Prod. 2074 - Peter Pan (XVII) - Seq. 15.0 - Voyage Home -- Ending

Directed by Wilfred "JAXON" Jackson, laid out by Maclaren Stewart. Assistant director Mike Holoboff, secretary Toby (Tobelmann).
This FINAL draft dated 11/3/52.

Animation by Marvin Woodward (Lost Boys, John, Michael), Eric Larson (Peter), Harvey Toombs (Wendy), Don Lusk (Tink), Norm Ferguson (Nana), Jack Campbell (Father), Art Stevens, Milt Kahl (Father, Mother, Wendy), Marc Davis (Mother), Hal King (John), George Rowley (anchor chain, pixie dust, sail, ship), Josh Meador (cloud-ship).

And that concludes the draft for Peter Pan, the fourteenth complete feature film draft on this blog! (Ok, you smart-alecks, we still need to see the last page of the Pink Elephant sequence...)

As always, I feel the need to stress that these documents were kept to keep track of the responsible person, and as such it may not reflect precisely the specific directing animators who worked on the sequences. If e.g. an inker or checker needed to find out who animated the scene because of some question, they would need to find the person ultimately responsible for "the lines" - the one who would be able to answer them. It is this person whose name appears on the draft. It was not made for historical purposes, but as we can see, it works pretty well as such. Let's not forget that for every animator we have an assistant, a couple of inbetweeners and cleanup artists - the latter making the final drawings we see on the screen after having been inked (and painted).

My MOST important reason for posting these is to give recognition to those many animators whose names are forgotten since the iconic status of the "Nine Old Men" has overshadowed them all. Mind you, I revere the Nine as the next man, but there were so many more great artists. Today we find e.g Marvin Woodward who was with Disney since September 1930. Jack Campbell started in 1933 and did such memorable scenes as the ones with the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio. Don Lusk started just a year later - and more memorable scenes. As a matter of fact, except for Art Stevens, all animators mentioned above started at Disney in the mid 1930's, excepting Fergie and Woodward, so they had between some 15 and 22 years of experience at this time, not counting their time before they got to Disney's studio. And there were many more animators working on Pan that should be recognized. Cliff Nordberg, Hal Ambro, Jerry Hathcock, Eric Cleworth, Hugh Fraser, etc. etc. It is to recognize the skills and talents of ALL the animators that I post these drafts.

Let's also not forget the layout folks: Charlie Philippi, Ken Anderson, Ken O'Connor, Al Zinnen, Tom Codrick, Don Griffith, Thor Putnam, Lance Nolley and Mac Stewart, whose work we can also now dissect. Like magicians, they were masters in leading the eye of the audience towards just what they want us to look at - something that should be studied by more people in the business. I find, for instance, that we know all too little about the life and work of Maclaren Stewart.

Then there are the sequence directors. This film showed is a very specific location-based subdivision of their work: Jaxon in London, Ham Luske on Neverland and Gerri Geronimi on the pirate ship.
In the end, of course, as always under the supervision on Walt Disney himself, in this period just before the planning of his next, even more ambitious venture, Disneyland.

I hope to have time soon for more of the same. In the mean time, please remember - you saw it here first!