Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- This is the second half of this scene which is one of several connecting scenes I have from All the Cats Join In. Animated by Ollie Johnston in his very cute style, with panache.

As usual we start with the last image from last week’s half.

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The following QT movie represents all the drawings of the scene,
including the drawings that were displayed last week.
It’s exposed as per the drawing numbers would indicate.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

Many thanks for the loan of this scene by Lou Scarborough.

The following is the first half of the first of several connecting scenes I have which were animated by Ollie Johnston for All the Cats Join In. It’s not my favorite film, and Ollie, though a masterful animator is not my favorite.

I’ll post the second half of this next week.

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The following QT movie represents the drawings for the
enitre scene – this includes those from Part 2.
It’s exposed as per the drawing numbers would indicate.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

Many thanks for the loan of this scene by Lou Scarborough.

- When I was young I read the Carl Barks’ Donald Duck comics and the Uncle Scrooge comics and anything else the man turned out. I was religious about it and had to combat a parent who didn’t understand the importance of comic books in a young person’s life. To which end, I was on the receiving end of many a punishment when a rare Donald Duck or somesuch other comic would be found.

Oddly enough, this didn’t transfer to my adulthood where I find myself not at all interested in the oil paintings Barks did of Donald and the gang. Bill Peckmann sent me a few of these paintings, and immediately upon seeing them again, I turned my nose away but knew, just the same, that I’d be posting them. There are too many people that love these things.

So for you, the folk who love Carl Barks’ lame attempt at “art”, I surrender this post. I thank Bill Peckmann and hope you enjoy the four following paintings.

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(Click any image you’d like to enlarge.)

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- Today we complete the posting of animation drawings from this scene from Pecos Bill, animated by Milt Kahl. It’s a shot of Slue Foot Sue riding a large fish into the foreground. The drawings are on loan from Lou Scarborough, and I thank him much for the letting me showcase the work.

Here’s the link to last week’s post – Slue Foot Sue – Part 1

As always, we start with the last drawing shown last week.

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The following QT represents all the drawings from the scene. Each
extreme was held for the appropriate number of frames requested.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

- Here’s Slue Foot Sue riding a fish in the Disney short Pecos Bill. The piece was animated by Milt Kahl and loaned to me by my friend, Lou Scarborough. I’ve had to split the drawings into two – Part 2 will be posted next week.

Three of the drawings in the entire piece were traced rather than xeroxed and these three won’t have to be pointed out.

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(Click any drawing to enlarge.)

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The following QT represents all of the drawings from the scene,
not just those seen above. Each extreme was held for the
appropriate number of frames requested.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

- Here’s a Milt Kahl scene of Anita from 101 Dalmatians. These are the extremes without inbetweens. In the scene, Anita is humming along with the tune Roger is playing, then says “What clever . . .” She finishes with, “. . . lyrics,” in the next scene.

The image at the left comes from Mark Mayerson‘s excellent breakdown Mosaic of this film.

This is another scene graciously on loan to me from Lou Scarborough, and I couldn’t be more appreciative and thankful.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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The following QT represents the drawings above. Each
extreme was held for the appropriate number of frames requested.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

- Waking Sleeping Beauty is a tightly edited documentary detailing the years between 1984 and 1994 at the Disney Animation Studio. From The Black Cauldron through The Lion King. There’s ample footage of the artists in meetings – particularly story meetings, goofing around and walking the halls of the old Animation building on the Disney lot.

Yet the story being told – without an iota of fat – is the story of the above-the-line players and how they felt about each other. The machinations and power plays they work on each other to wrest control and credit for the studio’s success is the primary interest of this film, not the attitudes and thoughts of the animation people.

Only a couple of times do we really get to imagine how the artists felt about what was going on. There’s a meeting called by Katzenberg to talk about how the people felt about the period. They explained that they weren’t able to spend appropriate time with their families because of all the excess overtime that was demanded of them. Katzenberg tears up and promises that things will get better. They don’t; things get worse.

Throughout the film is colored with home movie footage taken by Randy Cartwright of a lot of the animators and artists mugging for the camera. The only shot that gives an inkling that something serious is going on is a shot where Tim Burton is caught at his drawing board, and he literally doesn’t know what to do. Frustration, irritation and annoyance beams off his face. It was one of the biggest laughs for the audience surrounding me. There are ample and tight closeups of many of these people: Tom Sito, Andreas Deja, Eric Goldberg, Joe Ranft, Roger Allers, Mike Gabriel and many more. Yet, none of them – NONE – are labelled and identified.

Joe Ranft and Tim Burton still don’t recieve identification in this film.
Yet their images are known by many outside the industry. .
Yet, every executive gets clear identification. Even the full list of end credits runs alongside running footage of people/artists in the studio saying hello and playing for the camera. Yet, none of these people are identified. I’m not even sure their names appeared in the credits since it was hard to watch the running type while trying to see the archival footage.

