Note 13 : In the
summer of 1977 I had thanks to acquaintance with one of "the nine old
men", Ward Kimball, the opportunity
to visit the Disney Studios on Buena Vista Street in Burbank. My guide was on
that occasion the Danish-born Edward A. Hansen, who at the time was the
Animation Department Manager, and he introduced me to the following Cast
Members: Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas and Eric Larson (supervising animators),
Vance Gerry (storyman), Ken Anderson (designer), Woolie Reitherman (supervising
director), David R. Smith (archive manager) and others. At the time, Johnston
and Thomas were just in the process of planning and seek substance of the book
"Disney Animation. The Illusion of Life" and they told me candidly
and enthusiastically about the book's content and intention, namely to preserve
the experience with the production of cartoons, which for so many years was
done at Disney Studios.
In their
relatively small animation studio, as the two had shared since the 1940s, were
installed and mounted several story board panels, and on these were set up
animation drawings, for example Snow White, the dwarfs, the evil queen and the
witch from the "Snow White" movie, Bambi , Thumper and the owl from
the movie of the same name, the tiger Shere Khan from "The Jungle
Book" and others. These animation drawings I recognized in the book when
it was published in 1981. For me it was a joyful and adventurous experience to
see these glorious original animation drawings, which were drawn by some of
the, in my opinion, amazingly good, but at the time aging Disney animators.