Effects Animation

There are times when I want to make the switch from character to effects animation...at least for a little while. Effects animators are not concerned with the often intense analysis of character development and acting. Their world has to do with mood, interpreting nature and inventing surreal imagery. This sounds so much easier than dissecting movements of human and animal characters. But I know that this is not the case. Just look at these concept sketches for The Sorcerer's Apprentice. How do you create these stunning visuals in motion? It represents a challenge as difficult as animated character acting, particularly if you want to be inventive and find new ways of presenting effects.

Whenever rough effects were needed to present a convincing character animation pencil test, I really enjoyed animating water, shadows, dust etc. And I got a big kick out of finding out that often (not always) the effects animators kept the essence of my rough effects work.
One of my future projects include a short film that combines music and abstract animation.

The following magazine article shows how inventive Walt Disney Productions proved to be time and again not only in regards to animated imagery but sound as well.

Smee in Trouble

A photostat of actors as pirates, as they go through the motions of threatening Smee. As the sequence's story goes, they feel they are wasting their time near the island and would rather set sail to find ships to loot.

The brilliant animation in the film by Ollie Johnston shows that ideas of this live action reference could be adopted, but needed to be re-staged and pushed for cartoonier staging and acting.

It's unbelievable to see how far Ollie went to portray Smee's anxiety, having the pirate's saber  getting closer and closer. Completely unrealistic animation, but you sure feel his jitters. Great scene!
(I had originally planed to show key drawing from this scene in my book, but we ran out of room.)

Smee's body is basically a water ballon, resulting in extreme squash and stretch animation.

Great facial reaction on Smee as the blade approaches his neck. These emotions are entertaining, but they also ring true.  Most people would put on a similar expression being caught in a predicament such as this one.

Tease 5

Milt Kahl was a junior animator in his 20s when he animated this scene with a dove "delivering" a kiss from Snow White to the Prince. I find this key drawing simply stunning.
It shows that Milt was already a master of staging a situation (as well as a master of drawing hands).
The bashful tilt of the dove's head is PERFECT! In the hands of a lesser artist, this moment could have been a B continuity scene, instead it turned out to be an A+.
A lot of dedication and love in this drawing.

It appears in my book on Disney's Nine Old Men.

Pinocchio Premiere

It is a mystery to me why Disney's Pinocchio wasn't as big of a box office hit (in its first release), if not bigger, than Snow White had been. The film deserved that. So it wasn't a romantic love story, but just like its preceding feature film, there is so much depth, darkness as well as happiness in Pinocchio. Every single character is interesting, and there are sequences even Hitchcock couldn't have imagined. Luckily time has been very kind to this cinematic masterpiece, and today it ranks as one of the greatest films of all time.
Pinocchio premiered at the Center Theatre in New York on February 7, 1940.

The theater's lobby showcased a full scale exhibition on the making of the film.

A magazine article which focuses on the movie's voice talents.

A gorgeous background painting from the film's opening sequence. I don't know if this is a study or the final BG, but watercolor application and lighting are astonishing.

Look who seems to be lost in the crowd at Pinocchio's premiere in the lobby of the Center Theatre!

Tease 4

One of Madame Mim's best acting moments, and one of my favorite Frank Thomas scenes.
The witch is setting the rules for the wizard's duel against Merlin: "(Rule one: no mineral or vegetable!) Only animal. Rule two: No make believe things like, oh...pink dragons and stuff. Now..."
Quite a while ago rough drawings from this scene were offered for sale all over the place. It took me years to collect most of the important ones, which can all be seen in sequence in my upcoming book on Disney's Nine Old Men.
This scene showcases yet again Frank's virtuosity as an actor. Mim first gets into a thinking pose, as she dreams up the next rule. Wild gesturing follows, emphasizing the "outrageous" idea of turning into a pink dragon.
This is the kind of work that still awes me and inspires me.

More Liu Jiyou

These stunning paintings appear in a book on Chinese painters, which I recently purchased.
Beautiful brushwork and gorgeous watercolor textures. Liu Jiyou studied Western painting and incorporated its realism into his own work. His art is bold and delicate at the same time.
How about an animated film in this style? Now that would be something!!

