My Top 10 List of Animation

Back in 2007 I was asked for my list of top 10 animation scenes. I didn't have time to write a short letter.

1. We have to start with the morphs in Fantasmagorie by Emile Cohl
2. Gertie the Dinosaur the shake your left foot and tear sequence
3. Bill Nolan the first panning run cycle
4. Mickey Mouse trying to join the mile high club in Plane Crazy
5. Koko’s Earth Control (the whole damn thing)
6. Balloon Land
7. King Kong in the cave with Fay Wray, Bruce Cabot and the snake lizard
8. The soap scene in Snow White
9. Dumbo and his mother
10. The courtroom movement in Rooty Toot Toot
11. Kill da Wrbbit scene in What’s Opera Doc
12. Any of the Ken Harris timing on the Chuck Jones Road Runner cartoons
13. The Genie You’ve Got a Friend in Me song from Aladdin
14. The Pig Gods attacks in Princesses Mononoke
15. The Cannon Ball at the Lake scene in The Iron Giant
16. Terminator 2 the robot hiding on the hospital floor
17. Belle’s opening number in Beauty and the Beast
18. The Lamp pops the ball scene from Luxo Jr
19. Skating at the beginning of a Charlie Brown Christmas
20. Lupin III swimming in the air as he falls in the Castle of Cagliostro –
21. The skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts
22. Neighbours Norman McLaren
23. Begone Dull Care Norman Mclaren
24. The – Baby Weems sequence from the Reluctant Dragon
25. Red Hot Ridinghood wolf during red’s song
26. Putting out the fire in Elmer the Elephant
27. Betty Boop and Bimbo Any Rags Today
28. Felix in Hollywood the gum scene and the suitcase scene
29. Bill Tytla’s night on Bald Mountain
30. The breakfast scene from Coal Black

Year End Mop Up

I was looking through my backup files for something and ran on to these images of the ROP Animation Program Wall of Fame. This is from the State funded animation program I ran from 1995 to 2001. Only students who passed the class with a "B" or better got to paint on this wall. I took all these photos as the program was winding down. Still am in touch with a lot of these students.

Champion

Roy E. Disney (January 10, 1930 – December 16, 2009)

What to say about Roy Disney? He was, like his father and uncle, one of the most important figures in modern animation in that he kept their dream alive.

Roy E. Disney truly loved animation. And he cared about the Disney Company. He saved Disneys not once but twice.

When Walt Disney died in 1966 control passed to Roy Disney Sr. and Roy Sr. lived just long enough to finish Walt's dream of Disneyland Florida and then passed on leaving control in the hands of Ron Miller, Walt’s Football Player son-in-law.

Ron Miller, as a college and then professional quarterback, was ill equipped to run a studio. You could see this in project after project that was destroyed from the top. The corny dialog in The Black Hole is a classic and painful example of an incompetent snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Roy Disney Jr., in a brilliant maneuver, lined up an investment group and then very publicly resigned from the Disney board of directors. This sent Disney stock into a free fall allowing Roy and his group to buy up controlling interest and remove Ron Miller. This pissed off Walt’s daughter destroying their relationship but it saved the Disney Studio.

No matter what you think of Michael Eisner in his power mad later days, the team of Michael Eisner, Frank Wells and Jeffrey Katzenberg turned around the failing Disney Company and made it a powerhouse.

Who knows what would have happened if Frank Wells had not tragically died in a helicopter crash? But he did and this gave Michael the chance to take over Disney and get rid of Jeffrey.

Maybe Michael, Frank and Jeffrey combined could try to fill the shoes of Walt Disney but they was no way that Michael was up to the job by himself.

Like Ron Miller before him Michael Eisner started Disney on a downward spiral. The problem now was that Eisner seemed ready to destroy Disneys before he would let anybody take it away from him.

Again it fell to Roy E. Disney to save his father’s and Uncle’s company. If not for Save Disney Dot Com and Dream on Silly Dreamer Disneys would not be the company it is today. It took a large part of Roy's fortune and a lot of very hard work but the Disney Company is back in the hands of creative people.

Roy E. Disney, you have left a lasting legacy. You fought the good fight. You put your money and your future on the line time and time again for the company and art form you loved. Well done. I am proud to have known you even a very little.

New Twist on Stop Motion

One of my students sent me a link to this great Stop Motion.

http://creativity-online.com/work/new-zealand-book-council-going-west/18044

Thanks to -David Vasquez

Don`t Take History so Seriously, Man!

I hunted up the filmmaker of the 3 flawed animation histories (sic) and suggested that he would be better served as a filmmaker if he removed these films. He seems to have been the big shoot in the film department at an up state New York liberal arts college. Looks like he is out here in the L.A. area after graduation. That says to me that he is trying to break into the film industry. And by looking at his work www.youtube.com/user/flagday84 he seems to want to be a documentary filmmaker. A documentary filmmaker that doesn`t give a damn about facts, just what we need.

I like some of his films like Cheater, a half chalkboard animation half live action piece with a really nice story arc. But with his attitude towards facts I just can`t trust his documentary films.

Hi Larry, what can I do for you?

Aaron,

It is more what I can do for you. I have seen your films. Liked the one with the chalk board. I have also seen your 3 part history of animation youtube films. The first one is okay but frankly you mispronounce Pathe and Fantasmagorie.

Part 2 and 3 are a complete embarrassment with more mispronunciations and a lot of false information. You should pull them. They are only going to embarrass you and spread false information about animation.

I sent a link to part 3 to my friend Tee Bosustow, son of famed UPA founder Stephen Bosustow (Baa-Sus-Toe not gods help us Bass-is-sow). Here is what he has to say.

wow, what a horrible mess, on top of it all, he ripped off my photo of the three founders with my font on it, and several generations down, so it looks really bad, and then he uses the Screen Gems Fox and Crows when he's talking about the UPA Fox and Crows, and a Saperstein Magoo, for the Columbia Magoo, and so on. Thanks to the warning. I gotta get back on my doc on UPA, before more of this stuff gets out,

thanks, tee

Sorry for bad news but I feel you really need to know

Larry

Look man, this was a class project from when I was a sophomore in college, don't take yourself so seriously, its youtube. Yes, I know that was a run-on sentence but I just don't care.
-Aaron

I take the history of animation very seriously. Guess what, so do all of the people in the animation industry. From what Kevin Colmar says you are in Southern California after graduation. That says to me looking to break into film. As long as your history (sic) YouTube films are up you are just one Google away from unemployable in the animation industry and large and better portions of the film world. But do what you want, it is just YouTube, you don`t have to take your career seriously if you don`t want to, man.

I have dealt with a lot of students who take any criticism of their work as a personal attack. There are no places for people like this in the professional film making world. So maybe it is just as well that he leaves up these so called histories so that no one will take him seriously as a documentary filmmaker.