Sep 5, 2008

Blast from the past-Richard Williams


Edited to add:  here's the annotated photograph-notes by Steve Hickner.
To view larger, click the image.

 



It's 2008-do you know where you were 19 years ago?
Thanks to Steve Hickner for the photo from his distant past(for those that don't know him, that's Steve with his hands clasped in front of him).

This was taken after Dick Williams had been given a few Oscars for "Roger Rabbit"-a film Steve was doing various things on which in turn led to his relocating to London and setting up Amblimation. What a byzantine business we work in.

See how many faces you can place(Steve looks the same now as he did then-he's a cinch). I'll come back with the IDs later.


15 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's Joe Ranft, Alex Williams, and Pat Sito. Mark Kausler's having fun, too!

They did terrific work, even if the animation was VERY spotty, and the film as a whole awful.

Mark Mayerson said...

I see Mark Kausler and Pat Sito for sure. It looks like Tom Sito in the back row third from right. Tom and Pat are old friends and I've had the pleasure of meeting Mark. I think that's Dorse Lanpher on the right in the middle row, though I've never had the pleasure. Is that Andreas Deja to the right of Dick?

Anonymous said...

It's either Andreas or Borat.

Wasn't Eric Goldberg on staff there? Am I just not able to imagine him at this age?

Anonymous said...

Joe Haidar next to Hickner. Vera Lanpher Pacheco next to Dorse, James Baxter in his more hirsute days above the pixieish older woman whom I don't recognize. Who is she? Dave and Debbie Spafford flank Williams. Carl Bell left of Dorse. Nik Ranieri between Joe Ranft and Sito. Roger Chiasson? and Hans Bacher in the back. Can't place bearded guy next to Kausler, older guy next to Baxter, and clean shaven guy above him. This was the LA crew for RR sans Matt O'Callaghan, I believe.

Anonymous said...

"This was the LA crew for RR sans Matt O'Callaghan, I believe."

No , this isn't the LA Crew.

LA Crew was headed up by Dale Baer , and included animators Matt O' Callaghan , Frans Vischer, Barry Temple, Bruce Smith, Dave Spafford, Mark Kausler, Dave Pacheco . Assistants : Jane Baer, Renee Holt, Brett Newton, David Nethery,Kent Culotta, Gilda Palinginis, Eric Daniels, Carl Bell, Kent Holaday Dolly Baker, and several others , including freshly minted Cal Arts kid inbetweener Brenda Chapman (whatever happened to that girl ? I heard she did pretty well ) ... I know I'm leaving out a lot of names , sorry to anyone I skipped over . I have to check the crew list again . When I think back on that time period from Roger - to - Mermaid and onwards there was so much going on and we all tended to work on all the pictures overlapping , so those years all kind of run together for me.

There's a complete LA crew photo of all of us in front of the old Grand Central Airport Terminal building which I will have to dig out and post on my blog. The old airport terminal building was right next door to the warehouse building on Airway where the "LA Crew" (Glendale actually) for Roger was housed.

Kausler and Spaff worked on the picture in both London and Glendale.

The photo shown above is of a post-Oscar lunch that Dick had as a little mini-reunion for all the London Crew members of Roger Rabbit who were then in LA. This reunion/Oscar celebration lunch was during production on Mermaid. James and Nik had come over from London , as had Steve Hickner, Joe Haidar, Tom and Pat Sito , Dorse and Vera Lanpher ... all on Mermaid at the time this photo was taken.

"Can't place bearded guy next to Kausler"

That's animator Jacques Muller.

Unknown said...

Where was I that long ago? Oh yeah, not living :P

Jez Hall said...

Is Marc (french name) a very young Marc Gordon?
Have to send him this link.

Bill Perkins said...

I'm pretty sure the older women in front is Mary Cain - she ran a ink and paint service in Hollywood for years and may have been involved.

Floyd Norman said...

I received a pile of art and stuff from the London studio that I wanted to compile into a "making of" book. Naturally, Disney wasn't interested.

I did know the LA crew over on Airway, and I spent time at Amblin over on the Universal lot. Those were fun days.

Tom said...

The French Marc to the left of Roger Chiasson is Marc Gordon-Bates, an great French animator with a very Anglo-Saxon name.
The older woman was Dick Williams mom.
Thanks for posting the photo.

Tom said...

Oh, and the young man behind Hans Bacher is Alex Williams. Eric Goldberg was not on this crew. At this time he was still in London with his studio Pizzazz. He came out to LA to do the Genii in Aladdin the following year.

Anonymous said...

OK, as promised, (with help from Eric Daniels and Bruce Smith) I have posted a scan of the L.A. Roger Rabbit crew on my blog:

http://inklingstudio.typepad.com/chronicles/

Sept. 11, 2008 posting titled "Roger Rabbit , LA Crew photo , 1988".

I'll work on posting full ID's of everyone in the photo later, but until then come on over and have fun pointing out who you recognize.

hans bacher said...

the older lady is dick's mother and on my right is dick's son alex. on my left is marc gordon-bates

marc french name said...

Thanks to Jez i feel older now .i do remember clearly that friendly lunch among notorious artists and espescially the moment when M.WILLIAMS invited each one of us to stand beside him to hold the oscars for a personal photo right before this one was taken ,thought that was really kind . don't you think so lads?

Tom said...

It was very nice Marc. No one ever invited me to fondle their Oscars before!- Tom Sito