A. Film L.A. test

Early in 1933 there were 175 people working at Walt Disney's studio, 2719 Hyperion Ave., Los Angeles. On below images you can see now who lived where as they were working on Three Little Pigs! The first map is rather crude but shows who lived further away from the studio. The other maps get closer and closer to the studio, and clearly most employees were centered around it. Note that at this time, Walt had just moved to Woking Way, and Norm Ferguson took over Walt's old house next to Roy's on Lyric Ave., and lived there until 1938... Images exported from DeLorme's Street Atlas USA 2007 Plus...

Here are a few sheets prepared by Production Assistant (later Production Manager) Ed Hansen, whom I remember as he showed me around the second floor of the animation building in August 1978. These sheets were prepared for the clean-up department during the production of Sleeping Beauty, but anyone who has worked in animation for some time has probably seen similar sheets... < Click on it!

Directed by Dave Hand, released 4/13/35, this draft dated 12/11/34. Disney's last black and white film - before TV, of course. Animated by Les Clark, Fred Moore, Dick Lundy, Gerry Geronimi and Hardie "Little Toot" Gramatki... Available on Treasures DVD: Mickey Mouse in Black & White vol.2.

I have discussed the timing of the Mickey Mouse short The Pointer, prod. M-27 aka. 2227, at length. Here is a memo from assistant director Jack Cutting (situated in Music Room B) to Dave Lurie in Short Cutting, 1/30/39, about changes in the effects track. I would like to ask anyone to come forth, who knows why they would air-brush the train sound at Measure 494 etc. Did they add generic noise all the way through? Or did they produce fades up and down by air-brushing them straight on to the optical sound film? Anyone? I really like the expression "Blooping Ink..." < Click on it! When revisiting The Pointer, do not forget to check out my little program I wrote that I called the Beatronome . It is a metronome specifically for animated film beats. It's free! I was hoping that some of you would use it to find the beat structures in other short films, and send them to me or add them as comments, so all can learn from this. For those of you who cannot run PC programs, here i...

More from Børge Ring: Pluto's Judgement Day, Alpine Climbers, Building a Building, Camping Out, The Dognapper, The Mail Pilot, Who killed Cock Robin? These (mentioned at random) are some of the shorts that David Hand directed for Disney. One of them titled Mickey's Polo Team was a breakthrough being the first short to be completed in ruffs before further steps were taken. In 1950 Dave was asked how he went about directing a short for Disney, and this is what he told: "I would isolate myself with the storyboard for three weeks. I would not go to meetings, but I would answer the telephone. I begin timing the film, not necessarily chronologically, but certain passages are already clear in my mind. (I do the pertaining layouts as thumbnails all the while.) Lots of what you decide is instinctive and intuitive, but afterwards you sit back and rationalise it. You analyse what you have being doing. Walt would keep asking WHY you did such and such (also in the story department). H...

Børge Ring relates this personal insight into 'Fergie ruffs':     I asked Grim Natwick if he had known Norman Ferguson in a work context. Here is what he told me:     "Yes, Fergy and I worked in the same room. On monday morning he was pacing up and down the room thinking intently about the scene he was going to do. At three in the afternoon he had the thing clear in his mind and sat down at his desk.     He scribbled very, very fast with a red colour pencil "hammering while the iron was hot." If you looked at the red scribbles you couldn't see what it was. But if you took the pile and flipped them, you knew instantly.     Fergy had been a professional stenographer in NY before he joined Paul Terry and he whipped out a tall amount of "shorthand scribbles" to conserve the spontaneity of his concept, filling in exposure sheets very fast. A test cameraman might appear with sheet 3 to ask whether a particular scribble WAS nu...

Babe is the ox of Paul Bunyan (in production papers often misspelled Bunyon), here shown from all sides in this Tom Oreb model sheet. Oreb was character stylist on this film. Backgrounds were by Eyvind Earle and Walt Peregoy, story by Lance Nolley and Ted Berman, directed by Les Clark, who ok'ed this sheet. It was released 8/1/58 and can be found on the Disney Rarities Treasures DVD... < Click on it!

Directed by Dave Hand and released 11/14/36. This is a rather early draft - as of 8/1/36 some scenes were not yet assigned. Animators that WERE assigned: Izzy Klein, Johnny Cannon, Bill Roberts, Norm Ferguson and Gerry Geronimi. Note that the film is found on the Treasures DVD Silly Symphonies, while its production number shows it was part of the Mickey series... [UPDATE: After the making of this draft, it was moved to the Silly Symphonies series and given prod. nr. US-38. Thanks, JB! Teaches me to check my sources !]

Directed by Riley Thomson who picked it up 7/7/39, this 6th draft was prepared 3/21/40. The film was released 7/17/40. It was most likely also known earlier as RM-37. Excuse the fact that some scenes are missing due to bad copying: nrs. 9 and 48 completely, though one still can make out Emery Hawkins as the animator on scenes 17 and 37.1. A lot of changes have been made due to continuity changing, and assistant director Ralph Chadwick must have had his hands full - one wonders when these changes were made, and if any of the cut scenes were actually animated. This draft interestingly shows the animators AND the effects animators and their respective footage, as on the features - compare with Pinocchio. We see animation by Nick DeTolly, Judge Whitaker, Jim Armstrong, George Goepper, Ken Muse, Lee Morehouse, Volus Jones, Emery Hawkins, Johnny Cannon (his last Disney credit according to Alberto , he died in 1946 age 39), Ken Peterson, [Claude or Paul J.] Smith and George Kreisl, with effe...

Directed by Burt Gillett, released on Walt's 29th birthday, 12/5/1930. We again meet Ben Sharpsteen, Jack King, Norm Ferguson, Johnny Cannon, Les Clark, Wilfred Jackson, Dave Hand, Tom Palmer, Dick Lundy, Frenchy de Tremaudan, Jack Cutting and Charlie Byrne. This is the group (minus the last two) that animated most all of the Mickeys and Silly Symphonies in the early 30's - and made most of the animation-technical discoveries that we take for granted today...