Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- I have an advanced board for the sequence in 101 Dalmatians wherein Pongo goes to the kitchen to comfort Perdita who’s worrying about Cruella’s threat to buy up all her pups.

This relates to Bill Peet‘s original board (posted here on April 1), but is composed of BG layouts and animation dwng cutouts. I’m posting the new board and juxtaposing it with the Peet original so you can see how it’s changed.

I also suggest you check out Mark Mayerson‘s invaluable Mosaics for this film and sequence.

This was Ollie Johnston‘s sequence, and he probably drew the dogs.
This is how the full LO board looks:

________(Click any image to enlarge.)

This is Bill Peet’s version of the sequence:

This is a breakdown of both to keep the images as large as I can:

Johnston

Peet

Johnston

Johnston

Peet

Johnston

Peet
_______

Johnston

Peet

Johnston

- I’d like to call some attention to a new production blog by Tim Rauch. He, together with brother Mike Rauch, created an animated short, Germans In The Woods. They started with a piece of pre-edited sound cut from a 40 minute interview in which a World War II veteran recalls his “saddest memory”.

As Tim says, “This piece had aired on NPR and was included in the recent StoryCorps book. . . There was incredibly strong emotion in the voice and yet we knew there had to be something we could add with animation.”

The blog gives some stills and clips from the film. I’ve been hearing from Tim for a while now and have seen several developing versions of the film. I’m quite impressed with the level of the animation and the graphics employed. I hope the film will be a success for them and encourage you to look into this blog.
You can see a teaser for the film here.

Some images from Germans In The Woods off Tim Rauch’s blog.

The brothers also have an artists’ demo site which includes information about other films they’ve done. These guys are artists in the making, and you should be aware of them.

- Michael Barrier‘s site has a letter from Borge Ring which details the LEICA reel experience, as it properly should be understood. Naturally enough, it involves the inestimable Hans Perk who comments on the experience. By the way, continuing the 101 Dalmatians study (started by Hans on his site, elaborated on by Mark Maryerson on his site, and with some small additions on this site) Hans is posting Bill Peet‘s original script for the feature.

I’ve broken it down by line of drawings and split that into two.

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

______________________________________To continue with the next board tomorrow.

- The four artists pictured above were shot during a boisterous story meeting. Or more probably it’s a posed photo. It’s interesting that they pose a picture where the irrascible Bill Peet seems to be taking on the designer and directors of the film.

Left to right, that’s Woolie Reitherman, Bill Peet, Ken Andersen and Ham Luske.

This is the first of the storyboards loaned to me by John Canemaker. It’s the second sequence in 101 Dalmatians. The sequence starts with the wedding of Roger and Anita, Pongo and Perdita and takes us through the introduction of Cruella de Ville to pregnant Perdita worrying about the fate of her pups in the kitchen.

This board takes us more than half way through the sequence. The second board, which I’ll post tomorrow or Wednesday (it takes a while to scan and post these), takes us through the end of the sequence.

Hans Perk is posting the complete production drafts of this film, and Mark Mayerson has started creating a mosaic from the drafts Hans is posting. The information they’re both offering is invaluable.

As with past boards, I’ve split them up so that I can post the largest possible image. Otherwise they’d be the size of the full board, above.
Here we go:

1a
__________(Click any image to enlarge so that you can read it.)

1b

2a

2b

3a

3b

4a

4b

5a

5b

6a

6b

7a

7b

to be continued.

- Excellent news. Now that Hans Perk has been posting the animator drafts of 101 Dalmatians and, as a result of that, Mark Mayerson is putting together one of his fine Mosaics for the film, I’m able to contribute a small bit toward the study of this film. It all coincides nicely with the relatively new dvd package that Disney has released.

Starting Monday, thanks again to the generosity of John Canemaker, I’ll be posting a nice chunk of the storyboard for this film. It starts just after the wedding at the film’s opening and continues on. It’s Bill Peet’s original board, and I’m excited to put it up.

To celebrate, I’ve taken a few frame grabs off the dvd which showcases some of the opening storyboard drawings. Unfortunately, the images aren’t as large as I’d like on the dvd, but they’ll have to do. This is one of my favorite Disney features, and it really pleases me to see all this material come out. Thanks to Hans Perk for starting it all.

(Click any image to enlarge a bit.)________________

– John Canemaker dropped by yesterday with another little gem. Here is a preliminary storyboard done by Bill Peet of the Wizard’s Duel from Disney’s Sword In The Stone. The oddity of this board is that it’s dated April 1949. (The numbers at the bottom of the board clearly read “449.”) I didn’t have any clue that this film was in development that early. The book was published in 1938, so it’s quite feasible.

If that date is accurate, it’s amazing how close the characters stay to their final models. This could easily be explained with the heightened us of xerography in animation after 1958. Post 101 Dalmatians, this loose style was easy to translate into animation, and Ken Andersen was easily able to adapt to this style by Bill Peet that all of the animators in the studio loved.

A
Click on any image to enlarge

B
Note in row 2 how the spider turns into the tiger’s face; it’s a graphic turn. This never would have made it to the final in a Disney film, and it didn’t.

CD
I love how extra drawings which have been pulled make it to the bottom of the second board.

Tomorrow, I’ll continue this post by putting up some rough drawings Peet did for this sequence as he developed it.