Eric Larson is flipping a scene with his character Peg for singer/songwriter Peggy Lee, who provided the voice for this sultry canine.
Eric usually downplayed his capabilities as a draughtsman when compared to animators like Kahl, Davis or Frank and Ollie. But his assignments for the film Lady and the Tramp show clearly that he was not only a great actor with a pencil, but that his drawings were right on par with the studio's high standards. Peg's animation during her song "He's a Tramp" is beautifully timed in its rhythm and elegant moves.
These rough animation drawings are loaded with appeal and flair.
The Beaver's footage was shared between Milt Kahl and Eric, and their scenes work seamlessly together. In the drawings below the Beaver tries to figure out a way to put on the dog muzzle, or as he calls it "a log puller". He is struggling to find a way how to put this thing on, and you can see that Eric struggles a little to work out the involved action. But it's a beautiful struggle, and in the end the drawings show great clarity in the scene's staging. A lesser animator would get all caught up in trying to figure out the technicalities of this piece of action. What beautiful drawings and what a beautiful scene.
I saw Tom Thumb the other day on TCM and I was surprised to find Ms. Peggy Lee composing the songs to that movie. I got to hand it to the voice of the beaver in this movie for using a whistle to make the beaver sound. That was very clever.
ReplyDeleteBy the way Andreas, I was wondering if you can help me with something. You see in a week or two I am doing a five minute speech for my college public speaking class on artists. I was really tempted to do one of the nine old men, but I figured maybe try someone else from the studios I have know very little about. I am choosing Mary Blair. I have one of the books I got from a previous exhibit about her last year and I was trying to figure out another resource to use about her. If you have any recommendations please let me know. Thank you Mr. Deja.
There is a very nice 8 minute YouTube video titled "Influential Disney People-Mary Blair posted by a guy named "Joe the Disney Guy" you might find helpful. Actually there is a lot of stuff about her on YouTube. But, of course, there is also her web site and John Canemaker's book.
DeleteHi
ReplyDeleteI notice Eric Larson wrote "cheat" in red on the page marked 127, what did he mean with that?
thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteDiese Gesangspassage "He's a Tramp" war für mich das Einprägsamste und fasziniert mich immer aufs Neue! 😊
ReplyDeleteDanke fürs Posten! 😊