Joseph Gilland.

A few months ago, I wrote about managing animation crews. Could there be a more eclectic, or colorful group of people on this earth, as an international animation crew? Of course there’s always the theater, dance, music and movie businesses, with their flamboyant and often exhibitionistic “look at me” characters, forever outdoing each other in their outrageousness.

But the animation industry has a different kind of colorful character. Rather than being blatantly extroverted, animation artists are often a kind of troubled and twisted introvert who has unpredictable moments of extreme exhibitionism. The quiet withdrawn, pencil-necked geek, forever doodling cartoons on every available surface, who suddenly blurts out a series of wacky Warner Bros. era old-school cartoon sound effects is a perfect example.

I’d like to take a walk through my animation studio memory lane, and fondly remember some of the most colorful characters I can think of. For obvious reasons, I will alter facts and change names and places wherever I choose, in order to protect the guilty. If you suspect that one of these characters is in fact you, don’t worry, no one else will know for sure, much less believe that anyone so strange could possibly exist! But seriously, I’m not naming names (with one exception)… just spinning animation yarns.

Back in 1976, when I was first getting my feet wet in the animation business, I was working late one evening in a commercial animation studio in Montreal, doing shading with prismacolor pencils on “frosted” cels, coloring in some animated wrestlers for a television commercial. The client was a large Canadian banking company. It was a cold, stormy, snowy winter night outside, and the crumbly old brownstone building’s heating left a lot to be desired. It was chilly even indoors, and I was huddled over my light table, with my lamp as close as possible, for warmth. Hearing the scuffle of feet dragging across the floor of the studio, I looked up form my work, to see a bizarre apparition.

Here was a grizzled, white haired man, probably in his sixties, in a bathrobe and slippers, with a beard and Albert Einstein-like white hair sticking out in every possible direction. He had the unmistakable look of someone who has just awoken, and did not look like he was in any mood for conversation. I watched, probably with my mouth hanging opened, (I was 18 years old) as he headed for the back door, which opened out onto a fire escape. We were on the third floor of the old brownstone. He wrenched opened the back door and stepped out in to the swirling snow, cursing under his breath.

I leaned, to look around my animation table, to see what he might be up to. There were a couple of big garbage cans out there, and he was rummaging through them noisily, with much clanking and the noise of bottles and cans, cursing louder and louder as he dug deeper and deeper. Suddenly, triumphantly, he hoisted a large whiskey bottle out of the garbage can, which appeared to still contain an inch or two of amber liquid. He slammed the garbage can lid back down, came back inside and scuffled back across the room, snow flakes falling off of his shoulders, clutching the bottle, muttering under his breath about the *%+#$&!! cleaning ladies who were fool enough to throw out an unfinished bottle of perfectly good whiskey.

This was my first professional encounter with a “famous” animator, someone about whom I had heard wonderful stories, and I had been very excited about the prospect of meeting him, while working at this studio. After that day, I never did get to know him, but this unique little winter’s night memory is as clear as if it was yesterday.

Another particularly wonderful animation character whose name I will tell you, and who I had the honor to actually meet and spend some time with, was the National Film Board legend, Norman McLaren, God rest his soul. This is a story I have not told to many people, but one of the most powerful meetings of my life.

When I was studying animation at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts School of Art and Design back in 1974-75, I was particularly fascinated by the work McLaren had done, actually drawing sound waves and filming them on to the optical sound track of the film strip, on a specially designed camera made just for him at the N.F.B. I could never understand why it wasn’t considered more of a remarkable feat in film history. Here was a director actually drawing his sound track! He had figured out how many lines per frame would create what specific note, and how changing the shapes of the lines, changed to tone of the notes!