Monday, March 12, 2012

ALADDIN THE MAKING OF AN ANIMATED FILM (1992, John Culhane)



John Culhane, Aladdin The Making of an Animated Film, New York, Hyperion, 1992

JPEG / 43 MB / 123 pp / ENG / 1562828924 / 156282757X / 9781562827571

What we have here is a book on one of the milestones of Disney Reinassance, the multiple awarded film Aladdin (1992, Clements-Musker, Disney). It has a peculiar organization: "Each chapter is devoted to a particular aspect of animation as illustrated by a character" (So we get to see each of this departments for separate, one character for each department..., frankly thats quite stupid; e.g.: to ilustrate the Layout he chooses Abu!)

Story: The changes and variations over the original folk-tale. The exclusion of the "mother of Al" character. The biggest theme: freedom. The meaning of Aladdin "just be yourself". Jasmine as an independent-minded woman (almost like an animated feminist, really). Most of the coments included are by Clements and Musker.
Design: There's a detailed description of the work made by Eric Goldberg (great animator; in this film a designer); there's no mention at all of Glen Keane here... at least he got his own chapter (animation)
Direction: In this chapter we have a rather messy biographical aproach to Ron Clements and John Musker.
Sound: "You start from the story, you start from the characters, and where the plot goes. You need to have a number that expresses what the character wants" Alan Menken (Music Composer).
Animation: An interesting summary of Glen keane's career. And a shocking discovery for me: Acording to Keane the major influence for Al was... TOM CRUISE!!! in Top Gun (the crew watch the film over and over) This book is filled with memorable quotes, interesting anecdotes, an valuable lessons, like "Think in terms of movement: not one drawing at a time." G.Keane


"Ten thousand years will give you such a crick in the neck!"




Do you want to read this book? You could follow this link...

1 comment: