Animation Artifacts 19 Aug 2006 08:14 am
Windwagon Smith
– There’s a another good article by Floyd Norman on the Jim Hill Media site.
It’s a piece about Windwagon Smith, a reminiscence by Floyd about his work on the short. It includes several good stills and a couple of decent photos of animator, Art Stevens, with assistants, Craig Williams and Floyd, himself.
I’ve always had a soft spot in my memory for this film and have watched it quite a few times. It’s the heir to Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. The songs and corniness of Pecos Bill and the interesting visuals of Paul Bunyan. It’s the graphics I enjoyed.
I remember going to the theater to see PT 109 when I was a kid. One short wase advertised with the feature: Symposium On Popular Song Imagine my confusion when the wrong short went on, Windwagon Smith. I was a fan of Ludwig Von Drake on tv and was curious to see how they did him for theaters, and I expected the eventual Oscar nominee. I was also a big fan of Bill Justice and Xavier Atencio, who were directing mixed-media and more individual, daring shorts at the studio. I sought out their work.
Here was Windwagon Smith. Eventually, the design of the film finally pulled me in. It was also so well crafted that I ended up loving it.
And, sure enough, Symposium On Popular Song came on after it. Two for the expectation of one! I held both dear in my memory even though I see the faults in both.
Both were included on the “Treasures” dvd recently released. Unfortunately, the versions are poorly handled. Scratches from the mediocre prints show up as well as not the best tracks. To get the commentary from the Sherman brothers for Symposium, you can’t just hit an alternate audio track; you have to go back to the menu, search for extras and start the film over again. Annoying and cumbersome, and the audio track doesn’t even offer enough information about the music to make it worthwhile. Too bad they couldn’t get Floyd Norman to speak about it. That would have been a “Treasure.”
I can’t quickly locate a couple of drawings I have from this film, so I’m posting a few frame grabs and will put up the drawings at another time.
- There’s an article in Sunday’s NYTimes by Charles Solomon about Full Metal Manga the anime quest film.
on 19 Aug 2006 at 3:36 pm 1.Jason McDonald said …
I just watched this the other Day! Your right about the print. Why put it out, if you don’t have a good print. But the designs are strong and Beautiful to look at. Kept me going. Song is good, not for todays young audience. But Who cares. Floyd Norman should have been on the commentary. Would of love to hear his thoughts about what worked and what didn’t. This film had to be in your subconscious when you made SNARK. Right?
on 19 Aug 2006 at 4:09 pm 2.Michael said …
I definitely did not have it in mind when I did the Snark. Perhaps in my unconscious, but so was another 60 years of animation that influenced me.
I think I was more influenced by Eyvind Earle’s work more than Walt Peregoy’s, though I love both. The character styling in this film is too mixed – some stylized characters like Smith and the girl, some stylized differently – townsfolk, some right out of the 40′s – the horse and a couple of townsfolk. It’s too mixed a bag for me to take to heart.