keyleedaud (REAL ESTATE)

The above model sheet is courtesy of Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew , who wrote in the comments for The Autograph Hound , "In [animator Paul] Allen's defense, the Mickey Rooney design he was working from is one of the clunkiest and most poorly constructed Disney models of all time. I don't know what Joe Grant was thinking when he approved that one." I certainly have to agree with Amid.  The design is flat from both the front and side views. The only three quarter view on the model sheet doesn't work and is ugly to boot. As I mentioned earlier, caricature is difficult for a still, but even harder for animation where the likeness has to be able to turn.  Given this design, Paul Allen had a near impossible job.

It's been a while since I've done a mosiac.  When Hans Perk posted the animator draft for this cartoon, I knew I wanted to break it down visually. Donald Duck has never been a favorite animated character of mine.  Where there are certain of his cartoons I admire (such as Duck Pimples ), the admiration is based on things other than the character.  I know that many cartoon fans are not impressed with the Duck cartoons directed by Jack Hannah, but I actually like those the best overall, as I like Hannah's posing and timing as well as the work of animators like Al Coe. This cartoon is attractive to me because of the caricatures of Hollywood stars of the 1930s.  Caricature is difficult to do well with still illustrations.  When you start to move caricatures, the task of holding the likeness becomes even more difficult.  The success of the caricatures varies widely in this film. Paul Allen's Mickey Rooney is weak.  Looking at the animation single frame in o...

Steven Hartley has started to post a mosaic of the "Pecos Bill" sequence from Melody Time , based on documents provided by Hans Perk .

This sequence shows the aftermath of Dumbo's flying. The montage is a great snapshot of the public's preoccupations at the end of the 1930's. Dumbo setting an altitude record relates to the public's ongoing romance with aviation at the time. People like Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, and Wiley Post were all celebrated aviators of the period (the latter two dying in flight). "Dumbombers for defense" relates to the war in Europe, which the United States would join in 1941. The Hollywood contract had been sign of success at least since the 1910s, when performers started to make big money and in the '30s, movies and radio were the two major mass media. Dumbo's contract also explains Timothy's absence from the final scenes. What follows the montage is the transformation of the circus. There have previously been scenes of Casey, Jr. in dark and stormy weather. He's now bedecked with flowers and chugging effortlessly in the bright sunlight. ...

Finally, Dumbo triumphs and shows his worth. Note the large gap between shots 3 and 18. The missing shots that are on the draft are all of the clown fireman arriving and preparing to fight the fire. The Disney studio wisely decided not to delay Dumbo's triumph any more than necessary. Now that the audience knows Dumbo can fly, they are waiting to see the secret revealed and wonder how it will affect Dumbo's life. The idea of the magic feather is frankly hokey, but it serves an important storytelling purpose. It's a convenience for the film makers, as Dumbo should not believe in the feather as he didn't have it before waking up in the tree. It's more logical to believe that Dumbo's "magic feather" should be alcohol. However, because the audience knows Dumbo can fly, there would be no suspense in this sequence without some way to cast doubt on his eventual success. As Dumbo believes in the feather and he loses it during his descent, the audience i...

While there are nice bits of animation in this sequence, this section is really dominated by story and layout. The way in which the audience learns that Dumbo can fly is quite inventive. Rather than see a take-off, the screen is obscured with dust, Timothy is convinced they've failed and then the audience sees Dumbo's shadow on the farmlands below. This image is one that could only exist in a period when commercial air travel existed or the audience (and the artists) could never have conceived of such a shot. The other great piece of layout is shot 28, where Dumbo lands on the phone wires. That's another shot that depends on the widespread use of a technology. Will future audiences understand what those wires are when all they know is cell phones? I'm assuming that Don Towsley animated the bending poles. It's a thankless task; what could be more boring? Yet the shot always gets a laugh. Towsley's Dumbo still has a pinched face, where the features are too ...

Except for two shots, one by Walt Kelly and the other by Don Towsley, Ward Kimball and Fred Moore dominate this sequence. Kimball does the entire song, "When I See an Elephant Fly" (except for Kelly's shot 22), including shots of Timothy. Then Moore takes Timothy over for his heartfelt recitation of Dumbo's troubles. Once again, the film is powered by contrast, this time moving from the upbeat song to the plea for understanding. Was Kimball ever better than this and his work in Pinocchio ? The music here allows him to be as broad as he wants to be while the crows' reaction to a flying elephant is perfectly reasonable. As much as I love Kimball's work, there are times I feel his broadness pulls me out of a film. His work here and in Pinocchio has an emotional grounding that keeps him functioning as part of the story. All of Kimball's strengths are on display here: brilliant posing, fantastic accents and eccentric movements. The bottom half of the c...

