A. Film L.A. test

Taking a little break to prepare some new things. I must say that so far, the response to my Small One draft has been more underwhelming than I feared it would be. There IS no other place to find this information, folks! Look at the film (e.g. via the YouTube links I posted yesterday) and then check out the draft. You may very well learn something new... The good news: Holland in the Final! (Phew!!!) [Addition: It wasn't a pretty final, though quite exciting - which saw Spain win four minutes before the end of the extra time. Oh, well...]

Animation by Gary Goldman, John Pomeroy, Heidi Guedel, Lorna Pomeroy, Bill Hajee and Ron Husband. I admit to not being the greatest fan of the scenes with Joseph - the acting seems based out of drawing problems more than out of the character's emotions. Still, several of John Pomeroy's scenes with the boy and the donkey are touching, the most appealing, really. Heidi Guedel's scene does what it has to, while Lorna Pomeroy (Cook) seems to have gotten a scene that no-one else wanted. After many years of working in the business AFTER having seen the film, I must say that I enjoyed seeing the film again a whole lot more than I expected. I may have been too much of a "Snow White-Pinocchio-Bambi-Dumbo" snob to realize that this little Christmas film has certain merits, the most important of which is that it entertains. As I mentioned a few times, the animation does the job. There are not many brilliant scenes, most is subdued bordering on lackluster, but this is a subd...

Animation by Chuck Harvey, Cliff Nordberg, Gary Goldman, Randy Cartwright, John Pomeroy, Ed Gombert, Don Bluth and Bill Hajee. Cliff Nordberg's auctioneer works well, though not a masterpiece - and the business isn't as entertaining as the three merchants. It is a strange mixture of underplayed over-animation - somehow a sign that he tried to get the best out of very little. Of the boy-and-donkey animators, John Pomeroy definitely has the upper hand - and the best material. Chuck Harvey and Ed Gombert's scenes are not much more than head-turns. Don Bluth and Bill Hajee's crowds are serviceable, and Randy Cartwright's two scenes are less angular than the scenes around them, which is strangely pleasing...

Animation by Gary Goldman, Bill Hajee, Don Bluth, John Pomeroy, Chuck Harvey and the three merchants by veteran Cliff Nordberg. The others all animated the scenes with the boy and the donkey. I admit that the three merchants always were my favorite in this picture, with the caricature of director Bluth in a prominent position. In a large part I do attribute it to the song they sing - at least before the PC Police damaged and corrupted it - but they are well timed and they read very clearly. Clifford Adolph Nordberg was born 4/19/1917 and died 12/20/1979, in the middle of the production of The Fox and the Hound. Animated on most all of Disney's features and not a few featurettes since Make Mine Music, as well as scenes in Richard Williams' Cobbler and the Thief [your favorite title here]. In Heidi Guedel's words "a talented and warm-hearted animator," he obviously was the most experienced animator on The Small One, with more than thirty years under his belt. Was h...

Animation by Gary Goldman (36 scenes), Don Bluth (1), Emily Jiuliano (2), Bill Hajee (2), Chuck Harvey (1 shared), Ron Husband and Heidi Guedel (1 shared - a re-use?). This section is mainly Gary Goldman's. Some of the scenes are sort of mechanical (like the tanner walking towards us), some others (mostly the action scenes) come off quite good. The Roman soldier is no highlight for Gary, or Don, for that matter. And I HAVE to say it: Holland won 2-1 over Brasil!

Animation by John Pomeroy (26 scenes), Don Bluth and Gary Goldman (3 scenes each). John Pomeroy's scenes with the father redeems him partly for the one I mentioned yesterday. I have a hard time understanding the "wiping his forehead but not really" gesture he makes a few times, but scene 10 is solidly drawn and well acted. The animation on the boy and Small One in this section is quite nice, but I do wish we had more direct face-to-face straight eye-contact instead of the tilted-head look at each other sideways. It makes for nicer and possibly clearer drawings, BUT it takes away from the directness in the acting. (See, Jeff? I DO remember what you told me back in Nansensgade in 1984, when I had Loke looking sideways at Thor. I especially remember things I agree with...) Small One drawn by Gary Goldman in closeup in the end is more donkey-like and less cute-toy-animal than in Pomeroy's scenes. Could this be because he drew less of him and thus had a harder time at it...