A Little Pixie Dust up on the Mountain

 

Brother Bear & Peter Pan

Well I was a little delayed with my latest posting as a friend had descended from the sky to come visit me this past week.  My neighbor, Terry Dufresne, who lives next to me in Kona, Hawaii and summers in Portland, Oregon spent a few days with us.  It was her first visit to Alaska.  She came up to visit us before heading to perform at a Tap Festival in Vancouver, BC.  

Terry packs a fiery punch and dances with every step she takes.  We had a great time showing her around Anchorage visiting unique places.  We took her to the Alaska Native Hospital Gallery displays, Fur Exchange and the Captain Cook monument to see our Sleeping Lady.  Next up was a fantastic ride in the Prince William Sound to see the splendor of Alaska's tidewater glaciers and marine wildlife.  We must have seen over 100 sea otters as well black Bears, eagles, dall porpoises and more.  So in honor of my fanciful friend from Oregon who spreads magic pixie dust where ever she travels, I am sharing two pieces of art today in her honor.

First up is a beautiful background painting from the film, Brother Bear by artist Greg Drollette.  This wonderful production background shows off the plein air California style of painting that was hallmark of the production backgrounds from this film.  

Original Production Background, watercolor on board

Artist: Greg Drolette

Acquired:  November 12, 2008

Next, I am sharing a delightful production drawing of Terry's favorite character, Tinkerbell.  This rough animation drawing is from the sequence where Tink dips her toes into Captain Hooks inkwell to mark the spot on the map where the Lost Boy's hideout is located.   I shared this drawing with Terry one night after dinner.  I love the way Tink "dances" through air just like my friend Terry!

 

Original Production Drawing, graphite on 16 field animation paper

Artist: Unknown

Acquired:  August 27, 2007

Happy 76th! Make Mine Music

Released:  August 15, 1946

Hello folks!  It has been a busy week, so this weeks' post will be a simple one.  I wanted to celebrate the 76th anniversary this past Monday on August 15 of the release of Walt Disney's eighth animated feature film, Make Mine Music.  To celebrate, I thought I would repost this wonderful production cel setup with master background commemorating the day!

Original Production Cel Setup on production background, gouache on trimmed celluloid, watercolor on board

Artist: Various Studio, unknown

Acquired:  June 15, 2007

I have had this production cel setup for many years now and have always enjoyed the fun and happy musicality of the piece.  It is comprised of a number of cels trimmed to outline and applied to a screen used production background from the same sequence.  It was originally sold through Courvoisier Galleries back in the 1946.   The film featured the musical talents of many contemporary Amercian artists popular in the day such as Benny Goodman, the Andrew Sisters and more.  

This production setup is from the sequence, "After You've Gone" performed by the Goodman Quartet.  The segment features a somewhat psychedelic interpretation of musical instruments coming alive and a pair of two figures dancing on a keyboard.  The background can be seen about 44 minutes in the films.   Unfortunately, it did not do well at the box office like most features in 1940's post the World War, but over time it has earned back its original cost of $1.35 million.     

Happy 80th Bambi!

 

Bambi - A Masterpiece from the Golden Age

Released:  August 9, 1942

Original Theatrical Poster Release

On August 9 we commemorate the 80th year since Bambi's original release in London by the Walt Disney Studio in 1942.   Bambi was the fifth animated feature added to Disney's film catalog.   It was later released to audiences in the United States on Thursday August 13 starting in New York. 

Based upon the Viennese author Felix Salton's book of the same name, Disney was approached by MGM director, Sidney Franklin, about producing an animated film.  Franklin had previously purchased the rights to the story in 1932 but could not seem move the project along at MGM.  Walt was very interested in the story and once Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs were nearly complete in late 1936, Walt Disney acquired the rights from Franklin and began production and collaboration on Bambi as early as the spring of 1937 and a more earnest progression into production around the summer of 1939.

Bambi has proven to be one of the more successful features from golden age.  With a total budget of $858,000 for production, Bambi has went on to gross to date approximately $268,000,000 worldwide.

As a celebration of the film, I thought I would share a couple of production drawings from the film.  One of things that I have found very interesting was the level of craftsmanship in the creation of the drawings, cels, production backgrounds and concept art from the film.  In a previous post on Bambi, I shared a story about my first cel setup from the film of Bambi and his mother walking in the forest.  The level of detail that the artist put into such tiny cels drawings for these shots was remarkable considering how small the characters were in the film.  Just look at the drawing of Bambi and level of detail in the character for an image that is physically two inches square!  Walt Disney took the realism with animation to a whole new level.  

