Animation &Disney &Frame Grabs 29 Jan 2009 08:58 am
Sw in St – Squirrels 3
- Back to the break down of the squirrel sequence from Disney’s Sword In The Stone. This is the third of five segments – it’s longer than I remembered.
Going through the material like this, one becomes accutely aware of how many scenes Frank Thomas handled. Quite a lot of footage. (Only one scene here belongs to John Lounsbery.) I think he may have wanted to own such a sequence, and he went for it. It’s also interesting to see how many long pans are among his scenes. In the old days, the animators generally had enormous help from scene planners on the mechanics of the pans and trucks. I’d be curious to know how much Frank took on himself. Obviously, he had a character having to delicately touch many of the curving and moving branches. This is something he’d have to work out. I tried, in a rough way, to reassemble those pan backgrounds.
Thanks to Hans Perk for posting the drafts to this film enabling me to ID the scenes.
Seq. 006 sc. 49: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 49.1: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 50: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 51: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 52: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 53: Animator: Frank Thomas (first half of pan)
Seq. 006 sc. 53: Animator: Frank Thomas (last half of pan)
Seq. 006 sc. 54: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 54.1: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 54.1 (cont): Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 55: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 56: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 56.1: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 57: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 58: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 59: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 59.1: Animator: John Lounsbery
Seq. 006 sc. 60: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 61: Animator: Frank Thomas | Seq. 006 sc. 62: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 63: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 64: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 64 (cont): Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 65: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 66: Animator: Frank Thomas
Seq. 006 sc. 67: Animator: Frank Thomas
Two more posts to finish the sequence.
on 29 Jan 2009 at 11:24 am 1.Ray K. said …
Michael, thanks for doing this remarkable reconstruction of these layouts (a bit like getting a curated museum show every day without having to go out in the cold!).
Seeing the scenes this way turns up so much to study that’s impossible to appreciate in video or a book (at least in any size possible to print). Jumping out in today’s post: the beautiful pan BGs–always a color mass or diagonal to read the pan (with nothing to strobe), and the elegantly painted transitions between the detailed start/stop compositions and the soft focus stretches where the camera is moving. Brilliant work.
on 30 Jan 2009 at 8:51 am 2.Michael said …
Don’t forget this was shot pre-computerized animation cameras. There are also relatively few trucks going on throughout.
on 02 Feb 2009 at 11:52 pm 3.Floyd Norman said …
I really love this sequence. It truly knocked me out when I watched it back in the sixties. This was mainly Frank Thomas and his guys doing the work. I was with Milt Kahl’s unit doing other stuff in the film, but I sure admire the work Frank Thomas did in this sequence.
And, I’ve got to give well deserved credit to Frank Thomas’ key assistant, Dale Oliver who always did fantastic work. I truly admire Dale because Frank was not easy to follow.