The Lion King opening sequence

A while back, someone sold a Lion King animator draft on eBay. I didn't buy it, but the seller included a few sample pages. I'm assuming it's genuine but someone with access to the studio archives can probably confirm if it's an accurate example of a 90s feature draft.






The sequence director is Rob Minkoff, one of the film's two directors.

There is more information on this draft than on the "golden age" drafts uploaded by Hans Perk, in that it doesn't just include the animator name but also the layout (for individual shots rather than the whole sequence) and background artists, plus something called "CU LO" (clean-up layout?) Unlike some of the earlier drafts, unfortunately, it doesn't identify which animator was responsible for which characters when they shared a scene. But for the most part we can work it out:

Animation of main characters is by Russ Edmonds (Sarabi and Baby Simba), Tony Fucile (Mufasa), Chris Wahl (Mufasa plus a group shot of the whole family and Rafiki), Ellen Woodbury (Zazu), James Baxter and Ron Husband (Rafiki). For the most part these are supervising animators responsible for their characters. Baby Simba is aimated by Sarabi's supervisor rather than one of the "Young Simba" animators listed in the closing credits. Ron Husband (who started out during the twilight years of the Nine Old Men, animating in Frank Thomas' unit in The Rescuers) is listed as a Pumbaa animator but gets a couple of brief shots of Rafiki here. There are a couple of scenes by a "Haidar" but I have no idea who that is. A Google search for the name plus "Lion King" shows the name has some significance to the lion species in myth and legend - whether this is an indication that this is a false draft, with the identification included as an injoke, or whether it was just a happy coincidence, I have no idea.

edit: This is probably Joe Haidar, credited as an animator on other Disney features of around the same time. IMDb says he was an uncredited "character designer" on The Lion King.

Most of the animation of the incidental animals is by people who also worked on major characters. They are animated by Andreas Deja (rhinos, also Scar), Michael Surrey (meerkats, also Timon, appropriately enough), David Burgess (cheetahs, also hyenas), Anthony DeRosa (gazelles, also Adult Nala), Phil Young (topis, also Mufasa), Dave Stephan (storks and flamingoes, credited with "additional animation"), Bob Bryan (elephants, also Adult Nala), Brad Kuha (elephants and guinea fowl, also Mufasa), Randy Haycock (gazelles and zebras, also Adult Simba), Brian Ferguson (giraffes, also Timon), Joe Ekers (ants and zebras, also Adult Simba), Michael Swofford (crowd scenes, also Zazu) and Gilda Palinginis (crowd scenes, also Adult Nala). It's hard to tell on the draft but Swofford and Palinginis might be animating Zazu and Mufasa respectively.

While one might expect the animators of Adult Simba and Nala, Timon and Pumbaa (who will not appear "as themselves" until half way through the film or later) to appear here, it's strange to see, for example, the supervising Scar animator Andreas Deja animating incidental rhinos. Maybe they wanted one of the masters to handle the first piece of character animation audiences would see in the film?

Layout artists are Ed Ghertner, Allen Tam, Tom Shannon (key layout/workbook) Tim Callahan, Samuel Michlap (layout assistants) plus people named Keller, Tucker, and Christenson.

Many of the same names appear as clean-up layout artists (?), plus Dan St Pierre (layout supervisor) Tanya Wilson, Jennifer Yuan (key layout/workbook), Robert or Doug Walker (layout supervisor, Florida unit or layout assistant) plus people named George III (key assistant layout artist Mac George?) and Toon.

Background artists are Don Moore, Gregory Drolette, Thomas Woodington, Dominick Domingo, Debbie Du Bois, Sunny Apinchapong, Kathy Altieri, David McCamley, and Serge Michaels.

The stuff we remember

I saw the Animaniacs segment "Bumbie's Mom" about 17 years ago. The plot is this: curmudgeonly veteran cartoon star Slappy Squirrel and her peppy nephew Skippy are watching the film "Bumbie, the Dearest Deer" (as you can imagine, it's a Bambi parody) and Skippy is traumatised by the mother's death. To cheer him up, Slappy takes Skippy to visit Vina Waleen, the deer woman who played the mother in the film.

Strangely enough, I only saw Bambi for the first time a couple of years ago - I had only known about it through osmosis before. It's interesting to compare the familiar parody with the unfamiliar original.

Specifically, the way the action is compressed. In the Animaniacs episode, the mother warns Bumbie that there is "no cover from the hunters" on the meadow, then, soon after, we hear a gunshot and Bumbie asks plaintively for his mother. (Cue Skippy bursting into tears) This is followed by the forest fire sequence, and Bumbie, still a fawn, calls again for his mother amid the burning trees.

That brief scene encapsulates what people remember about Bambi: Bambi is a baby deer, whose mother is shot by hunters, and there is a terrifying forest fire near the end. It was interesting, when finally seeing the film, to notice how much of a compression this is.

The part where Bambi's mother warns him about the hunters on the meadow comes long before she is shot by one... in fact, it's a completely different time of year. And, while the forest fire does follow from scenes where animals are in danger from hunters, it is even later... by which time Bambi is fully grown! He is also not still looking for his mother... in fact, I don't think his mother is even mentioned after the Prince (Bambi's father) tells him "Your mother can no longer be with you."

So, we have an amalgamation of three points in the film, separated by months or even years... concentrated into that one brief scene.

Dumboards - Part Two

First of all, I'm not sure when he added this, but thank you to Michael Sporn for adding a link to my blog on his "Splog"! Now, it's high time I returned to the Dumbo storyboards he posted up several months ago.

Bath time!

Carrying on where I left off, here is a sketch of Mrs Jumbo taking her son to be washed... everyone remembers this sequence in the film - a look at the loving relationship between mother and son before they are separated. Tytla's animation is a great portrayal of warmth and affection, of the way they are thoroughly happy to be in each other's presence. This sketch goes for a more comical approach: Dumbo is being taken to his bath against his will, a sulky, bratty expression on his face, while Mrs Jumbo's expression shows amusement at her son's ineffectual resistence. A perfectly valid depiction of a mother-son relationship, but hardly fitting for the only time we see them alone together. To me, Dumbo's expression makes him look too specifically to a drawing of a human boy in a children's storybook... in the film his appearance seems more universal, appealing on both human and animal levels.

Mother and son

Speaking of humans, this pose for Mrs Jumbo and the way she holds Dumbo are much more anthropomorphic than the approach they finally settled on.

Whack-an-elephant

An unused example of the pain and humiliation Dumbo undergoes as a clown.

Wealthy Ringmaster

Now, in the film, the last we see of the Ringmaster is when Dumbo gets back at him during the Big Town sequence. In the following success montage, Timothy becomes Dumbo's manager, and is seen in a still, proudly signing a contract for him. All this is fitting: the Ringmaster was the one who separated Dumbo from his mother, while Timothy has been a loyal friend who we know can be trusted to look after Dumbo's interests. This sketch, however, shows the Ringmaster gaining from Dumbo's success - perhaps he was intended to be a more positive character than he eventually became.

The Dumbo Hop

Dumbo Peanuts

Presumably the story department came up with various ideas for the success montage, and Walt Disney, Ben Sharpsteen or whoever chose which ones to include in the film. There are a few on the Splog which I wish had survived, as they show Dumbo entering the popular consciousness... I'm particularly fond of the "Dumbo Peanuts"... a bit more endearing than the implications of using Dumbo likenesses to bomb civilians in German cities...

Anyway, there are actually many more boards in Michael's post: these are only the ones which I felt I had something to say about. Once again, you can find the rest here. Until next time!

Youse guise

Now, here is a song I wish I'd known about when I was a kid. I mean, I was familiar with the voice of Bing Crosby from Christmas records, and I was certainly familiar with Disney cartoons (see pretty much any post tagged "personal" and/or "kidhood")... and vaguely familiar with the concept of a headless horseman. But not quite as familiar as I would become...



