Chad Sellers Animation Blog

Gaston Pencil Tests

2012-01-17T10:50:00.000-06:00

Annie Awards!

2011-12-05T12:17:00.001-06:00

Wow I've been nominated for an Annie Award this year! Awesome!!

CTN 2011

2011-11-05T22:08:00.003-05:00

Looking forward to CTN again this year. Always alot of fun. See you there!

Andreas' Scar pencil tests

2011-09-19T17:50:00.003-05:00

From his BLOG.

Dumbo Blu Ray

2011-09-06T11:44:00.002-05:00

Dumbo is finally here on BluRay! A must have for any Disney animation fan. You can pick it up on Sept. 20th this year.

New Prep & Landing Poster.

2011-08-18T20:49:00.001-05:00

Here is the first poster for our new Prep & Landing Christmas special!

D23 Expo

2011-08-03T13:12:00.003-05:00

This years D23 Expo is right around the corner! This year Disney Animation will have a booth set up where I will be doing a demo on Friday the 19th! If you want more info on the D23 Expo click HERE.

Deja View: Lady and the Tramp

2011-07-20T11:12:00.000-05:00

Deja View: Lady and the Tramp: "I thought you might get a kick out of this article about the making of 'Lady & the Tramp'. It is from the magazine 'American Artist', May 1..."

I know its a Harry Potter weekend but...

2011-07-14T23:56:00.002-05:00

This is a really cute movie that you should see too!

Inside the ARL : The Lion King

2011-07-14T00:03:00.003-05:00

2011-07-13T23:55:00.000-05:00

2011-07-13T23:54:00.000-05:00

Tangled Interviews

2011-07-13T19:08:00.001-05:00

Untangling the Look of Tangled from Creative Talent Network on Vimeo.

New animation clips!

2011-04-05T13:22:00.003-05:00

Some of my feature film work on the Animation Page!
Click HERE!

New Pooh Clip

2011-04-01T19:16:00.001-05:00

Interesting Milt Kahl Interview

2011-04-01T12:11:00.002-05:00

Milt Kahl

An interview by Michael Barrier and Milton Gray
Kahl and Colleagues
Milt Kahl stands at the left, with, standing from the left, Marc Davis, Frank Thomas, Walt Disney, Wilfred Jackson, and (seated) Ollie Johnston, in a publicity photo from the 1950s.

From MB: Milt Gray and I interviewed Milt Kahl on November 4, 1976, as part of my research for Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. I wrote about that interview a couple of years ago, as part of an item about the celebration of Kahl's centennial in the Hollywood animation community:

I met Milt Kahl only once, in the fall of 1976. Milt Gray and I interviewed Kahl at his home, a penthouse apartment on the Avenue of the Stars in Century City. It was, as I recall, a beautiful place, furnished in exquisite taste in a modern style. Kahl himself was friendly but forceful, very much as others have described him. He had only recently been pushed out of Disney, after run-ins with Woolie Reitherman during production of The Rescuers, and he was resentful and contemptuous of some of his former colleagues.

I remember feeling vaguely dissatisfied with the interview when Milt and I were driving away, but Milt was not, because, he told me, he had been so impressed by Kahl's integrity. I think Milt was right—Kahl did have a great deal of integrity, which took the form of an unyielding dedication to his conception of the art of animation, well-drawn animation above all. But it seemed to me that as an animator, Kahl lived inside a sort of cocoon in which nothing mattered except the high quality of his animation, with "quality" rather narrowly defined.

The complete item, titled "The Animation Michelangelo," is at this link.

Kahl is typically frank (and rather brutal) in many of his comments. What I've reproduced here is the complete transcript, which I sent to Kahl for his approval and which he returned with no changes of any kind.

If some of what Kahl says sounds familiar, that is most likely because you've read quotations from the interview in either Hollywood Cartoons or John Canemaker's Walt Disney's Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation; I let John have a copy of not just the Kahl transcript but also the transcripts of my interviews with two other "old men," Les Clark and Eric Larson.

On to the transcript, which begins, appropriately enough given Kahl's personality, in media res:

Kahl: It's all an individual thing. Way back when we weren't making anything but shorts, the attitude of a director like Ben Sharpsteen toward a Marvin Woodward, or a Fred Spencer, would differ completely from his attitude toward a Norm Ferguson. And Norm knew so much more about the business than Ben. Ben was a kind of no-talent. A nice guy, but he wasn't anyone who would set the world on fire with talent, while Ferguson was. It all depends on the relationship between people, and what they think of each other, and what their abilities are.

On Pinocchio, you mentioned something about pilot animation, and supervising animation. Finch's book [The Art of Walt Disney] is wrong on that—it depends on who the hell you interview. Everyone has his own little thing, and I think that the tendency among all these guys is to make themselves as important as they possibly can. I think Frank Thomas and Freddy Moore and I don't know who else were involved in experimenting around with Pinocchio. Maybe Ollie Johnston, but Johnston was kind of coming up then. So was I, really. I was quite critical of ... I have a knack for alienating people by being a little bit outspoken, and they were rather obsessed with the idea of this boy being a wooden puppet. My God, they even had this midget who did the voice for "call for Phillip Morris" as the voice for a while, and it was terrible. I was rather outspoken about it. Why didn't they forget that he was a puppet and get a cute little boy, you can always draw the wooden joints and make him a wooden puppet afterwards. And Ham Luske said, "Well, why don't you do something about it, do a scene," and I did one. What I don't remember is whether they had a new voice by then or not. Probably they did have; I don't know. I did a scene of Pinocchio underwater with the jackass ears, knocking on a shell of an oyster, saying, "Pardon me, can you tell me where I can find Monstro the whale?" The shell closed up and caused a swell in the current, which affected Pinocchio. I made kind of a cute little boy out of him, and Walt loved it; this was actually my big chance. It was my move into being one of the top animators. Before that, on Snow White, I was involved with the animals. We had a room, one big room, where all of we animal boys were. It was Louie Schmitt and Eric Larson and Jimmy Algar and myself. And we did all of the animals.

Barrier: At the time you did this animation of Pinocchio, were you already involved with Bambi?

Kahl: No, Bambi didn't come along for a couple of years after that. Pinocchio was why I didn't have anything to do with Fantasia. I worked on Pinocchio and then moved over onto Bambi from there. Fantasia overlapped from halfway through Pinocchio to halfway through Bambi. We had a great many people working for us and we had several units going.

Barrier: I’ve been surprised to hear how many directors, animators, and other people worked closely together as units. Were you ever closely identified back in those days with a particular director?

Kahl: No. That's what I was talking about, that tendency to systematize. It was never anything like that. On Song of the South, you must have misunderstood Wilfred Jackson saying I was involved mostly with the fox and Eric Larson with the rabbit and Marc Davis with the bear. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was probably more involved with all three of those characters than any other one person.

Barrier: Marc and Eric said the same thing, that all of you were involved with ... I think that what Jackson might have meant was that he was most pleased with the work you did on the—

Kahl: Perhaps, but the best animation in the picture was mine on the rabbit, when the fox has him by the ears and he's trying to talk him into throwing him into the briar patch. Of all my animation on Song of the South, I would say that was probably the best stuff I did. And I think it is probably the most difficult, to get the result of, of any animation I can think of. I probably had more to do with the development of all three of those characters than any one person. At the risk of sounding immodest, I probably did have more to do with it than any other person.

Barrier: I think both Eric and Marc said that. I think Marc said you had done the most in setting the characters.

Kahl: Well, probably. That's been my function a great deal of the time. There are a lot of characters that I haven't had anything to do with. For instance, on Sleeping Beauty, I had nothing to do with the results on the girl or Maleficent; Marc handled those things completely. But I had a lot to do with almost all the characters in [One Hundred and One] Dalmatians except Cruella, which Marc did single-handed. We had adjoining rooms during that time, Marc Davis and I, for about fifteen years, so we influenced each other quite a bit. Cruella is Marc's, but I had to deal with Roger and Anita and the dogs and the puppies and a lot of the other incidental characters. See, that's always been a frustration for me, all the way through—it's the history of my life. I don't get a chance to—and this is the first time [on The Rescuers] I've been able to do it, except on Shere Khan, in Jungle Book. I did almost everything of him. But for the most part I get things started, and sometimes I'm lucky enough to do a sequence of a character and then somebody else takes over the rest of it and I'm embarrassed by the result. It's kind of frustrating, it really is. In that picture, it started off the same way and I found that—I think that the trouble with a group effort is that if you work hard enough, you find yourself all alone. And that is what has happened to me and I found that—the reason I am not there anymore is that I feel that my work in these pictures is absolutely down the drain. I feel that it is wasted. I think that anyone who sees this picture as a whole, I think my Medusa stuff will stand out so damn far—and it's not because it's Geraldine Page. Of course, she's wonderful, but it's just that I've worked hard, that's all. And I suddenly found that my efforts to—I got to bucking egos, and I found that my efforts to keep the picture at a higher level, artistically, and in every way that I can think of … I mean, keep it in good taste, keep it at a level of entertainment that is a step above the moron. I found that my efforts were both resented and resisted. And I just got fed up with it. And that is why I did this on this picture. I just divorced myself from the whole place and did the damnedest best performance I could do on these two characters, and forgot the rest of it. Of course, if there is anything good about the mice, well, goddammit, I did it. I did a hell of a lot of stuff on those mice and I contributed a lot. The only thing is, it's gone down the drain. They're not terrible, but they're not as good as they should be. That's the trouble. People would rather be left to wallow in their mediocrity. They'd rather not be bothered.

Barrier: I have a tape of a talk that Woolie Reitherman gave in New York in 1973, and several people in the audience asked him, in effect, why aren't the films better, why are the stories so loose-jointed and unsatisfying, and his only answer, repeatedly, was, “They make money.”

Kahl: I can't cope with this man, I absolutely can't cope with him. I detest the use of—it just breaks my heart to see animation from Snow White used in The Rescuers. It kills me, and it just embarrasses me to tears. I went back to Florida with Woolie for a party for the wire services and the press for Robin Hood. And I met a guy who about twenty years ago I met at a friend's house; he was with Paramount at the time, a publicity man. His name was Emory Wister; he worked for the Charlotte Register [probably the Observer]. He is a Disney buff, an animation buff. And these guys always scare me, because they know more about the pictures than I do. And he recognized this goddamned animation, where Maid Marian is dancing around with little creatures; he recognized it from Snow White. This is our Woolie, and it drives me crazy.

Barrier: I can't see how the re-use of animation saves money.

Kahl: It doesn't. The funny thing is that most of the time they spend more money trying to figure out how to re-use it than they would [animating the scene from scratch]. I'd rather see it animated from scratch; even if it's a little bit amateurish, at least it's fresh and new.

