Perri: A One-of-a-Kind Disney Adventure

        Our adventure begins with Austrian author, Felix Salten, who penned the 1928 book, Bambi, A Life in the Woods, which Walt Disney adapted into an animated classic in 1942.  Bambi was not Salten's only venture into the realm of the deer prince's woods.  Two subsequent books followed:  Perri:  The Youth of a Squirrel (1938) and Bambi's Children (1939).  Perri introduces us to a female red squirrel of the same name, her mate Porro, and the trials and tribulations they experience together in their woodland home.  

        Walt Disney's connection to Salten's first installment, Bambi, traces back to the early 1930's.  According to Disney biographer, Neal Gabler, Disney was first introduced to the story by M. Lincoln Schuster of the Simon & Schuster publishing house.  Schuster knew at once that Walt Disney was the one destined to adapt Salten's story into an animated film.  Disney passed, however, as he knew his studio animators were not ready to undertake such a monumental project.  This, in the end, would prove wise on his part.

        In the meantime, MGM director, Sydney Franklin, was interested in making Bambi into a live action film, and obtained the rights to the story in 1933.  He went as far as to cast voices for the animals, but in time realized he did not have the means necessary to do the film justice.  Franklin, like Schuster, knew it was a job for the Walt Disney Studio.  Throughout the 30's, Disney's artists had honed their skills to a degree that led to the success of a number of animated shorts and the culmination of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937.  Disney was ready to work with Franklin and decided to put Bambi into production. The rights to Salten's Bambi were obtained by Disney in April of 1937 and in time Perri:  The Youth of a Squirrel and Bambi's Children as well.  Where Bambi is concerned, the rest is history, but not so for Perri.

        When the United States joined the war effort in December of 1941, so did the Walt Disney Studio.  Disney's animation factory's energy was used to crank out war-related educational and training films for the military and public. Any major animated projects pinned for production in the mid-40's were ceased until the conclusion of World War II in late 1945.  It was then that Disney's creative spark was reignited and used to get the Studio back on track.  It was not a smooth transition, but the spirit and determination of Walt Disney's imagination prevailed.  The production of new animated films began in earnest, along with Disney's desire to take the Studio to new heights.  It was in 1946 that Walt Disney came upon a whole new idea in film making that would eventually evolve into Disney's award-winning True-Life Adventures.  According to Disney historian, Jim Fanning:

The Oscar-adorned True-Life Adventures began when Walt attended a travel lecture by Alfred and Elma Milotte in 1946. Fascinated with the Alaskan wildlife footage shot by this husband-and-wife team of nature photographers, he enlisted the Milottes to capture more of the unspoiled Alaskan wilderness on film. While others failed to find anything of much interest in the reels and reels of film the Milottes shipped back to the Studio, Walt saw the potential for spellbinding screen entertainment in their footage…

        Seal Island (1948) would be the first nature documentary in Walt Disney's True-Life Adventure series.  Twelve more in this series would follow, including:  Beaver Valley (1950), The Living Desert (1953), The Vanishing Prairie (1954), and The African Lion (1955).  It's important to understand that a film like Seal Island had never been done before.  In time, however, these nature films began to feel repetitive in theme and nature.  Disney biographer, Michael Barrier wrote, "Although Disney made three more True-Life features [after The African Lion], this was not an avenue that he could pursue very far, and so he began to turn toward…fiction films with real animals."  Disney's nephew, Roy E. Disney, in an interview with Les Perkins said, "We all wanted to evolve beyond this kind of formulaic place that we were in.  That was why Perri, among other things, was an attempt to broaden the scope of what we could do with this kind of storytelling."

        The story of Perri provided Walt Disney with the material he needed to take his True-Life films in a whole new direction.  Rather than showing the audience the wonders of nature in documentary form, Disney's Perri would consist of footage from nature edited it in a way to match a screenplay very loosely based on Salten's original story.  Co-director of the film, N. Paul Kenworthy, Jr., who had proven his worth as nature photographer on previous True-Life Adventures, said, "Walt always had Perri in mind, but didn’t come to grips with it, how to attack it.  Then he found out that I liked doing story material with wild life…and that’s how we got started on this True-Life Fantasy called Perri."

        Walt Disney said of Perri:  

It’s a very unusual story; different from anything we’ve ever done.  And to bring it to the screen we wanted to create something entirely new in motion pictures.  We would combine the real and the unreal.  Nature’s truth with the fantasy of fiction.  In short:  create a True-Life Fantasy.

