A. Film L.A. test

Prodded by a question in the comments, I added a few thoughts on the famous Multiplane shot in the beginning of Seq. 2 of Pinocchio , giving my opinion on why this 67 foot scene was split up in scenes 1.01 to 1.06. Please check down in the comments section!

...or getting around the limited posts shown when clicking on a label. Michael Barrier, who unwittingly drove my desire for historical information on animation through the invaluable magazine Funnyworld when I first came in contact with it through my mentor Børge Ring in 1978 (where I also saw my first animation drafts) notes on his great site that "unfortunately, I haven't figured out to get to the earliest installments, but a full page of later posts of the draft comes up when you click on the label "Dumbo."" If you look to the right column, there you find the "Archives" links. In the case of Dumbo, the first posts are from April 2010, so pressing that link will show them. This should give you access to most of the 630 earlier postings. Whenever there are too many posts to be able to be shown within a month, this can cause the last ones to "drop off," which has annoyed me for quite some time. In this Blogger template, I do not know how t...

Here is the final installment of the draft of Prod. 2003, Pinocchio! "It's done!" The entire draft of Pinocchio is now online. In this last sequence directed by Ham Luske and laid out by Ken Andersen, we find Pinocchio by Milt Kahl and Ollie Johnston (and Bob Youngquist in sc. 14.2, I'd guess), Geppetto by Art Babbitt (his hands by Bill Shull), Jiminy Cricket by Don Towsley, Bernie Wolf and Ward Kimball, Figaro and Cleo by Eric Larson (and a Figaro by Lynn Karp). Today, 67 years and 38 days after the premiere of this Multiplane Technicolor masterpiece, I want to thank all the artists who made this film possible. Having cost around $2,600,000 in 1940, it has to date grossed an estimated $84,300,000 domestically, which I would say makes it quite successful. Even better: it has entertained zillions worldwide through all those 67 years. It is doubtful that we will ever see the same amount of craftmanship on one film ever again. Let it be a lesson to us all. Now I will sit...

In this one-before-last installment, we meet Milt Kahl's Pinoke and Woolie Reitherman's whale, with appearances by Art Babbitt, Jack Bradbury, Bill Shull and Eric Larson, and quite a bit of Art Palmer... Here is a fun bit of info: the copies of the Pinocchio storyboards that Michael Sporn is posting are actually quite well known to me: they are copies of the stats of the boards that Dave Hand gave my old mentor Børge Ring back in 1950, photographs of which Børge gave to John Canemaker. I spent a lot of time in the early 80s studying these. It's a Small World After All!

Woolie Reitherman, Milt Kahl and [Don] Patt[erson] whip up an exciting climax, in this sequence, directed as the other "outside Monstro" sequences, by Bill Roberts, laid out by Al Zinnen. Hurray for Mark Mayerson's mosaics and Michael Sporn's posting John Canemaker's copies of the Pinocchio storyboards! Not only is the material getting out, but more importantly, questions are being asked, points are being made and knowledge is increasing...

More of the same... Yesterday, I was mistaken. Milt Kahl passed away April 19th, 1987. I must have looked wrong on an old calendar. We will observe our moment of silence then... Layout man Hugh Hennesy passed away March 14th 1954, and Martin Provensen passed away some time in March 1987, but still... My excuses if you had thought to do something big on Milt's anniversary - you'll have to wait a month.

There is certainly a lot of variation in the animation staff in this sequence, the Reunion in Whale directed by Jack Kinney... Pinoke by Les Clark, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl and Harvey Toombs. Geppetto by Bill Shull, Walt Kelly, Bob Stokes, Fred Moore, Art Babbitt and (in a scene with Pinoke) Milt Kahl. Figaro by Jack Bradbury, Don Lusk and Lynn Karp, Cleo by Don Lusk. Whale and cricket by Woolie Reitherman. I can't really figure out what Murray McClellan did in sc. 12 and 14, but he was credited for screen footage and a half, so it wouldn't be effects. After all this splitting up of scenes, I was surprised to see sc. 24.3 animated all by Milt. Which reminds me: tomorrow we should remember Milt fondly for all the great things he has given us, as it will be twenty years ago that he passed away... [Added: no!]

Just as yesterday we find a Jack Kinney sequence with Walt Kelly's Geppetto and Eric Larson's Figaro, and a Bill Roberts sequence all animated by Woolie Reitherman, not only doing the whale, but the cricket as well! Even a few Multiplane shots in there. Note, after seq. 10.4 are 10.8 and 10.9, and then 10.5...