From Ichabod and Mr Toad, the Disney package-feature with the non-chronological title. This is therefore from the second half of the film, and if you want to know who animated what in this sequence... well, you're in luck, because the draft can be found right here. By the way, anyone got any idea what "black or white or even red" refers to? The obvious answer is hair colours, but the use of "black" and "white" rather than, say "brown" and "blonde" makes it sound like they mean skin colours.

I did once dress as a headless ... man of some sort one Hallowe'en, and went around the neighbourhood with my younger sister, who was dressed as Casper the Friendly Ghost. I mean, she sang the Casper theme (transcribed by the whole family from a video, and containing one or two mondegreens), it's a shame I couldn't have sung something appropriate as well.

The costume included an over-large sweater, with a bow-tie around the top (to keep it from falling down and exposing my real, attached head... thereby destroying the illusion), and a papier-mache head with a wig on top and a gloomy expression painted on the face. It was a fairly last-minute idea and (Could have just used a pumpkin and saved myself the hassle... the shops would have been full of them, and being a traditional Scottish family, it's not like we'd have had any other use for one...)

No, there's no photos. Well, no digital ones anyway. If people are really interested, I could scan something. However, for the past decade or so, may Hallowe'en costumes have usually been variations on the following theme: "barbarian", "renegade knight", "warrior"... or, with some facial make-up, "orc", and rely on some handy pieces of sacking cloth, the fact that the majority of my clothes are black, and some arms and armour I picked up at a costume shop a while back.




Yeah, both of these photos are from the same year (for some reason they were all I could find), but they may as well not be.

Dumboards - Part One

With Mark Mayerson's Dumbo mosaic drawing to a close I realised I should post my impressions on the story sketches Michael Sporn posted on his "splog" back in May. They're a really interesting look at some unused (or changed) ideas the story-men came up with.

Casey Jones Jr

First of all, Casey Jr, "slow asleep" as Jerry Colonna would have it, in his shed. Notice the full name "Casey Jones Jr" which never appears in the film. (I remember a Little Golden Book or something which referred to the loco as "Casey Jones" though) The name comes from the American legendary figure of Casey Jones, who would later inspire Jack Kinney's short "The Brave Engineer".

Dumbo, Mrs Jumbo, and "friends"

Here we have the other elephants surrounding Mrs Jumbo, with Dumbo resting at her back end. Human figures can be seen in the foreground, and the backdrop (with coconut palm trees) suggests an outdoor setting. The elephants are arranged in the same semi-circular position they are when they complain about Dumbo in the film, but their expressions appear to be kind and indulgent. I'm not sure if this is meant to be a version of Dumbo's birth/delivery, but he already has the big ears.

Toot-Toot-O!

Here we have Casey Jr (deliberately) scaring Dumbo and Timothy. Casey doesn't really behave in this manner in the film, where "he" doesn't do anything as humanised as his annoyed finger-drumming in his Reluctant Dragon segment.

Giant of the Jungle

Monarch of the Jungle

Now, these two are the big'uns. People have often wondered who Dumbo's father is. His mother is referred to as Mrs Jumbo, with a married woman's title, and Dumbo himself is originally named "Jumbo Jr." So, who is Jumbo Sr? The fact that Dumbo is delivered by a stork shows that, in this fantasy world, childbirth (and conception) doesn't really work the same way it does in our world, so we just generally assume he doesn't have, or need to have, a father.

But, these drawing suggest he was originally going to have one. Quite a famous one too, identified as "Jumbo, Giant of the Jungle", advertised on a poster for "...ingling Bros" circus. The elephants comment that Dumbo "belongs right alongside his daddy" and that "he'll be there soon". What does this mean? Are the other elephants encouraging him to go on to a greater circus? Was this before their personality/ies had been decided on? Or are they just wanting him out of their circus?

Following Pinocchio and with Bambi in production, it seems to fit the mold that Dumbo, as a young male protagonist, would have a father out there somewhere, if not by his side, and it seems that one of Dumbo's themes was, at one point, going to be about the little elephant trying to live up to his father's success. In the second sketch, look at the size of Jumbo Sr's ears! Were the storymen making these sketches even thinking there was to be anything "un-natural" about the size of Dumbo's own ears?

Keep watching this blog for more thoughts on these story sketches, and thanks to Michael Sporn for posting them up! I would be posting these as comments on his blog, if they were a bit shorter (and, if I hadnt waited until so long after he had posted them up in the first place...)

Dumbo Deleted Scenes - Part 4

OK, here we go... the rest of the deleted scenes. I can't claim that my reflections are completely comprehensive, so if any of you notice anything you feel I should have mentioned... either about any of these scenes or others I may have missed... then let me know in the comments!

As before, these are transcripts from the drafts - you can find scanned copies of the originals on the A. Film L.A. website by following the links in the scene titles. The portions of the transcript in italics are the parts which don't appear in the film, the rest is included to provide context.



Sequence 16: Clown Sequence (Draft No. 1)
____

1 LS - Tent. Clowns in sillhouette celebrating and singing, "WE'RE THE SMARTEST CLOWNS ----."

2 MS - Ollie and Frank dancing and singing, "WE'RE THE ANSWER TO AN OLD RINGMASTER'S DREAM."

3 MS - "WE'RE THROUGH WITH PLAYING HICK TOWNS, FROM NOW ON IT'S ---"

4 MS - Group of clowns dancing and singing finish of song - "---THE BIG TOWNS, FOR THE GREATEST CLOWNS THE WORLD

HAS EVER SEEN."

5 CU - Clown who says "HERE YOU ARE JOEY, POUR IT IN ME SLIPPER."
____

The dialogue throughout this sequence is not given in full in the draft, but in a shortened (and sometimes very slightly paraphrased) form. Fortunately most of the cut song is included in the draft, and, better yet, Hans has posted up an acetate recording of it, and of the "hit the big boss for a raise" reprise that survived into the film.

Mark Mayerson mentioned that a lot of the film relies on "the principle of contrast", and there's certainly a lot of contrast going from the tear-jerker previous sequence to the clowns laughing it up in their tent. There would have been more of a direct contrast if they had kept these scenes in, as the film would have gone from one song (the lullaby) to another (the clowns' celebration song). Maybe that kind of cut would have been a bit too jarring, though.

And, yes, two of the clowns are identified as "Ollie and Frank". If they really are named after the two animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, it's very interesting. Neither worked on Dumbo, but would have been occupied on Bambi at the same time. Seems like some light-hearted in-house rivalry. It's also interesting that, so soon after Ollie's promotion to full animator, than he and Frank would already have been seen as some kind of double-act.



Sequence 17: Hiccups and Cure (Draft No. 2) has quite a few differences in the draft, but not much in the way of deleted scenes. Scene 12 is a kind of deleted scene: after Dumbo has swallowed the alcohol-enhanced water, he lets out a hiccup, and the draft mentions a close-up of Timothy saying "OH, I GUESS YOU HAD ONE LITTLE ONE LEFT OVER." However, in the film he is off-screen when he says this.

Also, in scene 18, after Timothy emerges from the bucket, the draft has him say "GIGGLE WATER!", evidently in response to his own question about "WHAT KINDA WATER IS THIS ANYHOW?" The question is in the film but the answer isn't.

Mostly, though, we can see the opposite of deleted scenes - scenes which are in the film but not in the draft. I expect Mark Mayerson will cover this when he reaches this sequence in his mosaic.



