Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

Gustaf Tenggren, of course, was the designer who worked at Disney’s studio during the thirties creating art which became models for Snow White, Bambi, and Pinocchio. John Canemaker wrote extensively about Tenggren in his book, Before the Animation Begins.

The artist moved into publishing after work at the Disney studio where he created The Poky Little Puppy for Little Golden Books. The Tales of the Arabian Nights was another of the many books Tenggren did for them. While visiting John Canemaker I saw the book and photographed some of the illustrations. Hopefully, the quality will be good enough so that I can share them with you. They’re completely original for Mr. Tenggren; not at all inspired by the many European-styled work he was known for. A true artist.

– Here’s a good example of something you won’t see animated in cgi. This is an ice skating cycle out of a Popeye cartoon, Seasin’s Greetinks!. It’s, of course, on the Popeye dvd, and is animated by Roland Crandall and Seymour Kneitel.

These Fleischer cartoons are so original in their jokes that there’s always a surprise or ten in every scene. The twists and turns are designed only to get laughs; I can give you a dozen examples from this short alone, but I’ll just recommend you watch the film.

It’s not just the stories that take odd spins, it’s the animation as well. There are bits that move in their own idiosyncratic way that are designed purely for laughs. Eccentric movements that would rarely show up in a Disney film dominate these Fleischer shorts.

Check out this cycle. Every eighth drawing is completely off the book. It gives the cycle a hilarious turn and completely dominates the move. It’s probably not the best way to build character (unless, perhaps, only one character moves like this), but it sure makes for some funny animation.

The thing about these Fleischer films is that it moves this way all the time. There’s always something about to take you for an odd turn, and while you’re looking for the big move, you’re just buying these small ones. The effect is cumulative, and the animation in these Fleischer films is just plain wacky.

A cgi animator doesn’t look for the odd twist in every frame. They can, but it wouldn’t make sense to be doing it that way, especially when the goal is to make the animation fluid in the final. The animation is too based on real life, as the computer sees it, and the individual frames don’t exist in the same way they do in 2D paper animation. There’s more risk in the 2D mode, but the reward can also be more ingenious and gratifying.

But what do I know? I don’t animate with cgi, and I’m just making a supposition based on what I’ve seen so far. Everything’s possible, but it sure doesn’t seem probable from my seat.

Having said that, let me also say that there aren’t too many animators doing 2D animation like this anymore. Maybe that’s the complaint I really have. Invention and daring in our medium seems to be a thing of the past.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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– I’ve posted many of Errol Le Cain‘s illustrations for his children’s books. Ever since coming across that very first paper-bound book, about Briar Rose, (meaning it was the very first I’d seen for sale) I’ve been an avid collector searching out any of the many books he created.

Le Cain was my hero for quite some time. He was a student of Dick Williams’ studio, had learned to animate there and was doing the backgrounds for Dick’s feature The Thief and the Cobbler. Dick pushed him, at one time, to do a film on his own, The Sailor and the Devil, with, of course, Dick’s harsh scrutiny.

I present here his illustrations for the first half of the book, Mr. Mistoffelees with Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer. The latter half of the book included the Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer part which we’ll save for another time.

This story is part of the Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot.

That was, of course, the source material on which Webber and Nunn based their show CATS. These images are so attractive and stylish, I was quite curious to know whether Andrew Lloyd Webber had seen the books. Especially when he was about to put CATS onto the screen as an animated film.

Here are the illustrations by Le Cain:

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

_____________Mr. Mistoffelees
___________You ought to know Mr. Mistoffelees !
___________The Original Conjuring Cat -
___________(There can be no doubt about that).
___________Please listen to me and don’t scoff All his
___________Inventions are off his own bat.

This article by John Canemaker is, to me, one of the most important pieces I’ve ever posted. I want to continue to give it some fresh air time, and I think today’s the day to post it anew. It’s one of the great articles ever printed in Print Magazine and a brilliant piece of historic recreation by John Canemaker. I’ve read it a couple dozen times, and am about to read it again, now. (Yesterday, I heard Duke Ellington perform “Tenderly” on the radio and that was enough to prompt me to repost it. I’d intimately known the Oscar Peterson/Ella Fitzgerald version of the song. Here was Ellington’s version which literally took the song apart and reconstructed it. Art was performed in front of me thanks to local radio.)

