Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

Hans Perk is posting a series of lectures on Layout. In August 2006 I posted the notes for the Disney afterhours lectures. To coincide with Hans, I’m recapping those notes.

- The following is the Disney Layout Training Course’s 3rd meeting. Charles Philippi gave the lecture, and it’s a good one. It’s all about pans. (I posted the first lecture and don’t have the second. One is missing.)

There was a time when I was working for John Hubley on Everybody Rides The Carousel where he had asked me to design a background and setup for a package to be sent out, that day, to Bill Littlejohn for animation. Fortunately, I had just read these notes the day before, and I used what I’d learned. Hubley gave me a nice compliment, and I gave it all to Charles Philippi.

Littlejohn, by the way, did one of my favorite scenes of the entire time I was at that studio. I have the large number of drawings and will someday post some of them. Beautiful animation.

This Layout course is some 18 pages long. Since that’s a job to post all 18, I’m going to break it up into two days. Tomorrow the last half will be posted.

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Hans Perk is posting a series of rare lectures on Layout. In August 2006 I posted the notes for the Disney afterhours lectures. To coincide with Hans, I’m recapping those notes.

- Yhe Disney Layout Course was held after hours at the studio in 1936. The first lecture was given by Tom Codrick on May 6, 1936. I have the first lecture, the third lecture by Charles Philippi and an earlier one held by Phil Dike (though this last seems to be missing two pages.)

I hope it’ll be useful. I’ll post the next in a few days.

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- John Canemaker‘s beautiful book, Treasures of Disney Animation Art, includes six animation cleanups of a scene by Hicks Lokey from the Pink Elephants sequence of Dumbo. Having recapped that sequence in yesterday’s post, I thought I’d show off these animation drawings.

Looking at the drawings alone you realize how much detail went into this sequence and how the animation pulses with the dominating tempo.

Take a look:

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Hans Perk has been posting the drafts for Dumbo, and this has led Mark Mayerson to post the brilliant Mosaics he’s creating for the film.
Here’s a recap of a sequence I wrote about for the film, the Baby Mine sequence.
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- Dumbo is certainly one of my favorite Disney features if not THE favorite. Naturally, the “Baby Mine” sequence is a highlight. The sequence is so tender and fine-tuned to appear straightforward and simple. This, of course, is the heart of excellence. It seems simple and doesn’t call attention to itself.

This is a storyboard composed of LO drawings from the opening of that sequence. They appear to be BG layouts with drawings of the characters cut out and pasted in place.

It’s not really a storyboard, and I’ve always wondered what purpose such boards served to the Disney machine back in the Golden Age.

Below is the board as it stands in the photograph.

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Here is the same photographed board, split up so that I can post it in larger size. I’ve also interspersed frame grabs from the actual sequence for comparison.

Info from Hans Perk at A Film LA:

Directed by Bill Roberts and John/Jack Elliotte, assistant director Earl Bench, layout Al Zinnen.

Animation by Bill Tytla (Dumbo & Mrs. Jumbo’s trunk), Fred Moore (Timothy) and assorted animals by Bob Youngquist, Harvey Toombs, Ed Aardal and John Sewell.

- Continuing with the Dumbo fest, I’ve culled a lot of storyboard drawings from various sources (many from the earliest DVD of the film) and present in somewhat chronological order.

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Yes, that’s a bird on Dumbo’s trunk – not Timothy.

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This, like my other Dumbo posts, is in support of Hans Perk‘s posting the drafts for Dumbo, and Mark Mayerson‘s posting the excellent Mosaics he creating for the film. See both other sites.

- I recently received this comment from Amy Bunin, the daughter of Lou Bunin, and was afraid it might have been missed. So I’m posting it here.

Just a note to say that my sisters and I have put our family collection of Lou Bunin’s puppets and artwork from Alice in Wonderland up for auction at Profiles in History.

Lou’s stuff is on “Day 2″ of the auction. The sketches by Art Babbitt of the Dodo walking that are featured in Shamus Culhane’s Animation book (see above) –along with 10 or so other characters– are included: Lot 634. Wish us luck!

I have also started a blog on my father’s life and work – www.loubunin.com

Amy Bunin

This is an excellent blog with lots of information and stories about Lou Bunin and his work. I encourage you to go take a look.

- John Canemaker ‘s most recent blog entry for Print Magazine is now posted and can be found here.

John writes a clear and full comparative study between the work of Albert Hurter, one of the principal designers of Snow White, and some of Giotto’s Renaissance painting.

He shows how Hurter may have been influenced. It’s a good read for any enthusiasts of Snow White, Hurter or Giotto.

Frank and Caroline Mouris have been making innovative, Independent animation forever. Their initial film, Frank’s Film, swept the world quickly and won the Oscar making a Frank a household name among animators in the 1970′s.

