Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

Grim Natwick animated a spot for Mountain Dew when he worked for Robert Lawrence Productions. This is a run cycle from the film that was assisted by Tissa David. All of the drawings, here, are Tissa’s clean-ups.

Here is a scene from Snow White, animated by Bill Tytla, in which four of the dwarfs fight Grumpy. The drawing above is the first of these drawings and it shows what it looked like in color – lots of red pencil notes, yellow pencil for rough structural lines. The rest of the drawings I have are B&W copies.

By the way, if you like this material check out Hans Perk ‘s site today. It deals with forces vs. forms in animation. This is what Tytla was all about in animating.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)
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Check out Happy’s face on this inbetween.
Then check out Tytla’s drawing (the next one) of Happy.

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Tytla marked his own drawings with an “X” in the upper right corner.
The other drawings are the work of inbetweeners. The writing looks
to be all the work of Tytla.

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Some of these drawings are just hilarious in their own right.

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The P.T. on ones at 24FPS.
Click the black bar on the left to play.
Click on the right to single frame it.

-i Here’s what for me was a real treat to scan and post. I had some limited access to actual drawings by Bill Tytla of the Devil from Fantasia’s Night on Bald Mountain sequence.
The drawings are mostly roughs by Tytla, and they give a good sample of what his actual work looked like.

I don’t need to write about it; let me just give you these mages.

A good example of a Tytla drawing.

Here’s the clean up of the same drawing.

Later in the same scene.

Some Tytla sketches.

Animation roughs don’t get any more beautiful than this.

A side-peg pan.

Rough heads.

Art. What else need be said?
The individual drawings are stunning, and they’re
in service to a brilliantly acted sequence.
It will never get better.

Back in May 2006 I posted these drawings from a cycle from a Cheerios commercial animated in the late 50′s by Grim Natwick for Robert Lawrence Productions. (Robert Lawrence was half of Gantray-Lawrence, then Pintoff-Lawrence before opening his own studio, Robert Lawrence Prods.)

This highlights the importance of a good assistant for 2D animation. Tissa David was Grim’s assistant on this spot, and her cleanups are sensational. You can see all the detail that Grim actually includes in his drawing when you look at how the clean-up person properly does the job.

There’s a large shark on another level chasing the girl (see below.)

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(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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This is the cycle of sharks snapping/chasing the girl.

I don’t think any of the drawings are wholly Grim’s. The numbers on the drawings are done in Tissa David‘s handwriting, so Grim may have worked out the breakdown chart with her and asked her to animate the shark to his timing. Bits of each shark are definitely his: the darker lines – the nose on 21, the shark’s mouth and guitar on 22, and the face on 26.

At one time, Tissa was teaching me how to inbetween properly. I first had to clean up all of these drawings and then inbetwen half drawings. Let me tell you, she taught with a harsh whip; I think I drew all of these images at least a dozen times. (Those are the ones I had nerve enough to show Tissa.) I’m not sure I ever got it right enough before going on to some other scene.

- Here are a couple of drawings by Bill Tytla done for Snow White. They’re, all three, beautiful drawings, and I enjoy looking at them. They’re worth posting.

A wonderful drawing of Grumpy warning Snow White to look out for strangers.

Dopey blows water out his ears.

Here’s a link to another post I did on this.

- The BAFTAs were doled out last night. Slumdog Mullinaire won everything it was eligible for. Fortunately it wasn’t in the Short animation category. That was won by WALLACE AND GROMIT: A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH – Steve Pegram, Nick Park, Bob Baker.
Wall-E beat out Persepolis and Waltz with Bashir (great nominees) for Best Feature.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Here’s a recap of a couple of past posts I’d made showing one of my favorite sequences in animation – Dumbo’s bath and play with his mother.

- Thanks to a loan from John Canemaker, I can continue posting some of the brilliant storyboard work of Bill Peet. The guy was a masterful artist. Every panel gives so much inspiration and information to the animators, directors and artists who’ll follow up on his work.

