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

Advertisement

kingdom 1

I found some xeroxes of paintings JOHN WATKISS had done in the late nineties for THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE, or – KINGDOM OF THE SUN – as it was called at that time. john painted them in the same size as the TARZAN pieces, approx. 80 x 40 cm, all acrylics. different from the more action loaded TARZAN jungle scenes he played here a lot with interesting compositions and light/shadows. there must be at least 30 or 40 of these paintings, hopefully in the archives.

© disney enterprises, inc

bajaja

these are the final screen captures of JIRI TRNKA’S 1950 puppet animation film PRINCE BAJAJA

© LUTKOVI film praha + jiri trnka

moments 7

TURNER PICTURES released in 1992 a very well done documentary WHEN THE LION ROARS, the history of MGM. six hours on a three VHS tape set. the following mosaic with forgotten memories from the early days of filmmaking is my inspiration for the weekend.

© TURNER pictures/MGM

unusual

interesting backgrounds, aren’t they. would you have guessed they are part of a disney DONALD DUCK short? I recreated them from the 1945 released short DONALD’S CRIME. directed by JACK KING, layout ERNEST NORDLI and backgrounds MERLE COX. it is a nightmare sequence similar to the much later UPA masterpiece THE TELL TALE HEART and influenced by german expressionistic films, like CABINET OF DR.CALIGARI. very unusual for a disney short.

© disney enterprises, inc

heroic

HEROIC TIMES, or the original title ‘Daliás idök’ in hungarian language, was released in 1984. the 79 min masterpiece was directed and animated by JOZSEF GEMES, produced by hungarian studio PANNONIA FILM. GEMES had help only from a few artists, among them russian animator and filmmaker ALEXANDER PETROV. the production took five years, everything was painted on glass and modified or destroyed for the next frame. some scenes were extremely complex, several layered glass-levels were used for these complicated parts. the film won numerous awards in animation festivals. like usual with good films it is not available anywhere. I have a decent quality copy from the late eighties when it was shown on german tv. following some screen captures.

© pannonia film/jozsef gemes

earring

JOHANNES VERMEER, 1632 – 1675, is today considered as one of the greatest painters of the DUTCH GOLDEN AGE. that was not so during his lifetime, maybe because he only created a relatively small amount of paintings. he is best known for his masterly treatment and use of light, and for a special color, he used in most of his work – the VERMEER GREEN. DELFT in the netherlands, where vermeer lived, was at that time the center of optical experimentation and lens-making, what suggests that vermeer used a CAMERA OBSCURA in composing his pictures and handling colors and values. his portrayed figures are perfectly embedded in their environment, the atmosphere is peaceful and has a mysterious feel.

one of vermeer’s most well known paintings is THE GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING. the film with the same title, released 2003, is one of my favorites. directed by PETER WEBBER, art direction BEN VAN OS, costume design DIEN VAN STRAALEN and – cinematography EDUARDO SERRA. eduardo serra was the cinematographer of the 1997 WINGS OF THE DOVE as well. the visuals in the vermeer film are stunning, the whole film looks like vermeer’s painting come alive.
I combined some scenes of the film with a few of vermeer’s paintings to show you, how well films can be done completely without tons of special effects.

© archer street productions

posters 1

this is the start of a new series – POSTERS. I found so many posters in my drawers, especially from HEINZ EDELMANN. he did them end of the seventies/beginning of the eighties for a german broadcast station, WDR. I produced a lot of children program for them at that time and they offered me all the posters edelmann had created.

©WDR/edelmann

countryside

some more recreated backgrounds and corresponding layouts from disney’s 1961 101 DALMATIANS

© disney enterprises, inc

gaston

ANDRE FRANQUIN, 1924 – 1997, is for me the best comic strip artist ever! the characters he developed, especially GASTON LAGAFFE, the incredible, often very sarcastic humor he added to his drawings, the rough drawing style resulting from a mixture of thin brushwork and nibs, the way he translated the real world into a caricature, the buildings, the cars, nature – he is the absolute master!

franquin was not able to finish artschool in brussels, belgium, because of the second worldwar. after his school closed down, he joined an animation studio CBA – compagnie belge d’animation – for a short time, where he met some of his future comic strip colleagues, MAURICE DE BEVERE or MORRIS ( creator of LUCKY LUKE ), PIERRE CULLIFORD or PEYO ( creator of the SMURFS ) and EDDY PAAPE ( creator of LUC ORIENT and numerous other characters ). they all started to work from the mid-forties on for the comic strip publishing house DUPUIS.
in 1957 franquin started in SPIROU, the famous belgian comic magazine, a new series initiated by YVAN DELPORTE, spirou’s chief editor, GASTON LAGAFFE. gaston is the ‘anti-hero’, the office boy with mishaps and disastrous adventures mostly connected to a publishing house. the series became soon the biggest hit and franquin’s best known creation.

following are three pages of the GASTON series in SPIROU.

