Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– Here is a preliminary storyboard done by Bill Peet of the Wizard’s Duel from Disney’s Sword In The Stone. It’s another gem on loan from John Canemaker, and is a companion to the piece I posted last Friday by Peet. The oddity of this board is that it’s dated April 1949. (The numbers at the bottom of the board clearly read “449.”) I didn’t have any clue that this film was in development that early. The book was published in 1938, so it’s quite feasible.

If that date is accurate, it’s amazing how close the characters stay to their final models. This could easily be explained with the heightened us of xerography in animation after 1958. Post 101 Dalmatians, this loose style was easy to translate into animation, and Ken Andersen was easily able to adapt to this style by Bill Peet that all of the animators in the studio loved.

A
Click on any image to enlarge

B
Note in row 2 how the spider turns into the tiger’s face; it’s a graphic turn. This never would have made it to the final in a Disney film, and it didn’t.

CD
I love how extra drawings which have been pulled make it to the bottom of the second board.

- I always thought Disney’s The Sword In The Stone a somewhat underrated film. The background art is sensational, and several sequences are brilliantly animated.

Bill Peet‘s adaptation from TH White‘s book, The Once and Future King, loses some of its poetry in the adaptation, but the book’s storyline features a lot of rambling making it hard to construct a screen story. I’ve watched this film quite a few times over the years, and somehow it always gives me a bit of a charge that comes with many of the older classics.

The extras on the dvd seems to consist predominantly of storyboard drawings by Bill Peet. So why not show them off? There’s no continuity to attend to, hence the images are gathered in small clusters. The sequence everyone jumps to analyze and discuss is the Wizard Duel between Merlin and Madame Mim (animated by Milt Kahl.) Consequently, a lot of the drawings on the dvd come from this sequence. I, personally, would have loved seeing some of the squirrel section. I found it quite moving and full of real character stuff. It would be nice to see how Peet developed this.

There’s no hint of a continuity on the dvd, but I’ve heard that the storyboard drawings in the vault are just placed in manilla envelopes with no suggestion of an order. It would make sense that they’ve just plopped these images on the dvd as they have with no order, details or related information.

_______Here’s a creature that never made it to the battle of the wizards.

_
_________________________(Click any image to enlarge.)

_

___________Another fantastic creature that didn’t make it into the film.

I’m not sure if this drawing is also from the duel. Or was it another sequence where Wart becomes an animal – cut out of the film?

This looks like it may have been planned as a home for Merlin. Did it inspire anything for The Rescuers?

_
___________It’s magic !

_____

Here are a couple of models Peet obviously did –
_______________________probably more for himself than anything.

__+___

__+___

_______

___________

______

_____________________

______

- About a hundred years ago, it seems, John Canemaker gave me some copies of models and drawings by Ward Kimball. I’m sure at least a couple of these have been published in some of John’s books. His book, Nine Old Men, includes many other beautiful Kimball drawings, and I’d suggest you look there for more Kimball inspiration.

I once posted a couple of these, and I like them a lot. I’m posting them again and adding a bunch more that weren’t included. Ward was a brilliant artist with a very active and excited intelligence. His material from the 50′s is just excellent, and it’s always worth a look.

During the making of “Peter Pan” Kimball illustrated how Frank Thomas, Ward, Milt Kahl, Marc Davis, Clarke Mallery (an Asst at the time) and Ollie Johnston would look as “Hook”.

When Ollie Wallace, a composer at the studio, went to hospital to have his appendix removed, Kimball made this card for Ollie. It was based on Rembrandt’s painting, “The Anatomy Lesson”. It got Wallace laughing so hard in the hospital that he burst his own stitches and had to have them re-sewn.

______________(Click any drawing to enlarge.)

– At the start of Disney’s production of Bambi, Rico LeBrun, an established Italian artist, who was teaching at Chouinard Institute, was employed to help teach the studio’s artists to learn how to draw animals. He created some intense classes where animators concentrated on the anatomy of deer and other animals. The story goes that LeBrun went so far as to cut open a deer’s corpse and slowly peel away parts of the animal for drawing and study. Over days, as the smell grew more putrid, fewer and fewer people attended.