- A treasure of a piece, John Canemaker wrote an article for the March/April 1993 edition of Print magazine an article about Finian’s Rainbow. This was an animated feature well under way in 1953 to be directed by John Hubley. It was to be an adaptation of the successful Broadway musical by Burton Lane and E.Y. Harburg. The film about racism twisted into a fantasy story about love and leprechauns would have been the first official adult film done by a team of brilliant animation artists. The soundtrack would have featured songs sung by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson and Jim Backus.

I remember hearing stories about animation in production at the Bill Tytla studio, with Tytla animating on it. In Hollywood, Art Babbitt and Bill Littlejohn were animating, with Paul Julian, Aurelius Battaglia and Gregorio Prestipino art directing. Maurice Binder had assembled a LEICA reel.

Senator Joseph R McCarthy and the HUAC investigation brought the entire project down to ground and set back the history of animation some 30 years.

John Canemaker has generously allowed me to post this article again; I wanted to celebrate the artist and director,John Hubley.

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The story told to me by several people came most faithfully from Jim Logan, a long-time Asst. Animator working for Bill Tytla and sitting at a desk nearest Tytla’s office. Within his office there was a wall of mirrors. Tytla was in the middle of a hand out of a scene from Finian’s Rainbow. He was acting as an animation director for Hubley. He wanted the animator to practice the dance steps with him in front of the mirror. The animator was embarrassed to be asked to roll up his pants legs so he could better see how the move should animate.

Tytla was in his element. This was the first time since he’d left Disney’s that he was really being asked to do animation, get animation out of his staff for this eccentric and thoroughly adult animated feature. It was about Racism in 1956, and it was a serious attempt to do something serious and political and funny – all at the same time. Within days the animated scene had been collected by the producers who lost all their financing because of a ridiculous anti-communist comment thrown Tytla’s way. Tytla wasn’t the only one who lost; Hubley did as well. As a matter of fact, the entire industry lost. A second rate journalist made easy accusations, and the only thing to be done was to shut the production down.

Years later a young Francis Ford Coppola directed a young Petulia Clark with another Brit, song and dance man, Tommy Steele, playing the mischievous leprechaun. Needless to say, that film is a minor effort from Coppola’s resume.

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I received this note from the “Wise Old Man” of Holland, Borge Ring, after I posted my piece about the Disney studio in the last days of the “Nine Old Men” – just before the new guys took ownership:

hi MICHAEL
For you to add, share or ditch:

You touch upon top Walt Disney animators relaxing and losing their (story)mind
after Walt Disney died on them
I asked Marc Davis if Walt Disney’s death was followed by a period of
interregnum among the Nine Old Men.
Marc’s face turned sour
“Oh yes. There was no orderliness of production – Everybody did as they
pleased. Frank would go upstairs and take scenes that should’nt have been done
by HIM.”

greetz
Borge

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I must be getting old. I’ve gotten so tired of drawing storyboards, after all these years, that it came as a great relief to read that I no longer have to do all that arduous labor.

Now thanks to Amazon Storyteller (and the short description given by Amid Amidi from Cartoon Brew) the computer program will do the drawing for me. As the Amazon ad for the piece reads, “A storyboard can be 10 panels, or 100.” Once you place your “original script” into the program, designed and previously drawn characters will act out your script. All you have to do is add the script.

In a few days, Amazon Storyteller will rate your storyboard and tell you how good it is. (Just what I need, another boss.) This could be the start of something good.

All I need is Amazon Animator, so I don’t have to do that work either. I can just hire the machine to move my storyboard drawings with previously-animated scenes.

The films this week came fast and furious. It started with Sofia Coppola‘s latest film called The Bling Gang. Based on a true story, it’s about a group of teenagers in LA who sneak into and rob the houses of celebrated girls, such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Though we see alarms record the break ins and robberies, it takes a while for the police to investigate any of them. Eventually, all the teens are captured and end up in jail. You people living in LA can feel safe that they’re not out there to search your apartments for the latest in Laboutin shoes. Paris Hilton actually loaned her real home for the shooting.

The film feels a bit disinterested in the characters, and the whole thing feels a bit passive-aggressive. The best part of the film was that it ran quickly through its short 90 minute length.
Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera to photograph Sofia Coppola who came prepared to answer questions and whipped through those from moderator Brian Rose, a local film historian. Ms. Coppola does have a large and beautiful head, in the way of most stars. she reminds me a bit of Sophia Loren. Her interview will be on=line soon.

