Animation Artifacts &Disney &Story & Storyboards 10 Dec 2007 09:13 am
Perambulator
John Alden Carpenter ‘s symphony, Adventures in a Perambulator, was to be part of Fantasia II when that film was on the boards. This was just prior to the original Fantasia‘s theatrical release when they were planning number two and were getting set to go. Apparently the Carpenter piece was to have depicted a baby’s eye view of the world from his carriage. There were other sequences in the planning as well, including the Clair de lune sequence which ultimately became the “Blue Bayou” sequence when it was reworked for Make Mine Music.
Carpenter was an extremely popular American composer in his time. Many of the leading conductors and orchestras performed his music, and the choice by Disney to animate this symphony shows just how popular he was.
Now, thanks again to John Canemaker, I can post this rare piece of documentation. These are watercolors which were done by the British artist, Sylvia Moberly Holland for this segment. She was closely involved with the Nutcracker segment of Fantasia as well as segments of Bambi and Make Mine Music. (For more information about her work, see Canemaker’s book Before the Animation Begins.)
Here are two photographs of two boards. I’ve broken each up into three parts so that I could download them at a very high resoluton, for you to better see them (when enlarged.)
1a
(Click any image to enlarge.)
You can view a production background from the deleted “Blue Bayou” sequence on Didier Ghez’ Disney History site.
on 11 Dec 2007 at 12:01 am 1.Eddie Fitzgerald said …
Interesting boards! I don’t know how the Disney people were able to keep track of where they were in the music when they were dealing with long-form, wordless classical pieces. I guess people who could read bar sheets were solidly in charge and the animators had records, but even so….
on 20 Dec 2007 at 4:50 am 2.Kip said …
Mr. Sporn,
I’ve been reading your site for quite some time. You are obviously involved in some pretty low-brow animation. It shows. More to the point, I watched Ratatouille tonight. Your review hammered the point that the main character was a rat. You went off numerous times about the fact that you were disturbed that the story was about a rat in the kitchen. This disturbed you? It’s animation. Were you kidding? The lighting, the blocking, the way the story unfolded, but you couldn’t get over that it was a rat? Have you ever worked on a serious feature? From what I can find at IMDB.com http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0819443/, all of your work is, well , pedestrian.
on 20 Dec 2007 at 5:07 am 3.Kip said …
Eddie,
They were called GREY sheets. The editors produce them after the preliminary music is created, marking where the beats occur. Editors listen to the elements(preliminary director’s choices of existing music and dialoge) and mark the key points on the frame they should hit. They then mark the beats per frame on an xsheet, and the animators draw to the beats marked on the xsheet- 24 spaces = 1 second. The boards may have been drawn first, then timed according to the beats.
on 20 Dec 2007 at 8:38 am 4.Michael said …
Kip:
Sorry you don’t like what I say on the site; I wonder why you keep coming back. Obviously, you haven’t SEEN any of my films (I don’t think they’re showing on IMDB), so your evaluation is limited though I’m sure your opinion is every bit as good as mine.