Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Here are some more model sheets from Cinderella. #4 through #12 are drawn by Mary Blair. There are a couple by Marc Davis that are in among the remaining group. You can check with Hans Perk‘s resourceful site A Film LA. There you’ll find the drafts for the film, and you can find out who did what.

1
The Duke

2
The King

3
More Mice

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

- Here are some storyboard drawings from Cinderella. A number of them are by Bill Peet (known as “William Peed” on this film

May I suggest that you check with Hans Perk‘s excellent site A Film LA to find the drafts for the film. You can use those to find out who animated what scenes.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

- Here are some preliminary drawings from Cinderella. These are pictures of the mice, the cat, the dog, the Prince and the horse. Sorry the low res of some of the images doesn’t allow me to get large enough – particularly with regard to the model sheets.

After viewing these models, take a look at the animator drafts whch are being posted by Hans Perk on his commendable site, A Film LA.

- More images collected from Cinderella. But first, let me start with this email my sister, Pat, sent me. She’s always sending
me funny email jokes, and this one seemed to come at just the right time – in time for this post. It just reads:

The Prince and Cinderella is one thing but the two sisters’ dresses. That’s where this comparison takes the cake.
Anyway, I thought you might enjoy it if you haven’t already seen this.

Now, onto more Cinderella art. This all started with Hans Perk‘s wonderful blog, A Film LA and the Cinderella drafts he’s posting. Take a look. They’re a treasure (as is everything Hans posts.)

We start with a couple of finished BGs and move onto to models and designs for Cinderella’s room, house, and castle.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

The Stepmother

11

12

13

14

15

The Stepsisters

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

- I continue, here, with more images from Cinderella.

I think of this series of posts as an outgrowth of the Cinderella drafts Hans Perk is posting on his excellent blog, A Film LA. Check them out if you haven’t already.

Many of the following drawings are better drawn than some of those in the first post. Others almost look as though they’re frame grabs rather than the preliminary sketches (See #9 & 10) they are. I hope you enjoy them. If you know who did any of the art, don’t hesitate to let us all know.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

I just read a great little quote by Wilfred Jackson in Didier Ghez‘ book Walt’s People Vol. 6. I thought I’d share it. It comes from an interview with Jackson by Steve Hulett:

Pinocchio was the last picture I worked on that was done so strictly under Walt’s guidance. All during the thirties it was that way. Then he backed off and began throwing more responsibility to the rest of us. He figured we should know our business well enough to help him make pictures instead of being extra fingers on his hand.

And it’s my personal opinion that this accounts a great deal for some of the difference that you see in the spirit and the heart that you see in the pictures during the thirties. That gradually, it got a little less evident until it got to the point, in my estimation, where the Disney pictures became superb technically, but a little lacking in a joyous creative spirit you’ll find in those early pictures. As time went on, it was more and more diluted by the influence of others . . .

- Cinderella art. I’ve taken a lot of drawings that I could find from an old DVD and from some books and have put them all together in a jamboree of images making up a couple of posts. The occasion for this, to me, is to celebrate the drafts recently posted by Hans Perk on his resourceful site, A Film LA. This is all leading up to something. I don’t want to do: a mosaic of the film. I am not that in love with the movie to do all that work, but perhaps I’ll do a variation of the form, created by Mark Mayerson.

The artists of these sketches are nameless. None of the art was identified, so I send it out that way. The Mary Blair images are obvous, and though there’s a preponderance of Blair artwork for this film, I”ve tried to limit her a bit. I did devote a lot of space to her artwork in past posts. You can find more of her Cinderella images here.

For now here are some images of the character, Cinderella.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

- Yesterday, in conjunction with Hans Perk‘s posting of the drafts to Cinderella on his excellent site, A Film LA, I offered some stills from the live action reference material shot for the animators. Today, I have some stills shot for publicity of the crew working on the film, with Ilene Woods posing in all the departments of the animation studio.

I recognize very few of those posing. If you have any idea who any of the artists are, please don’t hesitate to chime in on the comments section.

Here are those stills:

1
Milt Kahl is bottow row, far right, next to Ken O’Connor (far right).
Ham Luske is pointing. Anyone know anyone else?

2
I think that’s Clyde Geronomi with Helene Stanley.

3
Helene Stanley

4
Mary Blair

5
(L to R) John Hench, Mary Blair, Claude Coats and Walt.

6
Mary Blair with John Hench
(Thanks to Rudy Agresta for the I.D.)

7
Obviously Mary Blair was key to this film.
I think that’s Ken Anderson with her.

8
Song writers: Al Hoffman(left),
Mack David (center), Jerry Livingston (far right)

11
Ilene Woods recording a song.
(Not really; she’s posing. The mic is over her head.)

12
Ilene Woods and Ted Sears
(Thanks to Mark Mayerson for the I.D.)

13

14

15
Layout artist Ken O’Connor shows off a pumpkin coach model.
(Thanks to Dan Jeup for the I.D.)

16
Ilene Woods with Marc Davis

17
Ilene Woods and BG painter, Art Riley (I think?)

18

19
Ilene tries to shoot the film, but her fingers are stuck under the platen.

- Hans Perk sparked my interest. He recently began posting the drafts to Disney’s Cinderella on his resourceful and brilliant site, A Film LA. I’ve had a love/like relationship with Cinderella since I was a kid. It’s a strong film with some solid story work, some magnificent character animation as well as some workmanlike animation. The design goes from beautiful to ordinary and back again.
(I know, I’m a harsh critic.)