Sequence 19.2 - Dumbo learns to fly (Final Draft)

Now, this one's a bit more complicated than the usual clean lifts. Thanks to Zartok-35 for first noticing it.
____

29 CU - Dumbo's head. Crows flying around. Timothy jumps out of Dumbo's hat on to his trunk. Crows Laughing.

30 EXTREME CU - Timothy on Dumbo's trunk talks to him, kisses feather. "DUMBO! I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT. NOW OUR TROUBLES ARE OVER. HO-HO!" To crows off-stage: "YOU BOYS KEEP THIS UNDER YOUR HATS. MUM'S DA WOID."

31 CU - Crows on top of Dumbo's head: "SHO' NUFF, BOY." "WE DON'T GONNA TALK." "NOT TO NOBODY." "MUM'S DE WOID."

32 CU - Two crows on top of Dumbo's head. Crow with deep voice: "MUM'S DE WOID."

33 CU - Timothy on Dumbo's trunk, says "WAIT'LL WE GET TO THE BIG TOWN."
____

As Zartok mentioned, a close-up of J.C. was added after this, saying "BOY, THEM CITY FOLKS IS SURE IN FOR A SU'PRISE!" This seems like a bit of a redundant addition: more something that would be taken out to condense dialogue (see story notes from The Reluctant Dragon) than added. In the next sequence, Timothy says basically the same thing - in both the draft and the film.

Or maybe they really needed to hammer it in that flying elephants are supposed to be surpising, in a world where storks literally deliver babies! Then again, we have just had a whole song about how unusual a flying elephant would be.

But a couple of other things, too. I'm not sure if I'd describe scene 29 as a close-up of Dumbo's head, also, it contains Timothy's "I knew you could do it!" line that the draft places in the next shot. I guess they didn't want to lose that line even though they were cutting the scene where it appeared. It seems a surprising number of differences for a so-called "Final" draft.



Sequence 20 - Big town, Dumbo triumphs (Draft No. 2)
____

3 LS - Burning building. Old Woman Clown running back and forth, yelling, "POOR BABY, OOH, OH."

4 CU - Old Lady Clown yelling, "SAVE MY CHE-ILD."

5 MS - Fire truck enters and throws clowns.

6 MS - Firemen land and run in confusion.

8.1 Clowns grab net - They all fall down.

9 Fireman cranks group of firemen up ladder.

10 Firemen on ladder come up into scene. Ladder out. Firemen fall out of scene.

18 MS - Four Firemen run in with net yelling: "JUMP, COME ON, JUMP."
____

It seems that originally this sequence was going to have a build-up to Dumbo's leap as big as the one in the earlier "Fireman Sace My Child" sequence, with several scenes of clowns fooling around as before. In addition to those actually included in the draft, there are also mentions of scenes 2, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 16 as "No Scene" and 8, 15 and 17 as "Out of Picture". The difference in terminology might refer to different dates when these scenes were removed. At any rate, it appears that they gradually cut more and more of the build-up and eventually decided to just lose the whole thing and "cut to the chase".

Also, from the end of the sequence:
____

62 CU - Timothy in hat says, "THAT'S THE STUFF, NOW THE VERTICAL FLIP-FLOP."

51 LS - Dumbo weaves through tent poles and zooms out at upper left.

64.1 Dumbo's shadow on tent top. Timothy says, "YOU'RE MAKING HISTORY!"
____

Now, as you can see, this is another more complicated cut -- it seems that the visual from scene 62 was used to end the sequence, but with Timothy's dialogue from scene 64.1. Also notice the numbering - quite a few shots in this sequence have been rearranged, as noted on the draft - similar to the "Fireman Save My Child" sequence. The draft we have is of the sequence as a work in progress, after they had started and before they had finished rearranging and removing scenes.

Well, that's it for deleted scenes. But the realms of "what could have been" extend further, with Michael Sporn posting some fascinating early storyboards on his blog last month, many of which are of unused story concepts. I'll take a closer look at them in a later post.

Dumbo Deleted Scenes - Part 3

As before, these are transcriptions from the draft posted on Hans Perk's A. Film L.A. blog - material that was deleted from the film is put in italics, the rest is included for the sake of context.

Sequence 12: Gossips disown Dumbo (Draft No. 1)

This missing section includes a few more shots of the "gossip" elephants speculating about what happened to Dumbo after the Pyramid Act disaster. You'll also notice if you look at the draft that the sequence begins with scene 13, and the note: "Scenes 1 through 12 inclusive are out". Either the sequence was originally longer and the beginning was taken out before they even reached draft stage, or scenes 1-12 were an earlier version of the whole sequence, which was later discarded and replaced by the version described in the draft.
___

15 CU - Catty with block of ice on head - "OH, THAT WONT BE NECESSARY, DEARIE ... THEY'VE FIXED HIM GOOD!"

16 MCU - Matriarch and two elephants. Matriarch: "WHAT DID THEY DO?" Ella: "DID THEY BEAT HIM?"

17 CU - Prissy: "DID THEY THROW HIM IN THE... AH... CLINK?"

18 CU - Giggles (hopefully) "DID THEY SHOOT HIM?" (Giggles)

19 CU - Catty: "OH, A LOT WORSE THAN THAT, MY DEARS!"

20 CU - Matriarch. Catty, o.s.: Continues: "HE'D BE BETTER OFF DEAD." Ad lib chatter: "GO ON, TELL US, TELL US!" Matriarch, angry: "I DEMAND TO KNOW!"

21 CU - Catty: "WELL, THEY'VE GONE AND.." She pushes ice back into place with trunk "..MADE HIM...OH DEAR, I JUST CAN'T SAY IT!" Matriarch, o.s.: "OUT WITH IT!" Catty "....MADE HIM A CLOWN!"
___

It's strange to hear one of the "gossip" elephants use Timothy's term "clink" ... don't they have their own term for it? (The Ringmaster was going to call it "jail" in the "Menagerie" sequence, but that line was also cut)

I'm not sure why these lines were taken out. Maybe the "ad lib" nature of the "chatter" meant that they were just never recorded? Was the gleeful "did they shoot him" deemed a little too harsh? Did they think that it would be more reasonable for Dumbo to have been shot or locked up, and they didn't want to call attention to the unusual nature of his punishment?



Sequence 14: Fireman save my child (Draft No. 1)

Scenes were taken out and shuffled around both before and after this first draft was typed up.
As we can see by the scene numbers as well as additional notes, scenes 2, 7, 14, 20 and 25 have already been taken out, and scene 12 has been moved to follow scene 22. Then, some time after the draft was written, scenes 18 and 21 were taken out, and 19 moved to between 16 and 17.
___

16 MS - Clown running in with sprinkler to flower box. Cocoanut [sic] tree springs out of flower box.

17 Two-shot. Big clown runs in with little clown who has barrel on back - takes out eye dropper and puts one drop of water on fire.

18 Two-shot. Old woman screaming - mouth wide open. Clown comes in with atomizer and sprays mouth.

19 LS - Firemen running up ladder to burning house and throwing water in Dumbo's face.

21 MS - Eskimo clown runs up to fire and warms [rear end].

22 MS - Dumbo in midst of smoke. Fireman climbs up and fans him.
___

With a bit of detective work we can also speculate that, before the draft was written, some scenes were added to give Dumbo more of a presence in this sequence, which otherwise might lose him amid all the clowning. A reaction shot of Dumbo is numbered 12.1, and scenes showing the effect of pouring gasoline on the fire, including another reaction shot of Dumbo, are 26.1 and 26.2. These numbers suggest these were late additions to the sequence. It may be that the rearranging of the other scenes was also to make sure that the audience didn't lose sight of Dumbo for two long at a time. I'm reminded of the Battle of Helm's Deep in the film version of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, where they made sure that one of the main characters was on-screen for at least every third shot, so the audience had a focus.

