LINCOLN, MOVIE (REVIEW)

LINCOLN MOVIE (REVIEW)

 

I read my first Lincoln book as a teenager and my interest in this fascinating person has only grown over the years since then.They say more books have been written on Abraham Lincoln than anyone except Jesus.  I have continued to read and learn, and have been to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. So for the last two years the film I was most eagerly awaiting was LINCOLN, by Steven Spielberg, no less.

 

My first overall impression was that this is indeed, a Spielberg picture, encompassing the best and worst of that tradition. He has chosen to focus on the last months of Lincoln's life, when, newly re-elected, he added the passing of the 13^th amendment to the constitution to the momentous task of concluding the civil war. The film is a political thriller of the fight to pass the amendment which would abolish slavery. And we will meet a less iconic, more human (and deviously political) “Honest Abe.”

 

There have been similar movies about political machinations like ADVISE AND CONSENT, THE BEST MAN and others that were, frankly, more involving and, well, better. Spielberg is here at his antiseptic best. I always remember the scene in THE COLOR PURPLE, where Whoopi Goldberg enters Danny Glover's home for the first time. It's a total disaster of a mess, a pig sty of a mess. She walks through the garbage and things but you never saw such an organized mess. It was designed rather than have a chaotic haphazard look to it. You could see the nice path made out for her to walk through. Similarly the opposing forces in the political debate here are antiseptic, too civilized to capture the harshly negative politics of the day. This renders us passive spectators rather than riled up observers. Even a well done courtroom drama has more engaging drama. LINCOLN las a long drawnout middle that could have been expanded in scope or cut altogether.

 

If I had my way Mr. Spielberg would have more Academy Awards than he has now, for JAWS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, JURASSIC PARK and others. But there is something about his dramas about reality that I find lacking. He tackles great subjects but then Spielbergs them down. What is most important is what we bring to these “serious”  movies of his as an audience. He unwittingly counts on our feelings toward his subjects to ease his path as storyteller. He counts too much on our preconceived ideas and just tells the story, reinforcing our views, rather than earning any increased feelings on our part.

 

For me the best example of this is SCHINDLER'S LIST. My recollection of seeing the film is of sitting there most of the time with tears running down my face while consiously thinking “This isn't really very good.” The tears were a result of what I brought with me to the theatre on his subject and not as much earned by him. He merely played the violin accompaniment to my preexisting feelings. He should have magnified, intensified those feelings, not exploited them. He did not do on the subject what THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK or JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG were able to do. It is as if he is in awe rather than master of some subjects, and LINCOLN unfortunately falls into that category. 

 

There is an early scene in LINCOLN where common soldiers meet him and I found it extremely moving. But it was to be the only such scene, and being the second one in the film, I now think it was mostly due to what I had brought with me to the theatre. I have seen a good many PBS documentaries on Lincoln including Ken Burns' THE CIVIL WAR series that were more moving and informative on Lincoln than this film, which could have been called LINCOLN LITE. Maybe Spielberg assumes a knowledge of Lincoln on the part of the audience that is unrealistic. Who knew about Lawrence of Arabia before seeing that film? But we got a seemingly complete profile of the man.

 

Example: Lincoln was tormented by his marriage. His politically supportive wife was emotionally unstable. They have only one huge fight scene that must seem shocking to viewers unfamiliar with Mary Todd Lincoln. She went on spending sprees nearly bankrupting him, which is here unmentioned, yet a major cause of their fights. She was a Southerner who believed in the Northern cause, abandoned by most family and friends but this is not mentioned, though it would make her more sympathetic. Both of these points could have been covered quickly in dialogue. The loss of her son in the White House a few years earlier is mentioned, but in a soap opera manner.

 

Instead, she is this character who is often “just there.” She's in the spectator section of the House of Representatives while they debate the amendment, doing and saying nothing, just watching or frowning. She has a very personal conversation with her elder son in the hallway of the White House in front of the usual office seekers and lobbyists. It's a calm scene that could have easily been held in private, but she wouldn't have been as much “on.”

 

For a film about slavery, there's not much here about contemporary feelings on the subject- you're for it or against it as a legislator. There is no mention of the riots in New York City where citizens hung black people at random, blaming them for the civil war, which was so graphically shown in Scorcese's GANGS OF NEW YORK. Mary Lincoln has an assistant, a lady-in-waiting black companion she presumably confides in but that isn't really shown. We know that Lincoln was against slavery from an early age, but had no encounters with black people until as President he met Frederick Douglas and came to see that equality between the races was not limited only to their souls, but to intelligence, ability and all else as well. Instead if showing one of these meetings with Douglas, we see Lincoln in an awkward scene with his wife's assistant on the front steps of the White House that doesn't add up to much. Maybe this scene most shows the film's lost opportunities.

 

All that said, there is much to praise as well. The art direction and set decoration, photography (light your house with 1865 lighting and that's what you'd get too) and the editing works well. The costumes are good without being showy. Lincoln's pants are not crisply pressed, I noticed, and look lived in. He walks like someone who had done a lot of physical labor in his life and as someone who had immense burdens to bear. The civil war is background and well served with just two scenes- the opening battle scene, and an amputation scene not easily forgotten. But sadly, this is the first teaming of John Williams and Spielberg where the music is pretty blah and boring.

 

 

Daniel Day Lewis does a magnificent job portraying the great emancipator. He holds the film together, and plays it differently than others who have tackled it. Perhaps, like Hamlet, Lincoln will be interpreted according to each generation's focus and needs. He plays a person rather than icon, though Lincoln speaking four-letter words is a humanizing surprise. Maybe Gregory Peck did Lincoln better in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, but that's another issue. We know that Lincoln had a high-pitched voice for a six foot-four tall person, but at times Day Lewis seems to be doing Lincoln by channelling Walter Brennan. No President suffered personally as much as Lincoln- war, wife, colleagues, grief, or aged as much  in office. I would have liked to have been told he was only 56 when he died. In his last photos he looked 76.

 

The supporting cast is excellent. I don't know why Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War didn't have a larger role in the film. He was the closest thing to Dick Cheney in the 1860s and an interesting character. When fired by Lincoln's successor he barricaded and armed himself in his office and refused to go. Lincoln was surrounded by people who thought him an unworthy President, a hick in office, and this makes Lincoln's job all the harder and his accomplishments all the more remarkable. This film is based on the best-seller TEAM OF RIVALS by Doris Kearns Goodwin, which is all about that burden he bore.

 

This brings us to Sally Field as Lincoln's wife, the only weak actor in the film. I'm not a big fan of the scenery-chewer in any event, but she's Sally Field reprising most roles we've seen her in rather than Mary Todd Lincoln. A little less NORMA RAYE and a lot more STEEL MAGNOLIAS would have served the film better.

 

When it comes to reviewing films I've always thought It's unfair to review the film it could have been rather than the film that was made, but this one is a cinematic disappointment despite some fine things in it. I don't know what younger audiences  will make of it. Maybe they'd prefer the Vampire Hunter Lincoln? They will likely be bored by the drawn out details of the political battle (the film is almost three hours long) but any who do go will learn something about the man and his times. I read about one screening, where as the end credits started rolling someone shouted out in the audience “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we're free at last”, commenting on the film's length. It was reported that many in the audience greeted his remark with applause.

MEETING BOB CLAMPETT

Bob Clampett was an impressive figure in animation. As a teenager he helped his aunt, Chaflotte Clark design a doll of the new cartoon character Mickey Mouse, which she took to Walt Disney at his studio not far away. He liked it and her design became the first Mickey dolls. The doll encapsulated two interests of the young Bob Clampett, to which he would devote his career: animation and puppetry.

