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Ub Iwerks: Part Two
Let's start in mid-1928, when Ub was working with Walt Disney at Disney Brothers Productions, of which he had 1/3 ownership. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit had just been given to Charles Mintz, and the two knew they needed a new character to put into the spotlight. So, in one hour's time, Ub drew four different, new characters for consideration. There was a frog, a horse, a cow...and a mouse. After a little fine tuning, the mouse was chosen, and the world would soon get to know Mickey Mouse - the character that would change the face of animation and entertainment forever (ultimately, however, each of Ub's characters was put to good use: the horse became Horace Horsecollar, the cow became Clarabelle Cow, and the frog became Flip the Frog, Ub's most popular character from his days on his own at the Ub Iwerks Studios). So, once they had their character, Walt set to giving him a voice and personality, while Ub worked on his design aspects. And in fact, the first three Mickey Mouse films to be released, Plane Crazy, Gallopin' Gaucho and Steamboat Willie, were single-handedly animated by Ub. But as time went on and Mickey's popularity began to grow, Ub began to contribute more and more to the storyline aspect of Mickey's adventures and the ongoing development of his personality. This was the very beginning of the ultimate falling out Walt and Ub would have. Ub started to meddle too much in what Walt considered his territory, which, when combined with the entrance of Pat Powers onto the scene, led to Ub selling his share of the company back and leaving to start the Ub Iwerks Studios. Once he left, he resurrected the frog drawing he had done a few years earlier, and Flip the Frog was born. Ub also created another character, a mischief making, lying little boy named Willy Whopper. There were 34 Flip the Frog cartoons and 11 Willy Whopper cartoons made during Ub's time on his own, as well as nearly 35 Comi-Color Cartoons. These were brilliantly colored animated works that were all based on fairy tales. These projects kept Ub busy through 1936, when he left Ub Iwerks Studios. Until 1938, however, the studio would operate under the name "Animated Films Corporation". For the next few years, Ub worked on two Bugs Bunny shows for Warner Brothers Studios and did work in advertising films. By now, however, Ub's interest had started to shift from animation to mechanics, which is where he focused the majority of his energies when he returned to Disney in 1940. He almost immediately formed a new division of the studio, the "Special Processes and Camera Department," and set to creating new innovations in production. He invented the "traveling matte" method of animation, which allowed animators to combine their drawings with live action. By the late '50s, he had perfected this method, and the "sodium vapor traveling matte" method won Ub his first Oscar. It took the original traveling matte method to new levels of beauty and seamless transition, with the first film to employ it being 1960's Ten Who Dared. Ub also created the Xerox Cel process, which allowed animators to skip over the inking stage and soon became an industry standard. In fact, dozens of inventions in the field of animation and production can be traced back to Ub - from simple tools such as the peg bar, which secured an artist's work to his table for better control, to utterly unique and complicated innovations such as Circle Vision - where the audience stands in the middle of a theatre and watches the action on giant screens surrounding them (if you've seen the shows in either Canada or China in Epcot Center's World Showcase, then you've seen Circle Vision). In fact, Ub even pioneered the first 3-D films in the '30s...with a camera set up in the trunk of a Studebaker! For his visionary achievements, Ub was honored with the Kalmas Gold Medal Award, the highest technical award given, in 1964, and another Oscar for general contributions to the industry. He was nominated for a third Oscar for his work on Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, but was unfortunately beat by Cleopatra. Of course, these are just a few of his accomplishments, and, according to Dave, there are so many more - so many that it would take several Scoops to give them all their due credit. And, as we said last week, in this new age of computer technology and animation, we can only imagine how the entertainment world be different - and even more extraordinary - were Ub Iwerks still here.
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