Arabian Dance

A gorgeous development sketch for the Arabian Dance section, which is a part of The Nutcracker Suite from Fantasia. Don Lusk (who will celebrate his 103rd birthday later this year) animated this elegant fish ballet. Interestingly he was never happy with the final color footage of his animation.
I had the chance to talk to him in 2014, and he was still venting about the dry-brush paint application on the cels with his fish characters looking just awful. He was in shock when he saw his animation in full color for the first time. What he had hoped for was a transparent look for the fish tails, which could have been achieved by double expose. The fish 100%, and the tails only 50%.
The dry-brush technique makes the tails jitter, particularly during slow movements.
I told him that I actually don't mind the way the sequence looks at all, but Don wouldn't have it.
Should have been double exposure, and that's it!

A model sheet made up of stunning key poses by Don Lusk. The resemblance to Cleo from Pinocchio is not coincidental. Prior to Fantasia Don helped Eric Larson to bring that character to life.

for my previous post on Don Lusk go here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/10/don-lusk.html


John Canemaker wrote a terrific analysis of the Arabian Dance on Cartoon Brew:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/classic/john-canemaker-unlocks-the-secrets-of-fantasias-sweatbox-notes-109312.html

What's Ollie drawing...?

I had been wondering for a little while what scene Ollie is animating in this vintage photo.
As it turns out, it is a scene featured in the Ollie Johnston chapter of my Nine Old Men book.
Does anybody recognize the other two gentlemen?

An absolutely gorgeous layout sketch for another one of Ollie's scenes.

Movie Life magazine published these scrapbook type pages in their issue from September, 1942.

Perdita

Most of the animated scenes featuring Perdita from 101Dalmatians show her as a caring mother to her pups. Frank Thomas animated this gem early on in the film, when Perdita is still single. It reveals a rich personality moment, absolutely beautifully executed by an animator who knew how to crawl into his character's mind.

Roger Radcliff and Pongo have just passed by before settling down nearby under a tree. Perdita leans slightly forward to get a better look at Pongo, who glances at her at the same time. Feeling embarrassed for being "caught" she struggles to quickly get into a pose that reflects composure and disinterest. 

Sometimes I really don't know how Frank does it. He comes up with a series of sketches that have the essence of a particular emotion. Very subtle use of squash and stretch as Perdita's head nervously moves upward into the final pose, which is held for three eye blinks. 

My favorite Perdita scene and one of Frank's best.

The scene's gif looks a little wild without the connecting scenes, and the eye blinks at the end are missing. But you can see how not only the head, but different parts of her body are involved as well.

Sheep Dog

A while ago I posted Milt Kahl's designs for the archery tournament characters in the film Robin Hood. One of them was this image of a sheep dog archer.
Recently I came across these sketches of the same character by John Lounsbery. It's interesting to see his take on the sheep dog concept. He definitely refers back to the Colonel dog from 101 Dalmatians, a character he animated years earlier.

Just a Phrase...

A few years ago I ran into Oscar Grillo at CTN Expo in Burbank. Oscar is an an extraordinary, award winning  animation artist from Argentina, who made London his home a long time ago.
Five minutes into our conversation we started to debate the current state of the animation industry.
When I mentioned how disappointed I felt about the overall change from pencil animation to CG animation Oscar looked at me and said:
"THE INVENTION OF THE AUTOMOBILE MADE THE HORSE LOOK NOBLE!"

The statement blew me away, and I've been feeling great ever since.

Hook, through the eyes of Five Animators

We know that animator Frank Thomas was responsible for bringing Captain Hook to life with nuanced as well as broad acting. Frank would say that it took him a little while to find the right balance between comedy and villainy. Actor Hans Conried  provided live action performances that served as a springboard to rich character animation.
Originally it was Milt Kahl, who thought he would be perfectly cast on the character. He created model drawings like these that show how he would handle Hook in design and animation.

But in the end Walt Disney wanted Thomas to take over the part of this villain, even after Milt had put down some of Frank's early test animation. Walt knew that Milt's talents were needed on the film's title character...and the rest is history.
Frank's acting on Hook is superb, we constantly know what the character is thinking from the first time we see him in the film. Here is a link to the clean up pencil test of that scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB7IqNgufk0

Occasionally Frank asked for Ollie Johnston's advice when it came to finding the best staging for a scene with Hook. The note on the bottom right says: Ollie did this for me.

John Lounsbery animated a few Hook scenes early on in the film, like this one, when Hook calls for action against Peter Pan, who has just been sighted.
Beautiful rhythmic drawings.

Woolie Reitherman focused mostly on action/fighting scenes. As you can see he is in these two roughs, Woolie is in full control over the character's broad motion range.

 

But...Woolie was perfectly capable of handling the occasional acting close up. Most Disney animation aficionados credit Frank Thomas for animating this extraordinary scene, but this is Woolie's animation. It is seq. 14, sc. 79. Hook climbs up the rope ladder in pursuit of Peter Pan: "Ha, ha, ha, you wouldn't dare to fight old Hook man to man. You'd fly away like a cowardly sparrow."

A film frame from one of my favorite Thomas Hook scenes. A controlled pose just before he is about to explode in response to Smee's suggestion that shooting a man in the middle of his cadenza ain't good form.

More on Hook here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/05/hook-has-cold.html

and here:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/02/hook-and-smee.html

The Frank Thomas Style

I don't know what Frank is working on in this photo, as he poses with the Oscar the studio has just won for Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. Perhaps a gag drawing, since the main production at the time was The Aristocats. There are mounted character sketches of Scat Cat on the upper right corner.
It is always interesting to take a closer look at Frank Thomas' rough animation drawings. Unlike some of his colleagues, he rarely thinks about creating a graphic design in his drawings. The source for his inspiration is strictly the character's personality and its entertainment value in a particular scene or sequence.
For his rough animation pass, he would do more drawings than most other animators at the studio. More often than not Frank created ALL drawings for his scenes. This meant that there really wasn't much time left to finesse each key drawing to perfection. This is an animator with the conviction that each drawing is part of the overall performance. "Suitable for framing" was the farthest thing from his mind. As a result many of Frank's rough animation drawings look "less intimidating" than -let's say- the work of Marc Davis, Milt Kahl or Kimball.
But make no mistake, a Thomas pencil test has a magic all to its own. The quality of the performance as well as acting choices appear completely natural. The character lives on his own on the screen, detached from an animator's creative process. A tremendous achievement.

 These two Merlin key drawings are somewhat of an exception to what I just described. Because these poses needed to be held for a brief time in order to sell the comedy in the action, Frank made sure that they hold up as individual poses, with clear staging and silhouette.

Ollie Johnston and Milt Kahl drew Mowgli in a more appealing way than in these images, but the scene's motion feels like real life. A kid trying to get away from a Python's grasp, everything has proper weight, timing and most importantly - emotion.

Frank did all drawings for this King Louie scene in order to control the subtle, musical bounce, as the  character turns his head toward Flunky, who mimics his singing technique.
Assistant Dale Oliver cleaned up the loose drawings on new sheets of paper.

A simple character sketch of Edgar from The Aristocats. This single drawing doesn't sell the scene, but in sequence with all the other drawings magic happens.

One of Frank's last scenes before putting down the pencil. From then on teaching Disney principles and philosophy (through books) became the focus of this master animator. 

A list of Frank's animated achievements as put together by The Disney Archives years ago.

Many more of Frank Thomas' drawings in this earlier post:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/06/frank-thomas.html