The Frank and Ollie Timeline and the Back to the Future Effect

 

I have vivid memories of being teased for being 'the kid' at work, like it was just a few years ago.  But through my own lack of vigilance, time accelerated 36 years into the future, slip-sliding to the year 2020.  2020!  When I was starting out in animation, sci-fi movies portrayed the year 2020 as a dystopian future where the environment is ruined by man's greedy industrial pursuits and chaos rules - like that could come to pass.

Since moving back to Los Angeles after thirteen years on the east coast, I have been living in my own, personal Back to the Future sequel.  Everything is the same, but different. Landmarks I once used for directions are gone. Downtown LA is barely recognizable.  And no more Mo's, Billy's Deli, or World Art Supply. 

Recently, I crossed the threshold where friends and colleagues die, and not by accident.  Two passed this summer - Kelly Asbury and Sue Nichols.  I attended a memorial service for Kelly last month.  Arriving late, I sat in the back of the outdoor venue.  I saw the backs of a lot of older people in masks, then  realized - these are my peers!  They appeared to wearing age makeup to appear older, except they weren't.  I just had not seen them in 20 years. The Back to the Future Effect strikes again.

After the service, we all said our hello's through masks and distance.  They seemed to be experiencing the Back to the Future Effect themselves.  Standing there with former CalArts classmates Chris Sanders, Gary Trousdale, and Jeff DeGrandis,  we talked about the incredulous reality of aging.  "Consider this," I said,  "If we juxtaposed our career timelines over Frank and Ollie's, we'd be at Aristocats."

That comment was met with groans, gasps, and cartoon takes.  None of us feels like we're anywhere near the twilight of our careers.  Our skills are the sharpest ever, and our resumes speak to the solid experience we bring any production.  But the reality of how we are perceived by the industry cannot be denied. I've met many recruiters and executives since returning from New Jersey,  all much younger than me, all fascinated to meet someone who actually worked on A Goofy Movie.  It's like they are surprised I'm still at it, still hustling for work at my age.  It might be a different story if storyboard artists and animators got residuals like voice actors, but alas....

Where are you on the Frank and Ollie timeline?  If you're at Pinocchio, you may want to consider fighting for those residuals.  It's a fight that has been fought before, but never with the number of artists that animation has today.  David's odds against Goliath are the best they've ever been.  But do it soon, the Frank and Ollie timeline moves fast!  Once you've reached The Sword in the Stone,  the industry doesn't take you seriously anymore.  

Steve

So Long, Sue

Animation lost another great artist yesterday, as Sue Nichols lost her life after a long battle with cancer.  FLiP posted about her fight back in March of 2015, ten months after cancer took my wife, Donna. And though we weren't close,  I really, REALLY wanted Sue to make it.  Medical justice, I guess.   

Sue worked in story and development on a heap of features, from Beauty and the Beast to Princess and the Frog, and most recently, Ugly Dolls.  I knew her from our student days at CalArts where she was best friends with Brenda Chapman, a friendship that lasted until the day she died.  Often, if I ran into Brenda somewhere, Sue was with her.  She had a big bright smile and taste for twisted humor.  At CalArts, she was responsible for creating a series of haunted house mazes in good ol' A-113.  I experienced one of these mazes first hand, and I can attest to their brilliance.  There's a FLiP post about it from back in 2012 that is a worthy tribute to Sue.  Click here to check it out. 

So long, Sue!

-Steve

Help Sue Nichols Maciorowski SMAC Down Cancer

Once again, the call goes out to you in the animation community to help one of our own.  Sue Nichols Maciorowski, a 30 year animation veteran, is battling cancer.  The out-of-pocket costs are staggering.  To help pay for treatment, her best pal Brenda Chapman came up with Operation SMAC Down, and, with Tina Price, has created a donor page on the Give Forward website.  Over $9000 has been raised so far toward the goal of $25,000.

FLiP is asking you dear readers for two things:
1. Go to the site and donate to the SMAC down, anything you can.
2. Spread to word to friends and colleagues.

Click here to help.  And thank you.

Go Sue!

