Film critic Joel Siegel gets together with a group of animators, directors and producers to discuss and pay tribute to their mentors and Walt Disney's core group of animators, The Nine Old Men
THIS
HELLADoesn't have an image right now...
sorry!has no image...
sorry!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia John Musker (born November 8, 1953) is an American animation director. Along with Ron Clements, he makes up the duo of one of the Walt Disney Animation Studio's leading director teams. Description above from the Wikipedia article John Musker, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Reitherman began working for Disney in 1934, along with future Disney legends Ward Kimball and Milt Kahl. The three worked together on a number of classic Disney shorts, including The Band Concert, Music Land, and Elmer Elephant and in all, Reitherman worked on various Disney feature films produced from 1937 to 1981, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Slave in the Magic Mirror) to The Fox and the Hound (co-producer). He did the climatic dinosaur fight in Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in Fantasia, the Headless Horseman chase in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" section in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, the Crocodile in Peter Pan, and Maleficent as a dragon in Sleeping Beauty (the former three he animated and the latter he directed). Beginning with 1961's One Hundred and One Dalmatians, "Woolie", as he was called by friends, served as Disney's chief animation director. One of Reitherman's productions, the 1968 short Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. He also served as a producer and sequence director, and starred as himself in the 1941 feature film The Reluctant Dragon. All three of Reitherman's sons — Bruce, Richard and Robert — provided voices for Disney characters, including Mowgli in The Jungle Book, Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, and Wart in The Sword in the Stone. Reitherman directed several Disney animated feature films including, One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats (1970),Robin Hood (1973) and The Rescuers (1977). He is also known for reusing animation in movies directed by him. According to Floyd Norman, this was just one of his trademarks, and had nothing to do with time or cost savings: "Woolie was our director on The Jungle Book. Reuse was just Woolie’s thing. He never did it to save money. I really don’t think the “Old Guard” ever had any interest in saving money. I was never a big fan of reuse, but it wasn’t my place to tell these old guys what to do. One final thought. It never seemed to bother Walt, and I never heard him complain about reuse."
Phillip Bradley "Brad" Bird (born September 15, 1957) is an American director, voice actor, animator and screenwriter. He is best known for writing and directing Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles (2004), its sequel Incredibles 2 (2018), and Ratatouille (2007). He also adapted and directed the critically acclaimed 2D animated 1999 Warner Brothers film The Iron Giant. Reviewing the Ratatouille DVD, Eye Weekly offered this characterization of Bird's work: "It's very hard to think of another mainstream American director with a comparably fluid visual style or such a vise-grip on storytelling mechanics." He also directed The Simpsons ' episodes "Krusty Gets Busted" and "Like Father, Like Clown". Description above from the Wikipedia article Brad Bird, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
One of Disney's Nine Old Men and considered the finest draughtsman of the Disney animators. He would often refine the characters sketches from Bill Peet with the ideas of Ken Anderson. For many years the final look for the characters in the Disney films were designed by Kahl, in his angular style inspired by Ronald Searle and Picasso.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ronald Francis "Ron" Clements (born April 25, 1953) is an American animation director and producer. He is one half of America's leading contemporary animation team with John Musker. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ron Clements, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Born to Peter and Nora Larson. In 1915 his family moved to Salt Lake City, where he became interested in journalism and also secretly took drawing lessons. In 1925, he entered the University of Utah, later moving to Los Angeles to look for a job in journalism and writing, unfortunately unsuccessfully. He then decided to rekindle his ambition to become an artist, and was offered a job at Walt Disney Productions in 1933, as an `in-betweener'. Later the same year, he married Gertrude Jannes (although sadly, the couple remained childless). Animator Hamilton Luske recognized Larson's talent and promoted him to assistant animator; Luske, who had joined the studio two years previously, later became his mentor. Further promotion followed, with Eric as animator on Walt Disney's first feature length cartoon, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937); along with future veteran animators Milt Kahl and James Algar, he animated the forest animals that followed Snow White throughout. In 1940, he was promoted to animation director for Pinocchio (1940), and in that film he created the kitten, Figaro, who became one of his favorite characters. In Fantasia (1940), he created the centaurs and the horses in the "Pastoral Symphony" segment of the musical feature. By 1942, he had become a supervising animator for Bambi (1942) along with fellow workers Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas, and Milt Kahl, with whom he had worked on Snow White. In Bambi, he created Friend Owl, and subsequently worked on birds for the next two assignments, creating the mad Aracuan Bird in The Three Caballeros (1944), and Sasha the Bird in Make Mine Music (1946). Larson also worked on Fun and Fancy Free, Song of the South, Melody Time, and So Dear to My Heart (1949). He later became part of the Animation Board, and Walt Disney appointed him as one of his Nine Old Men, who consisted of Les Clark, Woolie Reitherman, Eric Larson, Ward Kimball, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, John Lounsbery and Marc Davis; all considered to be Walt's most trusted associates. -From IMDB
Disney animator, whose contributions to animation have included several Disney leading or title characters, most notably heroines. His work includes Princess Jasmine in Aladdin, Young Simba in The Lion King and Mulan in Mulan. He has also been animator of such films as 2007's Enchanted and the Goofy short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater. Additionally he directed the award-winning short film John Henry. Recently, he was the supervising animator of Princess Tiana in The Princess and the Frog.
