Animating Mad Magazine!

The animators at Disada Productions, were very happy when we got the
contract to produce a fully-animated television commercial based on
the weird, distinctive characters Don Martin drew in each issue of Mad
Magazine. Most of us enjoyed the magazine and appreciated the many
talented artists and funny writers who did each issue.

Soon Don Martin's characters came to life with their floppy feet
without shoes and dopey expressions on our storyboards, on sheets of
animation paper and in color on cels. In the commercial they played
enumerators, people who went door to door getting information for
putting together a voter's list for elections. The client was the
government of the province of Quebec.

We made the commercial in French and in English versions, sixty,
thirty and ten seconds long. There were rural versions and one for
cities. A newspaper ad campaign also featured the characters. Over the
years collectors of Mad Magazine memorabilia have obtained some of our
artwork. Sadly, Don Martin died a few years ago, but his contribution
as one of the self-named “gang of idiots” remains a highlight of a
cultural institution that continues to publish today.

Now see the end result of our great work!

The Thing Sesame Street Animation

Animating for Sesame Street

Disada Productions had clients in New York City and that took us to
the great city on a fairly regular basis. On one visit I arranged a
meeting with the Children's Television Workshop, who produced the
television shows SESAME STREET and THE ELECTRIC COMPANY.

Both shows were at the apex of their popularity and influence, and
used a lot of animation. Being on PBS and being funded in large part
by government funding, they were not allowed to give contracts to
production companies outside the U.S.A. The only exceptions would be
if that company's work was truly excellent and if the company could do
work that Americans had been unable to do.

Childrens's Television Workshop's short animated films often taught
different letters or combination of letters in a reading exercise.
There were four sets of such letters that studios had tried to
incorporate into their program, but the Workshop didn't like or
approve the concepts for production. I said we'd like to have a try at
coming up with four storyboards featuring new characters that would
promote these letters. This we had to do on our own, on spec without
any compensation, but it was worth it for a crack at working with a
top animation source on a fun project.

Our animation studio did come up with four original storyboards and I
brought them down to New York. They liked and ordered all four!

You can see the two surviving animated shorts for the Children's
Television Network on our YouTube channel.

Meeting Davy Crockett

Peter Adamakos was invited to be the animation guest of honor at the
Atlanta Fantasy Fair. There were other guests including actors,
writers and comics people. The invited guests had a number of
opportunities to get to meet each other as they appeared together on
panels and other activities. We often had lunch together and it was a
great three day event.

At the convention an actor guest of honor was Tim Dunigan, who was the
star of the popular science fiction series CAPTAIN POWER AND THE
SOLDIERS OF THE FUTURE. The cinematographer on the series was a
longtime friend of mine starting way back when Disada was an amateur
film group opf college students. One day at lunch Tim seemed
introspective and explained why, saying he had received a call from
his agent that morning telling him that he got a coveted role he had
auditioned for. He was to be Disney's new Davy Crockett in a new
series of shows for the weekly Disney anthology series. It was just
dawning on him that there would be much expected and whatever he did,
he and the series itself would be compared to the famous old Disney
Davy Crockett series. He had never seen the old series (probably a
good thing) and so he welcomed my telling him about it in detail. When
the three (I think) shows aired, I thought they were well done as was
his portrayal. It was impossible to watch the new shows without
thinking of the original ones, unfair but inevitable I suppose.

Disada Productions new YouTube Channel!

Recently Disada Productions transfered many of their 2D animation
sequences from film to the internet. Keep watching our new YouTube
channel for more additions!

Disada on Regional Contact!

Disada Productions what featured on the CJOH television program Regional Contact.  This entertaining company profile from 2003 has some exciting footage of the making of the FIre Prevention PSAs as well as some of Peter's great museum exhibits!

This is an Experimental Film?!

When I was on the nominating jury for the Genie Awards, Canada's
version of the Academy Awards, about ten of us watched the year's
features and shorts to determine the final nominees in various
categories. One year there was a category for Best Experimental film.
We started watching the entries and as one of them began screening we
saw that it was a three minute or so trailer for a new Hollywood
movie. At the end of the trailer, it came on again, and a third time.

Seeing from our notes that this was a 56 minute experimental film, we
asked the projectionist to take off the film and wind down it to see
what was up. After a few minutes he reported that the film was that
trailer, repeated over and over for the whole 56 minutes. Apparently
someone had found this large roll of trailers straight from a film lab
and entered it as an “experimental film.” Nice try, no nomination.

A concept drawing of the flood sequence from Noah's Animals!

Disada's Annual Open House and Sale

Once a year, Disada's animation studio holds a very unusual “garage sale.” We make animation and movie memorabilia items available to the public and collectors. The items come from our extensive collection that are no longer deemed necessary for our exhibitions, events, teaching and shows.

This year People started arriving around 7:00 AM and there are some reg

ular animation and movie fans who have been coming from near and far. It becomes a gathering of people who share common interests and a love of animation and movies in general. People meet and some become friends.

There was a variety of items available this year from movie posters, lobby cards, pressbooks and photos to original animation artwork. Animation-themed books, toys, magazines, comic books and much more were on hand. Old and rare as well as more recent treasures were made available. There were 16mm film collectors present as well as collectors of rare movie soundtrack albums, mice, ducks and wabbits. 

The artists from Disada's animation studio enjoy meeting people who share our enjoyment of animation and movies in general all year-round, but our “garage sales” are special events where we can all meet together.

The Forbidden Kingdom revisited

Review by Peter Adamakos

To some fans, The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) will be martial arts epic.
To others interested in Asian culture it will be Crouching Tiger
Hidden Dragon. But for action and fantasy fans, it will keep you
entertained. No matter what your looking for the highlight of this
movie is watching Jacki Chan and Jet Li kick the crap out of
each-other!!!

This is a, westernized East, where another poor American boy taught by
old masters saves the world, more or less a grander Karate Kid. Not
the most original however it is very well done. The production is
handsomely designed and photographed, the costumes and sets lavish but
not overdone.

The cast is solid all around, and Jackie Chan finds a perfect niche on
his way back to career rehabilitation after mistakes like Around the
World in 80 Days. Jet Li is in perfect contrast, and Michael Angarano
as the young man is fine throughout and doesn’t say “dude” once.

Director Robert Minkoff has a good eye. In one scene he has people
running down many floors of a winding staircase, which we see from
above, as we have many times in films. But he has his camera rotating
with the actors, giving an old cliché a nice twist. Enjoy this one.

That being said this movie is exactly what it set out to be, tones of
elaborate martial arts fights and very little plot!

MEETING HARRY BELAFONTE

In the 1950s and 1960s Harry Belafonte was a ubiquitous presence. My
mother played his records, as did Mrs. Wolfson in Grade Seven Friday
afternoon art class at school. He was a frequent guest on the many
variety television shows and was in some movies.

When he came to do a concert in Montreal we would go and see it, and
one time I arranged for us to go backstage after the show to meet him.
He signed some original lobby card photos from his films and signed
the program of the concert with a dedication to my mother. He signed
it on the photo of him shirtless in the book, with the added notation
“Thanks for Napoleon!” There was a province-wide liquor strike on at
the time and cars were even being searched arriving from other
provinces. My mother thought he'd like some Napoleon brandy and
brought along a new bottle for him.

Both as a performer and civil rights activist, he was always
appreciated in our home. See photos of him signing, and opening the
wrapped brandy.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Donald Duck say "F___ You"!