        It's difficult to determine when production on Perri officially began without access to the Disney Archives, but story notes by co-director Ralph Wright made available to the public go back as early as July 17, 1953 as seen in the following image:

        "Ralph Wright was a very big help on the film," shared co-director N. Paul Kenworthy, Jr.  "He was the writer of the film aspects.”  It was Wright's contributions to the film's story, along with storyboarding, that earned him a directing credit with Kenworthy.  The following images are of Ralph Wright himself followed by storyboard art that he did for Perri:

Ralph Wright-

writer, storyboard artist, and lyricist on Perri

Samples of Ralph Wright's Perri storyboard art

        Alongside Ralph Wright in the story department was producer Winston Hibler, known especially as "the voice" of the True-Life nature series.  Hibler had worked at the Walt Disney Studio since the War years, and was chosen by Walt Disney himself to be the narrator of the nature films.  His family shared in a Disney documentary that Hibler refused to take payment for being the narrator of the films, and felt that his various production contributions were sufficient.  To add to the many hats that Hibler wore around the Studio, he was a storyman and dialogue director on classic animated films such as:  Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953).  

Winston Hibler - 

writer, producer, lyricist, and narrator on Perri

        Apart from fleshing out the story elements of this first True-Life Fantasy, another major task was enlisting individuals to go out into the field to capture animals in their element.  To head up the camera crew was nature photographer N. Paul Kenworthy, Jr.  The other photographers on his team consisted of:  Joel Colman, Walter Perkins, William Ratcliffe, James R. Simon, John P. Hermann, David Meyer, Warren E. Garst, Roy Edward Disney, and Hugh Wilmar.

Co-director and photographer N. Paul Kenworthy, Jr. (left) 

and photographer Joel Colman (right)

Photographer Walter Perkins on a cable-car system constructed during production

Photographer William Ratcliffe preparing a camera for filming

A young Roy E. Disney

        Capturing animals live in their natural environment was critical to the success of Disney's nature films, and Perri was no exception.  Filming locations took place in the Uinta National Forest (now merged with the Wasatch-Cache National Forest) out of north central Utah in the summers and Jackson Hole, Wyoming in the winters.  According to Walt Disney in late 1957 (after Perri was already released in theaters):  "There were three or four units working…We spent three different summers and parts of two winters to make the picture.  Just last summer we went back for filling in.”  From Disney's statement, it can be surmised that filming on Perri began near the summer of 1954 into the summer of 1956.  To further support this conclusion, this interesting ad appeared in an Ogden, Utah newspaper on May 24, 1954:

  

        The ad's reference to a certain "Utah...company...doing a nature film for a Hollywood movie cartoon studio" under the name of Wasatch Enterprises was quite amusing to this author.  According to animal trainer and background painter, Boyd Shaffer, in an interview with Disney historians Jim Korkis and Didier Ghez, the Studio created this sub-company to ward off unwanted attention drawn by the Disney name during the production of Perri (Wasatch refers to the mountain range of the same name located in the Uinta National Forest).  Disney's Wasatch Enterprises was located on 5280 South Main Street in the Salt Lake Valley of Murray, Utah according to McKayla Herron of the Research Center of the Utah State Archives.

        But, what about the need for tame pine squirrels?  Well, it may come as a disappointment to admirers of Perri, but the film's star was many squirrels according to Roy E. Disney.  It became quite apparent to the camera crew that filming wild pine squirrels exclusively would prove quite difficult.  As a result, according to co-director Kenworthy, initial shooting of squirrels was delayed for months.  So, there was a desperate need to acquire pine squirrels that were - or could become - accustomed to human contact.  "In the course of shooting Perri," Kenworthy shared with Les Perkins, "in order to raise squirrels happily…we had people assigned to raise the baby animals and feed them with eyedroppers and take care of them…”  To ensure that squirrel footage could be obtained down the road, Kenworthy knew that a controlled setting was critical.  "I had to find a large building that I could put a forest in and I decided on Salt Lake City…because it was fairly close to the Wasatch Mountains, and…easily accessible from Los Angeles," shared Kenworthy.  The building used was an abandoned smelter plant out of Murray, Utah.  Comparable to the size of a sound stage, many sets were constructed to accommodate the various settings included in the film's screenplay.  Art director, Art Sewell, played an important role in designing the interior sets, right down to the creation of faux leaves on trees.       

        While the photography of squirrels was delayed due to taming,  the filming of other animals that appear as side stories in the film commenced in nature.  A beaver pond centralized in Perri's forest was constructed to serve as a departure from Perri's brushes with death throughout the film.  Other animals used for filming included families of martens, skunks, wildcats, and foxes.  It was in the Utah wild that these animals were filmed, along with real footage featuring the death of animals; such as a marten killing a squirrel.  To capture these suspenseful scenes, controlled settings were sometimes utilized.  As Roy E. Disney shared in a 1982 Tampa Bay Times article:

Well you just aren’t going to go out into the woods and set up a camera and wait for the squirrel to come…So what you do is you create a set, in effect, in nature.  You just sort of fence off a part of the forest and you put some squirrels in there, and whatever other animals they are to interact with, and see what they do...

