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Worker Studio's Chief Creative Officer, Barry Kooser was a background Artist and Supervisor for 11 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, contributing to films such as as The Lion King, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear, among others. He also ventured his painterly eye as a Fine Artist, exhibiting his work in galleries around the country. We're lucky to have this master artist inform Worker Studio's production design. We asked Barry what the Top 5 Production Designs that influenced his career in filmmaking are. As you'll see his influences range from classic Disney films to some of the most gorgeous live action films of the past 30 years. This is #2 in a series of posts.   #2 Bambi - Walt Disney (1942) The story goes that the initial concept art of Disney's Bambi, captured dense woodland settings of New England, yet were busy and complicated, making the readibility of characters difficult. Enter Tyrus Wong, a budding in-betweener at Disney, skilled in Eastern landscape painting. Tyrus so impressed Disney with his ability to blend simplicity within the complex forest settings, his paintings set the entire production design of the film. The staging of the backgrounds is also notable in how they bring focus to the character, without the character dominating the frame; a method familiar to the great Chinese painters. This is demonstrated in the background paintings below. There is much to further explore about Bambi's production design - a good starting place being Hans Bacher's blog Animation Treasures, where you can read about the compared black & white layouts and final oil painted backgrounds above.
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Worker Studio's Founder & CEO, Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot, is also our animation director, or Minister of Motion. We had Ffish pick five brilliant animated performances that influenced him creatively, and he responded with these unforgettable moments from master animators. It is these very animated performances that left an indelible influence on Ffish's youth, setting forth his own career in animation and filmmaking. This is #2 in a series of posts. #2 Stromboli - Disney's Pinocchio (1940) from Animator Bill Tytla It's no coincidence that Bill Tytla's Chernabog in Disney's Fantasia was Ffish's first pick and now we celebrate his second pick with Tytla's animated performance for Stromboli in Pinocchio. A raging storm of emotion, Stromboli is Pinocchio's captor, and one of the most elaborately dimensional villains in any Disney film. His fits of frustration at Pinocchio and his elated greediness erupt on screen with the peppery Italian personality Tytla infused Stromboli with.
The video above is Bill Tytla's original, cleaned-up pencil test for the scene in which Stromboli first shows his true nature to Pinnoccio. It's just a glimpse of the animated performance, but singularly demonstrates how Tytla filled every frame with the life of his characters. Worker Studio's Chief Creative Officer,Barry Kooser was a background Artist and Supervisor for 11 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, contributing to films such as as The Lion King, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear, among others. He also ventured his painterly eye as a Fine Artist, exhibiting his work in galleries around the country. We're lucky to have this master artist inform Worker Studio's production design. We asked Barry what the Top 5 Production Designs that influenced his career in filmmaking are. As you'll see his influences range from classic Disney films to some of the most gorgeous live action films of the past 30 years. This is #1 in a series of posts. 
# 1 Lady and the Tramp - Walt Disney (1955) Lady and the Tramp was the first animated film produced for CinemaScope, giving it a wide screen aesthetic unlike anything seen in animation. This gave the backgrounds a richly detailed feel, along with it's gracious use of painted light to evoke the film's moods. Disney used miniature models of the backgrounds, like the Victorian mansion where Lady lives, and used scaled figurines of the characters for artists to reference an authentic "dog's eye-view" of the surroundings. With producing the film in CinemaScope, the use of close-ups and cuts weren't as necessary for the characters to move in. Since fewer scenes were needed, artists could give loving attention to the backgrounds, filled to the brim with life and detail.
11/13/2013 Worker Studio's Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot: Top 5 Animated Performance Picks - #1Read Now
Worker Studio's Founder & CEO, Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot, is also our animation director, or Minister of Motion. We had Ffish pick five brilliant animated performances that influenced him creatively, and he responded with these unforgettable moments from master animators. It is these very animated performances that left an indelible influence on Ffish's youth, setting forth his own career in animation and filmmaking. This is #1 in a series of posts.
#1 Chernabog - Disney's Fantasia (1940) from Animator Bill Tytla 
Chernabog dominates the final segment of Disney's Fantasia, as the demonic force conducting pure evil, set to Night On Bald Mountain. The character's name, from Slavic, means Black God, and Bill Tytla, could easily be considered a god of animation, creating performances for Grumpy in Snow White, Stromboli in Pinocchio, and Dumbo, among many more.
Aside from perhaps Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerers Apprentice, Chernabog's performance is immediately identified with the power of Fantasia. The image to the left is an original sketch of Chernabog by Bill Tytla, and the video above is a clip of the monstrous being as he cowers to the rising sun. |
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720-515-9510
All original artwork, motion content, and copy on this site is property of Worker Studio LLC, unless otherwise noted.