While Kimball was a brilliant draftsman, he preferred to work on comical characters rather than realistic human designs. Animating came easily to him and he was constantly looking to do things differently. Because of this, Walt Disney called Ward a genius in the book The Story Of Walt Disney. While there were many talented animators at Disney, Ward's efforts stand out as especially unique.Kimball created several classic Disney characters including the Crows in Dumbo; Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland; the Mice and Lucifer the Cat from Cinderella; and Jiminy Cricket fromPinocchio. He also animated the famous "Three Caballeros" musical number from the Disney film of the same name.In 1953, Kimball became a director and was responsible for the Academy Award-winning short Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, and three Disney television shows about outer space that put the United States into the space program. He received anAcademy Award for the short animated cartoon It's Tough to Be a Bird.Ward Kimball was profiled by the Academy Award-winning producer Jerry Fairbanks in his Paramount Pictures film short series Unusual Occupations. This 35mm Magnacolor film short was released theatrically in 1944 and focused on Kimball's backyard railroad and full sized locomotive.Kimball was also a jazz trombonist. He founded and led the seven-piece Dixieland band Firehouse Five Plus Two, in which he played trombone. The band made at least 13 LP records and toured clubs, college campuses and jazz festivals from the 1940s to early 1970s. Kimball once said that Walt Disney permitted the second career as long as it did not interfere with his animation work.Kimball continued to work at Disney up until the early 1970s, working on the Disney anthology television series, being one of the writers for Babes in Toyland, creating animation for Mary Poppins, directing the animation for Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and working on titles for feature films such as The Adventures Of Bullwhip Griffin and Million Dollar Duck. His last staff work for Disney was producing and directing the Disney TV show The Mouse Factory. He continued to do various projects on his own, even returning to Disney to do some publicity tours. Additionally, Kimball worked on an attraction for Disney's EPCOT Center called The World Of Motion.
Polish-born German-American character animator, most noted for his work at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Deja's work includes serving as supervising animator on characters in several Disney animated films, including the Disney villains Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, Jafar from Aladdin, Scar from The Lion King and the hero Hercules from Hercules. -Wikipedia
Born in Palo Alto, California, Johnston attended Stanford University, where he worked on the campus humor magazine Stanford Chaparral with fellow future animator Frank Thomas, then transferred to the Chouinard Art Institute in his senior year.[5] Ollie married a fellow Disney employee, ink and paint artist Marie Worthey, in 1943.
Known for his work on Tangled (2010), The Little Mermaid (1989) and Pocahontas (1995). He has been married to Linda Hesselroth since 1975. They have two children.
Prominent American artist and animator for Walt Disney Studios. He was one of Disney's Nine Old Men for his knowledge and understanding of visual aesthetics, the famed core animators of Disney animated films.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Don Hahn (born 1955) is an American film producer who has produced some of the most successful Walt Disney animated films of the past 20 years. He currently owns his own film production company called Stone Circle Pictures. Description above from the Wikipedia article Don Hahn, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Born in Fresno, California, Frank Thomas attended Stanford University, where he was a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity and worked on campus humor magazine The Stanford Chaparral with Ollie Johnston. After graduating from Stanford, he attended Chouinard Art Institute, then joined The Walt Disney Company on September 24, 1934 as employee number 224. There he animated dozens of feature films and shorts, and also was a member of the Dixieland band Firehouse Five Plus Two, playing the piano.