The next night brought a different kind of documentary, Twenty Feet from Stardom. It sounds like some kind of horror film, but it’s really about back-up singers. Their talent is obviously enormous, but stardom seemed to resist most of those on screen. It was nice to hear Bruce Springsteen and Sting talk about their back-up singers. Of course, the film was full of melody and had us dancing in or seats. Darlene Love is part time focus in the movie. Only after she’s working cleaning houses, does she gain respect for herself and her talent. She moves to New York where her career takes off, and she was a success story. She’s become a staple on the David Letterman
show every Christmas where she sings her hit, “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home).” A very entertaining 90 minutes, the movie zipped along and told its story well. One wonders how the producers of this film were able to secure the rights to many of the songs that played out on the soundtrack, everything from “Space Oddity” to “Walk on the Wild Side” to “Lean on Me.” The post screening interview between director, Morgan Neville and Brian Rose also moved quickly.

The Man of Steel was screened on Thursday evening. The latest adventures of Superman deal with his having to shave on Earth and his difficulties in getting a job prior to work at the Daily Planet.
There was no post-screening interview, but I’m not sure how interested I would’ve been in one.

I’ve been talking about these post screening conversations for the pat few weeks, since the NY chapter of the Academy started scheduling them. These conversations have been placed on line and can be viewed if you’re interested. They’ve just posted the interview with Chris Wedge for his film, Epic. The virtual leader of Blue Sky talks about his film here.

Cartoonist, Murray Rosen passed away this past week. Murray attended schools in New York City. Graduating from Pratt Institute, he went on to work for Walt Disney on Dumbo as a Cartoonist. He then returned to New York and worked for Famous Studios on Little Lulu and Popeye cartoons.

After marrying his wife, Shirley Binder on May 27, 1956, they moved to Maine where Murray operated an installation company for a friend’s storm window firm, remaining in the storm window business for 20 years. On May 8th, following a brief illness, he died with with his wife Shirley and friends at his side.

Recently, in response to Andreas Deja’s comment – on his own blog – he called the animation for 101 Dalmatians an excellent example of “Modern Anmation.” I commented on this use of “Modern Animation”, and was challenged by one of my readers. Andrea K. Haid wrote: “The reason that Andrea Deja calls 101 Dalmations “modern” is because it is set in a contemporary environment with contemporary music. It was the first story told in an animated feature by Disney to be placed in a modern setting with modern artwork.”
To this I began to think back on animated features that were more current than others and came away with a bit of surprise for myself.
Viewing the Disney features in chronological order:
Snow White, of course, operates within a Fairy Tale land.
Pinocchio also oerates within that world.
Fantasia is all over the place, so I ignore that one.

Bambi, however, is absolutely current. We see no clothing or hear no coversation, but it can be without doubt that the film takes place when it was made, 1942.

Dumbo, however, is very current. The people are dressed for 1942, the action takes place then. Even the fringes of the civil rights movement attest to the date of the story.

Victory Through AirPower takes place during WW2 and is immediate in its action. The film, itself, is an attempt to sell the idea of using aviation to help win the War.

Of the package features, Saludos Amigos and Three Caballeros both take place currently. There could be no other approach in an attempt to melt the international curtains between North and South America.

For the sake of this essay, I won’t analyze the shorts in the rest of the packaged films. The Headless Horseman, The Wind in the Willows, are probably dated. While other shorts like Little Toot, Trees and Bongo are all current. They’re not worth defending.
Cinderella was 18th Century fairy tale land.
Peter Pan and Alice In Wonderland were 19th Century.
Sleeping Beauty, to the 17th Century fairy tale world.
Lady and thte Tramp back to the early 20th Century.

That brings us to 101 Dalmatians. Modern humans and dogs in modern dress.
Sword in the Stone was 16th Century England.
The Jungle Book was 19th Century, per Rudyard Kipling.
The Aristocrats was early 20th Century. (There were cars.)
Robin Hood was 17th Century England.

Let’s skip to the new generation of animators:
Toy Story 1, 2, & 3 were all today.
As was The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under. The UN is there, for pete’s sake.
Basil of Baker”s Street dated. The Fox and the Hound, current.
Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pocahontas were all hundreds of years old.

I don’t think I need go on. We are into “Modern Animation” and I think it has nothing to do with what period the film is set in.