Barrier: What baffles me about the new features is that you have these beautiful scenes that you do, or Frank Thomas does, set in the middle of this re-use of old animation, and lots of cycles ....

Kahl: Not only that, but in the middle of a lot of bad design and bad taste. The way that I feel about it is that my performance in The Rescuers is good. The only thing is that you know that this picture is going to be mediocre. It has a few high spots, but it's full of bad taste that is, as I like to put it, tempered by bad judgment. That's kind of a lousy way to put it, but I feel that way. I'm really rather bitter about the set-up, about some of the people who I thought considered that we were working together, and I find that we really weren't. Here I am, a person at the height of my powers, and I feel there's not a place for me anymore. I don't want to be involved; I can't fight this thing. And there certainly isn't a place for me anywhere else in this business. Other people have tried to interest me—three other people in the business.

Gray:Have you ever considered making a short film as a showcase for yourself?

Kahl: Why? Why do it? I have done enough things in this medium, in our better pictures at the studio, which is enough of a showcase if I want to be egotistical. Just for my own creative outlet, I'm going to get into something that's completely different. Just for the fun of it. Therapeutic, if that's what you want to call it.

Barrier: Into painting?

Kahl: No, I'm going into three-dimensional drawings, using wire as a medium. It looks like fun and it hasn't been explored very much.

Barrier: I want to explain something I touched on earlier. You mentioned how difficult it was to systematize Disney's. You said it depended on each unique individual, and you're exactly right. What we're really trying to get at here is, we're working from the point of view that animation is a collective enterprise. You have to have a certain group of people who are making these things and the kinds of pictures you get depends on how those people work together and the way they organize themselves to do the work. So our idea is not to pin down an organization chart for how things are made but to get a real picture of how people worked together back in the beginnings, and how that changed. Obviously there has been a tremendous change in the way the Disney studio goes about making its pictures …

Kahl: Yes, but it has been a change that I don't think the people themselves are really conscious of. I've never been conscious of any different approach to anything, any change in procedure. Like your letter that Jackson wrote; he wouldn't really know about it because the director is in more of an administrative capacity, really. Jackson was one of the most highly creative directors we had. He really was kind of an old lady, but he had a better appreciation of entertainment and richness of character than any other director we had.

Barrier: Did you work very often with him?

Kahl: Oh, yes, very much. But this multiple director thing … you'd think it would cause anything but unity in the picture to have four or five directors, but the fact is, these guys had various abilities, but Walt was the director. A lot of these guys who have since fallen on their faces are guys who were good enough directors under Walt because it is a matter of kind of keeping things straight and not butchering things up too badly because even when Walt was involved with the park and live-action and television and everything, he still ran the place. As Wilfred mentioned, he didn't participate as much, but he was still in there and he was still awfully damned quick.

Barrier: What difference did it make to you, as an animator, the kind of director you were working with?

Kahl: If you are working with somebody like Jackson, it makes it a hell of a lot easier, because there is a harmony there on what we can do. We'd talk things over and we'd find that we were in agreement; we'd agree on almost everything, we had very few disagreements. We had a few, but damned few. You mentioned the instructions from the music room, on the exposure sheets. They would look like instructions from the music room, but they weren't, because the animator and the director would talk things over. The notes on the exposure sheet were to remind [the animator of points covered in his discussions with the director]. In a dialogue scene, you wouldn't need anything like that; you'd do it through thumbnails. But there are scenes that don't involve dialogue, where your timing is completely loose. Then, I will put notes on the exposure sheet. I’ll go through it with a stopwatch—especially if it’s a long scene—and time it overall, and then I'll begin timing details. I’ll time it from one thing to another, all the way through. I’ll do it several times until I've got it pretty well down. Then I'll put it on the sheet, because there’s no sense in doing it all over again. That was what the directors were doing even back in the shorts days. You can bet your hat that the notes on the exposure sheets for Norm Ferguson's scenes, or Fred Moore's scenes, were contributed to by both parties [the director and the animator]; the director was not a dictator. Sometimes you get people that you have to hand work out to, as a director, who really shouldn't be doing it, but somebody has to do it. [The notations on an exposure sheet] would amount to instructions, because you've both talked them over, and you've decided that this is what you should do, and you'll probably stick to the plan. It's the way I do it myself; as I said at this seminar, I’ll do all my exploring in thumbnails, and kind of decide how I'm going to do it. By the time I get to actually animating a scene, I know how I’m going to do it. Any full-size drawing for that scene is a very specific thing that I've already decided on. I’ll stick to that plan, unless I get a big brainstorm.

Barrier: Other animators have talked to us in terms of emphasizing spontaneity. One guy said he would sit there for four days, and then on the fifth day he'd rough out his drawings, trying to make his pencil move with the speed of his thought. Your procedure sounds much more careful.

Kahl: Well, it's thoughtful. And analytical. I'll explore all the possibilities and try to do it the very best way.

Barrier: Has more control over the actual staging of your scenes come into your hands over the years? Were you more restricted originally, say at the time of Pinocchio or Bambi?

Kahl: It's hard for me to remember. I think any director would be a fool if he didn't let a good man do what he thought he ought to do. I think a director has to trust an animator's judgment sometimes. Remember in Aristocats when the old lawyer got out the fountain pen and unscrewed it? All that business through there was my business, actually. They had boards on it, but they weren't good. They had things that didn't get over, and I changed it all around. When the old guy went over to the desk, I had him start over, lose his balance and sprawl on the desk, and then he worked his way around while he was still sprawled. There was no way you could have a pen and an inkwell on this desk, because he'd wipe it off. And I don't like to cheat on something like that if you don't have to. So I looked in some of the mail-order catalogues to find out if they had fountain pens in 1910; and they did have. [The business with the pen] always gets a laugh, but you'd never be able to sell a director or a story man on putting that thing on the screen; you'd have to do it, and they see it, and they like it, and so it stays in the picture. I think an animator has to have that freedom if you're going to have a good picture. I've often said that if there's anything good about our pictures, it's the richness of character.

Barrier: When an animator has this much control over characters and sequences that are assigned to him, doesn't this create a certain problem for a director in maintaining unity in a picture?

Kahl: No, I don't see why it would. If you take a sequence as a whole, it serves a certain function in the story, and I'm not going to lose that. If I take a sequence over, I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize the overall story; I'm not going to change it one iota. I'm talking about detailed business, and getting the most out of the situation, that's all.

Barrier: But in the early days, you didn't have this much freedom, did you?

Kahl: Oh, no. It's not the "early days," or "late days," because there are people at the studio now, animating, who, if you gave them the freedom, you'd have one hell of a picture, believe me. They aren't to be trusted with freedom; they don't have the judgment, or the experience, and maybe they never will have. There have always been people like that around. You're never going to have a studio made up completely of geniuses. I don't think that's changed very much. I remember a meeting in one of the sweatboxes at the old studio, and I thought Ben Sharpsteen was so terribly hard on us. It was a picture called On Ice, with the Duck. Ben was talking about a scene of Marvin Woodward's—some poor bastard, I guess it was Marvin—and then he went on to Fergy’s stuff , and he said, "That's the difference between working with a man like Ferguson and a second-rater." Heartless; but this is true. There always will be those people.

Barrier: To what extent did Walt come into the animation? The picture I get is of him spending most of his time on story work, and not really ...

Kahl: He came into it plenty.

Barrier: In sweatboxes?

Kahl: Oh, yes. Even when he was busy with the park. What happened was, a picture like Sleeping Beauty didn't move because he was involved in the park. We were on one sequence forever. It ran the costs way up, because if you have something around like that, any time somebody wonders what to charge something to, you charge it to Sleeping Beauty. But even then, he was either involved or the darned thing didn't move, one or the other.

Barrier: When he was in the sweatbox with you, what kind of criticisms or evaluations would he make? Was it technical criticism, or was it more a matter of characterization?

Kahl: It was whether something got over or not. You had to be careful, really. If you had something that was a little bit out of the ordinary … I'll give you an example. In Jungle Book, I had a damned funny character, King Louie. He really looked like an orangutan—kind of bad and thin-haired and moth-eaten looking. He was a hell of a lot better character than what we ended up with in the picture. What happened was that Walt looked at someone else's animation, and he got critical of it, and I’ll be damned if we didn't have to change the character because of this. I really didn't get a chance [at the character]. If I had done all of that stuff, he would have liked it. And so you get a director who doesn't—to give him the benefit of the doubt, he doesn't have good judgment ... I don't mean that the character was that bad, it just could have been a hell of a lot better. I like to try to get the most out of things.

Barrier: Your mentioning The Aristocats reminded me of the construction lines that are visible in the old lady and the lawyer in the opening scenes.

Kahl: When I've shown rough tests to people, they seem to have enjoyed them. I think that if the animation is good and the character's believable, I don't think there's anything wrong with the thing being frankly a drawing. I don't think [the construction lines] really bother anyone. It's like the flicker of Xerox: at least the flicker of Xerox is a three-dimensional flicker, a flicker in depth rather than a flicker from side to side. And that's what we used to get in inking, especially in the very slow-moving scenes. When you have something that's held, regardless of how slowly it moves into the hold, it'll freeze [in Xerox]; and what I've done, very much in the past, is to have two drawings, one a tracing of the other, and alternate them. It's not that there's anything wrong with the freeze, but the audience will become conscious of it.

Barrier: Overall, did you find Xerox better in preserving ...

Kahl: Yes, I think so. At least the drawings had more vitality.

Barrier: I've often wondered what animators thought about what ink and paint did their work, because I've seen some cartoons where it looks like very crude and insensitive inking work has taken a lot of guts out of the animator's line.

Kahl: It's awfully hard to trace a drawing and get any vitality into it, especially when the tracing is being done by people who really don’t have an appreciation for the mechanics of drawing.

Barrier: I want to get a clear picture in my mind of how Xerox has affected the actual work of the animators.

Kahl: I think it's had very little effect. It's a matter of whether the animation is good or not, really. I think that Xerox is just another method of handling the medium, which is relatively unimportant. Those things are given more importance than they should have. It's amused me over the years that people think they are creating new horizons, or something, when they get into soft-edge animation, or something like that, or they get into a new technique of handling something with brush strokes, or anything like this. It's all right for shorts, and for things where you don't need the control; there’s no way you can control something that's soft-edged. We have enough control to keep it believable: the believability of our characters is what's important. I don’t mean realism, I mean believability.

Barrier: Xerox didn't require you and other animators to draw more cleanly, do more finished drawings?

Kahl: No; it might have for some people. They’ll go through the cels and wipe out most of the objectionable construction lines.

Gray:A lot of people have mentioned to me that they preferred the Disney cartoons when they had the colored ink lines. To them, the characters with colored ink lines were more believable as real characters, whereas with the Xerox line they were more conscious of the graphic quality.