        It's easy to surmise that squirrels during the course of shooting in these controlled settings were killed by their natural predators, and that is true.  One of the scenes in the film involves the villainous marten killing a squirrel portraying Perri's heroic father.  This use of animals for the sake of capturing footage is an unsettling fact certainly classifiable as animal cruelty by today's standards.   

        The photography of the animals in the film - especially the squirrels - was extremely difficult given the camera equipment utilized, which would be considered primitive by today's standards.  Not only were the cameras, tripods, and various other equipment bulky, but extremely heavy to haul around in nature.  According to Roy E. Disney:  “We shot 250,000 feet of 16-mm film over a period of...years, to get a 2,000-foot movie.”  Disney continues:  ”Part of the reason we shot so much footage was that probably two-thirds of what we ever shot was out of focus.”  The cameras at the time could only shoot off so much film before it was time to stop and reload.  One can imagine how much film was shot before usable footage of animals in nature was captured.  Many innovations in photography were made by N. Paul Kenworthy, Jr. himself given his expertise in camera technology of the time.  Many of these innovations were created in house at the Walt Disney Studio.  Problems with focus, zooming, and film exposure was just the tip of the iceberg.  The filming of squirrels in general was no easy task.  “…Squirrels are very apt to move around pretty fast, and be totally out of focus in one second flat…,” shared Roy E. Disney.  What eventually made filming on Perri a bit easier was the availability of a 16-mm Arriflex camera in the U.S. during production.  This camera allowed the photographer to look through a lens while filming, which made it easier to keep focus on a moving animal. 

The camera crew in action while filming Perri

        Part of the process of taming squirrels was training them to become accustomed to men working with all of this bulky camera equipment.  A particular scene in Perri involves Perri's mate, Porro, in an underground den where he stores pine cones.  In order to capture footage of Porro in an underground environment, certain measures had to be taken to ensure the squirrel was relaxed.  Winston Hibler shared in a 1973 interview with Disney biographer, Bob Thomas:

…in talking about the underground deal in the making of Perri the squirrel…we built the burrow and we put glass in front of the burrow, on the cut-away of the burrow, so the camera could see it, and put a black curtain over that…Then we exposed the black a little every day until he [the squirrel] became used to it and…[the] lights.  Well, he could have cared less.  In two days’ time, he didn’t care about the lights and the camera…we finally took the glass away.  And he would come and go and get his nuts and make his little nest and we filmed all of that…It was amazing.

Preparing Porro's underground burrow for filming 

        The script called for a forest fire in the film, but naturally the crew didn't want to put the forest at risk to achieve such a scene.  As luck would have it, however, mother nature intervened and gave the crew the footage they needed.  Roy E. Disney shared

...it happened that a big lightning storm came through and set off a little fire, which fortunately wasn’t very big…We all went running down there and tried to help put it out, but we also brought all our cameras and shot a lot of footage.

Co-director N. Paul Kenworthy preparing his crew to capture real footage of a forest fire

        The crew's chance to capture a forest fire was a rare opportunity for them to abide by Ralph Wright and Winston Hibler's script.  The truth was, according to Roy E. Disney:

One of the reasons that we spent so much time and effort was trying to quite literally shoot to a script.  But you don’t shoot to a script, you sort of wait until something happens that sort of vaguely matches the script...the film wrote the script for you.

        Although a lot of storyboarding was created by Ralph Wright (as shared earlier in this article), a lot of the footage captured did not match up.  The magic of editing by Jack L. Atwood would become vital down the road after filming.

        While many scenes in Perri were caught in nature, sometimes in controlled settings, others had to be exclusively controlled on sets constructed within the aforementioned smelter building back in Murray, Utah.  Once a cache of tame squirrels were obtained, they were released onto the faux forest sets while the cameras rolled.  According to Boyd Shaffer, an animal trainer on Perri (and background painter, too):  "The first time they turned on the lights [in the smelter building] it caused a blackout in Murray.”  

