Animation 08 Nov 2007 08:39 am
Lillian Friedman walks Popeye & Olive
- Bob Jaques‘ excellent new site gives overdue attention to some lesser-known animators who worked on the Popeye shorts.
His recent post placed focus on Lillian Friedman‘s work. She apparently is the first female animator to have worked in a major studio.
Her first animation, as reported by Bob, is the only Popeye film she worked on, Can You Take It (1934). As John Kricfalusi points out, there are a wealth of entertaining walks in this film. This is the very first walk (not really a cycle, though I’ve made it one) in the film, and it’s a great one that we can attribute to Lillian Friedman.
The cycle is hilarious, with the bottom half of the body – the legs – moving at twice the speed. To quote Mark Mayerson, “Note that she uses Popeye’s head to hit the first accent in the 1-2-3 beat structure and then uses the feet to hit beats 2 and 3. So on one step, the head comes forward with the right foot and the next time it comes forward it’s with the left foot. That’s pretty sophisticated for a beginning animator.”
It’s an original walk, and it’s also a very good one. With all the digital assistance available today, how infrequent is it to see something so original. And this was Lillian Friedman’s first credited walk cycle.
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(click any image to enlarge.)
on 10 Jan 2008 at 6:54 am 1.Stickman said …
Nice stuff.