Animator's Perspective VI: The Cauldron
Chapter 8: The Cauldron Starts Boiling
Post from the Riding with the Mouse Net-log by animator Terrell Little.
Remember how I said that some projects tended to live on like zombies, not quite living, but not yet truly dead? Well, it’s fitting that one of the most famous of these zombie projects at Disney was the one with the dead coming back to life.
The Black Cauldron was a zombie when I got to Disney and had been so for close to a decade at that point. It would continue to shuffle along in the background until we finished The Fox and the Hound when Ron Miller gave it a new jolt of life. Based on The Chronicles of Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander, it was all Welsh mythology: psychic pigs, witches, fairies, and undead warriors. And those fairies weren’t Tinkerbell neither, but old school “fair folk” type, third cousins of the Voodoo Loas. Creepy stuff.
Ron saw this as the film that was going to reinvigorate Disney animation, a “Snow White” for our generation, but with skeletons, not dwarves. It would be filmed in 70 mm. He had big hopes for it, and new Creative Director Jim Henson was going to be his man to make it happen. John Musker had been handling the early production, but when Richard Rich, Ted Berman, and Art Stevens moved in once Fox was done…well, they weren’t pleased with his work. They complained to Jim, but Jim wanted nothing to do with personnel squabbles back then[1] and deferred to Ron, who ultimately handed the project to Joe Hale.
I worked as an inbetweener on this one just as I had on Fox. I could have been more. When Joe ramped up production, he went looking for fresh artists, hoping to create the “fresh new look” Ron wanted. I presented Joe and Jim some of my best sketches. I really worked hard to present the most detailed, three-dimensional, professional-looking drawings I could deliver while still maintaining a conspicuously “Disney” look.
By contrast, Tim Burton gave them stick figures. Tim was selected, along with Mike Peraza, another temporary Muppeteer on The Muppet Movie like Tim[2]. I was not. I smelled a rat.
Tim Burton’s images vs. Milt Kahl’s (Image source “Mouse in Transition” blog by Steve Hulett, cartoonbrew.com)
For years it bugged me. Why stick figures? Sure, they were pretty unique stick figures – anyone who knows his later work will know the “Burton look” – but they were stick figures. Jim loved them. I was heartbroken and more than a little peeved for a long time afterwards, certain he and Mike were chosen just because they used to work for Jim, however temporarily. It was only a few years later, when Disney Archivist Dave Smith and Cheryl Henson were adding some of Jim’s old drawings and notes into the Disney Archives after Henson’s company merged into Disney, that I finally understood. I got the chance to peek at some of them. Henson’s notes were chock-full of little doodles, most hardly more than stick figures themselves. Some looked like monsters, some looked like Kermit. Some were even less complex than Tim’s stick figures from Cauldron. All had personality.
One in particular stood out to me. It was little more than two circle-dot eyes, a wide scribble-slash of a mouth, and a bunch of little lines radiating like an oblong circle under the eyes, framing out a wide face. I looked at it and immediately saw Cookie Monster. There must’ve been fewer than 20 lines in it. The two circles were the most complex shapes. But there he was: Cookie Monster, distilled right down to his Platonic ideal, staring right back at me.
Random ‘60s doodle by Jim Henson (Image copied from back cover of Imagination Illustrated)
In that instant I got it. I got what Jim saw in Tim’s stick figures. I should have listened to Don Griffith when he said “Less is more.”
So, Jim, Joe, Tim, and Mike went to work, sketching out the ideas. Jim brought his old Dark Crystal collaborator Brian Froud into the team, which made Tim giddy, seeing as how Tim had become an instant fan[3] after working with Brian on Crystal. Brian, being a conspicuously Celtic artist, had a very distinct look for his fairies and spirits and even people, all long and thin and otherworldly and covered in knotted woad tattoos. He and Tim had much creepier ideas for what the characters would look like than Vance Gerry’s old ‘70s stuff. For example, rather than looking like a puppy as Vance had imagined him, Gurgi the beast man was…wow. Possessed spider monkey gremlin?
Again, Jim loved it and encouraged the unique take, even as some of the older artists tried to push back. They wanted the job to go to someone “more experienced” (i.e. old fashioned and traditional) like Woolie or Milt Kahl. The Cauldron bubbled on. When a civil war threatened to break out between the storyboard artists and the directors, Jim stood up…and deflected to Ron. But Ron, rumor has it acting on Jim’s advice, stuck with the newer, more radical ideas, even in the face of opposition from Card and Donn. Ron, in one of his first big pushbacks against his mentors, stuck with Jim and Joe. The Cauldron bubbled on, and it would look unlike any Disney animated feature that came before[4].
