The Mystery Video Tape

This item is currently being offered on Ebay.
The year is 1994, and Disney Art Editions invited Marc and me to have a conversation about our careers and animation in general. The video would be distributed to animation art dealers in the mid 1990s.
Disney Art Editions in those days produced re-created cels of Disney characters from the films' memorable moments.
This is 25 years ago, and I remember vividly what a hot afternoon it was. And also what an amazing honor to spend time with Marc on camera in front of the original Burbank animation studios. What I don't recall is what we talked about specifically.

I actually owned a VHS copy of this, hopefully I will find it and have it transferred to a digital file.
And then post it!

Update: Found it!

The Princess and the Frog at the Academy

Great night at the Academy last Thursday. A 10th anniversary screening of the film and a panel.

So nice to see everybody again. I was asked: "Does it feel like 10 years ago to you?"

Heck yes! So much has happened since we made that film. 

After Frog Disney  gave us one more shot at pencil animation with Winnie the Pooh.

As soon as it was announced that that film's release date had changed to go head to head with the last Harry Potter film, we knew...

Anyway I had fun working on both films, Mama Odie was a blast to animate (she should have had one more sequence in the film though, perhaps the at the ending)

Here are a few Vis Dev pieces by various artists from the movie.

More on Mama Odie here:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/10/mama-odie-maquette.html

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/12/early-mama-odie.html

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/07/mama-odie-test-scene.html

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/05/first-mama-odie-test.html

Mickey Mouse at 20

In 1948 members of the National Cartoonists' Society congratulated Walt Disney on the occasion of Mickey's 20th birthday. Quite the line up of who is who in American comic strips.

Which reminds me to remind you all that the exhibition MICKEY MOUSE, FROM WALT TO THE WORLD at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco will run until early January. 

Go visit the wonderful museum and the Mickey exhibit next door. 

For more Infos:

https://www.waltdisney.org/exhibitions/mickey-mouse-walt-world

Jeremy Irons and the New Lion King

This made my day! You have to check this out:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1411068125814604/permalink/2371715359749871/

Here is Jeremy's interview with Larry King from 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI18dj8KBbQ

Richard Williams

Just like all of you I was saddened to hear about the passing of Dick Williams.

This is how I remember him most, working on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. We had met before this, in LA at Academy events and film festivals. I shared Dick's profound enthusiasm for animation, and we enjoyed just talking about Disney, Warner Brothers, or the medium in general.

One day he called me and said that he might work for Disney after all. There was this high level project in development at Disney and Amblin, a combination of animation and live action. But it would have to be done in a way never attempted before.

I recall him coming to my house for dinner and telling me a little bit about the film whose main character would be an animated rabbit. Before leaving, Dick pulled out of his car's trunk a model sheet of Roger filled with his drawings. 

A few weeks later he phoned me and asked if I was interested in joining the animation crew in London to work on the film. Of course I would still be employed by Disney. Here's the thing: I said no, I had just been in LA for a few years, and that I wasn't ready to return to Europe.

I think another couple of weeks passed and animation producer Don Hahn and Dick asked me out for a Mexican dinner. I believe it was Don Cuco in Burbank. 

Anyway we had dinner and margaritas... and I signed on.

One of the best decisions I ever made regarding my professional career.

After my flight to Heathrow I was picked up by a driver, not to my new apartment, but straight to the studio in Camden. There was no time for jet lag...here is your first scene...GO!!!

It had the ostrich from Fantasia in it, interacting with Eddie Valiant. Photostats and all.

It really was the beginning of a terrific year, there was a buzz around the studio I'd never experienced before. We really were doing things that had never been done.

Here is the link to a post about that first ostrich scene:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/03/my-first-scene-on-roger-rabbit.html

For Alan

Here again are some interesting pieces up for auction.
Apparently a young Disney fan named Alan celebrated his 10th birthday in 1979. How he was able to get so many Disney artists (some of them had already left the studio) to do character drawings for him is astounding. And there are many more pieces than I am showing here.

Dwarfs Revisited

An interesting piece is currently being offered at auction. Fred Moore drew these four dwarfs ( Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy and Bashful) probably sometime during the late 40s or early 50s.

You can see how Fred's drawing style had changed. 

From round, thoroughly dimensional designs for the original film to spunky, graphic depictions of their personalities. 

Of course I like both approaches, because Fred Moore, at any time, couldn't make a drawing without tremendous appeal. 

So much fun to discover this sketch!

Here's how Fred drew the dwarfs for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:
https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2016/02/dwarfs.html

Wouldn't You Know?

