Prod. 2006 - Dumbo (I)

010203
Seq. 01.0 "Stork Sequence"
Directed by Sam Armstrong, assistant director Lloyd Richardson, layout Bob Cormack. This 2nd draft probably dated 2/26/41.
The first page says 5/26, the next pages 2/26.

Effects animation by Josh Meador, Miles Pike, Jack Gayek, Cy Young, Karl Van Leuven, George Rowley and Dan McManus.
"Additional character" animation by Harvey Toombs and Ed Aardal, with Mrs. Jumbo by Bill Tytla and Bill Shull.

Sam Armstrong was background painter to begin with, having created wonderful masterpieces for The Old Mill and, of course, Snow White. He also sequence-directed on Fantasia before his work on Dumbo, and on Bambi. Later he did layouts for Warner, but I have no idea why he left the studio around 41 - as he seems to not have been one of the strikers. One of the people we need to learn more about.

The Supervising Director of Dumbo was Ben Sharpsteen, who also is credited for the final sequence. One can, of course, find a lot of additional info on IMDb, as well, e.g. on the writers...

(If you feel I am posting this too slowly - well... Too bad ;-)

Comments

  1. Jeff OverturfApril 19, 2010 at 10:16 AM

    Slow is jest fine when the work you're doing is so important.

    You can't yell at a bottle of milk to make the cream rise faster!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Zartok-35April 19, 2010 at 12:05 PM

    Wonderful! You're off to a fine start.

    I always wondered if Sharpsteen did any real work on the movie, and I'm not too surprised he finished it off. I couldn't trace that sequence to anyone else.

    ReplyDelete
  3. John V.April 19, 2010 at 3:12 PM

    Karl Van Leuven worked on Claire de Lune / Blue Bayou, didnt he? I guess he was the non-anthropomorphised stork guy.

    A lot of the Disney films have a nostalgic value for me and certain sequencs especially: this is one I have seen more times than most others in the film, featuring as it did on a sing-along songs tape.

    Interested in some of my thoughts on this song, and its implications about the style Disney was going for? Well, check out this post I made on my blog:

    http://darmokthegreen.blogspot.com/2010/01/closer-look-at-a-single-line-from-walt.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. MattApril 20, 2010 at 12:10 PM

    We know Samuel Armstrong did the art for an Alice in Wonderland book and other merchandise, assuming it is the same person.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Steven HartleyApril 30, 2010 at 1:43 PM

    I think the best animation of the sequence has to be Cy Young's storks (John V, I think Karl Van Leuven did the rain effects, its just a guess), I mean I think those scenes are gorgeous and colorful, and well animated, its a shame that Cy Young is an uncredited animator, what did he do after Disney?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Steven HartleyMay 1, 2010 at 10:47 AM

    Sorry, my mistake, Cy Young wasn't an uncredited animator, I know that we received screen-credit (he deserved it)and what I meant was that he doesn't receive enough recognition like some of the other animators like Bill Tytla, Ward Kimball, Art Babbitt, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  7. John V.May 9, 2010 at 8:03 AM

    I don't see any rain effects in scene 19 which credits Van Leuven -- in fact, I think the rain is just credited to "Spec. Efx" rather than to a specific animator.

    However, looking at the Clair de Lune credits again, I see that Robert Cormack and "Van Luven" are credited with "layout" and the top billed animator is Cy Young -- so it looks like Young probably did animate the storks, as well as the bundles/parachutes.

    ReplyDelete

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