You step out onto the street on Monday, and you’re greeted by a hundred blue bikes. Sort of the same color as the lines on this page. I wasn’t expecting it. No double-parked cars.

The Citi decided that it’d be better for me if I took a bike. Rent the bikes for 2 minutes, then roll to the next check-in point. You pay some bucks and you take the biks. (They don’t offer bike-helmets for the softer-brained, accident-prone people. There’s just a lot of info about the fines you’ll pay if you go over the twenty minute rental time.

Last weekend everybody wanted a bike. (Aren’t they all girls’ bikes? What’s up with that?) They were all rented by couples speaking non-English. (A tourist thing, undoubtedly.) Only two gone so far this weekend. Meanwhile, no one has a parking space. At first I thought they were mopeds, like in Europe. We’d be hearing buzzing all day long in conjunction with the square jeep-type taxis.

We’ll see how it goes, though. No buzzing, a crash of cerulean blue, and lots of tourists reading the signs in groups of about eight.

This is a note I received from Jerry Beck. It doesn’t take place until the end of July, but thought you’d like some advance notice, now.

I don’t know if you usually attend the Animation Block Party in Brooklyn,
but this year I’m going to come back to New York and introduce
a screening of Oscar winning shorts on Sunday night July 28th at 7pm

Munro / Gene Deitch / 8:20 min / 1960
Ersatz (The Substitute) / Dušan Vukotić / 10 min / 1961
The Hole / John Hubley and Faith Hubley / 15 min / 1962
The Critic / Ernest Pintoff / 4 min / 1963
The Pink Phink / Friz Freleng and Hawley Pratt / 6:38 min / 1964
Dot and the Line: Romance in Lower Mathematics / Chuck Jones & Maurice
Noble / 10 min /1965
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass Double Feature / John Hubley / 6 min / 1966
The Box / Fred Wolf / 9 min / 1967

After the films I’m hoping to lead a 15-20 minute panel discussion about these films, and the Oscars, and the filmmakers… etc. I do not know who Animation Block Party are asking to be a part of it, but I thought I’d reach out to you myself – as an actual Oscar nominee, you’d be a great addition to the discussion.

I completely understand if you cannot attend, but I thought it was worth a shot.

Event is at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAMcinématek) located at 30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn.

Talk about “Modern Cartoon” Bill Peckman sent me this book about Rome. It’s a beauty and deserves to be shown off. Thanks to Bill for calling attention to Miroslav Sasek‘s work.

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Check out this Pinterest facebook page.

- In November 2006 I posted the storyboard, workbook and final layouts for a Jax Beer spot which was directed by Mordicai Gerstein. I thought it interesting enough to recap the two posts, so here they are.

- This is the material for a Jax Beer commercial. It was done by a NY studio named Pelican in 1962. There were about 75 people on staff at Pelican back then.

This spot was directed by Mordi (Mordicai) Gerstein. He left animation in th 70′s to write & illustrate children’s books. (He won the Caldecott Medal for his book, The Man Who Walked Between The Towers. This was the book I adapted to animation in 2005.)

What follows is the storyboard and the director’s workbook. (It appears to be an agency board, though it’s drawn in a style that looks to be Mordi Gerstein‘s. Perhaps boards from the agency were drawn by the studios back in 1964; I’m not sure. The layouts were drawn by the same artist.)

_____(Click any image to enlarge.)

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The workbook has several flaps on it that indicate changes in timings. There are also glue stains where I assume other flaps fell off. (See page one, last row, first column.) Each column represents 16 frames/one foot of film. Odd numbers are marked off.

Each row contains 8 feet of film/128 frames. Each page represents 32 feet/512 frames. It would have been smarter to keep to even numbers.

More modern exposure sheets generally have 80 frames/five feet per page. This also divides into two feet of 16mm film. (Handy.) The numbers add and divide smartly and easily. But then most people don’t use exposure sheets anymore.

- Continuing with the above post, a Jax Beer commercial, I present some of the film’s layouts. This represents about 2/3 of them.

The art was done by Mordi (Mordicai) Gerstein, who also directed the spot. Grim Natwick animated the spot and Tissa David assisted him. Of course, this was in the days before auido tapes could be handed out, so the animator would get a phonograph of the soundtrack. They could mark it with a white pencil to indicate key spots.

