The 13th Marc Davis Animation Celebration - Milt Kahl, - LaughingPlace.com: Disney World, Disneyland and More

The 13th Marc Davis Animation Celebration - Milt Kahl
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Milt Kahl
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Then the audience was treated to a film of an interview with Milt himself, where Milt said he was more of a performer than a draftsman.

Milt said in regards to Disney �Well, he absolutely was a wonderful story teller and he had an ability, I guess all geniuses have this ability, to turn the searchlight of his mind on something��My drawings were always explicit and clean. �.All of these guys think they are the best and I�m no exception. � I don�t think you can be a top notch animator without being a very excellent draftsman�.�


John Pomeroy, Floyd Norman, Charles Solomon
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The second panel included the following: Minkyu Lee- a promising young animation student from Cal Arts, who is working on The Princess and the Frog, Brad Bird, John Musker and Ron Clements- prominent animation co-directors and writers, John Pomeroy- prominent animator and talented sculptor, Floyd Norman- an apprentice/assistant to Milt Kahl/ Disney Legend and Charles Solomon. Floyd Norman said �One we were just looking at... Madame Mim, Sword and the Stone, and I think the reason this sticks with me so much is because Milt was having such a good time animating that character. Milt didn�t usually have a good time when he was working. When he was doing Mim, he was having a ball and that�s why that sticks with me. �Milt kept his door open a lot and that meant when I walked up and down the hallway, I would look in his office and Milt wouldn�t be drawing. He would be sitting there. And then a half hour would go by and I would walk back down the hall and Milt would be sitting there. And then another hour would go by and I would walk by Milt�s office and he would be sitting there�And I thought is this guy going to draw. Well eventually Milt would pick up his pencil and start drawing but I think that scene had already been animated in his head I think he really thought things through and that�s what I have learned from Milt, that before I pick up the pencil, I want to know where I�m going and I�ll take some time and think about it, what I want to draw before I start drawing. �


Brad Bird, John Musker, Ron Clements
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John Pomeroy said �Milt, I guess, took a liking to me�He was always very kind to me, always very generous. And I remember one time I took him a drawing of Tigger that I was struggling over on one of my first scenes I did of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too. And it was just a little tiny 2 � inch head of Tigger and he went over it three and four times and uttered his usual expletives and finally just said 'Oh I like what you got better.' It was like the heavens opened and the choirs sang. It's like Milt, you actually liked it. Yeah, I liked what you got better and you should go with that. And it was like my Gosh and never did we duplicate it again. But I mean every once in awhile he would be very very generous with other animators work, if he thought they were putting their best foot forward in their drawing��


Chinese Cal Arts Student, who is working on The Princess and the Frog, Brad Bird, John Musker
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Ron Clements commented: �There were two sides of Milt�.I have described him sometimes as the Simon Cowell of animation. Milt was blunt and he was honest �..I actually wanted to work in Milt�s unit�But I was working on a personal test on Cruella de Ville and I really wanted to just have some contact with Milt�I was nervous and scared and took my test and showed it to Milt and he ran it on the moviola a couple of times and he looked at it and he was nice. He did me some drawings and he was very encouraging. And it wasn�t nearly as bad as I thought it would be��