Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- When posting the storyboards from Melody: Adventures In Music, that were loaned me by John Canemaker, last Monday I mentioned that John had also offered some artwork from the film – color keys and story sketches. I’ll post these in two parts: the first here, the second next week after completing the board.

Unfortunately, I don’t know who the artists were that painted these.
Eyvind Earle is credited as Color Stylist; Ken O’Connor and Victor Haboush were credited for Art Direction.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

To be concluded next week.
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You can find frame grabs from this short on Ward Jenkins‘ site, The Ward-O-Matic.
MELODY is included in the Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities dvd set and it is also found in the bonus features of the Fantasia 2000 dvd.

The film is also on YouTube (at the moment) in not the best condition.

- John Canemaker has loaned me two storyboards for the Disney film, Melody: Adventures in Music. The second is a very different version of the first. I don’t know who did the drawings for this board, but the images are very finished looking. There’s also not much to hint that this version was to be done in 3D.

John also gave me a lot of color sketches and models from this board. Some of those will follow later this week.

As in the past, I’ve posted these by showing the full board, then by breaking it up into columns. This allows me to show off the boards at the largest I can get it. So here are the first two of four boards from the first version of the storyboard:

And here are these two boards broken down:

11a

11b

12a

12b

13a

13b

14a

14b

21a

21b

22a

22b

23a

23b

24a

24b

The remainder of the storyboards for this short will be posted next Monday.
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- Any devotee of the Multiplane Camera knows this scene in Pinocchio. It’s a jaw dropper. Despite the many dozens of times I’ve seen the film on screen (not mention on dvd or video), the scene is spine tingling. I thought it’d be fun to grab frames from the piece and display them. The animation for this sequence is by: John McManus, Jack Campbell, Cornett Wood, and John Reed.

I’ve gone a step further and have taken the scene that follows it where the newborn Pinocchio greets the real world (and life) for the first time. There’s some fine character animation there by Art Babbitt (Gepetto), Milt Kahl (Pinocchio), Don Lusk (figaro), and Sandy Strothers (Effx).

I urge you to read Mark Mayerson‘s Mosaic and comments on this sequence.

likewise, I urge you to read the excellent info Hans Perk has posted about the Multiplane Camera on his site, A Film LA.

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- Here’s a bit of a breakdown of one of my favorite scenes in Pinocchio during the “Actor’s Life For Me” song. The background and all the overlay/multiplane elements rotate during the move.

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The above two images came from John Canemaker ‘s book
Treasures of Disney Animation.

Here are frame grabs from the scene:

How daring for them to have the characters mostly obscured by foreground buildings
or walking off the bottome of the screen. Walt was ultimately the one who made
this decision, but a lot of other people did it along the way.

I doubt you’d see this staging in a current film.

Here’s a QT movie of the frame grabs represented above – it offers a different way of viewing what’s going on in the actual scene.

Pinocchio walks –
not true to actual speed.

- Here’s some Bill Tytla distortion that you should take a good look at. Dopey has water in his ears and shakes his head (like a dog) to get the water out.

Take a look at the final heads as the shape of Dopey’s face and head changes. It’s a beautiful piece of animation. The volume remains completely intact as everything else about the head shifts. Yet, the whole feels as though it retains its form. Using graphic distortion, the scene becomes funny and strong and is wholly Dopey in a three dimensional way.
I’d like to know what an Assistant got to do.

I have to admit I was amazed in doing this simple little exercise of taking the drawings – despite the fact that some are missing – and put them on one’s and simply run them one after the other to make the QT film at the end. Yet, once I put the drawings into motion, they became something else. It’s quite the heart and soul of what animation really is.

3 4

5 6

>7 8

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Dopey drains.

- After last week’s popular post on cartoon skeletal systems, there’s only one thing that can top it, in my book.

Here are frame grabs from The Skeleton Dance. It was a monumental piece of film making at the time, using the soundtrack for more than noise. It advanced the music score by Carl Stalling to the front and made an important and historic attempt at animated art, It was “drawn” by Ub Iwerks (but not by himself.)

