Photos 04 Mar 2006 07:23 am
Blue studio
– To give you an idea of our studio and its makeup, I thought it worth posting some photos of the physical space. These were all photographed by Paul Carrillo, our brilliant editor.
This photo gives you an idea of what you see as you first enter the studio. This is the main room, where much of the action takes place. Animator, Matthew Clinton is working in the far corner on his computer. Laterally across from him (several stations down from the moviola) is Paul’s desk. I like the open feeling of it.
This photo shows the reverse of the one above; it’s taken 
from Paul’s desk facing the front desk. The front door is out of frame to the left.
We’re animating-coloring-completing a Rosemary Wells story. Unlike most of the films based on her books, this is an original story of hers which tries to encourage young children to read. The title and art styling come from another book of hers.
Mary Chapin Carpenter sings a new song written for the film.
(Click on images to enlarge.)
Matt’s almost finished with his sequence and is compositing it in color. By the time he’s done with his section, I’ll be done with mine and the two of us will animate the finale/song sequence together. We’re actually using art from a book done by Rosemary to illustrate some of the song, but we’ve mixed an animated band in with it. Bunnies.
- If you’ve been following the Production drafts that I’ve been posting here, you may want to follow-up on Michael Barrier‘s site today. He has definitive comments by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston about assigning credit, historically, from the listings on the drafts. It obviously makes sense. These drafts help locate scenes in production – the person listed on the draft was the last one to work on it. Anyone who had come before was taken out of the picture – dropped from the drafts.
- At AWN, Chris Robinson has written a very good article about George Griffin‘s latest animated short, It Pains Me To say. Robinson does more than review the film; the article is an analysis, inspired by the film, of the entire process of animation, Griffin, and film making. A good read about a film we’ve been waiting to see.
- Meanwhile, if you’re at all pumped up about the Oscars & animation, you should take another look at the films on AWN’s animation showcase. It’s a great service the site offers us.
on 04 Mar 2006 at 11:10 am 1.Michael Barrier said …
Just one clarification on Frank and Ollie’s comments. They’re applicable only to the Bambi draft, which must have been the quickly discarded product of someone’s bad bright idea. The many other Disney drafts I’ve seen, from whatever stage of production, clearly assign credit to the person who actually animated each scene, and not to the person who happened to handle the scene last.
on 21 Mar 2006 at 8:14 pm 2.Hans Perk said …
The page in which I found the contention that Grim Natwick was pushed into the background by Ham Luske was a forum entry by Stephen Worth found here: http://p203.ezboard.com/fcartoonretrofrm29.showMessage?index=14&topicID=27.topic – I tried to show that – for lack of a better word – statistically, it didn’t look like this was done to Grim…
As to the Bambi draft, Frank’s story sounds fairly logical, based on the actual draft – but he somehow inadvertantly gives the impression that guys like Duncan or Justice were considered to be one step away from the garbage. The Supervising Animator planned the sequence, and then the scenes were handed out to the “normal†animators, the next step in the chain, and the step that would be relatively the most time-consuming, and thus important to keep track of. They would be the ones doing most of the drawing, if not the thinking. Mind you: a LOT of scenes in the Bambi draft are attributed to Kahl, Johnston, Thomas and Davis – they would be the scenes for which they themselves did most of the drawings. Another example: Frank said that he planned the Motor Mania sequence (04.0) in The Fabulous Mr. Toad, but the draft mentions him in the first half only, the rest is Davis, Youngquist, Justice and King. So, ok, he was the Supervising Animator of the sequence, but the others took his planning and thinking, and did the actual drawing part of the animation… If we consider the drafts for what they were, a production planning tool, then all this makes perfect sense. At the time, hardly anyone felt the need to document the person who planned the stuff.
If only the drafts all were made as the Fun and Fancy Free draft: it indicates the Supervising animator for the sequences, as well as the actual animators.
I would agree on the general view that the head animator was indicated on most of the later drafts. But this also reflects the change in the way of working, I think.
By the way, another interesting draft is Make Mine Music: it has two drafts in its folder, one masked in red felt pen “old, must be updated†and one marked “1968 updated version†– though both are marked 1944 and 1945 at the top right. The “old†one uses different sequence divisions and scene numbers. Actually, the same goes for Three Caballeros. So this shows that the drafts WERE retyped, as needed. This may also explain why the pages of Pinocchio you show here contain the same DATA as mine, but are typed differently. Both are “finalâ€â€¦
on 22 Mar 2006 at 11:39 pm 3.Jenny Lerew said …
I love the open feeling you’ve got there too, as well as the light–winter light, I guess. May I ask(as I’m richly enjoying these photographs of your studio–just seeing an actual moviola is kind of heart-tugging!)–are you in fact in the West Village? I went to NYU before I went to Calarts–about a billion lightyears ago–and shortly afterward my best friends and former roommates lived in an apt. on Jones Street, right near the corner of 4th…we’d go to the Cornelia Street cafe, etc.etc…man! What nostalgia! I’m almost afraid to even venture into that area now, for fear that it’s unrecognizably upscale. Is it? ; )