Ollie on the Next Generation of Animators
Some time ago, Pete Emslie posted a wonderful tribute to Ollie Johnston. In his post he uploaded a scanned image of a letter he received from Ollie. The text of that letter is so priceless that, in an effort to make it available in digital form, I’ve gone ahead and transcribed it. Of course, nothing can replace the original (the letter or the man behind it).
The following is a transcript of the letter:
Frank and I get called in on most of the features as consultants. I’m not sure how much we help them because they are really thinking a different way than we did. We try to plug warmth and heart and personality relationships and good acting but they are more tuned to the new way of doing story where something new is happening every minute and you don’t really have time to stay with the stuff and bring out the personalities the way Walt tried to do. Part of the trouble is that the young animators don’t yet know how to get all this stuff into their work. They have some real good animators who are excellent draftsmen but they are only now beginning to discover the possibilities in character relationships and letting the audience know what their drawings are trying to say - what they are trying to tell the audience. I think in the next few years you will see some improvement in this.
I think there is some improvement in the animation in The Little Mermaid over what was done in OLIVER[and Company]. From what I’ve seen so far it has more heart but there is a ways to go, that’s for sure. The young directors will tell us that they like our ideas but they don’t know how to put them on the screen. I can sympathize because I sure had trouble too. It’s a tough medium - there is so much to think of and it’s so easy to mess up on something.
The big thing that is encouraging is the fact that the new management sees the importance of animation. Of course they look at it much from the standpoint of how much money they can make with it. But still, I’m pleased with the interest that Jeffrey Katzenburg has in the department and the fact that he would even call us in encourages me. I think that given time some of these guys will animate something not like we did, but something of their own that will have the ingredients that we always tried for and this may change the type of story material so that it involves the audience more. They they will make pictures that have a more lasting quality to them.
I like the idea of concentrating on the character relationships first - before plot points and story arcs are all figured out. When you think about it, all those older Disney classics have terrible stories—but very memorable characters.
Comments
Marcus:
I wouldn’t say “Terrible Stories.” They certainly had a deft hand behind them: Walt’s. He mediated and balanced all things on the screen, so that animation didn’t overtake story. The studio started to lose that in the late ‘50’s (Sleeping Beauty), and lost it in the 60’s (Jungle Book on) through the mid’80’s. This is, of course because they had weak direction, and the animators weren’t challanged much.
Thankfully, the “stories” weren’t the over-wrought kinds of stories pumped out by hack “writers” today, and the films weren’t designed from the outside in. Charlatans such as bruce block promote this kind of thought, and it doesn’t work.
Disney DID start with characters, characters that supported the story and everything else supported that.
Jim:
I mean terrible in the context of well-crafted meaningful stories (structure, plot, theme, etc.). On StoryFanatic, I spend a great deal of time writing about what makes a good story. I would be hard pressed to say something positive about the way those Disney classics were structured.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Jungle Book - easily in the low to mid hundreds. But I would have a hard time actually explaining what that story was about or what it meant. Something about a boy leaving the jungle I think…
No, when I think of Jungle Book I think of that Shere Khan scene and the scene where Mowgli and Baloo meet for the first time and that cool sequence where Bagheera convinces Baloo that Mowgli has to go back—all while the backgrounds shift from night to dawn.
All great character moments, but overall, not great stories.
Samuel:
I see Jungle Book as a story about Mother Nature, about a boy learning what´s his place on the food chain. In a entertaning way, it tells that a boy wants to be an animal the whole film, but in the end he can´t deny the nature of his specie.
That is not only good characters, but a good story as well. I can´t see the results of all endeavors of Walt on storytelling as merely good characters on terrible stories.