My Zen Is Like Mickey Mouse

My Zen Is Like Mickey Mouse

“In perpetuity and throughout the universe.”

I’ve always loved the poetry of that phrase.

How simply and elegantly it covers…

Everything.

Very zen!

It is also, on a personal level,

Very evocative to me,

As it reminds me of the years

I worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation.

You see, that’s what my Disney contract actually said,

“In perpetuity and throughout the universe.”

Meaning the company owned 

The work I produced for them 

Throughout the cosmos and for all time.

Forever and ever and everywhere.

I suppose that’s in case

I try to collect royalties from  

Martians of the future who

Land on earth and demand

To see Beauty and the Beast!

But you know lawyers.

Especially Disney lawyers.

They’re very thorough.

“So what?” I said. “I’m an artist!” 

I wanted to make 

Cartoons for Walt Disney,

The biggest damn cartoon-maker there ever was!

So I signed on the dotted line.

Of course, I never met Mr Disney,

Who died in 1966.

I’m old but not that old.

I worked there from 1989 until 2004.

Fifteen years.

The second golden age 

Of hand-drawn animation, 

It’s been called.

Although I don’t think I can seriously

Take all the credit for that one.

Maybe I was a small part of it.

Who knows?

A big thing is often made 

Of smaller things, is it not?

While working for Disney

I drew everything from 

Roger Rabbit losing his lunch…

To the little bear cub Koda…

Who loses his mother.

“Just like Bambi!” I used to brag,

Remembering that famous scene

Of a father explaining why a mother, 

“… can’t be with you, anymore.”

I don’t know about you, 

But that scene from Bambi

Still makes me cry today.

Hmmmm. 

I wonder.

Have I worked on a scene

That made you cry?

Or laugh?

Or squeeze a loved one’s hand 

In the dark with excitement?

At Disney, there’s a lot of tradition

Behind every animated movie.

Almost a century of progressive filmmaking.

Over sixty animated features.

Uncountable hours of labor by

Generations of talented employees.

Think of it…

Millions upon millions of drawings!

That’s a lot to live up to

And sometimes it weighs heavily

Upon those who make these movies today.

They try so hard!

It was here that I learned, btw,

The most important lesson an artist can learn…

To trust yourself.

I loved them all,

My pencil’s creations!

As you should love your children.

But I have three special favorites

From my days at Disney.

They are Khan the horse from Mulan,

Whom I love for his beauty and strength.

Stitch the experiment from Lilo and Stitch,

Whom I love for his appeal and sense of fun.

And Mickey Mouse, the little guy who started it all,

Whom I’ve loved since I was a child,

For his bravery and humanity.

Which is maybe a funny thing to say

About a mouse.

His humanity.

But that’s the magic 

Of Disney animation, isn’t it?

Between features sometime in the early 1990s 

I finally got to work with Mickey. 

I drew him dancing with a German supermodel 

While endorsing an orange-flavored soda pop. 

A commercial.

Made for the European market. 

Never shown in America.

But still I worked with Mickey Mouse!

Luckily, he was a good dancer,

Because I cannot dance worth a darn.

He was a good actor too,

Which made it easier.

Claudia Schiffer, the German supermodel 

He danced with in the commercial, 

Said he was a good kisser, as well.

Which doesn’t surprise me.

Mickey always brings his “A” game!

He was difficult to draw though.

At least he was for me.

You had to get him just right

Or he didn’t look like Mickey Mouse at all.

And you know what?

When I worked with him I discovered 

That he was even nicer in person 

Than he is in the movies!

The really big stars 

Are like that, they say.

Hard working… 

Kind… 

Considerate of others…

Which reminds me of my zen.

And the reason I began this poem.

May I compare my zen 

To that great actor, dancer and kisser,

Mickey Mouse?

My zen is hard working, 

Like Mickey is,

Because work is love… 

And without it nothing is achieved.

My zen is kind, 

Like Mickey is, 

Because it’s not how smart 

We are that matters… 

But how kind we can be. 

My zen has consideration for others, 

As Mickey does,

Because even a cartoon mouse knows…

Without consideration for others you are just an asshole. 

Finally, my zen helps me understand 

My place in the scheme of things.

That I should try to be happy

And not worry too much 

About living in a world 

I cannot control… 

But must not fear!

That life is short 

And ought to be funny.

