This must be watched over and over and over again. The timing, the control over volumes, the spacing. Sigh. A much needed bout of animation inspiration early on in this week.
The Disney Animation building in 1959 - the era of Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone. From a 50-year old time capsule that was recently raised from the Magnolia Bridge.
(via jerry)
Playing around with Cooliris for the first time (definite recommend if you’re into eye candy), guess what popped up when I searched for “disney animation”? A picture of me and my first job on an animated feature Pocahontas. That’s me crouching down in the middle.
To have this kind of control over animating 3D characters! Not sure how practical it would be in the short term, but the prospects for future development are certainly encouraging. An entire new subset of animation could exist - hand-drawn in 3D!
Chris Sanders is now the director on the next film I’m working on, How to Train Your Dragon. Dean DeBlois is coming on as a writer as well. Have to admit, I always liked Lilo and Stitch, so this is pretty exciting.
Look who made the Fall Movie Preview in People magazine this week! That’s my scene there and let me tell you - it took quite awhile to get all 6 of them in there for a group hug!
Disney Animation Reveals Brand New Site
Sporting the retro Mickey and a slick and simple interface, Walt Disney Animation Studios unleashed their brand new site yesterday (at least, it looks brand new to me - I’ve never seen it before!).
I love how wonderfully simple the site is - no extraneous garbage and no ads. A clear well-designed site like this not only is easier and more enjoyable to navigate but also speaks of a conscious effort to communicate effectively with their intended audience (in this case, anyone looking for information on what Disney Animation is all about). Hopefully this is a reflection of their new direction—something perhaps we can expect from the stories they plan on telling.
There’s plenty of information on submitting reels, studio life, and future projects. Unfortunately there isn’t any information on taking tours:
We are very busy making our next films, and cannot accommodate tours at this time.
I hope this doesn’t offend anybody who’s worked there the past 10 years…but it sure is nice to have Disney Animation back again.
Saludos Amigos Concept Sketches
Found. An English translation of a French blog:
...devoted exclusively to artistic research of the Disney’s animation feature films. Creating an animation feature film is an art.
So far the blog seems to focus mainly on concept sketches like the one above (Pedro’s story being my favorite from Saludos Amigos). But there is the requisite post on Glen Keane and some great story sketches from Dumbo.
Mid-century Textbook Takes a Tour of Disney’s
Jerry over at CartoonBrew has posted a neat look at the Disney studios in 1948. It’s a children’s textbook so there really isn’t that much insight into the studio. Nevertheless, it’s always great too see how the process of animation was described throughout the years (that is, before the Internet). Choice quote:
Many people would like to see how motion pictures are made. If they all visited the studios, the studio workers could not do their work. That is why the studios have high fences around them.
You know, to keep the workers working.
Oddly enough, I never thought of myself as a “studio worker” before. In fact, the constant use of the word “workers” doesn’t make the greatest job in the world sound all that exciting, does it?
(via cartoon brew)
