Monday, June 30, 2008

Prod. 2082 (Sleeping Beauty) - Seq. 02.0 Entrance of Maleficent

Directed by Eric Larson, laid out by MacLaren Stewart.

Starting with Scene No. 97, animation by Marc Davis (Maleficent, King & Queen), Hal Ambro, John Lonsbery (King & Queen), Ollie Johnston, Blaine Gibson (Fairies) and Jack Bailey (soldiers) with effects by Dan MacManus and Jack Boyd.

This FINAL draft dated 10/24/1958...
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Sunday, June 29, 2008

Prod. 2082 (Sleeping Beauty) - Seq. 01.0 Opening

"Opening - to - Entrance of Maleficent" was not the first sequence in animation. The date on this FINAL draft is July 15th, 1958. In the Ink and Paint schedule it had seven sequences on either side of it.

Most of the earliest sequences, about half the film, were directed by Eric Larson, but as we can learn from John Canemaker's Nine Old Men book, he was removed as head director of the film (Walt felt he had spent way too much), and the later sequences were directed by Woolie Reitherman and the official director Gerry Geronimi. This opening sequence, though, was directed by Les Clark, and laid out by Homer Jonas, Victor Haboush and Jack Huber.

Animation by George Nicholas, Bob Youngquist, Jack Bailey, Fred Kopietz (Misc. Characters), Hal King, Blaine Gibson, Hal Ambro, Jack Boyd, Don Lusk (Fairies) Bob Carlson and John Sibley (King & Queen).

This sequence sets the tone of the film, and has had a lot of iterations, including a different song! When I saw the movie in a cinema in Hilversum in Holland, my dear sweet mother whispered to me, during this first sequence: "Are you sure this is a Disney film???"
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This draft has 137 pages...

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Saturday, June 28, 2008

Prod. 2082 - Sleeping Beauty Draft

Time for a new feature film. Since Sleeping Beauty is up for the big beautiful BluRay experience - with music that will sound like originally recorded in Germany (I can hardly wait!) - it is the obvious choice. Therefor, throughout the next couple of weeks I will bring you the draft of Prod. 2082 - Sleeping Beauty.

Here are the cover and notes in the inside of my copy. It was originally kept in the Background Morgue - the storage of old BGs that was located in the basement of the Ink & Paint building on the Burbank lot. This has, of course, been transferred to the ARL, the Animation Research Library. For internal use, these drafts are said to have been digitalized, and the old ones discarded. Like this one...

Very interesting to me is the list of photostat numbers for the storyboards. When the board was OK'ed, it was photographed. From the negative numbers we can make some conclusions as to when the sequences were ready for full production. The first number are month and year of the negative. As we have learned from Frank and Ollie's Illusion of Life, the first sequence in animation was Boy Meets Girl, Seq. 8 - and lo, it has the earliest neg. numbers: April to July 1954. Followed by Seq. 07.0 - Fairies Plan, March 1955. The rest is from 1956 except Seq. 1 - Opening, Seq. 7.1 maleficent Kicks Goons Around and the last Seq. 21, Girl Awakens and Ending, all from 1957...
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Disclaimer: As always, drafts were not meant as historical documents, they were made during production to be able to trace the person responsible for the actual drawings in case there was anything that needed to be cleared up. They were also used for footage counts, to establish credits, and to see if there were any "slackers." In many cases, a Supervising Animator would pose out a whole sequence, but only animate a few scenes, if any at all. Therefor, the draft MAY not always give a clear view of who was the main responsible person. But it is right now all we have...

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Friday, June 27, 2008

Poor Ferdinand

While back in Denmark for a bit, and while preparing the next wave of drafts, here is a store front not far from my apartment, in the part of town called Kødbyen, "The Meat City."
"Kød en gros ApS" means "Meat wholesale Ltd."
This is a wholesale butcher's shop. Poor Ferdinand...
Poor Ferdinand...<< Click on it!!!
Thanks for checking in - and for your comments!
I do read everything, so by all means keep sending them!
And note: the next feature draft will be right here shortly!