I thought that this in conjunction with yesterday’s prep material gave a good indication of the preproduction that went into making a commercial back in 1962.

That said, here are the layouts:

(Click on any image to enlarge.)

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Into the Woods is one of the highlights from the number of musicals Stephen Sondheim has written. The show takes many famous fairy tales and plays them out through the first half of the show.

With the start of the second Act, we learn the fate of all these fairy tale characters. They’re all victims of their own cupidity. Jack, for example, stupidly sells his family cow for five “magic” beans. The beans are discarded by his angry mother, and Jack climbs into the heavens on that beanstalk.

Once there, Jack falls into his greatest vices, stealing a chicken that lays golden eggs and a magic golden harp. When the giant chases him to get his things back, he falls to earth and dies. Sondheim and cowriter, James Lapine, take the story more seriously and has all the evil of the characters pla itself out, with their suffering for their own irresponsibility.

The show was somewhat successful when it was written, and it was immediately designed to become a live action/animation mix m0vie. Rob Minkoff, one of the directors of The Lion King as well as Stuart Little, was set to direct the film. It eventually fell through, and it’s back in production again with a different director, Rob Marshall (Chicago). Needless to say, there’ll be no animation in the movie anymore. A lot of computer effects.

When it was just a NY theatrical musical, the piece was turned into a large children’s book. I thought it might be fun to post some of it here. So, as of today I’ll offer about two or three posts with a focus on the book’s writer/illustrator, Hudson Talbott.

Talbott was the original writer of “We’re Back! A Dinosur’s Story.” That was made into an animated feature for Steven Spielberg back in 1993. He’s also done many designs and illustrations for the Metropolitan Opera Guild and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Here are some of the first pages of the book. Note that I’m only posting the illustrations.

Dust Jacket Art

Inner book cover artwork

“Into the Woods” Title Page

pgs 7 & 8

pgs. 10 & 11

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No, this is not upside down, except by design.

– Retta Scott‘s name was always an intriguing one for me.

She was an animator on Bambi, Dumbo and Plague Dogs. She was layed off at Disney’s when they hit a slump in 1941 but came back to do a number of Little Golden Books for Disney. The most famous of her books was her version of Cinderella, one which was so successful that it remains in print today as a big Little Golden Book.

When asked why females weren’t animators at the studio, the Nine Old Men who traveled the circuit, back in the 1970′s, often mentioned her. They usually also said that she was one of the
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most forceful artists at the studio, but her timing always needed some help (meaning from a man.) Ms. Scott was known predominantly for her animation in Bambi. Specifically, she’s credited with the sequence where the hunter’s dogs chase Faline to the cliff wall and Bambi is forced to fight them off.

The scene is beautifully staged and, indeed, is forceful in its violent, yet smooth, movement. I was a young student of animation, so this sequence had a long and lasting impression on me.

Here are some of her illustrations for Cinderella published in 1950 to tie in with the Disney film. Oddly, the illustrations don’t completely look like the film’s characters. The cat and mice are close, but Cinderella, herself, is very different, less realistic. She looks more like a Mary Blair creation. When I was young, I was convinced that these were preproduction illustrations done for the film. If only.

I won’t post all the illustrations of the book; I want to give an indication of her work, and I think this should be enough to do that.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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I’ve written two posts about Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston‘s book, The Illusion of Life the last couple of weeks. I came to the book only recently and realizing that I’d never really read the book, I thought it was time. So in doing so, I’ve found that I have a lot to write about. The book has come to be accepted almost as gospel, and I decided to give my thoughts.

There were two major complaints I’ve had with what I’ve read in their book so far, and I spent quite a bit of time reviewing those.

First out of the box, I was stunned to read that these two of Disney’s “nine old men” said that they’d originally believed that each prime animator should control one, maybe two characters in the film. Then, later in life they decided that an animator should do an entire scene with all of the characters within it. This is not what I’d seen the two (or the nine) do in actual practice. post 1

Secondly, they argue for animating in a rough format, and they give solid reasons for this. As a matter of fact, it was Disney, himself, in the Thirties who demanded the animators work rough and solid assistants who could draw well back them up. Then much later in the book the two author/animators suggest that it’s better for an animator to work as clean as possible with assistants just doing touch-up. This helped out the Xerox process, but didn’t necessarily help for good animation. post 2

The book starts out sounding like it’s going to be a history of Disney animation, but then starts getting into the rules of animation (squash and stretch, overlapping action and anticipation and all those other goodies) exploiting Disney animation art in demonstration. Soon the book moved into storytelling and how to try to keep the material fresh and interesting. It all becomes a bit obvious, but you keep hoping that some great secret will be revealed by the two masterful oldsters.