Kahl: Yes, I think that could be. If it's inked in the same color that it's painted, so you're not conscious of an ink line at all, that's fine. That gives you the same control (as a visible ink line]. When I say I like the Xerox very much, I'm being practical, because as soon as you get into inking at all you're adding to the expense of the picture. Even a character like Medusa has to be inked around the edge of the eye shadow, and the lips have to be inked in color.

Barrier: I never liked those colored ink lines much myself.

Kahl: Well, it gets fussy. If the effect is of not having an outline, where your inking is in the color that it's painted, that's great—I think it helps the three-dimensional effect. You can do that and still keep it simple. But when you get into areas that are outlined in a color that is different from both the background and the area it outlines, I think it begins to get fussy and complicated. Sleeping Beauty was full of that. Even the background were fussy; Eyvind Earle is a good artist, but his backgrounds were overpowering. And not only that, but badly designed, I thought, and kind of ugly. Ugly shapes, lots of times; nice color, but ...

Barrier: I've heard many times about an animator's right to refuse a scene that he thought was not right. I was wondering if that was something that really came into play, given that director and the animator would be conferring ahead of time.

Kahl: Usually, a condition like that wouldn't come up, because most of the time an animator is involved, in a feature, a long time before it's handed to him as animation.

Barrier: Involved in the story ...

Kahl: Yes. So you have all sorts of chances to prevent anything like that from happening.

Barrier: You were involved in story more and more as the years went by, weren't you?

Kahl: No, I don't think so; I've always been involved with it. I think you have to be, to understand what you're doing. In The Rescuers, there's a scene where Snoops runs down a flight of stairs in the riverboat to the boiler room and sets off some rockets. He grabs a rocket out of a bin of rockets and puts it in the boiler and lights a match to it; the thing goes off and comes out the smokestack, sending up flares. (I had a scene earlier than that, where Medusa yelled at him to come here, and he came tearing down these stairs, and I'll be damned if they didn't make two scenes out of what should have been one scene, in order to use that animation reversed.) I had Snoops grab a rocket out of the bin and put it in the furnace, and then I cut to him striking the match on a box of matches, lighting it, and turning around and sticking his fingers in his ears. Then we cut outside. The director involved wanted to know—he said, "There's something wrong here," because I showed him putting the rocket in the furnace and then I cut to a different angle and showed him striking the match. He said, "You're not hooking up with the position in the scene we just left." I said, "What do you want me to do? Do you want me to have him take his hand out of the furnace and pick up a box of matches, or take it out of his pocket?" Storywise, the only thing that's important is that he strikes a match and lights the darned thing. And yet, here's a man who's been in the business for years who wanted me to hook up the position.

Barrier: To what extent would Walt or the directors come in an animator's room while he was working on a scene?

Kahl: Not very much. But Walt would call me on the telephone every once in a while. And it wouldn't be to compliment me; it would always be to raise hell about what's happening. He didn't like what was happening with a character, and I was the guy to raise hell with. I remember that on Peter Pan, he called me up one time and said he didn't like "that goddamned Peter Pan. Something's wrong down there. What the hell's the matter?" I gave him a rather classic reply. I said, "You really want to know what's wrong? You don't have any goddamned talent in the place, that's what wrong." He denied that.

Barrier: I’ve heard that talking back to Walt that way could be risky.

Kahl: I think it all depended on who was talking back to him, and how right you were. You know that the person who appreciates criticism the most is the one giving it, and he wasn't unlike anyone else. He’d come out swinging, and he figured that the best defense was a real good strong attack. I don't think anyone had to worry about talking back to Walt if he had a point, and if he—well, even if he didn’t have a point, if he was sincere in what he was trying to say. Walt was anything but difficult to work with. I’d say he was one of the least difficult people. When you were having a conflict with Walt, you were having a conflict with someone who probably had more on the ball than you had, and whose judgment was probably better. It was a hell of a lot easier than trying to get a point over to someone who couldn't understand what you were talking about. That's what you run into now.

Barrier: One thing we’ve heard from several people is that Walt would pair people who did rub each other the wrong way, in the belief that the friction was ultimately creative.

Kahl: Yes, I think that could be. He might have done that from time to time. I can't think of any specific instances, right off hand.

Barrier: Some of the director-animator relationships would seem to fit in that category; Kimball and Geronimi, for instance.

Kahl: Well, yes, but anyone with anything on the ball at all had trouble with Geronimi, because he was a drone, an absolute no-talent. I don't think there'd be anybody in the business who wouldn't tell you that.

Barrier: I believe it was Les Clark who said that the first pencil test was Geronimi's handout.

Kahl: We used to cover for him—not deliberately, because we didn't have the regard for him. He was an illiterate ignoramus. I remember Walt put him on a picture about Beethoven, and he said, “I don't know about this Beethoven. He ain't no Tchaikovsky." This was typical. What happened was, you weren't deliberately covering for him, but you were trying to get a good picture out, and you did it in spite of him. I don't care who you talk to—Frank Thomas, or Ollie, or Eric Larson—they'll tell you the same thing. Walt finally fired him, but it took a long time. And for somebody in Walt's position, with the stuff coming out all right .... Geronimi would always insist on getting the best people on his stuff, so it came out good, and what was Walt going to think?

Barrier: Kimball said that at one point all of the animators got together and said, "No, we won't work for Geronimi any more."

Kahl: I wasn't in on that. Kimball was a unique talent, because he was always completely out of sympathy with our features; he was a hell of a talent, but I think he was always shorts-oriented. He was a Chuck Jones with talent. In fact, he got Chuck Jones over to the studio, on Sleeping Beauty, and he bombed out. Kimball was always kind of a baggy-pants comic, and he was unable to do things where the character was believable. He was good at making fun of things, doing something that was satirical. He didn't have the feel for getting into a character's personality and making him believable that Frank or Ollie or I did.

Barrier: Now, you animated a little on shorts after you were working on features—the crazy tiger in Tiger Trouble, for example. What was it like, shifting from feature work to shorts? Were the shorts a lot easier to work on?

Kahl: Oh, yes. You'd do a great deal more footage per week. You don't have to have a reason for everything; things don't have to be so well thought out. If it gets a laugh, that's good enough. I'd have to think about that one before I could give you a good answer.

Barrier: Talking again about directors, Jackson and Geronimi seem to have been the two polar extremes …

Kahl: They would be, yes.

Barrier: What about Ham Luske? He was a guy who was a very highly regarded animator before he became a director.

Kahl: He was a good director. But Ham was a delegator. I always thought he retired the last fifteen years he was a director. Ham is sort of an enigma to me, still, when I think about him. He was awfully sweet; that was the word for him. An awfully nice person.

Barrier: And of course he liked to do the kinds of sequences that had lots of cute characters …

Kahl: Yes, that's what he was best at.

Barrier: In your own animation, you frequently were given difficult human characters, as opposed to the funnier characters ...

Kahl: Yes, I was. I got stuck with Pinocchio—well, I don't feel I got stuck with Pinocchio, because it was an opportunity for me. But on Alice in Wonderland, who did Alice; on Peter Pan, who did Peter Pan and Wendy and John and Michael. I don't think it was because I was better at doing that sort of thing, I think it was because I was outmaneuvered. I would have given my eye teeth to do the Cheshire Cat or the Queen of Hearts …

Barrier: … the mad tea party ...

Kahl: Well, yes. But some of these things were more fun, let's put it that way. I didn't mind Alice—I wouldn't have minded Alice so much if I could have done all of Alice. But I didn't, and there's so much terrible stuff in the picture, where live-action was used and it wasn't used well. Some of these people weren't even up to doing stuff from live action.

Barrier: I believe you said in your union talk that you didn't rely on live action to any extent at all, is that right?

Kahl: I'll give you an example. In Sleeping Beauty, there's a scene where the prince is really exuberant, he runs across the stage, he grabs his father the King, King Hubert, and waltzes around with him, carrying him. The guy we had doing the live-action for the Prince was Ed Kemmer, and King Hubert was Don Barclay, who was a fat little circus performer, a really baggy-pants comedian. Kemmer could never possibly lift him off the ground, so this was a case where I had to animate it. I did that damned thing, and it's believable. The King has weight, but the Prince is strong enough to lift him off the ground, and it looks convincing—as convincing as any of the stuff that was taken from live action. I can do that, and I think that other animators should be able to do it. I don't think the surface has been scratched, really, with our kind of picture. I think you should be able to animate princes, or princesses, or any kind of difficult character, and make them believable. I don't mean realism, I mean you should be able to do things with them that a human being wouldn't be able to do. But make them convincing, make people be able to believe in them.

Barrier: In a scene like the one you've described, you're right, it is believable that the Prince is carrying King Hubert, even though if it had been shot in live-action even a strong man would have had to struggle to carry this fat man around. But what makes that believable, in your basically realistic drawings, even though it can't be done in real life?

Kahl: Because the weight's in the right place … just because it works, actually. The weight, and the balance, is there.

Barrier: You're not applying any rules?

Kahl: Well, weight and balance, and of course the rhythm of the music, getting the flow of the waltz.

Gray:I assume you're not talking about just lifting up a dead weight. The fat king is moving—

Kahl: He's trying to get the Prince to put him down.

Gray:It's almost like acrobatics—he's using the momentum of the guy's own weight to help move him.

Kahl: That's right.

Barrier: I have one little question here ... I've heard that you were the voice of the baby Ferdinand the bull.

Kahl: Yes; that's the only time I ever did anything like that.

Barrier: And Walt was the mother's voice?

Kahl: Yes.

Barrier: I wanted to ask you about your own background, about how you came to be a member of the studio's staff. When you started, in 1934, did they put you in the bullpen with the other in-betweeners?

Kahl: Yes.

Barrier: I’ve often wondered how somebody in the bullpen could show the kind of talent they needed to get out of it; because after all, all you were doing was a basically mechanical kind of job.

Kahl: I don't know ... I guess that would take a lot of speculating on.

Gray:You had to kind of crawl up day by day, didn't you?

Kahl: Yes, kind of. They'd give you a chance to do something for one of the animators, and he’d like what you did, or not.

Barrier: Who did you assist, after you got out of the bullpen?

Kahl: Bill Roberts. I was his assistant for a year, something like that.

Barrier: From what I know of Bill Roberts, he was a very different kind of animator from the kind you became.

Kahl: That's right; he was one of the fast-action boys.

Barrier: So was there really much you could learn from him?

Kahl: Oh, yes. You learned something from everyone. Even if they didn't have something to teach you, it was stimulating. Don Graham was a very fine art instructor, and yet I would disagree with him on almost everything, as far as drawing was concerned. But he made me think. When you say someone's wrong, and he's given it some thought, you've got to defend your point of view, and it makes you think. Most of us are self-taught; you only get out of it what you put into it, in work. If you don't work at it, it's not going to seep through.

