Saturday, May 18, 2019

Steps in the Making of the Jungle Book

Disney created educational panels like these off and on to help promote a new upcoming animated feature. They were hung in the main hallway of the animation building, ground floor, or at the movie theatre where the film premiered.
I recall seeing Steps in the Making panels for Sleeping Beauty, The Aristocats and The Rescuers.

For The Jungle Book the character of King Louie guides you through the animation process. 
Sketches by Ken Anderson, storyboards, and animation drawings by John Lounsbery and Frank Thomas help explain how Louie makes it from early development to final cels on to the screen.

All pretty basic stuff, but still lots of fun to follow nevertheless.
Milt Kahl is featured in the photos, and yes, I do own his animation desk.









10 comments:

  1. I'm so happy to know that you own Milt Kahl animation desk!
    I am currently reading your wonderful book about the Nine Old Men. I'd really like to read a book like this one, but focused on the other (less known?) Disney animators, like Bill Tytla, Art Babbit, Fred Moore, etc. Have you ever thought of writing about the animators pre-Nine Old Men Era?

    Thank you for all your wonderful work - both as an animator and as a Disney historian!

    Greetings from Rome :)
    Lou

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    1. Thank you very much!
      A book on Fred Moore is being worked on right now by someone else , and it will be beautiful.

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  2. I have a question about The Aristocats since Hans Perk does not have the animation drafts for the film on his blog and he might never post the drafts. Did Eric Larson handle any footage with any other characters in the film other than just Roquefort the mouse and the three kittens?

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    1. To my knowledge that's all Eric did on that film. Roquefort and a few minor kittens scenes.

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  3. Great pieces of Disney history! Thank you so much for sharing.

    One thing I'm a little confused about is the line "The actual animation begins with pencil sketches, one for every sixteenth of a second of action". Since the normal movies play at 24 fps, 1/16th of that would give 1.5 frame per second, which obviously isn't possible. Or did they use a different frame rate at that time?

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    1. Yeah...that's a bunch of nonsense. Who wrote this, and why wasn't the text corrected?
      24 frames per second, 12 to 24 drawings per second!!

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    2. Thank you for clarifying that, sir. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out how 1/16th of a second would work for a 24fps movie!?!?!? LOL! :)

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  4. Hi, im mittleren Bild sind links unten ein Storyboard von Bill Peet. Seine Bildchen sind einfach großartig gezeichnet und er ist wirklich ein begnadeter Storyteller gewesen.

    Hast Du von ihm Storyboards in einem größerem Format? Im Internet und in ein paar büchern sind die immer so klein abgebildet. Ich würde die mal gerne größer sehen und haben. Hast Du da Zugriff drauf? Dschungelbuch, 1001 Dalmatiner und natürlich Hexe und Zauberer sind ja sein schönen Sachen! Würde mich darüber freuen und sei bedankt. Fred

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  5. It must have been quite a lot of fun developing the character of King Louie! Especially since they based him on his voice actor, jazz musician Louie Prima. Hey Andreas, may there be any way we could see that one storyboard of the rescue/dance sequence in full screen? - Matthew Rapuano

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