LeBrun prepared a book of some 40 or so pages of the skeletal system of deer for the artists to use as reference in learning to manipulate the animal characters. His art was copied onto animation paper with typed notes added.

I had posted one of these pages which I located on ebay (reposted above right) and am quite pleased with this original piece. Presumably the others are all, also, on animation paper.

Sky-David had contacted me after a recent item I had posted about the Tyrus Wong drawings on Bambi. Sky
told me that he had a copy of all of the pages of LeBrun’s study. Furthermore, he shared it with me and I’m sharing it with you. At least, here are the first 18 pages. I can post more at a future time.

(Click any image to enlarge.)______________

Rico LeBrun (standing), in his class, advising Eric Larsen.

Animators in LeBrun’s drawing class. (Left to Right) Louie Schmitt, Ollie Johnston,
Milt Kahl, Bill Shull, and Jack Bradbury.

For futher information on Rico LeBrun’s biography, go here.

Robert Cowan, a major collector of animation art and materials, has sent some images from Bambi, which come from his collection, to add to the theme of the art I’ve been posting.

The first is a cel setup from the “twitterpated” sequence. It’s a beauty of Thumper after he first finds love. Take a look at that stunning background, the beautiful, multicolored crowquill inking around the characters, and the refined airbrushing of the artwork. It’s a stunning cel. To think there were thousands just like it. There’s nothing comparable today.

___________________(Click any image to enlarge.)

The following storyboard drawing shows Bambi when he first sees Faline’s reflection in the water. “Twitterpated!”

This storyboard drawing shows Bambi, the young doe, being led to the meadow, for the first time, by his mother. A great drawing.

Here’s another beautiful concept painting from Bambi.

To be honest, I think these images are better than some that are printed in the Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston book, Bambi: The Story and the Film. It’s obviously an enormous and important collection Mr. Cowan has gathered, and I thank him for sharing these images.

Mr. Cowan has recently released the book, Working for Disney: 1936-1937 – The Ingeborg Willy Scrapbook, which looks interesting in itself.

- Given the article that appeared in yesterday’s NYTimes re Disney’s nature films, including and highlighting Bambi, I have to say that it’s the naturalistic sections of that film that I most love. Of course, it’s not because of the “nature” part but because of the poetic approach that was designed and overseen by Tyrus Wong.

- On Monday, I posted some color sketches from Disney’s Bambi by Ty Wong, and I’d like to continue with some attractive sketches that appear in the Bambi Sketchbook and/or Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston’s Bambi: The Story and the Film.

These sketches are very informative. How wide the gulf between storyboard and animator. I find Bambi a somewhat schizophric film. It has the absolute finest Disney has to offer, and it also has some of the most obvious and cloying work. I find most of the owl sequences fall into the latter category.

The owl is quite nice at the film’s start, but once we get to the “twitterpatin’” sequence things turn dreadfully cute and, for me, it’s a real let down. Preston Blair’s animation is good of a sort, but I think it belongs in another film. I can’t say I’ve ever spoken about this, so I don’t know if anyone else feels the same or is now convinced that I’m an idiot.

Here are some owl design sketches; they are beautiful. It’s a shame the underlying beauty of these drawings didn’t make it to the screen, just the surfaces.

(Click any image to enlarge.)_______________________

And here’s the board for the owl’s “twitterpatin’” sequence. It leads out of and into two of the great sequences of this film – the death of Bambi’s mother, and the battle of the stags.

- Bambi has to be one of the most stunning of all animated films, nevermind Disney films, and the preliminary artwork that went into it is probably even greater than what made it to the screen. The Bambi Sketchbook series book and the Ollie Johnston/Frank Thomas‘ Bambi book supports this with lots of beautiful artwork.

I can’t resist posting some of these images, so decided to go for it. It’s inspiration for me and may be for some of you as well.