Barrier: Did you move into animation after being Bill Roberts's assistant for a year?

Kahl: They'd give you little bits of animation to try you out. The first really good chance I had was when Ben Sharpsteen gave me a sequence of two or three scenes in Mickey’s Circus, which wasn't one of our better shorts. Talk about control: Ben asked me to pose the whole scene out to show him what I was going to do with it. I brought these drawings in to him, and he looked at them, and then he sat looking out the window for quite a while, and I thought, "Oh, Jesus." Then he finally said, "All right, that looks pretty good.” I pretty near had a heart attack in the meantime.

Barrier: Do you recall any specific assignments you had after that? Of course, Pinocchio was your real breakthrough ...

Kahl: I think Farmyard Symphony was the next thing that I did. I did quite a bit of footage on that. I can't remember the sequence of events, when we started to work on Snow White and when The Ugly Duckling came in, and Ferdinand.

Barrier: I mentioned in my letter that I'd heard that a number of animators at the studio tried to persuade Walt to bring Bill Tytla back ...

Kahl: I don't remember that. He might have, but it wouldn't have been for the Prince, anyway, because he would have been miscast on that. I wouldn't be surprised if we had, but I just don't remember it. And also, Walt wouldn't have refused if we had needed him. There would have been some other reason. Bill Tytla wasn't too active in the strike. Somebody like Art Babbitt, he probably would have refused to have anything to do with. I know that when Cal Arts got into animation—Disney-type of animation classes, I actually suggested Art Babbitt. I don't think he's the greatest animator in the world, but he was more highly qualified to handle that than anybody else who was available. But the [Disney] family has just never forgiven him, and I don't blame them for their attitude.

Barrier: Do you have any recollections about the strike?

Kahl: That was an unpleasant situation, and it really had nothing to do with Walt or the studio. As far as I know, the majority of the people didn't want the union in the studio; we didn't need it. The other studios did, and they needed a unity, I guess. But we resisted, because we had no reason to have a union. In 1941, I guess the personnel at the Disney studio was greater than the personnel in the rest of the Hollywood animation industry combined. Now it isn't, of course.

Gray:I just want to say that I really appreciate the point of view that you've been expressing. I'm in total sympathy with it. I'm just a beginner, so I'm in no position to express my point of view, but over the years I've been so frustrated by things I've been hearing in the industry, from industry people, and you're one of the few people I've heard say the thing that I've always really believed.

Kahl: I certainly believe in what I say. I can't help it—I always say what's on my mind, and sometimes I'm not too tactful. I always think that people are going to accept what I say the way it's given, but they don't. I have a very good knack for alienating people, people I've been working with for a long time, too. I rub people the wrong way. On [The Rescuers], I got highly critical of things that—with all the things that are wrong with the picture that could be felt—like the design of the mice, they could have had so much more scale, to be really little mice. It got to the point that [the directors] had been beaten over the head so much that they didn't want to be beaten over the head any more, they just wanted to go ahead and make the picture. And they've got this goddamned gadfly who keeps pounding at them. I found I was getting people so nervous they couldn't work. I hated to hear that crybaby crap.

[At the end of the tape, the conversation turned to the Disney studio's new young animators.]

Kahl: I think Don Bluth is quite a good talent, and he also works very well with people. I think he might be the best director material. The only thing is, he's damned good on the drawing board, too. You don't know which way he's most valuable. I know that Walt was inclined to rationalize and say, "Well, this guy works well with people, he'd be a good director." Actually, it's because he isn't a very good animator and it's not much of a loss.

[Posted March 30, 2011]

Another interview with Andreas

2011-03-29T11:12:00.002-05:00

D23 Event with Andreas Deja and the voice of Bambi

2011-03-07T20:20:00.000-06:00

Update's to California Adventure

2011-03-02T21:31:00.000-06:00

Bambi Blu-Ray Release Tomorrow

2011-02-28T17:40:00.003-06:00

BAMBI DIAMOND EDITION - The Walt Disney Studios proudly announces the addition of BAMBI to its coveted, cutting-edge Blu-ray™ Diamond Collection line-up of Disney’s greatest animated-classics. Released from the Disney vault for a limited time only, BAMBI Diamond Edition features the loveable and adorable wide-eyed fawn and his forest friends in Blu-ray high-definition on March 1, 2011.

The Diamond Edition debut of BAMBI, Walt’s fifth full-length animated classic, is an endearing tale about a young prince of the forest who learns valuable life-lessons about friendship, love, and the miracle of life. The movie is a must-own coming-of-age story that Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has especially packaged with families in mind – providing the ultimate, interactive hi-def home entertainment experience with a newly enhanced digital restoration, enhanced picture and sound, games, activities and more.

The new BAMBI Diamond Edition will be available as a 2-Disc Disney Combo Pack (Blu-ray + DVD) for the suggested retail price of $39.99 US/$46.99 Canada, a High Definition Movie Download for the suggested retail price of $19.99 US/$39.99 Canada, and/or a Standard Definition Movie Download for the suggested retail price of $14.99 US/$24.99 Canada. Those who wish to own the standard definition DVD version of BAMBI will need to wait seven additional weeks – until April 19, 2011.
Disney’s new “Second Screen” technology, which is being introduced for the very first time on the BAMBI Diamond Edition release, will further transform the at-home movie watching experience by empowering viewers with the ability to engage with film content on multiple media platforms and bring them to life in their own hands at the touch of a button. By simply downloading the new Disney Second Screen App onto an internet-connected computer or iPad™* and synching it to the movie, consumers will instantly be able to dive deeper into the film by engaging with fun interactive elements like animated flipbooks, galleries, photos, trivia and more. Disney’s Second Screen technology is not widely available in all territories.

Film Synopsis:
As morning light breaks across the meadow, a young deer named Bambi is born and hailed as ‘Prince of the Forest.’ Soon Bambi emerges from the thicket on wobbly legs, much to the delight of his new friends, Thumper, the playful rabbit, and Flower, the bashful yet lovable skunk. But the fun of nibbling on fresh blossoms and frolicking through the woods is only the beginning. Exploring his new world, and guided by the wisdom of Friend Owl, Bambi learns valuable life lessons with every adventure – experiencing the power of friendship, family, and love along the away.

The Making of the Film:
BAMBI was Walt Disney’s fifth animated full-length feature film which released in 1942 during World War II and took approximately five years in the making due to the exquisite artwork and attention to detail of each and every scene, character and figure. The artwork itself was created by some of the legendary “nine old men,” including Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Marc Davis, Milt Kahl and Eric Larson and in order to achieve the film’s unprecedented level of realism, animators modeled anatomical studies using live animals (including a pair of fawns named Bambi and Faline) and imbued each with a uniquely endearing personality. Bambi’s delightful forest home received the same painstaking attention to detail, as background artists painted hundreds of landscapes based on extensive field research and nature photographs.

Walt Disney broke the longstanding animation tradition by casting child actors in the roles of Bambi’s young animals, including Bobby Stewart as Baby Bambi, Donnie Dunagan as Young Bambi, Hardie Albright as Adolescent Bambi and Peter Behn as Young Thumper. The cast also includes Sam Edwards as Adult Thumper, John Sutherland as Adult Bambi, Paula Winslowe as Bambi’s Mother and Sterling Holloway (the voice of Winnie the Pooh and The Jungle Book’s Kaa, the snake) as Adult Flower.

71st aniversary of Pinocchio

2011-02-11T01:03:00.002-06:00

Carving a Masterpiece
02.09.11 - As Pinocchio celebrates its 71st anniversary join us for a D23 Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee party honoring this breathtakingly magical masterpiece.

Walt Disney poses with Pinocchio marionette constructed by puppeteer Bob Jones, who crafted the puppet for the animators of the little wooden boy to study.
Oscar Night, February 23, 1939: Walt Disney receives an honorary Academy Award® for having produced his first animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), and in delivering his acceptance speech, held the sophisticated audience spellbound for 20 minutes as he told the story of what would be his second animated feature. That film was of course Pinocchio, which was to premiere in less than a year, on February 7, 1940. The enchanting tale of a kindly woodcarver whose wish that his wooden marionette would become a real boy is granted has been acclaimed for seventy years as the pinnacle of Disney animation, the sparkling standard by which all other animated films are judged. As Pinocchio celebrates its anniversary, join us for a D23 Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee party honoring this breathtakingly magical masterpiece.

The Problem Puppet
Walt once explained that one of his reasons for selecting Pinocchio to be transformed by the magic of animation was "the many people, young and old, whose encouraging letters suggested that we tell the story of Pinocchio in our medium." The master storyteller reportedly purchased the screen rights to Carlo Collodi's 1881 fairy tale in 1934. Story work on the feature version of Pinocchio began as early as November 1937, a month before Snow White's premiere. Still Walt didn't originally plan on the tale of the little wooden head as his second feature; that was to be Bambi (1942) until that delicate story proved more challenging than Walt first thought (he had assumed the animal characters of Bambi would be easier to animate than the mostly human or human-like Pinocchio characters) but soon Walt had determined that Pinocchio would indeed follow Snow White as his second feature-length opus.

Though the original book's highly episodic story was a challenge, it was the title character who proved to be the greatest obstacle. In Collodi's story, Pinocchio is a problem child, er, puppet — he's a deliberate and dedicated delinquent who learns the hard-headed way to be good — and the wooden boy proved to be exactly that for the Disney story artists and animators. From the first Walt knew the importance of somehow making Pinocchio a sympathetic character, saying at an early story meeting, "We ought to get all the comedy we can on the thing, because if [Pinocchio is] cute and likeable and full of little tricks, [the audience is] going to like him right away."

Influences such as the anarchic Harpo Marx and the wisecracking ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy were referenced, but when Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston began animation on the then-approved title character, Walt shut down production to retool Pinocchio's design and personality. "Our whole story had to do with his learning to be a little more human to begin with, this brash piece of cherry wood," Frank said. "I did a scene of him and Walt said, 'I don't think we've got enough appeal in his character. We'd better back up.'" (Frank also revealed that the main animators worked on short subjects during this fallow period, resulting in a series of cartoons of unusually high quality, including The Pointer and The Ugly Duckling, both 1939.)

Early animator's model (maquette) of Jiminy Cricket, showing an early, more insect-like design. "The first cricket we drew was taller and closer to a grasshopper or bug," revealed supervising animator Ward Kimball.

Ultimately, in February 1939, Milt Kahl designed a new model emphasizing Pinocchio as an innocent little boy rather than a wooden marionette. "They were thinking in terms of a puppet — naturally, because he was a puppet," stated Milt. "[But] I handled him as though he were a little boy. The fact that his arms and legs were wood didn't matter. He was still basically a little boy, and Walt liked it very much."

