"A Silly Symphony"
Release Date October 31, 1936
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Running Time 9:15
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Released by United Artists Pictures, Inc.
Comments
The following is taken from an interview with Art Babbit conducted by Michael Barrier in 1986. The entire interview (with audio clips) can be read at MichaelBarrier.com. This excerpt is used with the kind permission of Mr. Barrier.
BARRIER: I asked Wilfred Jackson about what he remembered about your work on Country Cousin, and I specifically asked if this had been a situation where you expanded a scene as you did in Moving Day [which was released earlier the same year, 1936]. Jackson said:
"To the best of my recollection this sequence of the little drunk mouse was pictured in very complete detail on the storyboard, as was usual. What was a bit unusual about this particular picture as compared to most of them at about this time, and one of the things that comes to mind most readily about it, is that I was assigned to direct it way ahead of time, instead of abruptly finding out I was to direct it after the story work was nearly finished as so often happened when the studio was this large. This meant that I had more than the usual opportunity to be in on the details of the cartoon business throughout the story—including the drunk mouse scenes. And so, I had even more than a usually clear picture in my own mind of what we were after. This is why I think it likely I would recall anything substantially different in the final result from what we started out to get. I can recall the fun all of us had acting out for each other, our own versions of how the little drunk mouse would do the things we selected to picture on the storyboard. . . .
"When Country Cousin was okayed for production and moved into the music room, and while I was timing and planning it for animation, it seems to me there was about the usual amount of changing and reworking parts of it before Walt finally okayed it to proceed into actual animation. I believe Art was assigned to pick up the drunk scenes long enough ahead of time to be in on this stage of preparing his parts of it, and I'm fairly certain that after Walt okayed it for animation and Art came in to actually 'pick up' his assignment, each last little move the mouse was expected to make on the screen had been timed down to the exact frame on the exposure sheets, and a rough piano score had been composed by Leigh Harline, so it was possible for me to demonstrate for Art a pretty complete concept of the actions we all had decided on. Also, the staging, camera angles and scene cuts would have been predetermined and clearly nailed down by the layouts before Art began his animation—all that was standard procedure at the time.
"When Art came into the music room after all this conferring and preparation, for the purpose of getting his exposure sheets and layouts to take back to his own room and begin animating the drunk scenes, I'm sure he and I reviewed everything we expected the mouse to do in complete detail. And, I'm sure too, Art made the usual amount of new suggestions and requests for changes in our planning and timing, which required the usual amount of revising and re-timing on my part before he took the sheets and layouts away. This was par for the course in handling out work to an animator, and I believe I would remember it if we had done it much differently. For example, I do not recall handing out exposure sheets with an open end on the timing—but rather, each scene must have had a start marked on a particular frame relating it to the planned musical score and a cut marked on it to show when the scene was to end and how long it would be—just as was the usual thing. Nor do I recall any of Art's scenes with a carte blanche exposure sheet in which he would be turned loose to animate the mouse doing whatever might come into Art's mind for him to do. I'm certain I would remember the departure from our usual procedure if this sort of thing had been done.
"Instead, I believe each individual thing the mouse was to do, how he would do it, why he was doing it that way, how long he would take to do it, how large he would appear on the screen, which direction he was facing in relation to the camera, etc., etc.,etc., had all been agreed on between the two of us before Art took his drunk mouse scenes to his room to begin animating them. I'm sure, too, that it was understood between the two of us that all this pre-planning was not expected to result in dictating to Art exactly how he must animate each thing. It was only how we both thought, at that time, he thought he was going to do it.
"I do not recall it specifically, but I'm sure on the drunk mouse scenes there was a little more than the average amount of Art coming to the music room, or calling me to his animation room, to discuss changes in the agreed-on actions—and a little more than the usual amount of revisions of my own planning to accommodate them during the time he was making his rough animation drawings. This was the kind of action where more of that was to be expected, and Art was the kind of animator who could be expected to animate his scenes in his own individual way, too. …
"I believe I'm trying to say something like this:
"The things the drunk mouse was to do, and what his attitudes and reactions were to be, came from all of us who had been working on the picture. The extremely skillful way all of this was so effectively brought to life on the screen through his animation was Art's own personal achievement."
BABBITT: I think that's a very honest appraisal. As I recall, everything was pretty much agreed upon. There might have been slight variations in timing, and things like that, but I don't remember having any difficulties with Jackson at all—none—on that mouse thing. In fact, I was so dismayed by my own efforts on that picture that I couldn't wait for vacation time to come around, because I wanted to get the hell out of there. I thought it was so bad, the stuff that I was doing.
There's an anecdote that goes with this Country Cousin. Walt came into the room as I was picking up the work from Jackson, and he said, "You know what I would like to see you do in this Country Cousin"—he had just seen Moving Day—"I'd like to see you get that same kind of personality, that same kind of invention," or whatever words he used, "that you did in Moving Day." "Yeah, Walt, but there's one hitch." "What's that?" "If I'm going to do a drunken mouse, I have to have a research fund." "Jesus Christ, the front office is complaining about expenses already." One eyebrow went down, one went up, and he left the room. Three or four months later, when the picture was previewed at the theater, and people fortunately liked it, he was waiting for me at the boxoffice. He nudged me and said, "Hey, Art, about a cocktail?" I said, "No, thanks, Walt, I've got a date with a blonde." It wasn't a blonde, it was a brunette, but I didn't want to be involved.
I never had a problem with Jackson. The one thing that irritates me about Country Cousin is that so many bad books give credit for directing that to Dave Hand. Dave Hand never entered the room; he had nothing to do with it.
Let me just settle this Jackson thing. He was the top director; I agree with whatever he says. He's been very generous, and very honest, in his report. I don't claim credit for creating it all; of course it went through many, many channels before it got to him, and he gave me the information as thoroughly as he was able to, and if anything was added it was because of my own personal quirks. But I don't claim any additional credit for it.
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Sketches of Abner Countrymouse |
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