Studio System Assistants

I'm posting a part of Matt Williames article from his blog: Hand Drawn Nomad, (click the title to take you here). I post this portion not as criticism of Disney but as further conformation of the idea that the "Nine Old Men" and other 'stars animators' of Disney owe a tremendous amount of thanks to their assistants.

In an earlier posting called First Assistants and Clean-up: the Unsung Heroes of Animation, I published an honest and grateful acknowledgment by legendary animator Bill Tyla stating his reliance on good support from his crew.

I agree with Matt and wonder why we don't know more about these wonderful artists who helped make the Lead Animators great.
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I more take issue with the "Star animator" mentality that Disney is so good at pushing. If you don't know what I mean how often do you hear about Dale Oliver? Dale was Frank Thomas' assistant for a long time, and honestly he made Frank look VERY good without getting any credit himself. Find some of Franks original ruffs, they are nothing to marvel at. Look at what Dale did with them... amazing assistant work. But you never hear about him.

Matt Williames

Work in Progress

Here's some more developmental sketches for my independent project. I don't want to give too much away but I think you can see here this is going.

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The Things We do for Love

I'm not known for 'cute' stuff but when my daughter is having her first child, I am already turning to mush. This is the artwork I did showing my granddaughter, (yes it's a girl), riding their dog Ryley, that will be used on the Baby Shower invitations.

David Brown Lessons

This was taken from Bill Plympton and Patrick Smiths' Scribble Junkies Blog. The first part is there, or here: http://scribblejunkies.blogspot.com/2010/05/7-lessons-from-david-brown-part-1-of-4.html

7 Lessons From David Brown, part 2 of 4

8.Never be mean, chintzy and ugly to your secretary or she'll write a book.
9.Verbal pitches rarely make it to the screen and are frequently forgotten in the passage.
10.Nobody but the filmmakers can be trusted to form a valid opinion of a film by seeing a rough cut or reading a script. Especially marketing people. Show them the finished movie only and even then, their opinion is suspect.
11. Enthusiasm is the fuel of show business, especially unwarranted enthusiasm. Without it you can't go to work in the morning.
12.The larger number of executives in a production department, the poorer their movie. Bureaucracy dilutes the creative process – and slows decision making to a pathetic trickle.
13.This is from Darryl F. Zanuck. Interesting subject matter of a movie is more important than brilliant execution. I'd rather have a fair script on a provocative subject than a brilliant one about the sex life of an earthworm. I've had both.
14.Being a waiter, book salesman or a dealer in a casino is better preparation for a producing career than four years in film school. The best producers often are rogues and super salesmen.

New Old School

I know there are tons of old cartoons around but, here is my attempt at getting back some of the sensibilities I enjoy from the classic style of 1930's animation using digital software. This is partly a reaction to the very angular, flat, hinged vector designs so prevalent today.

This is a work in progress and I may darken the background and add sound and a gag at the end.

Dear Client and Agency People...

I’ve wanted to tell you this for years. You are doing yourselves a big disservice every time you single frame through your animation. I understand you probably want to get your moneys worth and are checking to see how much movement you’re getting but each time you panic and say on frames 100 through 103 the character is ‘off model’ or only the whites of the characters eyes are showing on frame 30 and want fixes, you weaken your animation. Please play the scene at speed and see how it feels. Many times those distortions are intentional and as knowledgeable as using terms like ‘off model’ sound there are other terms like ‘squash and stretch’ and ‘smear’ which are real phenomenon observed from the study of organic life. Smear is really a technique simulating the blur caused by a fast moving object caught on slow speed film but it’s a great method for snappy actions. These are tools the animator uses to impart life and by removing them you instill a plastic rigidity into your characters that makes them that much more lifeless. Many times you react to your changes even more negatively and want to restage the action because now it’s not working for you. Trust me, try watching your dailies at speed and stop the habit of single framing through the animation. If there is a real problem it will leap out at you. Remember people will not be watching this one frame at a time and believe that the animators love their media and want it to look as good as possible for you and for them selves.


A few stills showing the 'smear', from Disney and Warner Bros.