(Most of) The Nine Old Men Become Real Live Animators
Besides Frank, Ollie and Milt, most of the other artists Walt would later dub the "Nine Old Men" of animation came into their own on Pinocchio. The film became a spectacular showcase for their considerable talents. All had worked on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) in various capacities, but with Pinocchio, the supremely talented group worked their magic in a way worthy of the Blue Fairy. Only Marc Davis, busy with pre-production work on Bambi, was not part of the Pinocchio team.

Crafting a Supporting Cast
A unique leading character such as Pinocchio required a superlative supporting cast. Walt took a talking cricket (whose brief appearance in the book is ended when the ill-tempered puppet squashes him) and gave him a shining role as Pinocchio's conscience. Such names as Abner and Cedric were considered until Walt suggested Jiminy, envisioning the cricket conscience as "lively, active and a high jumper," Walt turned to animator Ward Kimball to animate the puppet's cute co-star. "I started with a real cricket with toothed legs and antennae," revealed Ward. "But Walt didn't like it. I did 12 or 14 versions [trying to make him cuter] and gradually cut out all the insect appendages and ended up with a little man, really, wearing spats and a tailcoat that suggests folded wings. The only thing that makes him a cricket is that we say he is."

Another addition to the story was Geppetto's feisty kitten, animated by another of Walt's Nine Old Men, Eric Larson. Eric drew inspiration from his young nephew in drawing the headstrong Figaro. "Walt just fell in love with Figaro and said just do what you want," said Eric. "Figaro was, say, a three-or four-year-old kid who had a mind of his own. A four-year-old is quick to feel hurt if he doesn't get his way. He is probably going to put on a little show for us, a tantrum. Cleo [the goldfish] was the nice little sister Figaro didn't want to have anything to do with. So you had that nice, typical family interplay. But Geppetto had them around because they were part of his life."

What They Can't Do These Days: The Visual Extravagance of Pinocchio
The superb personality animation was only matched by the elaborate backgrounds and intricate detail in Pinocchio's production design. "Pinocchio was the most complex story we had ever tried to do in cartoon form, and coming on the heels of Snow White we wanted to do even better," noted background artist Claude Coats. "The result was that we put a good deal more artwork and more elaborate detail into Pinocchio. Geppetto being a woodcarver gave us the opportunity to embellish his house with all sorts of pipes, boxes, clocks and toys. This carried over to the rest of the backgrounds so that we began painting each stone in the cobblestone streets separately. All of the props became ornate and took on a warm Old World craftsmanship feeling." The search for perfection took on the nature of an artistic crusade. Animator Hugh Fraser reported doing forty-eight pencil tests for one brief line of dialog by Honest John the crafty con-fox. "Pinocchio is probably the most beautiful picture we ever made," stated Frank Thomas. "At the time, we had oodles of money and a bunch of very talented people, so the picture is the one that most fully realized Walt's vision for it."

December 1939: Walt Disney's most beloved star introduces the newest animated character to the world in Mickey Mouse Magazine, two months before the film's debut in February 1940.
An Actor's Life for Me: Voices
Skilled voice actors added to the richness of this lavish film, including veteran child actor Dickie Jones, selected by Walt to voice the puppet because Jones had "a typical nice boy's voice." Dickie had appeared in nearly 40 Hollywood films, including Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), in which Dickie plays the role of the young Senate page who shows newly-appointed senator Jefferson Smith (James Stewart) the ropes. (When Mr. Smith asks the page his name, the character responds with Dickie's actual name, Richard Jones, and Jimmy Stewart responds by calling him "Dick.")

Another popular young actor, Frankie Darro was the voice of Pinocchio's bad-boy companion Lampwick. "We tried a few kids on Lampwick, but none of them were outstanding," story director Ted Sears reported at a story meeting, to which Walt asked, "How about Frankie Darro?" referring to the young "tough" well known for playing disreputable jockeys in such film classics as the Marx's Brothers' A Day at the Races (1937). Musician Ned Washington replied, "Frankie Darro has the best voice of any of them." Walt said definitively, "He's a pretty good actor, too." The adult voice artists, too, turned in memorable vocalizations, including character actor Charles Judels from such popular films as San Francisco and The Great Ziegfeld (both 1936) and Ninotchka and Idiot's Delight (both 1939), who voiced both the volcanically tempered puppet-master Stromboli and the Dickensian villain, the seemingly jovial Coachman.

Strangely, one of the most fascinating voices is one not heard in the film. Consummate voice artist Mel Blanc was signed to perform the voice of Gideon the cat until Walt decided that Giddy would be a pantomime character; the only bit of Mel's vocalization in the film is a single hiccup.

I'm Speaking, My Boy, Of The Theater: Pinocchio Premieres
As the debut of the film approached, the character of Pinocchio was introduced on the cover of the December 1939 issue of Mickey Mouse Magazine, and the film's story unfolded in a special Sunday comic page adaptation that ran in Sunday newspapers from December 24, 1939 through April 7, 1940, artfully drawn by esteemed Disney Publicity artist Hank Porter. (A comic book adaptation was published in January 1946 to tie in with the film's 1945 reissue, beautifully drawn by comic master artist Walt Kelly [best known for his Pogo comic strip and who, as a Disney animator, had worked on Pinocchio] — and that comic book also featured a surreal tale, also drawn by Kelly, entitled "The Wonderful Mis-Adventures of Donocchio," in which Donald Duck hilariously imagines himself the hero of the Pinocchio story.)

Pinocchio 1940 record album, featuring the words "original soundtrack recording" for the first time in the history of the recording industry. Decades later, Walt Disney Records released a fully restored Pinocchio soundtrack recording on compact disc in 1992 after long-forgotten recordings of the separate tracks — music, dialog, sound effects — were discovered unlabeled in a Disney Studio warehouse. The Pinocchio soundtrack is now available on iTunes.

Pinocchio was treated to two gala premieres: one in New York City on February 7, 1940 and the other in Hollywood on February 9, 1940. The reviews were ecstatic, surpassing even the glowing accolades that greeted Snow White, The New York Times declaring Pinocchio "the best thing Mr. Disney has done and therefore the best cartoon ever made." Unfortunately the world, through which the cold winds of war had started to blow, did not seem interested in this fantastical film — perhaps because it's a fantasy, perhaps because it's a dark film, despite its fantasy — and the film underperformed at the box office. Walt was well aware that Pinocchio was the most expensive animated film ever made. "You see, we began to find out we could do things," he later explained, "and boy, we went into effects and things, we were very costly. Well, time had to play its part. Pinocchio has become a perennial."

Breakout Stars: Jiminy Cricket and Figaro
Pinocchio proved its timeless appeal not only through popular re-releases but also by introducing not one but two breakout stars. One of the most popular Disney personalities ever, Jiminy Cricket has become a representative of the whole wonderful world of Disney. Jiminy not only appeared in Fun and Fancy Free (1947) (singing "I'm a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow," originally composed for but not used in Pinocchio), but also became a major TV star. The wisecracking cricket appeared on the Mickey Mouse Club as the witty, warmhearted host of the popular "I'm No Fool" segments, in addition to lending his folksy vocals (unforgettably performed by Disney Legend Cliff Edwards) to record albums.

Sporting more lives than even Thomasina, Figaro became one of the few characters from a Disney animated feature who went on to headline his own films. Starting in 1943, this endearing kitten starred in six cartoon shorts, beginning with Figaro and Cleo, featuring Geppetto's pet goldfish. Figaro even had his own theme song, also entitled "Figaro and Cleo," based on the promotional song created for the original release of Pinocchio, with music by Leigh Harline and lyrics by Ned Washington, delightfully defining Figaro as a cute and clever kitty cat.

But beyond its animated stars, the legacy of Pinocchio is in the artistry that glows brighter than ever 71 years after its premiere. Pinocchio's excellence is reflected in the two Academy Awards® bestowed upon it, for Best Original Score and Best Song, "When You Wish Upon A Star." That sublime song, the unofficial Disney anthem, sings of the hope embedded in this phenomenal film that goodness and innocence will triumph, and that, as Walt Disney himself was fond of pointing out, that when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.

Video: Walt Disney Interviewed By Fletcher Markle

2011-02-07T17:27:00.000-06:00

Video: Walt Disney Interviewed By Fletcher Markle

VES Award Night

2011-02-02T17:19:00.002-06:00

While we didn't take home the VES Award, it was a blast to be there and to be nomminated!

Here is the Prep & Landing crew Tony Smeed, Chad Sellers, Patrick Osborne, John Wong

Tangled Dvd Release Date Set.

2011-01-26T15:51:00.002-06:00

Debuts as the Ultimate 4-Disc Disney Blu-rayTM Combo Pack on March 29, 2011

BONUS FEATURES — Blu-ray:

Untangled: The Making of a Fairy Tale – Exactly how long is Rapunzel’s hair? How many lanterns were used? Where did Pascal’s name come from? Which Disney animated feature first utilized CG animation? These and more will be answered when Mandy Moore and Zach Levi take viewers on a kooky behind-the-scenes tour to learn how the filmmakers styled this film’s Golden Tresses.

Deleted Scenes – Co-directors Byron Howard and Nathan Greno introduce three scenes and illuminate why they were ultimately cut.

- The Jaunty Moose
- Chemistry Develops
- Vigor The Visionary

Extended Songs – The complete versions of two great songs are shared in a unique feature that explains the co-directors decision to scale them down.

- When Will My Life Begin
- Mother Knows Best

Two Original Storybook Openings – Two alternate versions of the film’s opening sequence described by co-directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard.

50th Animated Feature Countdown – A video montage celebrating Tangled as the 50th film to join The Walt Disney Studios’ prestigious lineup of classic animated features.

9 Tangled Teasers – A collection of the most unique and quirky commercials made for the theatrical release of Tangled. Some are spoofs based off of infomercials and/or breaking news, some are teasers and others are simply just funny filmstrips.

Another Pooh Poster

2011-01-20T13:10:00.001-06:00

Bruce Smith Talks Disney Animation

2011-01-13T13:41:00.001-06:00

AWNtv :: Professional Spotlight: Bruce Smith at FMX 2010 - Part 1
AWNtv :: Professional Spotlight: Bruce Smith at FMX 2010 - Part 2
AWNtv :: Professional Spotlight: Bruce Smith at FMX 2010 - Part 3

Disney 50 movies / 50 filme | celebration trailer (2010) Walt Disney Ani...

2011-01-12T13:22:00.001-06:00

A look back at Disney's 50 animated films.

Rescuers Pencil Tests

2011-01-11T17:08:00.002-06:00

Milt Kahl & Ollie Johnston from Jamaal Bradley on Vimeo.

