Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- I first met Ross Care years ago. He had scored the music to one of John Canemaker‘s early short films, The Wizard’s Son. I was impressed, and since I was looking for a composer for the first film of my new company, Byron Blackbear & The Scientific Method, I asked Ross for his help. He did a great job with little time and less money.

It was only a short time later, that I learned that Ross was an animation music historian. Somehow, we worked together in setting up a program for ASIFA East in which the conductor for Bambi, Alexander Steinert, took the stage with Ross to analyze the music for that film. I had a 16mm print of the film, and we watched about half of it. It was one of those memorable ASIFA meetings, that stay with you forever.

A year or two later, Ross had written an extensive article on Bambi’s music for The Quarterly Journal of The Library of Congress, the Spring 1983 edition. I just recently ran into the article on my shelves, and after getting Ross’ permission, I’m posting that article here.

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___________(Click any image to enlarge to a readable size.)

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Article: Copyright © 1983 Ross B. Care

- For the past couple of weeks, Hans Perk at A Film LA has featured the animator drafts for the Disney short, Giantland. I’ve taken the opportunity to pull some frame grabs and label the animator for each particular scene. The original drafts have the film titled at “Mickey and the Giant.”

The film was directed by Burt Gillett and released on 11/25/1933.

The animation was by Les Clark, Cy Young, Johnny Cannon, Dick Huemer, Ham Luske (one scene with Dick W[illiams]), Bill Roberts, Fred Moore, Gerry Geronimi, Gilles Armand “Frenchy” de Trémaudan, Ben Sharpsteen, and Ugo D’Orsy.

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Here’s the YouTube version:

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The Ub Iwerks short, “Jack and the Beanstalk” is interesting in that Castle Films distributed the 8mm & 16mm home movie versions of the short duriing the 50s and 60s. This allowed the Iwerks film to be more familiar to many people today. I actually studied the film frame-by-frame dozens of times when I was a kid. I got to tell Grim Natwick that his was the first animation I ever really studied.

The film had many similarities, but the approach was very different. By this time, the Disney studio was trying to improve themselves. Cartoon fantasy such as buzzing saws, representing sleep, and the tips of shoes opening to reveal smelly toes, would not be part of the Disney approach. There was more realism, hence better acting, in the Disney shorts. Iwerks hung fast to the fantasy, just as the Fleischer films did so into the late 30s.

The Iwerks film was in color (albeit Cinecolor.)

It’s amazing how similar yet very different the Iwerks short,
Jack & the Beanstalk is. The Disney studio seems to have
gone for a more realistic approach, while the Iwerks’ team
delved more into the cartoon fantasy of the animation.

- Here we have the continuation of the great Carl Barks story, Luck of the North. Pt. 1 was featured here. We pick up where we left off.

But first here’s a painting Barks did inspired by the original comic cover:

Art appears in “The Art of Walt Disney’s Donald Duck by Carl Barks”.

Luck of the North
Bigmouth Donald tricks his cousin Gladstone into a wild-goose chase
after a fake treasure map. and then, conscience-stricken,
chases him down through the polar bear-infested Arctic.

(Dell’s Donald Duck Four Color #256, December, 1949; see page 48).
Barks turned the cover concept into a nightscape, studded with
stars and haloed by the northern lights.
“That’s where I had my trouble,” he comments,”
in that northern lights effect at the top.
I found pictures of northern lights in some
Geographics and I kind of stole some.”

An afterthought, and Barks adds,
“I find water very difficult to paint.
It’s hard work, but I worked at this until
I got it to look halfway authentic.”

Has he ever compromised on a story idea because
of its difficulty? “It may be that I had the sense
to do that once in a while, but I doubt it. I generally just
plunged right in on an idea whether I was going to have
trouble or not. I’d start out with a simple idea,
and keep on elaborating on it until I had a
real complex thing going.”

Though one of Barks’ most famous stories,
this is the only painting of it he did.

The original comic cover.

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- This is the brilliant scene by Frank Thomas from the excellent Mickey short, The Brave Little Tailor. This scene is one of the highlights of that film. This scene made me realize how great an animator was Frank Thomas. For too many years I took his work for granted; this scene changed it all for me. I had to reevaluate everything he’d done.

In its entirety the scene’s about 250 drawings long, a long one. Many thanks to my friend, Lou Scarborough, for the generous loan of his xeroxed copies.

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(Click any drawing to enlarge.)

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The following QT movie represents all 246 drawings of the scene.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

- Time to move on from the Mondays at the Multiplane Camera by putting up an enormously large number of frame grabs from this Mickey/Donald short film, The Dognapper. It’s only the third Donald Duck cartoon, (following The Wise Little Hen and Orphan’s Benefit) and already he’s co-starring with Mickey. (Although he doesn’t get billing, yet.) The short was done in 1934, and the Disney animation was just starting to get a bit more sophisticated than the rubber hose characters they’d done in the silent era. I find this a very attractive short; the Backgrounds really help. This is the Disney period that I love. I can’t get enough of the animation of Johnny Cannon and Hardie Gramatky. I’m not so keen on the non-stop action of the short, but I like the look and the imagination within the format. The film was directed by David Hand.