More on Liu Jiyou's art here in these previous posts:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/08/liu-jiyou.html

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/11/liu-jiyou-2.html

Tease 3

I will be discussing this Maleficent scene by Marc Davis in my upcoming book The Nine Old Men.

Most key drawings will be shown in sequence. It is interesting to see how rough this scene is drawn, compared to Marc's drawing approach in his earlier work on the character, which is very clean and tied down. My guess is that by this time in production his clean up crew had become very familiar with the character, allowing Marc to draw loose and get through his scenes quicker.

Evil power combined with sophisticated elegance!

Jungle Book Layout/Background II

In this photo Disney background artists Al Dempster, Bill Layne and Art Riley are examining character color model cels and background paintings for The Jungle Book.
You can see that early edgier work by Walt Peregoy has given way to a more realistic, romantic interpretation of the Indian Jungle. I believe at this stage of production Baloo was painted as a brown bear, before Walt Disney asked for a different color (there had been plenty of brown bears in Disney films before.) Since Walt was no fan of the Xerox line, particularly in the backgrounds, he requested a less graphic and a more painterly approach toward the film's art direction.

A B&W still from the title sequence. Fantastic use of light.

Mowgli  walks through this setting  after parting ways with Bagheera, the panther.

It's interesting to see that the painters found it necessary to add black contours to background elements that would be in contact with a character. Bagheera walks over this branch, and since his outlines are black Xerox, character and background become a little more unified.

I've always liked the color mood in this scene by Ollie Johnston. Look at how Mowgli's red shorts pop in front of the lush green tones.
A German journalist once told me that part of the reason why Jungle Book was his favorite animated film was the fact that you spend over an hour in a richly painted exotic jungle. Very easy on the eyes.

Jungle Book Layout/Background

This has always been fascinating to me: The relationship between Disney layouts and final backgrounds. It is interesting to see what the background painter changed from working with the layout. For example, the layout above from The Jungle Book suggests a dark, cloudy sky, a storm might be approaching. The BG shows sunlight, mid day.

Comparing the two, I would say that I prefer the dark foreground level of vines and branches in the layout. The highlights in the final painting compromise the depth of field.

I wonder how much Disney's layout and background artists used to argue over color, contrast, light etc. 

Tease 2

This gorgeous Merryweather scene by Frank Thomas will be part of my book on The Nine Old Men. The most important key drawings will be shown in sequence.

Louis Prima

What a great photo montage with King Louie next to jazz musician and trumpeter extraordinaire Louis Prima, who also voiced the character. The Sherman brothers wrote the signature song "I wanna be like you!", and Richard Sherman still raves about Prima's vocal energy and improvisational quality he brought to the character and the song. The "scat dialogue" between him and Phil Harris as Baloo was Prima's idea.
If I would look at a concept like this one today, mixing American Jazz with (elements of) Kipling's Jungle Book, I would probably call it a bad idea. But boy...it works like gangbusters!

Hilarious concept sketches by Ken Anderson and a cel from a Frank Thomas scene.

Milt Kahl's early stunning animation. Yet Walt Disney asked for slightly larger eyes and more hair on the top of the character's head. Those changes were made by Milt's assistant Dave Michener.

A clean up model sheet of Louie's sidekick Flunkey, beautifully animated by Frank Thomas.

More on King Louie here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/03/king-louie.html

Ruthie Thompson

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

Coming to a Bookshelf near You...

...toward the end of next month:
- Hardcover, almost 400 pages
- Hundreds of drawings by the Nine Old Men, most of them never published before
- Insight into their creative process
- Stories about their artistic triumphs as well as occasional failures and disappointments
- Profiles of each animator's career achievements
- and much more...

It turned out to be the kind of book I wished I had when I was an art student.
Preorder it from Amazon, you'll have an early Christmas:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415843359?refRID=FMQBBQ9J0QDNN0P9YEV2&ref_=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1