Milt Kahl Crowd Scenes

Hi everybody, I'm back in town.

I have one more short trip coming up next week, other than that new posts will appear regularly again.

In August I posted a few Milt Kahl key drawings from two scenes that were cut from "The Rescuers". They showed an audience watching the performance of a bear at a zoo. The whole sequence never made it into the film.

I do wonder why Milt ended up animating these scenes, which I would consider

of secondary importance as far as top character animation for the movie.

My guess is that Medusa wasn't ready yet for production.

And I remember Dave Michener, one of Milt's assistants, telling me that occasionally, when a film had to get finished toward the end of production Milt animated minor characters or crowd scenes, just to help out.

And he didn't mind at all.

What I love about these scenes is how clearly they are choreographed and synchronized. Milt sure knows when NOT to move a character, or parts of a character, because your eye will always go to whatever IS moving in the scene.

The path of the purchased soda bottle is easy to follow, and of course it ends unexpectedly.

I get a big kick out finding Kahl animation that you didn't know existed. It leaves you with a feeling that the old master is still around and just finished his latest animation.

A big thank you to David Kuhn who sent me the files of the scenes.

In case you are wondering if there will be any posts on Madame Medusa coming up, the answer is YES !!