An American Tail

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Deleted Scene I animated

Over 20 years ago I was a new animator with vigor and an outlook to be a master animator. During that time I was hired to animate at Don Bluth Studios on "An American Tail". The first few scenes I was given to animate where on a section of the film that Don had not finished storyboarding yet. Some of the scenes had gone through layout and were ready to be animated. They were at a section of the film where the family was boarding the ship for America. As happens with many films the scenes get altered and some scenes get removed. Above is one of these scenes. Fievel in his excitement has stopped the line boarding the ship and Fievel is looking at the fish in the water below. He is holding onto his dads tail and his dad starts walking pulling Fievel along. In the final film the scene was extended and widened to include the other mice.
Though it is a short scene and my drawing skills have improved greatly there are some points about this scene that are worth looking at and reminding myself. Look at the weight that is due to both the timing and the poses. The slow start to his walk gives the feeling he's being pulled by his dad. There is a simple main action that takes place but other secondary actions and overlap were added later. These secondary actions give a life to the scene. His look back at the other passengers behind him gives a nice sense of a little boy.
Because the scene is so short he doesn't change his pose too drastically helping make the action and gesture read.
Sometimes it's good to look back at work you've done that either you like or others gave you a good response to. Analyze them and see what might be the reason they worked. It's easy to lose sight as to why a scene is successful. It's also easy to get wrapped up in deadlines and frustrations and lose the life the scene requires.