Directed by Jack Kinney, layout by Lance Nolley and Thor Putnam. Animation by Ed Aardal ("incidentals"), Les Clark, Ollie Johnston, Harvey Toombs (Ichabod & girls) and Hal King (Brom Bones & boys). This FINAL draft dated 10/4/48.
I would think it fair to guess that Ollie was the Supervising Animator for this sequence. Again a lot of reworking: scenes 3 to 21 out of the picture?
Today the first Ichabod scene is by Les Clark, yesterday it was Larson. I'm starting to notice a pattern here! Harvey Toombs gets all the shots of Ichabod eating, too.
Ollie Johnston does a good job here, I knew it was either him or Frank working on it. Why would Les Clark be working on a small scene if he's probably not going to be on the rest of this short? This is another sequence where it features "Ollie's girls", and his animation here is very on-model.
Hal King is rather off-model with Broms here, compared to Milt Kahl.
Oh, and a small correction: Ed Aardal is not animating effects, but townspeople and animals. It would still count as "character animation", even if they are only incidental "extras". :)
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...
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...
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...
Today the first Ichabod scene is by Les Clark, yesterday it was Larson. I'm starting to notice a pattern here! Harvey Toombs gets all the shots of Ichabod eating, too.
ReplyDeleteI wondered, why they put two layout artists on this small sequence...
ReplyDeleteThe narration is different in the last couple of scenes.
ReplyDeleteOllie would have been supervising animator for the scenes with Ichabod and the women; Milt Kahl would have supervised the Brom Bones scenes.
ReplyDeleteOllie Johnston does a good job here, I knew it was either him or Frank working on it. Why would Les Clark be working on a small scene if he's probably not going to be on the rest of this short? This is another sequence where it features "Ollie's girls", and his animation here is very on-model.
ReplyDeleteHal King is rather off-model with Broms here, compared to Milt Kahl.
Oh, and a small correction: Ed Aardal is not animating effects, but townspeople and animals. It would still count as "character animation", even if they are only incidental "extras". :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, John V.! I haven't had the time to revisit the film yet, even though I am posting these pages, so at times my recollection fails - sorry!
ReplyDeleteThanks, EVERYONE, for commenting! Keep it coming!