I’m not an animator. Well, I’ve dabbled in it during my university days, building 3D models of ice cream tubs and animating them to fly through mountains and canyons made of ice cream…that was as close as I’ve come to being an animator.
But I love animation. I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember. In my formative years it was the classic Hanna-Barbera toons and the Disney holiday specials, then came the obsession with 80s toons and anime before the gifts of Studio Ghibli were discovered, followed by the magic of Pixar. The Internet also provided a chance to reach into the vault of classic shorts from America’s Golden Age of Animation: gems from studios like Disney, Warner Bros, MGM and the legendary Fleischer Studios.
But in terms of the transformative power of animated storytelling, the classic films of Disney started it all for me. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Dumbo, Pinocchio, Bambi, The Jungle Book, Sword in the Stone, Cinderella…the list goes on.
On 14 April 2008, Ollie Johnston – the last of Disney’s ‘Nine Old Men’ who were the animators responsible for the classic Disney features made from the 1930s to the 1970s – passed away at age 95, and with him goes a part of animation’s soul.
Johnston breathed life into films from Sleeping Beauty onwards. He made Pinocchio’s nose grow when he lied to the Blue Fairy, drew the adventures and terrors of the young Bambi (including the heartbreaking death of Bambi’s mother at the hands of a hunter), and created the exuberant dance of Baloo and Mowgli as they sang The Bare Necessities.
To date, the most treasured book I have on my shelf remains The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, co-authored by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston – lifelong friends, neighbours and colleagues who were perhaps the two most accomplished of the nine ‘Old Men’ and the last to follow the first seven (Thomas passed away in 2004. He was 92).
The book is widely considered to be the definitive bible of modern animation. In it, Frank and Ollie (as they have been affectionately called for so long) documented the history, techniques, and more importantly the spirit and heart of Disney’s Golden Age animators.
I love the book so much it never left my shelf, even as I moved most of my reference and art books to the studio for the guys to use. But on learning of Ollie’s passing, it struck me: what good is a book that captures his life’s work as well as that of other Disney greats if it sits on my boring shelf instead of being in the hands of real animators? So from tomorrow onwards The Illusion of Life will be in the office, and I only hope that it can inspire the talented artists at Scrawl Studios as much as it has inspired a generation of today’s most prolific animators and storytellers.
Frank and Ollie
I’m not an animator, neither are millions of people who have grown up with Disney’s timeless films; who followed a wooden boy into the belly of the whale in search of a conscience and a father; and who cried silently in the theatre as Bambi takes one last, longing look towards the meadow where his mother used to be.
But it doesn’t take an animator to see and feel the emotional truths that Ollie Johnston, and indeed the great Disney animators, bring to their characters. It is a priceless reminder to all of us involved in animation that what we create on screen can and should be as personal and truthful as life itself – even one that is an illusion.
Rest in peace, Ollie. The Nine Old Men are back together again and heaven has just become a happier place.
Watch a moving Tribute To A Disney Legend and read a good remembrance here.
“Ollie was the only one of the Studio animators who was sensitive to character relationships and how they affected story. Back then cartoon characters seldom touched unless they hit each other. But one day Ollie said, ‘You know, the act of two people holding hands communicates in a powerful way.’ And he was right. His warmth made a difference in so many of our characters.”
- Frank Thomas ( 1912-2004 )
“Don’t animate drawings, animate feelings.”
- Ollie Johnston ( 1912-2008 )