Despite this complaint, the story told was engrossing. Since I can identify most of the people, I was also absorbing every frame of the home movies and the footage shot for PR sake that also filled the film.

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Howard Ashman and Alan Menken are given the due credit for both The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and, to some extent, Aladdin. Ashman, as we know, had a lot to do with the shaping of both films. I’d already given credit to him for much of the guidance of the two films, so it was good to see the filmmakers support this. In many ways, in my mind, a great deal of credit for this renaissance fell on his shoulders.

In fact, I’m surprised, given the enormous success the studio has had over the years with Alan Menken’s songs and music, that they didn’t bring him in for The Princess and the Frog. Menken brought good luck to so many of the animated features of this period that one wonders if it may have helped. Given his successful track record, there was more likelihood that he might have brought something to the film. They were trying to reboot their musical franchises, yet they turned to Randy Newman – who’d been hit and miss for them at Pixar. Perhaps the Pixar connection gave Newman the upper hand with John Lasseter, probably finalizing that decision.

The film includes newly recorded interviews with many of the higher salaried artists which overlapped some of the footage and helped to move the story. Eisner, Katzenberg or Roy Disney are also seen in detailed comments taken from press releases, all of which underlines the lust for power over the animation studio. The fever pitched competition between Disney and Katzenberg is certainly highlighted.

Don Hahn directs the film with assuredness, and he acts as the primary narrator – though, producer, Peter Schneider‘s high-pitched comments certainly color the film as well.

It’s a tense and serious attempt to record a POV of one very successful period at the Disney studio, and to a great extent they get it. However, since it is made by two people in a position of power, their interest is definitely focussed on the four people above them – Eisner, Disney, Katzenberg and Wells. To be honest, I’m not sure the drama would have held if you’d concentrated on the people below their level. However, I do think the artists deserve at least to have been identified.

It’s a very entertaining film for those interested in animation and Disney, in particular.

The film opens in four cities on March 26th: NY, LA, SF and Chi. You can see it at the Landmark Sunshine theater in NY.

- So, finally, we’ve reached the end of this magnificent Frank Thomas scene from The Brave Little Tailor. The other three parts can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3.

Many thanks to friend, Lou Scarborough for the loan of the xerox copies so I could post the scene.

We start with the last drawing from Part 3.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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The following QT movie represents all 246 drawings of the scene.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

- What more can I say. It’s arguably the greatest Mickey scene ever animated. Frank Thomas did it, and this is part 3 of the displayed drawings and developing QT pencil test. In case you can’t guess, it’s from The Brave Little Tailor. Many thanks to Louis Scarborough Jr. for the loan of the scene to post it.

Here are: Part 1,
Part 2

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(Click any drawing to enlarge.)

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The following QT movie represents all 183 drawings of the first 3 posts.
As more of the film is posted, I’ll add more of the scene to the QTs.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

– Ferdinand the Bull was a precious little animated short. It originally started out as a “Silly Symphony”, but then they called it a “Special” film. It was adapted from a classic children’s book by Munro Leaf which was illustrated by his longtime collaborator, Robert Lawson. The book, published in 1936, created a bit of a stir in Europe where the Spanish saw it as a call for pacifism when they were involved in a violent civil war and were getting entrenched in what would become World War II.

In making the film, the animators who worked on it seem to have had a lot of fun. Ward Kimball led the way by caricaturing others (see below) as the bullfighters who parade into the arena. You can get a glimpse of this in the model sheets from the film. Disney, himself, was drawn as the matador leading the charge. (At least Walt thought it was a caricature of him; Kimball said no.)

In their book, Too Funny for Words, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston wrote, “The parade of participants for the great bullfight in Ferdinand the Bull (1938) was a series of caricatures of animators and directors, with the animator who conceived the whole idea bringing up the rear and leering knowingly at the camera. It was rumored that Walt thought the matador was a caricature of himself, but the animator quickly denied giving the character any resemblance to his boss.”

The animator, Ward Kimball, took credit for caricaturing the cast, but said that the Matador was not Disney.

The short won the Oscar in 1938 as Best Animated Short.
Again, many thanks to Bill Peckmann for the loan of these models to post.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Young Ferdinand

Mother

Bulls and scouts

The crowd in the arena.

Picadors and Banderilleros (obviously before Kimball got to them.)

Picador’s horse.

More Picadors and Banderilleros

I believe it’s Ham Luske leading, with Bill Tytla, Fred Moore and Art Babbitt following.
Michael Barrier corrected this (see comments) From left: Ham Luske, Jack Campbell, Fred Moore, and Art Babbitt

Jack Cambell leads these three, and I’m not sure of the others.
More from Mike Barrier’s comments: Tytla is the horseman at the middle. I believe the horseman to Tytla’s right is a caricature, too, but I can’t remember of whom.

Matador Walt Disney marches in front of Ward Kimball, bringing up the rear.

Ferdinand himself.