Future animator Randy Haycock did what many children do in class – he turned his textbook into a mini-animation studio.
“All my math books were full of flip books, guys running across the screen getting shot at,” Haycock recalls of a method where one draws a single image on each page but advances the image slightly in subsequent drawings.
But he later learned a good animator needed to know something about the images he or she committed to paper.
“It’s not so much about drawings that move but drawings that move an audience,” Haycock says.
It’s the spirit he brings to his work with Disney, a partnership that began with “Aladdin” and continues with “The Princess and the Frog.”
The new film, created with traditional hand drawn style animation, follows a New Orleans woman named Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) who kissed a frog prince with unexpected results. The film is vintage Disney, from the traditional storytelling to the vibrant supporting players – like a jazz loving alligator named Louis (Michael-Leon Wooley).
Haycock, a supervising animator on the new film, says being able to think like an actor is crucial to making animated films.
“We consider ourselves actors with pencils,” Haycock says.
Fellow “Frog” supervising animator Bruce Smith says the Disney animators worked closely with the voice actors to bring the characters to life.
The actor reads some of the lines written for a particular character, and the inflections they brought to the readings often influenced how the finished characters appear, says Smith, who was the supervising animator for Dr. Facilier (brilliantly voiced by Keith David.
The veteran actor read the part of Dr. Facilier with his typical gusto, but he would often end his more nefarious lines with a “big, cheesy grin,” Smith says, one that highlighted the small gap between the actor’s teeth.
So Smith went back into the animation and added a similar gap.
The vocal actor needed to bring Prince Naveen to life had to be funny and sexy at the same time, Haycock says. Oh, and he needed to sound exotic, too.
“Some [actors] were funny without the sex appeal,” says Haycock, who supervised the animation of Prince Naveen – both the human and frog. “Bruno Campos found the right balance.”
Haycock, who grew up in Grand Junction, Colo., dreamed of becoming an animator after seeing “Fantasia” at the age of 15.
Today he counsels fledgling animators they need to show an interest in storytelling, not just drawing a pretty picture.
“Bring a sketch book with you. When you see a story happening around you, record it. Draw people in the mall. Draw the animals at the zoo,” Haycock says.
And Smith tells young animators they can branch off into a variety of related fields in the industry, from professionals who work on the special effects sequences to those who design the backgrounds.
It’s a painstaking business, but it’s all worth while once your work reaches the big screen.
Haycock recalls screening a 30-minute section of “The Princess and the Frog” months before its release.
“That’s the real reward,“ Haycock says of the first audience reaction. “They’re laughing and enjoying the scene, and I‘m crying there, because I’m so moved.”
(Photo: “The Princess and the Frog” is a throwback to classic Disney animation/Walt Disney Studio)
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