-Steve

Haunted in A-113

This time of year always makes me think of Cal Arts' Halloween parties.  They were the wildest, most bizarre galas only a school of artists could conjure.  The parties were exclusive to students and alumni, who could bring two outside guests.   Locals were always trying to crash the party, keeping the old men in yellow who were CalArts Security running all night.

In October of 1985, the Character Animation Dept. had its own 'haunted house' tour in the now trivially-famous room A-113.  They created a maze of horrors through which I found myself getting totally lost, even though I had been in this room hundreds of times as a student.

Sue Nichols, center, as a gypsy woman, Juliet Duncan, right as a dead woman, and Dave Cutler wearing a voodoo mask, behind.   Halloween, 1986.   

Sue Nichols was one of the student masterminds behind the haunted house.  She told FLIP:

"We did those Haunted Houses for ...what...3-4 years...? (Yah, I was around after graduation to see the tradition carried on.) Best room ever was the year we ended the maze with Jim Reardon in a small dark room with a baseball bat and bullhorn. People would rise up out of the maze into a seemingly safe room.  Jim would blow the rrrrrreally loud horn as Rich Moore flashed a light on him and opened the door.  The scared people fell out into the hall ... right into the middle of the line of people waiting to go in.  Screaming people falling over themselves to rush out of the haunted house put the waiting virgins into a state of panic!  They were in the right state of freak before they even entered the maze.  Anything we did would make them scream after that.  Awesome idea!  And of course the screaming people had to save face and never admitted that they jumped at the sound of a horn.  They made the house sound scarier than it was to the line of waiting guests.  Egos make great PR.

Dale McBeath and I made a graveyard on top of desks and made people crawl into a grave and through a maze underground.  As you climbed down into the grave, Juliet Duncan (dressed as a dead woman) sat up in her coffin and screamed right into your face.  She also played a dead bride with Dave Cutler as her butler one year.  They made you crawl under the wedding cake table into a room of mirrors."

My own most vivid memory was crawling through a tunnel (think Bruce Willis in Die Hard) toward a 90 degree corner around which a strobe light was flashing.  Dan Jeup was ahead of me, crawling along, laughing at how cool everything was.  Ten feet from the corner, an evil gremlin stepped out from around the corner and stood in the strobe.  

"What the hell is that?" Dan laughed.  

The creature had long pointy ears and a head full of wild hair.  It had a square body and tiny little legs with long, pointy nails on its feet.  "What the hell IS that?"  I said.  It appeared to be real - not a mannequin or prop.  Was it a chimp in a costume?  

"What the hell is that?"  Dan and I said in unison.

Then the thing began to run toward us!  "Oh shit!" Dan shouted, putting it in reverse.  He slammed into me, and I slammed into someone behind me and we were all freaked out for a second until someone shouted "It's Broose!  It's Broose!"  

Broose Johnson was a student with prosthetic legs.  He had simply removed them and was walking on his hands in costume.  It was very effective.  He ran right up to Dan's face, paused, then casually walked back around the corner, leaving us in a dark tunnel that now smelled like farts.  

Sue recalled Broose's antics:

"Broose loved taking off his legs for this haunt and played a monster running around several times. I think he was a broken statue one year too." 

Brenda Chapman played the Bride of Frankenstein with Alan Smart as the mad doctor.  She recalled the tunnel:

"They brought in live bugs and cockroaches and put them in large clear plastic boxes the you had to crawl over to get away from Broose. Really creepy! If the fire marshal had found us out, we would have been shut down. Once you were in the maze, there was no other way out but forward."

Sue Nichols elaborated:

"We also had a room devoted to bugs one year. Spiders, I believe. Filled the floor with packing popcorn and draped spiders on cobwebs everywhere. Under a strobe, the room crawled!!! Simple yet effective effect. Loads of fun, fond memories."

To truly appreciate these productions, just consider the talent pool involved; Sue, Brenda, Broose and the whole gang herein mentioned have all had very prolific careers in animation.  It's true "ya hadda be there", and I'm glad I was. 

-Steve

Read about the CalArts party in "THE Halloween Party" from the original FLIP.