I have often wondered if there are any Disney feature film characters that didn't get the final Milt Kahl polish, when it came to finalizing the designs.
I have never seen any Cruella De Vil sketches by Milt Kahl, or Luzifer, the cat, or Tony and Joe from Lady and the Tramp. But Milt did have something to do with the look of most Disney characters.
As he proclaimed in his episode from The Disney Family Album: "I WAS the Disney style!"

Well...he sort of was. In most cases his final designs were based on other artists' rough concepts.
Bill Peet, Joe Rinaldi, Ken Anderson and others.
So I shouldn't be surprised to find the above sketch of Cinderella from the dance sequence with the Prince. Currently for sale at Van Eaton Galleries.
That, for sure, is a Milt Kahl drawing. Eric Larson animated those scenes. There were based on live  action reference and needed to be drawn subtly and perfectly. I bet you Milt even did key drawings for the Prince in this scene. It might be Eric's animation, but the solid and appealing drawing style is all Milt.

Kimball Cars

An absolutely stunning exercise by Ward Kimball in animated motion range for a vintage cartoon car.

This was published in the magazine Asinine Alley,  also known as the Horseless Carriage Gazette.

I brought this piece to Pixar's attention, before they started the Cars franchise.

Pinocchio Layout

I am not really sure what to call this astounding piece of artwork from Pinocchio.
It looks like a layout for a camera move from the opening sequence. But it is in color.
Layouts were drawn usually in pencil before the background artist added the final mood in color.
I suppose this sketch was used for an early store reel, and since this is a very moody nighttime sequence, some color was added to help "sell" the camera over the village rooftops idea.

I re-watched the film's opening sections the other day. What a reminder for just how great this art form can be. Illustrations, paintings, drawings. In stark contrast to the hyper realistic approach of today's animated features.
It's like "art" has been sucked out of the medium.

A King Louie Cel

Somebody asked me a while ago:

"What's up with Milt Kahl's drawing style? He only uses straight lines in his animation."

That of course isn't true. Milt used straight as well as curved lines when defining a character pose or an expression. He was just very definite when balancing the two. Either very straight or very curved.

It gives the drawing a graphic simplicity and readability. 

King Louie's arms are boiled down anatomy, straight lines. By contrast his belly is a round ball.

This design philosophy started on Sleeping Beauty. It's what Amid Amidi calls CARTOON MODERN.

Limited TV animation beginning in the early 1960s applied these drawing principles wholeheartedly.

The Flintstones, Yogi Bear etc. They established a basic graphic, held character pose, and added limited animation for dialogue or body parts.

When it comes to Disney full animation though, you would have to be a genius to make such a sophisticated, graphic statement with EACH of your key drawings. 

Milt Kahl could do it, and so could Marc Davis. Kimball to a point.

But all of this doesn't really matter that much, because what audiences respond to is PERSONALITY.

And Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Lounsbery and many others had that going on in spades!

Mickey Mouse

I am posting this lovely tweet by Steven to the Walt Disney Family Museum.

You can find more infos about the exhibition here:

https://www.waltdisney.org/press-room/mickey-mouse-walt-world

Peregoy's Jungle Book II

An interesting pre-production color sketch by Walt Peregoy. As you can see the style is much looser here than the eventual final look of the film. I am not sure if Peregoy thought this should be the look of the production BGs or if he just set the overall color mood in this piece.
Interesting, too, is that Mowgli's poses are from an actual (rotoscoped) scene in the film, which at that time was already animated. To paint his loincloth red instead of white was a smart decision.

Here is another early Peregoy Jungle Book study:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2014/02/walt-peregoys-jungle-book.html

1994

Mouse by Brian Ferguson, Simba by Mark Henn and Scar by me.

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2013/07/drawing-lions.html

Remembering Eric Larson

Photo by Dave Block

It's not easy finding original animation drawings by Disney animation mentor to so many, Eric Larson. So I am grateful again to my friend Wil for providing scans for most of these beautiful sketches. Eric had a knack for communicating animation techniques as well as Disney's philosophy on entertainment to students. I remember his classes as if it were yesterday.
His articulate and passionate words of wisdom that some of us weren't able to comprehend until much later.
One of his comments which he repeatedly brought up was that Walt always gave you more than you expected. And that he lifted everybody up who worked with him.
When the Disney company entered regular TV animation during the early 1980s, Eric was not a happy camper.
The quality wasn't good enough for him, and he knew it wouldn't be good enough for Walt.

For those of us who were lucky enough to go through Eric's animation training program, he was a mix of  magic link to Walt Disney, the grandfather you never had and Santa Clause.

There are many posts regarding Eric Larson on this blog, here is the link to one of them:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/08/eric-larson.html