Animation History | crabapple cove

on March 22, 2009

. 0 Comments Tags: Animation History, Cartoons, hand-drawn, nostalgia trip '09.

A Little History:

‘Round about the mid 1970s, animator Don Bluth was being groomed as a director at Disney Feature Animation, but he had a problem: he wasn’t learning fast enough. It’s long been a rule of thumb that it takes around ten years of dedicated study to become a master animator and Bluth had roughly five years to do it in before more of the fabled Nine Old Men were scheduled to retire. Being sincerely devoted to the art of animation, Bluth and several cohorts decided that they would take on a side project to accelerate the speed with which they were growing as artists. They set up a makeshift production studio in Bluth’s garage and set about creating a thirty minute film which eventually became known as Banjo the Woodpile Cat. They did this with the blessing of the more senior animators at Disney who understood that “Banjo” was designed from the outset to bring its makers up to speed in the techniques of Disney hand-drawn animation. The problem was that those techniques were either rapidly deteriorating or becoming lost all together under a post-Walt management which was severely cost-conscious (and, it might be said, not particularly creative). Bluth and his little band — all of them weaned on such opulently-styled Disney classics as Snow White, Pinocchio, and Bambi –became increasingly disenchanted with the direction of the studio until, finally in 1980, they decided to strike out on their own. “Banjo”, originally designed to prepare them for their future at Disney, became their calling card for a future without Disney. The piece was sufficiently polished to land them a feature deal at MGM, and production began on The Secret of NIMH. Though not a box office bonanza by any means, “NIMH” recalled the Disney style of old well enough to not only garner critical acclaim but also attract the attention of Steven Spielberg. Bluth’s second feature as director was a co-production with Spielberg: An American Tail. Roughly concurrent with these two productions were the now classic laser disc arcade games Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace for which Bluth et al did the fabulous traditional animation.

It could probably be argued that Bluth’s films became progressively (and perhaps ironically) less and less Disney-like as they went on. Though Don Bluth had a career stretching into the late 1990s, his latter work is generally pretty lackluster both in terms of production value and story quality. Oddly enough, it was Bluth’s defection (along with eighteen other Disney-ites) in 1980 which spurred the studio to rebuild its animation department and eventually rise to great heights again with films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. Disney was able to “re-Disney-fy” itself, returning to some of the core aesthetic that Walt helped found, while Bluth fell further and further away from the “true faith”. (The less said about films like Rockadoodle and A Troll in Central Park, the better.)

The Banjo DVD:

Bluth himself (who must be pushing 70 by now) just issued a 30th anniversary commemorative edition DVD of Banjo the Woodpile Cat. The show wasn’t just a portfolio piece — it did air on network television in the early 1980s (so it’s not just a footnote in animation history). Having just sat through the program and all of its accompanying extras, I can now say that I wish I had watched the extras first. I watched “Banjo” first and found it to be fairly mediocre; even awkward in places. It was only after I watched the interviews on disc two (and learned some of the history related above) that I appreciated the film in context. Though it’s still not great, it helps to know that “Banjo” was the work of students, attempting to learn their craft in a sincere way which paid homage to the traditions of the medium. As a transitional piece into The Secret of NIMH (which I have fond, if fuzzy memories of) “Banjo” is an interesting curiosity as well. All in all, I’m glad I made this purchase — although I readily concede that it’s probably an item that only animation nerds (such as myself) are likely to pick up.

Pinocchio

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on March 13, 2009

. 0 Comments Tags: Animation Culture, Animation History, Blu-ray, Cartoons, Disney, hand-drawn, Movies, nostalgia trip '09.