From the Sketchbook, these are sketches by Tyrus Wong. His artwork really shaped this movie and give it the amazing integrity it has.

___________(Click any image to enlarge.)

- Back in July 2006 I wrote about the art exhibit of celebrity caricature which came from the Library of Congress and was seen in the NY Public Library at 42nd Street. This show still stands out in my mind.

-I’m currently researching the art of Covarrubias. An exhibit at New York’s Public Library at 42nd Street in 1998 was one of the best I’ve ever seen. It was a program of “Celebrity Caricature” mostly from the 20′s & 30′s. Covarrubias, the developing Hirschfield, and a number of other brilliant artists were all represented well. In among the art was a small section on animated caricature. Drawings by Tee Hee and Joe Grant were on display with a couple of cel set-ups. There were also a couple of WB model sheets (without artist names.)

From the book of that exhibit I’m posting some of the animation art represented. Again no animators’ names are given. I remember well
_____(cel – Charlie McCarthy & W.C. Fields in________some beautiful caricatures by Joe
_____“Mother Goose Goes Hollywood”)_____________Grant who came to Disney’s studio to _____________________________________________work on this film.

_______________Joe E. Brown and Martha Raye from “Autograph Hound”

____(Click on any image to enlarge)

Garbo & Mickey – animation drawing for Mickey’s Gala Premiere

Greta Garbo model sheet for Warner Bros.

A small sampling of this show can be found on the National Portrait Gallery website. Non-animation caricatures are on view there, and the beautiful book/catalogue can be purchased there.
Credits for the above stills goes to:
1. “Mother Goose Goes Hollywood” from the collection of Jeff & Therese Lotman
2-5. “Autograph Hound” National Portrait Gallery, Wash.D.C.
6. “Mickey’s Gala Premiere” WDFeature Animation Research Library
7. The Steve Schneider Collection

Larry T. on his blog, Random Semiconscious Musings, has a great post on Mother Goose Goes Hollywood wherein he identifies all of the caricatures with matching photographs. It’s great to see the likes of Ned Sparks (pictured), George Arliss and Joe Penner.

In celebration of the new season of baseball I have a couple of model sheets from a Paramount cartoon.

A story writer, Larry Riley, gave me these drawings back in 1972, but he never told me the film’s title.

Thanks to Thad Komorowski and Bob Jaques, who left comments on the original post, we know the drawings come from Heap Hep Injuns (1950).

___________(Click images to enlarge.)

Larry Riley was a wild guy. On my first commercial job at Phil Kimmelman & Ass. he and I were the inbetweeners working side-by-side on some of the Multiplication Rock series. Larry had had a long and busy career in animation.

He had been an asst. animator at Fleischer‘s, a story writer at Paramount, an animator at many studios. Like many other older animators, he ended up doing anything – including inbetweening at Kimmelman’s for the salary and the union benefits.

The stories Larry told me kept me laughing from start to finish. There was no doubt he had been a writer for years. In a not very exciting job, it made it a pure pleasure for me to go to work every day to hear those hilarious stories. I can’t see Lucky 7 without thinking of laughing. It wasn’t the stories per se that were funny, it was his take on it.

Larry told me of his years at Fleischer’s in Florida where he was an assistant. He and Ellsworth Barthen shared a room, and, according to Larry, had lined one of the walls of their room with empty vodka bottles. Now, I’ve heard of frats doing this with beer cans, but doing it with vodka bottles requires some serious drinking. One of the many times I got to work with Ellsworth, I asked him about the story, and he reluctantly backed it up telling me what a wild guy Larry was.

________Forgive the racist pictures, but I guess they’re a product of their times.

Larry also told of a 3D process he’d developed for Paramount in the 50′s when the movies were all going 3D. I believe there were two Paramount shorts done in this process: Popeye: The Ace of Space and Casper: Boo Man. Larry offered to give me the camera on which he shot these films – he had it stored in his basement. He was afraid it would get thrown out when he died. I didn’t have room for it.

