Disney Internship: Star Tours

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At lunch time I would on occasion take a walk through Disney MGM Studios to do a sketch. Star Tours was a motion simulator ride that gave me motion sickness. Don’t get me wrong, it was an awesome ride but I left feeling queasy.

The best way to ground myself was to sit down and do a sketch.

On this day in the internship, we watched Singing in the Rain in the break room and listened to renowned animator Mark Henn as he analyzed a walk.

We were working on an assignment that involved building a story around Goofy. We had one last day to finish the assignment. I should have saved some of those drawings, but anything we created at Disney became the property of Disney in this universe and any other universe. It always felt good therefor to step out and do a drawing for myself.

Disney Internship: NYC Street MGM Studio

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By October, I was starting to feel rather burnt out form all the inbetweening drawings I had to do to finish each animation scene I was working on.

On lunch breaks I would walk around the MGM theme park to fins a place to sketch. Just having a chance to sketch on location helped ground me.

On one occasion I was sitting on a bench in the New York City like in this sketch and A woman walked past me. She looked over her shoulder at me while she walked away. She came around a second time and stopped in front of me. She leaned forward and asked, “Are you an animatronic?” If I wasn’t so surprised, I could have acted mechanical and messed with her but I simply said, “No, I am very much flesh and blood.” People don’t sit still in theme parks. They are always in a rush to get on the next attraction. Children get cranky since their tiny little legs can’t keep up. Artists function on a much slower pace, to take the time to look.

Disney Internship: It’s a Small World After All

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By the start of October, I was working on animating a run. It was a challenge working with such broad movements so I stayed late. leaving my desk about 11pm. I was the last person in the building.

The following day there was an 8:30Am breakfast meeting with the mentors. My mentor was Bryan M. Sommer whose specialty was clean up and inbetweening. That was helpful since that would be my roll if I started working on the next film. He taught a seminar right after the breakfast. Bryan had some amazing hidden talents. After the Florida studio closed, he effortlessly did some amazing Australian theme park designs that I wish had been built.

 

Disney Internship: The Animation Building

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This is the entrance to what was the animation tour at Disney MGM Studio. Guests would enter here and be introduced to the process of animation. One section of the tour had large floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the animators at work.

When I started working at the studio my desk was right at the base of the tourist overlook. All day long guests would knock n the glass and give me a thumbs up. It was a nightmare. Finally a guard on the other side of the glass started pointing down into my work space. The glass was soundproof so we couldn’t talk. I finally realized he was pointing at a ledge at the base of the glass wall above my eye line. I felt along the ledge and found some tape which I peeled up. On the tape was written, “Hi My name is Tom, If you lie my work please knock on the glass and give me a thumbs up.” I groaned. The animator next to me started laughing his head off.

I caught this jazz band outside the entrance on one of my lunchtime walks through the park. I would get out each day and people watch before sitting back at my animation desk and cranking out drawings all day long.

Disney Internship: Harbor House

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With my jump animation assignment finished I took time off on the weekend to explore Disney MGM Studio. This was essentially where I worked but I was in a trailer inn the back lot parking lot and never saw the park while busy sketching at my desk.

I felt that many of the rids at MGM were rather corny but I guess that is what people want. Some of the attractions were worth the effort of standing in line. MGM can be seen in a single day. The larger theme parks might take more time to explore and sketch.

Columbia Harbor House is in the Magic Kingdom. It is an American seafood counter restaurant which mostly served fish and chips style meals. It is seafood with a serious slathering of breading and oil, along with fries and slaw.

After a while I decided to go back to my desk in the animation studio and do three more inbetweens on my assignment to slow down the ending of the scene. The scene was of a locust jumping and i had him perform on the animation desk which was new to me and therefor worth sketching as a background.

The internship was not a 9 to 5 work situation. Some artists never left their desks but I tried to keep to a set schedule to stay sane. The experience was a pressure cooker to see who thrived and who crumbled under the pressure. I paced myself and one steam valve was the ability to go into the parks and sketch on location. It calmed my nerves.

To this day, I still sit at my Disney Animation desk all day long and then, when I can, I venture out to sketch in the real world.

Disney Internship: The Stocks

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As a Disney Feature Animation intern, I enjoyed having free reign of the Disney Theme parks on the weekend to sketch.

On the week this was done, Barry Cook came to the Disney’s MGM Studios and pitched the idea for the next feature animated film which was called at the time China Doll, or FaMulan.

There was one section of the animation building which had a tall soundproof glass wall behind which tourists could watch the animation artists at work. Barry stood on a desk and told us the story of a daughter who joined the Chinese army as a man to save her father from conscription. Barry had a knack for storytelling and I was fully engrossed and hoped that one day I might work on the film which would later be called Mulan.

I also learned that as an intern I would have a chance to do some production drawings for the film the studio was now working on called The Lion King. The story of Lion King was built around the themes of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Disney Internship: Merry-Go-Round

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I spent a solid day exploring Disney World and sketching. This was a merry-go-round at Disney World. Late in the internship I would use a merry-go-round as inspiration for some story boarding I did.

I had already finished the second animation assignment which was a jump. I was feeling guilty that I finished so fast. So I started a second jump but abandoned it since I like the first animation better.

For some reason I had been given a Snow White poster and I wanted to give it to my niece Nikki. I was also given an Aladdin tape and I probably still have that packed away in some box somewhere.

Disney Internship: Mad Hatters Tea Cups

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With the third animation assignment finished for the Disney Feature Animation Internship, I decided to spend the day at Walt Disney World sketching. This was the third sketch for the day.

Of course the challenge with this sketch is that those tea cups just keep spinning, making it a challenge to sketch any detail.

As I recall that darn door mouse kept popping up and down out of the tea pot as well. Despite that challenges of sketching in a park setting, it felt good to just sketch from life rather than getting Disney characters to move.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Tiki Room

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I had a full day off from animating in the Disney Feature Animation Internship. Some of the interns pretty much chained themselves to their desks to keep animating. There was so much on the line if the assignments sucked then it was very possible you might not get hired. I had finished my assignment and felt my mental health was just as important as cranking out drawings. so I went to Disney World as an employee.

This is a third sketch done on the same day in Disney World. This is the Tiki Room or, Sunshine Tree Terrace. Years later I would sketch one of the Tiki birds on display at the Orange County Regional History Center. All the birds inner gears and gyros lay open and exposed. I think I was just so excited to get away from the animation desk where I was sketching Mickey and Goofy. Having a solid day to just sketch on location felt like a real vacation. Some of the early animation assignments just felt silly and it was nice to get a dose of sketching from reality back into my blood.

Well I suppose sketching in Disney World as far from reality but it was a fair recreation of an exotic and new location to sketch. All these sketches were done as post cards. I would mail one off each night. The advantage is that they are all post marked which further verifies the dates.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: A Walk in the Park

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I had a day off from animating in the Disney Feature Animation Internship and I spent it walking around Disney World Magic Kingdom. I hit up the Haunted House and Space Mountain.I would have loved to sketch in the attractions but it is impossible to get a sketch when you are being shuttled along in a roller coaster carriage.

Actually sketching in a theme park is a real challenge since hoards of tourists are constantly rushing down the street. I chose to sketch the upper floors of Main street to keep the crowds out of the sketch.

It started to rain about 5pm so I escaped and went back to the apartment Disney had put the would be animators into. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing laundry and sketching up on errands before starting another week of animating.