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Saturday, June 14, 2008

Future Fantasias

Didier Ghez's great posting of a meeting transcript on a future Fantasia reminded me of an image that a friend gave me recently of Walt at his desk (left). Based on the negative number, it was possibly taken in January 1942. I had a close look at the shelves behind him - and in Photoshop, straightened an area that looked readable (right) - and to my surprise, I could now read "Future Fantasias..."
Walt at work...Future Fantasias

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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Frank and Ollie Filmographies

Before Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston visited Holland back in 1984, they sent me their filmographies as prepared by the Walt Disney Archives. Now, 24 years later, I came across them, as I was sorting old papers here in Denmark...
Frank Thomas FilmographyOllie Johnston Filmography

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Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Walt's Field Day

Today it is exactly 80 years ago that Walt Disney's Snow White wrap party was held at Lake Norconian, in Norco, just north-west of where the 91 and the 15 freeways meet. As we could read on Mike Barrier's pages a few days ago, the work-week was reduced to 5 days, 40 hours, and a two week vacation was announced for August 1938. Here then is the program for the June 4th 1938 festivities. Only listed are the official ones. The unofficial activities are what made this bash so infamous...
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Mike Barrier has previously (in 2006) published a version that was missing the middle pages. Be sure to check the September 6th and 14th postings for much more information! Above scans of Chet Vandagriff's copy (I believe he was family of one of Lillian Disney's sisters) are the complete set. This is said to have been the first time Mickey was drawn (by Ward Kimball) with pupils in his eyes...

Courtesy of Mike Van Eaton, here is the extra info given to the participants. It includes a complete list of staff members who reserved rooms for the event!
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The person who wrote the list did not know all the names well and made a few spelling mistakes - Ollie Johnson, Chuck Otterstrom...

So... what if you won an event? Well, you'd receive a trophy, like this one, that was offered at Hake's Auctions two years ago.
Bud Rickert...< Click on it!
Background painter Douglas "Bud" Rickert won the Boating Race...

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Monday, June 2, 2008

Feature Production Numbers

For reference, here is a little list of some of the Disney production numbers for features and a few featurettes and specials:

2001 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
2002 Bambi
2003 Pinocchio
2004 Fantasia
2005 The Reluctant Dragon
2006 Dumbo
2007 Victory Through Air Power
2015 Saludos Amigos
- 2712 Lake Titicaca
- 2714 Pedro
- 2711 El Gaucho Goofy
- 2717 Aquarela Do Brasil
2016 The Three Caballeros
- 2713 The Flying Gauchito
- 2718 The Cold Blooded Penguin
- 2721 Bahia
- 2725 Solamente una Vez, Pinata, Las Posadas
2025 Make Mine Music
- 2024 Peter and the Wolf
- 2026 Two Silhouettes
- 2027 The Martins and the Coys
- 2028 All the Cats Join In
- 2030 After You've Gone
- 2041 Casey at the Bat
- 2045 Whale at the Met
- 2046 Johnny Fedora & Alice Blue Bonnet
- 2047 Without You
- 2050 Blue Bayou
2029 Song of the South
2057 Fun and Fancy Free
- 2043 Mickey & the Beanstalk
- 2048 Bongo
2061 Melody Time
- 2052 Little Toot
- 2054 Melody Time (Trees)
- 2055 Once Upon a Wintertime
- 2056 Pecos Bill
- 2058 Johnny Appleseed
- 2059 Bumble Boogie
- 2060 Blame it on the Samba
2051 So Dear to My Heart
2067 The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
- 2011 Fabulous Mr. Toad
- 2062 Ichabod Crane
2063 Cinderella
2069 Alice in Wonderland
2074 Peter Pan
2079 Lady and the Tramp - Standard Academy
2084 Lady and the Tramp - CinemaScope
2082 Sleeping Beauty
2097 The Truth about Mother Goose
2110 One Hundred and One Dalmatians
2138 Sword in the Stone
2165 Mary Poppins
2504 Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree
2179 Jungle Book
0101 The Aristocats
2515 Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
2518 Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too
0112 Robin Hood
2519 The Rescuers
2521 The Small One
0136 The Fox and the Hound

Note that the live-action features are interspersed in this list,
e.g. 2068 is Treasure Island etc. Also, the parts of the compilation features like Make Mine Music each have a separate number, as well.
[Note: I added these - 7/27/08]

(I'm back in Denmark, folks!)

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