Ollie's Reason and Emotion

Ollie Johnston animated the two female parts in the 1943 propaganda film Reason and Emotion. (Milt Kahl did the sequence featuring the male parts).

For those of you who have not seen this short, there are two opposing characters inside the human head. One of them is Reason, proper and dignified, the other Emotion, intuitive and fun loving.

The film’s point is that only a good balance between the two guarantees a successful way to conduct one’s life.

This is one of the best War Time shorts Disney produced. The contrast between the characters makes for interesting conflict and fun situations.

Here are some of Ollie’s character layouts showing Emotion getting a hold of the driver’s seat.

I recall Frank Thomas suggesting way back that we study this short as character inspiration for The Black Cauldron. I know he felt that cartoony designs like these would be easier tho handle by a new, green animation crew. The designs Milt Kahl had suggested looked too familiar to him and too difficult to draw.

Reason and Emotion can be seen as part of the Disney treasures DVD called: On the Front Lines.

Ken's and Milt's Shere Khan

Storyman Bill Peet had done just a few sketches of the villain from The Jungle Book before he departed from the studio. Ken Anderson picked up the pieces and tried to go beyond a typical, evil  Disney tiger. It was his idea to go for personality traits like arrogance, self assurance and sarcasm.

When actor George Sanders was hired to do the voice Shere Khan’s character came to life, and everybody loved the concept. 

These are Ken’s design explorations.

Milt studied George Sanders’ facial features and drew Shere Khan resembling the voice actor.

Animating the tiger turned out to be one of Milt’s favorite assignments. He was originally concerned though that Shere Khan turned up so late in the movie.

After an early screening of the story reels, Milt turned to Walt Disney and said: “Don’t you think this would be a good time to discuss where we are going with the story, and at what point the tiger should enter?”

Walt petted Milt on the shoulder, assuring him that things would turn out alright. “You guys take care of the personalities, let me worry about the story.” (Milt recounted this episode during a 1984 interview).

Before Walt died in1966 he did see Milt’s pencil animation of Shere Khan interrogating Kaa, the python, about Mowgli’s whereabouts. He liked it and approved the sequence for final color.

Here are a few Milt’s key drawings from various scenes. I think he reached a new personal level of excellence with Shere Khan. He invented new expressions, which gave great authenticity to the acting. One for the ages! 

Outtakes

Back in 2003 I played around with animal designs that were influenced by TS Sullivant. Some of these drawings made it into my published animal sketchbook “A Different Stripe”.

Here are a few outtakes that didn’t make it. 

The one above should come with the caption:”Vilkommen, Bienvenue, Velcome!”

The story of Peter Pan portrayed by pig characters.

Other stuff.

Here is the link to a previous post about “A Different Stripe”:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/07/animal-sketchbook.html

Wilhelm M. Busch 1963

More Busch book illustrations. 

These are from the German 1963 edition of “Viechereien eines Poeten” (Too difficult to translate.)

For the book Busch illustrated short verses about animals. I love the compositions and those unconventional poses of people and animals. Gorgeous organic drawing!
And what great feeling of space.

It’s good to have artistic heroes, he is one of mine!

Edgar II

Just to add to my last post, this photo shows Milt actually animating that scene with Edgar, the butler, from The Aristocrats (He is working on key drawing #33). Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day had just won an Oscar, and a photographer was sent to animators’ offices to take pictures of various artists posing next to the statue and the film’s poster. 

What’s more interesting though is what you see in Milt’s bookshelf: Two editions of Edward Muybridge photographic studies on animal and human locomotion. Those books are still available today and provide terrific study of how living beings move. I recall Milt commenting on these ancient photo collections from the era of the dawn of photography. In particular the animal edition had been useful to Milt whenever he was faced with animating somewhat realistic horses, deer or tigers. 

Check out Wikipedia’s page on Muybridge:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge

Here are a bunch of Milt’s extraordinary Edgar rough animation drawings from different scenes. He did not care much for the movie as a whole, nevertheless when it came to doing his part, he gave it all he’d got. Superb drawing, staging and acting!

Edgar

The butler in the film The Aristocats doesn’t fall into the category of “Disney’s most evil Villains”, but that doesn’t mean that his character can’t entertain and delight as a milder, more gentle baddie.

When you have animators like Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas and John Lounsbery bringing Edgar to life, you know that there will be some terrific performances on the screen.

The sheet above shows Milt’s character designs. I like the loose skin under his chin and in the back of his neck, which provides opportunities for sqash and stretch. Milt loved working on scenes with Edgar, because his personality called for strong emotions, from deep frustration when he finds out that the cats will inherit Madam’s fortune, to gleeful excitement, when he believes that he has successfully gotten rid of the cats.

That particular situation is explored in these sketches by Ken Anderson, who came up with fun ideas that show Edgar in a self-congratulatory mood.

Milt animated this scene, in which Edgar celebrates with a cigar and a bottle of champagne.

The way he casually lifts up the bottle, lets it twirl in the air before adjusting his grip is fantastic.

“Ha, Edgar, old chap. Get used to the finer things in life.”