After
being stripped of the rights to his character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and
losing most of his animation staff, Walt Disney had to rebuild himself from the
ground up. Disney picked four new animators for his new studio and these
animators stayed with him for most of the Golden Age of Animation.
Norm
“Fergy” Ferguson
Norm
Ferguson was an ex-camera man turned animator in 1929. An introverted man from
Brooklyn (judging by characteristic Brooklyn accent), Ferguson tastes delved
into vaudeville comedians that influenced his animation. Ferguson animation
style is very broad and expressive, giving his characters the impression that
they’re thinking. Ferguson’s most well known example of this is Pluto, Mickey
Mouse’s dog:
The famous flypaper sequence from Playful
Pluto, a milestone in personality animation. From the time he accidentally sits
on a sheet of the sticky flypaper, Pluto’s problems seem to become ever worse
as he tries to extricate himself. Thrown it all, his reaction to his
predicament and his thoughts of what to try next are shared with the audience.
It was the first time a character seemed to be thinking on the screen, and,
though it lasted only 65 seconds, it opened the way for animation of real
characters with real problems (Johnston & Thomas, 1981, p. 100).
Despite
not having formal art training, his peers list this as a benefit because
Ferguson would not inhibited by anatomy and drawing rules.
Ferguson would later go on and animate
The Evil Queen’s hag/witch form during the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Veteran Disney animators Frank
Thomas and Ollie Johnston emphasize the Witch becoming Ferguson’s most iconic
characters: “Fergy’s handling of her face was less of a typical formula than
most Disney designs, with shapes that did not relate as well as they should for
animation because of the witch’s illustrative quality. The mouth to cheek to
eye and brow relationship, which is so important in animating expression
changes, suffered from his concept in design” (p. 105).
By 1953, Ferguson found it increasingly difficult to keep up with Disney and left to work at other
studios. He died in 1957 after being plagued with diabetes and other health
problems.
Hamilton
“Ham” Luske
Out
of the four original animators, Hamilton Luske was the only one with a college
education. A graduate of University at Berkley majoring in business yet his
only formal art training came from the classes that Disney initiated. It should
be noted that Luske struggled with drawing, yet excelled in animation, story,
and had a keen eye for entertainment, which helped make up for his lack of
artistic talent.
In contrast to Fergy’s natural ability to
improvise while animating, Ham always seemed to follow a procedure with a
step-by-step approach. However, his animation was not mechanical in any way. On
the contrary, it was full of life and the feeling of the character; his ability
to move the audience with his pathos was second only to Bill Tytla’s. Ham could
not start a until he had the whole thing visualized (Johnston & Thomas,
1981, p. 110)
Luske’s
talent resided in fleshing out character action relationships or looking at
designs and finding ways to improve them, “an example of inventing business for
a character occurred is the scene where Snow White folds her arms as Grumpy
would, while she is watching him. It was a very good choice of action for her,
because it showed her gentle way of teasing Grumpy” (Johnston &Thomas,
1981, p. 114-115).
Another instance, Luske believed the rabbits done by Disney
looked too thin and bony and insisted soft and furry. After several redesigns,
the artists at Disney managed created soft and furry rabbits in the form of
Thumper. This design technique would later be used for Michael of Peter Pan.
In
1938, Johnston and Thomas report what Luske once shared on his thoughts of
animation:
Our actors are drawings. We cannot work
on the inspiration of the moment as an actor does, but must present our
characterizations through a combination of art, technique, and mechanics that
takes months from the conception to the finished product. And we have to make
the audience forget that these are drawings. We cannot risk ruining a sequence
ruining a sequence or a good characterization with some mechanical imperfection
or jitter that reminds the audience that are dealing with drawings instead of
real human beings. (p. 113-114)
Hamilton
“Ham” Luske continued to direct more animated films and sequences, including
the cartoon section of Mary Poppins.
However, more of his time was increasingly spent on live-action TV shows, until
his death in 1968.
