Realism and Abstraction

For most Disney animated feature productions the research that helps to get the best results on the screen seems endless. Before animation begins storyboards are drawn and redrawn, various styles are being explored in order to achieve the right look for the film, and often live action is shot to help animators with their acting choices.

For the movie Peter Pan a lot of live action footage was filmed, and the super talented animators knew just how to use it. If the acting was inspired, why not incorporate it into your animation?

Usually timing and staging needed to be altered, because graphic animation has its own rules. Broader action, more squash and stretch and a clear silhouette.

I just love looking at these vintage photostats that were made available to the animators.

You can see what motivated them and how they translated the footage into graphic motion. Sometimes they would ignore the live action and create a different performance on their own. But as Marc Davis said, it was often helpful to be able to look at something instead of starting with a blank sheet of paper.

I myself worked with live action reference for Gaston and Hercules. We did it the same way by filming the actors wearing somewhat crude outfits, and by using the simplest of props to create some kind of an environment for the scene.

Sometimes those on the set were laughing so hard at how ridiculous (yet useful) the footage came out. If the studio could only make that footage available to you guys, you would laugh you head off.

Artists like Mary Blair preferred to present sceneries, characters and colors in an almost abstract way. With a strong focus on lighting, emotional color choices and simple staging these studies were the inspiration for the final artwork. Sure, the production backgrounds have a more realistic stage set feel, but Mary's influence is very apparent.

Eywind Earle took a similar approach for Sleeping Beauty and so did Walt Peregoy for 101 Dalmatians.

In the end this and other films landed somewhere in-between realistic and abstract influences.
And I do believe that's one reason for their greatness.

Underwater Santa

This is a Christmas card I sent out in 1989 after we had finished work on The Little Mermaid.

So today I am recycling the image to offer everybody who celebrates this holiday my best wishes and to all of you, have a happy 2013.

Sarah and Mushka

I will be living with these two for a while, since they are the main characters of my animated film.

It is a story of love and sacrifice, set in Russia. I have been working on story and pre-production throughout the year and will go into production next year.

The style will be a sort of like an animated sketchbook. I had been wondering if instead of using digital color I could just use color pencil shading right on the animation drawings. When applied very carefully the flickering will be minimal. 

Here are just a few character studies to give you an idea where I am going with this.

Luckily the LA Zoo had a couple of tiger cubs (they are almost fully grown now), so I did spend some time there to observe and sketch them. 

This is a little teaser I put together. The idea behind the scene is that Sarah, who is raising this tiger cub, realizes for the first time that even at this young age he already has a "killer instinct".

All artwork and video © Andreas Deja

Sleeping Beauty Story Meeting

The artists attending the meeting from left to right are sequence director Eric Larson, story artist Joe Rinaldi, production designer Don DaGradi and directing animator Marc Davis.

The storyboards behind Eric are part of the "Boy meets Girl" sequence, which he directed.

Everything went into this section, the most elaborate backgrounds, multiplane shots with animation from Milt Kahl, Marc Davis and John Lounsbery. All this turned out to be very expensive, and when the sequence went far over budget, Walt Disney was not too happy about it. I am sure he had a word or two with Eric.

Next time you watch the film, keep in mind that Eric did his best to make this an outstanding sequence, but he caught some flak nevertheless.

The boards being discussed show the Three Fairies in the jewel box. If you remember they are trying to figure out how to deal with Maleficent's curse.

Marc Davis brought some of his character designs of Maleficent and the raven to the meeting. They are on the floor along with DaGradi's compositional studies.

What a great captured moment in Disney history!

I might read too much into it, but Eric Larson looks a bit distraught while Marc Davis' expression seems sympathetic toward him: It's gonna be ok, Eric.
Click twice on the image, and you are in the room with these guys.

Here are copies of Marc's sketches. He depicted Maleficent's colors in black and red, a concept he saw in a book on medieval art. Marc told me years ago that he felt strongly about those colors, but background and color stylist Eyvind Earle had other ideas and settled for black with purple.

Sometimes teamwork isn't easy.

Extraordinary sinister poses for the raven. What beautiful shapes!

Marc also did design work for various crowd scenes, in vibrant colors. 

The crowds in the final film are more of a backdrop and show less personality.
If these are supposed to be caricatures of studio personal, then the guy in the middle back is a dead ringer for a very old Milt Kahl! And maybe...just maybe the character on the left is a self portrait.

Wilhelm M. Busch 1971

These wonderful spot illustrations by Wilhelm M. Busch were published in 1971 in a little German book titled "Graf Bobby" (Earl Bobby).

This is the result when a realistic master draughtsman loosens up and caricatures his human subjects. Every drawing is entertaining and full of personality. The lack of formulas in them is refreshing and his economy of lines is inspired. I often find what an artist leaves out just as interesting as what he puts in. 

Great looking characters, beautifully staged, all this totally applies to animation.

Graf Bobby was a popular character in the German speaking countries, the humor in his stories range from silly to philosophical.

Invisible Ink

This picture was taken sometime in 1987 when Steven Spielberg was visiting the animation crew in London. We were early on in production for "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". 

I believe Mr Spielberg had his picture taken with almost everybody in the animation crew. And he signed all those photos, too.

The camera that day sure didn't capture what I was working on, so it looks like I only have a blank sheet of paper to show for. 

