Every day is Milt Kahl Day

For the next forty years, Kahl was Disney graphic style, a fact he proudly touted:

I felt a little bit like the chess champion of the world at one time was a Franco-Russian by the name of Alexander Alekhine. Someone --- an onlooker --- mentioned to him, "Mr. Alekhine, that isn't a book move you made there." He said, "I am the book."

---- from John Canemaker's, Disney's Nine Old Men

He has been called the Michelangelo of animation and is usually seen as the greatest animator of all time.

Many people credit Fred Moore (who basically designed Mickey Mouse as we see him today) with the "appeal" ever present in Disney animation, but Milt Kahl, as far back as Pinocchio, has been regarded as the architect of refining graphically what is known as the "Disney style" in character animation.

There are many animation blogs that often pay tribute to him with a 'Milt Kahl Day", posting his pencil tests or drawings. Andreas Deja, Sandro Cluezo, and Jamaal Bradley's blogs are some of the most popular.

A couple of years ago I stumbled up an audio recording of what sounds like a CalArts lecture with Milt circa early 1970's when Disney's "The Rescuers" was in production. (I think this recording was available on sewardstreet.com, but it seems that it's down)

I found the recording greatly inspiring, insightful and loaded with helpful comments on staging, caricature, production and an artist's mindset towards his work. This recording is nothing new, but I noticed there wasn't anyone presently interested in sharing these valuable words online....so I figured I'd share it.

On that note, Clay Kaytis on his Animation Podcast website has a great post with another recording of Milt Kahl at CalArts also speaking about The Rescuers. Definitely worth listening to.

In addition to the eighteen sound clips I am re-posting, I am posting the pencil test of Madame Medusa which Milt references in the recording. Apologies for not being able to combine all the clips into one track.

If you listen carefully you'll hear who I believe to be Eric Larson sitting on on the lecture. If anyone out there has anything they would like to add about this recording, please feel free to comment below.

Hope you find this as inspiring and informative as I did. Enjoy.

Credit and thanks to Jaamal Bradley for posting the clip below.

Milt Kahl & Ollie Johnston from Jamaal Bradley on Vimeo.

Animation School in the Palm of Your Hand Part II

I blogged earlier about how animator Clay Kaytis had made this amazing podcast called, "The Animation Podcast". Great and inspiring interviews with animators such as Glen Keane, Ray Harryhausen, Andreas Deja, James Baxter and Eric Goldberg. There were 30 podcasts in all. The last podcast available on iTunes was about three years ago.

For those going through Animation Podcast withdraw, I am sure you have found other great podcasts online. Animation Mentor has its newsletter and offers webcasts through its site. There's Toon In! made by the UPA Legacy Project. And of course there is the SplineCast from the Spline Doctors.

What stood out the most was TAG Blog's TAG Interview by Steve Hulett. TAG Blog is designed in the interest of promoting members of The Animation Guild, I.A.T.S.E. Local 839. Here, you just won't hear interviews with the household names in animation like Andreas Deja, Burny Mattinson or Andy Gaskill, but very noteworthy people in animation who might not be at the tip of your tongue. On TAG Interview people seem to be a bit more "frank" about their experiences in animation. See the Walt Peregoy interview for further clarification.

What people offer to say on the TAG Interview isn't always as "carefully phrased" or "self-censored" as in some other interviews. Realities of production, working with difficult or unscrupulous people, breaking in, and yes, what to do in the face of unemployment. You'll find a little of all that in the TAG Interview. A nice compliment to the other sources of what you can learn about animation online.

Animation School in the Palm of Your Hand

So...what ever happened to the Animation Podcast??

What is The Animation Podcast you ask? That's a question I wouldn't be surprised to hear from a person who would be a layman to animation. If I mentioned Glen Keane, Andreas Deja or James Baxter and you didn't as so much flinch, you'd be forgiven. If I said "Nine Old Men" and your Jeopardy answer was, "FDR's Nine Supreme Court Justices", you'd be forgiven.

But if you were an animator who worked for a major American animation studio and asked me "What's the Animation Podcast?" I'd be shocked. Because that's the very same question I was asked when I had the opportunity to hang out with an animator who's credits to me were quite impressive. Are there actually animators in the industry who actually do not know what The Animation Podcast is??

