'Walt Stanchfield - Drawn To Life' with Don Hahn event 6/10

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Walt Stanchfield's Drawn To Life Event

June 03, 2009

Walt Stanchfield's Drawn To Life Event
Woodbury University - Burbank, California, USA
June 10, 2009

Join Don Hahn and a panel of distinguished guests for a discussion Walt Stanchfield's DRAWN TO LIFE series.

DRAWN TO LIFE is a two volume collection of the legendary lectures from long-time Disney animator Walt Stanchfield. Edited by Don Hahn, all of Walt Stanchfield's handout notes and lectures have been assembled into a two volume collection titled, DRAWN TO LIFE - 20 GOLDEN YEARS OF DISNEY MASTER CLASSES.

Walt was an animator, trainer, mentor and coach for decades at Disney and helped breathe life into the new golden age of animation with his teachings. He influenced such talented artists as Tim Burton, Brad Bird, John Musker, Glen Keane, Andreas Deja and John Lasseter.

Following the panel discussion, Hahn will sign copies of DRAWN TO LIFE. A limited number of copies of this two volume collection will be available for purchase at the event.

Reservations are not required for this program.

Admission is free.

Parking is free and available on the Woodbury University campus.

Don Hahn's Site

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Walt Stanchfield started at the Charles Mintz Animation Studio in 1937. He also worked for 2 years at the Walter Lantz Animation Studio. In 1948, he went to work for the Walt Disney Animation Studio and with the exception of 4 short retirements, has worked there ever since.

Walt worked on every full-length cartoon feature between The Adventures of Ichabod Crane and Mr. Toad (1949) and The Great Mouse Detective (1986). About half of that time was spent as a Clean-up artist and half as an Animator. From then until the present, he has been active in a teaching capacity, including 3 trips to the Walt Disney Feature Animation studio in Florida, to teach some drawing classes and 1 trip to London to help on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as a hands-on animation consultant and a conductor of drawing classes.

When not involved in studio matters, Walt is a painter of landscapes, seascapes, still-lifes, and people. He writes poetry and spends an inordinate amount of time at the piano–that is, between caring for his vegetable garden and playing tennis.

Was this a life, or what?!

Walt appeared in one of those “Tricks of the Trade” shows they did for the Disneyland TV show in the Fifties, one of those behind the scenes looks at the Disney animation studio. Only they couldn’t call him “Walt” in the footage. He told us why. He was informed by the show’s producer, “As far as the public goes, there’s only one Walt at this studio, and his name is ‘Disney’!”

Well, it was lucky for me, and for many other artists, that there were OTHER Walts at the studio and particularly Walt Stanchfield. As Dan Haskett’s great caricature illustrates he was the teacher, tutor, and mentor to many of us back in the Seventies, our very own Obi Walt Kenobi, showing his charges how to use the “force” of squash and stretch and expressive gesture drawing that was incisive and bold as a laser sword.

When some of his contemporaries had become jaded or dulled by being kept on the fringes by those in power, Walt brimmed with youthful enthusiasm. He had a spark. He was restless, endlessly inquisitive. His classes taught me to look closer but not to miss the big picture.

Some of my most prized possessions are the Walt sketchbooks that were sold after his death. Whether painting with watercolors or coffee, whether drawing with a gnarly pencil, or a grease pencil, or a stick dipped in mud, Walt reached out to the world and put down his feelings about it in sketches so lively, so well observed, so Walt.

When they were looking for animators to help out with the human characters on Fox and the Hound, Walt, who had seen some of my drawings in the in-house caricature show, stuck his neck out for me and told the Directors that “he could draw his ***.” I don’t really know how valid that comment was, but I still cherish it as a gift from a good hearted and talented artist, mentor, and role model.

-John Musker, Director 'The Little Mermaid, 'Aladdin', 'The Princess and the Frog'

[Coheteboy]

Ooohh! is there a cost to attend?

[ALIASd]

Reservations are not required for this program.

Admission is free.