 

When Warner Bros cartoons began, young Bob Clampett joined the new studio, led by Hugh Harmon and Rudolph Ising, who started the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. By the later 1930s Bob became a director, and the wild madcap style of cartoons was born. He created Porky Pig and Tweety and Sylvester, and worked on other Warner characters. His Bugs Bunny was on the wild side, especially during the war years.

 

When you think of Warner directors names like Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng come to mind, but before them there was Bob Clampett. Theyworked for him and learned their craft under his guidance and influence. The Warner cartoons we've  known from television are all after 1948. The network TV deal was to show post-1948 cartoons. Bob left Warners before 1948, and so his cartoons have not been as widely seen as those of other and later Warner directors. Nonetheless, they are a major part of Warners animation.

 

Bob left and went into television in its earliest days. He had a puppet show starring his new characters Beany and Cecil, who later became stars of their own  animated TV series. I firs thad contact with Bob when he sent me an issue of FUNNYWORLD, Mike Barrier's fine animation magazine. I didn't have the Bob Clampett issue and my friend Steve Schneider, the great Warner Bros animation enthusiast arranged for him to send me a copy. Correspondence with Bob followed  His letters had his Beany and Cecil characters on his letterhead, but he often drew his own air mail symbol on the envelope made up of drawn rabbit ears, an homage to his Warner Bugs Bunny days he wrote as  “:Hare Mail.”

 

 

 I didn't actually meet him until we were both at a convention in Boston later in the 1970s. He was the animation guest of honor and everyone enjoyed his presentation of his cartoons and his stories of the early days of animation. One very interesting piece of film he showed was a test for a feature animation he wanted to make, JOHN CARTER OF MARS. It was a fully finished test in color that was very impressive. The closest thing to it, to give an idea of what it was like, are the realistic SUPERMAN cartoons that the Fleischers did. Unfortunately he was not able to get the large budget such a feature would require.

 

I got to meet and talk to Bob at that show and we spent some time together with his engaging wife Sody. He was to do a radio interview the next day and invited me along, so we did it together. I found him similarly generous in the years to come. I know that he championed Hugh Harmon, who was still alive, and I thought highly of Bob the man as well as his talents. I know that he helped students who were interested in animation as they relayed his generosity with his time and contacts to me.

 

On a visit to Montreal he asked if I would be interested in looking after his interests in Canada, His animation show was still playing and there was always some merchandising being done. It was a dream assignment and I welcomed the opportunity to get to work with him and to know him further. As these things often happen, he died suddenly before we could really get going.

 

Now the hard part to write: Some of the people at Warners that Bob worked with would take pot shots at him in their later years, which I consider to be cheap shots. I have a letter between Chuck Jones and Tex Avery filled with such shots each wrote. It is my belief that they stem not from facts but from jealousy.

At the time Chuck was qwriting and animating his horrible Sniffles cartoons at Warners, with their rotten timing and boring characterization, there was no inking that ne would become, as I regard him, the best director animation ever had.  He was learning, as were the other “later” directors while Bob, tough younger than Chuck, was directing and making better films.

 

Whenever I would talk to Chuck about the early days, he would end up overcome by anger at management and anyone in authority over him. There were no grays in his portraits- all black and white and what angered him most was that they made more money than he did. This would come up over and over. And so I don't think it's unreasonable to think that he saw Bob as one of those people. On another point, Bob had the guts, the courage and the talent to strike out on his own, leave the Warner womb      and made a success of his own characters on his own. Those who badmouthed Bob never had the guts to do it themselves.

 

Remember that Bob was in on the ground floor of television. More people saw his work in a given week than ever saw a Warners cartoon. Until the early 1960s, Warner cartoons could only be seen in theatres, on a catch as catch can basis. The only Warner cartoons seen on TV before the 1960s were the pre-1948 cartoons that had been sold on a station by station basis-- including Bob Clampett's Warner cartoons. The public knew Bob Clampett as a household name, seeing his name on his own TV show, on merchandising and on old Warner cartoons on TV. How galling this must have been to jealous minds.

 

 I once asked Chuck, who by the 1970s was finally a household word himself, with all the accolades and recognition he deserved now coming to him, if he could put the past in the past and enjoy the present. I didn't have the nerve to put it so bluntly, of course, but I expressed my sadness at his not seeming to be able to enjoy his “new” career as an animation icon and its status. He said he couldn't forget the past (and I suppose its imagined injustices) and we never spoke of the old old days again. We still had some fine talks and good laughs to be sure and I think I should write about those soon.

 

Still, when I see on the internet that some people are saying that Bob wasn't well liked by his co-workers in the old days. I think some clarification, opinion and context is appropriate. I never saw or experienced anything other than a warm, funny and generous person. We spoke of the old days at Warners many times, and he only spoke well and highly of Harman and Ising, of Carl Stalling and Leon Schlesinger, and yes, of Chuck, Tex and others. Any time spent with Bob was relaxed, positive in nature and golden.

DISNEY'S LIVE ACTION MOVIES

While Walt Disney's animated films get almost all the attention, some of the live-action films he produced have  become classics as well. The best ones offer not only good entertainment, but solid story-telling, fine characterization and acting and great directing, such as most of the films of Robert Stevenson for Disney.

 

Here are Disney's best live-action features I would suggest seeing again past childhood for a good time as well as for film craft study. True-Life Adventures and other documentaries and mainly animal films are not included.

 

SONG OF THE SOUTH  (1946) Great entertainment and James Baskette deserved his

        Academy Award for his portrayal of Uncle Remus (and the voice of Bter Fox.)

 

TREASURE ISLAND (1950) Still the best fillm version of the book, largely due to Robert Newton`s Long John Silver.

 

20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954) Solid in every way including top design

         of sets and the Natilus.

 

OLD YELLER (1957) Everything comes together in an irresistible gem of a movie with

         fine performances throughout.

 

DARBY O`GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE (1959) Fantastic effects that blend into

         the story seamlessly unlike today`s  excesses. Sean Connery`s real first film that

         got him the James Bond role and Albert Sharpe is superb. Fall in love with Ireland.

 

POLLYANNA (1960) A perfect ensemble cast, design work, a fine message and

         Academy Awarded Hayley Mills in the title role.      

 

THE PARENT TRAP (1961) A Fine script, and a delight in every way. Maureen O'Hara

         and Brian Keith shine.

 

MARY POPPINS (1964) Walt Disney' s live-action masterpiece. It has

         everything films have to offer. Totally original in the ways My Fair Lady was not.  

         They was robbed.

 

 

Honorable mentions:

 

SO DEAR TO MY HEART (1949) Anything with Beulah Bondi and Burl Ives is a

          winner.

 

THE SHAGGY DOG (1959) Fluff elevated to great fun.

 

THIRD MAN ON THE MOUNTAIN (1959) Darn good tale well told and well done.

 

BABES IN TOYLAND (1961) Training ground for MARY POPPINS has some good

           things in it.

 

A TIGER WALKS (1964) Good ensemble cast and the darkest un-Disney type movie.

 

THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE (1967) Cut the excess and you have a fine musical

            with great numbers (“There are Those” etc.)

See the full gallery on Posterous

Can you help the bats find their way to the castle?

Here is another Winnie Witch and the Giant Potato activity sheet for
your kids! Or yourself if you are young at heart.

MEETING NED BEATTY

I met Ned Beatty, the actor, at one of our animation exhibitions in Montreal. He and his daughter came to see the show one summer day in the 1980s. It's always a surprise to see someone well-known come to a regular public show or event. The best way to handle it is to give them their space and almost pretend you don't know who they are- this is their personal time and they are not “on.” Still, when I would attend one of our shows to see how it was going, I would talk to attendees about animation or the exhibits if they wanted to. Ned Beatty was not only interested in animation (he showed up) but also knew quite a bit about it, which was nice to learn as we talked.

