Disney Staging

The best of Disney's animators knew how to stage their characters in a way that made them easy to read on the screen. That way their personality statements were uncluttered and to the point.

Every line put on paper supports a main thought, and the rhythm of the drawing leads your eyes toward the area you are supposed to look at.

This is not an easy thing to achieve. An animator needs to boil things down to a clear essence, because the audience only has a split second to see and understand what's going on.

I traced these classic Disney moments off from xeroxes of the originals. In most cases the characters were animated on different levels, I combined them here for the final composition.

This stuff leaves me in awe. I know that some animators like Frank Thomas and Eric Larson worked hard to achieve this simplicity, while others like Milt Kahl and Marc Davis did it intuitively.

Each drawing is accompanied by an overlay that shows the flow toward the focused area.

The first example from "Pinocchio" even had two animators who worked out the staging issues. Stromboli was animated by Tytla, Pinoke by Frank Thomas.

Combined they form a powerful composition, the main focus is Stromboli's right hand grabbing Pinocchio. The characters connect very strongly. That firm grip 

showes Stromboli's physical strength, and Pinocchio's vulnerability.

Milt Kahl did all three characters in this scene from "Song of the South".

They relate sooo simply, clear personality and attitude in each of them.

Your eyes end up at the rabbit.

Frank Thomas animated Merlin and Mim. Props like Merlin's hat and his magic wand help point to his nose being grabbed by Mim. That's the business of the scene and all lines support the idea.

Here again opposing attitudes make up for an entertaining statement.

Robin and Maid Marian were done By Milt, their hands/paws connect in such a simple and elegant way. Even the feather on Robin's hat is curved and points toward Maid Marian. This looks so simple, but it really is quite sophisticated.

Milt again, drawing Penny and Medusa. 

It is absolutely clear who is the forthcoming character, and who is reacting.

Medusa is as usual overpowering, and here even her lips help the visual connection with Penny.

I don't know about you, but I find studying this stuff fascinating.

Peter Pan

Do yourself the favor and actually read this article from "This Week Magazine",

It was published in July of 1952, not your usual "Behind the Scenes" write up,

that's for sure.

How about those beautiful mermaid sketches by Fred Moore?

And who knew that June Foray and Margaret Kerry modeled for live action reference as mermaids.

June of course is known for her legendary voice acting in Warner Brothers cartoons, and Margaret's main role in "Peter Pan" was to act out scenes for Tinker Bell.

These drawings again are all by Milt Kahl, even the Captain Hook ones as well as Smee. Perhaps you can see why Walt assigned the more realistic characters like Peter and Wendy to Milt. Those two demanded very subtle animation combined with fine draughtsmanship. 

And that's exactly what Milt could do better than most animators. 

These early Peter Pan design studies are based on Bobby Driscoll, who voiced the character and provided live action reference for the acting scenes.

Kathryn Beaumont did the same for Wendy. And the sheet showing a variety of hair styles sure looks like Kathryn at that time.

I really like the drawings of John, they were done for other animators' scenes.

Amazing confidence in these, with a perfect combination of realism, caricature and appeal.

Milt told me a story about Walt being dissatisfied during production with all the different looks in scenes with Peter Pan. He told Milt: "What's going on with your unit, the character looks too old and muscular in a bunch of scenes." To which Milt responded:

"You want to know what's going on? You don't have any X@%#  talent in this place."

According to Ollie Johnston, only Milt could have an arguement like this with Walt.

I want to thank David Pacheco for letting me post his magazine article, and other ones I will show in the future.

Milt Kahl, Celine & Andreas

I have a mixed bag today.

To start off, here are a bunch of Milt Kahl ruffs of Merlin, King Louie, Shere Khan, George Hautcourt and Edgar from "The Aristocats".

These are scans of copies of the original key drawings.

Waaayyy back I had the chance to talk to Woolie Reitherman about Milt's work on 

"Sword in the Stone". Woolie said:"When I first saw Milt's animation of Merlin, I told him that theses drawings are so good, you could hang them in a museum. But Milt just said, aah you're full of it."   Except he didn't say "IT".

