Animation &Animation Artifacts &Hubley &Story & Storyboards &Tissa David 10 Aug 2007 07:21 am
Cockaboody Layouts
– To hook up with the Cockaboody storyboard I’ve posted in three parts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
I thought I’d post some of the key drawings done by Tissa David.
To make them a bit more meaningful, to see what a really sensitive animator adds to a film, with the help from her director, I’m also posting the storyboard drawings that relate to these animation keys.
(Click any image to enlarge in a different view.)
If you watch the film with the storyboard in front of you, you’ll find a lot of discrepancies. The film grew as the animation began.
While working for Phil Kimmelman & Ass. for a short period (which just so happens to have been the exact time the Hubleys were making Cockaboody – I came back to their studio and joined their film in the very last stages) I learned an interesting saying that was the credo at Kimmelman’s. At every stage the film should get bigger. By this, they meant that the animator should take the storyboard and build on it. The Assistants should add whatever they could to the animator’s work, etc. I liked the sound of that and remind myself of it often and try to plan my films so that will be likely to happen.
I certainly think that Cockaboody does this.
If you want to see the film, it’s currently on YouTube.
Tissa takes this play with the blocks and places it on the floor. This keeps all of the action down at the girls’ level and allows the blocks to be used throughout the film. They show up
a bit later as part of the background art.
The blocking also puts more attention onto the character of the girls instead of having to have them climb up the chairs to get in place at the table.
The storyboard drawing above left (with the “goosey”) is the only representation of the girl wearing her father’s shoes. Tissa took this small bit and ran with it.
Obviously the action in the boards has nothing to do with the action in the film.
Tissa moved the girl to the closet quietly getting us into the next sequence with this girl
still in grownup shoes.
Both of these drawings (above and below) use the father’s shoes on another level.
It forces the girl to bend far to pick up the “blankey.”
Again we’re off the table on the floor, and this sequence now builds out of what came
in the past. There’s a lot of definition in the two kids at this point.
Even the toy has more definition in Tissa’s hands. I’m sure there was some discussion
of this with John. The film takes a solid shape, built on the storyboard drawings and developed with another voice.
on 10 Aug 2007 at 12:27 pm 1.Benjamin De Schrijver said …
Very interesting! Thanks!
on 11 Aug 2007 at 6:01 pm 2.Erik Westlund said …
“I learned an interesting saying that was the credo at Kimmelman’s. At every stage the film should get bigger. By this, they meant that the animator should take the storyboard and build on it. The Assistants should add whatever they could to the animator’s work, etc.”
I love that. I heard others refer to such collaborative contributions as “plussing” the film. Bud Lucky talks of this in the commentaries for the Pixar short “Boundin’” that he directed.
Wow! Talk about the opposite of tight boards. From what I have learned about his career John Hubley was ‘the’ master draftsman. To have such loose lines and freedom in his boards impresses me all that much more. He obviously was confident in his abilities and fully committed to creating the best and most appropriate films possible.
This series of posts are great. I’ve enjoyed learning the name Tissa David. Now I know who to thank for the wonderful animation I found so inspiring when first seen decades ago.
The skewed, over exaggerated perspective with the ceilings so high and strange wonderfully enhances the child’s point-of-view. John Hubley had a great ally in Tissa David and we all have benefited by the fact that he trusted her choices.
Thanks for sharing these images.