Hearing Børge Ring Play


Makin' Whoopee! played by Børge Ring in 1978.

This music means a lot to me! It was the opening of the March 1978 tv program called "Aan de Grenzen" (On the Borders) by Veronica tv presenter Tineke Vos, about Børge Ring's animation and Jazz music, and his wife Joanika's scuptures. It presented a film that was just finished called "Oh My Darling" before it went across the globe, winning the Jury Prize in Cannes and an Oscar nomination, to boot.

This was the very first time I heard of Børge as animator/film maker. Previously, I only knew that he drew a comic strip "Distel" for the magazine "Sjors." At the end of the program it listed among other things the town where Børge lived then, and to my surprise, it was only some three miles away from where I (then a 16 years old High School kid) lived, so I boldly called him up and asked if I could meet him, wanting to learn all I could about animation.

[From Wikipedia: "Makin' Whoopee!" is a jazz/blues song, first popularized by Eddie Cantor in the 1928 musical Whoopee!. Walter Donaldson wrote the music and Gus Kahn the lyrics for the song as well as for the entire musical.]
This is the beginning of the song, 58 seconds. Tineke asks Børge: "What do all Jazz musicians have in common?" to which he answers "Love for Jazz."

Comments

  1. Steven HartleyFebruary 26, 2011 at 1:11 AM

    Interesting - was it Borge Ring playing the acoustic guitar theme or that was someone else?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hans PerkFebruary 26, 2011 at 2:38 AM

    Børge played guitar and bass on his short films. On 'Oh My Darling' he had a fellow named Boy van Hattum playing drums (and doing the voice of the boy), while on 'Anna & Bella', Jan Huydts played synthesizers. He had two keyboards, both analog pre-1984 ones (a Sequential Profet 5 for a full sound and an ARP Omni-2 for spot effects and riffs, I seem to recall), so it is always quite clear when it is Børge or Jan playing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Michael SpornFebruary 26, 2011 at 5:35 AM

    Ths was wonderful. Thanks for sharing it. I listened to it four times over. A real treat for a Saturday morning.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Steven HartleyApril 2, 2011 at 10:12 AM

    This probably sounds late and that you must be busy around this time - but are chords available?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prod. CM8 - The Picnic

Image
Directed by Burt Gillett. Released 10/23/30, this FINAL draft dated 9/13/30. Animation by Dave Hand, Jack King, Charlie Byrne, Norm Ferguson, Dick Lundy, Johnny Cannon, Les Clark, Ben Sharpsteen, Tom Palmer, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Cutting and Frenchy de Trémaudan. Found on the Treasures DVD Mickey Mouse in Black and White, Vol. 2 Disk 1 or on YouTube, though in very low quality here . A cute little film, this is actually a landmark in animation history. "Can I bring Rover?" Little Rover is, of course, none other than Pluto! Fergy's scene 27 is often "quoted" when discussing the origins of this the most famous of cartoon canines. It is very interesting to see the difference in drawing styles. Fergy tries to draw a dog and mostly does a very nice job. Compare this with e.g. Palmer's attempt in the final scene. It is a "funny cartoon balloon animal," a much more simplistic and symbolic way of drawing. Palmer, Cannon and Lundy seem not to be quite up to...
Read more

Prod. CM20 - Mickey Cuts Up

Image
Mickey Cuts Up was directed by Burt Gillett and released 11/30/1931. It is found on Disney Treasures DVD: Mickey Mouse in Black & White Volume 1 disc 1. You may still find it here on YouTube. Have a look, if you need a clearer understanding of the following documents! Gillett left some documents pertaining Mickey Cuts Up behind, and I would like here to show a few of these that I recently lucked into. It is interesting to speculate in which order these were written - they seem to all be in Gillett's own handwriting and would probably date to late August or early September 1931. First we have two pages, numbered 1 & 2, with ideas linked to names, Otto and Webb, which to me seems to mean that the ideas were originally thought out by either Otto Englander or Webb Smith. There are interesting ideas that did not make the film - they are crossed out: "mower bumps up and down on hedge - trick cuts." Some were not crossed out and made it in the film: "Cuts down tre...
Read more

Average Animator Footage in 1938

Image
Two and a half months after the premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, on March 11, 1938, Producer/Supervising Director Dave Hand issued this memo called DEADLINES. Of course, everybody in the animation business has gotten memos called this, but here is an insight into just how much was produced by the (now) famous animators at Disney's in the Golden Age. Fred Moore stands out as missing on this memo, but otherwise it is quite a list of top talent. (Bernard Garbutt animated?) Now, I do not remember when Disney changed to a 5-day work week, but let's say it was before this time: in this case Norm Ferguson had a weekly average of 35 feet, or 23 seconds 8 frames! Pretty high up we also find Fred Spencer, Frank Thomas and Bill Tytla, with 30 feet, or 20 seconds each. On the other end of the scale is Larry Clemmons with 10 feet or 6 seconds and 16 frames, followed by Ollie Johnston and Don Lusk with 12.5 feet or 8 seconds 8 frames each... Since the second page was a bit ha...
Read more