Just like a Mickey Mouse cartoon.

Yes, my zen is very much

Like Mickey Mouse.

Even more so than I thought

When I began this poem.

Which doesn’t surprise me.

That’s one of the reasons

I like writing them…

Anything can happen

In my search to express my zen,

So that I might,

With love and respect, 

Set it before you.

And let’s not forget the poetry

Of such wonderful phrases as

“In perpetuity and throughout the universe.”

Which makes me laugh.

As my zen commands I should!

Thank you, Mickey.

You make me laugh too.

You always have.

I love you.

Take care.

Artistic Pride

   What is it with my family and horses?

   I might have mentioned my great uncle JB was hung for being a horse thief. That was in Texas back in 1927. He stole from a famous singing cowboy his equally famous horse.

   For some infamous barnyard fun. 

   We don’t speak of it round the Pliers family table. Not in the presence of the young ones anyway. 

   Then my dad, when he was little, fell off a horse and broke both of his arms. 

   I used to love it when he told that story, because he always looked so embarrassed when he told it. Like falling off a horse and breaking both your arms was a silly thing to do. I especially liked to hear how he had to let his mother (Dad was fatherless from an early age) help him go to the bathroom. 

   Ha! Ha! Boy, did that make a funny image in my mind!

   Like Uncle JB, Dad was from Texas, but I suppose unlike JB he wasn’t much of a cowboy. Or a horse lover. Not as a child anyway.

   Then we come to me. Ironically the first time I ever sat on a horse was at the home of a Disney animator. The ranch really, of John Lounsbery (master animator and one of Disney’s original nine old men). This was in the late 1950s. My father (whose name is John Ewing, for you history buffs) had just started working for Disney and Mr Lounsbery was his new boss.

   So our family was visiting his family, to get to know each other. 

   I couldn’t have been more than five or six years old.

   It was a picnic party. After a barbecue lunch I wandered from the picnic tables to where the horses were fenced. I stood and looked at the huge glistening animals shaking their heads and snorting in the sun. 

   They were so big!  

   As I stood there my dad came from behind and lifted me up and sat me down on one of them.

   I cried and cried!

   Dad thought it was funny and took my photograph while Mr Lounsbery stood by in case I should fall. I suppose he didn’t want me to break my arms like father like son. I remember he wore a real cowboy hat and the most beautiful cowboy boots, red and shiny in the fine California dust.

   (I’m sorry to say the photograph was lost during our move years later from California to New Zealand. I was fourteen then, and when I happened upon it quite by accident as we were packing to move… Well, let’s just say that no one has seen that photograph since. But I paid the price for my youthful vanity. My young conscience racked me for years about tearing up and throwing away that single stupid photograph!)

   I sat upon the horse crying. After I’d about cried myself out, my mother came and rescued me, saying to the men they ought to be ashamed making me cry like that. 

   She laughed as she scolded, like she always did.

   But it wasn’t the men that had made me cry.

   It was the horse.

   I had been terrified! 

   They laughed gently together, the men and my mother, so I knew I wasn’t in trouble for crying, which made me feel better so I stopped sniffling and calmed down, then my mother took me and sat me in the dust under a tree with some toy cars.

  

   

   It wasn’t until I started to draw that I began to appreciate horses. Drawing opens your eyes to the world around you and the beauties of nature at every turn. Later when becoming an animator I had to study horses and their amazing poetry of motion so that I might work with them in the movies.

   An animator must exercise close observation of his subject in order to analyze and later artfully reproduce its particular movements. 

   I mean mind-numbingly close observation! Not everyone can do it. You ever met an animator? If you have then you’ll know.

   We’re a special breed.

   Anyway, with my observation of horses came understanding. With understanding came appreciation. With appreciation came admiration. With admiration came love.

   As an artist I’ve learned that it helps your performance if you are in love with your subject.

   You should have seen all the stuff we had to learn about horses for our performance with Khan in Disney’s Mulan (1997). I say we because more than a dozen of us drew and animated Khan for the movie, under the supervision of the great Disney animator Alex Kupershmidt. 

   Khan was a watershed experience for me. It was my first chance to ‘lead’ a character, as we called it, in a Disney feature. That meant that I had more responsibility for my character than I had before, that I could take more ownership. Ha! Ha! That suited me! With other artists, designers and animators I helped bring Khan to life from the germ of an idea in the director’s mind about the Fa family’s old war horse to the final poster of Khan and Mulan that graced the theater marquee at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, where Mulan premiered with great fanfare.