 

My favorite Ned Beatty role had to be his Academy Award-nominated performance as Arthur Jensen in NETWORK (1976), one of the best films ever made. It was disappointing to see him not get the Best Supporting Oscar for it, especially since that film brought Best Actor, Best Actress and even Best Supporting Actress to other deserving cast members of NETWORK. He is, of course, also responsible for many other fine roles in other fine films.

 

 

MEETING NED BEATTY

I met Ned Beatty, the actor, at one of our animation exhibitions in Montreal. He and his daughter came to see the show one summer day in the 1980s. It's always a surprise to see someone well-known come to a regular public show or event. The best way to handle it is to give them their space and almost pretend you don't know who they are- this is their personal time and they are not “on.” Still, when I would attend one of our shows to see how it was going, I would talk to attendees about animation or the exhibits if they wanted to. Ned Beatty was not only interested in animation (he showed up) but also knew quite a bit about it, which was nice to learn as we talked.

 

My favorite Ned Beatty role had to be his Academy Award-nominated performance as Arthur Jensen in NETWORK (1976), one of the best films ever made. It was disappointing to see him not get the Best Supporting Oscar for it, especially since that film brought Best Actor, Best Actress and even Best Supporting Actress to other deserving cast members of NETWORK. He is, of course, also responsible for many other fine roles in other fine films.

 

 

STILL THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL

I have often been asked which animated feature film is my favorite. As the years go by it is still the same one, and the choice is made easier than ever given today's assembly-line cookie cutter animation features. It is of course, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. The film is a masterpiece in every way, and its merits as a film and as an animated film have been written about ever since it was first released in 1937.

 

I take its merits as a given, but they are not what make this film my choice. It has something that no other animated feature since has had. Because it was the first Hollywood cartoon feature, it broke new ground and established new rules and expanded the horizons of animation to be sure, but there is something about the film that makes it an inspiration to all in animation.

 

When Walt Disney gathered his staff one night to tell them he was going to make an animated feature of the Snow White tale, they were hardly ready for the task at hand. This was like President John Kennedy saying, as he did, that the USA would land a man on the moon and return him to earth within seven years time. The USA was hardly ready for that task either, but they became ready, as Walt Disney and his staff became ready to accomplish their task.

 

While Disney cartoon shorts were acclaimed world-wide, and especially the Silly Symphonies were first-class experiments in constantly pushing forward the boundaries of animation, there was still a long way to go. The female character in THE GODDESS OF SPRING was a Snow White-like character but  was far from what Snow White would herself become, just as Disney deer in SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS were a fraction of what they would become just a few years later in BAMBI.

 

I like SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS best because it shows what I call “evidence of the struggle.” They were not good enough to pull it off when they started, but became good enough, even if  just barely so in some scenes, when it was completed. You not only see the drawings and the paint onscreen, it seems that you can also see the sweat.

 

They never took the easy way out of staging a scene or acting out a scene. A world-wide search for artistic talent brought hundreds of new people to the animation studio and the film was probably made by twenty key people and among them a handful of masters of animation. Had those people not been around, alive and available, the film could probably not have been made. Chief among them was, of course, Walt Disney himself, a unique force who cannot be overestimated.

 

I have spoken with people who worked on the film, including some of those top people, and they recalled the enthusiasm with which they worked on it, coming in on days off willingly, sharing their discoveries with one another and so on. They felt they were working on something important. Even decades later, they would speak of various Disney films and characters they worked on, but their voices, their expressions were often different when they spoke of SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. It was a special time in their careers, possibly even their lives, maybe as wartime experiences are to veterans. And maybe you had to be there to really understand it.

 

There is no need to go into the impact of the film, an instant hit world-wide, the first to ever be dubbed into foreign languages, the highest money-making film in history etc etc etc. It stands alone as an artistic achievement, a new type of art. Their next feature, PINOCCHIO, for all its merits is, compared to SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS too polished, too  slick. By then they could achieve all they wanted. With the first feature that was in doubt.

 

For audiences, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS is magnificent entertainment. For those interested in animation, or in animation themselves, it is a wondrous experience. Here were some twenty-somethings engaged in something new, with no history or past to guide them as we have today. They invented it as they went along. They did it and did it well.

 

I recall animator Ward Kimball saying that at the premiere on December 21, 1937 near the end of the film where the dwarfs approach the dead Snow White he thought there was a technical problem with the film. The film was so long and hard to do that the final scenes were back from the lab that afternoon and cut into the final film, which was first seen by anyone in its complete form at the premiere (!) He heard a clicking sound on the soundtrack throughout the theatre and thought this sound glitch would harm the effect of the film on the audience. Then he realized that the clicking sound was coming FROM the audience. Women were opening their purses to take out their handkerchiefs to wipe away their tears at the moving scene.

 

“They were crying---at a cartoon!” he said in amazement so many years later. Animation entered a new era that night. It could not only make people laugh, but cry, like any live-action film. And soon, with FANTASIA it would also amaze audiences. All that we do since then is tell unlimited stories, explore styles and add new technologies, as SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS added the Multiplane Camera. We build on the one that started and did it all.

 

I have heard many stories from ordinary people who were deeply affected by the film and many for whom it ushered in a lifelong interest in or even caused a career in animation. I saw the film for the first time when I was six years old. I don't remember that viewing but was later told that when the dwarfs chased the witch near the film's end I got out of my seat and ran to the screen to join the chase.

 

I kept pestering my parents to take me to see it again and again, long after the theatre engagement had ended. To shut me up, my mother told me there was a fire in the theatre where it was showing and part of the movie got burned and that they were making part of it again. That worked, but I'm told I looked at the movie ads in the newspaper every dayfor years after that to see when they would be done.

 

The film came back to theatres again when I was twelve, to a theatre down the street, and I saw it many times. I  recall going one Saturday morning with sandwiches and sitting through four showings in a row. I remember well the “Whistle While You Work” cleaning up the cottage sequence. On the large screen I could follow a single bird or squirrel throughout the detailed scenes, focusing on one animal per screening.

 

It returned in 1967, six months after Walt Disney died. I had forgotten that the film ended with the castle in the sky, and that was a moving moment. A few years later I obtained a film print and the idea of seeing it whenever I wanted was hard to comprehend. We all studied and enjoyed it many times. I have had most of the features on film but none gives you goosebumps like this one does when the film's opening music begins.

 

 Some years after that I got on film the soup-eating song and sequence that was cut from the final film. I inserted it into our copy and showed it to people and it works so well. I think it has story points that help the film, and if something had to be cut, it should have been the long and frankly boring sleeping sequence which is about the same length. Knowing that Disney would probably rerelease it to theatres for its 50^th anniversary, about two years before that when I was at the Disney studio I met with management and tried to talk them into putting it into the anniversary prints of the film as a special draw and tribute. We had just started our computer animation and knew we could color the soup-eating sequence, which had only been pencil-tested complete with layouts and full soundtrack but no color. We could match the original characters' colors by computer and paint the backgrounds in Samuel Armstrong's style. Weeks later I got their decision, that they were hesitant, almost afraid to tinker with it in any way. Later they called to say they did agree with the other suggestion I had given them at that meeting, to rerelease SONG OF THE SOUTH to theatres again. This they did and it was a huge success, but that's another story.

 

Years later, at the Disney studio, I asked for the animation drawings for my favorite moment in the film, when Snow White kisses Dopey on the head at the end of the film after being kissed back to life herself by the Prince. To hold and see the original animation drawings was a magical moment.

HEY- anyone ever notice that she only kisses six of the seven dwarfs goodbye?

