balto backgrounds 2

some more BG’s from the AMBLIMATION animated feature film BALTO ( 1994 ), painting technique oil and gouache.

© universal / amblin

balto backgrounds

digging through my photography files I found these beautiful backgrounds from the AMBLIMATION animated feature film BALTO, except the last one all painted in oil by LUC DESMARCHELIER, one of the master-painters. it’s the year 1993, london. we decided to paint most of the BG’s in oil after painted snow tests in gouache were not looking like snow. only some wooden textured house shots and a few interiors were painted in gouache. it was hard for most of the background painters to get more familiar with this unusual painting technique in animation. after disney’s BAMBI BALTO was the second feature film painted in oil.

© amblimation / universal pictures

early spring 1993 london

over christmas I had some time to dig through my archives, and I found a lot of historic stuff that you might like to see. it’s amazing to look at drawings again after so many years, lots of memories come alive. I want to start with BALTO, an animated feature film about husky dogs in alaska and the famous iditarod dog-sled race. I worked on it from 1992 on, production started in 1993. all that in london, acton town, a very interesting and ‘alive’ part of london. the following designs were all done by a young kid, early twenties, french, one of the most amazing character designers I ever met, and a brilliant animator as well – you might have seen his work in recent films from DREAMWORKS, like the trained dragon and the panda series. I am talking about a master – NICOLAS MARLET. there will be more, especially from CATS. but for now BALTO, or as it was called at that time SNOWBALLS…

© nicolas marlet / universal pictures / amblin entertainment

amblimation balto documentary 1994 part 1

the AMBLIMATION studio in london-acton town, jan.1994, shortly after the disaster earthquake in northridge, L.A.

some impressions of the background department, located separate on the 1.floor, because of the better light conditions,

fun after work in the pub next door. most of us were hanging out there after work several times a week.

studio party after successful work, STEVE HICKNER, producer, giving a speech.

more BALTO BG’s, most of them painted in oil. I never understood, why that was never used in the promotion of the film. at least it was the only film next to BAMBI where the backgrounds were nearly entirely painted in oil.

amblimation 1.1994 balto from hans bacher on Vimeo.

© Amblin / Universal

special

a ‘merry christmas’ to everybody who is celebrating the event. for this special occasion I want to show you a selection of designs for several animated feature films created over the past fifteen years by some of the best in their field. PAUL FELIX and a few of his many masterful pencil sketches for disney’s MULAN, as well as some of his paintings and drawings for the shelved SNOW QUEEN project. further MARCELO VIGNALI with his beautiful visuals for MULAN and CHEN-YI CHENG’S ancestor group for the ‘mushu’s awakening’ sequence in MULAN. finally two more stunning jungle action scenes for TARZAN by JOHN WATKISS, and some of the amazing layout work for BALTO created by one of the best layout artists, now animator – BOLHEM BOUCHIBA. I hope you enjoy this very special gallery of the masters – happy holidays.

© disney enterprises, inc
© universal pictures / amblin entertainment

caricatures 1

the following caricatures were created by NICOLAS MARLET as far as I remember in 1992, at that time STEPHEN SPIELBERG’S animation studio in london ( acton ) – AMBLIMATION – was still busy with the feature film WE’RE BACK. you could hear many different languages, a lot of young animators from all over the world, but mainly europe, were working there on one huge floor divided into small cubicles. we used to caricature each other, just for fun. and NICOLAS was one of the best artists for sure!

© nicolas marlet

alaska

below my production design for a diagonal pan in BALTO from 1993 ( feltpen and gouache ), followed by the final background painted in oil – could not avoid the reflections in the overlay cels.

© universal pictures / amblin entertainment

balto reference

here is some of the reference for BALTO. I collected hours of TV-reference about alaska and snow landscapes in general, analyzed them all and printed hundreds of color-videoprints. a selection is below, as well as some of my designs for the aurora borealis in wolf-shape for the ending of the film.

© amblin / universal pictures

muk+luk

the animation thumbnails and character studies of the two bears MUK and LUK were created for BALTO in 1993 by an incredible talent, NICOLAS MARLET, at that time in his early twenties. he has become one of the most creative character-designers in the animation world, as you can see in his work he did for DREAMWORKS over the last fifteen years.

