Thumbnails for Beauty...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thumbnails...

 

 My last post dealt with Beauty and the Beast and before I leave that feature, I'll share a few more thumbnail drawings.

 

 Looking through my piles of 'stuff' in boxes out in the garage, I came across more thumbnail drawings from Beauty...drawings that visually help get the point across as to how important thumb nailing is in the planning out of a scene. 

 

 

I usually execute these small drawings on a 8 1/2x11 paper, using pen or pencil. These little drawings helped me work out the action (below) on the boys in the tavern lifting Gaston and chair. Even rough timing  is evidence by the numbers  under the drawings.

I get to see in miniature approximately what the scene will look like and if it is pleasing to the eye.

 

More thumbnails (below) take the action and other characters into the mix. I work out the steps of each character in this format, later to be transferred to rough animation.

Gaston (below) delivering dialogue. This gives me a chance to figure out mouth shapes and the action that will take place as he throws his beer mugs.






Gaston (below) on the roof walking over to pull off a piece of the building he can use as a weapon against the Beast. These small drawings give me a look at poses and approximate timing.

 

 The choreography of Gaston and the Beast fighting (below) was worked out prior to any animating. Closer fielding and the rain effects were used to increase the drama, but you still have to have the characters grounded for believability and thumb nailing provided that.

 Thumbnailing for me is an offshoot of my quick sketching. The silhouette value, balance, proportion, perspective, recognizable (who is it), conveying an action or emotion are what I'm after when I quick sketch. Theses same values should be reflected in thumbs.

 

Beauty and the Beast

Next up was Beauty and the Beast... 

 

Here are some of the major players (right) who made Beauty and the Beast a classic: top far right is Glen Keane who designed and animated the Beast...to the left below Glen are directors, Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. Time would tell what a monumental achievement these guys pulled off. Middle left is producer Don Hahn who pulled it all together. To his right is Gaston, animated by Andreas Deja (I was a part of his unit). The bottom left is Lumiere, animated by Nik Ranieri and bottom right is James Baxter who brought movement to Belle.

Above is the Gaston unit gathered outside our quarters- a trailer on Flower Street in Glendale.











My thumbnails (right) of Gaston posing and firing his
rifle...

more thumbnails of Glen's Beast and Andreas' Gaston (top left and bottom right) helped choreograph my the fight scenes between the two.

Once again thumbnails to the rescue as I animated the special effects of the spoons in the Be Our Guest song, patterned after the Busby Berkeley choreography of the 1930's musicals.

 

We got to see the movie with our families in the theater on Flower St. The premier  was held a few weeks earlier at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood...

 

followed by the wrap party at The Sheraton Universal.

 

Accolades began to come in for the film...

Best Picture at the Golden Globe Awards plus best song and score...

Then came the Academy Award nomination for best picture of the year. This is the monumental achievement that I mentioned earlier that Kirk and Gary pulled off . At the time there was no separate category for animated features. The B&B nomination was a first for an animated feature as it's competition was against live action films.

Big news headlines, Beauty and the Beast makes movie history. This historic moment was not well received by actors and movie purists who thought little of our craft.

The study of acting is a must by actor and animator as a convincing acting performance is sought by both.There are other similarities between what an actor does in his or her role and what an animator does with his character. 



Live action actors depend on make-up, voice overs, stunt doubles, special effects etc. to help them before the camera.

The actor puts on an act. The Beast is not acting the Beast, he is the Beast, Belle is Belle. The acting performances that were achieved by the animators on Beauty and the Beast were done with pencil on paper.The animator acts with his pencil.

The award that year went to Silence of the Lambs, but animation made history that will never be repeated.

A good caricature is always in proper taste?...me by Glen Keane

 

 

Glen and I did a lot of caricaturing of each other. It started when, together, we were moved from the second floor animation training rooms. Glen had come into the program about six months earlier and was already working on the Rescuers doing inbetweens and animating scenes for Ollie Johnston. I had just joined the ranks of Glen, Tad Stones, Randy Cartwright and a few others as permanent employees.

 

Glen and I were paired together in a corner office and the caricatures started to carom back and forth as we animated through the days,weeks, months and years.

 

I've got a stack that proper human beings should not have to lay eyes upon.

Further into the 90's...

Thumbnails

 

I learned early about the value of thumbnails in the planning of a scene.  This prevented a lot of headaches (my own) by working a scene or scenes out in these small rough drawings first, then showing them to the lead animator or director before starting to animate. By doing this I was able to animate with confidence knowing my superiors knew what direction I was headed.






(Thumbnails of Amos running from Fox and the Hound.)

 

 

(My thumbnails of Cody from Rescuers Down Under - pre-animation action studies.)

 

(And another...my animation of Cody (Rescuers Down Under) running, is based on this cycle.) 

   Also during this time, my pen and ink artwork was on display at Azusa Pacific University art gallery in Azusa, Ca. Whenever my artwork was displayed, I was asked if it was for sale. It was not originally my intention to execute art work for sale. I did it just for my pleasure and to improve my pen and ink style. I got the idea to have some prints made of the work, so I could keep my originals and others could have a copy for themselves.

I collaborated with John Greco of Josephine Press in Santa Monica to do a limited (50) run of hand pulled prints which would be signed and numbered.

 

Concurrently, I had the opportunity to speak at Biola University in La Habra, Ca. It was a great opportunity to share with those students what we were doing in animation over at Disney. 

   I enjoyed those teaching moments and when the opportunity came, I agreed to accept a teaching position at a local junior college. The class was  Cartooning and Humorous Illustration. This laid the foundation for me in years to come to teach other classes in figure drawing, quick sketch and animation. Also to lecture and conduct workshops.
.
 I had been introduced to the late great, Mr.Bil Keane through his son Glen.  I wrote him asking his professional advice about cartooning and humorous illustration work. He kindly responded (right) with a wealth of other information and an original Family Circus panel.

  Word of wisdom: Seek advice and direction from those in the occupation you wish to enter. The higher up the 'food chain' the better the advice. My advice came from the very top.

 

Super Bowl XLVIII Gathering at Ron's...

Congratulations to the Super Bowl champions Seattle Seahawks! And also to the Denver Broncos who happen to be the second best team in the NFL. I, like millions of people worldwide watched this spectacle with friends...old friends.

 

(Early flyer to Super Bowl gathering)

  I grew up in the small, southern California town of Monrovia. In 1950-60's era, the African-American community of my town extended only from the railroad tracks on Duarte Road twelve blocks north to Walnut St., and east-west four blocks from Shamrock Ave. to Ivy Ave. With such a small community of people, where literally everybody knew one another, close knit friendships were forged. Before I attended kindergarten I knew the neighbor kids. I went to elementary school with these same kids, played with them after school and had the chance to meet others youngsters from a few blocks away...On to junior and senior high, expanding the range of friends in the circle to an even larger group; which brings me to my point...

The Super Bowl has been a focus of gathering together for my friends from Monrovia and the adjoining city, Duarte. These guys I grew up with, played sports with, hung out with, partied with, laughed and joked with... and come to think of it, never fought with.

Usually we see old friends at funeral services or accidentally run into them and the conversation is mostly surface stuff. The thought of gathering together in a more relaxed atmosphere seemed more appealing to me.  So, a Super Bowl Gathering ensued at "Ron's Place".

(Flyer for 2008 Super Bowl)

 













About twenty five years ago (or more) Jackie Adams,  who I had known since kindergarten, watched the USC-UCLA rivalry game at my house. We did so for several years. For some unknown reason we missed a game; I think Jackie had to work that day... To make up for missing the game that year, we got together a few months later at my place, to watch the Super Bowl. Meeting other old friends accidentally or at a funeral, I'd invited them to join us to watch the game. One by one the group grew. This once a year gathering of friends did not start out to be the tradition it has turned into, thus, I can not point to a specific start date; it just evolved over time.

These guys (all from Monrovia/Duarte, some, from as far back as pre-school) watching the game in my living room,  have careers in education, public utilities, law enforcement, entrepreneurship, corrections, and even an NFL coach. All with families and obligations, yet they take time once a year to come from near and far to see each other and catch up on each others lives.

At half time we form a circle, holding hands. The guys have an opportunity to express what is on their hearts. Thankfulness that we have another opportunity to fellowship with each other is the reigning sentiment.  We  thank God in prayer for another fruitful year to be together with old friends and blessing of the food. We often get a call during this time from one or two of the guys from the old neighborhood who now lives out of state. They too are sent an invitation and the phone is passed around to say 'hi'.
 
This year's menu: B-B-Q ribs, tri-tip, potato salad, green salad, home made carrot cake and peach cobbler along with assorted sodas.

Like most of our gatherings, the third quarter of the game is missed as we chat and chew, catching up on each others lives and joking about old times. Often times, we'd laugh over  my old scrap books with pictures of us all in little league uniforms, or team pictures of our high school track, basketball, baseball and football teams. It is truly more about the fellowship than the game.

And, we don't take next year's gathering for granted. In 2004, a member of our group, Calvin Bourne, who I had known for 45 years passed away. The next year Charlie Graves passed and the following year Jackie Adams, both whom I had known fifty and fifty one years respectively. Three years in a row the group was shortened which makes each gathering truly special.
 
Call up a friend, send them an email or better yet a hand written letter and keep in touch with the friends you have.


(This years invitation below: 45 to 59 years of friendship here...The three on the stairs are Calvin, Charlie and Jackie)

My Animation Trainee experience (part 3)

Eight weeks come to an end...
Grasping the basics of animation in a few weeks is only the tip of the iceberg. The steps to becoming an animator are not automatic. From this point, I could become a career inbetweener, breakdown or assistant animator. I went through all these phases and learned what I could from each and moved on. There are those who found their comfort zone in one of these steps. I would soon learn the importance of each.

(example: rough animation drawing from Disney Fox and the Hound)

  I was being trained to be a 'rough' animator. The rough animator draws the character(s) on model, with proper volume, proportions and with enough structure that a clean-up artist could 'follow' and make a clean version of the drawings in your scene.  The animator would be concerned with the 'key' drawings in a scene leaving the 'inbetween' drawing to be done by an inbetweener to complete the action.

(example: clean-up animation drawing from Disney Fox and the Hound)

 The lead clean-up artist is concerned with the same key drawings as the animator. Checking with the animator  to make sure the drawings are 'on model' etc. Other clean-up artists fill in the drawings between the main keys to complete the action.

In the weeks that followed I was doing inbetweens for the animators working on The Rescuers. I was eventually assigned to a room downstairs and given a desk. I took that desk with me wherever the department went. I drew at that same desk for the thirty years I was in animation.

My knowledge of  the history and mechanics of animation started my first day on the studio lot. Now it continued as I became a part of the process in making an animated feature.

  It was not all serious business as we continued to have rubber band fights and do caricatures of each other and ourselves as this (below) attests to. Randy Cook's caricature of himself on animation paper (notice the peg holes).




The feature I was assigned to was being done the "Disney Way". What is it that made Disney so unique at the time? (and not just the peg holes:) :The Rescuers released in 1977 was only the 22nd feature released since Snow White in 1937, forty years earlier. That averages about one feature every two years.

For every second of film seen, it takes 24 separate cels. Hand drawn and color painted. A 90 minute film has about 250,000 hand drawn cels. At the time one of the Saturday morning animation studios turned out about 7,000 feet of animation per week. Disney did about 6,500 feet in four years.

Costing millions of dollars with a staff of hundreds of people from the various departments, it took over 4 years to complete. Forty animators contributed about 330,000 drawings. I remember reading that, laid end to end, the drawings would extend about 40 miles and it would take one animator 16 years averaging 8 feet of animation a week to accomplish all this.

This is the "Disney Way" of animation I was about to be taught.

 

I was assigned to do inbetweens for animation legend, Frank Thomas. There are a thousand and one questions I wish I'd have asked him back then, but I was so inexperienced and I just wanted to do a good job of inbetweening. To do the job assignment properly you have to keep track of the scene, all the drawings in the scene, draw on model, capture the arc between the extreme drawings, read the exposure sheet properly, listen to the dialogue track (on the moviola track or 78 rpm record), send the scene out to camera, thread it up on the moviola for viewing when it comes back and more.

