Animation Artifacts &Layout & Design &repeated posts &Story & Storyboards 21 Mar 2008 08:03 am
Recap Friday – Jax Beer commercial
- In November 2006 I posted the storyboard, workbook and final layouts for a Jax Beer spot which was directed by Mordicai Gerstein. I thought it interesting enough to recap the two posts, so here they are.
- This is the material for a Jax Beer commercial. It was done by a NY studio named Pelican in 1962. There were about 75 people on staff at Pelican back then.
This spot was directed by Mordi (Mordicai) Gerstein. He left animation in th 70′s to write & illustrate children’s books. (He won the Caldecott Medal for his book, The Man Who Walked Between The Towers. This was the book I adapted to animation in 2005.)
What follows is the storyboard and the director’s workbook. (It appears to be an agency board, though it’s drawn in a style that looks to be Mordi Gerstein’s. Perhaps boards from the agency were drawn by the studios back in 1964; I’m not sure. The layouts were drawn by the same artist.)
_____(Click any image to enlarge.)
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The workbook has several flaps on it that indicate changes in timings. There are also glue stains where I assume other flaps fell off. (See page one, last row, first column.) Each column represents 16 frames/one foot of film. Odd numbers are marked off.
Each row contains 8 feet of film/128 frames. Each page represents 32 feet/512 frames. It would have been smarter to keep to even numbers.
More modern exposure sheets generally have 80 frames/five feet per page. This also divides into two feet of 16mm film. (Handy.) The numbers add and divide smartly and easily. But then most people don’t use exposure sheets anymore.
- Continuing with the above post, a Jax Beer commercial, I present some of the film’s layouts. This represents about 2/3 of them.
The art was done by Mordi (Mordicai) Gerstein, who also directed the spot. Grim Natwick animated the spot and Tissa David assisted him. Of course, this was in the days before auido tapes could be handed out, so the animator would get a phonograph of the soundtrack. They could mark it with a white pencil to indicate key spots.
I thought that this in conjunction with yesterday’s prep material gave a good indication of the preproduction that went into making a commercial back in 1962.
That said, here are the layouts:
(Click on any image to enlarge.)
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on 21 Mar 2008 at 8:56 am 1.Stephen Worth said …
Great stuff! Thanks! Steve
on 31 Mar 2013 at 8:47 am 2.Polyvios Christoforos said …
“-the animator would get a phonograph of the soundtrack. They could mark it with a white pencil to indicate key spots.”
Does that mean that they take a white pencil and mark on the playing record? Just for important spots?
on 31 Mar 2013 at 2:55 pm 3.Michael said …
Yes, they would literally mark the record with a white grease pencil. Tissa David still had a number of these records when she died. Very interesting artifacts.