 

See SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS again but this time as an artistic breakthrough and achievement. See the young men and women doing their best and pulling off a great experiment, led by a man of vision and courage. Still the fairest of them all.

 

STILL THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL

I have often been asked which animated feature film is my favorite. As the years go by it is still the same one, and the choice is made easier than ever given today's assembly-line cookie cutter animation features. It is of course, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. The film is a masterpiece in every way, and its merits as a film and as an animated film have been written about ever since it was first released in 1937.

 

I take its merits as a given, but they are not what make this film my choice. It has something that no other animated feature since has had. Because it was the first Hollywood cartoon feature, it broke new ground and established new rules and expanded the horizons of animation to be sure, but there is something about the film that makes it an inspiration to all in animation.

 

When Walt Disney gathered his staff one night to tell them he was going to make an animated feature of the Snow White tale, they were hardly ready for the task at hand. This was like President John Kennedy saying, as he did, that the USA would land a man on the moon and return him to earth within seven years time. The USA was hardly ready for that task either, but they became ready, as Walt Disney and his staff became ready to accomplish their task.

 

While Disney cartoon shorts were acclaimed world-wide, and especially the Silly Symphonies were first-class experiments in constantly pushing forward the boundaries of animation, there was still a long way to go. The female character in THE GODDESS OF SPRING was a Snow White-like character but  was far from what Snow White would herself become, just as Disney deer in SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS were a fraction of what they would become just a few years later in BAMBI.

 

I like SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS best because it shows what I call “evidence of the struggle.” They were not good enough to pull it off when they started, but became good enough, even if  just barely so in some scenes, when it was completed. You not only see the drawings and the paint onscreen, it seems that you can also see the sweat.

 

They never took the easy way out of staging a scene or acting out a scene. A world-wide search for artistic talent brought hundreds of new people to the animation studio and the film was probably made by twenty key people and among them a handful of masters of animation. Had those people not been around, alive and available, the film could probably not have been made. Chief among them was, of course, Walt Disney himself, a unique force who cannot be overestimated.

 

I have spoken with people who worked on the film, including some of those top people, and they recalled the enthusiasm with which they worked on it, coming in on days off willingly, sharing their discoveries with one another and so on. They felt they were working on something important. Even decades later, they would speak of various Disney films and characters they worked on, but their voices, their expressions were often different when they spoke of SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. It was a special time in their careers, possibly even their lives, maybe as wartime experiences are to veterans. And maybe you had to be there to really understand it.

 

There is no need to go into the impact of the film, an instant hit world-wide, the first to ever be dubbed into foreign languages, the highest money-making film in history etc etc etc. It stands alone as an artistic achievement, a new type of art. Their next feature, PINOCCHIO, for all its merits is, compared to SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS too polished, too  slick. By then they could achieve all they wanted. With the first feature that was in doubt.

 

For audiences, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS is magnificent entertainment. For those interested in animation, or in animation themselves, it is a wondrous experience. Here were some twenty-somethings engaged in something new, with no history or past to guide them as we have today. They invented it as they went along. They did it and did it well.

 

I recall animator Ward Kimball saying that at the premiere on December 21, 1937 near the end of the film where the dwarfs approach the dead Snow White he thought there was a technical problem with the film. The film was so long and hard to do that the final scenes were back from the lab that afternoon and cut into the final film, which was first seen by anyone in its complete form at the premiere (!) He heard a clicking sound on the soundtrack throughout the theatre and thought this sound glitch would harm the effect of the film on the audience. Then he realized that the clicking sound was coming FROM the audience. Women were opening their purses to take out their handkerchiefs to wipe away their tears at the moving scene.

 

“They were crying---at a cartoon!” he said in amazement so many years later. Animation entered a new era that night. It could not only make people laugh, but cry, like any live-action film. And soon, with FANTASIA it would also amaze audiences. All that we do since then is tell unlimited stories, explore styles and add new technologies, as SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS added the Multiplane Camera. We build on the one that started and did it all.

 

I have heard many stories from ordinary people who were deeply affected by the film and many for whom it ushered in a lifelong interest in or even caused a career in animation. I saw the film for the first time when I was six years old. I don't remember that viewing but was later told that when the dwarfs chased the witch near the film's end I got out of my seat and ran to the screen to join the chase.

 

I kept pestering my parents to take me to see it again and again, long after the theatre engagement had ended. To shut me up, my mother told me there was a fire in the theatre where it was showing and part of the movie got burned and that they were making part of it again. That worked, but I'm told I looked at the movie ads in the newspaper every dayfor years after that to see when they would be done.

 

The film came back to theatres again when I was twelve, to a theatre down the street, and I saw it many times. I  recall going one Saturday morning with sandwiches and sitting through four showings in a row. I remember well the “Whistle While You Work” cleaning up the cottage sequence. On the large screen I could follow a single bird or squirrel throughout the detailed scenes, focusing on one animal per screening.

 

It returned in 1967, six months after Walt Disney died. I had forgotten that the film ended with the castle in the sky, and that was a moving moment. A few years later I obtained a film print and the idea of seeing it whenever I wanted was hard to comprehend. We all studied and enjoyed it many times. I have had most of the features on film but none gives you goosebumps like this one does when the film's opening music begins.

 

 Some years after that I got on film the soup-eating song and sequence that was cut from the final film. I inserted it into our copy and showed it to people and it works so well. I think it has story points that help the film, and if something had to be cut, it should have been the long and frankly boring sleeping sequence which is about the same length. Knowing that Disney would probably rerelease it to theatres for its 50^th anniversary, about two years before that when I was at the Disney studio I met with management and tried to talk them into putting it into the anniversary prints of the film as a special draw and tribute. We had just started our computer animation and knew we could color the soup-eating sequence, which had only been pencil-tested complete with layouts and full soundtrack but no color. We could match the original characters' colors by computer and paint the backgrounds in Samuel Armstrong's style. Weeks later I got their decision, that they were hesitant, almost afraid to tinker with it in any way. Later they called to say they did agree with the other suggestion I had given them at that meeting, to rerelease SONG OF THE SOUTH to theatres again. This they did and it was a huge success, but that's another story.

 

Years later, at the Disney studio, I asked for the animation drawings for my favorite moment in the film, when Snow White kisses Dopey on the head at the end of the film after being kissed back to life herself by the Prince. To hold and see the original animation drawings was a magical moment.

HEY- anyone ever notice that she only kisses six of the seven dwarfs goodbye?

 

See SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS again but this time as an artistic breakthrough and achievement. See the young men and women doing their best and pulling off a great experiment, led by a man of vision and courage. Still the fairest of them all.

 

THE ILLUSION OF LIFE, THE ANIMATION BIBLE

The number one book on animation is THE ILLUSION OF LIFE: DISNEY ANIMATION (1981). By legendary animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, it is required reading in most animation courses and has been reprinted many times and is still available. More than a mere “how-to” book on animation, of which there are many (of varying worth) this book gets into the most important aspect of animation: how an animator thinks, or rather should think when approaching and doing animation, character design and so on. They knew that animation is born in the mind, not in the pencil.

 

The book took many years to write and research, and during this period, Frank and Ollie asked people they knew, myself included, what they thought should be included in the book. The result was a balanced wide-ranging book that is worth re-reading every five years or so. There is a lifetime of learning in this book, and new insight and understanding comes with such a revisitation as our own experience and artistic maturity grow.

 

It took a few years for the book to find its reputation. Letters I received from Frank and Ollie sometimes reflected their frustration with their publisher on some points during the book's ear;y years, but the its virtues and reputation eventually overcame those considerations.