Unlike Sleeping Beauty, the first traditionally animated Disney feature to appear on blu-ray disc, the second, Pinocchio, earns the “classic” descriptor without qualifiers. Though both films are visually rich, Pinocchio represents the apex of what Walt and his animators were able to achieve — there is, quite simply, not a better looking animated feature in two-D or three. Another way in which Pinocchio trumps Sleeping Beauty is in raw appeal. When we watch “Beauty”, it is a mostly academic exercise — more than anything else, we are admiring the tremendous background paintings and wonderfully stylized character designs. When we watch Pinocchio, we are invested — we want to see if this little wooden kid makes it through okay because, by golly, we like the guy. Where “Beauty” has cardboard characters doing mostly uninteresting things, Pinocchio has uniformly interesting characters realized not only through sterling animation, but also through impeccable voice acting. Sure, the story’s a little episodic (and has a few too many coincidences), but the pacing — with its pitch-perfect blend of joy, melancholy and horror — is such that one tends to gloss right over the narrative gaffes. Rounding out this neat little package is a wonderful collection of songs with When You Wish Upon a Star being the clear standout. When you listen to Cliff Edwards’ rendition and you pay heed to the lyrics, it’s not hard to see why this song has remained the signature sound of the Disney company for nearly seventy years.

This new blu-ray set of Pinocchio is rounded out with a fine hour-long doc on the making of the picture, as well as a new commentary with Leonard Maltin, animator Eric Goldberg and author J.B. Kaufman. The commentary, while not exactly scintillating, gets the job done with several interesting anecdotes from the panel (although, if you’re a follower of Disney animation, many of them will probably be familiar to you). All in all, this is a terrific release from the good folks at Disney Home Video.

Disney, 1959 and the Big Five, Zero, Zero

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on March 4, 2009

in General

. 4 Comments Tags: Animation History, Disney, Non-reviews, nostalgia trip '09.

Not only is this my third post of the day (which has got to be some kind of record), it’s also my my five hundredth post to Crabapple Cove. I’ve been at this for going on five years so I guess 500 isn’t that many when you do the math, but what the hell, it feels significant to me.

If you’ve been with me for any length of time, you know I have a bit of a Disney fetish. I came across these photos a moment ago and thought I’d share them with the one or two of you that might care. Apparently, a roll of film was placed in a time capsule in a bridge in Burbank back in 1959. Well, that bridge was just torn down, the time capsule was opened and the film was developed. On the roll were two shots of the Walt Disney Studios from the very late 1950s. Having been by the studio myself many times, it was interesting to see the facility in this more embryonic form. To me, the pictures look like stills from a low budget noir film. I love the old cars.

[For MUCH larger versions, click on the images themselves.]

Why Walt Matters…

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on January 13, 2009

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. 0 Comments Tags: Animation Culture, Animation History, Disney, Non-reviews, nostalgia trip '09.

This morning, my bro directed my eyes to a Washington Post article on how Walt Disney is being neglected in current art circles (or, more specifically, in museums). I agree with absolutely everything columnist Paul Richard has to say. Click the pic below to see what I’m going on about…

The Pixar Story

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on December 16, 2008

. 0 Comments Tags: Animation History, Blu-ray, Movies, pixar, sci-fi.

The Documentary:

I suppose it’s a little unusual to review a DVD extra by itself, but The Pixar Story is a feature length documentary (and a slickly-made one at that) so why the hell not? All in all, Leslie Iwerks’ look at the history of the Emeryville animation giant is a terrific piece of work. All of the key players are present and accounted for, the timeline of the studio is covered in as much detail as can be expected in an hour and a half, and there are some great rare clips here which will surely be of interest to even the casual fan (early tests combining hand-drawn and computer animation done while John Lasseter was still at Disney, prototype shots done for the first Toy Story, etc.). In particular, I would highly recommend this documentary to anyone who is unfamiliar with the people and events that shaped Pixar and who wants to learn more. The information is neatly and entertainingly dispensed and the whole experience goes down easy.

Here’s the one thing I would object to: Like To Infinity and Beyond (a book which relied heavily on Iwerks’ filmed interviews, by the way), The Pixar Story plays fast and loose with Steve Jobs’ involvement in nurturing the company. If you take either the film or the book at face value, you come off believing that Jobs was a romantic who bought into the dream of feature length computer animation from the get-go. Other sources (such as the book The Pixar Touch) paint a different story. Jobs’ initial interest in Pixar was as a hardware company and he was, at least at first, resistant to the whole animation idea. He came around, to be sure, but not without considerable (alleged) drama. i guess it’s not surprising that a project that got Pixar’s blessing would choose to gloss over the shortcomings of one of its founders. At any rate, this “tidying-up” of Jobs’ image isn’t a deal-breaker; The Pixar Story is still worth your time.