Crew Jacket

I've had some great opportunities and Cartoon Brew did a posting that made me dig out a piece of my past. Brew mentioned "Marvin the Martian in the Third Dimension", one of the first stereoscopic theme park attractions done in the early days of computer animation. I've included the trailer that sparked the CB posting below.

I did some character rigging and animated the 'Instant Martians' and some of the dog K9 and Marvin. From that came an amazing crew jacket that is a real flight jacket with cool embroidered patches. Sorry about the poor photos but these patches are on the arms, front and the big patch of K9 and Marvin fill almost the entire back of the jacket. The label with Bugs shows its a limited edition and was made for the Warner Bros. Movie World attraction which opened in 1996 at Bottrop Germany.

I love this jacket but am too embarrassed to wear it.









UPDATE: Someone has posted the entire show on YouTube. It's not in 3D and I don't know how long it will stay up before taken down, but it's all there.

El Tabador

Here's a couple of commercials I helped animated using the character El Tabador. The work was done at Bent Image Lab and was a lot of fun. I've also included a fight scene I did for the interactive web site they have as part of the campaign. El Tabador is a cool little guy and I hope they do more with him, (and I'll get to work on it).

Pan

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I've been neglecting the blog so here's a new post.

This one was hard to dial in the colors and they still aren't right. He's an original design based on old school ideas that I grew up with and find pleasant. I personally am getting tired of the angular character designs in so much modern animation today. To me they are kind of stiff and hard to get good poses without a lot of cheating the volumes around that make up the character. They also appear ridged in animation.

Old Design/New Presentation

Here's an old design I kind of liked so I did a repackaging on it.

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Brer Rabbit

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A new character design for a film I'm planning based on Uncle Remus. I just want to do the animal stories without the problems Disney faced with "The Song of the South".

Thinking Christmas

I just finished this years card for the Hippo-lot-ofus, a club for hippo lovers. They bought my bathing beauty hippo sculpture so I always try and remember them.

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The End of Little Foxes

This is the end design choice.

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More Little Foxes

I'm throwing everything at this for the moment.

Fleet Foxes

These little foxes won't steal your grapes. I'm playing with different constructions.

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Happy Day After Halloween Re-post, "The Mad Doctor"

This had been removed from YouTube but it's back up again for our enjoyment.

A Mickey from 1933 when he was at the heights of stardom, this cartoon does what animation is supposed to. Beautifully done in every way, it’s just as entertaining today as it was back then. A perfect cartoon.

Pencil Test Depot

Wow, I found a new favorite blog called "Pencil Test Depot" with some crazy good, guess what?... Yes, pencil tests, from all over the place. It's very inspirational and shows that magic quality not found in other styles of animation. For me the moving drawing is still amazingly effective and much more satisfying than stop-motion or computer animation. The draftsmanship and acting are sometimes more worthy than the script but you can see how dedicated these animators are to capture something entertaining.

Here's just a taste of the wonders to be found! Click the title above to go here.

Thief from bj crawford on Vimeo.

Ruby Rocket Again...

I found some old files while cleaning my computer. Here are some scenes from Sam Niemanns' "Ruby Rocket" adventures.

The slates at the beginning show I did the inbetweening and clean-up on a scene animated by Sam and one by B. Larsen. We were using Flash and drawing everything, animating on fours. Later we did tonal passes for highlights and shadows.

The finished look was quite impressive and nothing like what you would expect from Flash as you can see from the still image of Ruby.

Hopefully Aniboom will show all the episodes someday. Click on the title to go to Sam's blog all about the making of Ruby.

Mounties

Here are some expression studies I did for Hive FX pitch material for their tv series proposal called, "Mounties".

Although I didn't design the characters, I was asked to do facial studies and turn-arounds for all the cast. It was pretty fun and the style is kind of like what I do anyway.

I also built and animated the lead characters in Flash for a trailer that you can watch by clicking on the title or going here and clicking on the trailer: http://www.mounties.tv/




All art work is property of Hive FX

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Character Designs

Thought I would post some of my design work for a few personal projects. More to come.



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