And it would read and sound unlike anything before as well. They had Rosemary Anne Sisson writing, making things as Welsh as possible, and had Elmer Bernstein doing the score. And for the first time there were no musical numbers, no “I want” song or villain song. Old timers pushed back. The Rat’s Nest counterattacked. The cauldron bubbled on. Homes à Court made his run on the company and we all wondered if we were a dead company walking, adding a dark metatext to the whole production. Still, the cauldron bubbled on.
Now, once things ramp up in animation on a feature [length animation], this is where things get crazy and can spin out of control fast. Different groups working in isolation from different storyboards can produce totally different products with totally different looks. Cauldron got even crazier because all kinds of ideas for new technology were bubbling up. Stan Kinsey’s DATA[5] folks added in some early computer graphics, mostly “floating ball of light” stuff and a CG boat. The team experimented with 3D filming and model backgrounds, but abandoned it. They filmed actual dry ice fog for the mist effects. There was even a pitch for actual holographic projectors to be used for the big Cauldron Born scene[6], but the extreme cost of the cameras limited this to only appearing in special showings at the Disney parks. All one big, bubbling cauldron with a thousand ingredients being selectively tossed in.
But that’s the thing about a bubbling cauldron that anyone from the creole south can tell you: you can throw just about anything in, but it’s when you throw it in that will make all the difference. Toss it all in at random, and you get a mushy sort of gruel. But spice it right, time it right, heat it right, and give it a good foundation, and you make gumbo.
And Jim Henson can make one hell of a gumbo, it seems. Some application of heat is important for gumbo, but finding the right heat level is critical. By completely ignoring all the petty squabbles between the factions and instead just focusing on the project, he refused to fan the fires more than he had to. Once again, the right ingredients at the right time make or break the gumbo. Folks flooded him with a thousand suggestions, recommendations, ideas, and complaints, coming in from all sectors of the company, but Jim was picky about what ingredients he chose to put in or leave out. Finally, Joe and the team tried to add in some pretty gruesome stuff, like flesh rotting and boiling off of the bodies, but Jim pushed back. He wanted it scary, but not traumatizing[7].
Spicy is good, but too much spice ruins the gumbo.
Cauldron all came together in the end[8]. It was dark and creepy, but not complete nightmare juice. I thought it was a magnificent, spicy gumbo and I was glad to play my small part in it.
Not everyone likes a good, spicy gumbo, though.
[1] Henson tended to duck out of personnel disputes as part of his larger conflict-adverse nature. In this timeline he’s getting better about this by 1984 (because he’s had no choice, getting pulled between Ron and Roy), but in 1980 this is still the standard reaction for him.
[2] This is a coincidence! Joe Hale selected Burton and Peraza as his animators in our timeline too. Burton’s brief role in The Muppet Movie is well known, but I only found out about Peraza's from his blog.
[3] I have no idea if Tim Burton likes Brian Froud or The Dark Crystal (I can’t find any evidence either way), but I assume that he’d like Froud’s work.
[4] In our timeline the conservatives won out. Burton and Musker’s ideas were out and Milt Kahl was brought back from retirement, with the animation remaining much more traditional Disney in form. Ironically, the story got darker and more violent and gruesome while the character designs became more old-fashioned and traditional.
[5] Disney Advanced Technology Animation, equivalent to this timeline’s Computer Animation Production System (CAPS). More on this and related fun in a future post.
[6] This was actually experimented with in our timeline and totally abandoned. Here, Jim likes it enough that they set up screenings at Disneyland and EPCOT as a special attraction.
[7] The infamous lost “cut scenes” from The Black Cauldron in our timeline, which literally traumatized the little kids who came to the first rough cut screening, were awkwardly cut out by Jeff Katzenberg, who hadn’t yet learned the limitations on editing animation, leading to some notable skips and gaps in the film. See what got cut here (warning: surprisingly graphic!). Jim Henson made some pretty macabre shit back in the day, but he stopped short of blood and pus and melting flesh. Paradoxically, this timeline’s version of The Black Cauldron will be both creepier and more macabre than our timeline’s, but also less gruesome and gory.
[8] So, how does Jim Henson manage to avoid the disorganized mess that happened with Cauldron in our timeline? Is there something special about him? Not exactly. Mostly, he just offered a unified vision. He was a single head chef, compared to the “too many cooks” situation of our timeline. Seriously, our timeline’s production was such a disorganized mess that Disney writer Steve Hulett dubbed his blog post on it “Cauldron of Confusion” and Disney animator Mike Peraza called his blog posts “Cauldron of Chaos”. Honestly, any unified vision would probably have delivered a better movie, regardless of the visuals or story. Jeff Katzenberg could have made a better movie had he been on hand from the beginning. Walt Disney’s greatest ability according to Woolie Reitherman was simply being able to juggle all of the egos and competing visions in a project and present a unified vision, something that Jim Henson and Jeff Katzenberg both excelled at, despite their radically different personalities and leadership styles.