        In response to this author on February 22, 2018, McKayla Herron of the Research Center of the Utah State Archives shared: 

An article from the Murray Eagle gives the address of Wasatch Enterprises as 5280 S. Main Street. Using Salt Lake City Directories I was able to find that the Murray plant of the American Smelting and Refining Company was located at 5250 S. State Street at the time that it closed in 1949. As these addresses are in very close proximity to each other and this smelter had only recently closed, it is reasonable to assume that the American Smelting and Refining Company's Murray plant was the one Disney used for filming. Thus, the photo that you found does show the correct building (see below).

        When one watches Perri, they most definitely can tell which scenes were shot in nature versus those shot within the Murray building.  Nevertheless, the most cinematic of scenes were captured on interior sets.  One of the most memorable was a winter scene conjured by Perri in a dream during hibernation.  The lighting, set design, and Paul Smith's score and haunting choral arrangements made for an ethereal experience.  It is a sequence in the film that involved animation created by effects animator, Joshua Meador.  Meador's expertise lent itself to animation of water effects, bubbles, clouds, and in Perri's dream sequence, snowflakes and sparkle effects when animals, such as a snowy owl, morphs into a scene (An interesting note for Disney history buffs:  Meador had an assistant named James Lewis who worked with Meador on Perri for seven months.  Lewis was hired by the Studio in August of 1955 as an inbetweener.  A post on his life and career will be coming in March!).  

Effects animator, Joshua Meador, creating snowflake concept art for the Perri dream sequence

A sample of Meador's snowflake concept art

Meador's snowflakes in animated form in the finished product of the film

        To add to the whimsy of this winter sequence, the Walt Disney Studio designed and sent a full moon to the Murray building.  It is prominently displayed in several scenes in Perri's dream.  In the opening of the dream sequence, flying squirrels cascade in front of the moon while sparkly Meador effects follow behind in their wake.  The Studio moon is used quite effectively in a shot where a snowshoe hare leaps in front of it from a snowy ledge.

The full moon provided by the Walt Disney Studio for the Perri dream sequence

Storyboard art created for the Perri dream sequence depicting the snowshoe hare 

and flying squirrels

        A brief sequence also filmed on a Murray set captures Perri the squirrel in the autumn season.  After evading a close encounter with a bird of prey, the squirrel falls from a tree, rolls down an embankment of autumn leaves, and looks up in a daze.  As the little squirrel inspects her environment, she finds herself in a haunted wood surrounded by twisted aspen trees.  The twisted trees themselves were personally fetched by Roy E. Disney.  Co-director Kenworthy told Disney to go up into the mountains to find these particular trees that Kenworthy had seen in passing.  Disney explained that the trees must have become damaged during an avalanche, and grew in a disfigured fashion.  The use of these gnarled trees, however, made for a great effect and set the tone perfectly for Perri's creepy encounter.

Welcome to the haunted wood - home of the twisted aspens fetched by Roy E. Disney

        In addition to animation effects, beautiful paintings were also created for the opening scene to Perri.  Any doubt of this film being produced by the Disney Studio is put to rest as the sun rises on the mountain surrounding the little pine squirrel's forest home.  Exquisitely rendered by legendary Disney matte artist, Peter Ellenshaw, the paintings pictured below are a feast for the eyes, and if put side-by-side, represent the grandeur of this Ellenshaw masterpiece.

Peter Ellenshaw putting finishing touches on his majestic mountain painting 

used in the opening of Perri

        In the end, Perri is a great little film, and the only True-Life Fantasy that Walt Disney would ever produce.  It premiered on August 28, 1957 to favorable reviews.  Quality being something that the Disney name always strove for, no expense was spared on the production of Perri.  The camera crews were given an endless amount of 16-mm film to shoot until all necessary footage was captured.  When more footage was needed after nearly two years of filming, Walt Disney gave the thumbs-up to go back into the field to shoot more.  The end product is a supremely edited film, with riveting footage of nature, great set designs and animation effects, and all supported by a delightful score by legendary film composer, Paul Smith.  Although there are aspects of the film that have aged in the forms of song and narration, the overall presentation is satisfying, at times suspenseful and sad, and pleasing to the eye.  Better yet, and to perhaps honor Felix Salten's original story, a deer portraying Bambi as a regal prince makes an appearance towards the middle of the film with his offspring around him.  When reviewing story notes from Perri, Walt Disney himself is noted as saying:  "To do this thing, we should mention Bambi...We are using his story as a springboard."  And so, the creation of Perri the film comes full circle to its humble beginnings, as so many of Disney's greatest stories often do.   

Many of the images in this post are screenshots taken from Volume 4 of the True-Life Adventures DVD set released in 2006.

Kindred Spirits: Ray Bradbury and Walt Disney

        In 1964, two great storytellers crossed paths while Christmas shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills.  This collision of genius contradicts the pushing apart of like poles between two magnets, as Walt Disney (1901-1966) and Ray Bradbury's (1920-2012) kindred spirits certainly attracted one to the other.

