Beauty and the Beast

This film probably holds more for me personally than any other film I've worked on. It was the first time the Florida studio was given a great amount of responsibility in working with the California studio. Sure we worked on Rescuers Down Under, but only did random scenes and characters. Beast was the first time we were given sequences, and important sequences at that. It was also the first time I was scared to death to do my job. My friend, animator Aaron Blaise had just come off of RDU and was hand picked by Glen Keane to lead up the Beast animation in Florida. Being Aaron's assistant I went on to work with him on the Beast. We were both caught a bit off gaurd thinking our role would be mop up stuff as in RDU, but the stakes were upped and we had to perform.

It was the first time I was actually flown to LA to work with Bill Berg( one of my future mentors and a mean drummer as well. Next time you are in a music store pick up one of his CDs. The group is called Flim and the BBs and they do some cool jazz.) and Glen Keane. Needless to say, in the few years I had worked there Glens reputation was God like and I was intimidated as hell to meet him much less work with him. Bill was Glen's assistant for many years and had the reputation of being the best clean up artist in the industry. He and Bill were very patient and kind and with their help we managed to do some pretty decent work.

The sequences we did were in Florida were the bandaging sequence as well as the "Something There" song. These were considered Beasts turning points. The bandaging scenes were great and Aaron, then 21, got to flex his acting muscles for the first time. The song , the dreaded sequence 15.1, was another story, hence the cartoon below ( apologies to Watterson) which was done by a colleague. It was a popular sequence with moviegoers but painfully boring to draw. It was just scene after scene of Beast doing nothing but turning his head and smiling, ugh. I dreaded getting these scenes and the head of our dept. , Ruben Procopio seemed to revel in it.

In any case none of knew what the film would become and it still remains the favorite film I've worked on.