My regret; I still hear the sadness in Larry’s voice.
(When I originally posted this in 2006, Larry’s grandson, John, wrote to tell me that another collector took possession of the camera and kept it from destruction.)

The animator who drew these is Tom Johnson (he signs the second one), and they were approved by the director Isadore (Izzy) Sparber per the first one.
The drawings are deteriorating, obviously. The pan above uses a lot of glue to hold it together, and that’s eating away at the paper.)

– This is the final model I have from Heap Hep Injuns a 1950 Paramount cartoon. Tom Johnson drew this image, prior to animating it, and Izzy Sparber directed the film. I’d heard some stories about I. Klein regarding this film, though he’s not credited, so I suspect he may have had something to do with model approvals, as well. Actually, he may have been the “Izzy” referred to on the pan posted yesterday.

(click on image to enlarge.)

I was never a big fan of the Paramount cartoons. Growing up in New York, we’d always get Paramount or Terrytoons shorts playing with features in the theaters. Only rarely did a Warners cartoon or a Disney short show up. (I don’t think I saw a Tom & Jerry cartoon until I was 17 when they started jamming the local TV kidshows with them.)

Saturdays there was always the placard outside the theater advertising “Ten Color Cartoons”. A haughty child, I naturally wanted to know why they didn’t show B&W cartoons – that’s what we saw on television, and I usually liked them more. I must have been insufferable for my siblings to put up with me.

The starburst at the beginning of the Mighty Mouse cartoons always got an enormous cheer in the local theaters. I don’t remember ever hearing that for Popeye or Harveytoons.

- A film I always thought somewhat under rated is Disney’s The Sword In The Stone. The background art is sensational, and several sequences are brilliantly animated.

Bill Peet‘s adaptation from TH White‘s book, The Once and Future King, loses some of its poetry in the adaptation, but the book’s storyline features a lot of rambling making it hard to construct a screen story. I’ve watched this film quite a few times over the years, and somehow it always gives me a bit of a charge that comes with many of the older classics.

The extras on the dvd seems to consist predominantly of storyboard drawings by Bill Peet. So why not show them off? There’s no continuity to attend to, hence the images are gathered in small clusters. The sequence everyone jumps to analyze and discuss is the Wizard Duel between Merlin and Madame Mim (animated by Milt Kahl.) Consequently, a lot of the drawings on the dvd come from this sequence. I, personally, would have loved seeing some of the squirrel section. I found it quite moving and full of real character stuff. It would be nice to see how Peet developed this.

There’s no hint of a continuity on the dvd, but I’ve heard that the storyboard drawings in the vault are just placed in manilla envelopes with no suggestion of an order. It would make sense that they’ve just plopped these images on the dvd as they have with no order, details or related information.

_______Here’s a creature that never made it to the battle of the wizards.

_
_________________________(Click any image to enlarge.)

_

___________Another fantastic creature that didn’t make it into the film.

I’m not sure if this drawing is also from the duel. Or was it another sequence where Wart becomes an animal – cut out of the film?

This looks like it may have been planned as a home for Merlin. Did it inspire anything for The Rescuers?

_
___________It’s magic !

_____

Here are a couple of models Peet obviously did –
_______________________probably more for himself than anything.

__+___

__+___

_______

___________

______

_____________________

______

- These are the four models for The Little Whirlwind. They were drawn by Freddie Moore. I’d posted one of them in the past and was asked if I had the rest of them, so it doesn’t hurt to post them again. They were xeroxed copies of copies, and they’ve faded over the years. I had to do some reconstruction and work to get them presentable.

Mark Mayerson posted all four on his blog back in June/2006, and he did a mosaic of the film then, as well. Hans Perk posted the drafts on his site, also in June/2006.

The cartoon is on the Mickey Mouse In Living Color (Vol.2) dvd.

______________ This model sheet was posted previously with a number
__________________________ of drawings by Ward Kimball.

________(Click any image to enlarge.)

______________ I had to add this sheet. Some of the poses are nice,
____________________ and obviously I like the early Mickey.
______________ This looks like it might have been for print – not animation.