The Disc:

All-in-all, the blu-ray for Wall*E is really terrific. As always, Pixar does a superlative job with their discs. The picture quality is unrivaled, and the included short films are great (especially Presto). I’m still a little befuddled by the adulation the film has recieved, however. A few critics have placed it atop their year-end best lists. Sure, it’s a good movie, but is it really the best of 2008?

Sleeping Beauty

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on October 22, 2008

. 0 Comments Tags: Animation History, Blu-ray, Cartoons, Disney, hand-drawn, Movies.

[Updated 10.29.08]

Sleeping Beauty isn’t one of Walt’s best animated features. In many respects, it’s a triumph of style over substance. The background paintings by Eyvind Earle are stunning in their sheer detail and masterful technique and, coupled with the stylized verticals in the character design, they make “Beauty” look like a medieval tapestry come to life (if that medieval tapestry were somehow filtered through a nineteen-fifties design aesthetic). For me, however, it’s like the filmmakers poured the majority of their efforts into the look of the film and the story suffers a deficit of warmth as a result. As is usually the case in these films, the ostensible heroes of the piece — the prince and princess — are virtual ciphers and the supporting characters are allowed to take center stage. This tendency has never really bothered me, however, since princes and princesses are generally pretty boring people; it’s the sidekicks and villains we’re usually most interested in. The Good Faeries (Beauty’s de facto guardians) are sufficiently motherly and amusing and the villain is a real doozy. Maleficent — despite the blandness of some of the supporting material — is one of Disney’s best villains. Not only is she a chilling presence in every scene she inhabits, she has a speech late in the film where she mocks the prince for his naivete and hope. At the end of this bit of dialogue, Maleficent probably has the audience believing that they may not get their expected happy ending. But this stately and cruel villainess is not enough to lift Sleeping Beauty to the level of the great Disney animated features that preceded it (or the ones the followed it in the late nineteen-eighties and nineteen-nineties). Although the film is indisputably gorgeous, the story obviously never received the much-vaunted input of Walt himself. No, by 1959, Walt was much too interested in theme parks, and television, and live action fare like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to give animation the loving attention it once enjoyed. Does that mean Sleeping Beauty wasn’t worth my time? On the contrary, it’s a perfectly enjoyable way to spend 75 minutes. It’s just not one of the true classics is all.

In parting, let me just say that “Beauty” was a terrific choice for the first ever Disney animated feature on Blu-ray. The aforementioned detail really pops on this new high definition disc. Both the sound and picture were superlative. Soon I may even violate a long-standing rule of mine and listen to the disc’s audio commentary which features John Lasseter, Leonard Maltin and animator Andreas Deja — three guys I really admire and respect.

[I tend to avoid audio commentaries for two reasons: 1) Time is fleeting and death awaits and 2) Most of them suck.]

The Commentary:

Well, I did indeed listen to the commentary track and it didn’t suck at all. The aforementioned Maltin, Deja and Lasseter are all obvious fans of the work and their knowledge and enthusiasm made for a very pleasant 75 minutes of audio. The comments of the three hosts are periodically bolstered by the addition of archival audio from some of the men who actually worked on Sleeping Beauty (including Walt Disney himself). Out of everyone, I’d say Lasseter brings the least to the table (he comes off more as a fan than an expert), but this is a very minor criticism.

I have no qualms at all in telling you that, if you bought the disc, you should definitely put in another viewing to experience the commentary.

The Animation Podcast

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on July 31, 2008

in Cartoons & Animation

. 0 Comments Tags: Animation Culture, Animation History, Animation Technique, Disney.