The Animation Podcast is a free (key word is FREE, folks!) podcast available on iTunes run by animator Clay Kaytis. His credits include most recently animation supervisor of "Rhino" from Disney's "Bolt". ( An impressive piece of dynamic animation for a character whose design is essentially a palm sized beanbag....trapped inside a plastic ball no less.)

The Animation Podcast features interviews with some of the animation industry's most respected animators like the ones mentioned above. People who were literally responsible for breathing life (and yes, magic) into iconic film characters of Oscar nominated films as The Beast in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast", Scar of "The Lion King" and The Genie from "Aladdin".

I believe in his first podcast Clay said, "So much of what I know about animation is from handouts, lecture notes and interviews of great animators of the past. It's always a rush for me to find some new clip or audio file that gives you an insight into who they were and what is was like when they were creating such amazing work."

The Animation Podcast is a priceless wealth of information, not just about animation (and quite frequently Disney history) but also filmmaking and production in general. Listen to a couple of podcasts and you'll learn a great deal not only about what about what goes into animating a character, but also what goes into developing a film concept from start to finish. Did I mention the podcast was free?

Clay published thirty (count 'em, 30!) free podcasts featuring interviews and audio recordings of animators such as the aforementioned above and film legends Ron Clements and John Musker, Milt Kahl, Burny Mattinson and Ray Harryhausen. About a year ago The Animation Podcast culminated to an interview with Eric Goldberg (animator of The Genie in "Aladdin")... and I was like this podcast is REALLY getting good. "What's next for the Animation Podcast?"

The answer to that was, "silence".

For almost a year there have been no podcasts, no teases not a single audible peep from The Animation Podcast. Which brings me back to my original question, "What happened to The Animation Podcast?"

The main website, http://www.animationpodcast.com/ is still up and functioning, and Clay did make a post to make a plug for Walt Stanchfeld's new "Drawn to Life" books. But no updates. I'd like to think well, if Clay isn't around making podcasts, hopefully he's animating.

I don't know what goes into publishing a podcast, but I am sure it's a LOT of work. Clay Kaytis is obviously very passionate about animation and loves the medium intensely. I can't think of any other reason why he would produce for free, such excellent work that many interested people would certainly pay money for. Work that without a doubt will be included in lists of reputable material pertaining to Disney history and animation history in general.

I am confident that Clay and The Animation Podcast will return at some point, most likely with a podcast that will do more than please but inform and inspire.

...by the way just to note how generous Clay Kaytis is, you can find him on Twitter under www.twitter.com/animpodcast. Doing what? Giving tips and advice on animation....yes, for free.

I can be found on Twitter now too. www.twitter.com/ki_innis.

In Case You Missed It.

In Spring of 2009 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, along with host (an master animator) Andreas Deja, put on an incredible and perhaps once in a lifetime tribute of to the legendary animator master, Milt Kahl.

I was kicking myself wishing I could have made this event. As I heard, the turnout was so great that tickets were oversold and people had to be turned away.

I just discovered that the Academy in all its grace put up several video clips of the host panel's discussion from the tribute which you can see here: http://www.oscars.org/events-exhibitions/events/2009/kahl.html

Now if they would only post video of the entire tribute online.

Though the clips are only a few minutes in length each, they are a wealth of amusing, sincere and heartfelt anecdotes about one of the most notoriously demanding animators in film history. Andreas Deja, Kathryn Beaumont, Brad Bird, Ron Clements, John Musker, Floyd Norman all shared their priceless experiences with the man.


Infamous for his uncensored and unrestrained candor, Milt Kahl as I have come to understand was demanding due to his passion and high standards. He was "The Disney Style" as I heard it put as his draftsmanship developed the standard and the model for many (if not most) of Disney's animated characters.

People who know who he was regard him as sort of an animation demi-god...which in away he was. His animation talent still exceeds most of the animation we see today.

Despite that, he had a sense of humility about his incredible talent.

To paraphrase, Kahl said something like, "I'm better simply because I worked harder at it."

Amen to that. Art has to be tempered with discipline.

For me Kahl's best performance was his last: Madame Medusa of The Rescuers (1977). The fact that a rough maverick like Kahl could create a mid 40-ish, red-haired, prissy and selfish fop of a hellcat who doesn't know she's over the hill yet proves the fact that animators are ultimately not simply cartoonists, but performers. Actors with pencils.