The short is part of the dvd, Disney Treasures : Silly Symphonies.
You can watch the film on line here.
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(Click any image to enlarge.)

- Since the new Little Mermaid sequel – no wait, it’s a prequel – has just been released, I thought this a good time to post some of Kay Neilsen ‘s illustrations done for Disney back in the 30′s when they were initially thinking of doing the film. These frame grabs come from the extras on the Platinum Edition of the dvd.

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- Following yesterday’s display of a couple of drawings by Bill Tytla, I thought I’d post a couple of other xeroxed animation drawings I have from his work.

I wish I owned the exposure sheets. Drawings #67½, 68½, 69½, and 70½ all follow drawing #70 in its path of action. These are possibly an add on to the turn. They also may be part of a stutter he’s set up: #67½ follows 67, 68½ follows 68, 69½ follows 69, and 70½ follow 70. This would give a peculair effect, and I don’t think that’s it. (Grim Natwick taught me that if you want that stutter effect do the full move, numbering the drawings sequenctially. Then you can throw them out of order on the X-sheets.)

I don’t know, I’ve been trying to find the move in the final film.

Here’s Grumpy turning.

6364
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6566

6768

6970

7166½

67½69½

70½

Grumpy turns.

This is an actual animation drawing by Tytla that I own.
It’s obviously from another scene. The size is a small 10×12.
If you click on the drawing it should enlarge to actual size.

Bill Tytla was an amazing character in animation history. I think, far and away, he was onto something that few other animators ever tried to face. He used the drawing, including all aspects: volume, dynamic tension, weight and graphic distortion, at the service of the character’s acting.

I intend, in another post, to draw a comparison with him to Jim Tyer and Rod Scribner.

For the moment, let me show off these great drawings lifted from John Canemaker‘s wonderful book, The Treasures of Disney Animation Art.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

Look at the distortion in these two drawings – 2 & 3
Talk about breaking of joints, talk about stretch and squash,
talk about every possible animation rule and see those rules
stretched to the brink in these great drawings.

This guy was the master of all masters.
Tytla not only knew the rules but used them to create an acting style
that was on a par with the best of the Method actors of his day.
His kind was never equalled, and I don’t expect to see
anything comparable in cgi. I suppose I can hope.

What a treasure.

Of course, this is Stromboli’s wagon interior. It’s a beauty.
What a magnificent film!

- Following the pattern I followed with the post of The Robber Kitten, here are frame grabs from the 1933 Disney Silly Symphony short. It’s worth comparing to the illustrated book I posted yesterday. The animation drawings, I think, are better (though not by much.)

It’s amazing how round everything was back then. It’s even more amazing how angular everything is today – I’m not sure that’s an improvement. Somehow those circular shapes are just so much more appealing. I suppose a pleasing drawing isn’t the approach these days. The Cal Arts style seems to have taken over everything. No one seems capable of a Flash drawing without angling it.

Lullaby Land was one of the first of the many animated baby shorts. Everything from Merbabies to three little kittens scouring the Milky Way were given to the adult audiences watching films like The Petrified Forest and The Grapes of Wrath. I am certainly curious about the audience that was a sucker for these overly cute films. After all, many of these shorts were nominated or won the Oscar.

Per the Merritt & Kaufman book, Silly Symphonies, the film had Layouts by:
__Charles Philippi, Hugh Hennesy,
__Ferdinand Horvath
It was Animated by:
__Ham Luske (baby at home in cradle, baby ____and dog with Sandman)
__Art Babbitt (baby and dog in the Land of ____Nowhere)
__Ben Sharpsteen crew: Leonard Sebring, __Louie Schmitt, George Drake, Ed Love, __Bob Kuwahara, Roy Williams, Marvin __Woodward (They did: the parade of dream
____objects; baby in Forbidden Garden)
__Dick Huemer (baby with matches, the ____Bogey Men)

(Click any image to enlarge.)