I’ve been so interested in Don Bluth of lately that I’ve decided to give him his own post.
The man is an excellent animator – one of the best in terms of draftsmanship and believability in the fruitful life that comes out of his drawings. He is no great storyman, and it is the plot in his films where he usually falls down in, but this is partly what interests me about him – he’s not completely brilliant, but he’s still brilliant!
I was intrigued to see how ‘Rockadoodle’, one of his biggest film-flops, was actually one of his best in terms of the flow of the plot and in what it really offered the audience. I got a lot out of watching it. A lot more that An American Tail and The Secret of Nimh
I’ve been looking into him. He’s had his ups and downs, but on general he’s got a wise view on life. Some of his quotes I find very inspirational:
“Draw to Please Yourself.”
– Don Bluth, Youtube Animation Tutorials
“Rather than complaining about it, just do something about it.”
Don Bluth, an interview for some sort of thing I can’t remember right now.
Both quotes are simple and sweet 🙂
Don Bluth’s rich, classic style of drawing continued Disney’s quality animation-style in a different form. You may notice in his Artwork of Dirk, the knight (above) there is a similar style to ‘The Sword in the Stone’ – in which Don was an uncredited Assistant Animation Director. He also worked on many films, remaining uncredited (for whatever reason): such as Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmations and The Rescuers – [See Tag Provided].
Don Bluth left to challenge the failing Disney-studios at the time, and boy did he give them a run for their money. The Land Before Time became the highest grossing animated film at the time, during its release in 1988 – grossing $84 million dollars worldwide, of which the Disney film – Oliver and Company – did not surpass. It was followed later by several (direct-to-video sequels).
Gary Goldman, Don Bluth’s producer and close co-worker who left Disney Studios with Don Bluth in 1979 to establish their own animation company, said in an interview alongside Don at the Fantasia Film Festival that the-minds behind Disney Studios from the time where he and Don had worked there approached them not too long ago and told them how much trouble the competition between the two studios had been and how the Disney Sudios “didn’t know how to put you down from there.”
Gary Goldman said another thing during that interview that I feel quite strongly about – whilst he was talking how when he and Don were working at Disney the studio was only focusing one cheaper ways to make these movies: “We felt that if we didn’t do something drastic, the quality of animation would continue to diminish and would be lost forever.”
It’s clear, looking back on the history of animation greats, that calculated risks, logical anarchy, big scary steps in the right direction often have led to great things. Walt Disney with Snow White, John Lasseter with Computer animation, The pioneers of Computer Animation themselves. Even the pioneers of animation in the early days – such as Emile Reynaud, inventor of the early Theatre Optique – took big risks in trying to keep innovating. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them died poverty-stricken. But they pioneered animation and steered it in the direction where it is today…
But anyway, Don Bluth was another man with the right vision. In my opinion, his execution of it in his films was not always done as beautifully as Disney and Lasseter did with theirs, mainly falling down in his generic story-lines, but thank goodness the world of animation has him!
I do make animations and have them online, but most of them are on my vimeo account. I may consider putting them on this blog, however. There’s one on the way, so we’ll see if it makes it here. If not, i’ll just give my vimeo-link…
I only discovered the man last night, when watching The Pixar Story. My respect shot up immediately for him – another natural genius and excellent visionary, with common sense while taking logical risks, never stinting on quality and always regarding the importance of the details. A wise, smart and brilliant man.
This morning I find out he’d just died, (06/09/2011). I felt a genuine sting, an emotional wave, for someone I didn’t know and I had just discovered the night before.
In honour of Steve Jobs, I would like to post this inspirational quote:
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life,
And the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work,
And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.
As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it,
And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years role on.
So keep looking,
Don’t settle.”
– Steve Jobs
Rest In Peace.
Steve Jobs – (1955-2011)
_________________________
Just like Walt Disney, I’m faced with dark rumours of Steve Jobs. I came across this on Facebook:
No iProducts
No over expensive laptops
Without Dennis Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – October 12, 2011) we would have:
No Windows
No Unix
No C
No Programs
A large setback in computing
No Generic-text Languages.
We would all read in Binary..
They died in the same year and the same month but it seems only few notice the death of Dennis Ritchie compared to Steve Jobs.
It won’t cost you anything to press the share button so spread it ! 🙂
Watched the ‘Pixar-Story’ with friends last night. If there is a reincarnation of Walt Disney living today, the one who would come closest is John Lasseter, as far as I know.
What really annoyed me though was when they were telling us of how they kept on having to struggle with the Disney Co. John’s dream was to work at Disney studios – but as soon as he presented an idea to explore new ways of creativity, (as Walt Disney cared so passionately about), the top members of Disney not only discarded it because it wasn’t ‘cheap’ and ‘easy-to-do’ but they essentially fired John Lasseter from Disney.
So of course John Lasseter, after this blow, found other investors and snapped up other opportunities to explore this creative potential, but he kept on running into hurdles. However, no matter how down things looked, he and his excellent team and friends were pressing on.