Forward: Walt Disney is currently recalling all Clock Cleaners shorts
with this F-U segment. It is becoming extremely difficult to find a
full version on the internet, as Disney is re-releasing a fixed
version with a completely new segment to replace Donald's curse.
However DIsada Productions still has a full version in our collection,
feel free to contact us to see the full original "Clock Cleaners".

Everybody has heard of the hidden sexual jokes that have sneaked
through onto the screen in various Disney animated features. I refer
to the word “SEX” that graces the sky in THE LION KING and an erection
as a column of the palace on the original LITTLE MERMAID VHS case and
so on. I however can top all of these! In 1937 Donald Duck Actually
says “F--- you!” in a Disney cartoon short!

The year was 1937 and it occurred in one of the all-time great
Mickey-Goofy-Donald
cartoon shorts, CLOCK CLEANERS. In this short, the three characters
are cleaning up
the inner workings of a huge clock atop a tower. Donald Duck’s job is
to clean the
coiled-up mainspring, which he begins to do with a wet mop. When his mop gets
caught between the coils, he (naturally) becomes angry and pulls on the mop
violently and soon the whole mainspring comes undone, with all its
springs sprung!

We cut away to see Mickey doing a bit of business and when we cut back to Donald
he is hammering the last bit of coil still sticking out. This results
in a long, loose
thin metal coil remaining, much to Donald’s chagrin. The long coil
bumps Donald’s
behind as he hammers, boing boing boing and we hear the thin metallic sound the
coil makes.

Donald says “What’s the big idea?” to the spring coil, which in its
thin metallic voice
mimics him, repeating “What’s the big idea?” Donald replies angrily
“Oh shut up!”
The spring coil answers “YOU shut up!”, quivering as it “speaks.” Donald, even
more riled, says to it “Oh yeah?” and the spring coil is up to the
challenge, saying
back “Oh yeah!” At this point Donald clearly says “Fuck you!” to which
the spring
coil answers “Says I!”

Donald’s line was probably supposed to have been “Says You!” to elicit
the response
“Says I!” but it is clearly the F-word on the soundtrack. It was
probably recorded as
a joke, and kept in by the sound editor, knowingly or not. Every
Disney old-timer I’ve
ever spoken with indicated that Clarence “Ducky” Nash, Donald’s voice
for 50 years
was not the kind of person to have done this thinking or hoping it
would have been
used. In fact one man told me he thought Clarence Nash was always
afraid of not being
kept on at the studio, afraid that someone else would be hired to do the job.

The story doesn’t end there. In 1986 Disney released the animated
feature THE GREAT
MOUSE DETECTIVE and put CLOCK CLEANERS in front of the feature in the prints.
Sitting in the theatre, I wondered if they were aware of this at
Disney. Apparently they
were very aware of it because when the moment arrived, the soundtrack
suddenly got
300% louder as an enormous “SAYS YOU!” just BOOMED through the theatre making
everyone jump. They had rerecorded it all right, and laid it in on a
second track. This was
probably the only thing on that track and the level had not been
adjusted for it in the
theatre. In subsequent showings I heard the soundtrack get louder at
that point, if not as
loud as on that first day, AND I could hear the original F-word, very
low, underneath.
So one track had the complete original track and another had the new
“Says You!” on
it.

Brother Bear Revisited

In BROTHER BEAR (2003) the story and the film seem to have been
divided into two parts: the more serious first part which sets up the
time and place and the human characters and their culture, and the
second, a lighter feel, which follows Kenai on his journeys to new
understandings.

The first part, which is fairly long, is necessary for the
appreciation and enjoyment of the second part. The place, North
America a thousand years ago, is as much a character of the film as is
the dessert in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. The layouts, backgrounds, camera
movements are stunning and spectacular, and not in the all-too-often
roller coaster way usually seen today. There is atmosphere here that
recalls how audiences must have felt seeing the scope of PINOCCHIO’s
locations for the first time in a theater. The first part’s direction
is magnificent. Many small children were in the audience I sat in, and
there wasn’t a peep from them during this long expository section, so
enthralling and mesmerizing was the look and direction of this early
part and the action scenes such as the bear fight were suspenseful and
gripping. The caribou stampede is less mechanical than a similar
computerized scene in THE LION KING.

There is no doubt that Disney’s visually storytelling ability
continues to be the best in the business. It alternately springs to
action or quietly, even seductively, unfolds to hold the audience
spellbound but keeps them involved as well. There was a similar need
for other-culture explanations woven through POCAHONTAS and MULAN, but
those films did not handle it as well as it is here. There is not one
extra or wasted moment in the early section—storytelling and direction
are at their confident best here.

The film is visually superb—even the skies enthrall, not only with the
Northern Lights, but with moving clouds and even ordinary rain is done
noticeably well. The backgrounds are majestic without being
in-your-face show-offy. Everything fits visually, from the changes in
lighting as sun rays filter through tree branches, to seeing
characters’ breaths when it is coldest, to waterfalls, to an ice
cave. The animation is superb, with great mouth action, subtle,
not-overdone acting and fully-rounded characters—Disney feature
characters turn in three dimensions whereas others’ show a character
in one position, then cut to another character onscreen, then back to
the first to see that it has moved to a new position that would have
been difficult to have animated, going from one position to the other.
Over and over in this and other Disney features, no one takes the easy
way out—not in animation, not in layout, not in effects. Audiences
might not notice all the details of such a policy, but they feel them
in the believability of the characters and the reality of the fantasy.
It takes twenty minutes of screen time for Pinocchio to go out into
the world, for Peter Pan and the children to arrive in Neverland, for
Alice to enter Wonderland. Each of those films and others spent a long
time setting up the characters and the premise so there could be
adventures to care about. What is marvellous in BROTHER BEAR is that
the second part builds on the first, and continues its theme without
breaking from it. The second part lightens up, sure, and is at times
howlingly funny, but doesn’t break with the first section, it expands
upon it. Unlike THE LION KING which has its serious first part, then
when Simba grows to adulthood goes off the deep end with Simon and
Pumba, culminating in an awkward attempt to reconcile them: a funny
hula dance during a serious fight to the death between Simba and his
uncle,for example, breaking the spirit of the film

In BROTHER BEAR, even the hilarious characters, Rutt and Tuke (moose),
two mountain sheep and others can be so within the spirit of the film.
The feature film doesn’t stop as does THE LITTLE MERMAID to do a
Sebastian and Pierre the cook five minute funny cartoon, then back to
the seriousness of the situation where we left the feature.This is
craft and it is a joy to behold and enjoy. Like all the arts, it is
wonderful to see creative people at the top of their craft doing their
best.

TECHNICAL REALISM IN THE MOVIES

TECHNICAL REALISM IN THE MOVIES

What effect are modern technologies having on the movie-going
experience today? Are audiences still as much participants in the
movie-going experience as before or are we now just passive observers?
Around the 1930s, audiences would see the actors in a car scene while
a rear-screen projection played in the car's back window. Audiences
knew the actors weren't really on a road somewhere but on a sound
stage in a studio. Even the cheesy Wizard of Oz sets and effects were
fine and accepted by audiences willingly suspending their disbelief.

Today effects are so real that they can be as much off-putting as they
are mesmerizing. Like animated backgrounds, effects should be
integrated and not stand out or draw attention to themselves unless
the scene is in itself an effects scene. If a film has an overdone
computer effects shot for the audience to ooh and ahh over (or
probably shout out “awesome!') then it's an interruption to story and
character.

