Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- On the DVD of Alice in Wonderland, there’s an extra little short that supposedly gives you a tour of the studio and a lesson in how animated films are made. (Do you think we’ll ever see one about Dreamworks or Pixar? I’d like to get a video tour of either studio.)

Since I’ve been focussing on Alice’s Milt Kahl scenes, I thought it’d be interesting, as an accompaniment, to post some frame grabs from this theatrical short that was done to promote Alice.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Of course, the film has to start with Walt
riding a toy train around the studio.

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Two storyboard guys sitting in the middle of the studio.

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Storyboard: the walrus grabs a clam.

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Ward Kimball in a funny jacket.

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The actor posing as the Walrus for the camera.

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Walt in a funny pose.

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The Walrus & Carpenter sequence.

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Walt and Winston Hibler. Hibler eventually narrated
most of the Disneyland shows and True-Life adventures.

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Flowers from storyboard to final film.

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Walt gives a demo of the animation camera and
seems to be wrinkling the cels as he does this.

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Walt operating an animation camera. Ludicrous.

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Walt and Kathryn Beaumont (who’s
supposed to be doing schoolwork.)

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Kathryn Beaumont and Ed Wynn.

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Les Clark.

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John Lounsbery on the right. The other animator looks to be
Fred Moore. Older and heavier than we’ve seen him in the past.

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Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter.

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More of wacky Ward Kimball pretending to draw.

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Kathryn Beaumont and Jerry Colonna.

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Jerry Colonna leads us into pencil test of the scene.

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This scene was animated by Ward kimball & Cliff Nordberg.

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John Lounsbery is on the left.
I’m not sure who the other two are.

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The cards in action in the film.

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One of the highlights of the film is this dancer doing
march steps for the cards – to be studied.

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The multiplane camera in operation.

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The cameraman at the top always looks a bit devilish.

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No “how animation is made” film would be complete
without the sound effects guys making a racket.

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Walt and Wilfred Jackson.

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Walt going over some artwork with
John Hench (L) and Claude Coats (center)
Thanks to Hans Bacher and Gunnar Andreassen for identifying them.

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Before riding his toy train into the sunset, Walt sits
in front of his real toy, the multiplane camera.

If anyone can identify any of those I couldn’t, or if you think I’ve mistakenly identified anyone, please leave a comment.

There’s an art gallery of images, many of which are by Mary Blair (and I’ve already posted her pictures a while back.) I’ll finish this post with some more of the images on the dvd.

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Mary Blair in B&W.

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More of the same.

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Thiis looks like it comes from HOPPITY GOES TO TOWN.

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Lots of David Hall designs, here.

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More Mary Blair.

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To see more Mary Blair designs for Alice go here.

- Here’s another scene animated by Milt Kahl for Alice In Wonderland. Alice’s tangled up with the flamingo trying to play croquet with the Red Queen. Sticky wicket.

The scene was loaned to me by Lou Scarborough. Many thanks are in order.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Here’s a QT movie of the action layed out above. Since the scene has been inbetweened, it’s exposed, for the most part, on ones.

- This is a continuation of Scene 392 from Alice in Wonderland as animated by the brilliant Milt Kahl. The animation seems to play a bit fast in the PT, but works well in color (albeit still fast.) Yet the exposure is the same. Definitely, the missing inbetweens make the difference.

As always, we start with the last drawing from last week.

- Here’s another follow up to the Albert Hurter book, He Drew As He Pleased (Simon and Schuster, 1948.)

Hurter, of course, was one of those exceptional European illustrators Disney brought into his studio in preparation for Snow White and Pinocchio. Hurter, as the title implies, was the master of his own fate, drawing designs which would be used generally to further the design of the features and Silly Symphonies.

Many thanks to Bill Peckmann for the loan of the book’s pages and the arduous task of scanning these illustrations.

To see the other posts from this book: Part 1, Part 2

- Here’s a scene from Alice in Wonderland that was animated bit Milt Kahl. I’ll post the first half of the scene here, and will follow with the rest next week. I also have a scene that follows, and I’ll post that, as well.

Thanks to Lou Scarborough Jr. for the loan of the art work.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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The remaining drawings will be added next week.

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Here’s a QT movie of the action layed out above.

– I continue with Izzy Klein‘s ruffs for a bit of animation eliminated from the Disney Silly Symphony, Woodland Cafe. The animation in the film is more active as she dances around the table.

I had mistakenly said that this was part of The Moth and the Flame but was quickly corrected by Mark Mayerson. I’d called it that because Izzy Klein had said it came from that film, and I never questioned it.

The short is beautiful, but it always reminded me of Hoppity Goes To Town (even though Hoppity came years later.) The animation isn’t the “A” level that was being done by the Snow White team, but it still stands out.

This is the second part of this post which continues after cycling the first bit three times (done last week.)