This is a continued discussion of the "Up in the Tree" sequence. The first part dealt with racial issues surrounding the crow characters. This part will look at the animation. I'm reprinting the mosaic below so that you don't have to scroll down several articles to see the shots. The two animators whose work is important in this sequence are Ward Kimball and Don Towsley. Kimball is a master of certain things. His poses are very strong; they have a strong line of action and good negative shapes. They are also very rhythmic, with long sweeping curves that tie a character's body parts together into a unified whole. He also understands stretch and squash, changing the character's body shape to make the pose more pleasing or to communicate more effectively. As a result, the poses read very clearly. The pose above is typical of Kimball's work. Note the negative spaces that separate the legs, arms and cigar from the rest of the body. This pose has a cle...

And so we come to the crows. Any controversy attached to this film has revolved around the crows. Some see them as a racist portrayal, others not. This blog is not going to settle the question, but I do want to look at some of the historical context. The crows, as black characters, are treated in significantly different ways than black performers in other Hollywood films of the time. The portrayal of blacks in film breaks down into three categories: white people in blackface, black performers who created a reputation outside of film and black performers whose careers were built on film. Blackface, where white people would apply burnt cork to their faces and hands, is a mode of performance that dates to 19th century minstrel shows. White actors would perform songs, dances and jokes while impersonating the white perception of black people. That tradition survived into the 20th century in theatre and film with performers like Al Jolson , Eddie Cantor and, on occasion, performers li...

I'm going to start off with a plea. Hans Perk's documentation for Dumbo is incomplete in several areas, but never more frustratingly than in the "Pink Elephants" sequence. He only has credits for the first 9 shots. This sequence is a tour de force. It is graphically daring, using colour treatments, metamorphosis and shot transitions in ways that were out of the ordinary for Disney and every other animation studio of the time. The missing information is out there, I'm sure. If anyone can supply the information for the rest of this sequence, I would greatly appreciate it. I would be happy to give credit to whoever supplies it, or would be happy to keep the donor anonymous if that is the donor's preference. If you have access to a complete copy of the animator draft or access to the scene folders for this sequence, could you please supply me with the information? This sequence is an alcohol-induced joint hallucination of Dumbo's and Timothy's and e...

Dumbo is still tearful after seeing his mother and gets the hiccups as a result. Timothy has Dumbo drink water from the tub the clowns knocked a bottle of champagne into and both of them inadvertently get drunk. Timothy challenges Dumbo to blow a square bubble, and before their eyes (it's a joint hallucination), the bubble metamorphoses into an elephant that starts to blow its own elephant bubbles. The use of alcohol and drunkenness is very cleverly handled. The clowns have spiked the water purely by accident. Dumbo is motivated to drink by the hiccups and the hallucinations that start here and continue in the next sequence are what cause Dumbo to fly for the first time. There has been no suggestion anywhere in the film that Dumbo's ears resemble a bird's wings, so Dumbo has no logical reason to attempt flight. It's only the alcohol-induced nightmare that provokes his actions and the audience doesn't find this out until after the fact. The innocent and acciden...

The clowns are still celebrating and decide to raise the platform that Dumbo jumps from. On their way out to ask for a raise, one of them knocks into the table, spilling a bottle of champagne into a bucket of water. This is a very curious sequence from a graphical standpoint. Like the previous clown sequence played in silhouette, the layouts are credited to Al Zinnen. However, that sequence was animated by Berny Wolf and this one was animated by Art Babbitt. This sequence is quite a bit busier graphically. The characters are not as well defined by the negative spaces around them and their silhouettes are not as strong. The clowns' hair is far more complicated here. There are more clowns on screen, which also clogs up the graphics. Did Zinnen lay out both sequences or was he supervising two different layout artists? Did Berny Wolf make a conscious decision to streamline the layouts he was given? Did Babbitt add more detail and characters? Personally, I find Wolf's seq...

This sequence, the song "Baby Mine," is the emotional center of the film. Looking at it by itself, it's surprising how little screen time there is of Dumbo and his mother. Obviously, what's there is very powerful, but this is a case where the film makers felt that less is more. The entire story has built to this moment. The bond between mothers and children is so primal and the injustices suffered by Dumbo and his mother are so appalling, that the audience's emotions are waiting for the release that this sequence provides. The music has a melancholy quality that tempers the joy of the reunion with an underlying sadness. A great deal of the power of this sequence comes from touch. All the animals except the ostriches are sleeping while physically touching each other. There is much physical contact between Dumbo and his mother. The rocking, in shots 1.2 and 12, though done with an elephant's trunk instead of human arms, is familiar to everyone in the audien...