This is the sequence from Dumbo wherein baby Dumbo plays around the feet of his mother. Brilliantly animated by Bill Tytla, this sequence is one of the greatest ever animated. No rotoscoping, no MoCap. Just brilliant artists collaborating with perfect timing, perfect structure, perfect everything. Tytla said he watched his young son at home to learn how to animate Dumbo. Bill Peet told Mike Barrier that he was a big fan of circuses, so he was delighted to be working on this piece. Both used their excitement and enthusiasm to bring something brilliant to the screen, and it stands as a masterpiece of the medium.

Of this sequence and Tytla’s animation, Mike Barrier says in Hollywood Cartoons, “What might otherwise be mere cuteness acquires poignance because it is always shaded by a parent’s knowledge of pain and risk. If Dumbo “acted” more, he would almost certainly be a less successful character—’cuter,’ probably, in the cookie-cutter manner of so many other animated characters, but far more superficial.”

I had to take the one very long photstat and reconfigure it in photoshop so that you could enlarge these frames to see them well. I tried to keep the feel of these drawings pinned to that board in tact.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Bill Peet at his desk on Dumbo.

Here are frame grabs from the very same sequence of the film showing how closely the cuts were followed. Even in stills the sequence is stunning.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

This film is a gem.
The dvd also has one of my favorite commentary tracks throughout.
John Canemaker, by himself, talking about the film. It’s great.

- Last of the squirrel posts. Here are more frame grabs from Disney’s Sword In The Stone‘s squirrel sequence as an addition to Hans Perk‘s wonderful posting of the animators’ drafts from the film.

We pick up as Merlin (as squirrel) walks off in a huff followed by the granny squirrel. Wart falls.

Seq. 006 sc. 300: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 300 (cont): Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 301: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 304: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 301.1: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 301.2: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 303.1: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 306: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 307: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 307.1: Animator: Hal King | Seq. 006 sc. 307.2: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 308: Animator: John Sibley

Seq. 006 sc. 309: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 310: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 311: Animator: John Sibley

Seq. 006 sc. 312: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 313: Animator: John Sibley | Seq. 006 sc. 314: Animator: John Sibley

Seq. 006 sc. 314.1: Animator: John Sibley

Seq. 006 sc. 314.2: Animator: Hal King & John Sibley

Seq. 006 sc. 317: Animator: John Sibley

Seq. 006 sc. 318: Animator: John Sibley

Seq. 006 sc. 318.2: Animator: Hal King | Seq. 006 sc. 318.1: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 319.1: Animator: John Sibley

Seq. 006 sc. 319.1 (cont): Animator: John Sibley

Seq. 006 sc. 320: Animator: John Lounsbery/John Sibley

Seq. 006 sc. 320 (cont): Animator: John Lounsbery/John Sibley

Seq. 006 sc. 321: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 322: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 322.1: Animator: Hal King

Seq. 006 sc. 323: Animator: Eric Larson

Seq. 006 sc. 323.1: Animator: Eric Larson

Seq. 006 sc. 323.3: Animator: Eric Larson

Seq. 006 sc. 323.2: Animator: Eric Larson

Seq. 006 sc. 324: Animator: Eric Larson

Seq. 006 sc. 324 (cont): Animator: Eric Larson

Seq. 006 sc. 325: Animator: Eric Larson

Seq. 006 sc. 326: Animator: Eric Larson

Seq. 006 sc. 327: Animator: Eric Larson | Seq. 006 sc. 328: Animator: Eric Larson

Seq. 006 sc. 329: Animator: Eric Larson

Seq. 006 sc. 330: Animator: Eric Larson

Seq. 006 sc. 331: Animator: Frank Thomas/Ollie Johnston

Seq. 006 sc. 331 (cont): Animator: Frank Thomas/Ollie Johnston

Seq. 006 sc. 332: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 334: Animator: Frank Thomas/Ollie Johnston