   I attended that premiere. Walked the red carpet. Hobnobbed with the big shots.

   I felt like a god that night!

   After being in the business for twenty-five years and working at Disney for seven, my dream of being a Disney animation artist had finally come true!

   Hey world! That’s my work up there! Me! What do you think? I did that!

   (Me, and well over three hundred other talented, dedicated artists and technicians let’s not forget. I'm bigheaded, but not that bigheaded!) 

   About artist’s reference let me say this. The trick is to learn all you can inside and out about your subject right down to the fingernails… then forget the facts and animate it from the heart!

   We lived and worked with Khan for close to two years while making Mulan.

   It was made the old-fashioned way. 

   Drawn by hand, one frame at a time.

   There are sixteen frames per foot of film.

   There are ninety feet of film per minute.

   An animated feature film is eighty to one-hundred minutes long.

   Do the math and you’ll come to the same conclusion we did.   

   You don’t have to be crazy to be an animator, but it helps.

   

   It ain’t easy, as we used to say with a laugh before we worked all weekend to finish the scene.

   Drawing horses till our hands ached.  

   Mulan was released in June, 1997.

   I’m still very proud of Khan. 

   He is beautifully animated and exquisitely drawn.

   Hard to believe that was nearly twenty years ago.

   I guess it’s true that no one forgets their first great love.

Animator’s Zen

There’s been a lot of talk this week about the closing of an attraction at Disney's Hollywood theme park called The Magic of Disney Animation. 

That got me to thinking.

May I share my thoughts in the form of a zen moment?

Animator’s Zen

Between 1976 and 2004 I made my living 

As a film animator.

1976 to 2004.

That’s (let me see) 28 years!

If my arithmetic is correct.

You'd better double-check those figures.

(I’m an artist, 

Not a mathematician.)

I animated by hand.

That is I drew each frame of film for a movie

(Up to twenty-four of them per second of screen time)

Using pencil and paper.

No computers.

Oh, the things my pencil brought to cartoon life!

Mice, ducks, elephants, rabbits, lions, aliens, humans,

Horses, bears, goats, gorillas, goannas, gargoyles. 

And other things that are harder to describe.

Of course,

Like us all I started at the bottom.

There’s a saying in the animation business,

“It ain’t easy!”

And boy, did I learn the truth of that statement.

But with perseverance and some good luck,

(And my zen don’t forget)

I eventually rose up a little within my profession.

After many years of hard work I became

An overnight success.

I was hired to draw

For Walt Disney Feature Animation.

The Big Time at last.

There I got to work 

(Or should I say play?) 

With some famous cartoon movie stars.

Stars I’d loved as a child, such as

Mickey Mouse.

Donald Duck.

Goofy.

Dumbo.

Pluto.

Winnie the Pooh.

And new stars I helped bring to life like

Roger Rabbit.

Beast.

Gaston.

Jafar.

Stitch.

Khan.

Koda.

And plenty more,

But they’re the ones that come easily to mind.

And let’s not forget 

All the wonderful people 

I met in the business,

Both artists and management,

Who showed me the possibilities of cinematic animation art,

While mentoring me to my own higher artistic attainment,

As well as showing me personal kindnesses uncountable.

I love you!

I’m so glad we shared some time

Creating those wonderful movies together,

On our journey through this life into infinity!

28 Years of animation.

Fifteen of them at Disney.

It didn’t seem that long.

It went by like a flash.

Like life.

It goes by a lot faster 

If we enjoy it.

And it’s over in a flash.

So smile and be happy!

That’s what life is for.

Don’t waste it being a sourpuss!

Remember there is an endless supply of zen in the universe!

Plenty for everybody!

With zen on your side,

You’ve got nothing to worry about.

And Mr Disney,

You who advised that 

Wishing upon a star 

Might make our dreams come true,

If you’re listening wherever you are,

Mr Disney,

Thank you for the opportunity 

For me 

To realize 

Mime.

I dedicate this zen moment 

To those 

Who worked for 

Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida

Between 1989 and 2004.

Your kindness is not forgotten

By a brash and reckless artist.

The cinematic moments you made 

Have lasted a generation’s lifetime.