Eventually, Disney wanted him back. They would have his new idea of Toy Story. But superiors told him that they wanted it to be edgy – aimed for adults maybe more so than children. This frustrated Lasseter and his team, but they did as they said. The storyboards they came up with were not well-recieved by anyone – Woody was obnoxious, the plot dragged on and didn’t go anywhere. When John and the team were finally given the leeway to change the story into what suited them best, they felt such a refreshment and relief that they had their freedom to make Toy Story what it was supposed to be.
Despite all the doubts that came in production, they finished Toy Story and it was a storming success.
Lasseter continued on Pixar, making A Bugs Life an incredibly successful 2nd film, (as well as a 2nd big-hit). He handed films over to fellow animation veterens who he knew could do a good job – Pete Docter (Monsters Inc.), Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) and Brad Bird (The Incredibles). A successful run of big-hits, which continues unbroken to this day.
Then more stuff started to annoy me – Michael Eisner in charge, throwing away animation desks and announcing that people ‘had lost their liking for 2D animation and only wanted to see 3D’. MORON! He wasn’t the only one, of course – in Dreamworks and other companies, the general consensus among the big money-grabbing businessmen at the top who pretended that their minds were for the creative aspect of things were all thinking the same. All the right minds in Pixar, (who LOVED 2D animation), and in Disney Studios knew that this was ludicrous – including Roy E Disney, (Walt’s nephew). They knew that people would happily pay to see a ‘good’ 2D movie. John Lasseter so wisely quotes: “I don’t know why the press started saying that nobody wants to see 2D animation. What people don’t want to see is a bad movie.”
Thankfully, John Lasseter is head of the creativity department today under the name of a new Disney head who i forget the name of, (but he’s far better than Eisner, thank goodness).
But my thoughts are this – People in the creative business who are afraid of new ideas and put money first in their lives are the ones that hold back creativity and quality. Never stick with what is safe just because it’s safe – go ahead and take some logical anarchy. Be cautious, of course, but be creative, and never stint on quality, and if more people who think like that are allowed to make their stuff we may yet see another golden age of film, television and animation.
Been given homework for our Thursday lecture. I’ve done part 1 of the task. Part 2 is yet to come. I think I’m to post it on my blog, so i will – unfortunately my internet is pants at the moment, and it’s a real struggle to get images up here – (knowing that there are 10 of them is even worse). So this comment was written the night before, as i went to bed and hoped that the internet would have kicked back up by the morning.
We were to find 10 sign vehicles, titled appropriately on what kind of sign they are, (symbol, index or icon). It were the definitions that drove me nuts…
______________
Okay, here we go:
SYMBOL
SYMBOL
SYMBOL
(although I think it’s perfectly legitimate to call it an icon, or even an index).
RIGHT! That’s 3 done for you, and I have 7 more in my word document. I’ve stopped for now, though, just to spew out a little piece of my mind as I see this whole Blog exercise is essentially for when it comes down to it.
This homework is time consuming – just to go and find the images online, download them, upload them onto the blog etc. If I had time, like I did back in school, this would be alright. But I’m not – I’m in 2nd year of university, studying animation. You can try and say this benefits every student in the long-run if you want – maybe it does in certain understandings, particularly Illustrators and Graphic Designers. But from my point of view, I can’t help but feel I’m wasting my time.
There is no passion to drive me towards going through the trouble of getting 10 of these bloody things up online. No one I know would care enough to look at it – least of all myself! I can understand getting to grips with sign vehicles if you like – i went ahead and did that in my spare time. But I have projects on in university, as well as my own projects and this annoying Friday project, and now acting has come into it as well. Having to do this as well is beyond frustrating! I don’t care about this! I really don’t!
So I’m sorry – if this is benefitting other people in the year, that’s very good. I wish them all the best. But for me, this is just frustrating and only adds to stress. I’ve given you 3! Let that be proof that I’ve done the task. If I could just understand why this is so beneficial to me, it would help.
Rant = Satisfied.
Part 2 of the homework – coming…………. soon, I guess.
___________________
I really find it just about impossible to listen in lectures. It’s not the lecturer’s fault and it’s been going on since primary school, but today i started picking out the little things I could pick up on and I noted them down as potential inspirations to spark off good ideas.
I then confronted the lecturers, (if confronted is the word), about the lecture not being very relevant whatsoever towards animation. However, this was handsomely answered: ‘being a great artist is not about being narrow-minded about your own subject, but by being knowledgeable. Read rather than draw.’
I don’t agree with this in every respect, but it’s true – being knowledgeable will certainly only benefit your creativity by giving you a broader horizon. It would help knowing how the lecture is going to benefit me before attending it.
______________________
Well, to exercising my knowledge, i looked up a few things that i’d noted down during the lecture – little keywords that i found interesting. So i’ve spent this morning and early afternoon reading up on the Jutes, the Goths, and the general history of Scandinavia. Reading is tough for me – so not as much information as I’d have liked was absorbed – as I did not research them out of a spark of excitement, if you know what I mean. But I intend to watch some educational videos I found and streamed before my brother called me and demanded I played an online game of Starcraft with him…
We lost, by the way…
_________________________________
We were given a project a few weeks ago – to make a poster on one of the relevant subjects we have been learning about in lectures.