Seq. 006 sc. 335: Animator: Frank Thomas | Seq. 006 sc. 336: Animator: Ollie Johnston

Seq. 006 sc. 337: Animator: Frank Thomas | Seq. 006 sc. 338: Animator: Ollie Johnston

Seq. 006 sc. 339: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 340: Animator: Ollie Johnston

Seq. 006 sc. 342: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 344: Animator: Hal Ambro

Seq. 006 sc. 345: Animator: Frank Thomas

Had this been my film, I probably would have ended on Merlin and Wart walking away and would have eliminated the last shot of the squirrel. The film’s not about her; it’s about Wart. I guess I’m not as sentimental.

- Here’s the fourth part of five breaking down the squirrel sequence from Disney’s Sword In The Stone. Thanks to Hans Perk for posting the drafts to this film enabling me to ID the scenes.

This is Frank Thomas land. “Zimpleton” comments on Hans’ blog that “Thomas did 489 feet and 7 frames of animation only interrupted by a 2 foot scene by John Lounsbery and he does an additional 63 feet and 7 frames at the end of the sequence.” Quite extraordinary.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Seq. 006 sc. 67: Animator: Frank Thomas
The above two images are one pan broken in two.

Seq. 006 sc. 68: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 69: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 70: Animator: Frank Thomas

These scenes wherein the squirrels scamper around the moving branches is an
absolute pleasure for me. They really captured the essence of trees with some
of these scenes. I can’t think of any other animated film that does the same.

Seq. 006 sc. 71: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 72: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 73: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 73 (cont): Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 74: Animator: Frank Thomas | Seq. 006 sc. 75: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 76: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 77: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 78: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 79: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 80: Animator: Frank Thomas

I think Frank may have been caricaturing himself in some of these
Merlin/squirrel scenes. Certainly I think of him with the character.

Seq. 006 sc. 81: Animator: Frank Thomas | Seq. 006 sc. 82: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 83: Animator: Frank Thomas | Seq. 006 sc. 84: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 85: Animator: Frank Thomas

Take a closer look at the image in the upper right. They double exposed
a second head at about a 60% exposure to create a beautiful blur.
In computer land this probably would be a real blur.

Seq. 006 sc. 85 (cont): Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 86: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 87: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 88: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 89: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 90: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 91: Animator: Frank Thomas

One final post to come.

- Back to the break down of the squirrel sequence from Disney’s Sword In The Stone. This is the third of five segments – it’s longer than I remembered.

Going through the material like this, one becomes accutely aware of how many scenes Frank Thomas handled. Quite a lot of footage. (Only one scene here belongs to John Lounsbery.) I think he may have wanted to own such a sequence, and he went for it. It’s also interesting to see how many long pans are among his scenes. In the old days, the animators generally had enormous help from scene planners on the mechanics of the pans and trucks. I’d be curious to know how much Frank took on himself. Obviously, he had a character having to delicately touch many of the curving and moving branches. This is something he’d have to work out. I tried, in a rough way, to reassemble those pan backgrounds.

Thanks to Hans Perk for posting the drafts to this film enabling me to ID the scenes.

Seq. 006 sc. 49: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 49.1: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 50: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 51: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 52: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 53: Animator: Frank Thomas (first half of pan)

Seq. 006 sc. 53: Animator: Frank Thomas (last half of pan)

Seq. 006 sc. 54: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 54.1: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 54.1 (cont): Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 55: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 56: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 56.1: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 57: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 58: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 59: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 59.1: Animator: John Lounsbery

Seq. 006 sc. 60: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 61: Animator: Frank Thomas | Seq. 006 sc. 62: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 63: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 64: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 64 (cont): Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 65: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 66: Animator: Frank Thomas

Seq. 006 sc. 67: Animator: Frank Thomas

Two more posts to finish the sequence.