the opening of disney’s PINOCCHIO is very impressive. the camera starts with the big star in the night sky, pulls back to reveal some kind of german/swiss alps landscape, then pans over the half-timbered houses in a combined turning-camera-pan, to end finally in the middle of the small village next to gepetto’s house. a masterpiece in planning, layout and painting. several multiplane layers add the feeling of depth. GUSTAF TENGGREN, the swedish children book illustrator worked at the disney studio from 1935 to 1939 and designed this set up amongst a lot of other visuals for shorts and feature films. you can read more in JOHN CANEMAKER’S phantastic book BEFORE THE ANIMATION BEGINS. the photo of tenggren is borrowed from the book as well.
© disney enterprises, inc
my name is hans bacher, – I work as production designer in the animation film industry. for the last 45 years I lived and worked in exciting places around the world. after 7 years of teaching in singapore I am back at my homebase in manila, working on a few more books.
One1more2time3's Weblog 
Wow Sir,
Just stopped by to say thank you for your amazing book “DREAM WORLDS”,it’s my favorite,I’ve learned a lot form it…
I’m impressed. I just watched this sequence a dozen times, and I don’t know how you could put this all together. Lots of hours, no doubt.
from hans –
michael, this time it was just a simple combination of 2 good reproductions in 2 different books. I did a reconstruction though as well a while ago, but the perspective transition is too dark. more time intensive is to find all the books in my archives, you don’t want to write something half-well remembered…
Hans,
the opening shot of PINOCCHIO was also laid out by Ken O’Connor. What a remarkable artist he was. Modest too…he usually talked about Charles Philippi, who was probably his mentor.
Such a beautiful layout! Wonderful rebuild! Thanks for the tip on John Canemaker’s book. I just finished PAPER DREAMS which was fantastic!