Ollie Johnston in Sketches Magazine

This article was published in 2001. Ollie passed away in 2008.

Robin Hood

There has been quite a bit of traffic today around an earlier post regarding Robin Hood.

Perhaps this has something to to with the recent announcement that Disney is going to produce a CG version of the 1973 film. 

In this scene Robin is reacting to Friar Tuck's announcement about the upcoming archery tournament.

"Thank you, Little John, but I am sure we're not invited."

Milt Kahl worked hard to make the key poses look good, particularly #59. That pose looks almost unnatural the way the body is bent and twisted. But of course in motion the scene comes off as refined and very much in character.

Here's the pencil test put together by Samuel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMbRjglR9YU&feature=youtu.be

Galaxy Gas

Check out this cool project that our associate producer Craig Peck plus a number of animation friends  initiated. I'd love to see this film get made. Here is the link to a recent Cartoon Brew post:

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/see-the-sizzle-reel-for-galaxy-gas-a-2d-feature-by-disney-all-stars-that-never-made-it-to-screen-exclusive-188906.html

Peter Pan & Dalmatians BGs

A few samples of production backgrounds from Peter Pan, painted in gouache. 

To me everything is painted in a dreamlike atmosphere, soft and illusive. Even the sequences outside of Neverland, like the Darling family home. You are in a dream from the get go. 

BG artists were: Ralph Hulett, Ray Huffine, Art Riley, Thelma Witmer, Al Dempster, Dick Anthony, Eyvind Earle, Brice Mack and Art Landy.

A completely different aesthetic for the art direction and backgrounds in 101 Dalmatians.
Intricate thin black lines on top of washes of paint. I understand that they used thinned down cel paint in an effort too create a strengthened unity between BGs and character cels. I am not entirely sure though if this is true. It sounds like this might have been something Ken Anderson experimented with during pre-production.
101 Dalmatians has a modern story line with no magic in it. The backgrounds reflect that modern realism. Its graphic 'bite" originates from illustrations and fine art typical of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

BG artists: Al Dempster, Ralph Hulett, Anthony Rizzo and Bill Layne

Either style stunning in itself!

These background paintings are currently available for purchase at Van Eaton Galleries:

https://vegalleries.com/productions/walt-disney

After You've Gone 1946

This animated short gem was part of the musical feature Make Mine Music.

The song was written by Harry Creamer and Turner Leighton. It was performed by Benny Goodman's quartet, with Goodman on the clarinet, Teddy Willson on the piano, Sid Weiss doing bass and Cozy Cole on drums. 

I love this short. It features nothing more than than a variety of anthropomorphic musical instruments interacting with each other and dancing to Goodman's music. I would call the animation semi abstract, with exhilarating timing and color styling.

I am not sure who sketched these story/color continuity pages, but they are lovely and make for good study as far as how Disney was breaking down a piece of jazz music with entertaing visual results.

Here is a magazine article featuring tis segment from Make Mine Music.

Albert Uderzo R.I.P.

A giant in the world of comics has died. Albert Uderzo drew the legendary Asterix comic albums that became a part of millions of childhoods as well as adulthoods. I was -and still am- in love with his work on Asterix and other characters. Genius!

I did one post on Uderzo a while ago, but since then have found more pics from our lunch in Paris, around 1995. I was working on the Mickey short Runaway Brain at the French Disney studio in Montreuil, just east of Paris.
On the left is Didier Ghez, who arranged this get together. On the far right is his daughter Sylvie.

Uderzo stops by the French Disney studio. That's animator Catherine Poulain in the middle, and animator Sylvain Deboissy on the right.

A few of us had lunch with Uderzo after the studio visit. Animator Yoshi Tamura is in the back.

On the left are Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, who would later direct the Firebird sequence in Fantasia 2000.

Here is the link to my 2014 post on Uderzo:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/09/albert-uderzo.html

Samson

This is a scene by Milt Kahl with Prince Phillip's horse Samson. At first I thought the drawings correspond with the film frame above, but they don't. In the color image Samson reacts to the forest animals stealing the prince's cape, hat and boots. 

It turns out that the actual scene in the film shows broader animation than what you see below. 

I believe this scene was cut from the movie. It might have been Mitl's original version, before being asked to re-animate it with a much stronger reaction.

It is interesting to see Milt applying multiple images to the horse's muzzle when he shakes his head. He did this off and on when his characters moved very fast. (Pongo jumping on Roger's lap, Kaa uncoiling before falling down a tree).

Occasionally these motion blur type lines were ignored by the inkers and painters and eliminated, other times they made it on to the final cels.

You can imagine Milt finding out that his animation was altered....lots of colorful language.