Tarzan test

I thought that for a change I would post some animation.

And talk a bit of history too.

This is a test I did almost 10 years ago at (now closed)
"Walt Disney Feature Animation France "studio.
After hunchback, all clean-up guys who wanted to become
animator had to do a test. So I did it and passed it succesfully...
but as it was unexepected :) production asked me to stay
at clean-up one more year...I accepted and never regreted
it because after a year doing clean-up on the Hercules dude
I finaly started my animation training at the begening
of Tarzan. The production was slow to start, so animators
where doing testing on the character. As a trainy I choosed
to animate on a piece of CG background used for what was
called back then, the spectacular, incredible and amazing
"Glen Keane's surfing test" It still makes me chill when I see it.

So here I am with my poor anatomy knowledge and 1 animation
done since I had left Gobelin school 4 years before ... my
knee were shaking but I jumped into it with the ferm intention
to improve. So day after day I worked on it like a machine and back
home in the evening I went on and on sketching up to a level of saturation.

Finaly after 2 crazy month and with The help of my Mentor (P :)
I was approaching something I was happy with, so we decided
to show it to Glen Keane ... knee shaking once again...
He watched the scene 2 or 3 times and stopped the test, pressing
the space bar of the computer keyboard, on the 1 and only drawing
I didn't do..."I like this drawing he said", a pearle of sweat
slided on the side of my face... "how did he do that" I whispered"
then he said " Tarzan is using the same arm to do
everything" ...."oh nooooooo that's true" I thought :)
He asked me to adjust the hair and change the last movement
(he had the feeling that Tarzan would die after jumping like this)
I did adjust the hair but I did'nt touch the last movement,
I was too tired and I liked this last movement ...
Tarzan will not die, he's made of drawing.

I never had the chance to tie it down the way I wanted,
I could have learn more from it I guess, but a few days
later, I was told that my training had to go on ...
but on production scenes this time... knee shacking faster...

So holidays were over and I started to work on
Tarzan character for real....Thanks to Glen Keane.

Marco


(little cross you see on the test are the markers to repeg
xerox of every BG frame ... generaly you work with 1 Bg here
there's 100 ...At first you use them all, then you realize
its a nightmare, so you take 1 every 8 or 16 frame :)

this material is © Disney