Animated Movies was launched by Olivier Mouroux in 1999. In addition to a daily news report, he also created a database of information about past, current, and upcoming films. In 2003, he took a job in the industry and had to give up his work on the site. Several fans of Animated Movies decided to take on the task of keeping the news portion of his site going, and founded what is now Animated Views. As AV turns 15, let's take a look back at the site we descended from. Below you can explore the database Olivier compiled at Animated Movies during its existence, as it last appeared online in October 2003. |
Cast * Story*Interesting Facts* 8/9/2000 Article
Directed by: Mark Henn
Written by: Shirley Pierce
Music by: Stephen James Taylor
Released on... October 30, 2000 (for three days, at the El Capitan
Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard with The
Nightmare Before Christmas)
Running Time: 9 minutes 43 seconds
John Henry... Geoffrey Jones
Polly
Henry/Narrator... Alfre Woodard
MacTavish... Tim Hodge
Thomas... Dave Murray
Polly (singing)... Carrie Harrington
Narrated by his John Henry's wife Polly, she explains how she made his
famous hammer out of his chains (this being right after the slaves were
freed). John Henry joins the railroad team and inspires the workers with
his great strength. When a steam engine threatens their livelyhood, John
Henry challenges the machine to a race. When his wife objects, John says
his big line: "If they steal our dreams, they'll put a chain around our
souls. Someone's gotta stand tall!". John beats the Steam Engine, as they
build the railroad through a rock mountain. But after beating the machine,
John Henry collapses and dies. The film ends with John's wife and son looking
out on the valley, a valley which wouldn't have prospered without the hammer
of John Henry.
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Director Mark Henn was the lead animator for Belle in 1991's Beauty and the Beast, Jasmine in 1992's Aladdin and the title character in 1998's Mulan.
John Henry was made under the Orlando-based Disney studio over a 5-year period. For one year, the film sat on a shelf in Orlando just waiting for the executives to make a decision as to how they plan on releasing the film. The two main issues were:
Mark Henn
tried to do a homage to the classic shorts of the late 50's.
The movie's rough look is a stylistic decision, not budgetary--the film cost reportedly a lot of money for a short. The staff had to be re-trained to do this film because rules that were in place had to be broken. Everyone had to adapt; from the background painters (working in a scratchboard technique) to the clean up artists (who kept trying to make the lines cleaner). Even Ink and Paint had to adapt in order to digitally paint the drawings.
John Henry received an Emmy nomination and an Annie nomination (for Outstanding Achievement in An Animated Short Subject).
"A lot of careful research and development went into John Henry that never made it to the screen," commented a key clean-up artist working on the short. "One of the things that happened to John Henry (the project and the individual character of John) is that 'political correctness' reared its ugly head during the production , with the result being that John got the bland treatment." Director Mark Henn had to fight with the Disney studio to get nine minutes of screen time since the Mouse House was reluctant to pour money down a hole on a featurette that they really couldn't expect to make much money on.
Two years after
its completion, it finally gets a release on the February 2002 straight-to-video
compilation Disney's American Legends. However, the opening shot
was edited out: it showed "the Disney castle logo done in quilt stich style
, seamlessly working into the main title with Polly's hand stitching the
letters on the quilt. It was a beautiful shot, designed by art director
Bob Stanton and head BG painter Chuck Vollmer," explained the same unidentified
clean-up artist. "Mark was a great director to work for and overall I would
say it's one of the most fun productions I've been on."
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Article by Jim Hill from Orlando
Weekly News
It's been a bad year for Disney Feature Animation.
"Dinosaur" underperformed at the box office. "Fantasia 2000" had some success in IMAX theaters, but died a dog's death in regular release. And Eisner is said to hate the company's problem-plagued Christmas release, "The Emperor's New Groove."
And then there's the movie that no one dares talk about: "John Henry."
This is a short subject the Mouse has had in the can for more than a year now. Produced at Disney's Florida animation studio, the film celebrates an American folk hero, "that steel-driving man" who wages an epic battle with a steam engine to prove man's superiority over machine. Given the quality of the completed cartoon, many within the company feel it's sure to snag an Oscar nomination.
Yet "John Henry" remains locked away, its release date uncertain.
Disney executives say the reason "John Henry" hasn't been shown in public yet is because it's a very special film. And -- since there isn't much call for animated shorts these days (Disney hasn't produced one since 1995's "Runaway Brain") -- management at the Mouse House is giving careful thought to where and when "John Henry" should make its debut.
But -- off the record -- Disney's animators tell a very different story. They say "John Henry" is still in the can because Disney management is afraid of it. They're worried about what the African-American community will say when they learn that this film about the blackest of folk heroes was produced by a mostly white production team.
This indecision infuriates the animators, who spent more than five years on this project and consider it to be some of their very best work. Moreover, the film's director, Mark Henn -- the lead animator for Belle in 1991's "Beauty and the Beast," Jasmine in 1992's "Aladdin" and the title character in 1998's "Mulan" -- is considered by many to be one of the best animators working today.
Since "John Henry" was Henn's first directorial assignment for the Mouse, he wanted to make sure his production team totally embraced the ethnicity of the piece. Henn arranged field trips to Orlando-area gospel centers so animators could soak up the power and beauty of the culture's music. And he made his artists study 1800s-era story quilts, so the African-American art form also could be folded into the mix.
Indeed, the scuttlebutt around the studio suggests "John Henry" is being held up because Henn did his job too well. He produced a cartoon that is so steeped in African-American culture that it makes the lily-white executives at the Walt Disney Co. uncomfortable.
The Mouse has a somewhat schizo history when it comes to matters of race. Consider the company's attitude toward its 1946 Academy Award-winner, "Song of the South." This film's central character -- Uncle Remus -- is considered so offensive to modern African Americans that studio head Peter Schneider recently announced the movie was going on "permanent hiatus" in the United States. (Mind you, "Song of the South" is still readily available on video and DVD in Europe and Asia ... but that's another story.)
Then there's the studio's problem with the film's finale. Director Henn did what many at Disney Feature Animation consider a very brave thing: He didn't change the ending of the story. Just like in the legend, John Henry dies -- by Disney standards, pretty ballsy storytelling. The downside is that the short subject leaves audiences in tears ... which makes John Henry a lousy lead-in to either of the more upbeat family films the studio is releasing later this year, "102 Dalmatians" and "The Emperor's New Groove."
So when -- if ever -- will the public get to see "John Henry?" Disney executives continue to say they're giving the project very careful thought. There was some discussion about it being shown in front of "Fantasia 2000" during that film's release to regular theaters, but that talk went nowhere. More recently, they considered placing the short in front of Disney's upcoming Denzel Washington film, "Remember the Titans." But then someone pointed out that sticking a short subject about a black folk hero onto the front of a film featuring a black star seemed a tad insensitive. Thus, "Remember the Titans" will go solo when it hits theaters this fall.
Henn is said to be gravely disappointed with the way Disney has handled John Henry. He has since left the Florida studio but still works for the Mouse in California, where he's putting his efforts into a new animated project called "Sweating Bullets."
Which is kind of ironic. Because Disney executives have got to be sweating
bullets every time they think about what to do with "John Henry."