 

There is a funny story that occurred a couple of years or so after the book was first published. Both Frank and Ollie were going through my collection of original Disney animation artwork at my place in Montreal. They signed any artwork that was their own, and made comments on others that were quite interesting to witness: “Oh, there's one by XXX. He wasn't very good but I never saw anyone work as hard as he did and he became a lot better afterwards.” was one memorable comment. 

 

Then, all of a sudden, they let out a whoop and a holler, as they used to say, when they got to a drawing I had of Snow White's bed. “YOU'VE goit it!” they said.They got all excited and explained that they had known that there was just one finished detailed drawing of the bed that the dwarfs carved for Snow White in an elaborate sequence that was not finished for the final film. They had wanted to use it in their book but could not find it in the studio archives. Then they started to laugh at the irony that they searched high and low for it when a phone call to Montreal would have located it for them. 

 

Frank and Ollie went on to write three more books on animation that were noteworthy in their own right, but their first, THE ILLUSION OF LIFE, is the one that will likely forever remain THE book on animation.

REMEMBERING JEANETTE THOMAS

A few days ago I received a letter from the family of Frank and Jeanette Thomas to say  that Jeanette had passed away. Frank, of course, was one of the top Disney animators, known collectively as the Nine Old Men, and Jeanette was his wife for over 60 years.

 

With her passing comes the end to one of the most fascinating and wonderful chapters in animation. Frank had a lifelong friendship with Ollie Johnston, another of the Nine Old Men, a friendship that began before either had gone to the Disney animation studio. Aside from the animation aspects, their friendship was one of the great won. I was privileged to know them for over 25 years and remember the last time I visited the four of them, Ollie showed me their new website. He had insisted it be called Frank an Ollie, because the way people called them it always sounded like “Frank and Dolly”, and “I'm not a Dolly!' he laughed.

 

I cherish the time I spent with Frank, Jeanette, Ollie and Marie, be it in person, on the phone or through letters. They were so sympatico together yet were four distinct, individual personalities that complemented each other perfectly. When you spent time with them you came away enriched by their knowledge of animation and just feeling good in general. You can feel this in the documentary feature FRANK AND OLLIE (1985) which is the best film ever made about animation. It was made by Frank's son Theodore and is required viewing in every animation course I have given since its release. I'm pleased to see it has now finally come to YouTube. Frank, Ollie, Jeanette and Marie are all featured prominently.

 

We talked about animation, of course, of specific films, scenes and charcters and of Walt Disney and others at the studio, but talked of other things as well. All four were generous and open, definite and strong in their opinions.

 

All four are gone now, but they leave us with not only great works that will last for many generations to come, but also a truly wonderful example of human friendship that will last an eternity.

MEETING OMAR SHARIF

I had the pleasure of meeting actor Omar Sharif during a visit he made to Montreal. He had come to paticipate in a world-class bridge tournament, a skill in which he excelled. During our meeting we talked about his film career which for his North American fans began with his Academy Award-nominated role in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962.) During our meeting he signed some original lobby cards from that landmark film. I enjoyed our visit and he seemed to be a very nice man.

WORKING WITH THE CINEMATHEQUE

It was an honor to be invited to become a member of the Cinematheque Quebecoise some time ago. I remember when it was a film screening society called the Cinematheque Canadienne and would have rare films screened at McGill University in the early 1960s. Silent films were largely on the bill as I recall and I trace my continuing love of silent cinema back to those showings.

 

In 1967 the World's Fair, Expo '67, hosted a major exhibition on animation, and rare artwork from around the world and from animation's beginnings on, were on view. Here was not only original drawings from Winsor McCary's GERTIE THE DINOSAUR but the original poster and newspaper coverage from 1914, for example. I have seen animation exhibitions since then in many venues, and even curated some myself, but nothing has ever compared to the scope and quality of this show. The volunteers at the Cinematheque did themselves proud after years of hard work.

 

Afterwards, they asked the lenders of the artwork and artifacts to donate them to the Cinematheque and many did, forming the basis of their collection and also beginning its specializing in animation. Now the Cinematheque has not only animation resources, but films, posters, publicity, publications and much more on the whole subject of international film. It has done scholarly work and published articles and works on animation over the years, as well as public themed screenings.

 

Disada has lent films from its collection to the Cinematheque for screenings. At times some films Disada has made have also been screened.  We have also lent original animation artwork for display in their building for screenings. If there was an evening of Tex Avery cartoons there for example, artwork from his films from our collection would be exhibited.

 

In 1978 Mickey Mouse had a 50^th anniversary and the Cinematheque and Disada combined resources to put on a special exhibition in the National Library. Under the direction of Louise Beaudet, who did so much for animation scholarship over the years, the animation section of the Cinematheque got new 35mm prints from Disney and we organized an exhibition of original artwork and artifacvts from our own collection. We lent some artwork for another major animation exhibition the Cinematheque curated in 1982.

 

 Everyone in animation around the world knew and respected Louise`s dedication to and, knowledge of animation. Working with her over the years both in the Cinematheque and ASIFA Canada, The International Ammated Film Association, which she started and where I was a member, a board member and a Vice President, was always a genuine pleasure.

 

I eventually donated to the Cinematheque our collection of 35mm film prints of Disney, Warners and other animation classics and printed materials. Sometimes we would discover or be brought a rare or unknown film, usually an animated one, and we would donate it to the Cinematheque. They would best preserve it, reprint it and exchange it with other such institutions around the world so it would be seen again. I remember one very rare silent era independent cartoon on Christopher Columbus done by an early woman animator. Similarly, the work of one silent animator. Herbert Dawley, was known through reputation but not for any surviving films, but we found one. A feature silent live-action film with known stars was thought to be lost, but one day we found a copy, even color-tinted.

 

Attending the annual members' meeting was always interesting, not only for the discussions on film matters, but to meet and mingle with the filmmakers of Quebec who had come together for their common interests. I remember one such annual meeting where I found myself sitting beside an actress I always admired, Marie Tifo. 

 

 

REMEMBERING WALLY GENTLEMAN

Those of us in the arts all have people whose lives and careers have inspired us to do our best and to love our professions and sometimes we are fortunate enough to have real mentors. I was indeed fortunate to have Wally Gentleman as one of my mentors.

 

Wally came to Canada from England in 1957. His special effects film work in the UK such as GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946), BLACK NARCISSUS (1947). THE RED SHOES (1948), OLIVER TWIST (1948), ANASTASIA (1956) led  him head that discipline at the National Film Board of Canada. His seminal work there was UNIVERSE (1960) which was about the planets and so on in our solar system. So well done and realistic were his scenes that it was hard not to believe that they had sent a real cameraman to these heavenly bodies! It was nominated Best Documentary Short at the Academy Awards,

 

The film attracted the attention of Stanley Kubrick, who hired Wally to create the special effects for his future feature 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968.) Wally imagined most of the film's memorable scenes, such as the woman who walks around and upside down in the zero-gravity spaceship, secured by her grip shoes. The shots of the planets was an updated version of his work in UNIVERSE, but much trickier. In color and Cinerama, any defects in the special effects shooting would be easily seen. People looked for the so-called invisible wires holding up the planets. Wally's simple answer to that threat was to suspend the planets upside down and shoot the scene with an inverted camera. The film was a huge success, with only one sour note. The film's credits say “Special Effects by Stanley Kubrick” and it was he who collected that Academy Award at the next Oscar ceremony.

 

He formed SPEAC (Special Photographic Effects and Allied Crafts) in Montreal and also became involved with industry affairs with various film organizations and guilds. We met when he was President of the Society of Film Makers and I was a board member. He fought government bureaucracy to secure a good cultural climate for Canadian filmmakers and was instrumental in getting positive legislation. I was happy to learn and work under him on these goals and battles and learned much. After a few years he reached the term limits of the position and I became President of the SFM. We worked well together. Wally wrote many technical articles for film publications and had time for everyone who loved film as did he.

