Articles on Animation &Bill Peckmann &Disney &Illustration &Mary Blair 19 Aug 2009 07:33 am
El Groupo & Mary Blair’s Peter Pan
- Yesterday I saw a preview screening of Walt and El Groupo. This is a documentary exploration of the Disney trip to South America to bring back material for Saludos Amigos and Three Caballeros. If you have any interest in Walt Disney or the history of his studio or Mary Blair, you’ll have to see this film. It features interviews with a number of the children of those who went to South America with Disney. Interviews with those who hosted Disney talk about the visit.
The film is shot in a beautifully lush color that is almost reminiscent of IB Technicolor. One would expect the home movies to be grainy and unattractive, but instead they’re gorgeous.
The film is worth the visit. It’ll open in NY & LA on Sept. 11th. I’ll write more about it as the event gets closer.
There’s also upcoming a screening for MOCCA, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art featuring a Q&A with writer/director Ted Thomas and producer Kuniko Okubo, moderated by John Canemaker. This will take place on Thursday, August 27th, 7:30 PM at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, BAM Cinema 4, (30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY).
Admission is free for Members of MoCCA. To rsvp, call (212) 254-3511.
- In tune with the above comments and having posted, this past week, the wonderful 1940 model sheets from Disney’s Peter Pan (thanks to Bill Peckmann and his fine collection), I thought about the Mary Blair art for this film. Neither those model sheets nor Mary Blair’s art made it to the film.
I thought, as a companion piece to those early model sheets, I’d post the Peter Pan illustrations in John Canemaker‘s fine book: The Art and Flair of Mary Blair. A number of these have been used to illustrate the new book, Walt Disney’s Peter Pan. They’re all attractive and modern in style. I think the film took the colors without the style and came up with a picture postcard look.
Here are Mary Blair‘s paintings:
(Click any image to enlarge.)
on 19 Aug 2009 at 8:30 am 1.richard o'connor said …
Does the film go into the strike at all?
on 19 Aug 2009 at 9:07 am 2.Michael said …
Yes. The reason for the trip was the strike (though that’s never stated directly in the film.) There are plenty of color shots of strike walkers. The artists continually wonder, in their letters home, what’s going on at the studio re the strike. They also discuss their feelings about the compromise made at the studio, in their absence.
on 19 Aug 2009 at 9:38 am 3.Bill Peckmann said …
Michael, beautiful job as always. Thank you for giving our eyeballs another nice treat of Mary Blair’s art by taking the ingrained dullness of four color printing and transferring it to the computer. I would say the sparkling look on the screen is closer to the original art than the printed page. Looking forward to future posts.
on 19 Aug 2009 at 10:33 pm 4.Charles B. said …
Of course Mary Blair’s work ended up in the film! It did precisely what was intended: inspire. Many of the final layouts/compositions and color ideas are incorporated into the final film. I know you didn’t mean that literally, but I just wanted to underline the point of her job!
The Canemaker book is, sadly, too small to appreciate her work. An upcoming large format book of her artwork should be out next year.
on 23 Aug 2009 at 12:07 am 5.Ricardo Cantoral said …
This once again a grand illustration Mary Blair’s work surpassing the final product.
on 29 Aug 2009 at 10:33 am 6.Sean Wiig said …
These are awesome!! Mary Blair was amazing. Thank you for putting these up.