Animated Life

Taking My Best Shot

7

Working on “The Saga of Windwagon Smith”

Chuck Williams and Floyd Norman

Learning to Be an Animator

We all remember our first car, our first job, and certainly our first date. Like everyone else, I've got a “first” as well. However, mine is going to be a little different. I'm speaking of my first animated scene in a Disney cartoon and how that scene ushered me into the highly coveted position of “animator” at the Mouse House. We'll get to that scene in a bit, but first a little Disney history.

Let's go back to the 1960s and the completion of the feature film 101 Dalmatians. Disney's animation department had already suffered a severe downsizing after Sleeping Beauty, but now the Animation Department was informed ...