memory lane 1 > Sullivan Bluth Studios : Clean Up Dept 1987

This is the clean up crew for Don Bluths feature :
' The Land Before Time ' taken in 1987.
This was just before our supervisor Vera Lanpher-Pacheco moved on to London to work on the Roger Rabbit feature in 1988. That's Vera in the front center. { The one with the shorter skirt } Today Vera is the Clean -Up supervisor for Disney's newest traditional feature : ' The Princess and the Frog '.
She passed the torch to me to supervise the next feature as well as inheriting one of the studios live-in cats ' Bennie '.
Amazing cat. All 20 pounds of him :-)

Some of you may remember him.

Some of the peoples names in the crowd:

Vera Lanpher { Pacheco }, Me { I'm standing in the back row, last guy on the far right }, Annette Byrne Morel, Ashley McGovern, Michael Carey, Mick Cassidy, Eileen Conway, Nollaig Crombie, Thomas Daly, Denis Deegan, Mary Delaney, Peter Donnelly, Sylvia Fitzpatrick, Alan Fleming, Connor Flynn, Michael Garry, Ben Burgess, Edward { Eddie } Goral, Anne Heeney, Silvia Hoefnagels, Paul J. Kelly, Paul M. Kelly, Michael Kiely, Helen Lawlor, Giorgio Mardegan, Marion Mathieu, Ann McCormick, Margaret McKenna, Anne Marie Mockler, Julie Molina, Dympna O'Halloran, Tara O'Reilly, Terry Pike, Miriam Reid, Julia Ryan, Paul Shanahan, Rusty Stoll, Hugh Tattan, Jeff Topping, Sally Voorheis, Wendo Van Essen, John Hill.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE:

Here's a link to Kevin O'Neils Blog that also has a photo of some rough inbetweeners.

stories in life drawing

Here's a quick study of a model going through the various stages of
boxing. Throwing a punch, avoiding a hit etc. and then getting knocked down.
We were given 1 minute for each pose above, 2 minutes for the poses below. It was interesting seeing the action play out on the page.
I really enjoyed this life drawing exercise. Quickly putting down on the page any emotion or action and then seeing it come together, telling the story.




Here's another quick study of a different model going
through the steps of picking up a bowling bowl
and not quite getting the results she wanted.

3 quick sketches

Here are a few quick sketches. I think they were around 1 minute per sketch. I find the faster the sketch, the more life can be found in it. Less time to think, just enough time to 'feel' the pose and hopefully get the emotion or action down on the paper.

Fantasia 2000 - Rhapsody in Blue : rough scenes

Here's the 1st scene I animated for the Disney feature : Fantasia 2000.

It was for the ' Rhapsody in Blue ' segment directed by Eric Goldberg.

{ link to Eric's new book on the art of Animation }

Eric cast me this scene which I dove into to. 

It was so much fun to animate this scene.

This project was set up where there were no supervising animators.

I have worked with an amazingly talented group of supervisors.

Learning from each of them. But it was nice for a moment to be able to work directly with the director. And pleasing Eric { with the experience and talent that he is }, was a artistic challenge. I was so happy that he really liked my work.

I love 'overlapping' animation. The way something will drag and 

follow through. The feeling of weight etc. And just finding the 

solutions of having that in the scene with hopefully having a nice design to it as well. 

Having all the objects fall down onto the floor in a pleasing way

was a challenge. Starting with the 'jack in the box', ending with the dog dish coming to a stop.

The music was a major tool with hitting the beats for my poses.

I've been pretty fortunate having these scenes to animate with

the music already set.

Here's the 2nd scene I animated from 'Rhapsody in Blue'.
Once again, having a soundtrack BEFORE I started animating
really helped with visualizing the beats and motion of my
characters movements.