In time Frank gained trust in my inbetweening abilities. Wanting to see me advance he entrusted me with scenes from the production. This accomplished two goals, it helped Frank with the amount of scenes he was expected to do and it accelerated my learning. Frank's inbetweens were my priority so lunch breaks, after hours and weekends were spent in animation. I did about fifty feet of animation for Rescuers. In those days it took a hundred feet of animation to get screen credit. I was not disappointed, I knew the rules going in.

I listened to Frank as he flipped my inbetweens between his extremes and explained why this worked and this did not work. or his critique of the scenes I animated. These experiences were invaluable to me as a young animation hopeful.

Training continued through my early years: Lectures( Tex Avery among others), films sessions followed by discussions, sculpting (taught by Blain Gibson), classes in acting, action analysis ( taught by Ward Kimball), drawing classes (taught by Mark Davis, Walt Stanchfield, Glen Vilppu and others) and more.

(Updated animation recruitment brochure)

 

After about a year on the job, we were handed a three inch thick notebook called, The Disney School of Animation. Divided into sections it contained a wealth of information and blank pages to take notes. Everything from Thoughts on the Unit System, Orientation, Terminology, Materials, Standard Procedures, Production Planning, Music Room, Layout/Background, Scene Planning, X-Sheet, Camera, Simplification, Life Drawing, Animation, Clean-Up, Effects, Ink and Paint. The Animation Enrichment Program section contained a memo from Walt Disney to Don Graham outlining the formation of a training program on which this training program was patterned.


My trainee experience continues to this day.

(All images are shown for encouragement and inspiration only.)

My Animation Trainee experience (Part 2)

My first day as a animation trainee:
All trainees were on the second floor of the Animation building on the studio lot in Burbank.

I was assigned an animation desk in a room large enough to accommodate four, maybe six desks. Across the hall to the north was Eric Larson's spacious room. To the east of Eric's room, separated by a door, was another large room that housed animation desks and trainees. These trainee rooms made easy access to our mentor.

That day I met Glen Keane, Tad Stones, Jerry Moeller, boy wonder Jerry Rees (I think he was still in high school) and a few others. Several of the others I don't remember are those who didn't make it through the program.

RIGHT - a caricature I did of Jerry M . We did a lot of caricaturing of each other, which in years to come would lead to the yearly Caricature Show. At first the show was held in the Animation building library and has since grown to the hallways of whatever building housed the animation group.
(Jerry ended up leaving after a few years.)

 

I was called into Eric's office and he explained the program to me.

Pick a character of your choice to animate.
You have four weeks to animate a scene or scenes.
At the end of that time your piece will be shown to a review board that consists of seasoned animators and management.
If you do not pass that test period you are let go.
If you pass, you are given another four weeks to animate another test; again to be shown to the review board.
You are dismissed if you don't pass the second four week period.
Should you pass the second four weeks, your training as an inbetweener (for a real animator) will begin.
He (Eric) would be available during working hours to discuss what you planned to do, go over drawings and share his enormous wealth of knowledge.
In addition, your training will continue (and never end). There would be lectures from Eric and a host of guests that included cinematographers, legendary animation director Tex Avery, screening silent films of Laurel and Hardy/ Charlie Chaplin etc., film makers, and anyone associated with film or filmmaking to stimulate our fertile minds.

My fellow trainees helped me with the terminology and told me of the materials I would need to get started:
            An animation desk and disk with Disney peg holes. Disney had their own peg bar spacing which differed from all other animation studios. You could go to a store which sold animation supplies and order standard pre-punched animation paper, but it would not fit on a Disney animation peg bar. This uniqueness has been phased out the way yards and inches were replaced with the metric system in U.S. track and field.

 Also needed: 12 and 16 field paper- Faber-Castell Polychromos 9201 #144, Kobalt hell-Light Cobalt Blue pencil for ruffs ("the one's Frank and Ollie use") and Eberhard Faber 'Blackwing' pencil  #602 'half the pressure twice the speed' to tie down the drawings.

I was shown a Moviola, housed in a darkened closet, where our filmed tests would be viewed when they returned from the camera department.

Camera fields, pans, light board, exposure sheet, blue sketch, layout, inbetweener, breakdown, special effects, multiplane, dialogue, timing, staging, anticipation and more would become a part of my new vocabulary.