Check out this pencil test from the Rescuers. The animation of Madam Medusa was done by Milt Kahl, and the Girl was done by Ollie Johnston. You can see these at Penciltestdepot.com , but I wanted to post it because it is just so amazing.

-C

Nominated!

2011-01-10T16:02:00.002-06:00

Myself and 3 other animators were nominated for our work on Prep & Landing:Operation Secret Santa!
The Awards will be held Feb. 1st, 2011 In Beverly Hills, CA.

Winnie the Pooh. (New Poster)

2011-01-06T14:07:00.000-06:00

A few "Tangled" animators

2010-12-14T22:24:00.001-06:00

Prep and Landing: OPSS

2010-12-08T12:40:00.001-06:00

Here is the short I worked on for this Holiday.

Pres Romanillos' Animation

2010-11-11T13:03:00.000-06:00

Glen talks about animator Pres Romanillos

2010-11-11T01:31:00.000-06:00

Tangled at the Parks!

2010-10-25T22:09:00.001-05:00

Celebration of Disney Animation

2010-10-23T02:03:00.002-05:00

Tangled Wrap Party

2010-10-20T23:24:00.006-05:00

This Weekend Was the Tangled Wrap party. I can't Wait for all of you to see this fantastic movie!

Me and Mari

Animators with Glen

Tangled Animation Crew

2010-10-12T16:08:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Claudio for the awesome video!

Beauty and the Beast

2010-10-06T01:31:00.003-05:00

Today the was the release of the Beauty and the Beast Blu-Ray. We had a nice event on the Disney lot with the directors and animators as well as the voice of the beast Robby Benson and the voice of Belle, Paige O'Hara. As I was getting my DvD signed by Paige, she began to sing the intro song in Beauty and the Beast "Belle". It was surreal hearing her sing it right in front of me. One of the many things I love about working at Disney.

New "TANGLED" trailer released today.

2010-09-15T11:23:00.001-05:00

Tangled Preview

2010-09-11T14:21:00.002-05:00

Tangled is done!

2010-08-27T15:53:00.000-05:00

Here is a look at what im working on now!

Two guys named Joe

2010-08-20T13:51:00.001-05:00

You will all love this movie!

2010-08-02T17:12:00.002-05:00

A note from Walt..

2010-06-18T01:21:00.002-05:00

How to Train an Animator, by Walt Disney
It's difficult to overstate the importance of the following eight-page memo. Written by Walt Disney in December of 1935 to Don Graham - a highly respected art teacher from Chounaird Art Institute tasked with helming art classes for Disney animators - this missive signalled the birth of a structured training program that would subsequently enable Walt's studio to produce hit-after-hit during the Golden Age of Animation. For aspiring animators, this is absolutely essential reading; for everyone else, assuming you have even the slightest interest in the development of one of the world's most influential entertainment companies, this is simply an engrossing, inspiring read.

Transcript follows. Scan discovered at the wonderful 'splog' of Michael Sporn Animation.

Source

Transcript

WALT DISNEY PRODUCTIONS
INTER-OFFICE COMMUNICATION

DATE DECEMBER 23, 1935
TO DON GRAHAM
FROM WALT

Right after the holidays, I want to get together with you and work out a very systematic training course for young animators, and also outline a plan of approach for our older animators.

Some of our established animators at the present time are lacking in many things, and I think we should arrange a series of courses to enable these men to learn and acquire the things they lack.

Naturally the first most important thing for any animator to know is how to draw. Therefore it will be necessary that we have a good life drawing class. But you must remember Don, that while there are many men who make a good showing in the drawing class, and who, from your angle, seem good prospects - these very men lack in some other phase of the business that is very essential to their success as animators.

I have found that men respond much more readily to classes dealing with practical problems than to more theoretic treatment. Therefore I think it would be a very good idea to appeal to these men by conducting these classes with the practical approach in mind. In other words, try to show in these classes that the men can make immediate practical application of what they are being taught.

The talks given by Fergy, Fred Moore, Ham Luske, and Fred Spencer, have been enthusiastically received by all those in attendance. Immediately following these talks, I have noticed a great change in animation. Some men have made close to 100% improvement in the handling and timing of their work. This strikes me as pointing a way toward the proper method of teaching in the future.

The following occurs to me as a method of procedure:

Take the most recent pictures - minutely analyze all the business, action, and results, using the better pieces of animation as examples going thru the picture with these questions in mind:

1. What was the idea to be presented?
2. How was the idea presented?
3. What result was achieved?
4. After seeing this result - what could have been done to the picture from this point on, to improve it?

Encourage discussion on the part of the men present; if possible, have some of the animators over to talk to them about the problems they were confronted with in the picture, and what the animator himself would do if he had the chance to do the animation over.

I believe these classes could be combined for presentation to all the animators, young and old as well.

It wouldn’t be bad if you made up a list of the qualifications of an animator in order of importance. Then all these men could see what it takes to be an animator, and could check on themselves to see how nearly they approach the desired perfection.

The list should start with the animators ability to draw; then, ability to visualize action, breaking it down into drawings and analyze the movement the mechanics of the action. From this point, we would come to his ability to caricature action - to take a natural human action and see the exaggerated funny side of it - to anticipate the effect or illusion created in the mind of the person viewing that action. It is important also for the animator to be able to study sensation and to feel the force behind sensation, in order to project that sensation. Along with this, the animator should know what creates laughter - why do things appeal to people as being funny.

In other words, a good animator combines all these qualities:

Good draftsmanship
Knowledge of caricature, of action as well as features.
Knowledge and appreciation of acting
Ability to think up gags and put over gags
Knowledge of story construction and audience values
Knowledge and understanding of all the mechanical and detailed routine involved in his work, in order that he may be able to apply his other abilities without becoming tied up in a knot by lack of technique along these lines.

This is all very rough - just a jumble of thoughts - but what I plan is that we get together after the holidays, as suggested above, and really get these plans worked out in detail. Then we should strive to see that all the men whom we are drilling for animators, are given the chance to develop along the lines outlined.

I am convinced that there is a scientific approach to this business, and I think we shouldn’t give up until we have found out all we can about how to teach these young fellows the business.

The first duty of the cartoon is not to picture or duplicate real action or things as they actually happen - but to give a caricature of life and action - to picture on the screen things that have run thru the imagination of the audience to bring to life dream fantasies and imaginative fancies that we have all thought of during our lives or have had pictured to us in various forms during our lives. Also to caricature things of life as it is today - or make fantasies of things we think of today.

The point must be made clear to the men that our study of the actual is not so that we may be able to accomplish the actual, but so that we may have a basis upon which to go into the fantastic, the unreal, the imaginative - and yet to let it have a foundation of fact, in order that it may more richly possess sincerity and contact with the public.

A good many of the men misinterpret the idea of studying the actual motion. They think it is our purpose merely to duplicate these things. This misconception should be cleared up for all. I definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things, based on the real, unless we first know the real. This point should be brought out very clearly to all new men, and even the older men.

Comedy, to be appreciated, must have contact with the audience. This we all know, but sometimes forget. By contact, I mean that there must be a familiar, sub-conscious association. Somewhere, or at some time, the audience has felt, or met with, or seen, or dreamt, the situation pictured. A study of the best gags and audience reaction we have had, will prove that the action or situation is something based on an imaginative experience or a direct life connection. This is what I mean by contact with the audience. When the action or the business loses its contact, it becomes silly and meaningless to the audience.

Therefore, the true interpretation of caricature is the exaggeration of an illusion of the actual; or the sensation of the actual put into action. In our animation we must not only show the actions or reactions of a character, we must picture also with the action the feelings of those characters. My experience has shown me that the most hilarious of comedies is always based on things actual, possible, or probable. That idea, behind the things I just mentioned above, can be incorporated in every stage of instruction - from the life drawing clear on thru to the planning and staging of the work.

I have often wondered why, in your life drawing class, you don’t have your men look at the model and draw a caricature of the model, rather than an actual sketch. But instruct them to draw the caricature in good form, basing it on the actual model. I noticed a little caricature of one of the models in the life class made by Ward Kimball, and it struck me that there was an approach to the work that we should give consideration. I don’t see why using this method, you can’t give the class all the fundamentals of drawing the need and still combine the work with the development of a sense of caricature.

Would it be a good idea to take a man like Joe Grant and see what could be worked out with him along the lines of giving a talk some night on an approach to caricature, a Harpo caricature - what he sees and what he thinks about when he is trying to make a caricature. It might be advisable to have a talk with Joe on this.

I started out early last fall to work out some sort of system with you for teaching elementary phases of animation in a systematic way. My thought at that time was not to go too straight. That’s why I wanted to get somebody to demonstrate various walks in a comic way.

I still think this is a very good idea, and constitutes a far better approach for the younger men than giving them too many straight natural things that direct their minds to the unimaginative end of the business. It is possible that with the comedy, you can still teach them the fundamentals of all these actions.

Take for example, the walk. Why can’t you teach the fundamentals of a straight walk yet combine it with some person that is giving an exaggeration or a comic interpretation of a straight walk. Perhaps for very elementary instruction, it might be best to present straight action; but not to keep giving them straight action as they progress and gain a little experience... Start them going into the comedy angle or caricature angle of the action. For example - a fat person, with a big pot belly: What comedy illusion does he give you?

You could at the same time instruct the classes regarding the reason why he has to move a certain way (because of his weight, etc.) Present the walk soliciting discussion on:

What illusion does that person, fat with pot-belly, give you as you see him?
What do you think of as you see him walking along?
Does he look like a bowl of jelly?
Does he look like an inflated balloon with arms and legs dangling?
Does he look like a roly-poly?

In other words, analyze the fat person's walk and the reasons for his walking that way.... BUT DON’T STOP UNTIL YOU’VE HAD THE GROUP BRING OUT ALL THE COMEDY THAT CAN BE EXPRESSED WITH THAT FAT PERSON’S WALK; also all the character - but drive for the comedy side of the character.

Take a skinny person - somebody that’s loose jointed, angular, shoulder blades showing - what does he suggest? Does he look hung together with wires like a walking skeleton? Does he look like a marionette flopping around? Does he look like a scarecrow blowing in the wind? What illusion is created by the walk, by the movement, of that skinny loose-jointed person?

In discussing a short person, with short legs - he would naturally have quick movements - seems to move very fast - would have to take twice as many steps as a taller person, thus making him look as if he were going at a greater speed. What illusion do you get from a person like that? Does he strike you as a little toy wound up and running around on wheels? Does he look like a little Pekinese pup? A dwarf? or midget?

There are a number of things that could be brought up in these discussions to stir the imagination of the men, so that when they get into actual animation, they’re not just technicians, but they’re actually creative people.