Fred
Moore
Fred
Moore was one of Disney’s favorite animators and artists. Hired at the age of
eighteen with only limited education based on art classes he took as well as
working as a janitor at the time, Moore eventually became one of the few first
to break rubber hose style animation. Despite his limited training, Moore still
turned out to be a talented artist, popular for his provocative drawings and
sketches of girls, as well as never being noted for making a bad drawing. Thomas
and Johnston note Moore specialties
The squash and stretch of the walks that
Freddie animated had more life, felt better, looked better, and probably seemed
more real just because of his ability to change shapes. He had such a simple,
clear way of showing the straight leg, the bent leg, the shove off, the highs
and lows of the walk. He did not experiment with a walk in the same way Ham
did, varying the timing and the relationships to get something unique, because
Freddie’s was all feeling (p. 126).
Disney
favored Moore to the point that he asked all of his other artists and animators
to model after him and it can be argued that Snow White and the Seven Dwarf is based on his style because of it.
 |
| Snow White Rough Poster by Fred Moore |
1. Appeal in drawing.
2. Staging.
3. Most interesting way? [Would anyone other
than your mother like to see it?]
4. Is it the most entertaining way?
5. Are you in character?
6. Are you advancing the character?
7. Is this the most simplest statement of
the main idea of the scene?
8. Is the story point clear?
9. Are the secondary actions working with
the main action?
10. Is the presentation best for the medium?
11. Does it have 2 dimensional clarity?
12. Does it have 3 dimensional solidarity?
13. Does it have 4 dimensional drawing? [Drag
and follow through].
14. Are you trying to do something that
shouldn’t be attempted? [Like trying to show the top of Mickey’s head]. (128)
Like Norm Ferguson, Fred Moore left the
studio despite the innovations he contributed, because he couldn’t keep up with
the changing standards and feeling like he accomplished too much in too short a
time, “I have reached everything I want, and I’m only twenty-four. Now what do
I do?” (Johnston & Thomas, 1981, p. 129) Tragically, Moore died in an auto
accident in 1952 at the young age of forty-two.
Bill
Tytla
Bill
Tytla was known to be a very intense person. Dark, brooding, physically fit,
emotional yet socially awkward. Nonetheless, this animator will forever be
known as the supervising animator for Chernabog in the “Night on Bald Mountain”
sequence of Fantasia. Tytla’s talents
lie in his character’s acting from the violent, mercurial moods of Stromboli
from Pinocchio to capturing the dark,
terrifying power of Chernabog. As Thomas and Johnson noted on Chernabog’s
character, “Powerful action, solid drawing, and dramatic staging helped to
create a character never even attempted previously in animation, but it was a
feeling of an inner spirit, evil and primitive, that really made him live on
the screen” (Johnston & Thomas, 1981, p. 131).Animators usually hire actors to act out scenes in a feature to better understand how they want sequence to play out or as reference material. For the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence, they hired Bela Lugosi of Dracula fame. Once filming was done, Tytla expressed displeasure at the scenes Lugosi filmed and eschewed them all in favor of doing the reference material himself.
When
working, Tytla would always try and produce his best material. His dedication
is best exemplified when his ego was crushed when Disney told him the scene he
did was “Ok”. A week or two later, Tytla would rethink that scene and return
with something twice as good.
Chernabog would become his magnum opus to the
point people who personally knew Tytla would be shocked with disbelief that he
worked on the sequence as it contrasted greatly with his other work like the
Dwarfs or tender scenes involving Dumbo.
Chernabog would become his magnum opus to the
point people who personally knew Tytla would be shocked with disbelief that he
worked on the sequence as it contrasted greatly with his other work like the
Dwarfs or tender scenes involving Dumbo.
Bill
Tytla retired from animation in 1943 and he and his family moved to Connecticut
where he felt they’d be safe during wartime America. From then to his death in
1968, people felt he never had the same self-fulfillment and gratification he
found while working for Disney.
Works
Cited
Johnston, O., & Thomas F. (1981). The
Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. New York: Disney Editions.
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