As for the missing scenes themselves: I'm not sure who "old woman" in scene 18 refers to, although I guess it would have to be the clown dressed up as the elephant woman. Presumably "atomizer" means a breath freshener... I guess the gag was taken out because it's almost identical to scene 12 where a clown does the same thing with water from a flower, but a little less "clown-like." The "eskimo clown" from the deleted scene 21 doesn't appear at any other point in the sequence, and I'm curious as to what he would look like, and how late he was removed from the film. Then again, the "captain" from scene 12 doesn't seem to appear in any other shots either (notice the blue coat and epaulettes).

Dumbo Deleted Scenes - Part 2

It occurs to me I should have listed what the draft number has been for each sequence. I have therefore edited the previous posts to include this information.

Sequence 10: Ringmaster's Idea for Pyramid Act (Draft No. 2)
___

1 MLS - truck to MCU - Shadows of Ringmaster and Joe appear against side of tent. Ringmaster says: "WHAT AN IDEA! YOU KNOW, SOMETIMES I WONDER WHAT MAKES ME..."

3 MCU - Tim and Dumbo watching Ringmaster. o.s. Ringmaster: "SO SMART!" Tim talks over his shoulder to Dumbo: "HUH! HE NEVER HAD AN IDEA IN HIS LIFE -" Ringmaster continues: "JUST VISUALISE..."

4 MCU - Shadows of Ringmaster and Joe. Ringmaster tosses coat - Joe catches it. Ringmaster, excited, continues: "IN THE RING STAND SEVENTEEN ELEPHANTS!"

4.1 MCU - Shadow of Joe - "hangs up" coat, missing pet [?] and allowing coat to fall on floor. Ringmaster o.s. continues "ONE ELEPHANT CLIMBS ON TOP OF ANOTHER ELEPHANT UNTIL..."

5 CU - Ringmaster wriggles out of pants, kicks them up in the air and catches them, as he says: "...FINALLY ALL SEVENTEEN ELEPHANTS HAVE CONSTRUCTED AN ENORMOUS PYRAMID..."

6 CU - Joe's shadow. Ringmaster, o.s., continues "...OF PACHYDERMS!" Joe, puzzled, scratches his head - asks: "WHAT'S A PACHYDERM, BOSS?"

7 MCU - Shadow of Ringmaster - Tosses pants to Joe, o.s., as he says "THAT'S AN ELEPHANT, STUPID. HANG UP MY PANTS!"

8 CU - Joe's shadow - He catches pants, hangs them up as he says "GEE, BOSS, I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU THINK 'EM UP!" Ringmaster, o.s.: "THAT'S NOTHING!"

11 CU - Shadow of Ringmaster wriggling into nightshirt - continues: "THERE STANDS THE PYRAMID OF ELEPHANTS..." Arms shoot up thru sleeves - "I STEP OUT!" Head pops thru neck of shirt - "I BLOW THE WHISTLE!"

12 CU - Tim on tent-peg - Ringmaster continues... "THE TRUMPETERS ARE TRUMPETING - THE DRUMS ARE DRUMMING -" Tim stands up to listen. Ringmaster, o.s., very excited continues "...AND NOW..."

14 MCU - Shadows of Joe and Ringmaster. Ringmaster continues: "...COMES THE CLIMAX!" Joe: "YEAH... WHAT IS THE CLIMAX?" Ringmaster: "I DON'T KNOW"

16 CU - Tim. Ringmaster, o.s. "...DOT'S CHUST VOT I DON'T KNOW." Tim relaxes into disappointed expression - says: "I KNEW HE NEVER HAD NOTHIN' ... BUT STILL I WAS HOPIN'."

17 MCU - Shadow of Ringmaster - "WELL, MAYBE IT COMES TO ME IN A VISION WHILE I DREAM. GOODNIGHT, JOE." Climbs into bed. Joe, o.s. "GOODNIGHT, BOSS."
___

The main thing from this draft section that isn't in the final film is the Ringmaster explaining to Joe what a pachyderm is. I'm glad they took this out - it just feels like the storymen are calling attention to the fact that they know a word which they think the "average Joe" doesn't. Anyway, we already know that the Ringmaster is talking about a pyramid of elephants, so the audience should know what he means, even if they've never heard the word "pachyderm" before. I do think that the Ringmaster ordering Joe to hang up his clothes is funny though, just after insulting him.

Notice that one of the Ringmaster's deleted lines is written in a thicker German accent than the rest of the dialogue. I'm not sure why that is, although even in the final film he starts to sound more Germanic as he falls asleep.

Also noteworthy is that Timothy's line about "hopin'" the Ringmaster had an idea was cut. I'm not sure why he would hope this: it hasn't occured to him yet that this could be Dumbo's chance to shine. I guess Timothy himself sort of makes a living from the circus and wants it to be successful.

Notice that although the film does not retain the Ringmaster's full description of the pyramid act, he still says "seventeen" elephants will perform rather than the seven who do (or eight in the opening shot, for some reason).


Sequence 11: Pyramid Act (Draft No. 3)

Not really a deleted scene, but an alternative version of a line, at the start where the Ringmaster is announcing his act.

___

3.2 CU - Rearview of Ringmaster: ...PYRAMID OF PROUD, PONDEROUS, PULSATING.....

3.3 CU - Ringmaster:...PULCHRITUDINOUS PACHY. PACHY.....I GIVE YOU THE ELEPHANTS!

___

It appears that the Ringmaster struggles over the word "pachyderm" and gives up. In the film he has no such problem with the word. Once again, the film differs from the draft in that it does not make such a big deal about the word "pachyderm" - the film-makers aren't trying to call attention to their vocabulary.

Dumbo Deleted Scenes - Part 0

(edited 4th June 2010 - see "Dumbo Deleted Scenes - Part 2")

OK, in the rush to get that first post out, I missed out a couple of things - nothing really major though, and the first one isn't really a deleted scene, because more changes seem to have been made than just removing some footage.

Ain't that just like me to forget?

(Once again, deleted material goes in italics)

From sequence 5 "Circus Parade" (Draft No. 1)
___

13 - Dumbo's mother pans through - Dumbo holding onto her tail. Dumbo runs underneath mother. She goes out, leaving Dumbo in the open.

14 - Mother looks back at Dumbo.

15 - Dumbo looks up, runs after mother and falls in mud.

16 - Rear view, parade going back toward tent. Dumbo runs in, trying to catch up with parade.
___

In the film, scenes 13 and 15 seem to have been run together. The important thing missing is the extra shot of Mrs Jumbo and the final rear view. I don't know what kind of expression Mrs Jumbo was supposed to have, but the fact that she just carries on ahead and leaves him to try to catch up seems uncharacteristically neglectful. When they finished putting the sequence together, it seems they decided to solve the problem of "What is Mrs Jumbo doing?" by ignoring it, and keeping Dumbo as the only character on screen. Having the final shot be of Dumbo fallen in the mud puddle with the crowds laughing once again keeps the focus on Dumbo's ears as the source of his misfortune. It also leads nicely into the following sequence, of Mrs Jumbo washing him.

In the "Elephants Gossip" (Draft No. 4) and "Timothy Befriends Dumbo" (Draft No. 4) sequences there are a few extra scenes/lines I didn't catch last time but nothing worth writing home about. In "Elephants Gossip", the line in scene 8 "Yes, but mother love doesn't have to be blind" seemed to become "...can hide a multitude of sins." Scene 14 and the accompanying line "I'll bet she's furious" were cut, as were a couple of shots where Timothy is frightening the elephants.

In scene 31 of "Timothy Befriends Dumbo" Timothy rejects one of his own (unmentioned) ideas with "Aw, no... that's old stuff..." before he overhears the Ringmaster coming up with an idea of his own. Unlike his deleted lines from earlier in the sequence, I can't think of much of an argument for keeping this one.

If anyone catches anything else on the draft that I should have caught bit didn't, please let me know!