As some of you may know, I spent several years as a character animator for video games. Recently, I’ve been polishing my old demo reel and so my head has been in a cartoony space — well, cartoonier than usual anyway. Apros pos of that mood, I recently went back and listened to all 28 episodes of Clay Kaytis’ Animation Podcast over again in order. Kaytis started doing the show back in 2005. He’s an animator at Disney and, as such, has access to some real heavyweights in the field. Past interviews have been with John Musker and Ron Clements (directors of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin), Glen Keane (the animator of Beast, Ariel and Tarzan), and James Baxter (the animator of Belle and the animation supervisor for Enchanted). Each of the episodes runs between 30 minutes and an hour with most of the guests appearing across multiple episodes. Kaytis’ interviewing style is laid-back and polite and his own expertise in the field doesn’t hurt one bit. Although this may raise the only red flag that I can think of — occasionally the talk can get a little nuts-and-bolts-y, but I for one don’t really consider that a deterrent. I can enjoy shows about doctors and lawyers without grasping all of the jargon. The hook with those programs is the window into another world. I think you get that exact same experience with the Animation Podcast: a glimpse into a professional realm outside your own. Besides, the vast majority of the material presented is anecdotal or philosophical. The animators and directors mostly talk about their personal histories, the political goings-on behind the scenes and their views on life and art.

Listening to the entire run of shows from start to finish was an absolute pleasure. My only complaint when I got to the end was the fact there were no more episodes (although that’ll change soon — Clay’s getting them out at a rate of about one a month now). Anyway, my gist here is that if you are an animator yourself, an animation fan or if you have just wondered what it might be like in the crazy world of animated film, you need to listen to the Animation Podcast. All of the episodes are available on iTunes. Go. Now.

Wall*E

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on June 28, 2008

. 6 Comments Tags: Animation History, Cartoons, CGI, Disney, Movies, pixar, sci-fi.

The Movie:

Wall*E is a good movie. In fact, it’s very good, but I’m just not sure it’s 96% on rotten tomatoes good. There are several Pixar movies I like better and few I don’t like as well (The Incredibles being tops in the plus column and Cars being bottom in the minus). Maybe I was a victim of the hype going into this thing, but it didn’t fire on all cylinders for me. It’s beautiful to look at and I admire the hell out of the fact that it’s mostly told in pantomime (no mean feat to be sure), but there was just something lacking emotionally. A lot of the Pixar stuff really hits me on a gut level, but Wall*E never got there. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad film by any means, but Pixar’s just a victim of their own high standards, I guess. They can’t all be homers. This one’s more like a triple.

The Experience:

I saw Wall*E today through the good graces of ASIFA. The screening was held in the Frank G. Wells Theater on the Disney lot in Burbank. And thus was fulfilled one of my LA fantasies. If you’ve paid even casual attention to this site in the past, you know that a) I’m something of an animation nerd and b) Walt Disney is a personal hero of mine. The Disney lot isn’t typically open to the public so today’s visit was my first after eight years of living in the Los Angeles area.

I neglected to mention in my Kung Fu Panda review that that too was an ASIFA screening. They’re a fine organization and, if you’re an animation fan like myself, you should become a member.

[Pictured above is the animation building on the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank. From 1940 through roughly the mid 1980s, this is where all of the Disney animated films were made.]

Update 7/1:

Unfortunate downside to the screening I attended: it did not include Pixar’s new short “Presto”. Lucky for me, iTunes posted the cartoon last night so I snagged it for 2 bucks and gave it a look-see. It’s really terrific. Fun, zippy animation and a decidedly 1940s-1950s studio cartoon vibe. One of Pixar’s best short offerings in years.

And Then There Were None…

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on April 15, 2008

in Cartoons & Animation

. 0 Comments Tags: Animation History, Disney, hand-drawn.

Today the last of Walt Disney’s great “Nine Old Men” shuffled off this mortal coil. Ollie Johnston joined the studio in the 1930s and worked on every single animated feature from 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on up through The Fox and the Hound in 1981. With his fellow animators (and most especially his long-time partner in crime Frank Thomas), Johnston helped invent character animation as we know it today. Think about this for a moment: Johnston and company did work which most of the world’s population have seen at one time or another. The golden age of Disney animation is enormous in its cultural impact, and Ollie was right there in the thick of it.

Ollie’s other contribution to the field — co-authoring a book called Disney Animation: the Illusion of Life — is, in some ways, more significant than the scenes he did in all of those classic films. “Illusion” has, in the 25 or so years since its publication, gone on to become the defacto bible for animators young and old alike. I own a copy myself and, despite the fact I’ve read it several times, I always get something new out of it each time I pick it up. It truly is a landmark piece of work.

