My next
topic of discussion for the Movies section of the class will be Frank Thomas
and Ollie Johnston. I figure most of the class will focus on newer movies, so I’ll
try to go back a ways in time. And these two are probably the easiest of the
old animators to find out about. They wrote a book together called Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life,
which I’ve checked out from the library and started to read. So far I’ve
gathered a few details both about the men themselves and Disney animation in
general.
First
of all, these two guys are really good friends. They both went to Stanford
University, and were friends during their time there, working on the magazine The Stanford Chaparral. They started
working for Disney within a year of each other and trained under the same
animator, Freddie Moore. Eventually they would work together on a lot of
big-time Disney movies, the first one being Pinocchio
(1940) and the final one being The Fox and the Hound (1981).
The
culmination of their work as animators was their book The Illusion of Life. In this book they lay out what Disney
animators do to make their drawings come to life, and what their fellow
industry animators could do to follow suit. This includes the 12 basic
principles of animation (http://bit.ly/sjnp),
which have since become an industry standard to determine what makes good
animation good. I’ve only read part of the introduction, but it seems that the
focus of the animators at Disney, or at least the focus of Johnston and Thomas,
was to put life into their characters. If the audience could tell that the
image they were seeing was supposed to represent a sad person, they would then
feel the emotion, and project it back on the image, making the connection
between character and audience even stronger.
I’m
really excited to read some more of this book and then watch some of their
movies. The insight into the intricacies of animation that this book promises should
shed a whole new light on Disney’s films, and hopefully give me a renewed
appreciation for the works of art they produced, one cel at a time.
Dear Disney Watchers,
ReplyDeleteThe goal for next class on Feb 28 is for each of you to produce a blog post in preparation for presentations to class. Our recent class discussions and Collin’s post on Disney not being particularly supportive of mass consumerism suggest a topic. Construct this blog post in three parts….
We have been talking a lot about influence in popular culture. Another way to put this is: Where do we get our ideas (about work and play, what we pay attention to or ignore, our values and ideas, our beliefs and social practices, …)? What shapes our choices; what shapes your choices? That’s the reflective part of the blog post.
In addition, as we head into a new segment of the course on Disney’s Creativity and Innovations, please read Watts, ch 19, on Disney and the Culture Industry. This will give some context and clarity to our discussions on his influence; and it will surely prompt a lot of different interpretations, all welcome, and in fact crucial for understanding how he related to the culture. What is the culture industry, and what is Disney’s place within it: that is the reporting part of the blog post. .
Disney’s influence is central to the course and more particularly it is crucial for understanding this next segment dealing with his cultural creations. In fact, I can foresee evaluations of Disney and the culture industry emerging not only as theoretical and ideological debates, but also as windows into understanding the particular creations that you examine in your choices for presentation in this next segment. As you view particular Disney creations, enlist your insights about influence and about the culture industry to evaluate the creation that you are viewing: that is the applied part of the blogpost.
Then in class next week, let’s hear the summary presentations of your evaluation of the character of influence, the nature of the culture industry, and the relation of these ideas to a Disney creation.
Do good work,
pjc