Stories
You can't fit everything into one book,
so here are a few anecdotes about this and that...
THE STING II
One of our projects at Kroyer Films was creating the opening titles for the sequel THE STING II, directed by Jeremy Paul Kagan. The graphics featured a 44-Magnum pistol being pointed at the screen. For reference, I went to the Universal Studios prop department and checked out a replica 44-Magnum, then casually strolled through the backlot, dodging the tour trams, openly brandishing this massive handgun. I think if you did that today you'd be shot by a SWAT team.
NESTLE cocoa
At SPUNGBUGGY in 1976 we did a commercial for NESTLE cocoa that required a live-action product shot of chocolate bars being melted into cocoa. When the shoot ws over I asked what they intended to do with the stack of genuine, pure chocolate bars. The Producer didn't care, so I, being a minimum wage assistant, took them home and stuck them in my freezer. For the next year, if I wanted dessert, I'd just unwrap, and gnaw on, a massive chocolate brick.
CAR TALK
I couldn’t fit it into the book, but I had fun producing one season of an animated TV series called CAR TALK. It was based on the famous NPR show of the same name. Tom Sito directed the episodes, and we flew to Cambridge Massachusetts to meet the legendary stars of the show, Ray and Tom Magliozzi. They were as hilarious in person as they were on the air. Pictured here are me, Tom Sito, Tom Magliozzi, Tom Minton (head writer) and Ray Magliozzi. A lot of Toms!
KOBE BRYANT
When my old friend Glen Keane worked with Kobe Bryant on their short film DEAR BASKETBALL, Kobe invited me and few of Glen’s animator friends to the Lakers’ practice facility to preview the film. Kobe told an amazing story about a shot he made to win a championship. He was falling to his left as he made the shot, and the way he knew to judge the motion came from his days as a kid throwing pebbles at light poles as he road past them on his bike. That’s where he learned to judge momentum of a shot.
THE ECLIPSE
In July of 1991, right in the middle of productiion on FERNGULLY, we learned that there would be a total eclipse of the sun in Mexico City. Our friend and animator Mike Genz was living in Mexico City and convinced me, Tony Fucile, and Doug Frankel to fly down for the day and see the event. We did that, and experienced the moment (with thousands of locals) on the very top of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. Unfortunately it was so cloudy all we saw was darkness!
CIRCLEVISION - NEW YORK CITY!
When Producer Howard Grossman asked me to help produce the pilot for TAXI DOG (my book describes our innovative "virtual production" techniques) he also had the idea of filming footage of New York that could be projected on green screens through the windows of the taxi cab as it drove through the city. Howard fitted a camera truck with a array of cameras so we could capture a 360-view. With me directing, we drove through NY neighborhoods from Harlem to the Battery, down 5th Avenue, Times Square, Central Park, etc. It was a gorgeous Spring day, and I will never forget driving through the whole town and having people wave at us - like they knew they were in the movies!
THE GREATEST GAME
I once read that animators in the 30’s and 40’s were great athletes, but when I came to Disney in 1977 that was not the case. The typical animator was the proverbial non-athletic “geek” who spent most of his time reading comic books and drawing cartoons. Which is why it was odd that we Disney animators decided to form a baseball team to play in the studio league. We lost every game.
The last game of the year was against the best team, a squad made-up of muscular guys who were studio grips, carpenters and backlot crew. They ribbed us mercilessly in warm-ups. But, lo and behold, we animators played the game of lives, scratched out a few hits, made some miraculously uncharacteristic catches, and won the game!!
You have probably seen locker room celebrations after the World Series and Super Bowl, but I don’t think any group celebrated with more joy that we did in the Burbank bar after that game.