To play along with Hans’ posts, I thought of doing a series of mosaics à la Mark Mayerson, but I’m looking for something else. I haven’t quite figured that out yet, but I thought I’d post some photos to celebrate getting my hands on those wonderful drafts.

The first group of photographs comes from the live action reference that was done. This filmed material wasn’t shot for the purposes of rotoscoping, but it was shot to give animators some reference on how the characters might move. Then, if they requested it, the animators would get registered print-outs of the images.

I’m currently reading Didier Ghez‘ first book of interviews with Disney artists. Walt’s People: vol. 1 is just one of 11 books of interviews available. I suggest you get these; there’s so much information in them. (And they’re absolutely addicitive reading.) In vol. 1 Marc Davis talks about this reference foto material:

“Since I was involved with the animation of so many humans there was generally some live-action footage to work from or some sort of footage you looked over.”

“Someone asked me just the other day, ‘Didn’t you fellows just rotoscope everything?’ and that’s a term I dislike immensely. When you just trace over film footage, everything has a tendency to become very broad. Every woman you drew would turn out looking like this Roseanne character on television. I see quite a lot of this thing on Saturday-morning cartoons where they’ve worked from live footage and it has a very traced look about it and it looks dead. Live action shows people doing things and it’s right on the nose. However, in animation, I try to stay two or three frames ahead of everything; action, then reaction. You’re talking about 24 frames per second that are going through the projector, so it’s a minute thing that you really can’t see. It’s highly synchronized.”

“Action that is difficult to do, such as a dancer, I would want to see a performer do it and then look at the film, not trace it. This is very true with my Cruella de Vil for 101 Dalmatians. We had a wonderful actress, Mary Wickes, who did some great live action. I used her suggestions and made them more so. If you looked at the footage of Mary and then the character, you would have a difficult time seeing the resemblance. It’s suggestion you need, and that’s why I dislike the term ‘rotoscope.’”

“Live action may be used as a blueprint, as a reference, but never traced. I see some of our films now and it’s easy to spot who was doing that sort of thing.”

Here are some of those Photo references:

1
Helene Stanley
Obvously these are hair references.

2

3
Helene Stanley
She almost doesn’t look real in this photo.

4
Here’s director Wilfred Jackson with Stanley.

5

6

7
What they didn’t use a real mice to model for Gus and Jacques?

8

9

10

11

12
Helene Stanley with stand-in Bruno.

13
I can imagine that reference helped with this balancing sequence.

14

15

16

17

18
I didn’t realize they were still using the 5-hole paper this late in the ’40s.

19

20
Down to 3-hole paper.

21
Eleanor Audley, the voice of the Step-mother,
also acted the part for this reference material.

22

23

24

25

26

27
Helene Stanley also acted as “Anastasia.”
Rhoda Williams played “Drizella.”

28
I’m not sure who’s directing the actress. If any out there
can identify him, please leave a comment.

29

30
This is Ilene Woods, the voice of “Cinderella” but
Verna Felton was the voice of the Fairy Godmother;
Claire Du Brey performed the part for the reference material.

31

32

33

34

35

36

37
Anyone know who the man in plaid is?

38

39

40
Eleanor Audley, again.

41

42
Trying on the shoe.

43

44

- Here are the remainder of the drawings from Hicks Lokey‘s Seq 10.4 Scene 26 from Fantasia. It represents the meeting between alligator and hippo from the Dance of the Hours section of the film. Jim Will did the effects animation in the scene.

Steven Hartley is posting a mosaic of this film on his blog, Blabbing On Arts and Culture!

As usual, I start Part 2 with the last drawing posted last week in Part 1:

257

261

262

264

265

267

271

274

278

284

289

293

294

295

299

304

310

311

312

313

314

316

318

320

328

________________________
.
The following is a QT of the entire scene with all the drawings (Parts 1 & 2) included.

- Last week we had Milt Kahl‘s hilarious Llama. So this week, keeping up the comedy, here’s part 1 (of 2) of Hicks Lokey‘s hippopotamus & alligator from Fantasia. (Jim Will is also credited for doing the effects animation in this scene.) This is actually the last half of the scene. It starts with the hippo on the couch with the alligator making a dive for her. She runs far into the bg, then leaps forward where the alligator catches her at the start of our drawings. It’s all about weight.

The practical problem for me came down to registration. There are no registration marks or punched holes evident on these xeroxed copies. It’s like a big flipbook (14×17) that I had to try to register. There’s also the problem that at lest 1/3 of the drawings have no numbers. This made it hard to guess how long the drawings would stay on screen (since I obviously also didn’t have exposure sheets).

Nevertheless, it seems to work as is, here. I also had a lot of cleaning up to do. The drawings had a lot of xerox markings on the pages. Hence, although there are about 60 drawings, I had to break it into two. The second half will follow next week. The QT movie, below, includes all drawings for the entire scene.

The real fun here is in looking at the individual drawings. They’re all a great laugh.

202

227

228

229

205

206

207

208a

208b

209

211

214

216

218

240

241

242

243

244

245

247

248

249

251

253

255

257

________________________
.
The following is a QT of the entire scene with all the drawings (Parts 1 & 2) included.