Dumbo Deleted Scenes - Part 1

(edited 4th June 2010 - see "Dumbo Deleted Scenes - Part 2")

It's a good time to be a fan of Walt Disney's Dumbo and animation history. Hans Perk has just posted up a(n almost) complete animation draft, which Mark Mayerson is currently using as a basis for one of his celebrated mosaics. Also, as in the Pinocchio craze of '07, Michael Sporn is getting into the act by posting up some production drawings (including Bill Peet's bathing storyboard briefly glimpsed in the extra features on the 101 Dalmatians DVD).

The draft Hans posted isn't a final version - some scenes are uncredited on it, and some were cut from the film. It's these "deleted scenes" which I'm going to look at over two or three posts, starting with this one. The way I will do this is by transcribing the relevant parts of the draft and putting the deleted material in italics. Once again I would like to make it clear that what a draft calls a "scene" is what most people would think of as a "shot". I'll be using "scene" and "shot" fairly interchangeably here.

Probably the first material on the draft which was deleted from the film is in seq. 6.0 "Menagerie: Mrs Jumbo Goes Berserk". The relevant portion of the draft (Draft No. 2) is as follows:

45 - EXT CU - Mrs Jumbo's back legs - Skinnay reaches in between her legs - Pulls Dumbo out by the tail - Skinnay "C'MON OUT AND PLAY, LOP-EARS" Dumbo looks at Skinnay. Kids o.s. "MAKE A SAIL-BOAT OUT OF HIM!" Skinnay blows in Dumbo's ear. Dumbo looks at his mother, o.s., for help. [i]Skinnay grabs Dumbo's ears, jumps on Dumbo's back, and starts "Roman chariot" riding act. Kids, o.s., start laughing.[/i]

46 - EXT CU - Mrs Jumbo, very alarmed at Skinnay's treatment of Dumbo.

47 - CU - Skinnay in Roman chariot act. Mrs Jumbo's trunk lifts Dumbo out from under Skinnay - Skinnay falls flat - Kids, o.s., laugh harder than ever.

48 - MCU - Mrs Jumbo puts Dumbo between her legs. Pan with Dumbo, and truck in, as he runs to camera left and peeks around Mrs Jumbo's other leg. Kids o.s. "THE BIGGEST SLING-SHOT IN THE WOILD!" Kid's hand reaches into scene - grabs Dumbo's ear - stretches it - Snaps it in Dumbo's face - Dumbo squeals, hurt.

49 - EXT CU - Mrs Jumbo, angry - reaches with trunk past camera. Kids' o.s. laughter changes to frightened yells.

50 - MCU - [Rear ends] and feet of kids scramming out of scene. Skinnay is grabbed by Mrs Jumbo's trunk, hung over rope and paddled. Skinnay: "HELP! MAMA!" Kids, o.s. "HELP! SHE'S MOIDERIN' SKINNAY!"

The main thing which didn't make it into the final cut was Skinnay's "Roman chariot act." Maybe this is an example of Walt's desire for restraint, as witnessed in his decisions for the mourning scenes in Snow White or the "Your mother can no longer be with you" scene from Bambi. Alternatively, it could be that there was no way to animate it convincingly. Perhaps most importantly, limiting Skinnay's torments to blowing into and snapping Dumbo's ears helps to keep the focus on the large ears - if he were to jump on top of the poor elephant and ride him like a chariot he'd be mocking him all right, but not mocking the size of his ears.

A few more scenes were cut from this sequence.

53 - CU - Ringmaster cracks whip - yells: "DOWN, MRS JUMBO!"

54 - EXT. CU - Mrs Jumbo dodges whip.

54.1 - CU - Ringmaster. Cracks whip again. Turns to yell: "CALL THE RIOT SQUAD!" etc.

55 - MCU - Five or six roustabouts run in thru curtains, carrying pipes, ropes, etc., shouting. Ringmaster, o.s. yells "KELLY! RIOT SQUAD!" etc.

56 - MCU - More roustabouts run into sideshow thru side-door.

57 - CU - Ringmaster yelling "GET THE CHAINS! SURROUND HER!" Cracks whip at Mrs Jumbo, o.s. Roustabouts swarm into scene, hiding Ringmaster from view.

These cuts were probably made to quicken the pace of the scene - the film no longer contains a reference to the "riot squad". Note the odd reference to "Kelly", addressed by the Ringmaster. The animator of these scenes was named Walt Kelly - was this unseen character named after the animator, or did the typist just make a mistake?

Finally, the last shot in the draft for this sequence includes an additional line for the Ringmaster.

74 - CU - Mrs Jumbo's water tub (same tub Dumbo was bathed in at start of sequence) Ringmaster is soused in tub. Stands up in tub, dripping wet, very mad. Yells: "TAKE HER AWAY! PUT HER IN JAIL!"

In the film, he just seethes. The line is unecessary as the next shot is of Mrs Jumbo in "jail", and cutting the line means that the audience experience a mood shift (from "relishing Mrs Jumbo's short-lived victory" to "sympathy for Mrs Jumbo's plight") at the start of a sequence, rather than a few seconds before the end of one.

The draft (Draft No. 4) for seq. 9.0 "Timothy befriends Dumbo" contains some missing dialogue for Timothy.

19 - CU - Dumbo looks doubtfully at one ear, wiggles it, then becomes very proud, smiles, looks at other, wiggles it. Tim, o.s.: "YA KNOW, LOTS OF PEOPLE WITH BIG EARS ARE FAMOUS." Dumbo reacts to "famous," looks down at Tim, o.s.

19.1 - CU Dumbo, draws his head back in surprise as Tim runs up Dumbo's trunk. Tim says "FAMOUS. NOW, LOOK DUMBO..." Dumbo cross-eyed as he watches Tim. Tim: "IF YOU'RE FAMOUS, THEY DON'T MAKE FUN OF YA, YOUR MA DON'T GET SORE..." Dumbo's eyes uncross as he watches Tim. Tim turns suddenly to face Dumbo. Tim: "IF SHE DON'T GET SORE..." Tim runs back up the trunk to between Dumbo's eyes... "THEY LET HER OUTA JAIL 'N EVERYTHING'S OKAY!" Tim turns and starts towards end of trunk again. Dumbo's eyes uncross again as he watches Tim. Tim: "OH BOY! ALL WE GOTTA DO IS BUILD AN ACT!" Dumbo's eyes cross again quickly as Tim rushes back, taps Dumbo on the forehead as he says "...MAKE YOU A STAR!" Tim jumps up in the air as he says "A HEADLINER!" Dumbo's crossed eyes go up and down, following Tim. Tim runs toward the end of the trunk.

It's a good thing they took out the "If you're famous, they don't make fun of ya". While I'm sure there was much less celebrity mocking in 1941 than there is now, they still made fun of famous people. Heck, Timothy's previous line about big ears just goes to show that. Unfortunately, it also means there's not much of an explanation for why Timothy tries to make Dumbo famous, or what this has to do with his earlier offer to "help get your mother outa the clink." Maybe it was cut because someone in authority thought that too much spoken dialogue (well, monologue) was "boring" or something, but Timothy's logic is a little suspect... with Mrs Jumbo chained in a wagon, would she really get much of a chance to show she isn't "getting sore" at the treatment of her son?

I'll leave it here for now... if you're interested in finding out more about these or any other scenes from the film - such as who animated them, check out Hans' posts (although you can only see as far back as the May 2nd post, most of the others can be seen by looking for April 2010 posts), or, if you feel the need for the scenes to be identified visually, just keep an eye out for Mark Mayerson's marvelous, magnificent... I think I'm turning into the Ringmaster. I give you, the mosaics.

The Lion King makes no sense, etc.

