Life As An Animator

 

  What was it like working on CAPS on The Rescuers Down Under? What do you remember about that system in its early days? Prince and the Pauper was Disney's final use of the  traditional ink-and-paint and camera process , [1]  before the  CAPS  digital-ink-and-paint process rendered the traditional techniques and equipment obsolete. [2] The film was released in November 1990 before  The Rescuers Down Under . The year before Beauty’s release, Disney used  The Rescuers Down Under , a belated sequel to Disney’s 1977 animated feature,  as a proving ground  for a new digital animation process being developed by a small computer graphics company called  Pixar .  The Computer Animation Production System  (CAPS) promised to bring radical change to the company’s familiar workflow by allowing character and background illustrations to be scanned into a digital environment, where they could be painted and layered in ways that...

The CG ballroom in Beauty and the Beast was a good use of CG, as there were sweeping camera movements that added impact to that moment in the story.  What were my early impressions of Disney beginning to adopt computer graphics and modeling into its animation pipeline? Honestly, I was worried that we were going to ruin the movie. CG has a tendency to look to clean, too perfect. We did the best we could to make it less perfect, more hand made.  We positioned the columns around the perimeter of the ballroom by hand, we added a little bit of ‘dirt’’ to the curves in the camera motions.  Between first getting the task to work on the ballroom scene for B+B, but long before the Oscar nominations I didn't  have any idea that the project was going to have such an impact.  And I certainly didn't  know that the ballroom scene in particular was going to be such an iconic moment in the film. None of us had any idea the film was going to be so successfu that I know of, ...

  What was it like working on CAPS on The Rescuers Down Under? What do you remember about that system in its early days? Prince and the Pauper was Disney's final use of the traditional ink-and-paint and camera process , [1] before the CAPS digital-ink-and-paint process rendered the traditional techniques and equipment obsolete. [2] The film was released in November 1990 before The Rescuers Down Under . The year before Beauty’s release, the Mouse House used  The Rescuers Down Under , a belated sequel to Disney’s 1977 animated feature,  as a proving ground for a new digital animation process being developed by a small computer graphics company called Pixar . The Computer Animation Production System  (CAPS) promised to bring radical change to the company’s familiar workflow by allowing character and background illustrations to be scanned into a digital environment, where they could be painted and layered in ways that would enhance the richness an...

Disney Work in Progress Film Screenings and Roger Allers Story Pitches We were invited to watch screenings of the films as a work in progress. In Beauty and the Beast, the big musical number Be my guest was sung to Maurice when he arrived at the castle. It was moved to the middle of the story and sung to Belle instead. It was a big impact moment and needed to be later in the story for the arc to build. (Ask Kirk and Gary or Leon) we thought they’d ruined the film.  Lion King I suggested no words in the opening , pantomime only. (Were there words originally? Ask Don Hahn) I didn’t like the goose stepping hyenas, I thought they were a problem uniwito humans, not the animal kingdom. I still think that I was right on that one.  I owe Don Hahn  a lot. What I learned from my time at Disney were the components and structure of a good story.  And I would put it to good use much later when I started playing with the idea of creating my own characters for a book series called ...

After my rocky start into classical animation I thought I’d try animation that had a hint of technical in it. I could use some of the maths and sciences I’d learned about at Guelph and combine it with my 1st year of character animation.  Believing my parents, I was determined to succeed. My dad told me that in order to succeed I had to be at the top if my class. I switched to technical animation. My teacher was Dietrich Friesen. He often told me that I do really nice work.  Mention him teaching us to paint the class would be a live demo, mention that his buddy from LA came as a guest speaker, and wrapped in of a trash bag pulled out a painting of a Star Wars planet. It was the 80's in the middle of winter. But I recall that it was Ralph McQuarrie, who had painted the now famous concept art for the original Star Wars trilogy.  He pulled a large painting of a Star Wars planet out of a trash bag and put it out on the table for us all to see.   Years later while workin...

  During my senior years in high school I’d heard there was an animation program at Sheridan College in Oakville Ontario. It was about a half hour's drive away from my parent’s house in Hamilton. I’d heard that there were teachers from Disney there. No portfolio required. 100 per cent admission rate. I’d decided I was going to leave Guelph for Sheridan. Why I told my calculus teacher this I don’t know. I went to him for help with a Calculus problem. The teacher asked me, ‘if you’re leaving anyways why do you care about this’ For some reason I told him that I needed to know. It was a challenge. Like a puzzle. Problem solving. Check the box for liking problem solving and math. The teacher showed me how to solve for the derivative and get a nice ‘ease in’ curve that came in very handy later on in technical animation.  My first day at Sheridan College, my hands were shaking so badly that when I got my coffee at the cafeteria I couldn’t hold it steady enough to drink it. In my home...

Biology and math were not what I had anticipated. Especially biology. I hated the smell of formaldehyde. It was one of the worse smells imaginable. I hated knives. Disecting animals was not for me. I’d done a bit in high school, but this was worse. Still I thought I’d give it a go. By the end of my first year, I knew this wasn’t for me.  What I had enjoyed was my Biophysics class, where I learned the mechanics of animal movement. It was an ‘online’ class before computers. I sat and listened to a module off a tape machine in the library, then took the test for that module. Then did the next module. By the end I’d scored over 90 per cent. Animal locomotion was definitely  something I was passionate about.  Oh and calculus.  Years later I would find myself sitting in the small theater at Disney Feature Animation at 1420 flower street. I was surrounded by the most talented group of individuals that to this day I consider my LA family, listening to a lecture by paleontolo...

Part of this memoir is about my time at the  larger studios.  Eventually trying my hand at creating stories with my own characters. But then there’s the part about the struggle of life. To believe in myself. To choose a path. To find work, the inner doubts of whether or not I could succeed always haunting me.  Growing up we lived on the corner house right next to the primary, middle and high schools I attended. All through high school I would run across the street at lunch time. My mother would make me a grilled cheese sandwich and for 30 minutes I got lost in the voices and Hoyt Curtain rifts of music of the Flintstones. I knew the dialogue by heart.   I knew the stories by heart.  The Hot Piano with '88 Fingers Louis'  Dripper about a seal that follows Fred home from an aquarium, and 'the New Neighbors' starring the Gruesomes . Oh and another favorite 'Giggles Flintstones' with Fred and Barney spending the night in a haunted mansion, only to find out it w...