One day in the late 1970s I discussed Disney animation with my life-drawing teacher. “Anybody can learn how to animate like Disney,” he claimed. “It’s all technique, but no art.” I was shocked! This man was a terrific teacher and an artist in his own right. I doubted his judgment quietly, having already spent endless hours studying the fluid motion of Disney animation with the help of Super-8 film clips. I could not imagine that anybody could learn to animate like this by picking up a few simple tricks. It seemed to me that in order to create life through drawings, an artist had to become very involved and committed.
My art school didn’t offer any animation classes, which meant if I wanted to pursue a future career in animation, a self-taught method would be the only option. After giving myself assignments like walk cycles and other pencil tests, I found out that Disney Studios had started a training program for new talent joining the animation department. It turned out that veteran animator Eric Larson worked with newcomers on developing their craft to eventually become fully fledged animators.
About one year later, in August 1980, I applied for the program and was lucky enough to get accepted. One of the things I remember is Eric going over my drawings from a scene I was trying to animate. Looking over the shoulder of one of Disney’s great animators and watching him as he strengthened my poses and timing was intimidating and thrilling at the same time.
When viewing my corrected scene, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Eric’s input added pure magic; the character’s actions became more clear and believable. What started out as messy graphic motion, now seemed to show signs of life.
It was Eric who first introduced me to two other Disney animators, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, who were in the midst of writing their first book on Disney animation, The Illusion of Life. Conversations with these artists were fascinating because, after all, they had been involved with almost all of Disney’s animated films. These movies shaped my childhood and made me wonder, how on earth this level of excellence was achieved. Now I had the opportunity to ask endless questions about the art of character animation.
When I was still in Germany, the term “Disney’s Nine Old Men” had been familiar to me; I knew the names of this elite group of animators from books and magazine articles. What I wasn’t aware of was the fact that two of them had already passed away when I started working for the studio. John Lounsbery and Les Clark were no longer alive, but I was lucky to get to know and become friends with seven of the nine, including Eric Larson, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston.
Woolie Reitherman still worked at the studio during the early 1980s, developing ideas for new projects. Marc Davis had retired, but lived close by, and he and his wife Alice enjoyed interacting with a new generation of animators. Ward Kimball lectured occasionally at the studio and was always up for a lunch date. Milt Kahl had moved to San Francisco after spending more than 40 years as an animator at Disney. I visited him once or twice a year and, despite his rough reputation, found him to be generous with his time and stimulating to talk to. I was lucky to be able to join Disney at a time when so many master animators were still alive and, as it turned out, very approachable. Every conversation with each of them left me incredibly inspired and compelled to study their work in greater detail. At that time the studio kept all of the animated, hand-drawn scenes ever done in a makeshift archive called the Morgue, which was placed in the basement of the Ink and Paint Department. Newcomers like myself were encouraged to study this material up close and learn from it. And what a school it was! Whether it was Medusa pulling off her false eyelashes, Bambi chasing a butterfly, or Baloo dancing with Mowgli, flipping those scenes left me with a feeling of either frustration—I am never going to be as good as this—or utter elation—look how incredible this medium can be!
In this book I try to share anecdotes and reflections by these incredible artists—as related to me—and present some of their brilliant work.
My art teacher was wrong; Disney animation is so much more than technique. Creating personalities on the screen through drawings is extremely difficult and only succeeds if the animator finds a way to express him- or herself personally. As Marc Davis said, it is the ultimate art form, involving drawing, acting, music, dancing, and painting, all combined into one medium.