Steven Spielberg is a very cool guy. He talks to you on the same level, from one filmmaker to another. I remember his enthusiasm for film and animation.

A few years later I even had the chance to have breakfast with him at the newly founded Dreamworks Studio. And again I felt like I could comfortably talk to this movie giant about anything, film or otherwise. I remember asking him if I could stop by the set of Jurassic Park II. He said, you won't be seeing any dinosaurs, there's just a lot of waiting around on the set. (I didn't end up going.)

I've kept shockingly little of my animation drawings from Roger Rabbit.

Here is a sketch with the Weasels' leader Smart Ass. I enjoyed animating his introduction very much.

He was interacting with live action props like a chair and a pistol, then he threatened Bob Hoskins: "Where's the Rabbit?" 

I also did the Bouncer at the Ink & Paint Club. Completely different character, powerful, slow moving like a big oaf.  So I had the chance to animate a lot of different character concepts for the film, and I learned a ton.

A post-Academy Awards-photo with Dick Williams, his mother and some of the animation crew.

Good times!! 

Christmas Cards

Many animators like to send out Christmas cards, because they can draw them themselves.

Lounsbery, Kimball, Marc Davis, Frank and Ollie, they all sent out drawn holiday greetings over the years. Not Milt Kahl. 

Remember, he said: I only draw when I have to.

In the early 1980ies I sent Milt this card with a self caricature to wish him and his wife Julie Happy Holidays.

Julie told me later, Milt doesn't do Christmas cards, but she had asked him to send me one in return.

I treasure this card. Milt picked this store bought card with a graphic image of Santa, and the open invitation to see him and Julie is very special to me!!

Runaway Brain

This short film was produced right after Lion King, but not at the Burbank studio.

A group of very talented artists in Paris/France had completed work on The Goofy Movie for Disney, and the plan was to have this terrific French studio be part of Feature Animation's films.

To start out it was decided to do a short with Mickey. Endless ideas were thrown around, but nothing seemed to stick. Then story man Tim Hauser had the idea to do a satire on the old Frankenstein story. I had too much fun sketching little Mickey monsters, like the ones above, before animation.

I was lucky to be sent to Paris along with a small group of supervisors. My job was to animate but also help supervise the animation as a whole.

Let me tell you, there was no hand holding necessary on my part, the French animators were fantastic. They were Bohlem Bouchiba, Uli Meyer (from London), Chris Bradley (from the US),

Dominique Montrey, Sylvain Deboissy, Sergio Pablos, Patrick Delage, Catherine Poulin, Marc Eoche Duval, Yoshimichi Tumara and Stephane Sainte-Foi.

I ended up animating a few opening scenes with Mickey and Pluto, the introduction of mad scientist Dr. Frankenollie and other shots here and there. 

One scene was a bit challenging, but a lot of fun.

Minnie is hugging Mickey because she mistakenly thinks they are going to Hawaii on vacation.

Mickey, shocked over this misunderstanding, pronounces the word "Hawaii" silently.

It was an unusual bit of acting for him, but I think it communicates.

These are a few of my rough animation keys from the opening scene. I remember animating the cord coming from Mickey's remote control, something that normally an effects animator would take care of. I really enjoy doing effects work once in a while.

The short was art directed by Ian Gooding and I think it looks beautiful.

A couple of pages from the Disney book "Mickey Mouse, My Life in Pictures".

Soon after the release I got my hands on a cool looking toy figurine from Japan.

This was the back of our crew jackets.

I wore it once while visiting Disneyland Paris, when suddenly a Disney sales person commented on the image, which she found outrageous. I tried to explain about the movie, but she insisted I shouldn't be wearing something like this in the park. She thought it was a counterfeit product.

Adorable…the way she was defending Mickey's image!

By the way, at the time I thought director Chris Bailey paced the film a little too fast, but watching it now, it feels just right.

You can find it on the Walt Disney Treasures DVD Mickey Mouse in Living Color, Volume Two.

Staging Pongo and Perdita II

Storyman Bill Peet drew this story sketch of Pongo and Perdi enjoying a peaceful moment together just before their lives would change with the upcoming visit of Cruella De Vil to the house.

For animation Ollie Johnston considered a different type of staging, more of a downshot of the two dogs through the window.

Frank Thomas referred back to Peet's staging, but simplified the silhouettes by hiding the dog's legs.

He also changed Perdita's head angle which makes for a better contact with Pongo. Even in this very rough sketch Pongo's muzzle reacts nicely to the hard surface of the windowsill.

Milt Kahl started out be defining Pongo's  appearance more clearly. It seems like he wasn't entirely happy with this version.

So he redrew it and referenced Frank's muzzle shape. Milt also felt that leaving out the dog's legs would simplify the staging, and guide the viewer's eye to the center of the frame, the Dalmatians' heads contacting.

There is also an abstract quality to the composition. The contour of the dog's bodies looks like an idyllic landscape with little hills and valleys. (The calm before the storm).

Milt did this sort of thing intuitively, he could never explain it.

There is no photo of Pongo's voice actor Rod Taylor working at the Disney studio to be found.

He either was photo shy or he chose early on not to promote the film.

Here is a picture of co-director Clyde Geronimi showing actress Lisa Daniels a story sequence.

Lisa voiced the character of Perdita. (Not to get confused with Lisa Davis, who voiced Anita.)