Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500204
42 KEYFRAME F I N A L N O T E LIVE AND LEARN ON THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF DEPATIE-FRELENG ENTERPRISES (1963-1981), RETIRED TAG MEMBER DAVE BRAIN REMINISCENCES ABOUT MEETING CO-FOUNDER FRIZ FRELENG OVER THE YEARS. When Warner Bros. shut down its animation studio—where Friz Freleng had been the Director of several Oscar-winning shorts— Friz and Dave DePatie started their own studio, producing Pink Panther and The Ant and the Aardvark theatrical short cartoons. They landed an order for two Saturday morning T V series and were staffing up. I think word was being passed along in what was at that time a very small and tight-knit industry because I got hired at DePatie- Freleng on the afternoon of the day I was laid off from Disney. Upon first reporting to work, I was introduced to Dave. It was a quick handshake and a "go get'em." Then, three weeks later, in the men's lavatory, I was standing at a wall urinal mid- elimination when Friz stepped up to the next one. I heard his gruff voice say, "Keep it up." "I'm pretty sure I'm peeing into the drain," I said. "No," he said. "Keep up the good work." I hadn't met Friz yet, but we signed our names on the scenes we worked on. I guess he knew who all the new guys were. Funny way to meet a legend. I hopped from various studios, and about six or seven years later I was a Freelance Animator picking up work from Hanna- Barbera. My director invited me to come along with him to an "old-timers" lunch at a nearby restaurant. Friz was one of the old- timers, and I was seated next to him. Even though I'd worked for him before, this was my first chance to have a one-on-one, and I asked how he got started in animation. He told me he was a single-frame camera operator at a title company in Kansas City, Missouri. His job was to retitle all the dialogue in the silent films. "A lot of the names for things were different in those days in different parts of the country," he explained. "The colloquialisms wouldn't work." I remembered that Walt Disney had worked for a title company in Kansas City, and when I mentioned this, Friz said, "I took over for Walt when he and his brother started their own company." I thought that's how you get your breaks, being ready when a job opens up. It took another six or seven years for me to finally see Friz in action. Director/Designer Corny Cole was giving me my last animation handout on a Flip Wilson Special he was doing for DePatie-Freleng. Friz came by and asked if I wanted to pick up on another show he was directing, The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas. I jumped at the chance. I picked up a dozen scenes, rough animated them from the layout drawings, and turned them in for camera pencil tests. A few days later I was called to the studio to review my work with Friz. The editor showed me the scenes cut together, and I wondered what Friz would think when he arrived. Friz walked in and we ran the footage again. He didn't even have to look at it a few times. He was a guy who'd been in the trenches a lot of years and just knew what to do. He thought for a minute and said, "There's too much right and left in this section. Hold on the opening scene another second after the little bear leaves, then cut to the big hole trap as the bear steps to a stop. Let him lean over and say two or three words before you cut to the down shot of the big bear listening. Go to an up shot of the little bear looking down past camera for the pizza line, then open up three feet so he can turn away to off camera then come back for '… and don't forget the anchovies!'" A few minutes with the old pro and I'd seen him punch up the gag and cut the animation costs by a third. What a lesson that was. It was a far cry from that first meeting with Friz in a men's lavatory decades ago. Animation veteran Dave Brain remembers Friz Freleng by way of an old-fashioned pencil sketch.