January 11 - Pres Romanillos

Image courtesy jimhillmedia.com

On this day, in 1963, Priscillano Antonio Romanillos was born in Zamboanga City, Philippines. When he was 6, Pres and his family moved to Queens, New York. At some point, his older brother, Bob, started to take a correspondence course in art. Bob quickly lost interest but the lessons, already paid for, kept coming. Pres began looking at his brother’s lessons, loved them and finished the course for him. When he grew older, Pres attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, eventually earning himself an MFA.

In 1989, as the Disney Renaissance was starting and the company was actively recruiting animators for the first time in years, Pres was hired on as an animation trainee. He cut his teeth on The Little Mermaid, impressing one of the supervising animators, Ruben Aquino, with his draftsmanship and passion. He continued to hone his skills on The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. By Pocahontas, Pres had been promoted to animator and worked under supervising animator Glen Keane on the title character. Pocahontas co-director Eric Goldberg said he was in awe of the sheer beauty that was Pres’ work.

Image copyright Disney

Pres made minor contributions to The Hunchback of Notre Dame but came into his own on Disney’s 36^th animated feature, Mulan. As supervising animator for the films villain, Shan-Yu, as well as the villainous sidekick, Hayabusa the falcon, Pres really threw himself into his work, albeit mostly subconsciously. He said in an interview once that he left work feeling sexy during production on Pocahontas, but when he shifted to Mulan, his wife kept asking why he was so angry all the time. Feelings below the surface or not, Pres managed to create a menacing figure in Shan-Yu that no one felt too bad about when he met his explosive demise at film’s end.

Image copyright DreamWorks

Once Mulan was finished, Pres became another Disney casualty in the animation war of the time, when he followed Jeffrey Katzenberg to his newish studio, DreamWorks SKG. He came in during production on The Road to El Dorado as an animator. By Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, he was once again a supervising animator as he also helped design the Native American character Little Creek. Pres continued as a supervisor for Dunbar’s Crew on DreamWork’s 2003 film, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Unfortunately for Pres (and Jeffrey and DreamWorks) none of those movies were a financial success. Following Sinbad, DreamWorks would abandon traditional animation altogether in favor of CGI. Fortunately for Pres, he was able to make the transition to computer animation and contributed to films like Shrek 2 and Madagascar.

Image courtesy lifeisapickle.blogspot.com

In 2007, Pres travelled to Spain, where he established the Enne Animation Studio with his artist friend, Scott Johnston. While there he completed a short film, The Old Chair, using characters from a blog he’d started in 2006, Life as a Pickle. Tragically, while in Spain, Pres would be diagnosed with leukemia. He returned to the States, underwent a bone marrow transplant and seemed to be on the road to recovery. He actually returned to work at Disney in July of 2009 as an animator on Prince Naveen for The Princess and the Frog.

Pres might have angered the voodoo gods through his work on Princess, though. In March of 2010, he not only suffered a relapse of his cancer, but the leukemia was much more aggressive this time around. Pres passed away on July 17, 2010. Following his death, Steve Hulett, a representative of the Animation Guild, declared that of all the animators who deserved a few more decades of artistic success, Pres was at the top of that list. He was only 47 years old.

December 29 - Duncan Marjoribanks

Image courtesy animationguild.org

On this day, in 1953, Duncan Marjoribanks was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Duncan grew up in a liberal family and was considered a far-out hippy type in high school. Painfully introverted, he was also incredibly smart and extremely talented at drawing. His talents would take him to the Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Canada’s premiere school for animation located in Oakville, Ontario. Following his graduation from Sheridan in 1978, Duncan became part of a group that was hired by Hanna-Barbera prompting a move to Los Angeles, California. Duncan quickly became one of the studio’s top animators, working on shows like Scooby and Scrappy Doo and Godzilla. Then the great Animator’s Strike of 1982 happened. 

Image copyright CBS

The strike began as the union protested how much work was being sent overseas (where it was much cheaper to produce) and lasted for several months. The end result, ironically predictable, was that most US animation production disappeared. Duncan changed his career focus to designing characters and began freelancing for several studios. One of the projects he would work on, and his first as animator in a decade, was a short lived television series called Family Dog. It was created and directed by a guy named Brad Bird who was thoroughly taken with Duncan’s style and talent. Brad recommended Duncan to a friend of his, John Musker. John was starting a little project over at Disney about a mermaid and hired Duncan as the first animator on the team.

Image copyright Disney

Duncan became supervising animator for Sebastian the Crab on Disney’s 28^th animated feature, The Little Mermaid. He took Samuel E. Wright’s marvelous vocal performance and the basic character designs that had already been done and created one of the most endearing and enduring characters that had been seen in decades. Don’t believe me? Just watch the scene when Sebastian finally decides to help rather than hinder Ariel and get back to me.

The success of The Little Mermaid led to Duncan staying on with Disney and supervising again for the next feature film, The Rescuers Down Under, this time for the villain, McLeach. While this film did end up being less successful, it was the grueling schedule that really took its toll on Duncan. By the time the last frame had been drawn, he needed more than a vacation and actually took a year off to live in England. Which doesn’t mean he didn’t work. He provided some character design for a short-lived Hanna-Barbera show called The Pirates of Dark Water.

Image copyright Disney

In 1991, Duncan returned to the states, and Disney, to begin supervising work on another great sidekick, Abu in Aladdin. As if his previous work wasn’t impressive enough, now he would create a memorable character without using words at all. His work in the film can also be seen in the opening sequence with the shady salesman. Duncan went right from Aladdin onto the team for Pocahontas and once again supervised a villain, Governor Ratcliffe. His portrayal of Ratcliffe was more cartoonish than the other characters, which give him more of a presence, but still this side of overly flamboyant, so he remains believable. Duncan was then slated to supervise Megera for Hercules but that never happened.

Image copyright Dreamworks SKG

Around this time, Jeffrey Katzenberg was making his spectacularly messy exit from Disney and starting his own studio, Dreamworks SKG, with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. With big plans to stick it to his former employer, especially in the animation department, one of the first big talents Katzenberg poached was Duncan. The relationship didn't blossom the way anyone hoped. Duncan started out as supervising animator on Moses for Prince of Egypt but struggled with the job so much his only credit on the picture is plain old animator. He did some work on The Road to El Dorado, animating a few scenes with Tzekel-Kan and contributed some story ideas to Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron before leaving Dreamworks for good. He spent a year over at Warner Brothers, working on the animated parts of the box office bomb Osmosis Jones (he did pretty good work on the movie but left before it was finished, unhappy with the direction it was taking), before returning to the fold at Disney in 2000.

Image copyright Disney

Unfortunately, Duncan's return to Burbank came at a time when the studio was producing its worst picture since The Black Cauldron. As supervising animator for Mrs. Calloway on Home on the Range, Duncan managed some moments of greatness but the movie was a critical and financial failure. Following that disaster, he was trained in computer animation and contributed to the Bowler Hat Guy for Meet the Robinsons. Duncan then got the privilege of working on Disney's last hand drawn feature, The Princess and the Frog, as head animator for Big Daddy La Buff. 

In 2009, Duncan and Disney parted ways once again. The company had decided to stop using traditional animation techniques and Duncan didn't feel comfortable working with CGI. The only thing he's really done since then was a hand drawn short utilizing the characters from Kung Fu Panda. Which is really a shame. Hopefully some day the talent behind Sebastian and Abu, who has inspired so many animators still working today, will himself find inspiration in some new project and give us all a reason to smile again.