Oliver and Company

Have you ever head such an eighties beat in a feature length animation? Pure Gold. If it wasn't for the style of tunes I don't think this animation would have aged as much. What I really like about Oliver and Company is that the main background of the city isn't like other disney films, the colours are there, the warm blues on the water and sunset capped skyline. Yet the line quality is unlike any other disney film.

The colours look so vivid that the look to be inks rather than watercolours. So in haste I tried to discover who were the background artists for Oliver and company and I did not expect so many names!!

Steve Butz*
Jim Coleman,
http://www.jamescoleman.com/index.php
- has a great interview with a man who worked his way up through the mail room, by entering a painting competition at disney and by 26 was the director of the Background artists. The american dream right there, worked nights on his fine art.
http://youtu.be/2b1Oc8tmt0A
John Emerson*
Lisa Keene
http://www.lisakeene.com/index.html
- I love Lisa Keene's work, she's recently worked on frozen and she also worked on Princess on the frog. The images are so powerful and empower disney's character with magical scenery. I'm going to discuss Lisa in a seperate blog post her work has made that much of an impression.
Tia W. Kratter
I found out that Tia Kratter worked on Oliver and Company in 1988 and then in 1993 became an art director at pixar, and has since worked on toy story, bugs life, monster's inc and most recently, Brave. Here is a really inspiring article on her career, how she's likes working at pixar (favourite cereal is captain crunch), and the problems she faced whilst making brave, (Merida's Hair being the biggest).
http://www.mediamikes.com/2012/11/pixars-tia-kratter-talks-about-working-on-brave/
Andrew Phillipson*
Philip Phillipson*
Brian Sebern
I was able to find Sebern's filmography but nothing about his career or his life. It seems to me that the eighties was the peak of his career.
http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2bb008f87f
Robert E. Stanton*

Those names with asterix's state that besides there imdb profile they aren't on the internet, which doesn't meant to say they aren't qorking and doing great things, I just think it's such a pity that there skills aren't avaliable to the public, it's seems to me that background art is regularly overlooked, it's such a pity because they are such beautiful works of art in there own right. It's very clear that Coleman, Keene and Kratter are all very passionate about the industry and that's why they've gone far, it seems to me that to be a decent background artist you need to be patient, passionate and a bit obsessed.