I was introduced to Leroy who was in charge of what was called the morgue. The morgue was connected to the Animation building by a tunnel which ended beneath the Ink and Paint building.This underground treasure depository was where all drawings, ruff and cleaned-up, were kept from every animated Disney film. We were able to research characters and check out actual ruff animated scenes and their backgrounds. Imagine being able to flip drawings done by the hands of Freddy Moore, Milt Kahl, Marc Davis, Bill Tytla, all the greats and more.

To get started required a trip down stairs to Joe Morris who dispensed supplies. Joe used a machine that punched the peg holes in blank animation paper. Not that peg hole placement made a difference in animation, it was a way of thinking in depth about the craft, seeking excellence for self, those around you, paying attention to detail and a lot of intangibles that set this studio apart from all the rest.
  This memo (below) from Eric impressed upon the trainees the rich history on which the present training is based. Don Graham's original training program in the 1930's, patterned after Walt's vision of infusing his artists with broader knowledge in order to push the boundaries of entertainment in the field of animation. (The highlighted items are things that impressed me at the time.)

My test...

 I knew a bit about sports. My choice of a character was Goofy, running with a football.
 I assembled paper, pencils, character model sheets and a thumbnail plan of action. I sat down at the animation desk and started to work. I can not truly call animating work. I think you could ask anyone who has animated what the animation experience is like and I doubt they would describe it as work.

 I was amazed to see lines/drawings that move. It was truly the illusion of life as Frank and Ollie described in the book they were to write after their retirement.

 The highlight of my day (and I'm sure all the other trainees) was to go into Eric's room. Look over his shoulder, as he sat at his animation desk. He would put a piece of animation paper on top of my pitiful drawings and explain the acting, action and mechanics of what potential this drawing or series of drawings held. He was extremely patient with me and all others. Eric used a metronome that he kept handy to explain timing. He seemingly kissed the paper with his pencil as he made a drawing over mine. Some of the things I remember him saying were:"the arc could be fuller," "change the shape without changing the volume,"  "more squash, more stretch." He corrected and taught, all the time with a smile and an infectious attitude that made me feel I could grasp an understanding of animation. As crude as my drawings were, progress was being made daily.

 I was excited seeing my drawings come to life with movement by the simple act of hand flipping the drawings. With enough drawings to make up a scene they were placed between two pieces of cardboard and rubber bands were used to secure them (the rubber bands were also used for 'rubber band' fights). The drawings were then taken to Joe Morris to deliver to the camera department.
The feature that was being worked on at the time, The Rescuers, had priority in the camera department. Consequently, trainee tests could take two or three days before being returned.
  
  The drawings were returned in a 35mm film loop. The loop was threaded on a moviola, dialogue was synced up if needed. In my test, it wasn't needed:). I was officially initiated into the group as everyone gathered in the little darkened room to see the my test. Suggestions were made, questions were asked and lively discussions ensued all contributing to my and everyone's growth as animators/entertainers. Another step in the learning curve toward understanding animation.
 After the trainees had their say about my test, it was shown to Eric who gave his experienced critique. Needless to say, 'back to the drawing board' to incorporate his input to make it better.

 After four weeks of fine tuning with Eric, my Goofy test was ready to be shown to the review board. The date was set. The test was deliverd to Ed Hansen, the department head. All was set in motion.

  The day of the review was somewhat stressful. Not only for the one up for review but for the other trainees too. Trainees who had passed the two review boards were awaiting assignment down stairs on The Rescuers. They tried to calm my anxiety. There were those who came in after I had started, knowing they would be in my place in a few days or weeks. They all wondered just what to say to a to a person who you may not see again after today. Tension was usually eased by a rubber band fight.

 After waiting half a day or more for the results, it was not unusual for the board to be called off for the day because- 'could't get enough people together', 'called story meeting' etc.  Sweating it out would have to continue on another day.

  The review board saw potential in my test. Time was extended for another four weeks. Relief and celebration was short as I immediately started thinking about what the next test would be.

 This time I chose Mr. Toad. He is sitting on a wall as a girl shaped and dressed like Tinker Belle, carrying an open umbrella, walks by. Toad does a take, pulls out an eye glass to get a better look. All shots of her are from the rear. She turns toward camera, umbrella revealing a smiling frog face.

