Animation &Animation Artifacts &Hubley &Layout & Design 16 Dec 2008 09:00 am
Hubley Babies
- John & Faith Hubley‘s feature film, Everybody Rides the Carousel was a great project to work on. The story was top notch, the art was flying left and right. (The entire production had a six month schedule and a budget of $450,000 when it was planned as three half-hour shows for CBS. Another month and $50,000 was added to extend it into a 90 min program.)
Great, talented people, as expected, worked on it.
Animators included: Tissa David, Barrie Nelson, Bill Littlejohn, Art Babbitt, Fred Burns, Adam Beckett, Lu Guarnier, Jack Schnerk, Don Patterson, Ruth Kissane, Phil Duncan and Earl James.
The excellent score was written by the rising classical/jazz composer, William Russo. (I was amazed at this in that I was addicted to his Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra and hadn’t realized that the Hubleys knew his work.
The vocal talent included old reliables such as Lane Smith, Jack Gilford, Juanita moore, Dinah Manoff and Lou Jacobi and introduced new, young talent Meryl Streep and Jenny Lumet.
For someone my age, it was a dream production. I coordinated the animation, assisted all of the animators who required help and animated some 85 scenes.
The film was an adaptation of the writings of psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, specifically his book Childhood and Society (1950). Eight Stages of Development were adapted into eight horses on a carousel, each representing a different stage in human development.
Today I’d like to post some of John Hubley’s drawings of the baby in the opening sequence. These were all animated by Tissa David, and I’ll post her drawings of the same poses tomorrow. They’re very different.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
All of John’s drawings were done with a Sharpie pen,
which was his weapon of choice, most of the time.
This last drawing (done in pencil) is Tissa David’s interpretation of
John Hubley’s last image. She did a bunch of these sketches and
worked with John in solidifing what the final look of the baby would be.
Tomorrow I’ll post Tissa’s drawings.
on 16 Dec 2008 at 10:56 am 1.Richard O'Connor said …
The teenager sequence (the arguing with the parents to take out the trash) is the possibly most moving scene in animation.
Tissa tells me it was animated by Bill Littlejohn, but she wasn’t certain. I’m sure you can shed some light on the matter.
on 16 Dec 2008 at 11:56 am 2.Michael said …
The sequence you’re talking about had a number of different animators:
Bill Littlejohn principal on the garbage out seq.
Ruth Kissane, Adam Beckett and Fred Burns on the amusement park.
Emotionally, I think the Meryl Streep sequence was the finest. Tissa’s sequence.
on 16 Dec 2008 at 1:09 pm 3.Richard O'Connor said …
Maybe that’ll hit me in a couple years…