Milt Kahl 1964

French journalist/screenwriter/presenter Pierre Tchernia visited Disney Studios in December of 1964 to film artists and personnel as they talked about current Disney productions.

At the beginning of the documentary Tchernia knocks on the office door of Milt Kahl (several times) in order to demonstrate the various moods you might find an animator in. 

I grabbed a few frames showing Milt acting out those moods: Anger, Friendliness and Fatigue.

Milt's daughter Sybil sure got a kick out of this when I forwarded her the footage. "It sure shows his eccentric personality".

Here is the Facebook link to the footage:

https://fb.watch/Duu98kwejO/?mibextid=wwXIfr&fs=e

 

Ken O'Connor

These photostats and sketches are by Disney layout artist/art director extraordinaire Ken O'Connor for The Dance of the Hours sequence from Fantasia. 

Here he is planing character movement within the scenery. There are photos of actual miniature stage sets for the animated alligators, hippos, ostriches and elephants. 

The man in the photo is T.Hee, who co-directed this masterpiece along with Norm Ferguson.

Drawings and prints are currently available at Heritage Auctions.

A cel set up from one of their earlier auctions.

Animation Roughs

A few of my "left over" animation rough drawings I donated to a charity auction a while back.

 

Film Museum Frankfurt

During my recent travels through Germany I stopped by Frankfurt to visit the local Film Museum. This is a great place to find out about German as well as international film history. Next time you transfer flights at the Frankfurt airport, spend a little time in the city and visit this beautiful museum. 

 

They have a small section on animation with a few pieces of Disney Art. I was pleasantly surprised to see a gorgeous rough animation drawing of Tinker Bell by Marc Davis. 

Here is the link to the museum:  https://www.dff.film/en/

Flashback Deja View

 

In 2017 I was lucky to have some of my animation as well as my personal artwork exhibited at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. I remember thinking...how did I get here? A kid from a small town in Germany (Dinslaken). 

During the opening I was so honored to greet members of Walt's family. Joanna Miller, Tammy Miller, me and Ron Miller, Walt's son in law. Sometimes I still pinch myself.

NDR Talkshow

 

I had the honor of being a guest on the popular German NDR Talkshow. We taped it a week and a half ago in Hamburg, and it has been aired three times over the past few days. Other guests included actors, breast cancer survivors, journalists and an olympian athlete. 

I talked about my career at Disney as well as my animated film MUSHKA, which will be available for streaming sometime before the holidays (More on that later.)

My Interview can be viewed here ( until Jan, 24):

https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/ndr_talk_show/disney-zeichner-andreas-deja,ndrtalkshow-310.html

Frank & Ollie, Drawn Together

In 2003 the Academy presented an evening honoring animation powerhouses Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. Needless to say, it was a fantastic event. I was lucky enough to be part of the group of presenters.

Here are the pages from the program that was handed out. It was also fun to help design the cover image.

I just found out that some of the presentations can be viewed on Frank & Ollie's old website here:

https://frankanollie.com/AtTheAcademy.html