disney’s DONALD DUCK short THE FOX HUNT was released july 1938. the following recreated extremely long pan is from the opening scene and is 40 seconds long! this is very unusual, it is difficult to plan for layout- and animation-artists. in this case the pan shows the hunters on horses riding out for the fox hunt, the camera leaves them behind and reveals donald with several dogs who is supposed to search for the fox.
© disney enterprises, inc
here is another recreated long pan-background from disney’s 1945 goofy short TIGER TROUBLE. again painted by master BG-painter CLAUDE COATS this is in my opinion one of the most beautiful BG’s in shorts that I have seen in a while. coats worked that same year on two more shorts – DOG WATCH and CALIFORNY ER BUST. soon I will post some more BG’s from DOG WATCH.
© disney enterprises, inc
LA PASSION DE JEANNE D’ARC was produced a silent film in france in 1928, directed by CARL THEODOR DREYER. even for today standards the film is a masterpiece, in acting – especially the main role played by RENEE JEANNE FALCONETTI, as well as for the visuals. the camera concentrates mainly on the actor’s facial features. dreyer shot a lot of the film in close-up and did not allow his actors to wear makeup, the better to tell the story through their expressions. this choice was made possible through use of the newly developed PANCHROMATIC FILM. for years the original versiion of the film was believed to be lost after a fire destroyed the master negative. only in 1981 another complete print of dreyer’s version was found. this version is now available on DVD. I highly recommend this film, as you can see in these few screen captures, there are ‘real’ characters portrayed in this film. it is a piece of art.
you can order the DVD here
with all the news about the threat of nuclear bombs, especially the news about north-korea, as well as news about some more wanna-be nuclear powers in other parts of the world, I am not sure if I should stay with the original title of disney’s film OUR FRIEND THE ATOM. it was released jan. 1957, produced in cooperation with the U.S. navy and General Dynamics ( builders of the nuclear submarine USS nautilus ). the narrator of the mixed live action/animation/documentary show, first on the air in disney’s DISNEYLAND tv-show, was german professor HEINZ HABER, a pretty popular science presenter in germany. the show uses clips from disney’s 20.000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, the famous fisherman and the genie in the bottle fable and some very well done historic development pieces to come up with the conclusion ‘here lies our chance to make the atomic genie our friend’. I always liked the 60 min long show, directed by HAM LUSKE, the character design is very unique, as well as the very stylized backgrounds. following are some screen captures, judge yourself
© disney enterprises, inc
© bilderfabrik
about two months after the end of the second world war in europe this disney short was released – CANINE CASANOVA. I don’t care that much about the story and the animation of pluto and the other dog characters, but the backgrounds look very nice, unusually stylized for a disney short. layout by KARL KARPE, BG’s by AL DEMPSTER. following are some recreated backgrounds.
© disney enterprises, inc
© bilderfabrik
these recreated backgrounds are from disney’s CINDERELLA, released march 1950. it was the first full length animated feature film after the second world war, after BAMBI in 1942. disney chose another grimm’s fairy tale hoping it would continue the success of SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. it was a good choice, the film became the most successfull film of the year.
© disney enterprises, inc
the number of visitors just passed 200.000 – unbelieveable! thank you all for coming over. maybe you leave me a few more comments, would be nice to know who you all are…
the disney short WINDOW CLEANERS was released sept. 1940, the main characters are donald duck and pluto. storywise it is similar to the earlier short CLOCK CLEANERS. and other similarities are the incredible perspective shots. that’s why I always liked these two films a lot. especially in ‘window cleaners’ there is a pan starting with an upshot and panning down in a slight curve that always made me curious how that BG looked like in its entire length. below you can see it.
© disney enterprises, inc
© bilderfabrik
1993 at AMBLIMATION in london COLIN STIMPSON at his BG-workdesk painting BG’s for BALTO.
during the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST preproduction time at the PURDUM studio in london, 1989, TOM SITO and me in the ‘smoking’-corner.
HARALD SIEPERMANN in our studio MAD-T-PARTY in duesseldorf 1990 at his desk surrounded by his cut-out pin-wall.
1987 in the FORUM in london camdentown, ULI MEYER animating ‘dumbo’ on WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.
the AMBLIMATION studio in london with SIMON WELLS, the director of BALTO sitting in the center.
DAAN JIPPES in 1993 storyboarding on BALTO at AMBLIMATION.
RICHARD WILLIAMS at his animation desk early 1987 in his london studio, 13 soho square.
myself in 1989 working on the comic strip series ALFRED J.KWAK in the duesseldorf studio.
enjoy – there will be lots more soon…
when I started to work on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST I realized pretty soon that the reference I could find in books was not enough. besides that most of the books were expensive and I did not want to buy them only for a few images I could use. that was of course before the internet era. today it is pretty easy to get all the reference of the world through ‘image search’. so – back then I bought a videoprinter, a small but expensive box that printed on thermopaper in postcard size 4 little images from video archived material. vhs and betamax quality at that time. first in black/white in a lousy resolution. that improved with the newer printers, and the costs went up! I taped everything that might be interesting, historic documentaries, lots of stuff from the history- and discovery channel, but tons of movies, music clips and commercials as well. everything seemed to be useful for inspiration. that way I collected several thousand of images throughout the following years. they are all glued in about 30 books. a ‘treasure’! from now on I want to post a series of some of the images. I select them by motif, interesting angle, color, composition or crazy ideas. here is nr. one…
a recreated long pan from disney’s 1945 short TIGER
TROUBLE
© disney enterprises, inc
© bilderfabrik
it must have been around 1998 when the idea of DON QUIXOTE came up in the studio. for a while JOE GRANT had discussed with me all different possible stories, like PAUL GALLICO’S MY FRIEND JENNY or with the different title THE ABANDONED. and DON QUIXOTE was another one of them. but not like the original story, more on the level of the animals. I loved the ideas and we were spending some time on them. apparently management heard about it and gave JOHN WATKISS the assignment of more huge paintings, since he was finished with ‘tarzan’ and ’empire of the sun’. I don’t think there was even a treatment at that time and the whole thing looked improvised. but John came up with some very interesting characters and very impressive paintings again. here are some of his sketches for DON QUIXOTE.
© disney enterprises, inc
TEOH YI CHIE ( online alias – PARKA ), who I met in singapore during a lecture, had this idea to show all different artists workspace. you can see it at his blog. in my never ending archives I found a lot more ‘historic’ workspaces and I wanna show you some.
ANDREAS DEJA, who had started in aug. 1980 at disney, is here animating on THE BLACK CAULDRON in dec. 1980.
in 1981 I met ART BABBITT in the hollywood QUARTETT film studio, where he was animating on THE THIEF for RICHARD WILLIAMS.
BARRIE NELSON, who animated WINDY DAY for JOHN HUBLEY, at his desk in 1981 in his malibu home.
ELFRIEDE FISCHINGER, widow of german abstract filmmaker OSCAR FISCHINGER, in her hollywood hills home in 1981.
myself in summer 1987 at amblin, working on WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.
and at the same time at amblin in a story-meeting with the director BOB ZEMECKIS and the writers JEFFREY PRICE and PETER SEAMAN.
downshot from the roof of the FORUM in london-camdentown in 1987 with RICHARD WILLIAMS working in his room on WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.
RICHARD WILLIAMS playing the trumpet, while I am doing an inbetween test at his desk in his home in hampstead 1986 for ROGER RABBIT.
MEL SHAW in 1989 in the purdum studio in london working on some production designs for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
RUSSELL HALL animating jessica rabbitt in the london FORUM studio in 1988.
in front of one of his layouts for richard williams’ THE THIEF is ROY NESBITT in the williams studio nr.13 soho square london feb. 1987.
1988 ULI MEYER started his first studio in london. here he is animating at his desk.
my room and workdesk in the disney feature animation studio in burbank 1998.
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