Original production drawing, colored pencil and graphite on 16 field animation paper

Artist:  Disney Studio, unknown

Original production drawing, colored pencil and graphite on 16 field animation paper

Artist:  Disney Studio, unknown

 

Original production Cel Setup, Courvoisier studio prepared setup

Artist:  Various Disney Studio, unknown.

 

Happy 80th Anniversary to Bambi!

 

"Unfortunately, I Know a Little Magic!"

 

Pat Caroll

Ursula, The Little Mermaid

B. May 5, 1927, D. July 30, 2022

This past Thursday July 30, the animation world lost the memorable and talented voice artist, Pat Caroll.  Cast to play the villain in the Disney's animated feature, the Little Mermaid, released in 1989, Pat Caroll's distinctive voice brilliantly brought the character of Ursula to life.   Her deeper pitched tone, the rich subtleties of emotion in her voice and her dramatic flair really exuded the deliciousness of Ursula's character.  She was perfectly cast to play this part and she also sang the passionate and dramatic musical number, "Poor Unfortunate Souls!"

Original Production Drawing

Artist:  Disney Unknown

Graphite & colored pencil on 16 field animation paper

Pat Caroll will be missed....a truly "Fortunate Soul!" that will live on for all of us to enjoy everytime we enjoy the Little Mermaid.  Thank you for giving us such a memorable performance and may you rest in peace.

                                                    Original Production Drawing

                                                    Artist:  Disney Unknown

                                                    Graphite & colored pencil on 16 field animation paper

  

Remembering Alice!

 

Alice in Wonderland  

Released this week in 1951

A couple of interesting things to note for this week, Walt Disney released "Alice in Wonderland on July 26, 1951 in London.  The subsequent release in the US occurred just days later on July 28, 1951 in New York city with the rest of US seeing the film even later in September.  Unfortunately, the film did not do well initially at the box office due to a number of reasons, ranging from perceived complicated plot lines, poor adaptation of the book to film and the general public sentiment at the time.  As result of this, Disney later released the film on Television more widely in the US.  I did not previously know this about the film.  Alice in Wonderland was never fully re-released in theaters in the US until well after Walt's passing in 1974.  It did very well and was subsequently released again in theaters in 1981.

I have always liked the film and in particular the whimsical characters from the various stories and subplots.  I think they lent themselves really well to animation and I love the way Disney made the stories less complicated and more fun in my opinion.  I was ultimately inspired by Disney's film to acquire an original book released at the time of Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Dodson) and to read the original story in the same format as a child would have around 1872.  I had never read the books prior to this and enjoyed the experience.  More on that at another time.

Much later into my animation art collecting, I decided it would be fun to collect cels of some of the whimsical characters.   The very first of which I acquired was a cel of the dog-e-pillar and cat-e-pillar.  I love this simple cel setup as it displays a moment from the "Golden Afternoon" sequence.  You can read a bit more about this cel on previous posting I made in June of 2013. 

Also, If you haven't already discovered, there is wonderful book I just received this summer that showcases artwork from Alice in Wonderland.  Published out of France by Huginn & Muninn in collaboration with Disney and authored by Pierre Lambert, "Alice au Pays des Merveilles" is wonderful coffee-table book beautifully displaying artwork created during the production process for the film.  While not as lavishly printed as Pierre Lambert's earlier books on Sleeping Beauty or Jungle Book, it is still an edition worthy of every animation library.  With over 200 pages from cover to cover, this hardbound edition showcases everything from production drawings, key master setups to concept artwork.  I highly recommend acquiring this book.

 

 

After spending a few hours revelling in the pages of this beautiful book, I was very happy to discover the production background that matches my dog-e-pillar & cat-e-pillar cel setup on page 113.  What a nice surprise! 

Jungle Book Exhibit (Part 2)

The Making of a Masterpiece

The Jungle Book Exhibit - Part 2

June 23, 2022

On the second day of the trip to the Walt Disney Family Museum, it was a beautiful sunny day in the bay area.  I spent the morning exploring the main galleries to reacquaint myself of the animation art displays and to notice anything new since the last time I was there.  I also wanted to take another look at the interactive exhibit on the Herman Schultheis “Lost Notebook.”  I have always enjoyed looking at the displays of maquettes and of course the multi-plane camera on display.

