Dream Worlds: Production Design for Animation || pp. 150-207

- Dream Worlds:  Production Design for Animation -

SUMMARY of pp. 148-207

This section of the book covers pre-production ideas for the short film, The Little Match Girl, scrapped Disney projects as well as personal projects by Hans Bacher.  Especially useful are some invaluable tips and advice to artists working in animation.  Lastly, described in detail are the master backgrounds on the film Bambi and the intricate way they were produced.

HIGHLIGHTS

- EXAMPLE - The Little Match Girl - Studied 19th c. Russian painters and architecture of St. Petersburg.  Designed snow, night scenes, and Russian inspired winter costumes, because set at Christmas.  Wanted Russian characters, so studied Nicolai Fechin's portrait paintings and more.

- Unfinished Disney Projects - 

- EXAMPLES - Wild Life - Recruited to help fix stylistic problems, but story was worse.  A costume designer helped with the crazy futuristic costume design.  Style was over the top design inspired by a modern mash up of famous pop artists, abstract painters, modern architects and furniture designers.  Environment drawings, color sketches and texture designs.  - My Peoples - Style was a mixture of various American painters like Thomas Hard Benton and Grant Wood (unique landscape composition, and interesting use of textures).  Also inspirational were Bill Peet's children's books (cross hatching texture, in the end it was too technical).  - New Version of Fantasia - Abstract art of the last 70 years with a story about a bird estranged from the flock.  Focus was on Klee, Picasso, Miro and Matisse.  They were growing it out of new CG ideas and "...wanted to come up with a new art form.  But probably it was too much art" (p.160).  - Friday Cat - A Hitchcock crime story about a cat and a parrot in London, reminiscent of 101 Dalmatians.  It was supposed to be a combination of 2D and 3D.

We wanted to come up

with a new art form.

But probably it was

too much art.

- Hans Bacher

- Decision Making - The most important decision is when something is finished.  "A good recipe for me always was, look at the artwork the next day.  If it still looks good then you can live with it" (p. 168).  Another choice is the technique (which hinges on time, budget, and subject).  Small sketch vs. larger illustration.  Traditional mediums had their hardships and share of decision making, contrasted with Digital which is easier, faster, but the extreme number of choices are limitless along with tricks and filters which can bring the work somewhere you didn't intend.  Remember to stick with the original concept and not to deviate too far.

A good recipe for me

always was, look at the

artwork the next day.

If it still looks good

then you can live with it.

- Hans Bacher

- Own Projects - Fun way to escape the industry work by dreaming up own ideas for movies. Browsing artwork in museums, seeing beautiful landscapes or architecture inspire new art and ideas. Teaching, believe it or not, is a powerful motivator and driving force for creativity.  New style inspiration comes from a blend of unusual ingredients.  One of his old designs for a book never published may now become an animated short.  His first big artistic inspiration came at 16 from highly stylized art in an animated short.

- Unproductive - There are countless meetings for a production designer to attend:  story, workbook, brain tryst, layout, background, color, effects, sweatbox and more...funny sketches done at these meetings catch overflow energy.

- EXAMPLE - Bambi - Along with a tour/description of the inside of the camera department, Bacher described the masterpiece backgrounds, the various multiplane cameras used for the film and intense process of creating a multiplane shot.

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This concludes the reading/summary of Dream Worlds - thanks for joining me!

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