Disney Feature Animation Internship: Germany in Epcot

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Work continued of getting a centaur to run. The scene was filled with glitches which I was working to patch.

Any time I wanted to see the drawings in motion I would have to take the stack of drawings to a camera, called the lion lamb, and shoot the drawings in sequence onto VHS tape. If a drawing was shot out of sequence the whole scene would need to be re-shot. Interns would try and mess with each other by talking to the person shooting so they might loose focus and forget which drawing had been shot.

I was working to add more twist in the torso of the centaur as he ran. With animation the work was never ending and the scene was never perfect. The challenge was to stay sane and put out an entertaining end result.

I took a trip to Germany when I worked at Disney Feature Animation. There I met all my relatives who share the Thorspecken name. I traveled with Herbert who was in the Luftwaffe a the same time that my father was pushing into the Ruhr pocket of Germany in the final days of the was.  It was far more interesting seeing the real Germany compared to the homogenized vision of Germany on display at Epcot. I also traveled to Berlin recently to screen my short animated film COVID Dystopia. Germans seem to like my dark vision of the world. Americans tend to prefer an idealized view of the world.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Epcot

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I would sketch in the theme parks on days off to ground myself in an alternate realty through direct observation. As an intern I tended to work 10 hour or more each day. Any notion of work life balance is abandoned if you become an animator. Animation is all consuming and never feels quite finished.

The centaur run was driving me mad. How on earth do horses keep track of those four legs? In my scene the front legs were running faster that the hind legs causing the torso to stretch. I decided it wasn’t a mistake but a happy accident and I kept it.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Big Cats

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The interns were invited to sketch a lion on that sound stage in the animation studio.If anything can go wrong it always does when I am sketching. My elegant thin pen ran out of ink half way through the sketch and I had to dig around for my much thicker pen to finish up.

Clearly I started on the left and half way through the pen gave out. The thick sketch on the right hints at some  some frustration and annoyance.

The Lion King was still in production so that is why the big cat came in to model. The design of the characters had already been established so this was more of an exercise in keeping our sketching chops in  shape. By the time I got to sketching the lion, most of the interns had started to leave. Life moves too fast when you are trying to catch it in a sketch.

The next day was to be a mid-term review. I would get to find out how the Board felt I was progressing as an animator. No pressure, just don’t suck.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Chip in China

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A Russian animator visited the studio and screened his film for us. The interns also had an opportunity to sketch lions and bears on a sound stage. There were once in a lifetime opportunities.

I managed to get my centaur to walk but getting him to transition into  run was proving a major challenge.

I developed a cold which had my nose completely stuffed and I had to leave the studio to go back to the apartment and nurse myself back to health. That weekend all the interns were invited to go the the home of the training manager, Frank Gladstone. Frank was pivotal in keeping my head screwed on straight since I was feeling home sick for NYC. My wife was going to visit the studio the week of Halloween so that was something to look forward to.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Dancing Bushes

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These dancing Hippo and Crocodile bushes were located right outside the animation tour building. They were in the MGM studio theme park for guests to enjoy, not necessarily the animators.

My evening of partying caught up with me and I had a horrible hangover. I had to leave work early.

I did get some work done on my quadruped assignment. I designed a centaur. The plan was to make the centaur walk onto the scene where he notices a female centaur and starts running after her. It was a great plan but a bit too much for my hungover brain to handle.

I was told that 23 positions were opening up in the animation studio in the next 18 months. There was hope to join the growing studio.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Muppets on Location

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The interns went to Pleasure Island to blow off some steam. My favorite venue there was the adventurer’s club, but there were a wide variety of dance clubs and comedy clubs. Unfortunately Disney shut down this more adult themes attraction.

I had a good conversation with Pete about the future possibilities of working in Animation. We both agreed that it is important to invest in your own ideas besides working on company projects.

Disney felt homogenized. It offered security, but a life of adventure would require more risks. I had 6 beers and felt I needed to figure out the trajectory of my life. The key is to take it one day at a time and keep moving in a direction. Just as I was searching for my next step then, I am searching for my next step now. I have several spreads in my book I need to lay out today. That is all I can think about for now.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: MGM Studios Entrance

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This is another lunchtime sketch inside Disney’s MGM Studios. On the weekend I took some time off and wandered through Epcot people watching and sketching. Such excursions helped keep me sane through the pressure cooker that was the internship.

I managed to get a sun burn on my forehead since I forgot to wear my baseball cap while sketching.

I tried to arrange a haircut with a Disney barber but was told I would need to return in a week because I didn’t have a reservation. Just figuring out basic survival needs is a learning process.

The next assignment was going to be figuring out how a horse walks. It was hard enough figuring out how two legs worked in a walk and now I had to face 4 legs. Well, if the horses can figure out the mechanics of walking, then so can I.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Halloween Plans

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This is a sketch of the waiting area outside Honey I Blew up the Kids. the attraction at Disney’s MGM Studios was a kids play area with the playground being made up of giant objects, like huge blades of grass, giant ants and a very large dogs nose.

Plans were under way for the Halloween festivities. Disney animators took Halloween very seriously. There was to be a costume parade and then a children’s costume parade. Well lets face it, animators are children. Then there were games and BBQ on the animation patio which was built on to the parking lot trailer.

I worked much of the day since it was raining outside. I was working on a “Singing in the Rain” walk sequence. It was broken but I spent the day re-timing some sections of the animation to get it to flow better. Working such long hours was starting to wear on me. I needed time away from the studio, but that would have to wait for another day.

Disney Feature animation Internship: Thunder Mountain

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At the animation studio I had finished working on Mr. Zed. Mr. Zed was the affectionate name we used to refer to a simple animated character that just had a ball for a head, a bean for a body and spindly long legs simply defined with two lines.

The next assignment was to work on effects animation. Effects are much more fluid, abstract and unpredictable.

I spent time in the animation library and studied Fantasia to figure out how a cloak might move on a figure. I was fascinated by effect but it was not easy. All the other interns were busy doing and redoing their walks. I decided that when I was done with an assignment I would put it aside and move on. It was the best way to stay sane. If I chased absolute perfection I could drive myself crazy. I do believe that the internship experience was set up to see who cracked and who stayed o course. My mind was set on the long game.

The sketch was from a weekend exploring the parks. This was in Magic Kingdom.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Near Dumbo

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It was a hard day’s work in the animation studio. The interns sketched a baby and a doberman pincer in the life drawing class. Both made terrible models since they squirm and move about so much. Sketches were done quickly with non being longer than 5 minutes. Actually we didn’t time anything since they never stayed still. As an animator we needed to understand the motion and we got plenty of that.

I was animating a character walking in a high wind. The character was wearing a rain coat which flapped in the wind. The rain coat was the challenge. Like I said, I never take the easy route when trying something new.

The sketch was from another park day. I tended to look upward so as not to be distracted by the ever flowing mass of humanity.