>>150324558
You mention Eric Larson. He's one of the sadder stories, I think.
He was always the one animators went to when they needed help. A master of teaching not just draftsmanship, but action, timing, and characterization. After unionization, he's the one who soothed tensions and found common ground. For one reason or another, others sometimes got screen credit for his amazing animated sequences, but he never made a ruckus about it. At least he got credit for his animation of Cinderella, the intricate 3D "second star to the right" flying scene in Peter Pan, Peg from Lady & the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, etc.
After the studio axed a lot of its animation talent, they finally brought in 4 new people in 1971, including bringing back Don Bluth, and nobody but Larson wanted to teach them anything. He was so good at it, they put him in charge of talent search and training. Only a tiny number of people were good enough for him to give a 30-day paid tryout under his tutelage. Only a tiny number of those "with exceptional promise," like Glen Keane, got offered a full-time job.
"We're looking at the action on the screen," Larson said, "at the motion, not how well they draw the character. Do they have a statement to make? Do they stage it well so it gets across? Do we get a lift out of what we see?" "After you were tutored long enough by Eric," says Glen Keane, "you were pushed out of the nest so you could fly. Your little chicken wings carried you enough and you landed with one of the other guys, Frank or Ollie or Milt."
25 new artists were hired between 1970 and 1977, and there was a three-way tension between the old guard, the Cal Arts trainees, and Don Bluth's cadre of former trainees now working as animators. It all came to a head when one of Larson's pet projects was taken away without warning and given to Bluth....
