Saturday, December 6, 2008

It's magic!

I must admit I giggled too, as my first association was that of Statler and Waldorf from The Muppets, but our Animation Director asked us to show some respect, as the two men in this documentary were Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two legendary animators who were part of Disney's dream team, dubbed the 'Nine Old Men'. 

Frank and Ollie talked about their working on an impressive range of classics, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) till The Fox and the Hound (1981), and the documentary was interspersed with short fragments of these movies. 

And then, there was silence. The audience, a happy bunch of somewhat noisy young people plus yours truly, ready to start their education at the Max the Mutt School of Animation, had fallen silent on seeing Snow White's funeral, with weeping and sobbing dwarves all over the place. 
A fairy tale princess. Dwarves. Silence.

I had come to this place for the quality of its art education, and until then, I did not really have a strong preference for one program over the other. However, at that moment I made up my mind. If a fairy tale princess and seven dwarves, more than 70 years old, can silence a bunch of chips-eating high school kids in the 21st century, then I want to be an animator!




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