© franquin/dupuis

…more historic photos

september 1989 in DEREK GOGOLS house for a weekend visit. the BEAUTY+BEAST london team – GLEN KEANE and his wife, TOM SITO, DEREK GOGOL, JEAN GILMORE and ANDREAS DEJA

L.A. 1989 – mexican dinner – me, JAMES BAXTER, DAVE and DEBBIE SPAFFORD, SIMON and WENDY WELLS, and NIK RANIERY

1993 london, amblimation studio. LUC DESMARCHELIER working on a ‘monster’-background

burbank march 1979. ANDREAS DEJA in front of the disney studios, dreaming his disney dreams, they all came true

DICK WILLIAMS still in his soho studio in february 1987 storyboarding on WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT

my room in the burbank disney studio, riverside drive, 1998

ELFRIEDE FISCHINGER in L.A. 1981, showing original artwork of her late husband OSCAR FISCHINGER

june 1987, L.A., after the academy presentation of THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES, with BOB KURTZ, ANGELE WILSON and FREDERIC BACK

LEE MISCHKIN 1981 in his L.A. studio

TARZAN production painting of JOHN WATKISS in february 1997

STEVEN SPIELBERG in his london AMBLIMATION studio in 1992 together with the directors SIMON WELLS and PHIL NIBBELINK

annecy animation festival 1991, with BORGE RING, BILL HURTZ, and ANGELE and JERRY WOOLERY

historic 80s

here are some more historic pictures digitally transferred from color-slides. the RICHARD WILLIAMS ANIMATION studio was for years in LONDON, 13 soho square, until the production of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT started sometime early 1987. following are some memories from the old days…

during a stay in los angeles in 1981 I visited the HANNA BARBERA STUDIO at cahuenga in studio city and they showed me the whole studio. now there is a gym in that historic building

more tomorrow…

32.000 bc

for a while now I follow a very interesting and somehow disturbing development – there is an increasing amount of visitors who are searching in my blog for CAVE PAINTINGS and visit in big numbers one of my posts with the title 10.000 bc. it is not necessarily flattering when people are connecting my animation treasures with cave painting stuff. though, I have to admit, I love the style. but the characters need a bit more personality. can maybe one of the searchers explain what it is? I personally think the following even older artwork is quite stunning and has some revealing details about the development of human mankind…

searching

you noticed that I am not a fan of CG and motion capture. but that doesn’t mean that I am against using the latest technology. the problem with the results of these computer-driven movies is that they don’t look artistic at all. they try to copy reality. especially films like BEOWULF. is it really worth all the investment that you might not need expensive actors anymore? and to make it look even more realistic than reality, with 3-D projections and huge imax screens? you hear a lot of stupid talk that traditional animation is dead. sure – I heard that before, black and white film is dead, photography is dead, who needs illustration, we have tv – who needs radio. the only problem with traditional animation is, nobody is brave enough to try new artforms, new combinations of the old with the new technology. maybe soon the audience will be tired of looking at the same plastic movie over and over again. hopefully someone will be there at that moment, with the right visual solution.

for a while I am doing a lot of experimenting, combining painting with photographs, using the latest filter plug ins and other tricks. and always I try to apply a look that I like to a series of single captured frames from some of my live action videos, to see how the manipulated visuals look in movement. it’s amazing what you can do with software that is available for everybody. here are a few examples of my tests…

opening

these are the beautiful sketches following the credits of disney’s WIND IN THE WILLOWS to introduce the audience to the story…

© disney enterprises, inc

more pepperland

there are two reasons for this post – HEINZ EDELMANN passed away a short time ago, in july this year. only 75 years old. he became famous for his production design work on the animated feature YELLOW SUBMARINE in 1968, what is the second reason – apparently there are plans of a motion capture remake of this masterpiece from disney and zemeckis. I don’t want to comment on that.

this is about HEINZ EDELMANN, who was one of my idols for all these years and I never had a chance to meet him. he was already a well known, respected illustrator and graphic designer of posters, bookcovers and advertising art, part of the famous german magazine TWEN when he accepted the offer to design this unusual, crazy pepperland musical. it was in 1967 that heinz edelmann received a call from CHARLIE JENKINS, the director of special effects on that animated film based on the songs of THE BEATLES. it was initially planned that edelman would only work eight weeks during which he would design the look of the movie. in the end he worked an entire year on YELLOW SUMARINE, often sleeping only four hours a night to complete the project. He was in charge of over 200 artists. the film would take a toll on edelmann’s health, it took him two years to recover from working on it.

the film was a box office hit, the audience loved the unusual creative psychedelic world. stylistically it changed the perception of the look of an animated film for many artists, inclusive me. heinz edelmann did not think about what he had done too much – he said once ‘You know, I never think about what I do afterwards. The moment it’s out of the studio it’s delivered and printed I forget it and I rarely look back at my work and I never sign my work either.’

the images here are publications I found in my archives, from the magazine TWEN in the late sixties…

© heinz edelmann
© twen
© apple corps / the beatles

train

WARNER BROTHERS released on april 21, 1945, HARE TRIGGER, one of my favorite WB-shorts. directed by FRIZ FRELENG it featured BUGS BUNNY and YOSEMITE SAM. as you can see in the credits the BG’s were painted by a master – PAUL JULIAN. below is a recreated long pan from the film.

© WARNER BROTHERS

090909

music

the disney SILLY SYMPHONY MUSIC LAND, directed by WILFRED JACKSON was released october 5, 1935 – 74 years ago. here is a recreated beautiful N/S -pan, painted in watercolor.

© disney enterprises, inc

wood 6

© bilderfabrik