Parking is free and available on the Woodbury University campus.

[Coheteboy]

I'm trying to find a start time on the site but can't find it.

[ALIASd]

It's probably 7:30 not unlike 'TLM' event, which was closer to 8PM due to start-time confusion and reminiscing.

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Join Don Hahn and a panel of distinguished guests for a discussion of Walt Stanchfield’s Drawn to Life series at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10 at Woodbury University’s Fletcher Jones Foundation Auditorium. The event is sponsored by ASIFA. Woodbury regularly hosts ASIFA symposia that bring animation luminaries to campus.

Woodbury - View Content

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Don Hahn's scheduled panel guests to include*:

Andreas Deja, Dave Pimentel, Dave Pruiksma and Ruben Procopio

*THE ART OF DAVE PIMENTEL: DRAWN TO LIFE lecture at Woodbury University

[ALIASd]

What a grand time it was!

Former Disney animator and current DreamWorks story artist and teacher Dave Pimentel has a nice follow=up on last night's event on his site:
THE ART OF DAVE PIMENTEL: DRAWN TO LIFE lecture at Woodbury University
He teaches every other week at DWA and hopefully in the fall at CalArts. Very cool guy.

What a genuine pleasure it was to be able to attend this event. Don Hahn outdid himself both with his visual presentation (due to late night production) and his natural hosting ability. His photos of Mr. Stanchfield at work in London during the production of 'Roger Rabbit' were priceless, particularly the shots of him taking over for the life-drawing model attempting Jessica-esque poses!

Andreas Deja continues to dazzle, his seemingly boundless enthusiasm for his craft is simply so inspiring. Some of his contributions to last night's proceedings can be found here:
'The Princess and The Frog'

Dave Pruiksma was a treat and a half, seems like his classes would of great value. I think the studio is better off with him onsite, an interesting and nice guy.
http://www.pruiksma.com/

I've wanted to meet Ruben Procopio for years, such a talented guy. He does genius work, check it out at:
http://maskedavengerstudios.blogspot.com/

i'm in love with his Rocketeer sculpt! He told me he'll be at ComicCon so watch out for him!

I feel so sad not to have ever experienced one of Mr. Stanchfield's classes, last night's celebration of life and work were terrific glimpses into them though. His students are living testaments to his influence on screen, on the page and off. As are Mr. Hahn's collections, Drawn To Life Volume 1 and 2. What a debt Walt Disney Animation owes Walt Stanchfield. A Disney Legend in waiting.

[Coheteboy]

I wish I made it. I got drunk off cheap wine instead.


I'm also low on spending money right now so getting those volumes would have set me back a bit.

[ALIASd]

That can be fun too!

Wish you could have made it though, unbelievable that an event of this quality had a free admission. The books will be around for a long time but these are truly unique events, I think you really would've enjoyed it.

The presentation was one thing, the artwork that Hahn chose to showcase was thrilling and thoroughly entertaining as well. Plus the opportunity to meet and chat with the people that have brought us everything spanning from 'The Fox and the Hound', 'The Black Cauldron','The Great Mouse Detective', 'The Little Mermaid', 'The Lion King', 'Beauty and the Beast', 'Mulan', 'Tarzan' and on and on through 'The Princess and the Frog' and beyond is always a privilege and a treat.

I've found that they really enjoy talking about so many past and current projects, especially while signing different pieces of memorabilia. They are all so very proud and wonderfully humble as well about their contributions to the studio's history. Andreas Deja signed some of 'The Princess and the Frog' mini-poster El Capitan handouts for me. He hadn't even seen them or heard yet about the film's special engagement screening at the studio. It was fun seeing his surprise! Plus he didn't seem to mind me harping on him again about compiling a Milt Kahl book, he says it will come, sometime.

Plus talk about cheap wine, on my way home I could swear that I saw Pete Docter and a very cute guy crossing San Fernando Road in downtown Burbank and walk into the Starbucks. Go figure.

See ya next time!