        As Ray Bradbury remembered the incident:  "I saw this man coming across the floor with a huge armload of Christmas gifts and his head tucked over the top.  I looked at that face and said, 'Oh my God, it's my hero.'"

        The next day, and to Bradbury's delight, the two had lunch together in Walt Disney's Burbank office, followed by a personal tour of the studio lot by Disney himself.  For Bradbury, it was a childhood dream come true.  Born nineteen years later than Disney, Bradbury spent his boyhood years watching his hero's animated shorts at the Genesee Theater in his hometown of Waukegan, Illinois.  Upon seeing the 1929 animated short, "The Skeleton Dance," young Bradbury swallowed the magic of Disney hook, line, and sinker. 

        Ray Bradbury knew at a very young age that he wanted to be a writer.  His love for storytelling was born from a multitude of exposures in his youth.  Bradbury's official biographer, Sam Weller, wrote:

Ray Bradbury's connections to fantasy, space, cinema, to the macabre and the melancholy, were all born of his years spent running, jumping, galloping through the woods, across the fields, and down the brick-paved streets of Waukegan.  His lifelong love of comics was born here, along with his connection to magic and his symbiotic relationship to Halloween.  Although he moved away from the Midwest for good at the age of thirteen, Ray Bradbury is a prairie writer.  The prairie is in his voice and it is his moral compass.  It is his years spent in Waukegan, Illinois...that forever shaped him.

        Bradbury's combined experiences, and his natural ability as a writer, gave the 20th century The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), Fahrenheit 451 (1953), The October Country (1955), Dandelion Wine (1957), Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), The Halloween Tree (1972), and hundreds upon hundreds of celebrated short stories.     

        Walt Disney was another who held onto his roots.  Although born in Chicago, Illinois in 1901, Disney's family relocated to Marceline, Missouri in 1905.  It was there that Disney experienced many of the same adventures as young Bradbury.  Disney biographer, Neal Gabler, wrote, "Walt Disney would remember Marceline, Missouri.  He would remember it more vividly than anything else in his childhood, perhaps more vividly than any place in his entire lifetime."  In 1938, Disney himself wrote to The Marceline News, "To tell the truth, more things of importance happened to me in Marceline than have happened since - or are likely to in the future." 

        It was in Marceline that the Disney family traded in the hustle and bustle of Chicago for the quiet openness of farm living.  Though there was laborious work aplenty for the Disneys, Walt basked in the luxury of youth that came with being a four-year-old boy.  Surrounding Walt was open land, apple trees galore, and animals he regarded as close friends.  Gabler wrote, "Walt would always recall the farm through the prism of a child's wonder and always think of it as a paradise."

        Like Bradbury, Disney's combined experiences growing up in Marceline was injected into many of the films that benefited from his personal touch.  It was only fitting (no, destined!) for Walt Disney and Ray Bradbury to cross paths at some point in their lives.  In each of their respective works a piece of them is embedded.  It's not so much that you see Disney in his classic films, or read Bradbury in his short stories, you feel them.  For me, Bradbury's seminal Dandelion Wine is to Disney's So Dear to My Heart (1949), both evoking the sheer essence of both men's fond memories of childhood past in small Mid-Western towns.

        Though Disney and Bradbury firmly held one foot in the past, their other was always two steps ahead of the future.  Disney's vision had no limit, and his gift as a master storyteller and leader paved the way for animation as we know it.  With any challenge that Disney took on, there were "haters" as we've coined the term today.  His vision for a feature length animated movie in the 30's and a theme park of the 50's drew a fair amount of skepticism from "sophisticates" who thought themselves wiser.  Time after time he proved them wrong, plowing ahead to something new and innovative.  A large portion of the end of his life was dedicated to the betterment of tomorrow's communities.  He surrounded himself with books on architecture and city building, and rubbed shoulders with experts of these respective fields.  Had he lived the fifteen more years that he wished for, EPCOT as we know it today would have been very different as proposed by Disney himself in the following 1966 televised program:

        Of Disney's many supporters, Ray Bradbury was at the front of the lines.  He, too, looked ahead to the future, and worried about it a great deal.  In respect to Disneyland, Bradbury saw Walt’s dreamland as the solution to the downfall of city organization.  On more than one occasion, Bradbury came to Disney’s rescue, defending Disneyland and its significance to society.  In the following response to one’s critical view of Walt’s fantasyland in 1958, Bradbury wrote:

I admit I approached Disneyland with many intellectual reservations, myself, but these have been banished in my seven visits.  Disney makes mistakes:  what artist doesn’t?  But when he flies, he really flies.  I shall be indebted to him for a lifetime for his ability to let me fly over midnight London looking down on the fabulous city, in his Peter Pan ride.  The Jungle Boat ride, too, is an experience of true delight and wonder.  I could go on, but why bother?

