Sunday, January 19, 2014
MGM production layouts
Heres a great Production pan layout designs were created for backgrounds in scenes, where camera animation was used to create anticipation, or another, dramatic effect. The camera would truck or pan over the finished background from one spot to another, leaving the viewer to visually interpret what was going on, or what was about to happen in the scene. Here are two for Little Quacker, the 1950 Tom & Jerry short, animated by Irv Spence, Ray Patterson, Ken Muse and of course Ed Barge. In this cartoon, Tom steals an egg from a breeding Duck which, hatches when he tries to cook it. Jerry enters the plot to try and save the little ducking from Tom and his hatchett. In this scene Jerry and the duckling are safe in his little hide out behind the wall, and he has grabbed Toms tail through an electric outlet, feeding it to him through the opening of his lair, so that Tom will hack up his own tail, when he plunges down his hatchett.
A little later in this short, the duckling has found its mother and explaines everything to her. Tom is still trying to get his hand son him, of course. After listening to all the bloody details from her ducklings little show and tell, shoe goes like He did??? and turns to Tom. The camera pans over to him. This is right before the father duck comes in, which appears to be a huge, tough bird!
In the 1954 Tom & Jerry short Downhearted Duckling, our little feathered friend returned, but Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna put a little twist one this one. The little Duckling is depressed and cries his heart out thinking hes ugly after seeing a fairy tale book featuring The Ugly Duckling story. The little guy tries to kill himself and after that doesnt work out, he constantly offers himself to Tom to eat. Most of the scenes play out in the yard featuring a grand old tree. In the layout, Toms action is ghosted out on the left.
Also from 1954, Tom & Jerrys little western showdown titled Posse Cat, which is full of hilariously famous gags. In this short Toms isnt getting any dinner until he hes gotten rid of the saucage stealing vermint, meaning Jerry. The following production layouts were designed for a chase scene, where Jerry runs around a corner and pushes a standing lark, which falls against a triangle hanging in a window, at the exact moment that Tom catches him, making him think its dinner time for him as usual. Tom then flies off and throws Jerry aside. The notes on the pan designs clearly read Bob, complete B.G. 1/2 inch above normal 12 field. (Bob was of course, Robert Gentle, twho usually painted the final backgrounds for these shorts at that time). In the other design we can see the triangle is drawn in blue pencil and the comment reads Triangle animates.
By the way, this is the short that also has that famous scene, where Tom flees from a hail of bullets and afterwards, makes faces at the chef, who was shooting at him, from behind a tree. He then takes a sip of fresh water to celebrate his escape, only to discover hes full of bullet holes. Pretty amazing jokes here, and all visual!
Okay, here are two more from that magical year, 1954. Neapolitan Mouse and Touché Pussy Cat, the prequel to Academy Award winning The Two Mouseketeers from 1952 (Touché also won a nomination for Best Animated Short, but didn t fetch the prize).
In Neapolitan Mouse, Tom and Jerry visit Italy.While Tom is chasing Jerry across town, Jerry gets help from an Italian mouse, who even isnt affraid to take on some stray dogs who get into the action as well. On the Pan design, you can clearly see Tom as hes squashed while slamming into the wall (right). The dog who tackled him, is leaning onto the middle wall. Afterwards, hell be usin Tom to make music, playing him like an accordian after hes squashed. The same dog is tied with his own ears on the left, while hes attacked by the avnging Italian Mouse afterwards. Dont see it? Check the frames from the short below! Backgrounds were painted by John Didrik Johnsen.
Below is the pan layout background design for a scene from Touché Pussy Cat, the first T&J short produced in CinemaScope (the 2.66:1 ratio used between 1953 and 1967). Although Tom & Jerry shorts are normally without dialogues, this one, like Neapolitan Mouse (which was theatrically released two months earlier, in October that year) features some foreign dialogues, (french this time, the other one had Italian dialogues). In the short, Jerry is a mouseketeer in Paris, having a hard time teaching his skills to the younger, adolescent mouse Tuffy. On the right you can clearly see Tom, after Jerry has messed up his costume, revealing his underwear, a reworking of the same joke from Two Mousketeers.
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