the following layouts were all done for amblimation’s BALTO, around 1993 in steven spielberg’s animation studio in london acton. BOLHEM BOUCHIBA was the layout artist who created them, the best I have ever met. he did all these masterpieces effortless, and more than one a day. after balto he was not happy with the layout job anymore, started with animation and became in paris, his hometown, in the disney-studio there glen keane’s assistant on TARZAN, where he did some amazing animation with the title character.
© UNIVERSAL pictures, amblin
my name is hans bacher, – I work as production designer in the animation film industry. for the last 40 years I lived and worked in duesseldorf, london, paris, los angeles, manila and tokyo. now I am professor for film-design at the nanyang techn. university in singapore.
Has been awhile since I last visited..some great new posts. I particularly like your Mulan_styleguide.
more than one a day? are you kidding me?! these so are so amazing – thanks so much for sharing!
Nome…. god, I lived there when I was a kid….this is such a weird post for me.
Your production design on this film is the principle reason for seeing a film that works so well on so many levels. These drawings show why. Beautiful work.
Hi Hans,
Nice to see these layouts again. Did you know that Nome was not the original name of the town?
When the map for that part of Alaska was originally drawn, the cartographer left a space for the town because he didn’t know what it was called, and pencilled in the word “Name”, as a sort of placeholder. Because he had used informal script, it was later read as “Nome”, and that version stuck. Check out its Wiikipedia entry.
BTW, I think it’s about time my blog was included in your blogroll!
(Michael Hirsh)
Hi Hans,
Thanks for posting those again, it’s always a pleasure to be reminded of the good times we had, working on that movie. Amongst his many natural talents, Bolem was also at the time, a mean snooker player.
Cheers.