© AMBLIN / UNIVERSAL pictures

alley

one of the numerous longer pan-backgrounds for the AMBLIMATION/UNIVERSAL production WE’RE BACK! A DINOSAUR’S STORY, released 1993. DANIEL CACOUAULT, who did hundreds of BG-keys for the macy’s parade, painted this beautiful watercolor piece.

© amblin/universal pictures

just so

after the animated version of CATS was shelved the first time, that was early 1992, london, AMBLIMATION-studio, STEVEN SPIELBERG was interested in five projects, one of them was – THE JUST SO STORIES, a compilation of jungle tales written by RUDYARD KIPLING. for some months I did numerous designs for the five concepts, in the end BALTO was selected and went into production. following are some of my ‘jungle’ ideas for the JUST SO STORIES.

© AMBLIN/ universal pictures

blitz

visual idea collection for the 1991 amblimation planned and shelved animated adaptation of ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER’S – CATS.

© andrew lloyd webber / universal pictures / amblin entertainment

1993/94

and the last captured moments from my documentary video during the production of BALTO in the london AMBLIMATION studio.

© AMBLIN / UNIVERSAL pictures

1993

BALTO went into full production in 1993 in STEVEN SPIELBERG’S london animation studio. and there was a change in leadership, SIMON WELLS became the sole director of the film. below is the second part of the captured moments from my video documentary during that time.

© AMBLIN / UNIVERSAL pictures

1992

recently I looked through my historic video archives and found some 16 hours of documentary stuff i had shot on hi-8 video during the years 1992 to 1994 in london, duesseldorf and finland. in a way this is my ‘WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY’ version of DREAMWORKS, what was at that time AMBLIMATION, located in london, acton town. I was allowed to shoot my personal video throughout the whole studio during the production of BALTO, in meetings, fun-events and reference trips ( to finland above the arctic circle, to study huskies and sled racing in deep snow ). nobody has ever seen this footage, so this is really a historic event. there hasn’t been any documentation about these few years of steven spielberg’s animated feature film production in london. for me it was a very good experience to work with incredible artists from all over europe. most of them moved in 1995 to L.A. and became the core group of DREAMWORKS feature animation. the pictures shown here are frame-grabs from the transferred hi-8 footage to digital then to dvd.

© AMBLIN / UNIVERSAL pictures

cats – research

I have written before about the animated version of the ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER musical CATS, that went into preproduction 1991 in STEVEN SPIELBERG’S studio AMBLIMATION in london. I was supposed to design the look of the film, and I spent a lot of time researching some rather ‘unusual’ london environments. we were looking for the trashiest spots we could find. these research trips were lots of fun and I still have tons of ‘trash’ photographs. in the picture below you can see the research team, the directors SIMON WELLS and PHIL NIBBELINK together with the producer CINDY WOODBURNE, and with the CATS-musical stage designer JOHN NAPIER.

afterwards I usually did rough sketches and worked out stylized views with tipp-ex correction white on black cardboard. later I painted a selection of these roughs with felt-pen and gouache. below are some of them

© andrew lloyd webber / amblin / universal pictures / john napier

frozen

some more production designs for the AMBLIMATION production BALTO, released in 1995. all designs are 21 x 11.5 cm, painted with AD/pantone-markers and gouache between 1992 and 1993 in the london studio.

© amblin/universal

nome alaska

following are a few xeroxed storyboard drawings DAAN JIPPES did for BALTO in 1993. daan used a black prismacolor pencil and the size of each drawing is about A5. they are not in order and not complete. his boards were of such high quality, all the characters absolutely on model, that they could have been used for a comic strip.

© amblimation/universal

lost

a colorscript page from the dec.1995 released BALTO, directed by SIMON WELLS, produced by STEVEN SPIELBERG’S AMBLIMATION in london. the storyboard drawings for these color sketches were done by simon wells.

© universal/AMBLIN

young masters 1

for a long time I was very fortunate to have had a chance working with some of the best talent in animation. just for that it was worth to be in this business. in case you were following my posts, most of the time I am referring to ‘the old masters’, now I thought it might be the time to look at the ‘younger masters’ of the GOLDEN NINETIES.

daan jippes

glen keane

paul felix

john watkiss

andreas deja

macgeorge

luc desmarchelier

chris sanders

© disney enterprises, inc
© universal/AMBLIN