 

Wally was an excellent cameraman as well as special effects person and was a major member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. He shot various live-action projects for Disada Productions. One had a little special effects in it, which was fun to do. Over the years we became good friends and I learned a great deal from him about film and the art of film in which he was much experienced and well-versed. Early on, we would go to see a film together and afterwards in a nearby restaurant he'd ask what I thought of it. I'd say something simple like “I liked it” or “It was good” and then he'd go into enormous detail about the film, what worked, what didn't and why it was so. His analysis was always deep and detailed and I felt pretty inept. Over the years, learning from him how to think about film, I was finally able to at least keep up and possibly make our talks a little interesting for him. He taught me how to think about film in all its aspects. He was also a great enthusiast for animation, so we had a bond there as well. Now, many years later I frankly find myself in his position when I talk with new young film enthusiasts. I find myself thinking of him when I reach for some supposedly insightful thought about film when talking to the next generation.

 

Wally, Peter Benison and I took the Society of Film Makers and turned it into the Canadian Academy of Motion Picture and Television Arts and Sciences. Wally was a bridge-builder. One year the Canadian film industry was cut in two with Quebec film makers on one side and English Canadian film makers on the other. Neither was talking to the others, and the annual Canadian Film Awards was coming up with neither side wanting to attend as a result. Wally and I did some shuttle diplomacy, travelling back and forth between Montreal and Toronto talking to both sides until we finally got them each to agree to attend the televised awards and a series of talks in future.

 

One day we got in a challenging film to do: a live-action and animation film for the military . It would have a good number of scenes combining the two onscreen at the same time. In those days this meant a lot of matte work or aerial image work, which were very expensive, much more than the budget we were to have. I called Wally and he invented a new kind of aerial image machine that could serve. To make things more complicated, the characters were to move within a MOVING live-action scene at times. Up to then, in combination live-action and animation scenes, like in some Disney feature films the camera would be “locked down”. But we wanted to try animating the characters in moving perspective with the real footage. No point in doing things the easy way! We found it amusing when years later WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT was acclaimed the first time this had been done. Wally's invention did the job very well, and we completed the film within our budget. Wally secured a patent on his invention, and sold the unit to Universal, where it was put to use on the television series BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA, he told us later. I should point out that with Wally you also got to work with his dedicated and loyal crew. You could say the prime person was his wife Margaret, a creative dynamo in her own right. Theirs was the best showbusiness marriage I have ever known on both personal and professional grounds.

 

Wally remained excited by film, and I could see the young man in the older man though his enthusiasm. When a new feature would open and it was loaded with special effects, we'd close the studio early Friday afternoons and everyone would go to see it, then hear his analysis afterwards. New films like CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND fit the bill. I was too busy to go with the gang to see this new STAR WARS thing when it opened, but all I heard was raves on Monday morning from everyone, especially from Wally.

 

Wally went to Europe to do some feature films and his letters were creative and funny. Later he became a director at Film Effects of Hollywood, the longtime effects company of the legendary Linwood Dunn (King Kong, Citizen Kane etc.) In 1982 Wally made history by using video and electronics to shoot Francis Ford Coppola's pioneering film ONE FROM THE HEART.

 

Though Wally died in 2001, I still sometimes find myself seeing something on film and absent-mindedly thinking I've got to tell him about it. He was a great mentor and friend and is no doubt missed by all who knew him. Never was anyone as aptly named as Wally Gentleman.

 

 

 

 

 

THE IRANIAN CAPER

THE IRANIAN CAPER

 

The release of the new film ARGO brings back memories of the so-called Iranian Caper. When militants stormed the US embassy in Theran and took hostage diplomats and workers, six managed to escape to the home of the Canadian ambassador. A cover story evolved and the six pretended to be Canadians and eventually were able to leave Iran as such. The film tells the story, though it downplays the risk Canadians took in befriending the Americans, and how the Canadian Prime Minister, Joe Clark, worked with the American administration to devise the ruse.

 

Americans, or more specifically Ben Affleck may not appreciate the Canadians' contribution, but they certainly did at the time. Shortly after the six were flown back home, and the story became well known, people from our animation studio, Disada Productions, went to Boston for a comic-animation convention where we did radio interviews and so on. We stayed at a large Sheraton Hotel where the convention was held. On the morning we went to check out and pay our bill, the clerk took out our file, said “You're Canadians? No charge.” He said the stay was free to thank Canada for helping the Americans in this difficult time. He also gave us each a pin, combining the US and Canadian flags.

 

The rest of the Americans were ultimately released about a year later on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated President. I was in Cleveland, Ohio that day and the night before on business, and like most people stayed up most of the night to watch the news events unfold live on TV. Everyone was bleary-eyed during the next day's meetings.

Disada Productions on the Shotgun Show!

Disada Productions was recently featured on the Shotgun Show, an internet-based reality show!  At the moment our interview can be found on the featured section of their website!

http://www.youtube.com/user/ShotgunWithCarlo/featured

Owner Peter Adamakos talks about his Walt Disney's Peter Pan Collection!

DISADA GOES GREEN

One of the production steps in classical animation used to be the inking and painting of acetate cels. The characters in the animation drawings would be traced from the pencil paper version to an inked version on cels, which were then painted on the reverse side and then filmed from the front atop each scene's background.

 

There was a lot of paint around, hundreds of different colors that would be bought directly or mixed by us for specific colors we wanted to see onscreen. There were also gradations of colors too- as cel levels were switched in the filming process or new cels added to a scene, compensation colors had to be mixed so that the colors of characters would remain the same throughout the scene and not get lighter or darker as cels were added or taken off. All of this amounted to a lot of paint being used, and a lot of jars of water with paint in them as the painters would rinse off their brushes and otherwise created many jars of painty water.

 

About a year after opening our studio, we contacted the main ecological groups in the city to ask for their advice on what to do with this leftover water. Only certain paints would adhere to the cels and they were not good for the environment when all the animation studios would pour that water down drains. What we came up with was a simple but effective answer. The worst thing was for the water to enter the environment as a liquid, we were told, so we set up an “evaporation room.”

 

The painters were told to use as little water as necessary and when a jar could no longer be used, not to pour the water down the drain, but to send the jar to the evaporation room where it would sit, opened, with hundreds of others until the water eventually evaporated and the paint became a solid mass in the jar. Better to have the paint as such in landfill than in liquid form in the river system, the experts said.

 

Another thing we did was to cut down on the number of jars and amount of water by better organizing our painting schedules. For example, in the BIBITE films the little green character appeared in most scenes, along with other characters who would only be in one or two. For the first half of the painting time on that film all the painters painted Bibite and only Bibite cels. His main color, green, was seen on every desk, but by doing all those green colors at the same time, rather than paint scene by scene, returning to green every so often there were fewer jars of green paint to evaporate. 

See the full gallery on Posterous

DISADA'S FIRST BOOK

Disada Productions and Peter Adamakos have been featured in a number of books on animation over the years. The very first book mentioning Disada was MY CANADA- SUCH A MECHIAH! By Mike Gutwillig. It was published in 1967 during the Centennial year and features chapters on interesting Canadians, including one on Peter when he was a 20 year old university student leading a group of over 200 film makers.

 

We have a copy that Mike sent, with his dedication “To Peter Adamakos- may you never lose that Disney inspiration to do great things with film. Loyally, Mike Gutwillig.”  

See the full gallery on Posterous

Untitled

Another Classic Disada Commercial!!

A Giant Potato connect-the-dots! Print this off and give it to your kids!!!

Winnie Witch and the Giant Potato Comic Strip!

