D23

What a weekend!

!!!

I have no idea why I did this...

With Kathryn Beaumont-Levine during our lunch.

With Roy Patrick Disney, his wife Sheri and Roger Viloria.

With Ron and John.

With Dick Van Dyke and Sybil Byrnes, daughter of Milt Kahl.

Check out this LA Times article:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-andreas-deja-20150813-story.html#page=1

World Lion Day

August 10 is World Lion Day.
In light of the recent horrific events surrounding Zimbabwe's lion Cecil, it is important to reflect on these magnificent animals...and their dwindling numbers in the wild. If you want to help, here are links to a couple of reputable organizations who are making a difference in preserving precious wildlife:

http://worldlionday.com

http://gifts.worldwildlife.org/gift-center/gifts/Species-Adoptions/Lion.aspx

Let me tell you, there is nothing more satisfying than having your own art show and donating the proceeds to animal conservation efforts. I have done it, I highly recommend it.

Which brings me back to The Lion King. I remember animating this scene during Scar's introduction.
"Life's not fair, is it? You see I...well I shall never be king. And you...shall never see the light of another day!"
This wasn't my first scene with Scar, I had done a few walks and very short dialogue scenes. But when animating this moment I started to feel the potential for the character. The mouse was beautifully animated by Brian Ferguson.

But my very first scene for The Lion King was this one. A Black Rhino rising early in the morning. I remember it like yesterday, the directors told me: "Now Andreas, this is the very first animation in the film. People will judge - is this going to be a good film or not?" Talking about pressure.
I ended up animating the scene about seven or eight different ways. Nothing seemed right to the directors.
I had the rhino lift up the head in perspective, in profile, different types of timing...etc. The final verdict was: "Well, I guess this will do."
Oh brother...I thought. Am I going to have fun animating on this movie?
Did I ever. Those were just early jitters. Scar remains one of my favorite animation assignments.

Grand Design II

Fred Moore drew this pose of the dwarf Happy twice. First as a lively intuitive rough, then as a tie down. What I love so much about this drawing is that it shows Fred's natural sense for interesting design combined with a great feeling for personality.
Happy's waistline is set extremely high up, so the viewer can appreciate the full size of his belly.
Lots of line work on the upper body, combined with bold simplicity on his lower body. This creates contrast, the shapes show a great deal of variety. It always bugs me when a character drawing is made up of evenly sized, similar shapes.

Look at how boring the pose would have been with the waistline drawn right in the middle of the figure.

If you'd place the waistline lower, you get the contrast back, but since Happy's body is arching backward, it makes much more sense to design the pose the way Fred did.

Grand Design

A gorgeous color sketch of the Lackey from the film Sleeping Beauty by Milt Kahl. I love the contrast  within the shape arrangements. Bulky body on very skinny legs. Milt went even further when he drew the Prince's horse Samson. His lower legs come together to almost one thin line.

The Lackey's outfit shows detailed patterns here, which were simplified for the final model design.

This is something CG can do very easily and successfully, lots of realistic detail. Hair, fur and patterns. 

But this is graphic animation, and the idea is to boil things down to an essence. The balance between round and square shapes in this drawing is masterful. The overall color choices are pretty stunning as well.

My next post will demonstrate some of Fred Moore's design principles.

Talking Flowers

The flowers in Disney's Alice in Wonderland have attitude issues. Friendly at first when a downsized Alice approaches them, but then their demeanor turns hostile. Alice is even called a weed.
This is wonderful personality stuff. Anthropomorphic flowers with definitive character traits. I just love the way blossoms become faces and leaves turn into arms. John Lounsbery animated lot of the flower scenes.

Mary Blair did a ton of color/design studies, all of them stunning. The Technicolor process allowed for an extremely vibrant color palette on the screen.

This post is dedicated to my friend Guillaume, who wanted to become a florist after watching this sequence from Alice in Wonderland as a kid. As a matter of fact, today Guillaume is a highly successful florist in Paris. His work is as beautiful as the images you see here.

Mickey Magic

The Sorcerer's Apprentice from Disney's grand experimental film Fantasia remains one of my all time pieces of film making. The idea of having a cartoon character commanding the forces of the universe must have sounded crazy and over the top to the Disney staff. But Walt Disney's vision for what the animated medium could do eclipsed everyone's imagination. To him this was not merely a cute cartoon business anymore "We have worlds to conquer."
And that he did, with Fantasia and so many other films and projects that followed.

I love the fact that Disney wasn't afraid of going into dark places. A Mouse's dream that turns into a frightening nightmare. Early German expressionist films had a profound influence on the Disney artists at that time. That studio was unstoppable!

Nana

Nana, who acts like a nanny to the Darling children, is a minor, but terrific character nevertheless in the film Peter Pan. She is handled in a somewhat cartoony, but still believable way by animator Norm Ferguson. She walks like a real dog, yet is able to act out human like business like in the film still above. Because she doesn't talk, the animator had to get the character's emotions across through pantomime performances. Ferguson had been an expert in animating Pluto, so he was well equipped to take on an assignment like this one.

A 1940 model sheet from the film's earlier concept period, drawn beautifully by J.P. Miller, who made Disney history when he provided final story sketches for Baby Weems. 

Just when you thought that Milt Kahl couldn't possibly have been involved with every Disney feature character, this roughly put together model sheet shows that he probably was. The length of the dog's jowls gave him a little trouble.

Milt Kahl's Wendy

An early pre-animation, charming model sheet.

Milt wasn't happy at all when Walt Disney asked him to take on the animation for Peter Pan and Wendy. He had high hopes for getting assigned to Captain Hook. That character of course went to Frank Thomas. So when Frank showed his first scenes with Hook during a sweatbox session, Milt tore them to pieces: There is nothing here, no personality, drawing...these are nothing scenes.
Eventually he calmed down and started to focus on the two most realistic characters in the film, Peter and Wendy. Milt naturally wasn't afraid of realism, to him it wasn't as much fun as doing eccentric or comedic characters. But he did his best, and his animation shines throughout the film.
In order to make animated realism look good on the screen, top draughtsmanship is absolutely essential. Standard poses and head angles will result in boring scenes. Yet beautifully drawn head tilts, up and down angles add so much to the overall acting.

These drawings from Milt's scenes show his special skills for drawing any angle extremely well.

Here an assistant is tracing Milt's rough animation drawings in an effort to understand the complex drawing style.

The following copies show clean up drawings over Milt's rough keys from the song sequence "Your Mother and Mine". Look at the subtleties in Wendy's facial features.

Let Milt tell you himself how he felt about Peter and Wendy in this clip from a previous post:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/01/milt-kahl-talks-casting-on-peter-pan.html

Titanic with a Twist

© Andreas Deja

A watercolor sketch from a few years ago. Wouldn't it be fun to reenact classic Hollywood scenes in pencil animation?