        Although Disney never saw his dreams of Disney World reach fruition in 1971, Bradbury was one of many who carried Walt's torch ahead to the future.  Sam Weller wrote:

As the Disney company was moving toward bringing to life Walt Disney's vision of an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), one of the many names that was first bandied about as a potential creative contributor was Ray Bradbury...Ray's fond attachment to the small-town Americana of yesteryear, combined with his hopes and dreams for a better tomorrow, was a perfect match for Disney.

        In 1976, Bradbury was commissioned by Disney Imagineering to write a script for the commentary millions would hear on their inner tour of EPCOT's Spaceship Earth beginning in 1982.  Bradbury himself attended the grand opening in October of 1982 and walked away overjoyed with the final product.  Bradbury's personal feelings on the importance of creating EPCOT was beautifully put by the author himself in this 1982 short film (2:34-3:35 time marks):

        It interests me to no end the direction these two individuals lives went through the course of history.  My love for Disney equals that of Bradbury, not only through the emotions invoked in me through their work, but by the power of their imaginations.  They were, indeed, kindred spirits, with a passion for life and firm believers in the possibilities of tomorrow.  Ray Bradbury himself once said, "I'm an optimal behaviorist, like Disney."  He explained, "With a grand sense of fun and passion, you're going to create something fine...That makes for optimal behavior."

        At the time of EPCOT's grand opening in 1982, Ray Bradbury was interviewed by Larry King.  There to watch it all unfold was Bradbury's daughter, Bettina, beaming at her father with pride.  And as she basked in her father's glow, she thought, "Two amazing visionaries who created amazing tomorrows by looking backward - Walt Disney and Ray Bradbury.  If you only have two heroes in your life, you could do a lot worse." 

Dick Kelsey's South Pacific

        By January of 1943, Dick Kelsey had traded in his title as Art Director of the Walt Disney Studio for Lieutenant of the U.S. Marines. During his time in the service in World War II, Lieutenant Kelsey of the 1st Marine Division served his country from the jungles of the Southwest Pacific. Between 1943 and 1945, Kelsey would not only be promoted to Captain of the Division, but also supervise a relief map unit.

        The images that you see within this post showcase an original painting that Kelsey created either during or after his war experiences. This painting became a part of my collection a number of years back as a result of an email from Bill Moore of California. His family's connection to Kelsey was made when Moore's grandparents obtained Kelsey's vacation home in Three Rivers, California in the 1950's. At some point during that time period, his grandparents obtained this painting; perhaps from Kelsey himself or as a part of the home? Almost five decades later, it was passed on to Bill by his mother.

        As a person who continues to appreciate Dick Kelsey's life in art, I feel this painting is significant in a couple of ways. To begin, the creative output is that of a painter of fine art who has been influenced by the conceptual style that goes into the preliminary work of animation. The native figures alone have an almost Mary Blair quality to them; an artist who no doubt influenced Kelsey while working together at Disney. After studying many of the Little Golden Books that Kelsey illustrated in the late 40s and early 50s, the style of this painting is similar to that of a children's book illustration. This of course is not meant to demean or criticize Kelsey's skill, but to acknowledge that his style of fine art had indeed been influenced by the art of animation.

        When Bill first described this painting to me through e-mail, he said it appeared to look like the scene from an African village. One couldn't blame anyone for thinking that; myself included. I'll admit that before getting the package, I secretly hoped that Bill was wrong, and that it was indeed something Kelsey created as a part of his service years. Upon receiving the painting, I immediately did an image search of the Southwest Pacific during World War II, and was very happy to see that the settings and people were extremely similar to what Kelsey included in his painting. I've included these images for those interested.

        Being that Kelsey created many art pieces based on his time in the Southwest Pacific, and exhibited quite a few after his return in 1945, it's very likely that this was among the many. Whether Kelsey did or did not create this particular painting while still stationed on the islands in WWII will remain a mystery. According to his third wife, Alma, in an interview with Kathleen Brewster of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum in 1990, watercolor paints were all that was available to him while away at war. However, a visiter of this post shared that his father not only served with Dick Kelsey in the Marine Corps, but witnessed him paint in oils and draw with pastel and charcoal firsthand. In fact, Kelsey and him became such good friends, that the art pieces were given to him as gifts. If acrylic paints were made available to him too, perhaps mine was created across seas as well.

