Don Bluth eCollection at SCAD

[OwenWelsh]

Ok, I tried one. Mine isn't as high quality as Owen's. I need to play with the encoding. I'll probably re-do this one.
(looks better if you switch it to 720 p)

[youtube]oOzfenp4Lgw&loop=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D18[/youtube]

I think you did a fine job on this one. I can't figure out why Brisby and Mr. Ages on are separate levels if they are going to interact.

[DNethery]

I think you did a fine job on this one. I can't figure out why Brisby and Mr. Ages on are separate levels if they are going to interact.

It's because of how the cel levels are stacked. She's actually tugging on Ages's clothing , not touching his face directly, though her desperate tugging action causes his head to react sharply. The way the perspective of the scene is set up Ages is slightly to the front of Brisby. So the Cel levels are : Top level - Basket , Next Level down - Ages - Next level under Ages is - Brisby and cloth - lower level is - BG .

(that is also why at certain points the drawing on the lower screen left side of Mr. Ages's cheeks and "beard" is not as precise, because that area is behind the Basket , so it just needed to be closed-off for the cel painters to have a paint-to line , but at those points in the scene the lower left part of his face is not actually seen. )







(Note: in this example I've numbered the cel levels from top down as 1 , 2, 3, 4, , but more often than not on an old X-sheet you'll find them numbered this way from the top down, from left to right: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ,(BG) . Which allows a maximum of 5 cel levels stacked on a BG level. Over 5 levels and the cel thickness would build up too much "grey" . 3 or 4 cel levels would be better , only use 5 if absolutely needed. Seems hard to believe in these days of unlimited digital levels, eh ?)

[feliceworkshop]

Amazing find, ..I actually discovered it through ONAnimation.com today ..and thought to come here on the forum and thank Owen, only to actually find out that Lina was the first one who signaled the website here on the forum,... well thank you so much Lina! I believe you made a lot of fans of Don's art extremely happy.....
..and thank you Owen as well, without you messaging the finding to OnAnimation.com I would have discovered this much later.... and on the plus side it's always nice that you're spreading your love for Don's art outside the boundaries of this forum. Which is more then I can say for myself....excluded when I brag at work that I participated to the Arizona masterclass a couple of years ago, .....ehm.
Love what you and David are doing with the PDF's...converting them into video files that is... it's great to see a better quality and the registry holes properly aligned... I suppose that probably a minor disappointment was to find out that the pdf. file for the Piper scene was not uploaded like for the other video clips, but I can understand that due to the length of the scene....and hopefully I could always count on it being uploaded on the website in the future...
I can't believe that I'm only 6 hours away from this marvelous collection of works!... few members of this forum already visited the Savannah college just for the purpose of viewing Don's collection. Plus a couple of members here on the forum are actually students there at SCAD!.. meaning that they have access to the collection every time they want to... so, what am I waiting for?... sigh, perhaps, if I'll ever get a break from work...

[OwenWelsh]

David thank you so much for that insightful scene analysis. Don's team was very clever how they planned scenes such as this. Now I'm wondering in what order the scene was animated. It doesn't look like the basket reacts to Brisby's shaking of Mr. Ages. So I suppose the order was; Brisby's level (with Ages' clothing), then Mr. Ages' level reacting to shake... and the basket level could have been animated at any time I suppose.

Thanks Felice, glad you are enjoying the treasure trove from SCAD.

[jonhoops]

Along with the Xsheets it would be nice to have the animators indicated. I'm pretty sure they must have gotten all the sweatbox notes and xsheets with the archived scenes.

Even publishing the sweatbox draft for the whole movie would give us who animated the scenes.

[andrew sharp]

Sweet thankyou for posting the link

[Rodney]

Excellent point Jon.

Not only would it identify the animator behind the scene it would emphasize the importance of the xsheets, drafts and sweatbox notes. Some resources that generally don't get any spotlight shown upon them.

That makes me curious...
Did Bluth/Sullivan maintain drafts like the old Disney one's that breaks down each shot? (Hans Perk has been posting some great ones over at his blog)

[jonhoops]

Yes Bluth pretty much had cloned the Disney system that is why I mentioned the drafts and sweatbox notes. It would be a great resource especially in the context of what Hans Perk and others are doing. I wish the drafts for all the films would be out there so people could identify all the great unsung animators out there. Just a few guys get accolades and some great animation erroneously gets attributed to them rather than the correct person.

[Rodney]

Just a few guys get accolades and some great animation erroneously gets attributed to them rather than the correct person.

Agreed.

Perhaps a day will come when the bean counters realize that the production art is just as valuable as the film and they actually develop a plan to present all (or given the great number of assets... most) of it. They've spend all that money developing the film... audience interest notwithstanding... why not in proper context present all of it... and get a return on that as profits to help recognize/support/credit/pay the artists.

[DNethery]

Along with the Xsheets it would be nice to have the animators indicated. I'm pretty sure they must have gotten all the sweatbox notes and xsheets with the archived scenes.

Even publishing the sweatbox draft for the whole movie would give us who animated the scenes.

Having access to scans of all those things (X-sheets, drafts, sweatbox notes/scene folder covers) would be really useful. I strongly second that request if anyone connected with the SCAD archive is reading this.

Jon, do you think I was right about that Mr. Ages animation being John Pomeroy's ? If I recall Philo was his main clean up key assistant in those days and Philo's name is on the keys, so ... but if I've misidentified the animator I don't want anyone else to not get properly credited, which as you mentioned in your other post happens all too frequently.