Post from the Riding with the Mouse Net-log by animator Terrell Little.
Remember how I said that some projects tended to live on like zombies, not quite living, but not yet truly dead? Well, it’s fitting that one of the most famous of these zombie projects at Disney was the one with the dead coming back to life.
The Black Cauldron was a zombie when I got to Disney and had been so for close to a decade at that point. It would continue to shuffle along in the background until we finished The Fox and the Hound when Ron Miller gave it a new jolt of life. Based on The Chronicles of Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander, it was all Welsh mythology: psychic pigs, witches, fairies, and undead warriors. And those fairies weren’t Tinkerbell neither, but old school “fair folk” type, third cousins of the Voodoo Loas. Creepy stuff.
Ron saw this as the film that was going to reinvigorate Disney animation, a “Snow White” for our generation, but with skeletons, not dwarves. It would be filmed in 70 mm. He had big hopes for it, and new Creative Director Jim Henson was going to be his man to make it happen. John Musker had been handling the early production, but when Richard Rich, Ted Berman, and Art Stevens moved in once Fox was done…well, they weren’t pleased with his work. They complained to Jim, but Jim wanted nothing to do with personnel squabbles back then[1] and deferred to Ron, who ultimately handed the project to Joe Hale.
I worked as an inbetweener on this one just as I had on Fox. I could have been more. When Joe ramped up production, he went looking for fresh artists, hoping to create the “fresh new look” Ron wanted. I presented Joe and Jim some of my best sketches. I really worked hard to present the most detailed, three-dimensional, professional-looking drawings I could deliver while still maintaining a conspicuously “Disney” look.
By contrast, Tim Burton gave them stick figures. Tim was selected, along with Mike Peraza, another temporary Muppeteer on The Muppet Movie like Tim[2]. I was not. I smelled a rat.
Tim Burton’s images vs. Milt Kahl’s (Image source “Mouse in Transition” blog by Steve Hulett, cartoonbrew.com)
For years it bugged me. Why stick figures? Sure, they were pretty unique stick figures – anyone who knows his later work will know the “Burton look” – but they were stick figures. Jim loved them. I was heartbroken and more than a little peeved for a long time afterwards, certain he and Mike were chosen just because they used to work for Jim, however temporarily. It was only a few years later, when Disney Archivist Dave Smith and Cheryl Henson were adding some of Jim’s old drawings and notes into the Disney Archives after Henson’s company merged into Disney, that I finally understood. I got the chance to peek at some of them. Henson’s notes were chock-full of little doodles, most hardly more than stick figures themselves. Some looked like monsters, some looked like Kermit. Some were even less complex than Tim’s stick figures from Cauldron. All had personality.
One in particular stood out to me. It was little more than two circle-dot eyes, a wide scribble-slash of a mouth, and a bunch of little lines radiating like an oblong circle under the eyes, framing out a wide face. I looked at it and immediately saw Cookie Monster. There must’ve been fewer than 20 lines in it. The two circles were the most complex shapes. But there he was: Cookie Monster, distilled right down to his Platonic ideal, staring right back at me.
Random ‘60s doodle by Jim Henson (Image copied from back cover of Imagination Illustrated)
In that instant I got it. I got what Jim saw in Tim’s stick figures. I should have listened to Don Griffith when he said “Less is more.”
So, Jim, Joe, Tim, and Mike went to work, sketching out the ideas. Jim brought his old Dark Crystal collaborator Brian Froud into the team, which made Tim giddy, seeing as how Tim had become an instant fan[3] after working with Brian on Crystal. Brian, being a conspicuously Celtic artist, had a very distinct look for his fairies and spirits and even people, all long and thin and otherworldly and covered in knotted woad tattoos. He and Tim had much creepier ideas for what the characters would look like than Vance Gerry’s old ‘70s stuff. For example, rather than looking like a puppy as Vance had imagined him, Gurgi the beast man was…wow. Possessed spider monkey gremlin?
Again, Jim loved it and encouraged the unique take, even as some of the older artists tried to push back. They wanted the job to go to someone “more experienced” (i.e. old fashioned and traditional) like Woolie or Milt Kahl. The Cauldron bubbled on. When a civil war threatened to break out between the storyboard artists and the directors, Jim stood up…and deflected to Ron. But Ron, rumor has it acting on Jim’s advice, stuck with the newer, more radical ideas, even in the face of opposition from Card and Donn. Ron, in one of his first big pushbacks against his mentors, stuck with Jim and Joe. The Cauldron bubbled on, and it would look unlike any Disney animated feature that came before[4].
