Milt Kahl Tribute

Inbetween the busy film/portfolio work there was a really special event that took place---The Milt Kahl Tribute. The night involved a panel discussion featuring both family, friends, and co-workers. In-between the discussions various clips were played---the first theme were animals animated by Milt Kahl and the second half were human characters. Another segment that was particularly eye-opening was a closer look at drawings done by the master himself---hosted by Andreas Deja, it was fascinating and I enjoyed it a lot. It's absolutely amazing how much influence Milt had. He would often go over other animator's drawings and help strengthen poses, designs, attitudes, etc. His range of talent is staggering--before the event, I didn't know exactly how much influence Milt Kahl had on just about everything at Disney, and by the end of Deja's lecture, I was floored. Anyways, I felt extremely lucky to have been able to attend the event. Here are a couple scenes that were shown:

These first 3 show Milt Kahl's ability to take the same animal(a tiger) and translate the animal in a variety of ways:



The tiger in this short. From 2:30 until about the 6 minute mark was all we watched.




We watched the segment from when Tigger first pounces on Pooh up until he scares himself under the table.




And of course, Shere Khan the tiger. His scene starts around 2:35.


An example of an animal that he helped flesh-out was Bambi:

Development sketches by Marc Davis.

To this design.

It would be a shame to not include some of the humans that Milt Kahl animated. Here are a couple other clips:

He helped drastically change Pinocchio's design from the original:

To the now well-known design that was officially used. One scene that has always stuck out to me is the part when Pinocchio starts turning into a donkey(from 3:08 until 3:20)--absolutely beautiful. And we were treated to seeing the drawings that Milt drew for this scene.


Naturally couldn't end without showing a Medusa clip. Another really amazing scene:

Watched from the beginning until 1:30. Andreas shared thumbnails, rejected drawings, and the rough animation before showing the final, colored version. Very eye-opening and these were among many other clips shared along with the very entertaining discussions between the panelists. Anyways, just want to post about this event before too long---now off to class!