I’ve added animator credits to each frame. This comes from the film’s drafts as posted by Hans Perk on his site, A Film LA, a treasure of a site. (IMDB has Ham Luske and Les Clark as animators on it. I’m not sure where they got their information.)

Here are a bunch of frame grabs:

Title Card

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Marvin Woodward

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Gerry Geronomi – Bill Roberts

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Here’s the movie.

- Having pulled into the great Carl Barks story, “Sheriff of Bullet Valley,” we can’t repeat the adventure, but we can find another just about as good. “Luck of the North” is a gem. Bill Peckmann has begun sending a copy of the comic book in a reprint mode, and here are his comments:

It’s a reprint of Dell’s 1949 Donald Duck Four Color #256 titled “Luck of the North”. The cover is from the original comic, but the re colored, reprinted story is from Gladstone Publishing, LTD.’s Giant Comic Albums.

He also sends along the original comic printing of the first title page of the story. You can see how much was missing from Barks’ brilliant art in the pulp mode printing.

Anyway, here’s part 1 taken from a reprint version:

The original comic cover.

This is what the original comic looked like.

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Bill’s note on the page above reads: ____________
_______________One of the all time impressive comic book pages!

____________ And I have to agree with him.

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- In the past few weeks, I’ve been recapping all of the Bill Tytla scenes I’d posted in the past. This is the last of those done for Disney, and I’m pleased to have it back up again. I’ve taken both parts of the original post and have incorporated them into this one.

- In March of this year, I posted, in three parts, Frank Thomas‘ animation on the short that never went to completion, The Laughing Gauchito. John Canemaker brought me Bill Tytla‘s scene from this very film, and I’m posting all of the drawings here. As I’ve said, Frank Thomas animated his beautiful and emotional scene and Tytla did this one for a film that Disney, himself, cancelled. He felt it was too much a one gag story.

This one came with the exposure sheets!

You should look into J.B. Kaufman’s excellent book, South of the Border; it gives a full accounting of this film.

Here’s the artwork.

The Background

The wine glass overlay

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These are the X Sheets for the scene.

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Here’s a QT of the scene with all the drawings included.

These are the links to the Frank Thomas scene: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Many thanks to John Canemaker for the loan of the scene.

To continue with all things Tytla, here’s a representation of the “Baby Mine” sequence from Dumbo. This is one of my very favorite sequences in one of my favorite animated films. The newish Blue Ray version of this film is excellent except for one thing. The commentary on this disc pales in comparison to the 60th Anniversary DVD. The original was done solely by John Canemaker and is enormously informative. I wish John would just turn that track into a book.

- Dumbo is certainly one of my favorite Disney features if not THE favorite. Naturally, the “Baby Mine” sequence is a highlight. The sequence is so tender and fine-tuned to appear straightforward and simple. This, of course, is the heart of excellence. It seems simple and doesn’t call attention to itself.

This is a storyboard composed of LO drawings from the opening of that sequence. They appear to be BG layouts with drawings of the characters cut out and pasted in place.

It’s not really a storyboard, and I’ve always wondered what purpose such boards served to the Disney machine back in the Golden Age.

Below is the board as it stands in the photograph.

_____________(Click any image to enlarge.)

Here is the same photographed board, split up so that I can post it in larger size. I’ve also interspersed frame grabs from the actual sequence for comparison.

Thanks to Steve MacQuignon for locating this video.

Info from Hans Perk at A Film LA:

Directed by Bill Roberts and John/Jack Elliotte, assistant director Earl Bench, layout Al Zinnen.

Animation by Bill Tytla (Dumbo & Mrs. Jumbo’s trunk), Fred Moore (Timothy) and assorted animals by Bob Youngquist, Harvey Toombs, Ed Aardal and John Sewell.

Hans Perk has posted the drafts for Dumbo, and this has led Mark Mayerson to post the brilliant Mosaics he’s created for the film.

- These are the notes for the Disney studios after hours classes on Action Analysis give on April 26, 1937.

The action they studied was a loop from a Charlie Chase film wherein he throws apples from a fruit stand while the attendant tries to stop him. They are particularly studying the drapery involved. Don Graham, as usual, conducts the class with involvement from: Roy Williams, Milt Neil, Joe Magro, Rose, (Ray?) Patin, and Izzie Klein.

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Just a reminder that there are many more Action Analysis class notes on Hans Perk’s invaluable site, A Film LA.

- Following up yesterday’s post of Walt Kelly’s Animal Comics, we have more of his covers for Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. Not all of these were done by Kelly, but most are. These came fresh off of Bill Peckmann‘s hot scanner, and I thank him for sharing his amazing archive with us.

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Pencils: Walt Kelly, Inking: Carl Buettner(?)

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Pencils: Walt Kelly, Inking: Carl Buettner(?)

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by Carl Barks