Tom Oreb - SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959)
I’d never had any reason to think that Oreb had been involved significantly in the design of Maleficent’s goons in SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959). Bill Peet wrote in his autobiography that he had had a lot of fun working on the sequences with the goons so I’d assumed that he was generally responsible for the look of those characters. But yesterday, I ran across these amazing (and overpriced) photostats on this animation art site. I’m not 100% that these are Oreb’s drawings, but everything about them—from the sophisticated way the characters are constructed to the posing—is pure Oreb. Also, none of the other artists who were involved in the production design of the film (Don DaGradi, Ken Anderson, Bill Peet) drew like this. The only other artist at Disney who, I think, could have drawn characters with such careful attention to design was Ward Kimball. If anybody can confirm whether Oreb did these or not, please let us know.
I’d bet you’re right about Oreb here–but your speculation about authorship reminds me–didn’t Kimball work on Sleeping Beauty, early on, in development? Was he going to direct it or something? There’s some published interview somewhere where Ward talks about this, I believe(and also talks about Chuck Jones’ brief employment there at the same time, also on SB).
Comment by Jenny — March 9, 2006 @ 2:38 pm
You’re right, Ward was on the film for a short time. He talks about it in this Barrier inteview. Seems both Kimball and Jones only worked on it in ‘53 or thereabouts, and didn’t contribute much to the film.
Comment by Amid — March 9, 2006 @ 5:39 pm
i thought i’d ask this here…i’d say it’s a pretty safe bet to say ward kimball and tom oreb had a lot to do with animation seqence in the tomorrowland attraction “mission to mars”. true? do any of you lot know where that segment may be found to view today? i’d love to see it again sometime soon. man, i wish they’d never have messed with tomorrowland. it used to actually look like tomorrow, even today!
Comment by rik — March 10, 2006 @ 4:47 pm
It’s on a “Disney rarities: Tomorrowland” DVD that’s out right now.
Man In Space, Man and the Moon, Mars and Beyond, Eyes In Outer Space and Our Friend the Atom. Ward Kimball aplenty!
If you can’t get it where you are there’s always Amazon or eBay.
Comment by woodrow phoenix — March 11, 2006 @ 2:42 am
Well this article’s been a real eye opener for me. I’d always viewed the film as a real good entertaining story without thinking about its artistic significance. I reviewed the film a few times and one of the main things that came across to me was that it looked like a film that combines live action with animation. This is particularly apparent in the castle scenes were the backgrounds could be mistaken for real photos. You should have known better Walt.
Comment by Maryfill — July 17, 2007 @ 10:01 am