  I again await results of the review board. Potential is seen. My eight weeks training is over I am now a permanent employee and can join the Animator Union 839 in ninety days. My  training in the finer points of animation is about to begin. (To be continued...)

My Animation Trainee experience...(part1)

 In my last blog I reminisced about my start at the Walt Disney studio on February 10, 1975. Alessandro from Europe who follows this blog, asked me to give more detail about what my (and others') experience was like. He had read other accounts of that time period and was curious about the specific details of the trainee program.

 A little background for context will help before I get started...

Animation is the backbone of the Disney studio. The theme parks, publishing, music, consumer products etc. all stem from animated characters and their environments. Since Walt Disney's death in 1966, Woolie Reitherman had headed up the animation department. The older animators, some who had worked on Snow White in 1937, were still actively animating and were about to retire. Woolie  wanted to find young animators to continue the high quality of Disney animation the public was accustomed to.


 
LEFT-Brochure to recruit prospective animators "our studio is searching for gifted young artists with a desire to make animated cartoons as Disney makes them. Those who qualify would be trained in the Disney way of making films, but just as important to us would be their ability to stimulate and expand our thoughts and ideas."















The search was begun to find a new generation of animators to carry on this tradition. Legendary animator Eric Larson was put in charge of overseeing this program to train the 'new' generation of animators.

Eric was in contact with art schools and word spread that Disney was looking for animators. Portfolios came to the studio from art colleges and around the world. These were carefully scrutinized by a number of staff and artists looking for strong drawing ability depicting animals and humans in motion. One's drawing ability could get you into the program but there was a whole lot more to learn about film making and story telling with a pencil. How well and quickly these other aspects were picked up was another vital ingredient in becoming a Disney animator. The training would also cover acting, staging, timing, drawing on model, and much, much more.

 By the time I joined in 1975, the program had been in existence for about a little over two years. The first group of trainees included Don Bluth, John Pomeroy, Ron Clements, Gary Goldman, Andy Gaskill and others; they were the  prototype.

I had been directed to the Disney studio by Sam McKim who taught a night class at Art Center College of  Design located at their old campus on 3rd Street in LA. I was a student in his Sketching for Illustration class. One night Mr. McKim brought up the topic of a trainee class in animation. After class I was walking with another student through the parking lot discussing the prospects of working for Disney and he says "they don't pay much". Though the pay was a concern, my main goal was to work in a more creative environment and be surrounded by those who think creatively. I pursued more information from Mr. McKim. He got me in contact with Eric at the studio.

 My interview with Eric Larson went well. Eric was a real classy gentleman brimming with confidence and words of encouragement. I definitely needed his words of affirmation. I had no knowledge of animation nor had I ever been in a studio environment. My only images of the Walt Disney Studio had been from the old black and white Disneyland television program of the 1950's. By the time the Wonderful World of Disney premiered in color in the early 1960's I was in my early teens and had lost interest in all things Disney. At the time I had no Disney history and I'm completely unaware that I was talking to a Disney legend.

 Eric told me that my art work was 'ok'.  'Ok' if I was looking for a commercial art job; as my portfolio was geared for that type of work.  A year and a half prior, I had graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and hoped to land a job as a commercial artist. No such doors opened in Southern California. So, I ended up at Honeywell where I was employed  as a technical illustrator. The most creative things I did in a days work was make flow charts and block diagrams. This led me to seek out a class at an art school where I hoped to meet creative people or get directed onto a more creative path. Now I was on that path and being interviewed  for a job by Eric Larson. "Do you have any quick sketches?" he asked.

 (RIGHT- a page from one of the sketch books I left at the guard gate)






 Eight years earlier I had been encouraged to carry a sketch pad by my high school art teacher and by this time I had plenty of pads filled. I drove home ( 20 miles) gathered three sketch pads, put them in an envelope addressed to Eric, dropped them off at the guard gate.Then drove another 35 miles back to my job making  flow charts and block diagrams (I was on my lunch break).

A week later I got a call from Disney saying  'you can start anytime you want' in the animation trainee program.

Not as easy a decision as I thought it would be. Leaving one job for another, especially for less money and no guarantee you would be there beyond four weeks. Throw in a wife and two kids and you can see why I had to think this life altering decision  through. With my wife's encouragement I took that step. (To be continued...)