Category ArchiveAnimation Artifacts
Animation &Animation Artifacts &Hubley &Independent Animation 06 Oct 2010 07:45 am
Littlejohn’s Snake – 2
- As I wrote last week, I feel that Bill Littlejohn, was one of THE GREAT animators. I worked on many of the scenes that he animated for John Hubley. At first, I was inking his work (and I always did it with the exposure sheets right in front of me so I could see how he was animating.) Then I had to assist some small bits of his animation.
After learning of Bill’s death, last week, I immediately went searching for a scene I could post. This one, from Hubley’s Everybody Rides the Carousel, is not a great scene, but it’s typical of Bill’s work. A beautiful free-flowing style, the scene showcases the almost calligraphic style Bill used for Hubley. The animation drawings just flowed out of his pencil.
The scene represents the animal figures that constantly fight in the heads of the characters. For this stage there was a snake and a phoenix; one representing positive, the other representing negative.
We start with the last drawing from last week’s blog post.
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The following QT movie represents the drawings above
from Bill Littlejohn.
I don’t have the X-Sheets, so I exposed on two’s
except where there were gaps in the numbers.
There I treated part of it as a cycle – which is what it was.
I suspect the scene actually was exposed to last longer
using three’s and a couple of very short holds.
Right side to watch single frame.
Animation &Animation Artifacts &Hubley &Independent Animation 29 Sep 2010 07:48 am
Littlejohn’s Snake – 1
- Bill Littlejohn, to me, was one of THE GREAT animators. It took years of my working on his animation for John Hubley before I finally met him. We’d spoken often enough on the phone since I was the production manager, Assistant, Animator and Layout guy for Hubley for about 6 years. I did any assisting needed on Bill’s work – and there was rarely much to do. He and his wife, Fini, were so amiable, affectionate and cordial in person; exactly the people I expected after all the phone conversations.
His animation seemed to be done in a straight-ahead style, and he did everything needed for the scene.
As promised I found a scene animated by him from Hubley’s Everybody Rides the Carousel. It’s not the best scene, but it showcases the almost calligraphic style Bill used for Hubley. The animation drawings just flowed out of his pencil (though he usually animated in pen for Hubley.) The only assisting I did on the following drawings were some of the outer balloons for the characters.
The scene represents the animal figures that constantly fight in the heads of the characters. For this stage there was a snake and a phoenix; one representing positive, the other representing negative.
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The following QT movie represents the drawings above
from Bill Littlejohn.
I don’t have the X-Sheets, so I exposed on two’s
except where there were gaps in the numbers.
There I treated part of it as a cycle – which is what it was.
I suspect the scene actually was exposed to last longer
using three’s and a couple of very short holds.
Right side to watch single frame.
Animation Artifacts &Fleischer &Illustration &Tissa David 28 Sep 2010 07:10 am
Betty Poster
- Recently, Tissa David gave me a bunch of posters that she’d stored for many years. I’ll post them all, but it takes forever to scan them and reconstruct them in photoshop. So they’ll probably come one at a time.
Here’s one Grim Natwick gave her. She was the 3rd that Grim signed it to.
(Click the image to enlarge it.)
Animation &Animation Artifacts &Hubley &Independent Animation 27 Sep 2010 07:27 am
Barrie Nelson’s Mime
- I’d posted a large scene from Everybody Rides the Carousel which was animated by Art Babbitt. The scene was the first one handed out when the film was scheduled to air as 3 half hour shows on consecutive nights. Babbitt did a stunning job, and John Hubley loved it. (He’d pulled me into the editing room to show it to me. “I want you to see the greatest piece of animation ever done,” were the words he greeted me with.
Hubley did some changes after the film was extended to a 90 minute TV special. It meant we needed an additional 10 mins of animation done within the same 6 month schedule. Hubley extended Babbitt’s scene putting it on four frame dissolves. Babbitt quit the project.
At the very end of production, John Hubley sent the rest of the mime to the brilliant animator, Barrie Nelson. The voice had changed, and the schedule offered little time to do the work. Barrie followed the voice rather than Art Babbitt’s mime. It came back a different character. True to Hubley’s style, schedule and budget, it was used regardless.
Here’s one of those Barrie Nelson scenes. I don’t have the exposure sheets, so I guessed at it.
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The following QT movie represents the drawings above
from Barrie Nelson.
I don’t have the X-Sheets, so I exposed straight ahead on two’s.
Right side to watch single frame.
Animation &Animation Artifacts &Hubley &Independent Animation 15 Sep 2010 07:49 am
Babbitt’s Carousel Mime – 5
- The Hubley feature film, Everybody Rides the Carousel, was adapted from Erik Erikson‘s Eight Stages of Man, a Psychosocial Theory of Human Development.
The Hubley conceit was to make the 8 stages of life as a carousel with 8 horses representing those different stages. The narrator was a mime and was animated, at first, by Art Babbitt, with Dave Palmer as his personal assistant. After animating a couple of early scenes, Babbitt left annoyed. Barrie Nelson completed the character in the show.
For the full story behind the rift between Hubley and Babbitt go to this past post.
The scene is 152 drawings long. This is the final section as the mime comes to rest. It’s a very slow moving character with short quick spurts of movement.
We begin with the last drawing from last week, #123.
123(Click any image to enlarge.)
