Treat (no Trick)

Here is a topical bit from Prod. 2061, Ichabod Crane, part of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Directed by Gerry Geronimi, this draft of 2/7/1949.The sequence ends with a 15 ft scene by Ollie Johnston, todays birthday boy - what a wonderful, sweet man - and always keen to reveal the ingredients to great animation...

Prod. RS6 - Mother Goose Goes Hollywood

Here is another draft - I photographed it quickly before I left for Denmark, therefor the loss of image quality. But hey, it's there...

Directed by Wilfred 'Jaxon' Jackson, caricature designs by T. Hee, music by Ed Plumb, released 12/23/1938. This draft 7/15/1938.

Lots of Izzie Klein, Grim Natwick, Bob Stokes and Ward Kimball, with a few scenes by Jack Campbell and (probably Don) Patterson...One can only hope that it will be on the December Treasures DVD...

Your Mother Won't Know You!

Here is another commercial from the 50's Babbitt/Hubley reel...
And then there is always this reel to look at....

Timing and bar-sheets revisited...

Following Dave Hand's theory, I think it is time for some practical application of his abilities. Now, the 1936 Mickey Mouse short "Mirrorland" (M41) was called "Through the Looking Glass" on the draft, and was released as "Thru The Mirror", Production UM41.

Here is a bar-sheet that was prepared for the planning of the sound effects. It is for all intents and purposes a true bar-sheet, with beat indications, so it is easily followed, especially since music is such a great part of it. Take out your Disney Treasures DVD: Mickey Mouse in Living Color Vol.1 Disc 1, and tap your way through it, and study how Dave Hand timed this classic Mickey film, beat for beat.

To keep the small green letters readable, I decided to retain the size of my original photos. Each is around 200 KB. I also stuffed all 13 into one 2.5 MB ZIP file, that you can get by clicking the .zip image.

								< Get the .zip file!

Here is a bit of an explanation...

< Click on it!

Say, folks, not many of you are commenting. Is anyone but the usual three die-hards even reading this stuff?

Don Graham hosts Dave Hand (2)

The other half of Dave Hand's lecture on the "Director's relationship to the picture and to the animator." More on Hand-Outs, roughs, the mechanics of anticipation, Walt's vision, suggestions by Fred Moore, timing to music, exaggeration in clean-up and the division of Glory. And sequels! He really gets around! Read it! It's important stuff!

Don Graham hosts Dave Hand (1)

David Dodd Hand (01/23/1900 - 10/11/1986) was the director of Snow White and Bambi, and had an illustrious carreer in animation, going back to even before Fleisher's Out of the Inkwell series. From January 1930, he animated on some 40 Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies shorts before directing more of those, including my favorite film, Building a Building, and the likes of Thru the Mirror, Alpine Climbers, The Country Cousin and Little Hiawatha. After leaving Disney in 1944, he left for J. Arthur Rank's British Moor Hall studio in Cookham where he did the Animaland series. When it closed, he was in Denmark at the RING, FRANK and RØNDE studio in Vedbæk for some time before returning to the States. (RING being Børge Ring, my old mentor, FRANK was animator Bjørn Frank Jensen, and Arne RØNDE Kristensen the producer, A. Film's own Karsten Kiilerich's late father-in-law). Michael Barrier published a very interesting interview with Hand. See also my post here...

Here is the transcript from the Action Analysis Class of Thursday, February 27th, 1936, lead by Don Graham on the "Director's relationship to the picture and to the animator", with Dave Hand as the guest speaker. In this document we see how one of Disney's most important directors worked with his animators - how much freedom he gave them - how he handed out scenes. Now... If this meeting had been yesterday, I'd be amazed at the importance and topicality. But this was just over 70 (SEVENTY) years ago!!! I wonder why we haven't seen this before, as directors through the ages could have benefitted from reading it. The Hand-Out has always been a crucial - though much overlooked - part of direction for as far as I remember...The other half follows tomorrow, and it's important, too!

How could I forget to mention...

...that our "The Ugly Duckling and Me" feature film has gone into its Danish release last week? Read more on the A. Film Homepage... The CG competition is immense from films with 10 times larger budgets, but our film is well liked for its special take on an old favorite story...

John, Marsha and Snowdrift...

Another gem from the Babbitt/Hubley reel...

Heinz...

This is on a reel of Art Babbitt and John Hubley commercials that made the rounds some ten years ago - done in the mid 50s...

Layout Training Course #2: Ken Anderson (2)

Here is the second half of this set of documents.