Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Dustbin

updated
Left: doors by Roy, guards heldcel by Holger (maybe)
Middle and Right (same scene): horses by Juergen Gross, dustbin by Ken/Raymond, Thief by Ken/HolgerThis was one of my first Thief scenes. I worked on it around Christmas 1990. On Christmas Eve, one day after the Christmas party that was depicted in the recent photos, we had a little celebration in the animation department with chocolat muffins and lots of good champagne. This was the only time ever that I did some animation while not being sober. I was working on the overlap of the Thief's sleeves, animating straight ahead. When I later checked I was surprised that the animation had turned out decent. I just had to fix some of the sleeve lengths.
If I remember correctly this was also the day that Judy and Juergen became a couple.

Left: Holger
Middle: dustbin by Ken/Raymond, Thief by Ken/Dick
Right: dustbin by Ken/Raymond, Thief by Ken/DickRoy and Dick had lots of big reference sheets where they collected cut out images from art books about
Persian Miniature painting. I remember one image which was very similar to these BGs. Perfectly black ground with flowers. Even the buildings were very similar.
For the middle scene Dick diverted from the usual fly formula and had some flies land on the Thief's face for a while, switching from animating them straight ahead to tracking them along with the Thief's pose to pose animation.


Left: Holger
Middle: dustbin by Ken/Raymond, Thief by Ken/Dick
Right: dustbin by Ken/Raymond, Thief by Ken/Dick, water by Jane Dick took it a bit literal here with the Persian "Miniature" style. These dustbin drawings were tiny! I was lucky to have 2 very good assistants helping me. Hilary Denny and Tom Matzeit. Doing the keys for this scene was difficult but the inbetweens were hell. I feel like apologizing to Hilary and Tom, but I think they did some of the most accurate inbetweens on the film here. After this Tom became Raymond's favorite assistant. Raymond did the most precise work in the studio and was very particular about inbetweens.

UPDATE 4/21/2008
Jane Wright (formerly Jane Smethurst) sent in updated information:
"...
I also did the splash in the dustbin sequence that is thought to be Raymond's. It was interesting to read that Dick wanted a stylized design rather than naturalistic because he'd changed his mind with the next splash and he wanted a more organic feel. Just as well as it was the first scene I ever animated and I wouldn't have been able to copy Raymond's style if my life depended on it!"

(Holger:) Memory has deceived me before. I remember trying to compliment Raymond on his animation of the water for this scene (the last scene of the April 4 post) and at that point he told me that he wasn't happy with it and that he felt that he had not done it irregular enough. Maybe it was more a case of that Dick liked it the way Raymond had done it, rather than Dick asking beforehand for a more stylized style.


Left: Holger
Middle: Thief by Ken/Dick, water by Jane Smethurst
Right: Thief by Ken/Dick, water by Lynette Charters (now Serembe)


Left: Holger
Right: doors by Roy

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