Animation Artifacts &Books &Disney &Story & Storyboards 31 Oct 2007 08:17 am
Witches & Apples
Today’s Ollie Johnston‘s 95th Birthday. Happy Birthday, Ollie. Let’s celebrate with the first feature Ollie worked on.
- I’m a Snow White fan. If there’s one feature I look to for that chill of inspiration to hit me, it’s Snow White. There’s something about it that screams out great drawings all done by 
hand on paper. There’s something about those incredible watercolor backgrounds, the beautiful animation by the young masters. All the daring, all the pride in their work, all the challenges met by these excellent animators; it’s all on display in every frame of this film. I love it.
I have an extraordinary book that displays a lot of artwork from this film. It was published for American Express and released by them in a limited edition. To my knowledge it never hit the bookstores. So, because I love the film, because I get a kick out of this book, and because it’s Halloween, I thought it a good time to post some images of the Witch preparing her apple and delivering it.
Most of the images are obviously storyboard drawings, though a few beautiful animation drawings and Layouts slip in there. I’m not sure if any or all of these have made it to the dvd or other books, but it doesn’t quite matter to me.
Here they are.
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on 31 Oct 2007 at 6:18 pm 1.Luke Farookhi said …
Thank you for posting these! I’ve seen very few of these before. I particularly like the animation drawing of the Queen clutching her throat, and the final drawing of the Witch presenting the apple. The Queen/Witch, with the possible exception of Cruella De Vil, remains Disney’s greatest villain. Happy Birthday Ollie Johnston!
on 31 Oct 2007 at 7:37 pm 2.Eddie Fitzgerald said …
Nice post! Ditto the Popeye!
on 01 Nov 2007 at 3:32 am 3.Hans Perk said …
Ollie deserves all the praise in the world! A kinder, more gentle man you’ll never find!
Around 1980, Circle Galleries published a numbered, limited edition Snow White book, leather bound with gold leaf finish in slip case, with a lot of storyboard drawings, including the ones you post here. I (or more precisely, my parents) paid many hundreds of dollars for it, only to find half a year later that Viking Press had issued a cheap version of it with all the images (but not the serigraphs). Bought that for less than $30…
on 01 Nov 2007 at 8:31 am 4.Michael said …
That’s the book, Hans. I hadn’t seen the less expensive version or probably would have bought it. No publisher’s credit is on the book, and there is no mention of Circle Galleries. I can only assume they must have picked up the remainder of the limited edition after the initial AmEx sales.
on 01 Nov 2007 at 5:12 pm 5.Jez Hall said …
At last!!! Many thanks Mr S! I’ve had this book for years and often wondered about it.
Jez