A PLACE TO STAND

A PLACE TO STAND

 

Recently some friends gathered to see some 16mm films from our collection and I introduced them to A PLACE TO STAND, my favorite Canadian film. It was commissioned by the government of Ontario to be shown in the Ontario Pavilion at the World's Fair at Expo '67 in Montreal. Created and Directed by Christopher Chapman, the 18 minute film was a crowd favorite at the Fair. Rarely did I go to Expo '67 without seeing it and I was there every few days for months. The film went on to get a theatrical release, distributed by Columbia Pictures. It was nominated at the next Academy Awards for Best Documentary Short AND for Best Live-Action Short, the only time that happened, and won the latter.

 

The film has no narration, only music and effects but does have the song A PLACE TO STAND. Even before the Fair was over, recordings of the song were printed and sold due to demand, and even today the song endures as a sort of Ontario anthem, featured in media (”Ontari-ari-arioo”) . People know it but not the film where it was first heard and for which it was written.

 

A few years later I had the honor of being elected President of the Society of Film Makers. While there were organizations for directors, writers, cameramen, actors and so on in the film industry, this was the organization for all professionals in the film industry. Eventually Wally Gentleman, Peter Benison and I turned it into the Canadian Academy of Motion Pictures and Television. From the membership I was able to select two Vice Presidents and it was a total pleasure to pick the two people who had done the most for film as an art form, Norman McLaren and Christopher Chapman.

 

In 1992, for the 25^th anniversary of Expo '67 I organized some public events in celebration and remembrance. There was an extensive collection of the World's Fair memorabilia and artifacts and the showing of many of the unique films from Expo '67, ending with A PLACE TO STAND. At every showing that film ended with very many in the audience in tears, so I was not alone!The film has come to represent the Fair and for those who had come to the reunions this film was the height of nostalgia. It brought back great memories of the Fair as well as the feeling we had back then of what a great place Canada was in its centennial year and the confidence we had in its future, which is the unstated but shown spirit of the film. While about Ontario, it was really about the Canadian character.

 

The film is indeed 18 minutes, but has close to two hours of footage in it. It pioneered the multiple-image screen. On the immense screen at the pavilion, the screen was filled with constantly changing moving images. Sometimes the entire screen would be one large image. At other tines you could see two images, like a spit screen, or many small images, moving left to right or vice versa, moving out of the way for another image to come in, zooming in or out, starting small, zooming out, then in again, anywhere from one to a dozen or more images at any moment, all of them actual movies, not slides.

 

It sounds chaotic, but it is miraculous because it is so well conceived and directed and edited. One can go back to Eisenstein and others who discovered cause and effect in editing. He once took footage of a woman with a totally blank expression. Then he experimented: A baby crying was shown, then some of the woman. A fire scene, then the woman. A wedding scene, then cut to the woman. Test audiences reported that the woman's expression showed how sad, terrified or happy she was in each case.

 

In the same way, the positioning of the multiple scenes in A PLACE TO STAND creates a new feel, a cause and effect carryover as it were, but more than single shot editing provides. Fade in to scenes of a wintery blizzard, three different scenes across the top of the screen, and one at each  side at the bottom. The middle part of the screen at the bottom is black, no image. Once we're conditioned to the cold wintery exterior, a scene of a curling game is seen in the black ares. The people curling are warm and cozy while the storm outside rages (literally onscreen) all around them. It gives a more embracing feel than if it had been done the traditional way, showing the storm outside then cutting to a curling scene indoors. The storm and the game are happening at the same time onscreen at the same time without the need to cut from one to the other to keep showing it. You can watch the storm or the game. Most will watch the game as it is the new element onscreen, but still feel the storm.

 

As the game continues, another scene pops on, a shot of the trophy to be awarded to the winner of the game. The game scene is intensified by seeing the goal. Yet another scene is added to the mix, a closeup of the brooms in the game as the teams battle. Now the game is intensified as they go for the trophy. It is a film experience like no other.

 

Norman Jewison used the technique in filming THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway not long after, and other films have used miultiple image effectively but not as extensively. I am told the technique was used in the television series 24. You can see A PLACE TO STAND on YouTube for an approximation of it, but it does suffer from not being seen on a huge screen, where the images can be seen clearly, and with that great soundtrack turned up high.

Another post for my Ottawa School of Art Students!

This is a great website for free illustration instruction. It contains comprehensive step-by-step videos concerning everything from basic drawing to using technical software! 

http://www.ctrlpaint.com/

JOHN GAUG & EARLY DISADA ANIMATION

JOHN GAUG & EARLY DISADA ANIMATION

Surfing around the internet and various animation sites, I recently
came across an appreciation of the career of John Gaug, which brought
back thoughts of Disada Productions' early days when we worked and
learned together.

In 1967 Montreal was host to the world with Expo '67, an incredible
World's Fair that had anything you were interested in it seemed. If
that was animation, there was a phenomenal exhibition of animation
artwork and artifacts going back to the earliest days to the
television era. Here were original drawings, poster and newspaper
articles on Winsor McCay's GERTIE THE DINOSAUR from 1914 and it just
got even better, including actual stop-frame puppets from the early
days and much more.

In addition there was an animation film festival, with over a week of
rare animation films, again from the earliest days, running in the
afternoons and in the evenings, each screening devoted to a specific
subject or studio. I had died and gone to Montreal. This was in the
days before video or DVDs so animation fans would get to see films we
had only read about. I arranged to take time off work so as not to
miss any of the screenings.

I took notes on each film as it was projected and after each screening
noticed a young fellow who also seemed to attend each screening. After
a few times I went up to him and we talked about the films and
animation. I found someone who was as interested as I was in
animation. He was still in high school and was about 15 years old.

After the week of films was over, he came to my place and saw more
16mm animation films I had collected and also animation memorabilia,
Disney cels and things that I had. We decided to do a short together
and got some publicity in newspapers and radio to find others who
would join us and soon we were underway. We worked mostly on weekends
and would go to see cartoon films and features as a group as well. We
read everything there was available on animation. We were passionate
and probably dreamed about animation in our sleep. The Cinematheque in
Montreal had animation nights we would attend. It was constant
learning, studying, drawing and experimenting. I got to know his
family and his barbershop group singing parents.

A famous actor came to visit Expo '67 and I arranged to meet with him
after a press conference to sign some lobby cards from his most famous
film. He was associated with children often so he was surrounded by
them at the press conference, all smiles and laughs. As soon as the
press was gone, however, he turned mean, practically threw a little
girl off his lap and started swearing. The children were quickly
whisked away. He was reminded about signing the lobby cards and that
started a new tantrum. He had a Montreal representative, who took me
aside and suggested I leave the photos with him and he'd have them
signed by the actor before he left Montreal the next day.

A couple of days later I went to see the rep who gave me the signed
cards and expressed sincere regrets for what happened. He asked me if
I wouldn't tell people who the actor was (and I haven't) and asked if
there was anything he could do for me. I could see from his office
that he was a real estate man and said we could use an animation
studio. He said he had a couple of small rooms in his real estate
company building there that he could rent out to us- how much room did
we need? I couldn't resist replying “Enough room to swing a cat in.”
He looked amused and I explained that in his Kansas City days Disney
rented out some rooms in the back of a real estate company and gave
that same answer when he was asked that, according to biographies. He
laughed, called it a good omen, and suggested we pay $25 a month to
cover the heat, light and water.

John and I now had a small studio to work in, with storyboard panels
on the walls, animation desks we made ourselves, inking and painting
area. It got pretty crowded on weekends- I remember Ross drawing on
the floor under the larger table. He preferred drawing down there. We
did a lot of work in those two rooms and had a mascot, Irving the
cactus.