Last night I had to put up with about ten students of varying degrees of drunkenness tonelessly "singing" a bunch of songs from the Silver Age Broadway-influenced era of Disney films. Probably the part of that which really epitomises the whole "fun to think back on, but not so great to actually endure" side of it is when all ten of them bellow the *spoken* parts of the songs.

Incidentally, I'm not so straight-laced that I can't enjoy a bit of mirth and music. But while I love Singin' In The Rain, The Bandwagon, and the style of songs from the 1940s which often appear in musicals from around that time, I'd never say I'm a "fan of musicals" because for most people that means being a fan of Les Miserables, Evita... um... you get the idea.

One of the things I brought up to the other people who were less than enthralled by this little music-fest (or rather, to anyone who I thought was likely to listen) was that many of the words from the Lion King songs make no sense in the context of the film. Simba sings about "the spotlight" and Scar makes a metaphorical remark about "the lights are not all on upstairs" (referring to the Hyenas' stupidity). It extends beyond the songs, too: Zazu says that Scar would make a "charming throw-rug". But the characters in the film should have no knowledge of electric lights, or furniture, or anything like that. There's no technology in their world. I know, they should have no knowledge of the English language either, but we can accept that as part of the internal logic of the film. Just like, if they actually *had* electric lights and so on, we could accept that as part of the film's internal logic, but not if they *don't* have any but still talk and sing about them.

(Incidentally, when I mentioned to one person about there being "internal inconsistencies", he pointed out that some of the animals, e.g. the antelopes, don't speak. That's an entirely different issue, and one I expect to write about in the near future.)

I guess anachronistic references in Disney films can be traced back to The Sword in the Stone, where there was a clearly established mediaeval setting, but where Merlin was able to reference things from the future -- always to the confusion of other characters -- because of his magic powers. This was taken to it natural conclusion (?) with the Genie in Aladdin. But then with The Lion King it just seemed to become "comic characters can know everything."

There should be a page for this on "TV Tropes", which deals with other media besides TV -- in fact there probably already is one, I just don't know what to look for. Basically, I'm meaning where a film establishes a world with its own internal rules, and then one character breaks these rules by making a joke about something no-one in that world should know about. This sort of thing doesn't always matter, of course. No-one cares about anachronistic jokes in Monty Python and the Holy Grail because the film doesn't try to pretend its world has any sort of rules about what its characters are or aren't familiar with. Shrek's kind of a grey area. I don't think Donkey should know what an in-flight movie is, because there are no planes in their world, but it doesn't feel like quite such a big deal somehow.

Vindication, like

As part of my Museum studies course, I am expected to read a fair amount of "theory". This doesn't just mean reading about doing something without actually doing it, but more along the lines of "literary theory", or, if you will, "philosophy." And one of the books which I borrowed from the library to provide some of that theory was called "The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern" by Fredric Jameson. I've only read bits of it, but it's got some interesting things to say about our culture in general, including the popular kind.

It was interesting to read (on page 8, if you're interested in looking for yourself) the author's argument that Star Wars is a "nostalgia film" despite the fact that it doesn't actually take place in the past (well, not in a real past anyway), because it conveys the past by invoking an art form (old-time adventure serials) from the past. It then goes on to say that Raiders of the Lost Ark does both - it suggests the 1930s not just through its setting but through it's storytelling techniques.

Now, that's pretty much what I was saying about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in my earlier post, although at the time the book was written, Raiders was the only Indiana Jones film on offer. They don't just take place in the 1930s, they take place, in effect, in a film made in the 1930s.

So, it's nice to know that the experts are agreeing with me. Maybe that means I'm kind of an expert as well.

Kaa, the incredible shape-changing snake

From a Sterling Holloway stork to a Sterling Holloway snake...

I didn't notice this myself, I had read a very offhand remark about there being two different looks for Kaa in the Disney Jungle Book. So I decided to check it out:



Indeed, in the clip below (his second sequence in the film) he looks much cartoonier than in the clip above (his first sequence). His eyes are closer together and rise further above his head, his nose tapers out the way instead of in the way... and the general shape of his face allows for more variation in movement... actually, in the later sequence he almost looks like a serpentine Daffy Duck, say... mid-1950s, Chuck Jones unit.



The later design is certainly the better of the two, and probably the "definitive" look for the character, but I wonder why the earlier sequence has the different design? A common explanation would be that it had a different animator, but you'd think on a feature film like this they'd have a standard model sheet and diligent assistants to keep the drawings close to that model sheet. Another possibility is that they changed the design after they had already animated the earlier sequence, but surely they'd get someone to reanimate it, like they did with Dopey's soap antics in the washing sequence of Snow White. After Disney's death did consistency really fall apart?

As some people might not know, Woolie Reitherman, the director of The Jungle Book, was very fond of reusing animation. In this case, the scenes of Kaa unravelling (1:56 - 2:07 in the first clip, 4:55 - 5:00 in the second) are the same. This creates a continuity error: when he unravels in the second sequence, the way he's wrapped around the tree branches changes completely. It also makes the difference in the design stand out a bit more.

Oddly enough, some of the following footage in the second sequence is reused from the first sequence, while some is new. But, of course, even in the new footage he still has the (older?) first sequence design.

Oh, and if any of you are turned on by the thought of a ridiculously long snake hypnotising you and coiling himself around you... well, keep it to yourself, OK? ;)

A closer look at Snow White sequence 8A: Entertainment (part two)

Continuing from the previous post, this is an interesting sequence when it comes to casting as well, although the assignment of Snow White's scenes are enough to cause a headache!

Scenes 4, 49C and 58A credit two animators when Snow White is the only character on screen, and 23, 31, 37, featuring Snow White and the dwarfs, credit two Snow White animators (supervisor Ham Luske alongside either Grim Natwick and Jack Campbell) alongside one dwarf animator, despite the fact it would seem more logical to have one Snow White animator and two dwarf animators. To the list of scenes with two Snow White animators we can add 9, (Ham Luske and Paul Busch), 26 (Ham Luske and Marc Davis, Grim Natwick's assistant) and 28 (Ham Luske and Max Gray, who, as speculated before, could have been Luske's assistant)... and, following their example, 39 (Ham Luske and Amby Paliwoda). But they're maybe not quite as definite.

In fact, throughout the draft, no matter how many dwarfs are on screen, it is incredibly rare to have more than one dwarf animator credited. This sequence has several scenes of dwarfs playing instruments in the background while others do more interesting things in the foreground, yet each of these scenes credits only one dwarf animator. There could be an ommission in the draft, of course. Sequence 4C is full of them, and, in this sequence, we can assume that scene 49A must contain the work of at least one Snow White animator, even though only Spencer is credited.

The dwarf casting in this sequence partly follows some casting-by-character guidelines, and partly ignores them. Fred Moore and Bill Tytla get a few scenes, starting with some miscellaneous ones at the beginning. Check out Bashful's movements when he yodels in scene 5! Definitely the same animator who gave us Sneezy's convulsions in the "Spooks" sequence. Oddly enough, while Moore also animates the first half or so of the Tall Dopey scenes, it's Fred Spencer who animates the sneeze, despite the fact that Moore animated two of them in "Spooks".

There is a general sense of Dick Lundy "playing" Grumpy, with Marvin Woodward handling Bashful, Fred Spencer Dopey and Les Clark Sleepy. This type of casting can be seen in other sequences as well. However, there are no clear rules: for example, Les Clark animates scene 25A of Dopey picking up a symbal... although he is about to hand it to Sleepy, the latter dwarf is not in shot. Fred Spencer gets a quick shot (scene 40) of Bashful. Spencer animates Grumpy, Sleepy and Bashful in scene 53 (the three dwarfs to be fairly consistently cast, and usually *not* with Spencer!) Les Clark animates Dopey sliding down the pillar in scene 61. The uncredited Riley Thomson gets a few brief shots of various dwarfs towards the end, including an uncharacteristically energetic Sleepy in scene 49G.