Entrance to the Walt Disney Family Museum at the Presidio.

The "lost notebook" compiled by Herman Schultheis.

One of the animation display cases featuring artwork from Dumbo.

One of three multi-plane cameras in the world.

Next up for the rest of the afternoon, a short walk from the main gallery is the Diane Disney Miller Exhibition Hall.  This is where the exhibition of the “The Jungle Book, Making A Masterpiece” is on display.   Overall, the exhibit was beautifully displayed and organized by sequence to the story outline of the film.  The structured displays creatively incorporated "larger than life" backdrops of relevant scenes from the film to go along with the animation art on display.  I loved the way the displays were designed to pull you into the movie and the setting.  Additionally, a subtle "jungle" sound could be heard playing in the background over speakers throughout the gallery.  Several interactive displays were made available where one could either read a version of the film script, dance with Baloo and watch videos featuring artists who worked on the film.  I particularly like watching the video of Milt Kahl talking about animating Bagheera and also flipping through the story & sequence outline of the film on the interactive display.   Needless to say, I ended up taking over 500 pictures of the exhibit that day and below is sampling of some of my favorites. 

Entrance to the Diane Disney Miller Gallery.

Lobby of the Diane Disney Miller Gallery showcasing the exhibit.

Original one sheet movie poster from the film's release.

Original production concept layout drawing.

A large collection of original layout drawings in the first display gallery.

I really love this original layout drawing from early in the film.

A collection of beautiful concept art by Walt Peregoy.

Vertical pan concept by Walt Peregoy.

One of my favorite pieces of concept art by Al Dempster.

Nice pencil model/practice sheet of Mowgli headshots.

Nice collection of key master setups with Mowgli and Kaa.

Another one of my favorite concept pieces by Al Dempster.

A nice production rough compared against the production cel of Mowgli.

Original rough drawing by Frank Thomas.

Some more production drawings of Mowgli and Baloo by Frank Thomas.

Beautiful key master setup that inspired the event cookies.

One of the animation key master setups that I was hoping to see was a piece that was previously in my collection.  I was not disappointed!  I remember back in my early days of collecting that Jeff Lotman, a noted early collector of animation, had acquired a beautiful pan background from the Temple Ruins with Mowgli and King Louie.  I had always loved that piece with its beautiful background detail of King Louie’s throne.  He later sold this through Sotheby’s and I was lucky enough to trace the piece after that sale to purchase it from another collector in Pennsylvania.  Several years later I became acquainted with Andreas to whom I sold the piece.  It is always interesting to learn the provenance of art and where and how it is found.  The fun things I enjoy about collecting animation artwork are the stories behind each piece you discover.  What journey did the art take to end up in your personal collection?  It was fun to be reunited with the piece during the exhibition.  Now it is on display for others to enjoy!

Here I am with the key master setup in my home gallery back in the day.

Here I am with the key master in the exhibit!  

My how the art looks great and the collector has aged!

One of my ultimate favorite pieces from Jungle Book!

So, after completing the tour of the first floor it was up a level to see the rest of the exhibit.  In this section you could visually look over the balcony and view almost the entirety of the first floor.  Highlights upstairs revealed a series of beautiful key master setups of Shere Khan and the Village Girl.  The wonderful display techniques by the museum really allowed one to get up close and see the fine details on hand-inked cels and more.  I have never seen so many Shere Khan key master setups in one place before.  They were simply beautiful.

A recreation of Mowgli's throne one the 2nd floor lobby!  Beautiful!

Having one of "two" bananas in the temple throne!

A view from the second floor lobby balcony.

Impressive collection of Shere Khan concept art and key masters setups.

Two of my favorite key master setups from the Shere Khan section, notice the overlays on the piece to the left.

Overall, the exhibition was very beautifully created and organized.  I highly recommend visiting the exhibit if you can make it to the museum.  What a wonderful treat for the senses for any animation art enthusiast!  If you wish to see any additional photos, I am happy to share.  Just drop me a comment and let me know as I took photos of every piece!

Giant production background recreated high up on the gallery wall.