THE RESCUERS Opening "Gallery"

As the movie THE RESCUERS opens, we see what appears to be an old showboat, broken-down and barely adrift.

Little Penny, the kidnapped heroine of the story, scrawls a plea for help on a piece of paper, stuffs it in a bottle, and sets it adrift in hope someone will find it and rescue her. This scenario takes place here:


For THE RESCUERS opening credits, the Disney artists cleverly chose to use a series of paintings of the bottle making its way to "The Rescuers," through lightning storms and tempestuous waves.

There is great storytelling in these paintings. Using camera zooms as well as simple held shots, these magnificent paintings suggest great hope - if even a little bottle can find its way, so too will someone who will help.

Wonderful art!

TOOT, WHISTLE, PLUNK and BOOM (1953)

Disney went modern with a vengeance in "TOOT, WHISTLE, PLUNK and BOOM." Ward Kimball's hand is all over this one!

I hope one day thsi film gets a good restoration, and a high definition DVD release. In the meantime, these digitally recreated artworks are from the best source material currently available.

First up, the opening credits background art.

Now, the opening credits background art with credits (overlay).

more credits...


This is the background art for the title card...

Professor Owl's classroom:

The musical instruments:

Professor Owl's classroom with the instruments on his desk:

More incredibly stylish and stylized classroom B/G art:



A fifties moderne depiction of ancient Egypt!

I could have digitally erased Professor Owl, but this pose was irresistible!

The ultra stylized marquee:

The audience!

The doors to the concert hall:

Finally, the amazing theatre:

Bravissima!

More from MULAN

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China, wonderful use of perspective

A desktop:

Mulan's room:

Interior of Mulan's home:

A glimpse of Mulan's gardens. I was able to digitally remove Mulan, running down the stairs, but Father stood firm!

New Dialogue *wip*

This is what I've been working on, outside of work work. Not too much to say this early on, except that I love this piece of dialogue. I wanted to get into some juicy, dark, serious acting. Since I never am any of the latter two. *wink*.

I'm also trying to take more time to do as much prep work as I can, top chef-style. And man, that included everything from scribbling on paper, shooting numerous clips of video reference, studying actors I admire that fall along the lines of this character, asking my fiance what she thinks. Every time out of the gate I want to make sure I shaking things up as far as my approach goes. This stuff takes sooo long and is such hard work that I wanna make sure I'm learning a little something.

Planning:
Mapping out the idea, with a general idea of the character's attitude.

Embarassing Video Reference:
Trying to get specific.
A big thing I've learned this time around is that it helps me when I shoot reference for everything, like ev-er-ry little thing. Well so like this for instance, theres a specific gesture I wanted to hit on "today". I was well into blocking in 3D already and I just could not get it to work! So frustrating! So I was like f*ck it, I need to know what the hell my arm is really doing, so I shot it right there, frame-by-framed it, and was like , ooooooooooooh. I did that again for so many different parts.

So after initial blocking pass and feedback from my mentor, heres where it stands so far, kind of at a blocking plus stage:
*Updated 06/16*
Deep into splines!

Still have a ways to go, so I'll be updating as it comes along. I'm always open to feedback. You have the power to save this animation from being crappy! Haha. But seriously, If you've stopped by my space on AM to leave me your thoughts and feedback, thanks man!