There is no real consistent casting of the less prominent dwarfs, which, in this case, includes Doc! Also, Bill Tytla gets Happy's solo verse and tap dance at the beginning. Does anyone have any ideas why this might be?

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the continuity error. Scenes 44 and 45, followed by 49E, show pairs of hands which, judging by the sleeves, must belong to Dopey, even though Dopey is currently standing on Sneezy's head and dancing with Snow White. The draft simply refers to "hands".

In this interview, Wilfred Jackson, who directed this sequence, recalls an animator who did several Dopey scenes but whose name he cannot recall. It seems very likely he's thinking of Fred Spencer.

A closer look at Snow White sequence 8A: Entertainment (part one)

The draft for this sequence, where the dwarfs make merry and entertain Snow White with the yodelling "Silly Song", was posted up by Hans Perk here. Although unfortunately none of the sequene directors are mentioned on the animator draft, we know from elsewhere (such as this article) that this sequence was directed by Wilfred Jackson, and that unlike with "Spooks" (sequence 4D) directed by storyman Perce Pearce, Jackson does not seem to have had any story input for this "Entertainment" sequence.

Barrier mentions that the storymen who *did* work on it had trouble fitting the individual dwarfs' personalities into the sequence, and I can understand that -- it's the sort of situation which, like the deleted soup-eating sequence, lends itself better to generic slapstick than character acting, but they pulled it off pretty well. It does seem a little surprising to see Grumpy in particular joining in with the music-making, but at least he's playing a pipe organ (which audiences might assoicate with churches, and therefore think of it as a more "serious" instrument?), sits with his back to the others and gets exasperated when Bashful disrupts his timing. One might expect Doc to take more of a supervisory role - trying to conduct or something - but I guess unlike most "control freaks" Doc does know how to unwind. :)

Snow White can feel more timeless somehow than other Disney features... Silver Age features can be criticized for the way they "modernize" traditional stories, but Disney's innovations, such as the dwarfs' names, feel much more universal or, from seventy-odd years later, traditional than the likes of, say, Robin Williams' humor as the Genie in Aladdin.

This sequence is an exception though. The lyrics to the song root this film in a fairly specific time frame and context. Happy's verse ("I love to dance and tap my feet, but they won't keep in rhythm) is a comical apology for inadequate dancing, which plays on the sort of excuses a woman might make for untidy hair ("You see, I washed 'em both today and I can't do nothing with 'em!"). It reminds one of songs like Irving Berlin's "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing") from White Christmas (1955), which includes lyrics about being a "guy with two left feet". I don't really have a problem with that, though, despite its lack of consistency with the rest of the film (would the dwarfs *really* know about women trying to make their hair look nice? Would they really wash their feet, come to that?) I might feel differently if I lived in the '30s, though.

One shot of the dwarfs dancing is missing from the draft, except in a hand-written note "3 follows" after scene 2. Conversely, the half-minute scene 11 is listed in the draft but is nowhere to be scene in the film. The scene is described as "Sneezy sings verse - starts to sneeze - puts finger under nose". Maybe they decided one sneeze gag was enough for this sequence. I wonder if the lyrics to the verse survive?

A closer look at sequence 4-D "Spooks"

I think this was the first sequence to be animated after Bill Tytla's sequence 6-A "Dwarfs at tub washing" and Fred Moore's sequence 5-A "Bedroom". It was the first therefore to extensively use other animators on the dwarfs.

There are a few scenes by Moore and Tytla here, and they don't always seem to be cast with much rhyme or reason: Tytla was known for being best at Doc and Grumpy, and he does get most of the scenes where Doc gives orders and a few of Grumpy expressing his suspicion, but he also shares scene 39 with Babbitt, where the other dwarfs tell Dopey "We're right behind you!" I'm assuming Babbitt animated Dopey while Tytla animated the other dwarfs, but the way in which they are required to all speak in unison as a single unit goes against Tytla's deliberate intention to make all the dwarfs in the washing scene function as separate individuals, but it was probably what he was told to do, and he does get some slight variation in the chaarcters' gestures.

Fred Moore gets a couple of long scenes of comedy business, scenes 26 and 29, each measuring about 30 seconds and involving Sneezy's hay fever. Sneezy's almost snakelike contortions are a lot of fun to watch, but I can imagine it's the sort of thing Grim Natwick, which his anatomical realism, didn't like about Moore's animation!

Of the supporting animators, the ones who get the most sustained sections of footage are Art Babbitt and Fred Spencer, at the end of the sequence. Babbitt was assigned to Dopey, following his success with Goofy in the shorts, but got into a bit of trouble with management when he started improvising, something he always got away with in the shorts. In this sequence he animates Doc and the others sending Dopey upstairs, and Dopey reacting with (unusually vocal) terror at the sight of the yawning, stretching Snow White. Spencer takes over for the remainder of the sequence, when Dopey runs downstairs, and the others flee him, clobber him, and, after finally recognising him, ask him several questions about what he saw.

Both are fairly Dopey-centric scenes, with the other dwarfs mostly functioning as a single personality. Babbitt gets his fear and trepidation while Spencer gets his frantic energy and childlike suggestibility when he nods and mimes in repsonse to the other dwarfs' questions about what kind of monster he saw. Throughout the film Spencer was assigned to several Dopey scenes and scenes involving a lot of visual action.

There are a couple of scenes which must have been reinstated at the last moment - Scenes 17, where the dwarfs pass by the animals looking in through the window, and scene 25, where they discover the boiling pot on the fire. They are listed in the draft as being out, but this has been fixed in pen. Unfortunately there are no descriptions of the scenes, nor do we know who animated them...

You're not getting what you think you want, you're getting what you actually want

I find it quite funny/interesting how this poster for Disney's The Jungle Book advertises "Kipling's famous characters", accompanied by images of characters who are in some cases very different from the way they are in Kipling's stories, and in one case (King Louie) entirely invented for the film. They must have been relying on Kipling's characters being not all that famous after all.

Also, apparently Bill Peet, the sole writer of both One Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone, wrote an draft of the script which Walt Disney rejected on the grounds of being "too dark" and "too Kipling". As he was in the entertainment business, presumably his concern was that audiences wouldn't take to a film which was too much in the Kipling style or spirit.

That's where the irony (or whatever it is) comes in. The poster must have been designed for people who think of Kipling's name as a brand of quality and therefore would be encouraged to see a film when they see his name on it, but who are actually unfamilar with his work and, if they saw a film that really was a faithful adaptation, they wouldn't enjoy it.

You are getting Sleepy... Sleepy... no... not Sleepy, some other guy

The Disney EverNotice site was a favourite of mine in my younger days, until it shut down. Fortunately, with the help of the wayback machine at archive.org, it is (sometimes) able to be seen again. And thanks to Paul Reiter providing a link over on A.FilmL.A., I was able to re-read an odd theory that was put forward on that site.

Visit the EverNotice Snow White page here, and scroll down the post by "Polar Bear" which begins "I've not seen the movie in a few years..." Basically, what the post says is that the character of Sleepy was a last-minute replacement for a different character, and that the evidence to support this is that Sleepy only appears for "a few minutes".

The strangest part of the theory is this: "Polar Bear" identifies another dwarf who appears in most scenes, with "a hatchet face and a red vest" who gets the lines "Goldenrods!" "Do you have to wash where it doesn't show?" and "Was it hard to do?" (in the lead-up to Someday My Prince Will Come).

The implication is that this other dwarf (with at least three lines of dialogue!) is a mysterious un-named character who appears in most scenes *in place* of Sleepy, but that's not really borne out by the film: the description matches Grumpy, Bashful says "Goldenrods" and "Do you have to wash..." and Sneezy (surprisingly, not Sleepy himself) asks "Was it hard to do?"

