Well, I'm off to a great start with this blogging. I thought I'd better get another post in before a month passed.
This past Saturday, I attended a program at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, with Don Iwerks, Disney animator Andreas Deja, and Disney storyboard artist Floyd Norman talking about "101 Dalmatians." Deja is younger than the other two, did not work on that film, but is apparently a bit of a historian. Iwerks did not work on that film, either, but he was working for the company at the time, and it was his father, Ub Iwerks, who developed the process that made "101 Dalmatians" a revolutionary film for Disney. Prior Disney films were made by an animator drawing the action, an inker tracing the drawings onto cells, and a painter coloring those cells. With this film, the animators' drawings were Xeroxed onto the cells, which put a lot of inkers out of work, but probably saved Disney animation by lowering the cost of production.
I had seen Floyd Norman speak at a prior event, and was eager to see him again, because of his easy-going style. He comes across as genuinely nice, and seems to have many stories to tell. So, when I saw that he would be at the WDFM, I planned a trip up to San Francisco. I had to get up at 5 a.m., but I was able to sleep much of the way, because I brought my personal driver. We arrived about two hours before the 3:00 program, so we ate a snack, looked at a small exhibit of live-action Disney movie posters, and browsed the gift shop. Andreas Deja acted as moderator, showing slides of production art and asking questions of his two fellow panelists. I was very interested to learn about the Xerox process, but I found myself nodding off when Don Iwerks described the process in detail. It was too technical for me! Instead of using actual Xerox machines, the studio worked with Xerox to create a three-room, human-powered Xerox machine. Floyd Norman spoke a bit about Bill Peet, who was the sole storyboard artist for the film! Norman said that Peet read the original book, adapted the screenplay, and storyboarded the entire work in about six months. Deja showed some production art next to Peet's storyboards--the animators stayed very close to Peet's vision.
One of the audience members asked how the animators felt about the Xerox process. Looking at the post-"Sleeping Beauty" animated Disney films, there is a noticeably different style. The artwork in "Dalmatians" and "Jungle Book" has a scratchy style, not seen in previous animated works. This is the result of the Xerox process. Both Deja and Norman replied that the animators were very pleased with the process, because, for the first time, they got to see their actual artwork on the screen. In the previous process, the inkers would have smoothed out any imperfections. I had noticed the scratchy style in some Disney films, but I had never thought about what would have caused that. I think I just assumed that it was the artistic style that Disney had decided to go with during a particular era.
Another fun, behind-the-scenes revelation during the program--the vehicles and other large objects were models that were photographed with stop-motion, and those photos were Xeroxed. The models were really neat looking, white with black lines where lines would have been drawn if the object was 2D. The models were used so the objects would keep their proportions when they were moved. This was another money-saving technique--the animators would not have to struggle to keep drawing the objects consistently from panel to panel.
The program was only about an hour and a half, but I learned quite a bit about the animation process--both the Xerox process and what was done before. Now I just need to get a copy of the movie and watch it again. I haven't seen "101 Dalmatians" since I was a child! I wish the drive to San Francisco wasn't so long. I would love to be able to visit the WDFM frequently. This was my second visit, and I didn't buy a ticket to go into the galleries. On my first visit, I spent seven hours at the museum, and there are probably things I overlooked. It's truly an amazing place. There are programs every month, but I doubt I'll see any more for quite some time.
On Sunday, I visited another San Francisco museum, the Musee Mecanique, but I'll leave that for another time. (There is a Disney connection!)
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