I can remember the first time I noticed this. I was watching the film
TWISTER (1996); The tornadoes had been realistic and thrilling, and
then came a shot where the protagonists, Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton
were driving their truck in a ditch beside a road that was being
churned up by a twister as debris (and later a cow) flew by, all in
one shot. The three elements transported me out of the scene. It was
super real, too real, actually, and visually shouted out“Hey- look at
what we can do!” As a result I was totally an observer now who had
lost any connection with the characters and their predicament. The
magic has been broken, and effects are not in and of themselves magic.

"The craft of great animation must be learned, taught, cultivated and nurtured over a long period of time" Peter Adamakos

Winnie the Pooh unused ending!

This is one of my favourite Winnie the Pooh scenes! This is the
proposed ending of the feature film Disney was going to release.
Instead he broke it down into the three or four shorts that were
produced.
This ending was never used. However in my opinion it is better and
more heartfelt than almost all of the footage that was used from that
original feature film.

Never before seen rough, expressive pencil test of two of our PSAs.

TECHNICAL WIZARDRY BEHIND THE THREE CABALLEROS

Combining live-action with animation onscreen at the same time goes
back to the silent days. Max Fleischer had cartoon characters
cavorting with live-action people and locations, and Walt Disney did
the reverse with his Alice Comedies.

The great leap forward came with Disney's wartime feature THE THREE
CABALLEROS. Its release was delayed until 1945 due to backlogs at
Technicolor, but when it did finally come to theatres, audiences were
mesmerized by the technical wizardry as Donald Duck, Jose Carioca and
Panchito danced and played with live performers.

The much improved technique was due to the aerial image setup, The
live-action was filmed first, very carefully and exactly, leaving
space where the cartoon characters would be in the scene. The 35mm
live-action was projected upwards onto the animation camera platen. In
shooting regular animation scenes the cameraman would shoot cels one
after another placed above a painted background. In this system, the
cels were placed on top of a projected live-action image, which in
effect became the cels' background. The cameraman would advance the
film one frame at a time using a projector system under the shooting
table. So the cels and the “background” advanced every frame or so.

I was told an amusing story about this system by a former Disney
manager. Word got out about a new kind of shooting at the Disney
studios where they shot cels and manipulated a projected image. This
was of particular interest to the projectionist's union. One of the
union leaders called up the studio and spoke with the manager who told
me this story. The union rep made it very clear that if there was a
projector involved, then the projectionist's union would need to send
a man to manipulate it.

The manager had him out to the studio and showed how the cameraman had
to also manipulate the projector. This was exacting work, and if the
cels and projected backgrounds went out of sync, the shot, possibly
hours of work, would have to be scrapped. It was better to have one
person keep things on track, follow the complex exposure sheets and so
on. The union rep was adamant. If there was a projector involved, you
had to hire a projectionist. Resigned, the manager told him to have
someone show up the next morning at 8 AM.

The next morning the manager met the projectionist and told him his
duties: “This is the cameraman. He will shoot the cels and advance the
projected images. Your job is to sit in this chair. You can't talk to
him because he needs to concentrate on the job. You can't read because
the rest of the room has to be in total darkness for the shooting. You
can't smoke because the smoke would interfere with the shot. You can't
get off that chair because that would distract the cameraman. You take
a break when the cameraman takes a break. You have the best job in
Hollywood. You do nothing and get paid for it.”

The manager then told the cameraman to call him if the union fellow
got off the chair or broke any of the rules. After a couple of hours
the manager got a call: “He's gone.” The manager called the union rep
and told him to send over someone else. For the next few days every
projectionist eventually left the boring job until word got around
about this crazy job at Disney and that if you're offered the job,
don't take it. Soon everyone refused to go and jobs of this type never
did become unionized.

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands. Clint Eastwood

Animation for Business! This is a promotional invitation Fire Prevention Canada made to promote the Public Service Announcements Disada Productions animated!

James Dean

We all have favorite actors but one in particular made a very great
impression on me, and that was James Dean. In him I saw someone who
worked at his craft and had the guts and courage to stay true to
himself and not take crap from anyone. His favorite book, THE LITTLE
PRINCE, by Antoine de Saint Exupery, became one of mine, and as he did
I gave copies to special friends who would understand and appreciate
it. When I was a teenager my friend Doug Benson gave me a book he
found in a used bookstore, JAMES DEAN by William Bast. Bast was a good
friend of Dean, another aspiring actor in New York. They roomed
together to save costs in their early days, and this book was a tale
of their friendship. It spoke of their struggling for a toehold in the
acting business, going on auditions, minor successes and major
disappointments.

Dean's character came through very clearly in the book as an inquiring
mind constantly thinking about his craft and life in general. He had
courage and charisma. He had died in a car accident years before but
came very much alive in the pages of this book. The best part of the
book for me came when Bast attended a preview of Dean's first film
EAST OF EDEN. He knew his friend was a good actor, but as he says in
the book, he was unprepared for how good he really was. His
description of how he felt after seeing the film is one of the
strongest accounts I have ever read.

We all know creative people and when they do wondrous things, we,
closest to them, are often unprepared, even surprised by their
excellence. Seeing people we at Disada have nurtured grow into their
excellence is the most satisfying aspect of this business. Many times
I have thought of Bast's description of his reaction to Dean's film
debut when seeing something someone I know do especially well.

Some years ago I went to Fairmount Indiana, James Dean's hometown, not
too far away. Reading about Dean over the years had brought the town
to life, and now I were there. I visited the gravesite, with its
much-photographed headstone, and went to the museum dedicated to his
life and career. My co-worker did not know much about Dean so as we
went through the museum I was able to tell him stories behind many of
the exhibits. The curator of the museum heard me discussing Dean with
my friend, and commented on my knowledge.

Dean made only three films, was nominated after he died for a Best
Actor Oscar for two years running, and made a deep impression with the
quality of his work, and was a true original. His acting in EAST OF
EDEN is miraculous. Under the sure direction of director Elia Kazan,
it remains one of my favorite films.With his next two pictures,
excellent as he was, he was, I think, as I put it, starting to spoil.

I always thought he would have become a first-rate director with
experience and maturing, maybe a great one rather than remain an actor
alone and a better director than an actor.

Richard Thomas says it all when he expresses his regret at “all the
great things he would have done that I'm not going to get to see.”

Peter Adamakos meets River Phoenix at Disney World!

One day at Walt Disney World I met River Phoenix. I had seen him in
film roles (STAND BY ME, RUNNING ON EMPTY (Oscar nomination). INDIANA
JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE.) After parking at the Magic Kingdom park
you got to the main gate by tram, where people sat on long seats
facing each other. After I sat down, I was surprised to see that
sitting opposite me was River Phoenix. Disney theme parks are special
places where people actually talk with one another and it was usual to
chat with others being “trammed” to the park. The five or six people
around us did the usual “Is this your first time here?” and so on. It
didn't seem that anyone else knew who he was. Asked where he was from,
he replied California, and that's when I said “I thought you were from
Idaho.” I had recently seen him in MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO in which he
was very good. He gave a smile, then a frown as if to say “don't say
who I am.”

It was his first time there, as I recall, and he asked what I'd
recommend he see as we got off the tram. I suggested a visit to THE
WALT DISNEY STORY near the entrance. It had an excellent 23 minute
film and an exhibition of awards, artwork, models,costumes,
merchandise, letters and much more from the Disney Archives. It
certainly got you in the mood for your visit. He thanked me and went
towards the theatre. I would like to have talked shop but this was his
private down time. He seemed a fine young man and it was a sad day a
few years later when I learned he had died.

