|
26
Sep |
} | The Background Stylings of Don Driscoll |
- 1. Feedin’ the Kiddie (1957) (background artist)
2. Give and Tyke (1957) (background artist)
3. Tops with Pops (1957) (background artist)
4. Millionaire Droopy (1956) (background artist)
5. The Egg and Jerry (1956) (background artist)
6. Good Will to Men (1955) (background artist)
There’s no mention of who the background artist was on the original shorts. If anyone knows, please let me know.
The original background paintings are exquisite in themselves, but definitely have a dated look to them. MGM was probably trying to fool the public into thinking it was a brand new cartoon. Cinema Scope was their answer to TV, so they had to deal with a new aspect ratio. They cut off a lot of the frame, and re-did all the backgrounds. It looks like they could have been done in a hurry, and someone like Driscoll, whose style looks quick and basic, would have been the perfect person to help rush these out the door while giving them a bold and flashy new look.
Look at the red and green!
It’s everywhere!
Tops With Pops (1957) is a remake of Love That Pup (1949):
I love the animation in this short. I’ve taken a butt load of frame grabs from this for study which I’ll post later once I get back into drawing.
Pretty bold stuff, hey?
Another thing I like about the backgrounds, call me crazy, is the brush strokes and rough look. This one is out there; what’s the point of the blue blob behind Tyke other than color balance?
This frame is sexy.
These two frames are great examples of his sense of freedom. A pink barrel!
And look how wild he went with this one. So much better.
There’s that green and red again, except not so harsh.
The Egg and Jerry (1956) is a remake of Hatch Up Your Troubles (1949):
This one just reminds of Mary Blair. But the color stying isn’t as good as Mary, and it’s funny how Driscoll just completely threw out the layout from the previous short.
This is probably the sexiest Driscoll example, I LOVE this frame. There’s so much color harmony, and it’s much better than the original. This is what I mean when I say he used basic theory and FREEDOM, the branch is BLUE, and it works! The nest is a much richer and harmonious brown and everything just screams, “Look at me!” I love it!
I’m a mix on this one. I really love the traditional rendering of the original, but I love the color in the remake.
Another sexy color combo. Once again the tree is blue, but the top inside part (what is that called?) is yellow. Very complementary, indeed.
Here’s some frame grabs from Millionaire Droopy (1956). Note the color variation in this short as a whole. It goes all over the place.
The stuff in this short is borderline crude. I can understand the argument that Driscoll’s coloring is very childish and sometimes ugly. Maybe that’s why he only did six shorts…
Basic color theory:
Driscoll’s style appeals to me because it’s so easy. Someone like me could easily adopt the same technique for a student film, and create some pretty striking imagery. Here’s the other two shorts Driscoll worked on. So there you have it, his entire career as a background artist in one post. Whew! 
Sunday, September 27, 2009, 5 40:am UTC
Anonymous
That’s a great post, excellent comparison. The one thing I have to wonder is how did the music compare in each film? Scott Bradley was basically rewriting scores for repeat programs, how did the music change – or did it? He was such a brilliant composer (the first Hollywood composer – Live or Animated – to use serial/12 tone compositions) that I have to imagine he accepted the challenge and lived up to it.
Sunday, September 27, 2009, 1 47:pm UTC
Dan
Scott Bradley’s scores definitely stand out to me as well. Definitely on par with Stalling at least. He was mentioned on one of the special features on Disc 2 of the third Spotlight Collection as being unsung.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 2 56:pm UTC
Ethan
Thanks for making this post. It was very good.
Friday, March 5, 2010, 9 12:am UTC
Oswald Iten
Hello Daniel
thanks for the plug on your blog! I’m really in awe of how often you manage to update your site. Especially in the sketchbook posts I found a lot of pencil drawings I have never seen before.
Since you asked me about the cinemascope to academy comparisons I try to give you a short version of my opinion on them. I liked your comparison very much and in the case of the Good Will to Men Remake Driscoll seems to have been given better layouts to work from. I wasn’t sure if I should do a future post on one of them (particularly The Little Orphan, as it fits in with The Milky Waif) because I don’t want to spoil people’s admiration for Driscoll’s backgrounds which I, unfortunately, do not share. In Driscoll’s case, I don’t think it’s only a matter of taste.
First of all, I may not be the biggest fan of Art Lozzi’s H-B backgrounds but I see their artistic merits immediately. When I look at Driscoll’s paintings, I notice a lack of structure and of “visual harmony” (the establishing shot of “The Egg and Jerry” being the most obvious). A lot of cartoon modern BGs have “wrong” perspective but they look stable according to their interior rules, here we have merely sloppy drawing that results in an unbalanced picture. The colors, and especially the extensive use of red/magenta and green, are also less balanced.
The main problem (at least in the T&J examples) I have with these backgrounds, though, is their complete incongruity with the characters (still from the 40s). The dimensionality of the characters looks odd in front of the flat backgrounds and the colors not only compete with the characters but also draw attention to themselves. A lot of unconsciously transported information is suddenly gone. When I looked at the shot with the beautiful blue branch I assumed it was supposed to be a nighttime scene. Furthermore the saturation is so high (especially green, orange and blue) that the characters are not the outstanding element any more. In a picture like Munch’s “The Scream” the heavy orange sky makes sense dominating the picture for the claustrophobic feeling. In the feather headdress shot it only takes away from the red that is already in the props worn by the characters. Besides red and green complimentary contrast is already there in the 40s backgrounds but far more subtly. If one of the two is more saturated than the other it stands out even more unlike in Driscoll’s versions where everything looks very opaque.
For me, such backgrounds could work well if the whole environment was designed to fit (even then, I would prefer better layouts), in a student film for example, but still it’s important to think about the hierarchy of the colors and what you want the audience to look at.
The one instance where the new combination looks better to me is split8 of Tops with Pops. Here the brown vs gray antagonism (that works with Jerry very well) is reintroduced. And since Spike is punching it’s nice that he seems to be “at home” in this environment whereas Tom is the outsider. I’m not sure how it works in motion with the unrecognizable corner of the house.
Well, sorry for the long answer. Keep up the good work with your blog.
Oswald