Monday, November 25, 2013

Marks Notes 10 - All Dogs Go To Heaven 1988 - John Pomeroy's Clean-Up Notes

Late 1987 - Dublin Ireland

My Clean Up Supervisor Vera Pacheco was leaving Don Bluth Studios in Ireland to join the Disney production of ' Who Framed Roger Rabbit ' in England. She mentored and promoted me to fill in her position as Clean-Up Supervisor for the next Don Bluth feature 'All Dogs Go To Heaven'. 

It was a great opportunity working at the level of supervisor, being responsible for keeping the  Quality of the Clean Up art work as well as producing the needed footage for each weeks quota. It was also very much a learning experience being apart of the weekly production meetings learning how the business side of things worked dealing with the pressures etc.
I still remember a few times where Don would point at me and ask where the numbers were.
I always had to explain any reasons if and why the department was behind, any issues with certain scenes etc. I learned from Vera that sometimes adding a few extra artists on one scene for the end of the week push could help fill in some gaps every now and then. 
Art and business. Always lots of pressure but very fulfilling when you get the needed numbers for the week and the director comments on how good a job your department is doing with the Quality of work.

Being new at the position I thought I might create some notes that could help the Clean-Up Artists as they got to learn this new film with the new characters.
So I asked the studios Leading Supervising Animator JOHN POMEROY if it was ok that i borrow a few moments of his time for him to go over some drawings every now and then.  
John led the animators with his beautiful sense of appeal and design in his drawings. If you know this BLOG you'll know I frequently post his work.

John really liked the Idea so once we were able to meet with our schedules I went up to his room and watched over his shoulder as he would draw over a Key clean up drawing from one of my Key Artists. He would be explaining to me the reason for each change. I scribbled down his thoughts as he continued looking over the drawing.
Once back in my room I would put together a hand out note that i would then give to each artist in my department. 

Below are the BEFORE drawing and the Pass showing John's drawn changes.
At the very bottom is the actual hand out showing the side by side differences as well as the notes that i wrote down explaining what John had told me while he was going over the drawing.




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