I’ve chosen Theatre Optique. Researching it seems to be much easier watching educational videos – which make it easier for me to process information it seems. Getting the library books is going to be a nightmare. But once I’ve got some solid information cemented i’ll try blogging some up to share with the world…
________________________________
10/11/2011
I’ve been given my crit of my blog today by one of my tutors. I was told that these ‘Thursday Stuff’ posts were irrelevant to my blog. Is this blog supposed to be relevant or not? 90% of what’s on my blog is relevant to the task we’ve been given! But if you want this blog to be personal then surely letting me have my ranting sessions is fair enough. Plus, you can see my past development of my thought-process from when i started all this ranting. I think it’s very relevant – it provides an insight to my thoughts and feelings as an animator and a student. IT’S GOT TO BE PERSONAL, TUTORS, OTHERWISE IT’S JUST A CHORE! Let me have my rants!!
Thank you xx
(p.s. if you tutors are reading this, i hope you don’t take these block capitals personally. Shouting via text is much more satisfying than one may think. Hence why i have these rants. I’ve also started dating my posts, just so you know).
Zero to Hero:
How do we think of Walt? Just a name on the front of a huge, world-wide corporation. The name in front of every well-animated classic we have stacked somewhere along our old VHS shelf in our homes, (of which we just assume it is a Disney film if it’s good). The name on the front of the world’s most popular and thrilling theme park, present in several completely different countries.
Either way, it’s certainly one of the biggest and internationally well-known names in the world today. But what I find inspirational about it was that the name was made through the hard and persistent work of a remarkable man, with a unique view on the world of creativity. A man who started with almost nothing, who went bankrupt on several occasions, who put his whole career on the line just to take those risks of exploring new sensational innovation. Such risks are important to a lot of our culture today.
My project was not so much based around this man’s immortal greatness, but how he got there in the first place. How he went from nothing to Walt Disney…
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. ” – Walt Disney
__________________
I discovered a fantastic page filled with quotes from Walt Disney. The man is some what of a mentor to me, in some areas, for his quotes cut deep into the routes of what I believe creatively.
Here are some examples, and a link to the website itself is suppled in the tags:
“A man should never neglect his family for business.”
“All cartoon characters and fables must be exaggeration, caricatures. It is the very nature of fantasy and fable.”
“All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”
“Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation.”
“Animation is different from other parts. Its language is the language of caricature. Our most difficult job was to develop the cartoon’s unnatural but seemingly natural anatomy for humans and animals.”
“Animation offers a medium of story telling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world.”
“Crowded classrooms and half-day sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest national resource – the minds of our children.”
“Disneyland is a work of love. We didn’t go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.”
“I believe in being an innovator.”
“I do not like to repeat successes, I like to go on to other things.”
“I don’t like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It’s just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess.”
________________
Stumbled upon documentary called ‘The Secret Life of Walt Disney.’ I saw that this could dampen my attitude towards the man, but I thought best to know about the man from all angles…
The documentary was extremely bias against Walt Disney, and often exaggerated in places – not mentioning any of his good points or personal achievements. However, there was no denying by the end of it that there was indeed a dark side to Walt – in his involvement with the Communism paranoia in America and the over-protectiveness for his power and image.
So here’s what I have gathered: Walt was a great visionary and innovator, with a great sense and hunger for quality, a magnificent storyteller and a commanded a great sense of respect in general. However, I believe he was very pro-American. He did not spew a hatred for racially different people in his cartoons, like it is suggested today, but I believe he had a sense of American-superiority, which was not uncommon back then. He had an ego that may have gone off the rails – resulting in him becoming very protective over his family-man and big-shot image, taking more credit that what he sometimes deserved in pictures, and hailing his own status. He was delusional in some respects, as he had favorites in his studio and although he often made it out to the public that it was a happy-family place to work in, he ignored many of the feeling and complaints of others. This was the main reason towards the strikes. Walt got very aggravated towards the strikes and even a little unstable as time went on. He was not realistic in the way he handled it, and the resentment to the strikes caused him to do the terrible thing of giving out names of the strikers as ‘Communists’ during the McCarthy era, which was in no doubt also assisted by his pro-American views.
So he was not as shiny as his public-image makes him out to be – like every human-being with a lot of power. I believe that it was that incident with Oswald the Rabbit that encouraged him to cling onto power no-matter-what, and that caused him to be harsh and sometimes irrational when it came to his decision and others in his later years. I believe he also fell in love with his own image and reputation.
However, the way this man thought still revolutionized creativity and animation. He still injected such a brilliant view and standard of quality into film and animation that still stands today. He was a great leader and pointer in the direction for so many great productions, that inspired geniuses, great talents and many others in many ways today. He shaped the world a great deal. I think it’s absolutely best that we remember him for this image, and not the negatives, although let them always be a reminder in reality. But that image is also what inspired me and continues to do so, and I’d like to keep it that way.
I knew the man wasn’t perfect. Now I know the details a bit more. But hey, do we know of many big creative geniuses that don’t stumble one way or another in their legend?
sponking 