I would have to agree with Woolie, there is a perfection in Milt's drawings that is astonishing. They hold up beautifully as single pieces of illustration. 

But Milt also got criticized for this by other animators: 

"Oh, Milt is only interested in the drawing aspect, his acting falls flat."

Look at the drawings of King Louie, when I saw those for the first time, I noticed that here his eyes are smaller than the version in the film, and he has less hair on his head.

I asked Milt about this and he said:" Walt didn't like his beady eyes, he wanted them larger and he also asked for more hair on his head. I just threw the already animated scenes to my assistant Dave Michener and told him: YOU change it!" 

Switching gears again with a photo.

Alright...laugh you guys!!

Last March a few friends of mine were visiting from Paris, and part of their trip included a stop over to Las Vegas to see Celine Dion's show, amongst other things.

They invited me to come along, and I thought wouldn't it be cool to meet her before or after the show. I remembered of course that she sang the Pop version of "Beauty & the Beast" withy Peabo Bryson. 

So I turned to Disney for help to make this meeting possible. It all worked out and me and my six friends were ready to meet Miss Dion before her performance.

Because I didn't want to show up empty handed, I had prepared the drawing for her you see in the photo. The idea for the gift was to combine my character Gaston from "B & B" with her and that "other" hit movie she was part of.

When I handed it to her she said very seriously : "You know, I've been given things over the years, but this is very special. But let me ask you, is Gaston going to hold on to me or drop me in the ocean?"

She surprised me with that question, and the only answer that came to my mind was: "Well, he didn't get the girl in his last movie, so he's probably going to hold on to you...but be careful with that guy !"

There was a photographer standing by to take our picture, so we both held the drawing for a photo. All of a sudden Celine goes:"No, no, no.....let's do the pose from your drawing."

So here I am finding myself playing Titanic with Celine Dion. 

You can see from my grin that I had a good time, and her show afterwards was fantastic.

Captain Hook

Many of you would agree that Captain Hook is one of Frank Thomas' best creations. To some Frank is the best animator who ever lived. 

Personally I think there is no such thing as the one or the best in animation.

Look at other studios, Rod Scribner, Ken Harris, Ken Muse, Emery Hawkins...

the list of animation geniuses goes on and on. It's a matter of what turns YOU on.

But Frank Thomas most certainly is waaaayyy up there.

He used live action reference for a number of his characters. In this case it was character actor Hans Conried who provided the voice and acting reference for Hook.

Frank was very critical about the way other animators used live action. To him  the acting ideas were all you needed, but you still had to pass judgement on the footage and interpret what the actor gave you. His animation never has that roto,

floaty feel to it. For one thing Frank was way too talented and smart to let that happen. 

This is the intro of Captain Hook. The pencil test is the tied down version.

It's......incredible!

The photos of Hans Conried with character drawings on top of them first appeared in the book "The Art of Animation" by Bob Thomas.

I am not 100% sure, but those drawings could be by Milt Kahl, who wanted to do this character so bad, he could taste it.

In a future post I will show you how Milt envisioned this character. But Walt wanted Milt to focus on Peter and Wendy instead, and I think It was a wise decision.

So here  are a few layout and staging sketches by Frank for Hook's intro.

In some of those drawings you can sense poses by Hans Conried, but Frank's interpretation takes it to another level!

Liu Jiyou

Liu Jiyou (Chi-yu) is one of my favorite animal artists.

Quite a few years ago, then Disney visual development artist Chen-Yi Chang came back from China and brought me a booklet with Jiyou's artwork. It is breathtaking.

Later I got my hands on a couple more sizable publications, that included some information in English about his life.

He was born in China in a little village that was surrounded by nature in 1918.  His father was an established painter of animals. So he grew up with art all around him, and as they say " like father like son".

Eventually Jiyou developed his own distinctive style, combining western drawing and painting with Chinese calligraphic brush strokes.

I love the looseness in his work, based on accurate observation, and he always finds a pose that reveals the animal's characteristics. His compositions are very unique and interesting, a real master of his craft.

Jiyou died in 1983.