The Bee's Wax...

Here is an example of a model sheet from one of Disney's commercial productions of the 50's, for Johnson's Wax. In Amid Amidi's wonderful book Cartoon Modern you can read much more about that department...

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Well-known in Europe...

Cartoon Forum, the respected co-production forum for European animation TV-series, boasting (this year) over 750 participants (with 59 projects), awarded for the first time the "Cartoon Tributes", awards to honour companies' contributions to the development of European animation. And the recipient for Best Producer was...
A. Film, Denmark. See?
Here is our Karsten Kiilerich receiving the prize and at the press conference (in both pictures, he is on the right)...By the way, this is my 80th post - be sure to check the archive, if you are a new visitor. I used to have all posts on one single page, but when it took me several minutes to load the page, I changed that ;-)

Message from VIP

Virgil "VIP" Partch left this message in the Orange County Illustrated in 1967. He remembers his time at Disney's on Hyperion Ave., though not all his facts are correct (Mary Costa was Sleeping Beauty, not Snow White, and his spelling of names isn't too correct either - Frank Tashlin, Steve Bosustow, Jules Engel, Aurie (Aurelius) Battaglia), but in all it is an interesting little flashback...

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I have not been very lucky with my internet connection in my current hotel, which made it impossible for me to upload images, hence my lack of postings. Well, don't despair, I will put more interesting stuff up as the connection (hopefully) gets better...

A bit of storyboard...

From Cat Nap Pluto (Charles Nichols, 1948), here called Dog Tired, the first board for this film by Eric Guerney.

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The only page I have, I bought it last week at Bob Molinari & Martin Turnbull's Disneyana shop Fantasies Come True on 8012 Melrose Ave, L.A. They are having to move, and much of the stuff is half price or less - lots of beautiful OLD stuff, including original stat model sheets! Last day open at this location: September 23rd!
Open Wednesday to Saturday from 12 noon to 3pm.

The last day of the 3-D Expo had an amazing treat: The Mousketeer 3-D Jamboree, as shown in Disneyland 1957-1960! Annette in a tutu on a swing throwing roses at you in glorious studio Technicolor in a perfect new 3-D print! Who can ask for anything more?
Also: an amazing Technicolor IB test print with images polarized ON the (one) filmstrip, an 'eye' on each side - and it worked fine! They used Disney's Melody for that test. It was abandoned, as CinemaScope had already taken over, and nowadays it would be impossible to do, as IB printing is no more...

Voice from the past...

In the late 40's, Dave Hand (1900-1986), who previously was animator and director on Disney's shorts, and Supervising Director on Snow White and Bambi, was hired by J. Arthur Rank to start an animation business in Cookham, England. Listen to him telling a bit about himself on British BBC radio around 1950, not long before he moved to Denmark, to work with my old mentor Børge Ring, Bjørn Frank Jensen, and A. Film's own Karsten Kiilerich's father-in-law, Arne Rønde in Vedbæk north of Copenhagen...

Today was a highlight at the 3-D Expo, as we saw a program with most all of the 3-D cartoons produced before the 60's, introduced by Jerry Beck. Most notably, Ward Kimball and Chas. Nichols' "Melody" and Jack Hannah's "Working for Peanuts." A wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime experience! Mind you, the rest was also very interesting, including Halas & Batchelor's peculiar "The Owl and the Pussicat", an abstract Norman McLaren, a Woody Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny, and (in outer space), Casper the Friendly Ghost and Popeye! Wow!

Reminds me of a CG Omnimax teaser called "Jasper" that we at
A. Film did around 2000. It was only screened once, at the introduction of the new Danish 3-D system called ColorCode3D, at the Danish Planetarium, which was a big affair.

Prod. 2230 - Officer Duck

This draft of 5/6/1939 shows the short directed by Gerry Geronimi.
Released 10/10/1939. A veritable Eugsterama...In the mean time I'm having a ball at the 3-D Expo at the Egyptian! Today was House of Wax. I'm amazed how the mind changes two relatively unsteady frames into one beautifully steady one...

Prod. 2220 - Society Dog Show

Ok, it seems the last page is missing. Still, this is better than nothing, I guess... Check with Treasures DVD: Mickey Mouse in Living Color, Vol. 2.
Directed by Bill Roberts, music Ollie Wallace - I find some of the credits rather surprising. Leo Salkin? A single Fred Moore scene?
This draft 10/17/1938, released 2/3/1939.
Oh, and 4 Eugster scenes, Mark!Folks, feel free to comment!

Prod. RM11 - Donald's Nephews

Directed by Jack King, with story by Jack Hannah and Carl Barks, this draft from 8/1/1937. Lots of animation by Johnnie Cannon, Don Towsley, Paul Allen, Bernie Wolf and Jack Hannah himself, with the first appearance of the nephews by Don Williams.
The film was released 4/15/1938 and can bee seen on Treasures DVD "The Chronological Donald" Vol.1.Give a warm thought to the late great Frank Thomas, who would have been 94 today...

Barsheet example: The Pointer

This example of a barsheet is from Prod.2227 The Pointer - from when it was still known as M-27 in 1938. It was prepaired and kept by Jack Cutting, the assistant director of the film, following the timing by the director, Gerry Geronimi.

Like many films (including the short film I timed in the 80s), this film speeds up over time, to heighten the sense of urgency as we go along. It starts as [2-14], quickly becomes [2-12], stays like that for most of the time, but towards the climax becomes [2-10] and even [2-8], to return to [2-12] for the epilogue.

At the top of this sheet, the tempo changes from [2-14] to [2-12]. For a [2-12], the major divisions are seconds, the thinner lines are half seconds, so one line is four seconds. The four rows in each line are basically Effects, Dialogue, Action and Measure Numbers. The notes like P.200T3 are the then-current indication of the bit of sound: Punch 200, Take 3. Also note that measures 43B and 52A have three beats instead of two, so those measures are [3-12], just as the very first measure on the page is [3-14]. This normally indicates a change at some earlier point in time (see 156A two posts ago).

The directors of the time found out that scenes should only cut on the beat for effect, for if you cut on a beat, you cannot have an action hit on that beat. So they often cut e.g. 6 frames before the beat, thus leaving time to hit an accent right on the beat.

Another interesting thing to remember is, that the musicians had loops with clicks on them, that they could put into their moviolas, and which were increments of quarter beats. (14, 14¼, 14½ etc.)
I remember that I made a beat-metronome back in the early 90's in Basic on an old pre-windows pc. The calculation is really simple: 1440 (= 60 x 24) divided by Beat equals Metronome bpm, and 1440 divided by bpm equals Beat. (On the right is a little converter.)

See also the elaborate musical barsheet in Christopher Finch's The Art of Walt Disney (1973) for yet another example!

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NEWS FLASH: our "Ugly Duckling & Me" will now have it's World Premiere at the Toronto Film Festival September 10th, where it was invited!

Prod. CM28 - Mickey in Arabia

This is the film I had as a kid on silent 16mm, with a little hand-cranked projector that I used later to project the Leica-reel for Anna & Bella that I had filmed off of Børge Ring's storyboard, an action that changed that film considerably. I remember well the smell that was inevitable as the 60 Watt light bulb burned the dust off it...

Directed by Wilfred "Jaxon" Jackson and released 7/20/1932, it is available on the Treasures DVD Mickey Mouse in Black & White -
I believe it's on Vol.1., after a disclaimer.
We meet Kevin Donnelly, a pretty obscure name in animation history.