Prod. 2519 - The Rescuers (XXIV) - Seq. 012 - The Escape
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Animation by Bill Hajee, Milt Kahl, Glen Keane, Cliff Nordberg, Ron Husband, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, John Pomeroy, Ron Clements and Andy Gaskill. It's a veritable free-for-all as to who draws what! Milt drawing the flying teddy bear?
Effects by Jack Buckley (fireworks) and Dick Lucas (Swampmobile).
This sequence and the next, final sequence are the only ones that give Art Stevens sole directing credit. At this time, John Lounsbery was long gone, though Woolie was still on his post (where I met him 17 months later). Also note that Vance Gerry, who should by now be quite well-known as story artist, is credited here for layout!
[This will have to tide you over through the weekend!]
posted by Hans Perk at 11:00 AM
4 Comments:
Ah yes, This sequence and today before it was posted I was thinking it had to be John Lounsbery doing his job at directing but it seems that his co-director Art Stevens did the job since Lounsbery died a year before.
I knew it would have been Frank Thomas doing scene 42.1 "toothy smile" - and I was right, hehe ;). But, I thought it was either Frank Thomas, Ron Clements or Cliff Nordberg animating 303.3 but Cliff Nordberg makes more sense since he was good at animating comedy genius scenes like Ward Kimball - he died about two years after this film came out I think. I never expected Nordberg animating Snoops laughing at scene 315.2.
I can't wait to see the final sequence being posted if it is going to be posted tomorrow and as the song says "tomorrow is another day..." (I sang that in Maths randomly and it got a friend laughing)...
I was waiting for this! I figured Art would direct something himself towards the end of the film.
Cliff Nordberg aniamtes Medusa liberally here; his work looks like Stan Green. I could tell Frank aniamted the elevator trapping scenes.
I say Don Griffith lays out the next sequence.
I have to say that the Medusa scenes in this sequence that are not animated by Milt Kahl, (along with the scenes in her car in Seq. 003.1 animated by Stan Green) stick out like a sore thumb!
Here executed by Cliff Nordberg. Executed being a good word.
The close-ups when she is attacked by the critters and then her 'waterskiing' antics are poorly drawn.
It just goes to show that when in hands of a master the character of Medusa was sublime, and when passed over to less able animators she becomes ...well, a lot less so, almost second-rate.
Take a look at the drawings when she is running from the riverboat and jumping to catch onto the rope (308)...TERRIBLE!!...Saturday morning quality!!
And the jokey over-the-top squash and stretch animation as she's pulled through the water (312) is completely out of style to the rest of the Medusa work.
Mr. Nordberg seems to handle the animation of other characters really well, but I assume that the standards set by Mr. Kahl on his Swan-song character just couldn't be matched.
It's such a shame that he stuck to his retirement date so rigidly leaving these (and the car) scenes to be finished off by others.
I think there is some logic in the animator assignments, although it is a bit unconventional. Maybe this is because of Art Stevens' directoral inexperience? Or just because they were in a rush to finish the film and so they just assigned "whoever was available" to various scenes? You can see a similar situation with Eric Larson and Bill Roberts on Snow White.
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