        Here are three photos of the time period in native villages of the Southwest Pacific.  See the similarities?

        I can't thank Bill enough for allowing me to find a loving home for this Kelsey treasure. I know how much it meant to his grandparents and his mother. This post is dedicated to them, and of course Richmond I. Kelsey.

WIZARDS with Ian Miller

Ian Miller at work.

        Touching upon Ralph Bakshi's animated film, Wizards (1977), evokes strong memories for me.  I was very young when I saw this film.  Probably, too young.  The plot centers upon two wizard brothers, Avatar and Blackwolf, and the battle initiated by the latter's desire for power through industrial technology.  Avatar's ultimate quest is to thwart his brother's evil doings through the forces of magic, and therefore save Earth from destruction.

        Sounds familiar, right?

        Don't bet on it.

        Wizards is anything but cliche.  It is a frenetic powerhouse of fantasy, horror, and humor seemingly born from the imagination of someone on acid.  What other animated film can you watch that includes aspects of The Lord of the Rings, nuclear winter, and Nazi propaganda?  But Wizards is better watched than explained.  Contrary to creator Bakshi's labeling Wizards a family film, I wouldn't go showing this one to the kiddies.  There are some pretty strong themes presented through cartoon bloodshed and violence.  It's the film's art direction that left an indelible mark on me.  It evokes a foreboding mood that is experienced through the film's background designs by Ian Miller.  Upon discovering Miller's website, the feeling of Wizards - as experienced when I was around five - washed over me all over again.

        I had to reach out to him.

        The following interview was conducted via email and is presented unmolested in its original form; errors and all.  As one will read, Mr. Miller was most generous with his time, and his narrative is a pure delight!  Even better, he has allowed me to share art that he created for Wizards (copyrighted by Ralph Bakshi), along with some photographs.  Regardless of whether you watch the film or not, Miller's art represents the foreboding mood of the film as envisioned by its creator Ralph Bakshi.  It is the hope that the following interview will not only excite fans of Wizards and animation alike, but serve as a reliable source of information for the most serious of animation enthusiasts and historians.

Art design for Wizards (1977) by Ian Miller.

Ian Miller's email response to Vincent Randle on 23 July 2017:

VR:  What led you to the animation industry under Ralph Bakshi?

IM:  In the early 70’s I was asked if l would like to participate in a Fantasy calendar project being put together by Pan and Ballantine books. David Larkin, one of the best and most proactive art directors around at that time and incumbent at Pan suggested something from the Gormenghast trilogy might interest me. Having read Peake’s masterpiece and loved every word of it, I said yes without hesitation and the  Gormenghast Castle image featured  in the Fantasy calendar  was duly born.  Not long after completing this commission, my wife and I went on an extended holiday to San Fransisco;  and whilst  staying in the old Gaylord Hotel near Union Square, where the lift threatened to die every day, and the event of the week was the free doughnuts and coffee on Sunday mornings, we were  tracked down  and contacted by the Ralph Bakshi studio’s in LA.  Having seen my illustration in the Fantasy Calendar Ralph decided that I was an ideal candidate to work on his new animated  feature, which at that time was listed  I believe as War Wizards.  We were flown down to LA the day after I spoke with the Bakshi studios and I was offered a job on the spot.  Truth to tell, we had been getting rather short of money due to the value of the pound crashing against the dollar at that time, so this was nothing short of a miracle . Needless to say I said yes and the rest is history.

VR:  According to Ralph Bakshi, there is no consistent style in Wizards. What challenges or opportunities did this present as a background designer?

IM:  Ralph told me what he needed me to do, then left me to get on with it.  I was thrown into the deep end and expected to swim . Strange to say,  I managed to do this  with some measure of efficiency.  Ralph’s continual  encouragement  helped  the process immensely.  It was  a visceral whirly gig of:  “Do this, try that -"  through  the  length and breath  of the  building.  Ideas bounced off every wall,  as did the ping pong  balls in the staff area, during the rest  breaks.  I was left to work my way through a list of  scenes and suggestions Ralph thought he might need or perhaps include.   Some worked some didn’t.  When we reached parts of the film that had already be pinned down frame and  story wise, I had to design and draw within specific and designated areas . This however  was never  a problem.  The  working   atmosphere  was   always  charged  and sparky.  It was fast lane creative,  going on ‘free fall  crazy.’ Everybody  working there was at the top of their game, with me running hard to catch up. Happily, I was young, with plenty of energy.  As a point of interest, Ralph spotted a small play dough  dinosaur come lizard creature I’d made in a tea break, sitting on my desk and said “animate it!” I laughed thinking it was a joke, but he was absolutely serious, and  instructed Art Vitello, one of the animators, to do just that. It’s in the film believe it or not.  Ralph’s creative  spontaneity was sometimes startling, if not down right alarming . Anything appeared to be possible. On a whim, well that’s how it seemed at the time,  he decided I  would do a couple of  the elf voices, and took me over to the recording studios, with some of the other voice artists to do just that. I think it was at Paramount.  Heady stuff, crazy even, but  it was  a hell of a  lot of fun .
 

