Prod. 2057 - Fun and Fancy Free (II) - Prod. 2043 - Seq. 01.0 - Opening - Happy Valley
We take it slow: we go one sequence at a time. As I said yesterday, even though Bongo is first in the film, Mickey and the Beanstalk is first in the draft, so we go in draft order. This is Seq. 01.0 of Prod. 2043, which is Mickey and the Beanstalk; it does not carry the Fun and Fancy Free production number 2057 which was not attached to the whole film until the two parts were combined.
Directed by Bill Roberts assisted by Mike Holoboff.
Layout by Al Zinnen.
This FINAL draft dated 11/6/1946 by Eloise Ann "Toby" Tobelmann, with Disney since 8/14/1935.
Animation by Jack Campbell (Harp), John McManus (Birds and effects), Ted Bonnicksen, Les Clark, George Goepper (cow), John Sibley (cow and bull), Woolie Reitherman (crows), with effects by George Rowley, Dan MacManus and Josh Meador.
For those of you who see the label M.R. for the first time, it means Music Room and is used for scenes that needed timing but no animation. The Music Room was room with a piano, occupied by the director and the musician, and together they timed the sequence or film. This also illustrates the importance of music to the timing of the films as discussed here.
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Layout by Al Zinnen.
This FINAL draft dated 11/6/1946 by Eloise Ann "Toby" Tobelmann, with Disney since 8/14/1935.
Animation by Jack Campbell (Harp), John McManus (Birds and effects), Ted Bonnicksen, Les Clark, George Goepper (cow), John Sibley (cow and bull), Woolie Reitherman (crows), with effects by George Rowley, Dan MacManus and Josh Meador.
For those of you who see the label M.R. for the first time, it means Music Room and is used for scenes that needed timing but no animation. The Music Room was room with a piano, occupied by the director and the musician, and together they timed the sequence or film. This also illustrates the importance of music to the timing of the films as discussed here.
Not sure what to make of the casting of scenes 13 and 14. Scene 13 is Campbell and Bonnicksen and has bluebirds and lambs (but no harp, despite Campbell being assigned to it) and scene 14 is credited to Clark and Bonnicksen has just lambs (though the draft indicates the bluebirds are on screen as well). I wonder who animated what?
ReplyDeleteThe casting suggests a c. 1940 origin for this sequence, with Holoboff, Zinnen and Woolie all working on a Bill Roberts sequence, as on Pinocchio and Fantasia.
There's quite a bit of re-use in this sequence, although it isn't quite jarring. John McManus' blue birds in sc. 9 channels "Bambi", whilst sc. 9 of calves and sc. 31 of crows, pays homage to "Ferdinand the Bull" and the crows in "Dumbo", respectively. It's blended in between original animation, which makes it less obvious.
ReplyDeleteJack Campbell takes on a feat with the Golden Harp, especially when her character design restricts full movement from the waist down.
Regarding Les Clark, I suspect he might've been supervising Ted Bonnicksen in these scenes? Was Clark supervising animation in a similar role to Ben Sharpsteen in the early 30s?
For years I assumed the crows and scarecrow scene was a Ward Kimball scene, because the crows kind of look like the ones from Dumbo.
ReplyDeleteHello, Hans. Since you started posting animator drafts again, I have but one question regarding to the Snow White drafts. In the scene where Snow White runs through the Woods, the sequences on the drafts indicate there are more trips and falls by branches and logs than what are shown in the final film. What happened to those sequences that didn't make the cut?
ReplyDeleteHey Christian, as I wrote in an addition to my posting of that seq., "It is well-known that things were cut from the film even after the December 23rd, 1937 premiere, and the draft has info for the so-called "deleted scenes" like the dwarfs' bedroom fight and the soup sequence." There is, to my knowledge, no copy of the version of the film as it premiered in existence. For all we know, it may have been used as a work reel to cut the release print! The fact that on my version, from the BG Morgue, there are notes of scenes "never signed in" may indicate that the scenes did not even make it to the final stage, and may not have been in that elusive Premiere print. As such, we may never know exactly what did and did not make it. We can only see what is in the release print, and even then there may have been changes made after the first releases...
ReplyDeleteThis was Les Clark's first credit as a directing animator, so he may very well be supervising Ted Bonnicksen here. If not that, then I'd say Campbell and Clark are doing birds, with Ted doing the lambs in both scenes.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to tell if this is pre-shelf or post shelf production. I'm inclined to say this is after, but I didn't think Woolie was back from his aviation leave until later than 1946. It's interesting to see so much of Woolie and Sibley here. Billy Bob is resurrecting his casting from "Rite of Spring".