Chris Sanders Designs

Here are a few more images of what we lost when Chris Sanders left his “American Dog”, now re-titled “Bolt” movie. I would have loved to see how closely they could have realized the lighting in these paintings.

Disappointing Design

Early on I was excited by the atmospheric concept art I was seeing from the Chris Sanders film "American Dog" for Disney. Now I'm saddened by the redesign and renaming. Pixar did a complete rework on "Ratatouille" and it came out wonderfully but with director Sanders no longer with his film we are losing his fun design and beautiful lighting plan. Take a look at the original concept art and the new and final design for the retitled film "Bolt". It feels like we've lost something. Time will tell.

Chris Sanders version

Redesign on "Bolt"

Happy Birthday Snow White

The film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater in Hollywood on the night of December 21, 1937 and this year celebrates its 70th anniversary. "All the Hollywood brass turned out for my cartoon!" remembered Walt years later, "That was the thing. And it went way back to when I first came out here and I went to my first premiere. I'd never seen one in my life. I saw all these Hollywood celebrities coming in and I just had a funny feeling. I just hoped that some day they'd be going in to a premiere of a cartoon. Because people would depreciate the cartoon. You know, they'd kind of look down." Those celebrities included Marlene Dietrich, Preston Foster, Shirley Temple, Bob "Bazooka" Burns, Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden (Amos and Andy), Joe Penner, Helen Vincent, Fred Perry, George McCall, Charlie Chaplin with Paulette Goddard, Gail Patrick , Ed Sullivan, Clark Gable and Carol Lombard, Norma Shearer, Judy Garland, Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester, Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Cary Grant and many more.

Great Animation Posts

My buddy Eric has a blog that is a catch-all of things of interest. He has posted some great lessons and tips on animation for animators. His latest on the 'internal silhouette' is well executed. Here is a link to his site and his other animation tips: http://www.sabudesign.com/cattywampus/?cat=7

The pose
The silhouette does not convey the action
The 'internal silhouette' clearly defines the action

Merry Christmas from the Brinkerhoff's

How It's Done

An anonymous person wrote asking how Karel Zeman did his effects. Here is part two of a documentary on Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman's incredible special effects.

Animation Nation

http://www.youtube.com/results?search=related&search_query=British%20UK%20Documentary%20Cartoon%20Animation%20Animator&v=VnrP_t3MBBQ

Above is a link to ‘skewiff1’s’ YouTube account which holds many interesting bits of animation information. One is the BBC Documentary “Animation Nation” about the history of British animation with examples of such studios as Halas and Batchelor, Larkins, Bob Godfrey/Biographic and Aardman. There is also a Documentary called Walt Disney-“Secret Lives” which looks intriguing. I know how I’ll be spending this Saturday morning.

Check out some great design work from episode 1.5 of "Animation Nation"