A. Film L.A. test

...with Walt Disney's new animation kit! Only $6.95... This is an ad leaflet with insert from the late 50s. The insert seems to be a later addition, as they may have found that not too many people had any idea what they could use the animation kit for. The contents of the box have been discussed some time ago, on Jenny Lerew's blog . What I especially liked was that one could turn in ones drawings with exposure sheet at the Art Corner, and get a pencil test on 16mm of it in return! I wonder how long that lasted! Now - do we know anyone who started his/her career in animation using this kit?

CartoonBrew's Amid Amidi sent me a message to spread the word about a free cartoon on Cartoon Brew TV, Van Beuren's 1928 Dinner Time . Amid says: " I'm sure you already know the story behind this, but this is the film that inspired Walt to pursue making "Steamboat Willie". It was a sound film that Walt saw in New York in 1928 and which made him realize that he could do a better job of combining sound and animation. "Dinner Time" is specifically mentioned in a letter from Walt Disney to his brother Roy and collaborator Ub Iwerks. Excerpts from the letter are reprinted in the Disney bios by Neal Gabler, Bob Thomas and Michael Barrier, but the actual film hasn't been seen in 80 years. We're presenting the short exclusively on Cartoon Brew TV. You can see the original short as well as hear a newly recorded audio commentary by Jerry Beck and Mark Kausler. It's free to watch, and feel free to embed the video directly if you're so inspired

Remember that I spoke of a box of early Disney goodies in Kentucky, sold off at Christie's East? Here is one of the items sold at the time, the storyboard of the 1929 short The Plow Boy, drawn by Ub Iwerks, the director. I scanned these from Christie's June 9th, 1995 catalog. In lieu of a draft, this has animator assignments on it. The catalog front page is in color, so I reconstructed it here: << Click On It! Here are all the pages: The early Mickeys were made in close cooperation between Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Ub drew the boards, but Walt was never far away. Some of the names may not be in Walt's handwriting, as noted in the description. Read this, though, as it saves me from typing a lengthy, redundant explanation. (Click to enlarge!) I believe I was told this board fetched a neat $42,000... (Note: IMDb calls the film The Plowboy, but some contemporary documents I have call it The Plow Boy, and even The Plough Boy!)

A quick word before I continue with new postings. If you are new to my blog, I'd like to refer you to the archive pages linked to in the right side bar. Here you can find out how most all of Disney's shorts from 1928 and for some 25 years onwards were timed to a musical beat. You can read who animated which scenes on 60+ Disney short films and five feature films. You can find the technical manuals and transcripts of Action Analysis Classes of the 30s. And let's not forget information on early Disney patents. There are animation drawings, model sheets, articles and curiosa. Most of the stuff in the 433 postings over the last 2 years and a bit has never been published anywhere else. And then there is some info on my own studio as well! This last week saw the Danish premiere of our feature film Journey to Saturn, based on the 1970s Danish graphic novel by the late Claus Deleuran...

From a recent acquisition, the first post-war 1949 British Mickey Mouse Merchandise catalog, comes this page which sends the mind reeling... << Click On It!

You must have heard by now that Volume 2 of Russell Schroeder's "Disney's Lost Chord" is finished and ships! Read more about it and order it here ! As to myself, I am now residing in Southern California, and moved into a new apartment, which is why I have not been able to update this blog. Too much to see to, and no internet connection! This is now fixed, so there is more to follow soon!

Last week-and-a-half, I stumbled upon Bill Garity's Disney Legends plaque on one of the pillars on the structure surrounding Legends Plaza (where the reflecting pool was before) on the Disney Studio lot. Since I am nothing if not a completist, I include a picture of it here... << Click On It!

A few more images of the Archives Multiplane Camera. I took these last week...

         Much of animation is simply a matter of doing a job as it should be done. Maybe a scene is no more than a funny walk or a brief dance step. An animator's responsibility is to interpret a track, picking it apart mentally and then making his animation interpret each innuendo, each nuance with drawings that hopefully add life to a scene—even beyond the scope of the soundtrack.          An important part of a track is musical. The music beat is vital to the artist. On an animator's work sheet, usually referred to as an Exposure Sheet, music beats are indicated in actual film frames. An eight (8) beat would be eight frames of film; a twelve (12) beat, twelve frames of film. It is natural to assume that an artist's plan would be to carefully accent each musical beat, however, astute animators avoid anything so mundane.          A musical beat is a marvelous thing. An animator can split it in the middle, avoid it completely, or even divide it into three or four parts as a

In truth I never thought I would see this draft completed. I had previously posted page one of it (the first image below) and noted that it was the first page of the original typed draft of Prod. CM-10, The Birthday Party, directed by Burt Gillett, released Jan. 6th, 1931. It only goes to show that it's a small world after all: When director Burt Gillett (1891-1971) was lured away by Van Beuren in 1934 after his tremendous success with Three Little Pigs, he took with him to New York a box of drawings and notes. He gave these to a Jeannie, the 14-year old daughter of a family that Gillett and his first wife Louise had befriended. Years passed, and so did Jeannie - and the box ended up with her sister and her husband, a farmer (and very nice person) in Kentucky. In the 70s they rediscover the box (and split it into two boxes), and try to find interest in the items, but find there isn't any. Then, in the late 80s, they happen to see an article about a New York collector in a maga

First the copyright synopsis, so we know what we are dealing with, if we cannot quickly pull out disc 2 of the Treasures DVD - Mickey Mouse in Black and White Vol. 2. << Click on it! Directed by Burt Gillett, released 9/29/34, this draft dated 6/18/34. Animation by Hardie "Little Toot" Gramatky, Marvin Woodward, Johnnie Cannon, Bob Wickersham, Tom Palmer (one scene), Fred Moore, Dick Lundy, Bill Roberts and, of course Ben Sharpsteen, also as supervisor of Cy Young and Roy Williams. The story is simple and sweet, but somewhat curious. Maybe naive is a better description. The animation shows lapses back to the simpler style of a few years earlier, with speedlines galore, but we are also seeing small glimpses of things to come in the color Mickeys a year later. Hardie Gramatky's figure slinking about the house is very theatrical (but as such nicely animated), while Johnnie Cannon's scenes with a scared Mickey and Pluto even here seem a bit old-fashioned - the same