During the Legends Lunch a little over a couple of weeks ago I was happy to see a true Disney Legend, Ruthie Thompson. The first time I met Ruthie was five years ago, when she visited Disney Animation Studios, she had then just celebrated her 100th birthday. She truly validates the notion that most animation artists enjoy a long life. In this photo you are looking at a vivacious lady at 105.
Ruthie started at Disney in the Ink & Paint department during the production of Snow White. About a decade later she transferred to animation checking and scene planning, a department she would later supervise. Scene planning was very much involved in the technical aspects of multiplane scenes such as the flight over London in Peter Pan.
A while back I asked her what one one of her most challenging assignments might have been. She paused for a second and and said that the opening scene from Sleeping Beauty took a lot of brain work, since there were endless characters involved on endless cel levels.
How can you not love Ruthie Thompson ?!
Here is a link to a recent Vanity Fair article, featuring Ruthie and other Ink & Paint artists:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/03/disney-animation-girls-201003
How wonderful! To be a fly on the wall at that event... :)
ReplyDelete105 and she doesn't look a day over 50. My mother loves this scene from Sleeping Beauty. I loved all the detail designs of this movie. I feel like more women should get recognized for their amazing and talent work on any Disney films. Like Mary Blair I love her art style with her concept art for Cinderella.
ReplyDeleteBy the way I just got the Disney animated shorts that was released last month for my birthday, and I was completely amazed with all the talent with those 12 short films. I mean Mark Henn's John Henry was brilliant and how he made the animation so rough you could see the hand drawn lines on the gestures on each character, Or how Lorenzo was playing off the idea of a trickster tale while adding a Fantasia style of animation to tell the story of a gluttonous cat. But I really loved the Ballad of Nessie, and how it can relate to people who just have to conceal their tears when they are sad.
So with the Goofy Cartoon "How to Hook Up Your Home Theater", what sequence did you animate in the short?