CG Story by Christopher Finch

I received a review copy of the CG Story: Computer Generated Animation and Special Effects by Christopher Finch a few months ago. Due to the backlog of reviews at Mice Chat and Communicore Weekly, this book has been waiting for some attention. A full review is coming soon.

Christopher Finch is well-known for penning the multitude of editions of the Art of Walt Disney, which is truly a definitive work on the career of Walt Disney.

I wondered how Finch would tackle such a huge part of modern film-making. He's been writing about films for years, so he's a natural choice to analyze and write a historical treatise on any aspect of film. It's extremely in-depth and Finch interviewed most of the key players over the past 30 years or so. There are plenty of photos and illustrations, including stills from various films and commercials.

As expected, Pixar is heavily covered, but Finch doesn't shirk a lot of the minor players, either. If I had any complaint about the book, it's that the coverage of television is very limited. Once we hit the 2000s, Finch does spend more time looking at the groundbreaking and award-winning titles.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. If you have an interest in computer animation, then it's a great addition to your collection.

Life As a Disney Animator

Before the Animation Begins by John Canemaker is a spectacular look at the inspirational and concept artists that worked at the Disney Studios. It is an extremely rich and detail-oriented history of the artists and resulting animation. Any fan of Disney animation will cherish this book.

I ran across an interesting tidbit of information from the section on Bianca Marjolie, one of the first female artists hired by Walt Disney. The paragraph concerned the salary differences between the animators and the ink and paint girls.

Tracing animator's drawings onto clear sheets of acetate in pen and ink and painting them on the reverse side is one of the least creative, more tedious parts of the animation production process (one that is today increasingly done by computers). During the Depression, it was a skill that paid the "girls" who did it considerably less than the manly task of animation, layout, and story. Top animators at Disney in the late 1930s (all males) earned $300 plus per week, while ink and paint salaries ranged from "$18 to $75 per week, [and] would be higher," said a 1941 Glamour magazine in classic blame-the-victim style, "if more girls didn't work a couple of years, marry and quit."

Using an inflation calculator, we can get a quasi-reasonable idea of the value of the respective salaries.

	1930s Annual Salary	Adjusted 2013 Dollars
Animator	$15,600	$266,000
Ink and Paint	$3,900	$66,578

That's a 300% difference between the salaries. Of course, there are no long any ink and paint personnel.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1983-Style!

The 1983 Annual Report for the Walt Disney Company is a much sought-after piece for collectors, due mainly to the large fold-out cover that reproduces the artwork from the Horizons attraction that was set to debut at EPCOT Center. Annual Reports are used by publicly-traded companies to discuss the previous year and offer glimpses into the future to their stock holders.

One of the more interesting prognostications from the 1983 Annual Report is about the film Roger Rabbit. On pages 18-20, there is a listing of theatrical releases for the upcoming year. One of the smaller photos is credited as the live action-animated "Roger Rabbit".

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was released in 1988. It is loosely based on the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf that was released in 1981. Disney quickly purchased the rights to the book after its release. Ron Miller, President and CEO of the Walt Disney Company at the time of the filing believed that Roger Rabbit had blockbuster appeal. Miller looks like he had it pegged right on the nose (and what a big nose Roger had)!

An update from friend and author extraordinaire Jeff Kurtti provides some interesting information about the photograph of Roger Rabbit and Eddie Valiant from the Annual Report. Eddie is played by Mike Gabriel, who has worked as an animator, character designer, story artist, writer and director for the Walt Disney Company on films such as The Great Mouse Detective, The Rescuers Down Under, Pocahontas, Bolt and The Princess and The Frog. Jeff also mentions that the shot was done on the backlot of Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Another interesting Roger Rabbit fact from Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records (by Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar): Pete Renady, well known voice actor, also played Eddie Valiant during some of the test footage for the film during the early planning stages.

For Your Consideration This Oscar Season!

The following letter from Roy E. Disney was included with a copy of Disney's Aladdin: The Making of an Animated Film that I recently acquired. After the success of Beauty and the Beast and its subsequent Academy Award Nomination, Roy sent out a letter and a copy of the Aladdin book by John Culhane to entice Academy members to see Aladdin and vote for it in the Oscar race.

December 21, 1992

Dear Academy Members,

     Last year's landmark best picture nomination for Walt Disney Pictures' animated feature, "Beauty and the Beast," was a great honor for all of us involved in animation and a milestone for the animation industry. We are extremely grateful to the entire Academy membership for recognizing this film in such an important and prestigious way. In the spirit ofthe holidays and as an expression of deep appreciation, we are sending along the recently-released videocassette version of "Beauty and the Beast" for your personal film library. For those of you who received a cassette* of the work-in-­progress tape last year, this completed version provides an entertaining and illuminating companion piece.


