Saturday, December 5, 2009

Dec 5th [Updated]


For Walt Disney's birthday (5 December 1901) I have chosen his last film as a director. According to Michael Barrier, the king was animated by Norm Ferguson while Fred Moore took care of the elf. It was made at the same time as Wilfred Jackson directed The Goddess of Spring, also a Silly Symphony. Both films have unofficially been considered "trial runs" for Snow White.

In case you are new, THIS is how it works.




What color are the elf's hat and leggings? 
Bonus question: what is the title of the 1935 short film?


A                         B                         C                        D

Judging from the image of King Midas above, it could have been any of the proposed colors. But as this - given its circumstances - is a rather uninspired, dialogue-heavy cartoon, the most obvious choice was D for a Robin Hood like figure that appears to come straight out of the woods. It also balances his brown shirt and red belt. The elf is called Goldie, by the way, because he provides the Greek king with the power to transform everything he touches into gold. In the original myth, this power was given to him by Dionysos as a reward.

According to Michael Barrier, Disney directed this Silly Symphony called The Golden Touch himself because at that stage he wanted to direct Snow White as well (this is the simplified version, for the details check Michael Barrier's thoroughly researched book The Animated Man).



4 comments:

Shannon Crissey said...

Because it's so dark, I'm going with the last one, green. go complimentary colors!

Aaron said...

I have no idea what the name of the short film is. So far all my use of color theory has been wrong but my guess is D. Green is complementary to the elf's red shirt.

sunny kharbanda said...

I wanna say D, just so it would balance out all the warm golden colors with something cool.

But something tells me it could even be A.

Soriah said...

I'm going to say "B." Next time I will give a reason why I chose my answer but I'm in sort of a rush.