MORE! Animation Schtuff - Part II

More schtuff from the boxes:

Here's a letter from Chuck Jones .  I had written Chuck (that is , Mr. Jones)  a thank-you letter for coming to talk to our class at Sheridan College in 1983  (Chuck says "yours was the only letter I received from my visit" )    He mentions that his book is in the works, so I must have asked if he was working on a book ...  needless to say,  I was absolutely thrilled to receive this letter from one of my animation heroes .

[click on images to see larger]

Also from Sheridan College daze here is a photo of three
of my teachers : Zack Schwartz,  Zlatko Grgic,  and  Kaj Pindal.
I learned a lot from all of them and only now , years later, appreciate how good I had it studying under these gentlemen and our other wonderful teachers like Dick Friesen, John Kratovil, Jim MacCauley, Wayne Gilbert, and Bill Speers.   Of the three gentlemen pictured below only Kaj is still around today and still teaching at Sheridan from what I hear .  Long may he wave !

Here's a picture of Kaj Pindal in his backyard Railroad (similar to Walt Disney's, Ollie Johnston's , and Ward Kimball's ... I think Ollie and Ward actually rode on Kaj's railroad, but Walt never got the opportunity ...)

After leaving Sheridan College I got a job in Ottawa, Ontario  animating on "The Raccoons" television series .    Here's a caricature of me from those days , by fellow animator  Graham Falk . 

Yes, I really did look like that in those days :

(this is me at the Atkinson Film Arts studio animating on
"The Raccoons" series in 1984)

Here's another of Graham Falk and me , by Graham Falk :

Another animator who worked on "The Raccoons" was
Nik Ranieri (who went on to animate on a better raccoon and many
other good things).  Here's Nik in those days:

(That's Carolyn Gair in the mirror behind Nik, taking the photo.
Carolyn sat next to me in the next cubicle over.) 

I left Ottawa in the early summer of '85 to take a job with Don Bluth working on "An American Tail" .   The gang gave me a great going-away dinner send-off .  Here's a photo from that send-off (at a Mexican restaurant in Ottawa of all places ... sending me off to Los Angeles !)

From back to foreground , starting on the right side of the table:

Norm Roen (partially obscured by Jamie) , Jamie Oliff, Glen Sylvester, Trish Stolte,  Curtis Crawford,  Drew Edwards.
From foreground on the left :   Gloria Hsu , Graham Falk,  Kathy Harker-Fiander (partially obscured by Graham) .   

More of these photos from Ottawa to follow. 

A gag drawing by Nik Ranieri and Dave Pruiksma made during "Pocahontas" at Disney's in 1994 :

Below are a couple of pages from the old Disney Animation employee newsletter "The Twilight Bark" .   Dave Pruiksma had a column that ran in every issue of The Bark.   This one is from around the time of the release of the live-action "The Flintsone's" movie .   The drawings of various Disney Animation people as Flintstones-style characters are by Nik Ranieri.

(click images to see larger)

(caricatures of : Mike Gabriel, Eric Goldberg, Dave Pruiksma, Jim Pentecost, Tom Schumacher, Nik Ranieri.)

(caricatures of :  Jeffrey Katzenberg,  Tom Sito,  Susannah Grant,
Ed Gombert, and  Burny Mattinson.

I'll just keep digging it up and posting it , so check back , folks...

Comments

[Will Finn]

Dave, what a flurry of fine stuff to review. Envy pangs for that letter from Chuck Jones....
I remember that younger you from decades ago when I was a younger me, too.
Zlatko Giric made one of my favorite shorts; HOT STUFF. I think he did "Baron Balthazarr" for Chuck Jones' CURIOSTIY SHOP TV show. Does anybody know if those are available? They were great.

[David]

Hey, Will,

Yeah, Zlatko directed and animated "Hot Stuff" which is also a favorite of mine. It used to run on the PBS Animation show with some other great NFB and various European shorts, which is where I first saw it. Zlatko died much too young. Zack lived to a ripe old age (90) , but I'm still always a little surprised he's gone when I think about him... I'm glad to say that Kaj Pindal just celebrated his 80th birthday as reported on Mark Mayerson's blog and is still going strong. http://mayersononanimation.blogspot.com/2007/11/kaj-pindals-8th-birthday-celebration.html I had forgotten about "Baron Balthazarr" on the CURIOSITY SHOP . I have no idea if those are available (time to go do a search over on YouTube).

[EHH]

Shoudn't the bottle that Katzenrocks is holding say "Diet Cactus Juice"? LOL

[Mitchel Kennedy]

Kaj's train is still operational!! I was at his place last year, and that train blew me away. I'm still amazed at how he could magically change tracks -- it's like the train was just an extension of his own body. It's completely insane to look at all of the effort and thinking he put into making that very complex train system.

That day, to Amir Avni and I, he said: "A train that can't change tracks is like a film you can't edit."

[Allison]

Nik looked so crazy back then :)) and the flinstones caricature is really cool.