In the study of other problems, is it possible to bring out more the exaggeration of form and action - as in the study of the balance of the body? Can we bring that out even to an exaggerated point? It will probably make it stronger to them - make them realize more the necessity of that balance of the body - and yet point out how they can utilize that to strengthen their business when they get into animation, as in bending. In someone bending over - can we show the exaggeration in that action by showing how the pants pull up in back to an exaggerated degree that becomes comical? Can we show how the coat stretches across the back, and the
sleeves pull up and the arms seem to shoot out as from a turtle-neck as they shoot out of the sleeves? What can we do to bring these points out stronger to the men?

In lifting, for example - or other actions - we should drive at the fundamentals of the animation, and at the same time, incorporate the caricature. When someone is lifting a heavy weight, what do you feel? Do you feel that something is liable to crack any minute and drop down? Do you feel that because of the pressure he’s got, he’s going to blow up, that his face is going to turn purple, that his eyes are going to bulge out of their sockets, that the tension in the arm is so terrific that he’s going to snap? What sensations do you get from someone rising - different ways of rising? Sitting? When somebody is sitting - when he sits down and relaxes, does it look as if all the wind goes out of him? Does he look like a loose bag of nothing? Also, in pushing... in the extremeness of a push, the line shoots right down from the fingertips clear down to the heel. In pulling - show the stretch, and all that. Bring out the caricature of those various actions, at the same time driving at the fundamentals of them - the actual.

The various expressions in the body are important. The animators go thru animation and don’t make the positions of the body - hold positions and relaxed positions - express anything. They try to do all the expression with the parts that are moving, whereas the body should enter into it. Without the body entering into the animation, the other things are lost immediately. Examples - an arm hung on to a body it doesn’t belong to, or an arm working and thinking all by itself. I think something could be worked out to develop this point, even if you got a person up behind a screen, a model perhaps, and threw a light on them. Have the class do nothing but watch the silhouette as the model goes thru different poses, noting how the body enters into the expression of an action. Or we could photograph the action to show to the men. The study of this would be a big help toward making the men realize the value of getting the story and the business over in the rough drawings that is the action itself, rather than depending on little trimmings, on the clothes, facial expressions, and things like that to put over the business.

If the animators get the groundwork right, that is, the action underneath all these trimmings right - then what they add is going to be twice as effective. It’s a very important point that we must impress on the new men and the older men.

After we have given the men all the suggestions we can that have to do with expressing ideas through the body, then we can come down to the value of the facial expression - the use of the eyes, eyebrows, the mouth - their relation to one another - how the eyes and the mouth have to work together sometimes for expression - how they may work independently for expression at other times. In other words, then we would go into the combined use of expressive features and expressive actions of the body. Then it would be good to take one away from the other, and see which is the most important.

We should have courses in staging and planning. These courses can be given by some of our more successful animators.

Also we should try to show how to analyze a scene or piece of business before starting to work on it. We should try to show the men ways of visualizing action in their minds, breaking the action so that the men are prepared in advance to begin animation of the action and know thoroughly what they are going to animate. So many of the men start in now and have no idea what they’re going to do when they start the scene. They know what they’re supposed to do, but they can’t break it down in a systematic way that will enable them to go knowingly ahead.

Many men do not realize what really makes things move - why they move - what the force behind the movement is. I think a course along that line, accompanied by practical examples of analysis and planning, would be very good. In other words, in most instances, the driving force behind the action is the mood, the personality, the attitude of the character - or all three. Therefore, the mind is the pilot. We think of things before the body does them. We also do things on the spur of the moment by reaction to stimuli that are telegraphed to the mind by the nerves, etc. There are also things carried out by the subconscious mind - reflexes, actions that have become habit through repetition, instincts. In other words, the subconscious mind is an assistant often times in carrying out things that may or may not have been taught, Examples of that are sleeping, lighting a cigarette and throwing a match away without any thought, whistling, walking, running, sitting, etc. It’s not necessary to think of those actions.

But certain actions we do think about - certain actions we deliberately plan. We plan them very quickly in our mind. The point to bring out here is that when a character knows what he’s going to do, he doesn’t have to stop before each individual action and think to do it. He has planned in advance in his mind. For example - say the mind thinks, "I’ll close the door - lock it - then I’m going to undress, and go to bed." Well, you walk over to the door - before the walk is finished, you’re reaching for the door ... before the door is closed, you reach for the key ... before the door is locked, you’re turning away - while you’re walking away, you’re undoing your tie - and before you reach the bureau, you have your tie off. In other words, before you know it, you’re undressed - and you’ve done it with one thought, "I’m going to go to bed."

A lot of valuable points could be brought out to the men in showing them that it is not necessary for them to take a character to one point, complete that action completely, and then turn to the following action as if he had never given it a thought until after completing the first action. Anticipation of action is important.

This enters into animation in many ways and we have many serious difficulties coming up because of the men’s inability to visualize things in the proper way.

I think a good study of music would be indispensable to the animator - a realization on their part of how primitive music is, how natural it is for people to want to go to music - a study of rhythm, the dance - the various rhythms that enter into our lives every day - how rhythmical the body really is - and how well balanced the body really is. That, in itself, is music. In other words, it could be music in the body. We dance - we can keep time to rhythm without ever being taught - a baby does it - cannibals do it. But fancy dancing or any trick stuff, we have to learn. There are things in life that we do to rhythm that come natural to us. Notice how rhythmic an action like pounding with a hammer is! There’s a reason for that. You must have that rhythm or you can’t carry out that action completely. Also, sawing a board. See how necessary it is to have a good rhythm for that. Also, walking ... if you walked without rhythm, where would you get? You’d have to be thinking all the time what to do next. You’d have to set your mind to walking rhythmically, instead of doing it naturally.

Naturally the body is very well balanced. When one hand dose something, the other serves as a balance to it. There are various things that combine balance in the body - subconscious balance ... and yet the animators do not know it. They will do something with one hand - they don’t know what to do with the other, so they will do something entirely contrary to what that hand should be doing, because they don’t understand the basic concept of balance. This idea of balance of the body ties in with the idea of expression of the body. If there is balance, it adds expression to the things that the body is doing. If you don’t have that balance of the body, then your expressions are wrong, insincere, unconvincing. Those concepts also tie in with overlapping action.

In other words, we could work out all these basic concepts in such a way as to show them all related, interdependent, and have to do with each other, and we could tie them together in various ways, showing different combinations of their application. We will thus stir up the men’s minds more, and they will begin to think of a lot of these things that would never occur to them otherwise if the way weren’t pointed out to them.

I’d like also to have a study of dialog. I want to prepare a course on dialog - phrasing and rhythm of dialog, moods and character of dialog, expressions, gestures, directness, use of the eyes, eyebrows, mouth, head, arms, body, tongue, inhalation and exhalation, and various other aspects that have to do with the successful picturization of dialog in the cartoon. Let’s see if we can’t organize something like this and get it going right after the first of the year.

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4 c.
12-23-35

Tangled Teaser

2010-06-10T12:46:00.001-05:00

Pixars world of color

2010-04-13T12:05:00.001-05:00

Waking Sleeping Beauty Podcast

2010-03-23T20:00:00.003-05:00

With the near release date of the documentary "Waking Sleeping Beauty" Animation Bloggers "Speaking of Animation" Sat down with Don Hahn and Peter Schneider to talk about their film. Listen to the Podcast HERE

Joe Ranft

2010-03-12T18:52:00.002-06:00

Recently we had a celebration of Joe Ranft's life, where I learned much more about the man behind so many of Disney and Pixars' great films. It was great to get the know more about him and celebrate the storys and imagination he gave us. John Musker put together this great video in remembrance of Joe. Enjoy :)

Waking Sleeping Beauty

2010-02-15T15:54:00.002-06:00

“WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY”
DEBUTS IN THEATERS ON MARCH 26, 2010
NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISCO AND CHICAGO
After a successful festival debut, Waking Sleeping Beauty will begin its theatrical run with limited releases in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco on March 26, 2010. Directed by Don Hahn and produced by Peter Schneider and Don Hahn, Waking Sleeping Beauty was an Official Selection at the 2009 Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and winner of the Audience Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairy tale, as it chronicles the time from 1984 to 1994, when a perfect storm of people and circumstances changed the face of animation forever. It is a story of clashing egos, out-of-control budgets, escalating tensions… and one of the most extraordinary creative periods in animation history.

In New York, the film will open at the Landmark Sunshine.
In Los Angeles, the film will open on two screens, at the AMC Century City and AMC Burbank.
In Chicago, the film will open at the AMC River East,
and in San Francisco at the Landmark Embarcadero—all on March 26, 2010.

Director Don Hahn (producer of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King) and producer Peter Schneider (former chairman of the studio), key players at Walt Disney Studios feature animation department during the mid1980s, offer a behind-the-magic glimpse of the turbulent times the animation studio was going through and the staggering output of hits that followed over the next 10 years. Artists polarized between the hungry young innovators and the old guard who refused to relinquish control, mounting tensions due to a string of box-office flops, and warring studio leadership create the backdrop for this fascinating story told with a unique and candid perspective from those that were there. Through interviews, internal memos, home movies and a cast of characters featuring Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Roy Disney, alongside an amazing array of talented artists that includes Steven Spielberg, Richard Williams, John Lasseter and Tim Burton, Waking Sleeping Beauty shines a light on Disney animation’s darkest hours, greatest joys and its improbable renaissance.

Waking Sleeping Beauty is a Stone Circle Pictures/Red Shoes Production.

Featured Mentor

2010-02-15T15:44:00.004-06:00

Last month I was the featured mentor in the Animation Mentor newsletter. You can read my full interview HERE.

First look at Rapunzel

2009-12-30T20:11:00.002-06:00

So long, Roy E. Disney

2009-12-16T14:37:00.001-06:00

Roy Edward Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney whose commitment to his uncle's creative spirit prompted him to mount revolts that led to the unseating of two of the company's chief executives and a revival of the studio's legendary animation unit, has died. He was 79. Click HERE to read more.

Frog opens this friday!

2009-12-09T15:52:00.001-06:00

Go support Princess and the Frog this Friday December 11th! Its a great film with great characters and a classic Disney feel!

Prep & Landing airing tonight on ABC

2009-12-08T15:03:00.002-06:00

Check your local listings!

CTN

2009-11-19T13:28:00.004-06:00

I will be attending the CTN Animation Expo this upcoming Saturday at the Marriott Conv. Center in Burbank.Hope to see a bunch of you there!
Here is the link to the website: http://www.ctnanimationexpo.com/

C

How to Train your Dragon

2009-11-02T17:24:00.001-06:00

My Cloudy Reel

2009-10-11T21:17:00.001-05:00

Clips from "Waking Sleeping Beauty"

2009-09-25T23:51:00.005-05:00

Check out Some clips from Don Hahn's new documentary! Great stuff!

