David Shepard (1940-2017)
On Tuesday, we all lost a giant in the preservation of film history: David Shepard. Here is just a little about how this one person’s life helped preserve the work of many filmmakers.
On Tuesday, we all lost a giant in the preservation of film history: David Shepard. Here is just a little about how this one person’s life helped preserve the work of many filmmakers.
Grim Natwick seems to carry a lot of the animation on this short, and his well-drawn poses on the skeleton man are some of my favorites in this cartoon.
Ub Iwerks seems to have had a regular working relationship with RCA Victor. As we will see, Victor records seem to permeate Iwerks’ scoring – – at least for a while.
One type of record that companies hoped would sell were called “novelty records”, for lack of a better term. Max Fleischer used three such “novelties” in some of his 1930’s cartoons.
Cuban rhythms really didn’t filter their way down to North American popular music – the kind that most folks would buy – until 1930. It’s an entertaining, if roundabout, story.
I went out to the UCLA archives to evaluate the materials on the Iwerks ‘Comi-Color’ series of cartoons. Happily, the series exists in 35mm with all original titles intact on every film.
In the early sound era it was apparently easier to use, on occasion, “Needle Drop” music from commercial records to score a cartoon. Here’s a list of several I’ve identified.
I’ve completed the inspection of the Flip materials here, and they’re overall just beautiful. The MGM fine grains are things of beauty.
Ub Iwerks renamed his company Cartoon Films, Ltd. in 1936 after the split with Pat Powers. Here are a few animated theatrical commercials from the studio dating from 1939 and 1940.
This week this space is devoted to an update and showing still frames on two projects in progress: Ub Iwerk’s Flip the Frog and Van Beuren Studio’s Cubby Bear.