Incidentally (or not), Michael Barrier says the last dwarf name to be chosen was Sneezy, but that for a few days they were still considering "Deafy" instead. This was before animation began though. Still, you do have to wonder though: Sleepy and Bashful can look almost identical except for the facial expressions, there's a point at the beginning of the "Spooks" sequence where Sneezy seems to turn into Sleepy (scenes 5 and 7 on the draft), and scene 14, described in the draft of the "Entertainment" sequence as "Happy and Doc push Bashful forward" actually has Doc and Sneezy. One wonders if there were any points where one dwarf was redrawn as another...

A closer look at Snow White sequence 4A and 4B: the Heigh-Ho sequences

The drafts for sequence 4A Dwarfs At Mine and sequence 4B Dwarfs March Home From Mine are on A. Film L.A. here.

Apparently, these sequences were nearly cut from the film (Barrier p.225), in
which case the dwarfs would have been introduced in the following sequence when the animals hear their singing in the distance and hurry to watch.

One advantage of keeping them in is the fact that the diamond mine is a good and memorable set-piece. I'm not sure if the individual dwarfs get a better introduction than they would in their next appearance. They are in small groups rather than all at once, but only Dopey and to a lesser extent Doc (and Sleepy I suppose) get a chance to show their personalities. Although Grumpy, Happy, Bashful and Sneezy are introduced in close-ups with individual singing lines, nothing they do or sing indicates what types of characters they are... it was up to the animators to convey personality.

For the close-ups, Bill Roberts introduces Happy and Grumpy, Marvin Woodward introduces Bashful and Sneezy, Les Clark introduces Sleepy and Art Babbitt introduces Doc. Group shots, particularly of the four digging dwarfs, seem to have been fairly arbitrarily cast, with the same group of characters animated by Al Eugster, Marvin Woodward and Shamus Culhane.

Eugster complained that very little of his footage remained in the film. (Barrier p.224) He does have the glory of having animated the very first dwarf scene to appear in the film, but as of the washing sequence (the most recent draft sequence to have been posted up) that seems to be all. We shall see whether any more of his work survived...

Of course, it's supervising animator Fred Moore who gets the main character stuff here, with Doc inspecting the gems and Dopey as his comical assistant, who tries to amuse Doc by placing diamonds over his eyes, accidentally throws himself into the vault and hangs the key up right next to the entrance where anyone can find it!

Frank Thomas' one scene is also of these two characters: a brief shot where Doc calls "Heigh-Ho!" to the other dwarfs to let them know it's time to go home. Thomas was apparently the first of the non-supervising animators to be assigned to the dwarfs (Barrier p.212) and, as with his first assignment in scene 5A where they first meet Snow White, he seems to have been given the material that Fred Moore didn't have time to do and wasn't important enough for him to do -- like a stand-in for a leading actor!

Shamus Culhane leads the dwarfs out of the mine and into the next sequence where the dwarfs return home. Perhaps in an attempt to acquaint the audience with their individual appearances, the first scene of sequence 4B: Dwarfs March Home From The Mine was to be close-ups on each dwarf, animated by the other dwarf supervisor, Vladimir "Bill" Tytla. The scene did not survive into the film, and the numbering (it is numbered 3 but placed before scenes 1 and 2) suggest that the directors weren't sure exactly where to place it anyway. Some nice scenes by Shamus Culhane, but unfortunately the effects animator responsible for the waterfall is not identified on the draft.

A closer look at sequence 3B - Snow White meets animals

Definitely a Snow White craze - while at work this evening I saw a poster for a pantomime version of the story, and I overheard part of a lecture which quoted from a girl who had been to see another pantomime production of it in 1938. Probably one of the Disney-approved ones as they seemed to run the racket on Snow White performances at that time.

OK, open up the drafts on A. Film L.A. and stick Snow White in your DVD player, it's time to take a closer look at scene 3B - Snow White meets animals!

In Michael Barrier's book "Hollywood Cartoons" (which is what I'll probably mean when I refer to "Barrier" from now on) he mentions one of the problems which faced Disney and his employees during the making of the film was the casting of the dwarfs. It was impossible for one animator to handle all the dwarfs' footage, nor was it feasible to assign one animator to each dwarf as they spent so much time all on screen at once, interacting with each other. The result was to have several animators assign to the dwarfs, all of whom at some point animated *all* of the dwarfs, and therefore needing to learn the right way to portray all seven characters.

Presumably no such problem existed with the other group of characters drawn by a group of animators: the forest animals. They're less important to the story and less differentiated, with many being generic rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks. It's interesting to compare the designs to those used in Bambi, originally intended to be the second feature. They are more simply drawn than in the later feature, and I find this makes the rabbits more appealing than Thumper. The deer, on the other hand, I find both designs appealing, but the simpler Snow White design is probably less suited for a feature's main characters.

There are a few animals in this and later sequences who stand out as distinctive characters. Most memorable perhaps is the turtle, but there is also a family of deer and of bluebirds. No animator seems to have been consistenly assigned to these characters with the exception of the three bluebirds, who are usually handled by Eric Larson, including in a substantial section where the youngest of the birds sings with Snow White and hits a "sour note". This scene was obviously added to at a late stage, perhaps even during animation, because as Hans notes, scene numbers run from 15B to 15BBBBB!

Other than that, there are occasional consistent assignments: for example, Larson also animates both scene 9 where a group of squirrels flees into a tree trunk and 10A where they emerge from holes in the tree trunk. However, some assignments seem fairly arbitrary: while Bernard Garbutt animates scene 8 - a group of animals (inluding the doe and fawn) scurrying away, over a log, after Snow White wakes up, and scene 10B, featuring the same animals on the same background, the same set-up is animated at the beginning of the sequence in scene 3 by James Algar. No animator seems to "own" any of the animal characters, except for Larson with the three bluebirds.

All the animators working on this sequence were in Hamilton Luske's unit, as he was the supervising animator for Snow White and the animals. Barrier mentions he had seven animators in his unit: the three who animated the heroine (Grim Natwick, Jack Campbell and Robert Stokes) and the four who animated the animals (who he doesn't name but are presumably the four who animated them in this sequence: Eric Larson, Milt Kahl, James Algar and Bernard Garbutt). Luske also animated the Huntsman in sequence 3A and I'd expect he was the supervisor for the Prince as well, as he was animated by Grim Natwick and Milt Kahl. There are also two more mysterious names on the draft: Maxwell Gray and Tony Rivera. Gray animates the Huntsman in sequence 2B and Rivera's name appears alongside Campbell's, seemingly animating Snow White as well, in sequence 3A. It seems likely they were Luske and Campbell's assistants, respectively, and were assisting on the Snow White animation in this scene as well, but as the animals were also handled by members of Luske's unit, who knows?

Ham Luske actually drew a few of the animal scenes in this sequence himself, including scene 10, the first to feature the bluebird family who, as I mentioned before, were handled by Eric Larson the rest of the time. I wonder why this is. Did he have the technical expertise to animate the fancy flying they do, or did some person in authority feel that the supervisor should do the scene which introduces the characters?

In general Eric Larson animates the most scenes in this sequence and probably is most consistently assigned to specific characters. It's no surprise he became the supervising animator for all the (less anthropomorphic) animal characters in Pinocchio.

The draft Hans has been posting is not a final draft and so there are some interesting differences between it and the finished film. It contains several deleted scenes - this sequence has only one, 27A, and it already has a big question mark over it. There's also a small mistake: scene 15F has the same description as scene 15E, and should be something like "quails come out of cave". Other sequences contain many more scenes that were cut (or changed) later on -- keep checking both A. Film L.A. and this blog to find out more about them!