Worker Blog - Worker Studio News on Animation, Film, Events, and Productions in Colorado

12/18/2013

Worker Studio's Michael Hemschoot: Top 5 Animated Performances - Pick #4

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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 #4 in a series of posts.

#4 Professor Ratigan - Disney's The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

Glen Keane's Animation Art of Ratigan from Disney's Great Mouse Detective

As the clip above from the Making of The Great Mouse Detective proclaims: there's nothing quite as memorable as a Disney villian. This is certainly true in the gears of inspiration that turn the creative mind of Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot. We see from his picks in Bill Tytla's Chernabog in Fantasia and Stromboli in Pinocchio, to Milt Kahl's Shere Khan in The Jungle Book and now Glen Keane's Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective, it's the villains that rule the day.

Ratigan's personality fills the frame as a wolf in sheep's clothing... or rather a rat disguised as a mouse. Glen Keane crafted Ratigan's brilliant performance as a freelancer at Disney, well before he was staffed for the new dawn of Animated Features such as Little Mermaid, and as supervising animator on Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin.