More Toadying: Paul Fisher again

The irrepressible Paul Fisher as drawn by the inimitable Dave Pimentel

The other day's post about my colleague Paul Fisher was based on a single drawing of his that I've had pinned to my wall for the past several months--that one of the Toad closely examining...something or other. Here then are a few final panels--albeit 2nd generation xeroxes scanned on my dubious flatbed--from one of my favorite scenes in "Flushed Away", sequence 1750: the Toad/celphone business. For those who haven't seen the film yet, the Toad is speaking via celphone screen to the heroes; his arms and legs are actually those of another character.

This is a prime example of a story artist doing his thing in sync with the characters in a scene he devised himself. These are mostly in sequence with a couple of my favorite wild card panels tossed in. The entire thing consisted of several hundred story sketches..
And as always, remember: all the images in this post save the caricature are ©2006 Dreamworks Animation.

Enjoy!

Toad in the hole: Paul Fisher

Paul endowed the Toad with a generous helping of himself: a not-so-thwarted thespian-megalomaniac. All images copyright 2006 Dreamworks Animation and Aardman.

I generally make it a point not to mention anything that pertains directly to something I personally have worked on, but I do enjoy pointing a finger at those artists I work with or near that deserve special mention.
Patrick Mate, Devin Crane, Dave Pimentel and Donnachada Daly have all had blurbs from the Blackwing Diaries, and so with today's release of the Aardman/Dreamworks production "Flushed Away" I'd like to direct you to the "heart and highlight"[Paul's words, written for Ian McKellan's Toad] of that production: its prolific and very funny head of story Paul Fisher.


left to right: a barely visible Mark Kennedy, Paul Fisher, Jenny Lerew, and Ash Brannon at Calarts--all veterans of the class of '87-90. I believe I'm actually on the phone to Don Knott's agent in this shot. He really should have done Mark's film.


another rough board drawing; Le Frog and a compatriot
Paul had a habit on this production of drawing all his boards very, very small, then knocking in the tone and blowing them up on the xerox to pin up on the boards. These measure a little less than the size of a playing card; the size of our actual story pads is much larger, but both keep to the same filmscreen ratio.
So, being relatively tiny these are also fairly rough or loose drawings, but they're just right for the places they fill in the story.

Paul has a particularly keen feeling for nuance in a character's performance--and, better than that an eye for the absurd in every circumstance. Like all good artists, these guys are utterly real to him when he immerses himself in a scene, which in my opinion is why he's able to get real laughs and a genuine sense of life from his cast.

These drawings are basically scraps I culled from his floor over the past several years of "Flushed Away"(well, maybe from a shelf or the seat cushions of his guest chair--this stuff is everywhere; I'm sure all story artists can relate). There are only about 25,000 more where these came from. Put together they make for some great sequences and he isn't a bad boss, either.
Congratulations, Paul--see you on the other side of the weekend. And many thanks to our directors, Sam and David, too.
Cheers!

tags technorati : flushed away, aardman, animation, storyboarding, drawing