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The following QT movie represents the drawings above
exposed as Babbitt wanted them, on twos.
Right side to watch single frame.
Animation Artifacts &Bill Peckmann &Layout & Design &Models 13 Sep 2010 07:34 am
Dolores Cannata
- Dolores Cannata was one of a group of art students that was pulled in to The Boing Boing show to help design the seventy five new shorts, all differently designed, for the series that CBS had just signed on to. She designed The Trial of Zelda Belle and Just Believe in Make Believe for the show.
When The Boing Boing Show was cancelled she moved to work for Abe Liss’ commercial company, Elektra, where she worked with other designers like Cliff Roberts, Pablo Ferro, Hal Silvermintz, Fred Mogubgub and her brother, George Cannata Jr.
Photo from Amid Amidi’s Cartoon Modern
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What follows are a number of sketches for characters that Dolores did for Elektra. These were all saved by Bill Peckmann who has allowed me to post this small tribute to the fine work of Dolores Cannata.
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A negative stat . . .
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. . . which looks like this when cleaned up and reversed.
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A few shopkeepers for a commercial in the 60s.
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Followed by some kids.
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Some Arabian Nights themed coffee spot.
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A couple of gas attendants.
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Some sea captains.
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. . . and a lion.
Animation &Animation Artifacts &Disney 06 Sep 2010 08:16 am
Recap – Thomas’ Little Tailor -4
- Hans Perk reminded me that yesterday was the birthday of the late Frank Thomas. To celebrate: Rather than post my usual Mary Blair piece (which I’ll post tomorrow), I thought I’d recap this last part of Thomas’ Brave Little Tailor scene. You can link to earlier parts if you like. The scene is a masterpiece and possibly my favorite Thomas scene of all time.
- So, finally, we’ve reached the end of this magnificent Frank Thomas scene from The Brave Little Tailor. The other three parts can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3.
Many thanks to friend, Lou Scarborough for the loan of the xerox copies so I could post the scene.
We start with the last drawing from Part 3.
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The following QT movie represents all 246 drawings of the scene.
Click left side of the black bar to play.Right side to watch single frame.
Animation &Animation Artifacts &Hubley &Independent Animation 02 Sep 2010 07:32 am
Babbitt’s Carousel Mime – 3
- John Hubley‘s feature film, Everybody Rides the Carousel, was adapted from Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of Man, a Psychosocial Theory of Human Development.
The feature was built around a carousel. 8 horses represented different stages of life. The narrator, a mime, was animated by Art Babbitt, with Dave Palmer as his personal assistant. He left after animating a couple of early scenes. Barrie Nelson completed the character in the show.
For the full story behind the rift between Hubley and Babbitt go to this past post.
The scene is about 200 drawings long. Here’s the third part. It’s a very slow moving character with short quick spurts of movement.
We begin with the last drawing from last week.
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The following QT movie represents the drawings above
exposed as Babbitt wanted them, on twos.
Right side to watch single frame.
Animation &Animation Artifacts &Hubley 25 Aug 2010 05:52 am
Babbitt’s Carousel Mime – 2
- John Hubley‘s feature film, Everybody Rides the Carousel, was adapted from Erik Erikson’s book, Eight Stages of Man, a Psychosocial Theory of Human Development.
The feature was built around a carousel. 8 horses represented different stages of life. The narrator, a mime, was animated by Art Babbitt, with Dave Palmer as his personal assistant. He left after animating a couple of early scenes. Barrie Nelson completed the character in the show.
For the full story behind the rift between Hubley and Babbitt go to this past post.
The scene is about 200 drawings long. Here’s the second part. It’s a very slow moving character with short quick spurts of movement.
We begin with the last drawing from last week.
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The following QT movie represents the drawings above
exposed as Babbitt wanted them, on twos.
Right side to watch single frame.
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Animation &Animation Artifacts &Hubley 18 Aug 2010 07:22 am
Babbitt’s Carousel Mime – 1
- John Hubley‘s feature film, Everybody Rides the Carousel, was adapted from Erik Eriksons’ Eight Stages of Man, a Psychosocial Theory of Human Development.
The Hubleys designed the feature (which started out as three half hours for CBS and then was rushed to fill it to 90 min feature length in the final 3 months of production) around a carousel. 8 horsees represented different stages of life. The narrator was a mime we see throughout at the carousel. Art Babbitt was hired to animate him, and things got bad pretty quickly and he left after animating a couple of early scenes. Barrie Nelson completed the character in the show.
John took one look at the pencil test of this scene on a movieola and proclaimed it the greatest animation he had ever seen. It wasn’t long that he took the scene – basically exposed on twos throughout – and asked me to change it exposing it on four frame dissolves throughout. This would extend the scenes and the character and would milk the scenes for everything possible. Art Babbitt was furious and never spoke to John again. For the full story go to this past post.
The scene is about 200 drawings long. I’ll break it into parts and post each part here in about 4 or 5 segments. Here’s the first part. As you can see there are a lot of ½ drawings. Animation extender – it’s a very slow moving character. A lot of poetry.
The QT will be done using Art’s exposure on twos.
1(Click any image to enlarge.
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There are five pair of eyes; I give you the first and last.
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______________________
The following QT movie represents the drawings above
exposed as Babbitt wanted them, on twos.
Right side to watch single frame.