Animation lost a giant today. Ollie Johnston was 95.

Brad Bird Rules

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on February 19, 2008

in General

. 0 Comments Tags: Animation Culture, Animation History, Cartoons.

Academy: Give this man more Oscars this weekend.

[UPDATE: And so they did. Ratatouille won for best animated feature. I must confess to not having seen Persepolis yet, but I did enjoy Ratatouille enormously.]

[UPDATE 2: It would seem the videos linked in this post are no longer available. Oh, well.]

To Infinity and Beyond! The Story of Pixar Animation Studios

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on February 5, 2008

. 0 Comments Tags: Animation History, Books, CGI, pixar.

I really couldn’t have asked for more with To Infinity and Beyond!. It’s well-written, nicely illustrated, and, well, kind of inspiring. The book tells the story of the Emeryville, California animation studio’s first twenty years. From their early forays into (non-paying) short films to the billion dollar powerhouse they are today. Through the history lesson (which is engaging enough on its own) shines the passion and dedication of the people working on these motion pictures. You have to respect the fact that, if one of their films isn’t working, they do the only sensible thing which is to shut it down and fix it (costs be damned). At the end of the day, no one’s going to remember that you made your release date and you came in under budget. They’re only going to remember whether or not your movie was any good, and the folks at Pixar have a tremendous track record as far as that goes. “Infinity and Beyond” renewed the admiration I had for people like John Lasseter and Steve Jobs. Pixar must truly be a helluva place to work.

One cautionary word for the folks at Pixar (you are listening, aren’t you, folks at Pixar?): In your early films, you played to the strengths of your medium. Computers do hard shiny surfaces well so, hey, let’s do plastic toys and bugs. Makes perfect sense. But then Brad Bird came in and challenged you. He had an idea for a film that contained all of the things that computer animation doesn’t do well — flesh, hair, etc., etc. Well, Pixar, you rose to the challenge and The Incredibles is a damn good movie. But what did we get after that? John Lasseter gave us cars and now Andrew Stanton is about to give us robots. Two things that computer animation does inherently well. I’m being slightly cute here. I know these movies have a long lead time and the changes that Mr. Bird hath wrought might not have trickled down through the studio yet. How about for that next round of flicks you guys push the envelope a bit? Your first priority is to tell a good story, of course, but go on and stretch yourselves while you’re at it…

The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney

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on January 17, 2008

. 8 Comments Tags: Animation History, Books, Disney.

Michael Barrier spends some time in the final pages of his Walt Disney biography talking about the inaccuracies and the repetition in similar books by other authors throughout the years. Which is weird since I learned nothing new and saw no wrongs righted in “The Animated Man”. At the end of the day, this is just another Disney biography. Is it a bad book? No, not at all. It just blazes no new trails and, at times, even seems cursory. For instance, one of the most formative (not to mention traumatic) events in Disney’s life had to have been the death of his mother. Flora Disney died due to a gas leak from a defective heater in the house that Walt bought for her. If something like that doesn’t mess with a fella’s head then I don’t know what does. Barrier mentions it in passing, giving it the same sort of emphasis as he might in telling us that Walt picked up his shirts from the cleaners that day. I also expected a lot more in-depth analysis of Walt’s work on his animated films since this is Barrier’s stated area of expertise. I felt that Barrier spent no more time on this era than any other prior biographer and this was a disappointment to me.

So, on the whole, I’d say “The Animated Man” is a decent enough book, but it still doesn’t supplant Neal Gabler’s monster tome of last year as my personal favorite.

Disneyland: Secrets, Stories & Magic

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on December 27, 2007

. 0 Comments Tags: Animation History, Disney, TV.

Disneyland: Secrets, Stories & Magic was worth it really just for the new documentary on Disneyland’s history as well as the amazing full-color time-lapse footage of the park being built back in ‘55. The three or four episodes of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color were just gravy, really. (When I was a kid, they were still airing these programs and watching them now is like a trippy throwback to my very early childhood).

Frank and Ollie

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on December 22, 2007