This Summer, I got a chance to visit the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. There were no special exhibits at the time, but I spent several hours spending my time reviewing the lifeworks of Walt Disney.
The very first photography that caught my attention was of Mary Richardson Disney, who was Walt Disney's Grandmother from Freshford, County Kilkenny, Ireland.
As I wandered through the museum wondering if I might be related to the Disney family, I shot some video below...
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Spring has sprung or its just around the corner and I have several DVD collections that Bill Matthews gave to me before he passed away. There are a lot of animated classics and shorts which I am starting to post on my YouTube channel, Animateducated.
Among these are "The Disney Family album" hosted by Buddy Epson, with several episodes about the Disney animators, known as "The 9 Old Men" nicknamed by Walt Disney when they were all very young men.
I will post the episodes here as I process them, here are two about Eric Larson and Marc Davis. Enjoy!
An actor will develop the way his character moves and walk. A walk tells a lot about a character, in fact if you observe people walking in a public place, sometimes you can learn a lot about them just by watching them walk.
Here are a collection of character walks from some classic animation characters.
As a young kid, Ron Husband loved to draw and his High School art teacher got him to start drawing quick sketches from life in a sketchbook. He did and started filling up every sketchbook he owned. He majored in art and won the Scholastic Arts national competition as well as played varsity football for Monrovia High.
While taking a class at Art Center in Los Angeles, Ron met Disney Imagineering and teacher, Sam McKim who got him an interview with Eric Larson at Walt Disney Studios. Larson was in charge of recruiting for the Walt Disney animation training program.
Ron had a portfolio which wasn't acceptable, but he was able to deliver 3 of his sketchbooks from High School filled with quick sketches. In 1975, Ron was accepted into the program and would eventually become the first African American animator working at Disney.
From 1975 to 2008, Ron animated on 19 Disney animated films and still keeps a sketchbook to this day. To find out more about him, check out the Animateducated interview on YouTube.
To learn more about Ron Husband's work, here's a link to his current blog and how to get his book, Quick Sketching.
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I'm preparing for another big interview, this time with the directors of Disney classics like The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Princess and the Frog and Moana.
The dynamic duo of Ron Clements and John Musker.
I will be recording the interview this Wednesday if the weather is right and posting it later to the Animateducated YouTube channel which you are a subscriber of or should be!
Animator Kathy Zielinski gave an interview and told about her animation career so far. You can see and hear the entire interview on the Animateducated YouTube channel.
A native of California, Kathy discover animation at an early age by watching Peter Pan on the big screen. She later attended Cal Arts where she made her student film, "Guess Whos for Dinner."
The film won a Student Film Award in 1982. And won 2nd place in FOCUS film award that same year. Below, Director John Badham interviews Kathy and shows the entire film.
There is also a glimpse of another film she was working on at the time.
Kathy started her Disney career working on Mickey's Christmas Carol in 1983, but her first feature screen credit was on The Black Cauldron as an Animator. She animated Fidget from the Great Mouse Detective,Oliver & Company and Ursula from The Little Mermaid.
Later, Kathy became a Supervising Animator on Frank the frilled neck lizard from The Rescuers Down Under and Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. On Aladdin, she animatedJafar disguised as a Beggar and later turning him into the giant snake.
She did Character designs Pocahontas and the evil Hexxus character from Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest.
Not only is she an amazing animator, but she also is a very talented sculptor. She often would sculpt models of the characters that she would be animating. Here are a few of them from her blog.
After Disney, Kathy went to work for DreamWorks where she was involved with The Prince of Egypt. She later became the supervising animator for the villian Tezekel Khan from The Road to El Dorado.
Kathy animated on the main character Spirit in Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and animated on Over the Hedge, The Bee Movie, Kung Fu Panda, How to train your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Croods.
In 2013, Zielinski returned to Disney to work on Frozen.
Today, Kathy is working with the Simpsons and enjoys riding her bike to work.
If this has been of any interest to you, please subscribe and shareAnimateducated with your other animation friends. Next Episode:Gary K. Wolf author of Who Censored Roger Rabbit.
On the next Ambassador Goodtime Ear Tango Radio hour, beginning Tuesday, Nov 27th @ 10pm, you will hear an interview with Animator Dale Baer.
Check out the Dale Baer, Animator interview on the Ambassador Goodtime Ear Tango Radio Hour tonight 10pm. Hit this link at 10pmhttps://woodbury.edu/academics/resources/wu-radio/ or tune in at 4pm... Scroll down to this icon on the WU Radio page, click it to listen and enjoy show. Like the show so far? Please let me know by leaving a comment below or drop me an email at heyjimr@gmail.com Thanks, Jimr
Casey Robin is a Visual Development artist and can be heard here, Follow this link to listen in... Here is a project she worked on as part of the Walt Disney animation training program called "Chalk".
Casey's work can also be found at caseyrobin.com. Listen to the Ear Tango interview and you will hear her sing! Next: Tuesday, Nov 13th "The 3 Tooners" interview with Tony Benedict, Jerry Eisenberg and Willie Ito, story designers, storyboard artists and writers on The Flintstones, The Jetsons and other Hanna Barbera classics. To support this blog, subscribe to the Animateducated Youtube channel to hear more interviews. Thanks!
Most people have never heard of David Dodd Hand who became Walt Disney's right hand man. He began his career as the 4th animator hired at Walt Disney's Hyperion studio and later became the supervising director on Snow White. He worked on 14 different feature films and even met the Queen "Mum" after he established an animation industry in English after working for Disney.
In the new book, Animation Pioneer, David Dodd Hand, his son helps tell the story of his father's animated career and life. Its a fascinating autobiography, full of animation history and is a must for anyone interested in learning animation history.
If you tune into WU Radio link at 10pm PDT from Tuesday 10/16 to Monday 10/22, you will hear a few of those stories from an interview with David Hale Hand about the book. You can also listen and subscribe to the Animateducated YouTube channel.