Clip 1

Clip 2

Clip 3

New Frog Poster

2009-09-24T11:24:00.001-05:00

Animators talk Frog.

2009-09-21T23:13:00.004-05:00

Some of the Animators got together for a presentation at Disney Animation Studios to discuss their new characters on Princess and the Frog. Check it out on the D23 website.

C

Latest Frog Trailer

2009-09-12T15:48:00.001-05:00

Hands for everyone!

2009-08-13T21:32:00.003-05:00

Click Image to Enlarge!

Rapunzel Concept Images

2009-07-31T12:55:00.002-05:00

Here are five new images from the new Disney film I will be working on, Rapunzel.

Siggy 09'

2009-07-23T13:28:00.004-05:00

I will be in New Orleans for Siggraph and some exciting family events for the next few weeks. Lets meet up at Siggraph for some drinks if you are going!

Princess and the Frog Top Secret Tour

2009-07-20T16:52:00.002-05:00

Milt Kahl Animation

2009-07-18T21:02:00.002-05:00

Milt Kahl (Mowgli) from Victor Ens on Vimeo.

Thanks to Victor Navone for posting this animation of Mowgli by Milt Kahl. Amazing Stuff.

2nd Cloudy Trailer

2009-07-09T21:32:00.002-05:00

Here is the Second Trailer For Cloudy!! I did the shot of flint screaming at the 1:44 mark and the one with the kids and the pancake at the end. Thats all, enjoy!!

Mark Henn Featurette

2009-07-09T00:41:00.004-05:00

In this new "Princess and the Frog" featurette, animator Mark Henn talks about supervising animation on Disney's newest Princess Tiana. Check it out HERE.

Princess and the Frog Featurette

2009-06-25T13:58:00.002-05:00

Lasseter, Deja, Clements and Musker discuss Disney's return to hand drawn animation in "The Princess and the Frog" featurette. HERE

New look, New direction

2009-06-19T17:40:00.004-05:00

Starting this fall I will be animating on Walt Disney's upcoming feature, Rapunzel. I want to focus my blog on the history and future of Disney animation for a while. It is what has inspired me to some day work for Walt Disney Animation Studios. It is really a dream come true, and I can't wait to be a part of the future of Disney animation.

New Princess and the Frog Trailer

2009-05-23T12:44:00.001-05:00

In case you haven't seen it yet.

Summer is here!

2009-05-16T03:43:00.004-05:00

Finally, after a long exciting journey, animation for "Cloudy" is done. Time for summer vacation! Time to see lots of friends and family and spend lots of time in the sun and on the beach. I am SO looking forward to a 3 month long summer break, to relax and enjoy life, before its back in the grind of my next project. I won't say what that is just yet, but stay tuned! Wishing everyone a super summer!!

First Cloudy Trailer!

2009-03-18T19:20:00.001-05:00

Princess and the Frog

2009-01-21T00:37:00.003-06:00

I grew up on classic Disney. Disney in the late 80's and into the 90's made so many classic films that still inspire me and make me love what I do everyday. The characters, the story's and the music still get me every time. It was a golden era. Im not sure anything will inspire me like those films do. When I watch them I feel like a kid, and I am still in awe at how beautiful those films are. I think being a kid when I first saw them has something to do with why those movies stuck with me. Whatever it is, I love them. I always wonder if Disney could do another musical and create another classic Disney film. I am so excited for princess and the frog. I hope it reminds me of what I love about classic Disney. I am also excited that it takes place in my hometown, New Orleans.

First look

2008-12-11T12:29:00.003-06:00

Here is the first released image of "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs".

Moving on...

2008-11-13T01:23:00.003-06:00

I have had a good time being back in Dallas, meeting new friends and seeing all the old ones. But time had come for my next excellent adventure. Time to pack it up, say goodbye and head back to the west coast. I couldn't be more excited to start my new adventure, see more old friends, meet new ones and be back in the game!

New "Up" Teaser is out!

2008-11-08T18:10:00.001-06:00

Monsters Vs, Aliens Trailer

2008-11-04T14:03:00.000-06:00

New stuff coming soon!

2008-10-31T00:41:00.001-05:00

Some cool things going on, I'll be posting some new stuff soon! Stay tuned...

KFP DvD Artwork

2008-09-09T11:22:00.002-05:00

Here is the artwork for the Kung Fu Panda Dvd, Which also comes with the short film we just finished working on at Reelfx, "Secrets of the Furious Five". Make sure you pick it up later this year!

Cool Things!

2008-06-05T23:07:00.000-05:00

Hello All! Its been a little while, and now I finally have some free time to post!! Today I finaled my last shot on Open Season 2! Awesome! The animation in this movie is really entertaining and I'm very proud of everyone at Reelfx for how well this looks. I am still unsure as to when the dvd will come out, but I'll be sure to post when it does!

In other great news..... I have recently joined the fabulous animation mentor crew! I will be starting next term as a campus mentor and I couldn't be more excited about it! I have been so impressed by this school, and the students that come out of it. I just really wanted to be a part of this new wave of animation. Is it great to have the opportunity to give back to the community and help people uncover their talents. I only wish I had something like this when I was struggling to teach myself animation. So that is AWESOME!!

Now, we are moving on to some REALLY fun stuff at work. I'm super excited... Updates to come!!

Goofy Short

2008-03-21T15:20:00.002-05:00

Last year I got a chance to go see this short at a screening at Disney. It is Disney's latest in 2d animation and the animation is just phenomenal. Seeing this short gets me so excited for Disney's 2d department and their upcoming feature "The Princess and the Frog." Its good to see them still pushing their animation and the passion the animators still have for it. I found an interview with Andreas Deja and Mark Henn on the making and return of Goofy. Click Here

1.21 Jiggawatts!!

2008-02-01T11:53:00.001-06:00

Ok I had to post these pictures being that Back to the Future is my favorite movie of all time... We had an art showing at Reelfx this week and they brought in an actuall Delorean completley maxed out with Flux Capacitor and all. It had all the time circuts and even the Mr. Fusion on the back. No more plutonium in this bad boy. Anyway, i was so excited to see this thing, and so was Ray, as you can see from his famous Marty cover pose. This thing was pimp!

New Toy

2008-01-07T16:53:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I really am gonna get back on this blog! This isn't animation related, but my good buddy Rani Naamani showed us his new toy, now I want to show mine off. I just got this bad boy and it is hard core. This thing was made for metal. Im trying to get this new band thing going on. Maybe I will record something and put it up here but I probably wont. Anyway I love this guitar. Its a Schecter Damien FR.

Some News!

2007-11-06T16:51:00.000-06:00

FINALLY, Animation has wrapped on the chipmunks! I had a fun time working with those little guys, and I met alot of good friends at R&H. But its time to move on, and I couldn't be more excited about what is next. I have accepted a full time position at Reelfx Creative Studios, in Dallas. So back to the south I go, but not before a much needed month off to re-fuel my tanks. There are some really awesome projects coming in that I am really excited to work on. Also, as if things coulnd't more exciting, I am now engaged to my wonderfull fiance' and we will be getting married next summer!! Life is gooooooood!!

Current Project

2007-09-10T15:38:00.000-05:00

New Poster, What I've been working on for the past 5 months.

The Dark Night

2007-08-17T12:20:00.001-05:00

For all you batman fans, here are some new images from The Dark Night. I think the reason I like Christan Bale is because he reminds me most of Michael Keaton. He does a good job, and Heath Ledger as the joker!! Batman rocks! You can check out all of the images here.

What u know bout dem Chipmunks!

2007-07-05T16:43:00.001-05:00

This is the first movie poster and first images of the Chipmunks online. Lemme' tell ya, these guys are gangsta. They actually look a little different in the film but, more or less, here they are. They are alot of fun to work with, im looking forward to seeing it all finished. Back to tha' money...

C

Ratatouille

2007-07-01T03:29:00.001-05:00

Tonight a group of us went to "El Capitan Theater" in Hollywood for opening weekend of Ratatouille. I have been waiting for this film for a long while and it definitely did not disappoint.
The colors, the characters, the story, the animation was ALL beautiful. I felt great when the movie ended, like I had not felt in a long time after seeing an an animated film, or even any film. And the whole El Capitan experience was pretty good too. A bunch of Disney characters showed up on stage before the show and they danced to past and present classic Disney tunes. I hope everyone gets a chance to see it. I'm looking forward to more films like this. Wishful thinking!

C

Disneyland Weekend

2007-06-11T00:46:00.001-05:00

This weekend we took a fun trip to Disneyland for the opening of the Finding Nemo submarine ride, and I actually rode it with old John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton, who was making the "mine, mine, mine" seagull noise throughout the whole ride. Nice work all you guys who worked on it!! It was my first trip to Disneyland, so I got the full on experience and enjoyed all the awesome rides. I think space mountain was my favorite. I wanna go back..

Opening Day

2007-05-25T12:21:00.001-05:00

Go see Pirates 3, It opens everywhere today!!!
In other news... I am finally all settled here in LA. I will be animating on "Alvin & the Chipmunks:The Movie" . It should be cute. Deuce.

Ratatouille Trailer in HD!

2007-03-29T21:28:00.000-05:00

This is WICKED! I just had to post this. How clean does this film look? Amazing...

New Pirates Trailer!

2007-03-20T13:29:00.000-05:00

Check out the new trailer for Pirates 3! It looks awesome!! You can watch it in HD too. NIICCEE

Fun Video Clip

2007-02-12T01:54:00.000-06:00

I added a short video clip of me wakeboarding to my "Fun Stuff" section of my website. Cuz HEY, thats some FUN STUFF right der.

Click here to go to the page!

Pirates Images

2007-02-02T11:47:00.000-06:00

I found a few new movie poster images from Pirates 3 over at Aint it Cool. Do you think they are cool?

Click here to see the posters

Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird Interview

2007-01-25T17:05:00.000-06:00

I came across this interesting interview with a few pixar guys talking about the begining of computer animation and the first time computers were used to create film. Its very long, But i thought i would share it. Just click the picture and enjoy!

Hero's in a Half Shell

2006-12-29T20:09:00.000-06:00

New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Poster! I can't wait to see this movie!

Moving!

2006-12-11T22:59:00.000-06:00

Yes, It's been a while. But Hey, I'm back. It was only a matter of time before I made the move to the west coast. Starting the new year I'll be moving to San Francisco to work for Industrial Light & Magic on Pirates of the Caribbean : At Worlds End. I'm very excited to get a chance to work on this movie, I've always been a fan of the Pirates movies, so I'm pretty excited about this one. Plus I'm excited to live in California for the first time, especially the Bay Area!!