Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1475662
SPRING 2022 29 D E PA R T M E N T craving for honey who leapt effortlessly from the pages of A.A. Milne into an animated franchise. Milne's books were charmingly illustrated by E.H. Shepard, but when they got to work on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977), the team of animators forever transformed the look of Pooh Bear, Piglet, Tigger, and all the friends of the Hundred Acre Wood. The Many Adventures creators even added a new character, the whistly- voiced Gopher who introduced himself with the oh-so-meta line, "I'm not in the book, you know." Long-time Disney animator Burny Mattinson worked on both the 1974 short, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, and on The Many Adventures. Known as "the Pooh guru," he came back to the world of Pooh for the 2011 feature Winnie the Pooh. Among other contributions, Mattinson, who is credited as a Story Supervisor, developed the plot of the menacing The Backson which Pooh and friends believe has captured Christopher Robin. "The two directors came to me and said, 'Will you look at Milne's books and come up with some ideas for a feature,'" says Mattinson. "I just looked at what Milne had done, and I illustrated what I saw." For other additions, the Winnie the Pooh team brought Lorelay Bové into the "Poohniverse" to work on a particularly sweet sequence that did not originate from any of the Milne books, but one that has become part of Pooh lore. Having worked most recently as an Associate Production Designer on Encanto, she helped create the oceans of honey in which Pooh frolics during the "Everything Is Honey" musical dream sequence. "They wanted to push the characters, but also make sure that they were in line with the other movies that were done back in the day," says Bové. The sequence worked because it developed the character, "showing the fantasy of indulgence and how hard it is for Pooh to say no." above: Color keys by Lorelay Bové depart from the books' story lines while maintaining their spirit. the silhouette and making it work from different angles?" says Brown. " We eventually got to a point where we felt pretty good with the marriage of CG and two-dimensional line texture vibe." For the Apple T V+ series Harriet the Spy, the team at Titmouse faced its biggest hurdle less with the kids, and instead with the creation of Ole Golly, Harriet's gruff nanny. The 1964 middle grade classic was written and illustrated by Louise Fitzhugh. Background and Character Designer Yves Menshikova conducted extensive research into the look of the period. In their first pass, they drafted Ole Golly as a Mary Poppins figure. But their initial renderings were sent back with instructions to make the character frumpier and more utilitarian. Make her look more like Anjelica Huston. "I was thinking a lot about the '60s and New York," Menshikova says, explaining that they looked at New Yorker covers and specific illustrative styles that felt like pen and ink on paper. Ole Golly was toned down into a less elegant and more dependable figure, "very no-nonsense," says Menshikova. "She took quite a few passes to get right, and eventually [Character Designer] Jacob Ospa nailed her final look." Ospa, also a Storyboard Supervisor, Animation Retakes Director, and designated "Ole Golly cracker," had his own adapting challenges on Harriet. "I gravitate toward more exaggerated, cartoonier character designs, whereas the look we were going for was more innocent and naïve, like what you would find in an actual childhood book," he says. "I remember I had to design some dogs, and at times my dogs had too much anatomy in them." However an adaptation from book to screen is approached, from replicating the original to expressing full creative freedom, the artists involved tend to have one common goal: When the story hits the screen, is should capture " the spirit of the book." Winnie the Pooh image courtesy of Walt Disney Animation Studios opposite page: The new on-screen rendition of Harriet the Spy keeps the storybook quality of the original illustrations (bottom right) by the book's author, Louise Fitzhugh. SPRING 2022 29 ›