unrefined concept designs to what Milt finally came up with.
Milt loves to draw some of his characters with an underbite mouth configuration. Madame Mim, Shere Khan, Bagheera and the Fisherman Bear from Bedknobs & Broomsticks to name a few.
Tigger is no exception. It adds personality and looks more interesting, graphically.
One of Marc Davis' favorite Disney Characters.




More infos on the development of Tigger in this previous post:
http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/08/milts-tigger.html


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From Bill Peet to Frank Thomas

September 7, 2017, 12:21 am
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Three terrific story sketches by Bill Peet of Pongo, as he is sent flying during a fight with the Baduns.
Peet could have been a top animator as you can see in the action break down displayed here.
Three moments from a quick action scene.
The flight, the impact and the recovery. Frank Thomas animated parts of the sequence in which Pongo and Perdita face off with Jasper and Horace Badun. You can see how Frank was inspired by the story sketches. Pongo's end position shows his front legs pointing forward, which makes sense from an animator's point of view. After the body comes to an abrupt stop, the front legs swing through.
It seems like when working from Peet's boards, your scene was half done.





The story sketches are currently available at Van Eaton Galleries:
https://vegalleries.com/releases/september-2017?page=3

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Richard Williams animates Frazetta

September 9, 2017, 1:01 am
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I remember visiting Richard Williams Animation studio in London for the first time in the late 1970s. It was also my first time in the UK, and my first time traveling by plane (from Duesseldorf/Germany).
Before my trip I had arranged appointments with several animation studios, Williams, Halas & Batchelor and Richard Purdum.
Dick Williams was in the US on business when I set foot at his studio. But I did get a tour of his studio in Soho and a personal screening of their latest animated commercials. Man, was I impressed then, and looking at this kind of work now, decades later, I still am.
One of the spots was for an After Shave called Jovan. It felt revolutionary to me. I had been familiar with Frank Frazetta's work, but here it was...in motion. Dick had animated whole camera moves, character and background. He would tell me later that the spot was corny. Of course it was, but in the most amazing way! It was bold and groundbreaking!
It made me realize that animation can go much further than Disney.










Hans Bacher posted this scene breakdown a while ago on his terrific blog:




In those days London was the hub for animated commercials. There were quite a few studios that all produced high quality work, because most of the talent had been trained at Richard Williams Animation at one time or another.
Here is the youtube link to Jovan Sex Appeal:

Cels, Heritage Auctions.


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Bambi Realism

September 12, 2017, 12:05 am
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Unless we study the real thing thoroughly, we cannot caricature or animate our characters convincingly.
One of Walt Disney's insightful quotes that makes complete sense. Milt Kahl would add:
"Our characters distinguish themselves from the ones at other studios, because they have real bones and muscles."
I would add: and real weight. 
Once you know the inner workings of a human or any given animal, you can then go to town and do whatever you'd like with that knowledge. Look at Samson, Prince Phillip's horse in Sleeping Beauty.
He walks and runs like a real horse, but his design is highly stylized. The width of his lower legs is so thin, almost down to a single line.
And observing the real thing can be a ton of fun. Studying live footage and sketching Siberian Tigers has been absolutely essential for the title character of Mushka in my upcoming film. There is something wonderful and exciting about this pre-production phase. Like Milt said:"You learn so much about your subject that you don't need the live action (rotoscope) reference any more."

Any tiger scenes left to do on Mushka...let's go! All that studying gives you the confidence to tackle any type of action.

I don't know who drew these terrific studies for Bambi, but as you know, this research paid off big time. The animators were able to turn realistic motion into animated poetry.












Images/Heritage Auctions

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"Boo"

September 19, 2017, 5:50 pm
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This story sketch by Bill Peet inspired Milt Kahl, who aimed this scene featuring Madame Mim, as she temporarily turns herself into an "ugly" creature in front of Wart. Milt used practically everything Peet provided in terms of staging, expression and design.
There are beautiful key moments here that make the scene so successful and satisfying to watch:
Mim completely covers her face with her hair, before she reveals a scary face. There is a a strong squash expression on "B" followed be a stretch for the "OO".

A simple scene, beautifully executed.










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