     I hope that many of you have already had an opportunity to see Disney's latest animated "Aladdin," Animation has always been the heart and soul of Disney and I am extremely proud that our creative team is not only carrying on the tradition but stretching the boundaries of their imaginations and artistry in new and exciting ways. If you are unable to see "Aladdin" over the holidays at a regularly scheduled performance at the El Capitan or your local moviehouse, starting next month, your Academy card will admit you and a guest to see the film at most local theaters or, for your convenience, at one of the special Academy screenings (see schedule below). As members of the filmmaking community, I thought you might also enjoy having a copy of John Culhane's excellent new book, Aladdin: The Making of an Animated Film, which describes the complex creative process and technical innovations involved in bringing this to the screen.


     Thank you again for the wonderful honor you bestowed upon "Beauty and the Beast" last year and for your consideration of "Aladdin" this year. The growing popularity and acceptance of animated is something that would have greatly pleased my Uncle Walt, my father Roy, and all the great talents that collaborated to pioneer this unique form of filmmaking. These are truly exciting times for the art of animation and we appreciate your continued support and recognition. Happy holidays and best wishes for the coming year.

Sincerely,
Roy E. Disney

*A cassette is how people watched movies before DVD and Blu-ray!

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The More Things change, The More They Stay the Same

Charles Solomon, author and animation historian, has written an amazing tome about the history of animation. His 1994 book, Enchanted Drawings, is a must read for anyone interested in animation. In addition to covering Disney-related works, Solomon covers all of the familiar Warner Brothers, MGM and UPA cartoons. It is also one of the best resources for learning about the earliest inklings of animation (pun intended).

During World War II, as part of the overall war effort, many studios were recruited by the War Activities Committee of the Treasury Department. With many foreign markets frozen and many artists sent to war (or working for military animation units), the Hollywood and New York Studios found themselves strapped for cash, salable product and artists. In most cases, many of the studios would have  folded (and some did) during the war.

The following quote about the different studios during the Second World War was rather intriguing, especially since it sounds so similar to what we see today. Solomon discusses how the government of the time responded to the production costs of The New Spirit, a film about the patriotic duty to pay income taxes. Seems like nothing ever changes, does it?

However, the Treasury Department had to requests a special allocation from Congress  to pay the $80,000 bill for the film ($40,000 in production costs, and an equal amount for 1,000 Technicolor prints). The request arrived as Republicans were looking for examples of Democratic overspending. Congressmen denounced the $80,000 expenditure as an outrageous boondoggle, and the subsequent debate unleashed a storm of unfavorable publicity. Disney received letters accusing him of profiteering.

These charges were completely unfounded. Disney had donated his services, and the $40,000 figure was about $7,000 below his annual production costs. In addition, the studio lost at least $40,000 more in film rentals when theater owners showed "The New Spirit" (which they got free) instead of a Disney cartoon they would have paid for.

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Sounding Fantasia

On page 515 of Volume 9 of the Walt's People series, we find the following quote from Tom Sito concerning the differences in the recordings for the scores of Fantasia and Fantasia 2000:

Then the other issue people had was when you work in the original footage, because our film was going to be done in the modern screen format of 1:85. And it’s also six-track Dolby digital stereo and the original  Fantasia, even restored, still was in the 1:33 original aspect ratio, the old cinema aspect ratio, plus they had all kinds of problems with the stereo.

In 1949 they transferred the original tracks from the original recordings on the nitrate strip. And they went to magnetic tape. The new invention in the 1940s was magnetic recording tape, so they wanted to go to mag-track on it, and the best labs in the world at the time were at NBC TV. So they wanted to transfer the Fantasia tracks to magnetic tape, but in so doing they transferred them along telephone lines and by doing that they lost a lot of the high and low registries, some of the high notes and some of the low notes. And it has always been part of the problem when they digitally re-mastered the sound: It always loses a little something, because some of the parts of the performance were lost in the recording. The preservationists go crazy trying to figure out: They had scientists working on it full-time, like John Carnaughan and Alex Rannie. It was interesting, because every couple of weeks they would have us into the Studio and they would say, “I think we licked it. Okay, let’s play the modern stuff and then let’s play the old stuff,” and then they would say, “Can you hear the difference?” We would say, “Yeah, you can hear a difference.” [Laughs] They still sounded different. To their credit, they were not going to make the mistake of getting rid of Stokowski’s soundtrack.

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