Okay so, I still haven't actually been to the Animation Research Library yet as it's off-site. But Disney, for a while, has been scanning in everything from the library, and digitizing them so that we can check them out in high-res here from our desktops. It's pretty insane how much you have at your fingertips. You search for example, "Marc Davis", and scenes from every movie he's worked on come up. If I'm not careful I could spend all day looking up this stuff!
As expected, I've been looking at a lot of Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Mark Henn, Glen Keane. A good representation of Disney animation over recent years, and whose work I love. What's interesting to me is looking at much the acting in these films has evolved over the years, mirroring the evolution of performances in live action films. I love Milt Kahl as much as the next animator, and no doubt the graphic appeal is second-to-none, but studying him is tricky because a lot of his acting choices just wouldn't feel right by today's standards. That was then, this is now. I'll even go so far as to say that some of the work done in the early 90's might feel out-of-place today. You need to know (or I need to tell myself) what to look for when studying this stuff; clarity in posing, economy of poses, simplicity, and apply that to what I find entertaining today. Especially nowadays, I feel like some of the entertainment or the funniest gags , are put over because the movement is super simplified, or barely moving at all, but maybe that's just a taste thing.
Obviously I have no way of knowing this, but with someone like Milt today, if he were approaching a scene, I feel like he would, not in any way, move the character around as busily as he did in the Rescuers.
Obviously I have no way of knowing this, but with someone like Milt today, if he were approaching a scene, I feel like he would, not in any way, move the character around as busily as he did in the Rescuers.
Anyway, this post didn't really go anywhere , and there were no conclusions, but hey what else is new on this blog!
From Andreas Deja's site.