Action Analysis &Animation Artifacts &Articles on Animation &Disney &Layout & Design 08 Jun 2010 08:40 am
recap – Phil Dike Lecture
Hans Perk is posting a series of lectures on Layout. In August 2006 I posted the notes for the Disney afterhours lectures. To coincide with Hans, I’m recapping those notes.
- As noted yesterday, I am missing the notes to Lecture #2 of this Layout Course. - Hans Perk on his site, A Film LA, has posted the Ken Andersen LayOut Training Course from the Disney studio Nov, 1936.
Here’s the a fourth lecture that Phil Dike gave on May, 1936; it was called a “General Discussion”. Unfortunately, two of its pages were copied off kilter, pgs. 8 & 9. The copies here come courtesy of Hans Perk.
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on 08 Jun 2010 at 6:42 pm 1.Eddie Fitzgerald said …
Many thanks for this, but I’m not sure I agree with what’s said here. The director and animator are given short shrift here, and the story sketch and layout men are treated as directors. Is that really the way that the studio operated? No wonder the shorts of that period were technically admirable but emotionally cold. Since Walt was the defacto director the people who had the title were just functionaries. That doesn’t seem right to me.
Also, in this system the animator is just a technician who follows the tight direction dictated by the layouts. I have no doubt that some animators thrive under this system, but some others must come to grief over it. After all, this is the ANIMATION industry, not the layout industry. My own preference would be to give tight guidance to animators who need it, and loose guidance to animators who do well without it. I’d also like to see animators who are suited for it have an input in the stories.
Phil Dyke was a terrific watercolorist, and his opinions are always worth hearing. Do you have any more Phil Dyke lectures?
on 09 Jun 2010 at 11:17 am 2.Michael said …
I have to agree with you, Eddie. I was brought up in the John Hubley method. The layouts, if they existed, were as loose and vague as drawings could be. John drew ROUGH for the animators, and it was usually done during his meeting with them to pick up the work. I like this method in that it pushes the animators to be more creative, and a lot of the animators I’ve worked with seem to like it too.
I can’t imagine a factory like the Disney studio operating on any such method. Everything is whistle tight so that there are no surprises anywhere.
As for Disney’s directors, I don’t think they ever had much weight. They’ve always seemed, to me, to be traffic cops between those above them and those below, trying to keep things tension free and on schedule. The animators always seemed to rule in that studio.
I’m not sure if I have any more Phil Dike lectures, but I’ll take a look. If I do I’ll post them. I think much of the rest of my docs are animation lectures (a lot of them).
on 10 Jun 2010 at 8:18 am 3.Hans Perk said …
Just a quick note: Phil Dike held a class on Color Composition at the Disney studio in 1936. Two transcripts are on my blog: one on Layout vs. Animation (with McLaren “Mac” Stewart and Les Clark) and one on the Technicolor process.