They do go into depth about how to develop characters when making animated films. They offer lots of examples from Orville, the albatross in The Rescuers to the three fairies in Sleeping Beauty, but their greatest attention goes to Baloo the Bear in The Jungle Book. They were having a hard time with this guy; they had been trying to do an Ed Wynn type character, until Walt Disney, himself, suggested Phil Harris. Once they auditioned Harris, they knew they were on the right track, and the character kept grabbing more screen time and grew ever larger. In the end, audiences just loved him.

Personally, I’ve always hated Phil Harris’ performance in this film. What was it doing in Rudyard Kipling’s book? When I was a kid, Harris and Louis Prima were the perfect examples of my father’s entertainers. He loved these guys and spent a lot of time in front of the family TV watching the Dinah Shore Show______Tom Oreb designs for Sleeping Beauty.
and other such entertaining Variety Shows with
lots of little 50′s big-band jazz-type acts. I hated it; this was my parent’s kind of music and humor and had nothing to do with me. I was the kid who paid his quarter to see the Walt Disney movies (that was the children’s price of admission in 1959.)

In their book they say they knew he was perfect because generations of kids later (who have no idea who Phil Harris was) still take joy from Baloo. What they forgot is what I knew all along. This was The Jungle Book. If they had been truly creative, they would have developed a character in line with Kipling’s material that would have been an original, not an impersonation of Doobey Doobey Doo, Phil Harris. The same is true of Louis Prima as a monkey. (There was a time when Disney said that they should never animate monkeys because monkeys are funny on their own, in real life. Animation wouldn’t make them funnier.) Sebastian Cabot, as Bagheera, works as does George Sanders as Shere Khan.

Right: A discarded sequence from Robin Hood showed a messenger pigeon so fat and heavy he had to be shot into the air. This gave the animators the beginnings of The Albatross Air Lines in The Rescuers.

Phil Harris was so successful, they dragged him into Robin Hood as well. Robin Hood. The very same character from The Jungle Book is now Little John! All those cowboy voices in Robin Hood don’t work either, especially when you mix them up with Brits like Peter Ustinov and Brian Bedford. When these two thespians work against Pat Buttram, Andy Devine and George Lindsey, it’s one thing. Throw in a Phil Harris, and you have something else again. Where are we, the audience, supposed to be? Is it “Merry Ol’ England”? Or is it the lazy take on character development by a few senior animators who have taken license to jump away from the story writers for the sake of easy characters of the generation they’re familiar with. Robin Hood is a mess of a story – even though it’s a solid original they’re working from, and I find it hard to take written advice from these fine old animation pros who take an easy way out for the sake of their animation; shape shifting classic tales to fit their wrinkles.

At least, that’s how I see it – saw it. And perhaps that’s why it’s taken me so long to read this book. I felt (at the age of 14 when these films came out) that the Disney factory had turned into something other than the people who’d made Snow White and Bambi and Lady and the Tramp.

They had, in fact, become the nine old men.

The Jungle Book was the last film Bill Peet worked on. He left
before the film was done. He’d had a long, contentious relationship
with Disney. He never felt he’d gotten the respect he deserved.

They were incredibly talented animators, and they certainly knew how to do their jobs. The animation, itself, was first rate (sometimes even brilliant as Shere Khan demonstrates), but try comparing the stories to earlier features. Even Peter Pan and Cinderella are marvelously developed. Artists like Bill Peet and Vance Gerry knew how to do their jobs, and they did them well. When Peet quit the studio, because he felt disrespected, Disney’s solid story development walked out the door.

The animators were taking the easy route rather than properly developing their stories. The stories had lost all dynamic tension and had become back-room yarns. Good enough, but not good.

Today was Nik Ranieri‘s last day at Disney’s studio. He’s definitive proof, in the eyes of Disney, that 2D animation is dead as an art form. This is the end result of some of the changes Thomas and Johnston suggest in their book. The medium took a hit back then; it just took this long for the suits to catch up. Good luck to Nik and the other Disney artists who no longer work steadily in what is still a vitally strong medium.