Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Effects of Animation -- (Part II)

Per Mr. Kierscey, Art Palmer was the principle animator for water in the Monstro sequence of "Pinocchio." This was the gold standard for ocean effects work, referenced by effects animators during the making of "The Little Mermaid." ...

TAG Interview with Ted Kierscey

*Click to listen in your browser. Right-Click and Save to download to your computer to listen later.

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

The second half of the Ted Kierscey interview, wherein Ted talks about Disney in the digital age and the ongoing challenges of effects animation ...

Mr. Kierscey and Jim George, back in the fabulous seventies. (That's a "Small One" storyboard behind them.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting interview! He started from effects from "The Rescuers" and way onto recent Disney features.

Will you ever write about Cliff Nordberg, he is a very talented animator and I don't know a lot about him. I know that Cliff was around your entrance at Disney and did you get to know him?

Steve Hulett said...

Knew him. Very nice guy (and good animator.) His son is in the business.

Anonymous said...

Ted Kierscey is a modern master of effects animation and I'm glad to see this interview. He should be more widely known , but I don't think he's one of those guys who toots his own horn too much.




These interviews are great. Keep ‘em coming. It’s really interesting to hear these veterans discuss their careers and also how much things have changed in the business (not always for the better on a human scale , although we obviously have a lot more production going on these days)

One thing I notice in several of the interviews is how much Disney’s approach to Production Management has changed over the years , how top-heavy management became during the 1990’s boom times and for some reason that doesn’t seem to have changed in the new “lean” times of today. (shouldn’t computers make that job faster, better, cheaper ? )

On a 59 minute movie (well, 69 minutes , sort of, with credits) , "Winnie the Pooh" , I count 2 Directors, 4 Producers, and 10 (count ‘em !) 10 Production Managers. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1449283/combined . I thought that with improvements in production management software this is one area the studio might have saved some money by cutting back on staff. Winnie the Pooh is not a “big” production … it’s equivalent to the smaller, less ambitious features made during the Reitherman era . How is it that pre-computer era 75 − to - 83 minute features (not to mention "featurettes" like the original Pooh films) could be handled by one Producer, one Director, one Production Manager, but to do a barely 69 minute feature in 2011 they need 10 Production Managers ? They can justify outsourcing most of the clean-up work to Canada , while veteran clean-up artists who are 839 members face continuing long-term unemployment , but they still need to have 4 producers and 10 Production Managers to oversee this shorter movie with a smaller in-house staff ? The Canadian outsource studio had it’s own production managers.

Site Meter