Robin Hood Mix Up

In the fall of 1973 the new Disney cartoon feature ROBIN HOOD was to
be released at Thanksgiving. Unlike now there wasn't a new animated
feature every month or so. It had been three years since the last
Disney feature and it was basically only Disney that was making
theatrical animated features for North American release, so this was a
long-awaited film.

We then found out that ROBIN HOOD would not open, in Canada at least,
until Christmas day, meaning we'd have to wait even longer! I decided
to take some of our people down to New York around Thanksgiving to see
ROBIN HOOD at Radio City Music Hall. Eastern airline return flights
were around $60 back then.

Our two taxis pulled up to Radio City Music Hall, and there, big as
life, were the posters for----- a different movie! I went up to the
boxoffice and said that ROBIN HOOD was supposed to play at
Thanksgiving. Yes, it will be, I was told, at Thanksgiving. That's
when I realized we had gone down on the Canadian Thanksgiving, which
is always about a month before the American one!

I knew that Disney had a New York City operation, we went over, not
knowing if there might be anything of interest to see.

We were welcomed by a couple of people and they had a good laugh over
our predicament. They said that they had the first twenty minutes of
ROBIN HOOD that they showed to prospective merchandisers and to our
surprise it was all in pencil test form, yet with full mixed track and
camera moves. So we were able to see the raw animation itself, which
we appreciated. When I finally saw the final film I felt the pencil
test version was far more dynamic. Of course color seems to slow down
the actions of a pencil test, though the timing remains the same.

In the end the mixup was a good thing. We got to meet the people
there, and some were former animators at Disney so we had a lot in
common to talk about. Over the next few years Disada did a lot of work
out of New York, and I went to the city fairly regularly. Meeting with
the guys at Disney over lunch was always an enjoyable part of my trips
there. One of the people had worked a lot on the rare Disney war
feature VICTORY THROUGH AIR POWER of which little was known, so I
learned about that film. They had quite a lot of old storyboard
originals from the 1930s in albums. When I mentioned this to the
Archives in California on a later visit there, it led to their being
sent to the Archives, which felt it should have originals and that New
York should have only copies.

What Does Disada Mean?!

Disada Productions got its name many years before it was formally
founded. When Peter Adamakos was about ten years old dinosaurs walked
the earth and there were no DVD extras if you were interested in how
animation was done. There was, however, the weekly one-hour TV show
called DISNEYLAND and Peter always hoped to see one of those
behind-the-scenes of animation episodes such as the making of LADY AND
THE TRAMP.

Hooked on animation, Peter wrote to Walt Disney to say how much he
enjoyed those shows and said that one day he would start an animation
company and call it Disada Productions. The DIS from the first three
letters of Walt Disneys last name, and ADA from the first three
letters of Peter's last name That's how a ten year old thinks.

Amazingly, Walt Disney wrote back words of encouragement, saying how
satisfying creatig animation can be, and ended by thanking me for the
top billing. I didn't know what that meant, and neither did my
parents, not having a show business background.

I started making amateur animation films under the name Disada
Productions and while in elementary school would host fellow students
in my garage, where we worked at rickety desks animating our
characters like Needlenose Dan and Eato the Mosquito.

In high school and university we formed a formal amateur film-making
group called Disada Productions that had about 200 members across the
city. We made animation and live-action films, documentaries, even a
feature live-action film. Most of us were in our late teens and early
twenties, but we had people up into their sixties, united by a love of
making films. We got corporate sponsors, had a monthly newsletter, did
marketing and other duties that served us well when we formed the
professional company, Disada Productions Ltd.

For many years we would get mailings from the Vatican in Italian
asking for money. I guess Disada must have some meaning there. I
remember when Disney actress Hayley Mills dedicated the Walt Disney
Memorial Library that we created after Walt Disney died. She stumbled
over our name and on the recording she called it Disaaaaaaaaada,
stretching it out. For quite a while people at the studio would call
ourselves Disaaaaaaaada and even answer the phone like that for fun.

My parents took the letter from Walt Disney for safekeeping, and over
the years it became lost. I still have my animation scrapbooks from
when I was ten but not that letter, sad to say. Many years later on
one of my visits to the Disney studio meeting with Dave Smith, head of
the Archives, we looked for their copy of that letter. He had warned
that it was unlikely we would find it, as it was written long ago and
not being of a business or legal nature, would probably not have been
kept indefinitely. Sad to say, we were not able to find it, but its
inspiration never faded.

I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained. Walt Disney

MEETING FRITZ LANG

MEETING FRITZ LANG

When I heard that film director (producer and writer) Fritz Lang would
be attending the World's Fair film festival, I made plans to attend
his press conference. Today he is best known for the feature film
METROPOLIS, which still shows in special theatre showings with
remastered prints and even live orchestras for the 1927 classic.. He
also did M with Peter Lorre in the role that made him famous, the
DR, MABUSE films and his later Hollywood films with stars like Marilyn
Monroe.

At the press conference I was able to sit between him and perhaps
Brazil's best director Glauber Rocha who also wanted to meet him. We
are all in one of the accompanying photos, taken at the moment Lang
was telling everyone how Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels
personally told him in 1934 that his latest film was being banned as
he grabbed him by the collar, which Lang is doing to me. Lang left
Germany that night.

After the press conference he agreed to autograph some photos and
lobby cards from his films that I had brought with me and he did so in
his hotel room upstairs where we were able to talk about his career
for a while.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Terry Fox

Each year around Labor Day when the Terry Fox Run is held, we remember
the greatest Canadian. When I give a talk I am sometimes asked in a
question and answer session which Disada film I think is the best or
enjoyed doing the most. I know there was only one thing I did that was
important in any way, and that occurred in 1980 when Terry Fox ran.

Like everyone else I was enthralled and moved by what he was doing,
and decided to take off most of the summer to try to help. While I
continued to oversee some work at the studio, my good managers were
able to keep the films in production going well. I had an idea on how
to help the Marathon of Hope.

It was a simple idea. Terry's route took him to well populated areas
and to ones less so, but there were millions of people in small towns,
outlying areas and so on who would never see him and would have to go
to lengths to donate money, like make an effort to mail it in. My idea
was to make donating easy. Since there were postal facilities
throughout the country, people could donate there. Donating cash would
present problems, so my idea was to print up stamps, If you needed a
25 cent stamp, you could buy a 25 cent stamp as usual, or you could
choose to buy a 25 plus 10 cent stamp. It would have written on it
“25+10”. The post office would collect 35 cents, and ten cents of that
would go to the Canadian Cancer Society for the Terry Fox run over,
say, a 60 day period. Sponsors would donate posters and ads. All the
post office had to do was add to its computerized system stamp choices
of 25 +10. 10 + 5. 50 +20 or whatever. You bought the stamp you were
going to, but could pay. If you wanted, extra for Terry. I couldn't
think of an easier way to raise millions more.

I approached the federal government which ran the post office in those
days and the Minister of the day, Andre Ouellet. I was surprised to
get an immediate overall negative reaction, without an outright
refusal. I knew that this would be a tough sell. Terry was not
embraced by Quebec so there was little support there. I went to Ottawa
and started a one-man lobbying effort. Slowly at first, and then on a
quickened pace, MPs declared themselves. It was hard to understand why
this should be politicized but it was.