Many scenes were cut from Jack Kinney's sequence inside the whale, with Walt Kelly's Geppetto, Eric Larson's Figaro. There are more scenes cut than there are left. The numbering on Bill Roberts' sequence with Woolie Reitherman's Monstro the Whale seems only a little less worked-over.... Check out Mark Mayerson's third installment of Pinocchio mosaics, in which he points out inaccuracies in the draft, e.g. that a scene is missing, it thus wrongly attributing a Pinocchio scene to Jack Campbell, the animator of the Blue Fairy! Why have we not noticed this before? Good work, Mark!

Woolie Reitherman's Monstro the Whale, Fred Moore's Geppetto, Eric Larson's Figaro , Don Lusk's Cleo and Tuna by John J. McManus. Sequence directors Jack Kinney and Bill Roberts have been shuffeling scenes to make this work...

Another Roberts sequence, this one entirely shot on the Multiplane camera. Animation by Milt Kahl and Woolie Reitherman, with two scenes by Les Clark.

Another Bill Roberts sequence with layouts by Dick Kelsey and Al Zinnen. This time the secretary Toby (Tobelman?) has a hard time spelling. Wollie? Rhomas? Gipetto? Really... Except for two scenes by Harvey Toombs, Pinoke is animated by Frank Thomas. Jiminy by Woolie Reitherman.

Sequence direction by Ham Luske and layout Hugh Hennesy. This is one of motion picture history's "strong moments," with Fred Moore's Lampwick turning into a donkey (by Eric Larson) before our eyes - or nearly so, at least, as it is staged so we only see parts of him transform. Pinoke by Ollie Johnston, Milt Neil and Milt Kahl is terrified. Don Towsley's Jiminy gets him out in a hurry...

Børge Ring sent me this to put up here. It adds to the fray of Culhaniana of late... " Does Shamus shame us? a tate gallery mystery Shamus Culhane said many times that the best piece of animation he did for Walt Disney Studios was the scene in the coachman inn where Fox and Giddy are horrified and cling to each other. The scene IS beautiful but I think his VERY best job was a sequence in a Geronimi short (Beach Picnic 1939), where Pluto fights in the water with an inflated rubber animal he thinks is real. One difficulty was to keep the inflated doll looking dead in spite of all the hefty action. Culhane ended up building an "inflated doll of paper" that he could "scotorope" like Disney's later would do with automobiles during "The Dalmatians." (Probably also during "Wynken Blynken and Nod" where a wooden shoe turns around its length axis in 72 frames on ones.) In "Alpine Climbers" Ferguson manages to throw a frozen stiff Plut...

Between seq. 8-3 and 8-5 we find seq. 9.4. A scary bit of work, directed by Bill Roberts, layout by Dick Kelsey. Poor Alexander can at least boast of having been animated by Eric Larson. Others featured here are Woolie Reitherman, Charles 'Nick' Nichols and Bill Shull, with scenes by Paul Busch, [Don] Patterson, Jack Bradbury and Lynn Karp.

In the poolroom with Fred Moore, Milt Kahl and Ward Kimball, and with Bernie Wolf, John Elliotte and Milt Neil. Sequence directed by Ham Luske who is credited for sc. 20-1 ("C.U. - Cue Ball - It winks -") at half the Screen Footage. Layouts Hugh Hennesy. It is also here interesting to look at the scene numbers to get a feeling of how much effort was expended to mould this sequence into its final state... Also, again, interesting to note that the effects animators are consistently credited with 1/8 Screen Footage...

Remember the discussion we had about Shamus Culhane's animation showing up on the draft as Norm Tate? Well, I had a little think about it. I wonder why I didn't do that before. I have previously expressed that the drafts are working documents that should point those in need of information to the responsible person. Since Culhane left, the responsible person and the one to be on the draft would logically be his assistant, Norm Tate. In other words, it is correct that Tate is on the drafts. The questions should instead be about credit: 1) why isn't Culhane credited on the film, and 2) why is Norm Tate? The first one is easy to answer: he left. Sorry, no credit. We have seen this more often - remember the missing credits for Don, John and Gary on The Fox and the Hound? Not a very nice thing to do in my book, but, well, a fact of life. The second one I have as yet no answer for, except maybe that some production person made a list of credits based on the draft, which under NOR...

We haven't seen Bill Roberts as sequence director yet, have we? Here with layout by Al Zinnen and Dick Kelsey. Animation by Don Lusk, Fred Moore, [Don] Patterson, Don Towsley, Marvin [Woodward] and Charles 'Nick' Nichols. Quite a change for Don Lusk when he did the sultry fish in the Arabian Dance in Fantasia...

Les Clark's Pinoke and Fred Moore's Lampwick on their wild ride to Pleasure Island...