And it would read and sound unlike anything before as well. They had Rosemary Anne Sisson writing, making things as Welsh as possible, and had Elmer Bernstein doing the score. And for the first time there were no musical numbers, no “I want” song or villain song. Old timers pushed back. The Rat’s Nest counterattacked. The cauldron bubbled on. Homes à Court made his run on the company and we all wondered if we were a dead company walking, adding a dark metatext to the whole production. Still, the cauldron bubbled on.
Now, once things ramp up in animation on a feature [length animation], this is where things get crazy and can spin out of control fast. Different groups working in isolation from different storyboards can produce totally different products with totally different looks. Cauldron got even crazier because all kinds of ideas for new technology were bubbling up. Stan Kinsey’s DATA[5] folks added in some early computer graphics, mostly “floating ball of light” stuff and a CG boat. The team experimented with 3D filming and model backgrounds, but abandoned it. They filmed actual dry ice fog for the mist effects. There was even a pitch for actual holographic projectors to be used for the big Cauldron Born scene[6], but the extreme cost of the cameras limited this to only appearing in special showings at the Disney parks. All one big, bubbling cauldron with a thousand ingredients being selectively tossed in.
But that’s the thing about a bubbling cauldron that anyone from the creole south can tell you: you can throw just about anything in, but it’s when you throw it in that will make all the difference. Toss it all in at random, and you get a mushy sort of gruel. But spice it right, time it right, heat it right, and give it a good foundation, and you make gumbo.
And Jim Henson can make one hell of a gumbo, it seems. Some application of heat is important for gumbo, but finding the right heat level is critical. By completely ignoring all the petty squabbles between the factions and instead just focusing on the project, he refused to fan the fires more than he had to. Once again, the right ingredients at the right time make or break the gumbo. Folks flooded him with a thousand suggestions, recommendations, ideas, and complaints, coming in from all sectors of the company, but Jim was picky about what ingredients he chose to put in or leave out. Finally, Joe and the team tried to add in some pretty gruesome stuff, like flesh rotting and boiling off of the bodies, but Jim pushed back. He wanted it scary, but not traumatizing[7].
Spicy is good, but too much spice ruins the gumbo.
Cauldron all came together in the end[8]. It was dark and creepy, but not complete nightmare juice. I thought it was a magnificent, spicy gumbo and I was glad to play my small part in it.
Not everyone likes a good, spicy gumbo, though.
[1] Henson tended to duck out of personnel disputes as part of his larger conflict-adverse nature. In this timeline he’s getting better about this by 1984 (because he’s had no choice, getting pulled between Ron and Roy), but in 1980 this is still the standard reaction for him.
[2] This is a coincidence! Joe Hale selected Burton and Peraza as his animators in our timeline too. Burton’s brief role in The Muppet Movie is well known, but I only found out about Peraza's from his blog.
[3] I have no idea if Tim Burton likes Brian Froud or The Dark Crystal (I can’t find any evidence either way), but I assume that he’d like Froud’s work.
[4] In our timeline the conservatives won out. Burton and Musker’s ideas were out and Milt Kahl was brought back from retirement, with the animation remaining much more traditional Disney in form. Ironically, the story got darker and more violent and gruesome while the character designs became more old-fashioned and traditional.
[5] Disney Advanced Technology Animation, equivalent to this timeline’s Computer Animation Production System (CAPS). More on this and related fun in a future post.
[6] This was actually experimented with in our timeline and totally abandoned. Here, Jim likes it enough that they set up screenings at Disneyland and EPCOT as a special attraction.
[7] The infamous lost “cut scenes” from The Black Cauldron in our timeline, which literally traumatized the little kids who came to the first rough cut screening, were awkwardly cut out by Jeff Katzenberg, who hadn’t yet learned the limitations on editing animation, leading to some notable skips and gaps in the film. See what got cut here (warning: surprisingly graphic!). Jim Henson made some pretty macabre shit back in the day, but he stopped short of blood and pus and melting flesh. Paradoxically, this timeline’s version of The Black Cauldron will be both creepier and more macabre than our timeline’s, but also less gruesome and gory.
[8] So, how does Jim Henson manage to avoid the disorganized mess that happened with Cauldron in our timeline? Is there something special about him? Not exactly. Mostly, he just offered a unified vision. He was a single head chef, compared to the “too many cooks” situation of our timeline. Seriously, our timeline’s production was such a disorganized mess that Disney writer Steve Hulett dubbed his blog post on it “Cauldron of Confusion” and Disney animator Mike Peraza called his blog posts “Cauldron of Chaos”. Honestly, any unified vision would probably have delivered a better movie, regardless of the visuals or story. Jeff Katzenberg could have made a better movie had he been on hand from the beginning. Walt Disney’s greatest ability according to Woolie Reitherman was simply being able to juggle all of the egos and competing visions in a project and present a unified vision, something that Jim Henson and Jeff Katzenberg both excelled at, despite their radically different personalities and leadership styles.
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