As with all of these animation drawing posts, I start with the last drawing from last week.

Here’s what the final character looks like in the film.

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Here’s a QT movie of the piece.
It’s exposed on two’s as was the final film.

Click left side of the bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

- Here’s a piece of animation (ruffs) from Izzy Klein for the Disney Silly Symphony, The Moth and the Flame. It obviously was eliminated from the film. There are three dances the girl does in the film, and this is not one of them – it’s a bit low key for the other dances.

Thanks to 2 comments from Mark Mayerson and Peter Hale, we can see that this animation is from Woodland Cafe, not the Moth and the Flame (as Izzy Klein had told me.) It still is a piece of animation that was eliminated from the short.

Here are a couple of images from that film:

There are about a hundred drawings so I’m breaking it into a couple of parts.

This first part is a cycle that Izzy calls for. I don’t have the sheets but I cycled it three times.

(Click any image to enlarge.)

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Click left side of the bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

- Here’s something I found the other day. My soiled linen. I did this piece of animation some 49 years ago. I was 15 years old and was trying to do an adaptation of Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat”. I didn’t get too far; as a matter of fact, this is probably all that I did. There’s a painted BG and a storyboard somewhere, but it wasn’t with these drawings.

When I was a kid, I started filming my animation at age 13. By the time I was 17 and starting college, I had shot 2½ hours of 8mm animation. I don’t know what happened to all the other drawings I did, but this scene is all I have. I do have the snippets of 8mm film that I’ll someday transfer to DVD.

Note that I worked on three hole looseleaf for my registration. I don’t think I ever did the missing inbetweens for this scene; if I did, I don’t have them. I don’t ever think I pencil tested this before.

Here’s a smile, some children’s art.

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Here’s a QT movie of the piece.
Remember to take it with a pound of salt.
These are the scribbles of a 15 year old.

Click left side of the bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

I had some communication with Chris Rushworthy, an enormous fan of Halas and Batchelor’s Animal Farm. I had just watched the DVD again and wondered if Chris, who has an large collection of art from the film and has a website to showcase it – AnimalFarmWorld, had ever seen a set of drafts for the film. Which animator animated which scenes?

He didn’t have one, but that didn’t stop him from contacting Harold Whitaker, who was a key animator – not only on Animal Farm but for Halas & Batchelor – to ask if he had one. Whitaker responded with a signed card of people who had worked on the film. Interestingly enough, only three people who signed the card actually got screen credit, so I guess that many of the signers were from the Ink & Paint department. Whitaker is the only animator I recognize, to have signed the document.

Here’s the card, and alongside it I tried to identify the names – however, it isn’t easy reading all the signatures. Those that I’m sure I’ve got wrong, I’ve added question marks (????) to the names. If you’re confident of any of the names, please feel free to let me know.

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Bunnie Harvey
Wynn F. Stewart
Eve Lewis
P. Knowles
Jay Pope
M. O. Smith
Pat Neal
W. M. Smith
J.E.Grundy ???
Ty F. Young (Mrs. Muir)
Kay Coroline
Pat Williams
David A. Hancock
Mike Western
Helena F. Evans
Anthony M. Gray
B.D.Salway ???
Harold Whitaker - animator
D.F.Kniley ???
Sid Griffiths - camera
Mary G. Bennett
John M. Gurr – Camera
Doris Reis
Pam Shipway
Jay Graves
Jo May
Dorothy S. Jones
Hazel Box – (Mrs. Gray)
Beryl Wall
Elizabeth N. Syed
C. L. Newman
D. Coombes
J. Davis
Joan Rissik
Elizabeth Taylor
Mollie Shipway
Ceinwen Fowler

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The film’s credits don’t offer a hell of a lot more. The names are few and they’re written in script. No first names – just a letter. H. Whittaker – yes, two “t”s even though the card above has just the one “t”. IMDB offers a few additional credits.
One not on IMDB is Gerald Potterton; he told me it was his first position as an inbetweener.

Chris Rushworthy also gave me a preview of a beautiful new setup he recently bought to add to the collection. This is it.

Boxer, Benjamin and duckling

Check out his site to see plenty of other cel setups and drawings.

Ferdinand Hovarth was a versatile artist whose work was an inspiration for many Disney artists. He was a mainstay at the Disney studio from 1934-37. He was one of those artists brought in from Europe to draw inspirational art for the other designers and animators. Gustaf Tenggren and Albert Hurter also fell into this category. All three contributed mightily to the product the studio produced – particularly Snow White and Pinocchio. I can only think of Joe Grant as being the modern equivalent, for a short period.

This is the final installment of a catalogue published by Graphis Gallery and put together by Bruce Hamilton. The opening material explains itself.

The following booklet was
Bill Peckmann sent me scans of these pages, and I thank him for keeping Hovarth alive.

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