Background design for Wizards (1977) by Ian Miller.

VR:  As a background designer, how much say did you have in terms of color keying; especially in the sequences where rotoscoping was heavily used?

IM:  I don’t think that was ever a conscious issue for me, outside my remit almost. I did a great deal of the imagery in B/W and when I did use coloured washes, they went through without comment. There were some brilliant colourist /painters in the Studio who  took care of the colouring.
 If I recall correctly, and I may of course be wrong, a goodly part of the rotoscope sequences used   footage from several classic films.

VR:  What was your medium of choice when creating backgrounds for “Wizards?”

IM:  Pencil  and ink on paper -  A mix of dip pen brush and technical  pens.

One of Ian Miller's designs for Blackwolf's domain.

VR:  What set Wizards styles apart from the rest of the animated films of the time?

IM:  I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that question, but perhaps it was down to Ralph being Ralph, the product if you will, of his wanting to break established boundaries in the quest for new and more engaging  methods of animating and story telling.

VR:  Do you have any recollections of Bill Orcutt?

IM:  Sadly I do not. Perhaps my secluded  time at the drawing table was to blame.

VR:  What interactions did you have with Mike Ploog? What did he bring to the
film?

IM:  Meeting  Mike was one of the highlights of  working on Wizards. He’s a wonderful fellow and an  astonishingly  accomplished artist.  A book of his life and work came out recently 'The Art of Mike Ploog  FPG  and it  is well worth getting hold of a copy.  His visual  contribution, and presence in the studio, was in my opinion,  a vital part of  Wizards unique character, magic even.  Ralph held Mike in great esteem and  justifiably so. Ralph once told me that he only hired the very best, and in Mikes case that was absolutely true and Huzzah! for that.

Ian Miller (left) and Mike Ploog (right).

VR:  Did any particular artist or film influence your art on Wizards?

IM:  My mother was a theatrical milliner in London when I was young.
I went to the cinema every  Saturday afternoon with my mother, sometimes to see films she had helped dress.  Bastions and heaps of every shape and configuration abounded there. Though I knew them all, in most cases to be little more than structures of canvas and wood, paper cut-outs or paintings on glass it mattered not a jot, I willingly  filled them out with substance and imaginings all of my own. Cowboys, Knights Indians, soldiers in red coats they were all there, charging  about on the silver screen and afterwards around my bedroom walls and across the ceiling, usually in hot pursuit of the fat, green faced magician from Sinbad the sailor, who frightened me a good deal  more than the cannibal that appear nightly at my window.  My mind in truth was a visual whirligig. I bought all this to Ralph’s studio, along with the arrogance of youth and seven years of art school study.  Everything Ralph asked me to do felt  like familiar territory.  Durer, Rackham, were always close by.

VR:  When you revisit Wizards (if you do), what specific scenes are favorites of yours where your work is concerned?

IM:  I watched it recently and was surprised how engaging and relevant it all still seemed.  It sparked and vibrated with an  ageless energy, and offered up, in my opinion, a bag load of creative pointers  for  independent  minded animators working today.  As to mine own contribution, I don’t have any particular favourites. I see my work as elaborate wallpaper, and having remarked on it in passing you turn your real attention to the action unfolding in front of it.

VR:  Do you have any special memories or interesting experiences while working on Wizards? With Ralph Bakshi?

IM:  Barrel loads. I was lucky.  My association with Ralph was a dynamic and never to be forgotten experience.  Sometimes I liken it to: Trench warfare for  the artists.  You lived ever second of it, whizz bangs screams and all.  It was sometimes exhausting, but it was never ever boring, or middle of the road.  I think he sometimes thought of  me as a poisonous hobbit, a creature to be be avoided, but I choose to view this as an endearment.  In fact I have a sketch of me by Ralph in this poison dwarf / hobbit persona.  Hollywood was a sweet and sour experience for my wife and I.  It was place that seemed so familiar on the one hand but on the other  extremely alien.  Ralph was extremely generous and did everything he could to make my time in LA comfortable. There were a great many funny interludes and get togethers with Ralph but they are the stuff of quit reflection and a private titter now and then.