The Progressive Conservatives were almost unanimously in favor. The
governing Liberals,under Trudeau, were largely against. The NDP were
all over the map. I was getting copies of letters sent to Minister
Ouellet by the members pro and con. The only argument I heard against
it was that if we did it for Terry Fox we'd have to do it for others.
My reply was always that Canada should be grateful it has one Terry
Fox and that would likely not see another like him.

Then the press, which I had not called upon, got wind of it. They
wanted to know who I was and why I was doing this but I did not reply.
Finally a Toronto paper said I was a filmmaker, named my company and
this was not helpful. I had gone out of my way not to say anything
about myself lest someone think it was a publicity grab. Government
dug in its heels and refused to do it. I did hear from the Cancer
Society asking me to drop the idea. Not wanting anything negative or
embarassing to even in a small way tinge the run, I did. But I still
think it was a damn good idea and should have been done.

Some years later, talking with the director of the Natuonal Gallery,
we discussed how the Gallery came to be. She told me that the National
Gallery exists for one reason only: Prime Minister Trudeau personally
wanted it. I silently thought what a shame he didn't want to help
Terry. A couple of years ago I sent the large files on my summer
idea, the MPs' letters and my collection of Terry Fox items to a Terry
Fox collection concern that had asked for them.

Adventures in Running a Movie Theatre

PART THREE: UNIONS AND POPCORN

One of my duties was booking the films, putting two features together
that were r complimentary in one way or another. You're very popular
when you run a theatre. Your friends come by for free movies. I wsn't
there the whole time the theatre was open of course, eventually having
two managers do the location managing.

The projectionist is a key person of course, and this was at the time
when films were on film and shown on reels, with changeover. I soon
became unhappy with the projection we were getting. He was not
checking the focus often enough, or keeping the light balanced (arc
lamps back then.) He missed too many reel changeovers. On the very
first show on the very first day he started to show Saturday Night
Fever in Scope, which is was not. Grease was and he got the two mixed
up. We shut it down and started again. Not a good omen. I decided to
call in his union boss after a few days with no improvement. It was
obvious he was unmotivated and felt protected by his union. I arranged
for the union boss to be brought to me and not be allowed to go to the
projection booth on his arrival.

I sat in the back with the man from the union and he could not deny
the missed changeovers and bad focus for long periods. I didn't have
to get tough as a result, but was prepared to if I had to. We didn't
put in all that work just to have some lazy union jerk harm it. The
man then went upstairs and after a while came down and told me there'd
be no more problems. And thee weren't, which puzzled me- why the
problems in the first place? All it takes is a little effort.

A lot of effort went into our popcorn. I decided we'd have the best
theatre popcorn in town. We studied what made good popcorn and went
about getting the best equipment and ingredients. Word got around and
soon we had people who lived or worked in the neighborhood, bus and
taxi drivers coming in just to buy popcorn. Eventually we had to put a
popcorn machine in the large ticket booth outside so people wouldn't
have to go all the way in. I contacted a radio station and told them I
wanted to do a promotion where our one theatre would challenge the two
big chains to a popcorn taste test, with theatre patrons doing the
testing at the radio station. The chains could use the popcorn of any
theatre of their choice. They refused to take the bait.

Things were going well, until there was a bus strike. Being downtown,
our theatre suffered as people could not get downtown or even take the
subway with its nearby stop. After some months, our losses grew to the
point where, when an offer was made by an American concern to buy the
theatre and turn it into a nightclub venue, the offer was accepred by
the building's owners. Today it is called the Spectrum.

(end)

Adventures in Running a Movie Theatre

PART TWO: RUNNING THE THEATRE

In the next years special reserved seat pictures came to an end and
the theatre showed regular films. The name was changed to La Pigalle
and even naughty sex pictures showed there. It was said. Then one day
I learned that the theatre was to be closed and torn down, the real
estate being worth more than the business. The theatre was owned by a
private family and leased to a major theatre chain. They didn't renew
the association and the other major chain ran it for a while, but they
couldn't make a go of it either. The property taxes were enormous and
the city also taxed theatres on the number of seats they had.

I went to the owner and said I would run it for him. Surprisingly, he
agreed. We had to clean up the theatre first, as it had been closed,
and in so doing, we found, incredibly, a reel from the original
showing of Ben-Hur. I told the projectionist, who was there arranging
the projection booth, to adapt one of the newer projectors the theatre
had to show this old format film. Philip, one of our guys from the
studio who was helping that day and I sat alone in the huge theatre
watching the ten minute or so reel. It wasn't the chariot race, but
the majesty and sound of the thing was so moving in that place, that
when the lights went up the two film fans each had tears in our eyes.

My first thought was to turn it into a Disney theatre, showing Disney
films. This was not as wild an idea as first meets the eye. Theatres
like the Guild 50th in New York City, for example, were virtually
exclusively showing Disney, as were other theatres in cities around
the world. In Montreal most Disney films played at the Kent, Avon, Van
Horne, Avenue and Westmount theatres.

I knew that new Disney pictures were given to Famous Players theatre
chain, and the most we could hope for would be second run. Still,
there was another factor in my favor. Montreal showed both English and
French films, and there were Disney films in French that never showed
in Canada, only in other French-speaking countries. Disney would make
up animated features of shorts featuring Donald Duck or Goofy for
example. A lot of the two-part Disney TV shows like A Horse Without a
Head were made as feature films, but for various reasons were not
shown in theatres but went directly to Disney's weekly TV show. They
were shown in French, however, and I thought we could show both new
Disney films or reissued ones on second run, and the European
features. I spoke with Buena Vista, Disney's distribution subsidiary,
first New York and then California. I said the Disney presence would
be constant, even result in increased merchandise sales in stores and
other arguments. In the end, though sympathetic and somewhat
intrigued, the eventual answer was negative, because there would be
too much involved for just one theatre.

What we decided to do was to bring back the double feature. Knowing we
would never get first-run films we'd do second run, but double
features, sometimes in English and sometimes in French. We renamed the
theatre Le Carrefour and I had a good idea of how to start with a
bang. This was 1979. The big hit of 1977 was Saturday Night Fever. The
big hit of 1978 was Grease. They had disappeared from theatres and
there was no videos or DVDs yet and they had not showed on television.
My idea was to show both John Travolta hits and I thought it would do
great business and get us attention in town.

Paramount was the distributor of both films. I couldn't get anywhere
with the local office, so brought my idea to New York. They were
sceptical, thinking that few would want to see these again, as they
had been played out. Still, they let me do it. I told them it would be
so successful that I predicted they would combine the two features
themselves the following summer across North America. And they did. It
did especially well in drive-ins. On our opening day the crowds
extended down the street. I remember one night a group of motorcycle
fellows came up to me and thanked me for running Grease. They said
they especially liked the musical number “Greased Lightning.” It being
the end of the evening I had the projectionist find the reel with that
number in it and ran it for them a couple of times.

TO BE CONTINUED

ADVENTURES IN RUNNING A MOVIE THEATRE!!

PART ONE: HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO RUN A MOVIE THEATRE?

In 1979 Disada was asked to manage, program and run a movie theatre.
For a lifelong movie buff like me, this was a fantastic opportunity.
The theatre in question was a downtown theatre, the old movie palace
The Alouette, that opened in 1952. It was one of the largest, at l,156
seats. The screen was huge. I remember it took almost a minute to walk
from one end of it to the other. It had class and was a special place
to show special films. The big reserved seat movies played there-
Around the World in 80 Days, Ben-Hur, West Side Story, Cleopatra, My
Fair Lady etc. You bought your tickets in advance at the boxoffice or
by mail. Prices were high- a Saturday night ticket for West Side Story
(1961) was $1.50. You would mail in your money and get your ticket(s)
by return mail.