ASIFA-East is presenting an evening of their films on Tuesday, June 15. It’s sure to be an entertaining and enlightening event. Keep the date open to join the couple as they present their films.

Hans Perk has been posting the drafts for Dumbo, and this has led Mark Mayerson to start posting the brilliant Mosaics he is creating for the film.

This leads me to join in the fun celebrating the excellence of Dumbo.
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- Among the brilliant scenes in Dumbo is one that usually is overlooked in all the animation books. Yet, to me it separates this film from other Disney films, except, perhaps, Pinocchio. The tent building scenes are a brilliant mix of solid animation, excellent (and quietly hidden) effects, strong music and perfect screen direction. The sequence works extremely well on its own, but it works even better as a significant part of the film as a whole.

I sincerely doubt that Walt could have been in the studio when the sequence was built. Certainly, this espouses the Socialist politiical views of many of the strikers and one wonders what Walt thought of it. Presumably, because it has been developed as such an integral part of the film, the underlying political current of the sequence could hardly be lost, but it’s hard to miss the overall feel of it. Perhaps I’m completely wrong, and the feel of the piece can just be chalked up to a product of the period.

I’d originally posted frame grabs of the entire sequnce (which I’ll recap tomorrow), but I’ve found these preliminary drawings on an early Dumbo DVD, and have culled them together to post here.

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As stated above, tomorrow I’ll post frame grabs of the sequence so you can compare to the above chalk drawings.

- I’ve made a concerted effort to locate as many of the Dumbo model sheets as I could. Some of these are scanned from the originals; others were lifted from an early version of the DVD for the film (and are consequently small images).

There are still more model sheets at Bob Cowan‘s wonderful site. Don’t hesitate to take a look.

These are the first rough sketches done for Casey Jr. for both Dumbo and The Reluctant Dragon. Eventually, a headlight cap was added and the eye lamps were eliminated.
The eyes were drawn on the boiler’s front.

Robert Cowan sent me this model of Casey Jr. which was used in the final film.

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This final piece comes from the Robert Field book, The Art of Walt Disney, published in 1941. It’s a beautiful early storyboard for the climax to the flying sequence.

I’ve put this all together as part of an effort to join in the fun started by Hans Perk who has been posting the drafts for Dumbo, and this has led Mark Mayerson to start posting the brilliant Mosaics he creates for the film. Check out both of their sites.

- Bill Peckmann sent me this group of Gag Drawings from his days of working with Phil Kimmelman and Ass. I thought the drawings had so much life and interest, that I wanted to share them. The unfortunate part of studio gags is that the life behind the gag is usually something that we can’t even understand – outside of that studio’s atmosphere. However, at times the drawing is so much fun, it makes up for it. That’s true here, I think.

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Hans Perk has been posting the drafts for Dumbo, and this has led Mark Mayerson to start posting the brilliant Mosaics he creates for the film.

I start with this one of Dumbo’s bath animated by Bill Tytla and boarded by Bill Peet.
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- Thanks to a loan from John Canemaker, I can continue posting some of the brilliant storyboard work of Bill Peet. The guy was a masterful artist. Every panel gives so much inspiration and information to the animators, directors and artists who’ll follow up on his work.

This is the sequence from Dumbo wherein baby Dumbo plays around the feet of his mother. Brilliantly animated by Bill Tytla, this sequence is one of the greatest ever animated. No rotoscoping, no MoCap. Just brilliant artists collaborating with perfect timing, perfect structure, perfect everything. Tytla said he watched his young son at home to learn how to animate Dumbo. Bill Peet told Mike Barrier that he was a big fan of circuses, so he was delighted to be working on this piece. Both used their excitement and enthusiasm to bring something brilliant to the screen, and it stands as a masterpiece of the medium.

Of this sequence and Tytla’s animation, Mike Barrier says in Hollywood Cartoons, “What might otherwise be mere cuteness acquires poignance because it is always shaded by a parent’s knowledge of pain and risk. If Dumbo “acted” more, he would almost certainly be a less successful character—’cuter,’ probably, in the cookie-cutter manner of so many other animated characters, but far more superficial.”

I had to take the one very long photstat and reconfigure it in photoshop so that you could enlarge these frames to see them well. I tried to keep the feel of these drawings pinned to that board in tact.

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Bill Peet at his desk on Dumbo.

Here are frame grabs from the very same sequence of the film showing how closely the cuts were followed. Even in stills the sequence is stunning.

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This film is a gem.
The dvd also has one of my favorite commentary tracks throughout.
John Canemaker, by himself, talking about the film. It’s great!

From Hans Perk’s A Film LA:

Dumbo being washed by Mrs. Jumbo, animated by Bill Tytla, with effects by Art Palmer, Cornett Wood and Sandy Strother.