A. Film L.A. test

This undated set of pages was distributed at the Disney Studios some time in the mid-1930s as part of the training program. They describe the technique of drawing drapery (clothing) in simple terms, so once you have read this you'll never forget this. Well, I didn't, in any case. It's been too long - I have been busy with our new film Albert which has its premiere this weekend! I'll show you some of it in my next posting. More VERY soon, including the drafts I promised!

As you have seen in the past weeks, the folder called "Studio Talks - Series 1" that came to me via Disney animator Don Patterson (and intermediate sales people) has in-depth views of the layout processes of composition and staging, as well as the workings of sound recording of 1938 [or 1939]. In a comment, layout man and teacher at Sheridan College Scott Caple underlines the importance of this document, and this is why I have, for ease of use, made a PDF file which collects the images so they are more readily accessible. You can download it here (5.61 MB). Also, because of Scott's enthusiasm, I have made high-res scans of copies I made of the plates in the documents (I took the actual document to California, but I am right now in Denmark), and I put them in a ZIP file here (23.23 MB). It would be wonderful if these documents (as anything else I post) indeed are used to teach new generations of artists the lessons that were learned back in the 1930s when the Disney stud...

This concludes the lectures in the folder Studio Talks. Tomorrow: a final word about it. In the mean time, by all means feel free to comment! [Added: In the Q&A you will find reference to "the new plant in Burbank," which leads me to believe that the actual date of this lecture was around mid 1939...]

This part includes a graphic from a 1938 Radio Today which maps dB to frequency - quite interesting! Also, more on the every-day recording issues at the Disney studios...

Not too much is know to animation enthusiasts about the recording of the sound during this period, and this lecture sheds some light on the process, and the every-day problems that the sound engineers encountered. I still wonder when Sam Slyfield started at Disney, as his official credits start two years after this lecture, and he was obviously already here in 1938 an important sound engineer.

Charles O. "Sam" Slyfield was born 5/11/1898 and died in San Diego 1/15/1974. His earliest screen credit as sound recordist was for Fantasia (1940) and from 1950 he was sound director, until Lady and the Tramp in 1955. Sam Slyfield at the Iron Pencil in 1953. Sam Slyfield followed in the footsteps of Bill Garity and passed the torch on to Robert O. Cook (Manitowoc, Wisconsin 9/27/1903 - Pasadena 11/9/1995) whose credits at Disney extend from the 40s well into the 70s. Slyfield and Cook shared a Scientific/Technical Academy Award Class III for the design and development of an audio finder and track viewer for checking and locating noise in sound tracks, in 1946 (with Artur F. Blinn), and both men had three Academy Award nominations, albeit for different films. In this, the third lecture in the series "Studio Talks" from the folder that originally was owned by animator Don Patterson, we get a first-hand impression of the state of sound recording back in 1938. [A lot...

This last part of the second lecture in the folder "Studio Talks" looks back on the plates we saw in the first of the postings. This whole lecture makes for a rather large document, 67 pages. I am looking forward to hearing your views in the comments. There must be more to say about this...? Next up Sam (C.O.) Slyfield, of whom we haven't heard much before. Maybe that is a wrong way to put it, as we ALL have heard material from his hand, as he was the main sound recordist at the Disney studio during its (first) heyday, at least until Lady and the Tramp! Remember to also check out Mike Sporn's recaps of the layout Training Courses #1 (by Tom Codrick) here and #3 (by Chas. Philippi) here (I posted #2 (by Ken Anderson) here and here and the exercises here ), as well as a discussion by Phil Dike about the layout man's relation to the director (Dave Hand) here !

Continuation of the text using the earlier plates. Ken O'Connor touches on dissolves and irises, backgrounds and Technicolor, in short the daily routines of the Disney layout man in the late 30s...

More interesting text using the earlier plates...

Again, check the images from two days ago!