For me, this was a special theatre. It was at the corner of Bleury and
Sainte Catherine Streets. A major downtown intersection. Beside it was
a restaurant where I worked on summer holidays from school when I was
thirteen and Ben-Hur was playing for about a year. The manager and
staff of the theatre would come to the restaurant next door so I got
to know them. They would let me in the theatre at any time and I made
sure I took my lunch break (and a sandwich) every afternoon in the
theatre timing it to see the chariot race every day. It is still one
of the best film sequences I think. I would visit the projection booth
and talk to the projectionist about his job and film in general.

In the 1960s when I made a live-action feature film we needed a large
theatre in which to stage a gala event for the climax of the suspense
film. We used the Alouette theatre which was ideal for the many seats,
the big lobby and so on. Actors and extras must have looked strange
going into the theatre in the early morning in gowns and tuxedos, and
we had to be out by the time the matinee showing of Dr. Zhivago began.

Some interesting side stories : the theatre would check the prints
that came in, but didn't prescreen them at its theatre, they would be
screened up the street at the Cinerama theatre! I saw films like My
Fair Lady and Ben-Hur on a return engagement projected in Cinerama.
They weren't to be shown in Cinerama of course, and the image was
gigantic and partly out of proportion, but I recall seeing the crowds
in the chariot race so large you could now tell which were mannequins.

After Cleopatra opened, at about four hours long, the distributor
decided the film was too long and would play better shortened. They
sent someone with a list of cuts and I was there in the projection
booth when the projectionist cut the film down, the exact feet and
frames to be cut from various reels specified. It had to be done in
the presence of the rep who took away the discarded scenes. I had seen
the film in its original length and had no problem seeing the very
long sequence of Cleopatra's entry into Rome, a majestic parade of
pomp, cut down. I was sorry to see a sequence between Caesar and
Cleopatra cut. In Ptolemy's tomb they discuss leadership and fame. It
was a literate scene, well written (as usual) by Joseph L, Mankiewicz,
but it wasn't sexy enough to survive. Nothing was cut of scenes with
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as I recall. They were the item of
the day so they were of top importance. I always thought the movie
pretty well died when Caesar did.

TO BE CONTINUED

The business of Animation.

The best reason to use animation is for qualities of its own. Done
correctly and done right, nothing can top animation's humour. A
longtime logo or company character can come to life through animation
and become a company's best spokesman. An old logo character can now
speak, be funny, and soon adorn new product labels and advertising,
even become a T-shirt star.

Animation has a different feel to it than live-action. We are, I
think, more engaged as an audience, more willing to be convinced,
persuaded and sold. If a live person is seen and talks to the
audience, we are influenced by how he or she looks, by the hair and
clothes and this has an impact, positive or negative, on getting the
message across. People will look at your live spokesperson in
different ways. What is engaging to some may be off-putting to
another. Just having a man or a woman onscreen will elicit on some
level a different attitude from men and women watching. But an
animated character will dispense with preconditioned social attitudes
and provide pure message.

Animation is daunting to some clients, be they companies or agencies,
if they have never had some done before. But once they have, they find
the experience a positive one. They might think of how it all comes
together a bit of a mystery, but there's no denying the magic on the
screen.

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." Albert Einstein

Awesome old storyboard panel!

DISADA'S PETER ADAMAKOS TO TEACH TWO COURSES

DISADA'S PETER ADAMAKOS TO TEACH TWO COURSES

There are still some places available for two weekly classes Peter
will be teaching at the Ottawa School of Art. The courses start in a
little over a week from now, with a late registration cutoff of
September 28. Each course runs thirteen weeks. One is a practical
course on animation. There are some who want to work in animation and
some who just love animation and want to know more about it. A great
course for preparing a portfolio to submit to companies or schools.
While all animation disciplines are covered, each student can
specialize in storyboards, character design and so on as they work on
their project for three months.

It is a lively class with lots of discussion and interaction, often
functioning more like a studio than a classroom. There is much use of
films and original animation artwork from Disada's large collection.

The second course is titled "Children's Book Illustration". It too is
a weekly course for three months and has in the past when offered
attracted both published and non-published authors. It deals with
writing, publishing and marketing as well as illustration.

Both classes are held at the school in the Byward Market in the
evening or Sunday afternoons. For more information see the Ottawa
School of Art website or to register online at www.Artottawa.ca or in
person at the school itself. The fee is $250 for the thirteen week
course.

For more information contact Disada Productions and ask for Peter:
613-247-9207.

Peter has taught animation, film and other courses since the 1970s as
a way of giving back to the industry he works in. Many of his students
have gone on to fine careers in their chosen professions. Among the
places Peter has taught are the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, courses
for the city, Carleton University, for the federal government and
elsewhere. He has been invited to guest lecture at schools, colleges
and universities in many cities in Canada and the USA. He has also
been a guest speaker or guest of honor at a number of film festivals
in both Canada and the USA.

Disada Productions Attends the Ottawa Comic Jam!!

I had the pleasure of attending the Ottawa Comic Jam recently. On the
last Wednesday of each month except December, comic artists and fans
gather to draw comics and talk shop. There are both professionals and
dedicated fans attending and drawing. There were fifteen people on the
evening I attended, a good turnout given it was summertime.

The comic jam has been going on for over three years now, and is held
at the Shanghai Restaurant at 651 Somerset Avenue in the Chinese
district of Ottawa which has superb restaurants. Each person can order
(or not) whatever they like during the 7:00 to 9:30 PM event, paying
their own way. There is no entry fee.

The Ottawa Comic Jam was started by Suzanne Marsden, who lives and
draws in Ottawa. I first met her in 1997 and have always found her as
dedicated as she is talented to art and comics. If you like to draw,
contact them for more information at
http://ottawacomicjam.blogspot.ca/ Go and have a great time with good
food, conversation and fun.

HOW THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE CREATED DISNEY

Yes, you read that right. One could argue that the 1906 San Francisco
earthquake created Disney's success or, more correctly, that it made
Disney's success possible. When the massive earthquake hit, the
devastation was near-total, with massive fires following the quake's
devastation. All the major banks were destroyed. They could not open
or even get to their vaults, with cash and records inside. But one
very small bank was able to access its cash. The two-year-old Bank of
Italy, started by Amadeo Giannini, serviced poor immigrants that the
large banks would not lend to.

Giannini put a board across two barrels and so had a desk on the
street outside his destroyed building. He then lent cash to all who
applied, whether past customers or not, for day-to-day needs, and for
rebuilding, their signatures being satisfactory. Later, he was always
proud to say that every loan was repaid. San Francisco in 1906 and
California in general was still cut off from the rest of the country
in the best of times. After the earthquake the city was isolated for
many weeks. Giannini's belief in his city and its people was rewarded
by the loyalty of millions of people who moved to the “caring bank.”

Today that small company is the second-largest bank in the United
States, now called the Bank of America. A.P. Giannini continued to run
the bank and while it was not always a smooth relationship, the bank
stood by the Disney brothers when it counted. Two stories tell the
upside. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, the first Disney feature, was
in financial trouble halfway through its production phase. More money
was needed to complete it, and their bank was sending over one of its
key decision-makers to see what this cartoon was all about and see if
they would put any more money into it or close down production.

