Miscellaneous Production Art

Rough layout of the messenger by Art Babbitt (?)

Roy and Art photos

Hans Bacher has posted some photos of animation artists. Here is the link to his blog post: CREATIVE WORKSPACES 1
He said that there are more to come in the near future.
In 1981 he met Art Babbitt in the Hollywood QUARTETT film studio, where Art was animating on THE THIEF:


This one of Roy Naisbitt he took in the Soho Square studio in 1987:

On his blog there are also 2 photos of Dick W. that were taken during the production of Roger Rabbit.

On Monday the 27th of April, the Marc Davis lecture on Animation took place at the Academy headquarters in Los Angeles.It turned out to be the most popular animation evening so far and really was a whos who of the industry.Concluding the over 3 hour long program of lectures, film clips and panels was a video message from Dick Williams.First almost timid and humble, he said he wished he could have been at the actual event. Starting to talk about Milt Kahl though, he quickly showed his usual passion . He acknowledged that knowing Milt and having been able to call him from time to time, was a highlight of his life.
Apparently, he always tried to make the never humble Milt admit to being the World's greatest animator.Milt kinda grumbled and didn't commit.Dick recalled the great friendship between Milt and Marc Davis, a kind of admiration society for two.Once they had an argument and Milt shouted after Marc... you cant even draw your own A$%. Marc returned to Milt's office a little later with a giant drawing of exactly that.On one occasion, Dick showed some 20 minutes of Thief footage at the Lucas ranch and had invited Milt to come along. After the screening, some Lucas people excitedly inquired about who had made this and were told that it was Dick's work. They proclaimed him to be the World's greatest animator and Dick turned to Milt and said " No, that is the World's greatest animator" to which Milt kinda nodded. Dick got his admittance of greatness finally when he talked to Milt in '87 and finally made him say that he indeed was the best animator.Two days later, he passed away. Dick freely admitted crying a lot and he said it was especially sad when he realized he cried over the fact that he would no longer be able to call the great man and chat.
It was a fitting and heartfelt tribute from one artist to another. A perfect ending to that evening and a chance for us to see Dick, albeit on video, and be part of this celebration.

The Secret of Kells

A little while ago at work I saw a screening of the Irish animated film "The Secret of Kells" and also a presentation on how the film's style had evolved. I enjoyed both the film and the presentation very much. The filmmakers are longtime fans of "The Thief and the Cobbler". The Thief inspired them to start working on their own feature film 10 years ago while they were still in college studying animation. Their film has very much it's own style and story, but you can see how they embraced and emphasized the flat nature of their artwork in a way that was inspired by what Dick and Roy did on the Thief.Very inspiring also the stories about how they worked on "Kells" initially on the side for several years, while working on commercials and other things at the studio they founded in 1999 in Kilkenny: Cartoon Saloon. Just a few years ago (2005) the project gained momentum and independent financing and was finished by several teams in Ireland, Belgium, Hungary and Brazil. The amazing thing is that it looks as if it was done in one place. I was happy to see that my old Iron Giant friends Marcello and Jean de Moura were involved through the Lightstar studio in Brazil.

links to: blog and website.

What's going on with the DVD poll?

A few weeks ago the number of people who had voted in the DVD poll did reach 210. Over the last few days the number has been declining. Today it's at 185. Very strange. Please leave a comment if you know why that could happen. I appreciate the interest so far and had planned to keep the poll open, but that makes no sense if it's unreliable.

UPDATE: I removed the poll because it appears that after 6 months votes started to expire, which caused inaccurate results (see comments). Thanks again for everybody who participated during the last 6 months. More than 200 people expressed interest in an official Thief DVD.

These were the 2 options:
A lot of us wish for an official DVD release with all the Williams footage of the THIEF. It would be good to know how many people would buy such a DVD. Please vote for one of these 2 options:
1. Yes, I would buy such a DVD, but only if the film gets properly finished.
2. Yes, a high quality version of the workprint, with storyboards. Plus documentaries etc.
(LINK)
Around 87% voted for option 2.

This is the online petition that inspired our poll and it's still open: (LINK)

Dig into the archives...

Sorry for the lack of updates. I can't promise when the next new post will come, hopefully soon. I'm glad that our stats show that a lot of people still visit the blog. I just wanted to remind new visitors to dig into the "blog archive" and read the "tips for new readers". Both can be found in the sidebar on the right.

Animation star relaunches Bristol school

Oscar-winning animator Richard Williams, who worked on Hollywood blockbuster Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, will launch the new Bristol School of Animation next week.
The University of the West of England is relaunching its animation school on Wednesday, after investing £250 000 in new computer-aided animation technology.

The school has just moved to a bigger site on the Bower Ashton Campus in Bristol, in an attempt to become ‘the main animation hub outside London’, according its head, Gill Sandford.

Bristol is also home to Aardman Animations, the biggest animation studio in the UK and creator of Wallace & Gromit and Creature Comforts.

Source: DESIGNweek Online
Publication date: 20 February 2009 11:51 AM
Author: Emily Pacey

Nasrudin CAT AND MEAT

Luke Menichelli emailed this Nasrudin storyboard and excerpt from the script.Nasrudin storyboard (from International Film Guide)


CAT AND MEAT (Sequence 7)
Cut to Kerima, still stirring her pot, furious. Crowd noises die down slightly, as they start to give up,
Muttering ...

Cut to Nasrudin beside window, looking at Kerima,

Cut to Kerima, who looks around craftily, takes a big bowl and ladles out a great quantity of meat balls into it. She looks
around again and eats the whole thing in three seconds,
Nasrudin tiptoes downstairs.
NASRUDIN:
Kerlma, dear ... what is for lunch?
She says nothing, scrapes the bottom of the pan and ladles out two and a half potatoes on his plate and three on hers, She
gulps hers down.
NASRUDIN:
Potatoes? - what happened to the three pounds of meat I brought you?
KERlMA:
(finishing off another potato)
The cat ... the cat ... the cat ate it! All three pounds of it !
Nasrudin puts down his plate, goes over to the slumbering cat on a chair, picks it up and puts it on a set of hand-held
scales, He puts on three one-pound weights,
NASRUDIN:
This cat weighs three pounds
KERIMA:
So? ... Slobber! Slobber ... So?
NASRUDIN:
If this is the cat, where is the meat?
If, on the other hand, this is the meat
where is the cat?
He puts the cat down on the chair and, angry now, stamps out to the backdoor, turns around and gives Kerima an angry glance
and slams the door. Fade to black.

1975 Crew picture update

I just want to point everybody again to Michael Sporn's post about the same crew picture I posted about last week. At his blog a lot of interesting comments keep on pouring in. Click LINK

Last Nasrudin images (Exploits)

This concludes the current Nasrudin season. The images posted over the last 2 weeks are Illustrations that Richard Williams did for the book "The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin".