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Tuesday, March 21st, 2023

Animation: Clair Weeks’ Goodbye Book 1952

A couple of years back, we had a visit from the family of Clair Weeks. They brought along several portfolios full of beautiful drawings, mostly from Bambi that they plan to sell. Over the next few weeks, they will be allowing us to digitize the material for inclusion in our database. They also promise to write a Biopedia Page for Weeks. Here is the "Readers’ Digest version" of Weeks’ career…

A missionary’s son, Clair Weeks was born in 1912 in India. He lived there until the early 1930s, when he relocated to America. In 1936, he joined the staff of the Walt Disney Studio and set to work as an assistant on Snow White. He went on to assist Marc Davis on Bambi, CInderella and Peter Pan, taking a brief break from animation to serve in the military during WW2.

In the early 50s, Weeks left the studio travel the world. He eventually settled in Bombay, India, where he headed up a government owned studio that produced animated shorts. Weeks’ impact on Indian animation was immense. The people he trained were the pioneers who established the Indian animation industry.

The treasure I’m presenting today dates to August of 1952… It’s the scrapbook given to Weeks upon his departure from Disney. I won’t spoil the fun by telling you what’s in it. Click on the images and prepare to be amazed! (Thanks to Hans Perk for the identifications!)

Members of the “9 Old Men”: Marc Davis (Weeks was his assistant), Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas, Milt Kahl, Eric Larson / Assistant Animators: Bob McCrea, Clarke Mallery, Iwao Takamoto, Julius Svendsen, Bill Eigle (?)

Ben Sharpsteen (Director) / Hazel George (Studio Nurse) / Hal Adelquist (Asst. Director) / Oliver Wallace (Music) / Koneta Roxby (Library) / Bob Gibeaut (Cutting) / Jo Sears (Ink & Paint / Production)

Layout Artists: Lance Nolley, Al Zinnen, Don Griffith, Ken Anderson, Ken O’Connor, Mike Holoboff, MacLaren Stewart, Basil Davidovich, Tom Codrick, Charles Philippi / Background Artists: Jimi Trout, Hugh Hennesy, Ray Huffine, Art Riley, Dick Anthony, Ralph Hulett, Al Dempster, Claude Coats, Art Landy / Art Directors: Thor Putnam, John Hench / Directors: Jack Kinney, Charles “Nick” Nichols, Gerry Geronimi, Wilfred “Jaxon” Jackson / Asst Directors: Bee Selck, Lou Debney, Toby Tobelman (?) / Directors’ Secretary: Marie Dasnoit / The Man: Walt Disney / Tom Jekel (?)

Animators: Bob Youngquist, Jack Campbell, Les Clark (9 Old Men), Hugh Fraser, John Lounsbery (9 Old Men), Harry Holt, Art Stevens, George Nicholas / Asst Animators: Walt Stanchfield, Lou Appet, Bob Ogle, Dale Barnhart

Don DaGradi (Art Director)

Animators / Assistants: Dick Lucas / Al Wilson / Jim Steele / Eric Cleworth / Ambrozy Paliwoda / Jerry Hathcock / Charlie “Chuck” Downs / Bob Carlson / Woolie Reitherman (9 Old Men) / Ed Soloman / Wathel Rogers

Bonar Dyer (Personnel) / Mary Flanigan (Notary) / Bunny Venable (Production or Legal)

Mostly Effects Animators: Retta Davidson, Dwight Carlisle, Joe Nunez, Sandy Strother, Dan MacManus, Al Severns, George Rowley, Marion Mahnken, Jack “Buck” Buckley, Frank Onaitis, Ed Parks, Jane Fowler

Ed Aardal (Animator) / Harvey Orr (Print Shop) / Johnny Bond (Head of Clean Up)

Ken Peterson (Animator / Prod. Mgr. / Scheduling) / Andy Engman (Effects Animator / Prod. Mgr.) / Esther “Esta” Haight (Front Office File Room / Western Union) / Anne Meyer (Production?)

Thanks to the family of Clair Weeks for sharing this with us!

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Animation.

Posted in clair weeks, disney | Comments Off on Animation: Clair Weeks’ Goodbye Book 1952

Tuesday, December 13th, 2022

Animation History: Clair Weeks- Pioneer of Indian Animation

Today I am presenting an interesting bit of history from the collection of Disney animator, Clair Weeks along with an exciting update since we last featured this topic. Read on for details…

Clair Weeks was born in India, the son of a Methodist missionary- a source of humor for his co-workers at Disney. (See caricature, right.) He spent 16 years at the Disney Studios, working on Snow White, Bambi and Peter Pan. In 1956, Weeks travelled to Bombay, India on the invitation of Information Films of India to set up and train the country’s first animation studio as part of the American Technical Co-Operation Mission. What started as a one year project expanded into almost a decade of service abroad working for the US Agency for International Development. Weeks toured Southeast Asia and headed up a communitactions office in Katmandu, Nepal. He made films and audio-visual programs that aided in the social development and economic growth of third world countries.

I know very little about Weeks’ work in India, but a scrapbook donated to Animation Resources by his family provides some tantilizing clues. I contacted the chapter of ASIFA in India asking if they had any information on Weeks, and the Vice President of ASIFA-India, Prasad responded…

The studio Weeks helped to train some animators for was the Films Division of India (FDI). The stint of Clair’s there apparently lasted for about 18 months, during which they made a film called The Banyan Deer. I spoke to Rammohan, who was one of the students in 1956, and is generally acknowledged as one of the father figures of Indian animation to get these details. Clair apparently also taught in the late sixties or early seventies at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. One of the students at that point, Nina Sabnani heads the Animation Department there now.

Since this article was last posted, my friend Steve Stanchfield has transferred a rare 16mm film showing Weeks at work at FDI in India. It’s fascinating to see behind the scenes in the earliest days of Indian animation.

Cartoon Division of FDI (FDI/1956)
(Quicktime 7 / 13.8 megs)

Here are some scans from Weeks’ Indian scrapbook. If anyone has any information on the film or the people in the photos, let me know in the comments below and I will add it to this post.

THE BANYAN DEER (1957) STORYBOARD

TREND MAGAZINE ARTICLE

PRODUCTION PHOTOS

19 April, 1958: Sitting: S.L. Badami (Deputy Chief Producer), Ezra Mir (Chief Producer), Clair Weeks (Key Animator Instructor), Dr. B.V. Keskar (Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting), D.L. Kothari (Controller of Administration). Standing behind: G.K. Maharesh (Production Manager), G.K. Gokhale (Animator), S.M. Junnarkar (Editor), G.H. Saraiya (in dark pants, Director)

19 April, 1958: D.L. Kothari, Clair Weeks, Dr. B.V. Keskar, Ezra Mir. Behind: H.R. Doraiswamy (Camera Assistant), S.S. Varma (Animation Cameraman)

Many thanks to the family of Clair Weeks for sharing this important material with us, and thanks to Steve Stanchfield of Thunderbean Animation for transferring the film footage.

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Animation.

Posted in banyan deer, clair weeks, india | Comments Off on Animation History: Clair Weeks- Pioneer of Indian Animation

Thursday, December 8th, 2022

Animation: Dispatch From Disney’s

Here’s a fascinating pamphlet that was part of the Clair Weeks collection. Titled "Dispatch From Disney’s", this 1943 publication was distributed to Disney employees who were serving in the war effort. The first section includes an introduction by Walt, an article on the power of animation to educate by Major Alexander P. de Seversky (author of Victory Through Air Power), a cartoon feature by Roy Williams, and newsy info on Disney artists T. Hee, Freddie Moore, Frank Thomas and Woolie Reitherman.

The last part contains an article from Oliver Wallace describing how he was inspired to write "Der Fuhrer’s Face", some doodles by Roy Williams on life as an Air Raid Warden, a feature on the Disney Studio exercise coach Carl Johnson, news on the South American tour, and detailed information on the Disney wartime training films.