One Saturday morning the Disney brothers screened for Joe Rothenberg
what had been completed, showed storyboards and sketches to the man,
who took it all in without saying a word, even as he got into his car
to leave. He finally said to the anxious brothers as he pulled away
“That thing is going to make a hatful of money.” And of course, it
became the highest-grossing film yet made.

In the 1940s, with world war two decimating their income (much of
which normally came from other countries) Disney faced closure. Its
debt to the bank had soared and they needed more just to stay open.
The board of directors called in the Disneys for a meeting, where they
presented their case. Almost to a man the board members said they
should not get a further loan. Then Mr. Giannini spoke. He asked his
directors if they had seen BAMBI and if they had seen DUMBO. Most had
not. He said he had, that he enjoyed them and that what the Disneys
were doing was good for people and good for the film industry which
the bank was by then supporting heavily. The loan was approved.

Yes, there were times when individual films were refused funding and
even the crazy idea that was Disneyland was nor bank approved or
financed, leaving Disney to finance it with other partners (Paramount,
Western Publishing and the new ABC Television Network) only to sell it
to his own company years later at a good price. But when it really
mattered, when the company's survival was at stake, the bank acted as
it should have in those cases.

These were the days when bankers were bankers and not computer
operators. In assessing a loan, a person's character and track record
was a factor along with financial factors. Banks took risks and
overall they paid off and made the strong economy we once had. Though
Disney said “a banker is someone who'll give you an umbrella on a
sunny day” he did better than one would have expected with them. Of
course he had his brother Roy handling the business side of things,
and his contribution and importance was equally creative and
essential.

I can remember the days when bankers were judges of people and not
just numbers that computer programs evaluate anyway. Disada had no
business getting the bank loans that started it, and we had to go to
over a dozen banks before one agreed. They saw something beyond the
numbers and took a chance. That branch is still our bank, over forty
years later. A bank by the numbers is as creative as a paint by number
picture. In the film industry it means that most funding goes to
sequels, pre-established plays, books, comic books and over-the-hill
old TV series crap.

The San Francisco earthquake let the Bank of Italy become the Bank of
America. And the Bank of America let the Disney brothers become
Disney..

Prehistoric Animation Drawing!

A prehistoric drawing of a running boar. The motion was achieved by
adding more legs!

RON CLEMENTS EXHIBITION PART 5

PART FIVE: THE PREMIERE

Finally, the big day arrived when the public could visit and enjoy our
exhibition on the Disney animation career of animator and director Ron
Clements. The festivities began at the Orpheum Theatre where a new
35mm print of Ron's first feature, THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE was
screened for free. The majestic old theatre, one of those 1920s movie
palaces, newly restored, was filled to capacity and it was great to
see the film on the big screen again. Prior to the screening Ron, his
wife Tami, Nick and I got a detailed tour of the theatre which was
very impressive to a theatre buff like me. In another blog I'll
mention the time we ran one of these old palaces in Montreal.

We walked back to the Sioux City Art Center where the premiere of the
exhibition was to open. Nick and I had gone through it with Ron and
Tami. Ron was interested to see what we chose to show of his artwork
and artifacts, and seemed genuinely pleased with how it was done. We
hadn't bothered him with details of the show as we wanted it to be a
nice surprise, and it seemed to be so.

After opening remarks from the museum leaders, an artistic tribute to
Ron and his films took place. A live orchestra played music from his
films, a choir sang memorable songs, and dancers interpreted his films
through their art. Ron then spoke to the crowd, which filled the
museum's huge atrium on all floors. He spoke of his career and the
people he worked with and had nice comments about our exhibition.
Schools had held an art contest in the weeks before the opening. Nick
and I helped select the winners during one of our visits and Ron
handed out prizes to the winning students at the premiere.

The press was very positive about the show, and the public enjoyed it
from what they told us that night and in future. We got positive
reviews on various sites. The public response and attendance was high,
and I was asked back halfway through the exhibition's run to do an
animation show in the large theatre. From our collection of rare
animation films, going back to the silent era, I did a retrospective
of historic animation films similar to ones we have done in film
festivals. I introduced each film and there was a question and answer
session afterwards.

As expected and hoped, the exhibition helped launch Nick's career as a
designer. He now does work for various companies, including Disney,
Cirque du Soleil, and even work on Broadway. He still creates puppets,
and made the largest articulated puppet ever made for the opening of
the last Winter Olympics. He also enjoys stop-motion animation and
studied it under the great Will Vinton in Portland. Ron, of course,
co-directed another animated feature at Disney with John Musker again,
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG. Working on the Ron Clements show was
certainly a career and a life highlight.

Thats all folks!!!!

PREHISTORIC ANIMATION

In a cave in Spain there is a wall painting of a wild boar running,
estimated to have been drawn about thirty thousand years ago. The
artist painted the boar with eight legs to show him running. There
being no animation at the time, this is how movement was drawn. It
showed a desire for movement, a reassuring thought. In the book THE
ART OF ANIMATION (1958) the boar painting is shown in color and in his
film documentary THE STORY OF THE ANIMATED DRAWING Walt Disney took
the boar, isolated the painted legs and combined them as needed to
show that boar running using the old painting elements in animation.
Thirty thousand years is a long completion time.

The first big animation star came from prehistoric times, being Winsor
McCay's GERTIE THE DINOSAUR (l9l4).

But my favorite prehistoric cartoon, shown below, is from the comic
strip NON SEQUITOR. It brings to mind something we once proposed to
the City of Montreal that would have brought this cartoon concept to
life.

Riding in the subway one day, I noticed from the large side windows on
the train that in the dark tunnels between stations there were lightx
on the walls at regular intervals as we went past them, The longer the
distance between stations the faster the subway train would go. I
realized that one could have animation in the tunnels. Large drawings
could be added to the regular lights. At full speed, using the frames
of the windows as a shutter, the drawings could come to life and be
short animated logos and simple characters. The city could sell
advertising, that could change from time to time and get international
publicity. Some tweaking would have to be done, but our research
showed it could be done. And the comic strip below, which was done
many years later, would become a reality!

Unfortunately this was another of our proposed projects that did not
happen. You win some, you lose some. In a way it wasn't a lost cause.
Some years later we put some of what we learned to work in the
animation we did for the large computer scoreboard at the Montreal
Forum, where the Montreal Canadiens played NHL hockey. We did hockey
gags animation, logos and even simple commercials using new computer
methods, unique animation timing and other things we learned from
research into the subway project. And this cartoon still makes me
laugh.

RON CLEMENTS EXHIBITION 4

PART 4: BUILDING THE SHOW

Having made our first trip to Disney in California in planning the
exhibition on Ron Clements, we finalized details for its contents and
then began work on the actual construction of the show. We obtained
the measurements of the large exhibition hall space (floor, walls,
ceilings etc) and planned where the full sets would be placed. Nick
made architectural-type drawings in detail for Aladdin's marketplace,
the streets of London for The Great Mouse Detective, ancient Greece
for Hercules, an undersea grotto for The Little Mermaid and the deck
of a pirate ship for Treasure Planet. He made a model of the entire
exhibition area to scale, right down to the artwork reduced in size.

This we took to the museum in Sioux City where we met the crew that
was to build the sets and support elements. One day I came across a
new line of Behr paints, their Disney colors line, and arranged for
Behr to join the list of sponsors for the exhibition and provide all
the paint needed. We made trips to California and Sioux City again,
and in Ottawa I wrote the monograph on Ron that would be published in
conjunction with the exhibition and worked on press releases and
publicity. Returning to the museum we saw great progress had been made
and everything was falling into shape thanks to Nick's careful and
exact detailed planning even though the location was thousands of
miles away.