We stayed there until we decided to become a professional studio about
three years later when we moved into a three-floor studio downtown. We
worked on a short titled THE MOUSE AND THE LION. John did some
animation but mostly layout and backgrounds on our next effort, a
theatrical cartoon short Columbia Pictures distributed called INSOMNIA
OR BUST. In each jungle background John would incorporate his
initials, in the bark of a tree or vines or whatever. It drove Tom
crazy but I didn't mind. When the film was nominated Best Animation in
what are now called the Genie Awards John and I went to the ceremony
in Toronto. We didn't win, but had a good time seated at the table
with the other animation nominees talking shop. The awards were handed
out by Hollywood legendary producer Darryl F. Zanuck that year. That
would have added a plus to a win.

I remember John was furious that as we left the awards the late
newspapers were out with headlines of the winners. He thought it was
fixed, but I saw no conspiracy. Besides we were in too much of a hurry
to bother about it. To save money in those early days we took the
train to Toronto and had to rush after the awards to catch the
overnight going back to Montreal. When we arrived we had to change
into our suits in the washroom of the hotel where the awards were
taking place!

The overnight train was a milk run that must have stopped at each town
and village. You'd be jolted awake every time it stopped. One
passenger snored something fierce and finally John shook him awake
yelling something like “Wake up! I can't take it any more!”

John did the backgrounds on our next picture, our first television
commercial and did a fine job once again. He did the storyboards for a
feature animation cartoon we wanted to do and designed the characters
for it. We did our own story though he wanted us to get the rights to
something called THE HOBBIT. We looked into getting the rights but
United Artists had the film rights back then and didn't want to sell
them. There were admittedly elements of it in the feature story we
wrote and designed, THE MAGIC JEWEL. He then wanted to get the rights
to THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, but it did nothing for me so
that went nowhere. He worked on a short he wrote, THE APPLE, at our
place but didn't finish it.

He left the studio, though I would see him at animation events and
functions where we'd have a good talk. When I got a better copy of
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS on film he got my old copy which we
had both studied countless times including frame by frame. John went
on to do various films and projects and enjoyed working in other
cities, like New York, Ottawa and London. When he died in 1984 it was
a deep loss for animation and for those who knew him.

See the full gallery on Posterous

DISADA FIGHTS THE COLD WAR

DISADA FIGHTS THE COLD WAR

In the early 1970s we made a live-action documentary titled NIGHT
BEAT. It was the first film to go with the police on their late night
beat in the most crime-ridden parts of Montreal. For months we went
along with them on The Main and other areas every Friday night, which
they had said was the biggest crime period of the week. We had signed
papers absolving them from blame if we got harmed or killed.

There were some funny stories that came out of this production.
Usually we sat in the back seat of police cars as they did their
work, which included patrolling the downtown area. Montreal on a
Friday night was a very busy place. Sometimes at red lights ot just
parked, someone you knew would walk by, see you in the back seat of a
police car, assume you've been arrested and turn away. I'd hold up the
camera and point to it but by then they'd walked away quickly. Thank
goodness there was no social media back then or it would have been
reported I had been arrested, convicted and jailed by midnight.

One time the police we were with were going on their supper break.
They decided to go to their favorite pizza place. It was way across
town, far from their beat. I questioned if they could get there, eat
and back in time to resume their work. They laughed. They turned on
their sirens and we covered the miles in minutes. It was a wild ride,
and on film we have a scenic tour of Montreal in a couple of minutes,
though it's quite a bumpy ride.

Once the film was finished we got a letter from the Soviet embassy in
Ottawa. They wanted to purchase a copy of the film. I remembered what
happened to WEST SIDE STORY. A year or so after that film was
released, Russia bought it to show to its people. This was hailed as a
cultural warming of the cold war. What they actually did, I read in
Variety, was cut the film down, eliminating the songs and the story,
making a documentary short on the problems of gangs in the USA
terrorizing the population and showed that as propaganda to their
people. I was sure they wanted to see our film and buy it to edit into
a similar exercise about rampant crime in the West. I answered them
that this film was not available for export but our cartoons could be
part of a fine cultural exchange. Of course we never heard from them
again.

Noah's Animals Rough Work!

Here is a posing drawing for a difficult scene of animation! Here is
the planning the animator did before he began to animate the scene.

IT IS ALL ABOUT THE TIMING AND THE SPACING!

For all of my Ottawa School of Art students this semester here is a good video on how to find your timing and spacing for animation.

I was reviewing some Winnie and Potato story boards today! Great stuff!

Two Winnie Witch and the Giant Potato Comic strips!

Fire Prevention Week Launch 2012!

Disada Productions’ Peter Adamakos has always been active in
charitable work, starting with World of Dreams and now Fire Prevention
Canada. Peter’s new charitable interest is a 35 year-old non-profit
organization that provides education on fire safety throughout Canada.

On October 4, 2012 Disada Productions organized and hosted the
Canadian National Fire Prevention Week Launch, which occurs
simultaneously in Canada and the USA. Disada Productions has been a
major part of this annual convention for the past three years.

The event operates under the patronage of the Governor General of
Canada (the Royal Proclamation by Queen Elizabeth II was read out,
announcing Fire Prevention Week). Rick McCullough, President of Fire
Prevention Canada opened the event with the charities’ other board
members in attendance.
Fire Chiefs and Marshals attended from all parts of Canada and the
federal Minister of Labour, Lisa Raitt.

Disada Productions organized a catered lunch and a special musical
event for children, a live, interactive stage show by Les Productions
Mylzami on the subject of fire safety. Over five hundred singing
students raised the roof of the Government Conference Centre in
Ottawa, the nation's capital, where the launch was held! Disada
arranged for the donation of five hundred new smoke alarms and
batteries to give to the children from Kidde and Duracell.

Talented camera-man and marketer Dean Emerick filmed and photographed the event.

Peter Adamakos wants to acknowledge and thank the individuals and
government employees that form the volunteer launch committee and
helped make it all possible and a great success: Mike Dunlop, Mark
Gillan, Celine Guerin, Eugene Marotta, Gerry McCabe, Julie Richer and
Colette Trudel and to the various sponsors of the event.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Fire Prevention Week Launch 2012!

Disada Productions’ Peter Adamakos has always been active in
charitable work, starting with World of Dreams and now Fire Prevention
Canada. Peter’s new charitable interest is a 35 year-old non-profit
organization that provides education on fire safety throughout Canada.

On October 4, 2012 Disada Productions organized and hosted the
Canadian National Fire Prevention Week Launch, which occurs
simultaneously in Canada and the USA. Disada Productions has been a
major part of this annual convention for the past three years.

The event operates under the patronage of the Governor General of
Canada (the Royal Proclamation by Queen Elizabeth II was read out,
announcing Fire Prevention Week). Rick McCullough, President of Fire
Prevention Canada opened the event with the charities’ other board
members in attendance.
Fire Chiefs and Marshals attended from all parts of Canada and the
federal Minister of Labour, Lisa Raitt.

Disada Productions organized a catered lunch and a special musical
event for children, a live, interactive stage show by Les Productions
Mylzami on the subject of fire safety. Over five hundred singing
students raised the roof of the Government Conference Centre in
Ottawa, the nation's capital, where the launch was held! Disada
arranged for the donation of five hundred new smoke alarms and
batteries to give to the children from Kidde and Duracell.

Talented camera-man and marketer Dean Emerick filmed and photographed the event.

Peter Adamakos wants to acknowledge and thank the individuals and
government employees that form the volunteer launch committee and
helped make it all possible and a great success: Mike Dunlop, Mark
Gillan, Celine Guerin, Eugene Marotta, Gerry McCabe, Julie Richer and
Colette Trudel and to the various sponsors of the event.

See the full gallery on Posterous