We heard many stories from Ron about his career, but one has to be
told. In the 1980s there was in Disney animation something called The
Gong Show. People were expected to propose ideas that might eventually
be produced as an animation film. Ron was trying to think of something
for the meeting and he ended up in a used bookstore one day, looking
at the volumes. One was the collected stories of Hans Christian
Andersen. There he found the story of The Little Mermaid. It was brief
and short and as Ron told us, “it starts out sad, gets sadder, and
then she dies.” Perfect Disney material!

He bought the book and wrote up a one-page treatment by hand. Of
course he turned it into a happy ending, the one we know in the
produced film. What he did not know when he presented the idea to the
others, is that back in the 1940s, considerable time and effort was
put into developing a Little Mermaid feature. There is some beautiful
concept art at Disney from that period. The film was not made back
then because they never could turn it into a satisfactory “happy”
Disney film. Though many tried, no one succeeded. But Ron was able to
do so easily and quickly. We saw that one page handwritten treatment
he brought to The Gong Show. It is framed in his bedroom at home.

The staff at the museum went all out to make the show a success and
make us feel welcomed. We attended a party one night at the home of
one of the key staff members. We got to know Sioux City and its
services. In the corner of Iowa, it borders three states, so one day
we decided to have breakfast in Iowa, lunch in Nebraska and supper in
South Dakota, travelling no more than twenty minutes to do so. Plans
were now being made for the big opening of the show. TO BE CONTINUED.

Ron Clements Part 3

PART 3 – CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

While working on the Ron Clements exhibition at the Disney Studios
Nicholas Mahon and I were able to meet many of the interesting and
talented people there, in animation, management and elsewhere. The
Animation Research Library was awe-inspiring in its organization and
the knowledge and dedication of the many staff members we met. The
photo library was similarly impressive, with what seemed like a
million photos of all things Disney to choose from.

We saw many things at the studio, the back lot, the fa-mouse street
sign, even the original multiplane camera on display. We had lunch
with old friend Dave Smith, who founded and had led the Walt Disney
Archives since 1971. He was always as friendly as he was a source for
all Disney information and history.

We went to Disneyland, of course, and were able to spend some time
with longtime friends Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston and their wives
Jeanette and Marie. We took them to their favorite lunch restaurant,
then we all went back to Ollie and Marie's home. The lunch was
leisurely and there was lots of chatter and laughing. Frank was using
a walker at this time and as a young man held the door open for him as
he left, Frank thanked him. Taking a line from the superb feature
documentary FRANK AND OLLIE, I asked Frank if the man would have held
the door open for him if he had known he had killed Bambi's mother. He
laughed hardest of all at that one.

I was able to see other old friends in the film industry while there,
most of whom had their first job with Disada and kept in touch over
the decades. One works in television and we got to go to a taping of a
leading comedy series. We saw the Golden Globe Awards in a restaurant
filled with film people who would applaud or boo at each winner on the
huge screen telecast. We met some die-hard animation fans who we knew
by email and phone but had never met in person before.

Nick was very interested in puppets so we arranged to go to the Jim
Henson studios for an afternoon, They were very nice and accomodating.
We learned how they were computerizing the craft and Nick got to
manipulate and play with Kermit and others, includingThe Aflac Duck!

Soon it was time to go back to Sioux City and map out the final show.
TO BE CONTINUED.

RON CLEMENTS EXHIBITION 2

PART TWO: DOWN TO WORK

After getting the exhibition to do on Ron Clements and his thirty year
career in Disney animation (see previous post) Nick and I started
working on what we wanted in the exhibition and what we wanted it to
be. Eventually we made our first trip to both the museum, in Ron's
home city of Sioux City Iowa and on to California, where he worked and
now lived.

The Sioux City Art Centre is a magnificent, large, modern facility.
Who could not like a museum whose gift shop included a flip book of
animated architect's drawings depicting the construction of the main
building? To a person, the people there were to be totally supportive
and a joy to work with over the next year. We worked out the smallest
details together for the physical show as well as content,
sponsorship, publicity and other matters.

In California we met with Ron in his office at the Disney Studio and
told him what we intended to do without giving away a few nice touches
and surprises we thought he would enjoy. The support of the Disney
organization was ours, and we dealt with different departments and key
people that made everything we wanted happen. The Animation Research
Library was of major importance, as it housed all the artwork of the
company, going back to the silent era of Disney. It was a treat to go
through thousands of concept sketches, animation, backgrounds and
special art on his films. While I had visited a number of times before
it is always a special experience there. We had gone over his films
many times before leaving Ottawa and knew which scenes of animation we
wanted to see and evaluate for the exhibition. I have written articles
about the Animation Research Library that are on our website. The
staff generously brought us non-Clements artwork we asked for as well,
our favorite scenes from SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DEARFS and
others,including Frank Thomas' spaghetti scenes from LADY AND THE
TRAMP. We saw original three dimensional models, famous multiplane
glass backgrounds and much more. We selected items from the Archives,
the Photos Department and elsewhere at the studio.

I was to write a long monograph on Ron that would be printed, and so
I interviewed him for countless hours in his office, in his home, even
over meals, all in an informal conversational way. Nick and I were
fortunate to meet his co-directing partner, John Musker and interview
him as well about Ron and how they work together. One day there, we
met the legendary Joe Grant who co-wrote DUMBO, created the witch in
SNOW WHITE and developed FANTASIA and PINOCCHIO among other Disney
assignments. He continued to show up to work at Disney four days a
week until his death at his drawing board a few years later. He looked
at Nick's plans and gave us some concrete advice.

We visited with Ron in his home as well, and met his wife Tami and the
dogs they breed and raise. Ron very generously lent us some of his
artwork he did as a boy in Sioux City as well as an early animation
film he did about Sherlock Holmes, transferred to DVD. While not an
early version of THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE, we could see his liking
the Sherlock Holmes idiom which led to his proposing a mouse version
for his first feature. We also received some editorial cartoons he had
done for the school newspaper and other publications. Getting some of
his animation from the Disney Studio (Winnie the Pooh etc) we were
able to include artwork from his earliest years, his days as an
animator, studying directly under the best of them all, Frank Thomas,
and his work as a feature director. TO BE CONTINUED.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Father Marc Gervais

We have sadly learned of the passing of Father Marc Gervais. He was
one of the most dedicated film enthusiasts I have ever met. He had
both a scholarly appreciation of “cinema” and loved “movies” too,
bringing a Jesuit's analysis to his writings and lectures on film. His
favorite film makers were Ingmar Bergman, John Ford and Alfred
Hitchcock. He joined Loyola College's new Communication Arts Program
in 1967 where he taught film studies and religion. Even though I was a
student in another Montreal university, I and other film fans soon
learned about his dedication and attended special screenings at the
college that he opened to everyone. The following year I helped him
with a classic western film series. He encouraged me and my associates
in our then-amateur film making, and helped get articles on animation
published in the Loyola newspaper. Some years later we found ourselves
on the nominating jury for what is now called the Genie Awards, for
Canadian motion pictures. We spent an entire week screening features
and shorts, selecting the nominees for that year's awards and if I
recall correctly we saw 56 films that week. When it was over, on a
Saturday afternoon, I went to a movie to unwind. That's what we film
fanatics were like in the days before videos and DVDs when films were
special. Father Marc Gervais helped make them special for us and he
was one of the most literate, intelligent and dedicated of film
enthusiasts. Any time spent with him was quality time.