Welcome to the world of Mark Henn!
From the 1930s-‘60s, Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men,” the creative braintrust of the studio, created feature length films and short cartoons for the studio. By the ‘70s and ‘80s, some of them were still working for the studio while others had either retired or passed on. Soon, however, a new generation of animators were hired by the studio, many of them mentored by Eric Larson, one of the last remaining experts was Mark Henn, who continues to work for Disney today. Henn himself has created an incredible legacy of animation, from leading ladies to supporting clowns and even Mickey Mouse.
Mark Henn was born on April 6th, 1958 in Dayton, Ohio. In 1978, at the age of 20, he was officially accepted into the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita, California. “CalArts,” as it is known, had been founded by Walt and Roy Disney, along with Nelbert Chouinard in 1961. In addition to studying under Eric Larson, Henn also studied under Disney animators Jack Hannah and Thorton “T.” Hee. Classmates included John Lasseter (writer/director of Toy Story (1995) and Toy Story 2 (1999)), Mark Dindal (Effects Animator for Oliver & Company (1988)) and Joe Ranft (Story Artist for Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)). Henn joined the studio in 1980 and his first assignment was working as an in-betweener (an artist that transitions each of the drawings from frame to frame) on The Fox and the Hound (1981), collaborating with Glen Keane who supervised the animation on the film’s animal characters.
His next assignment was animating Mickey Mouse in the Oscar-nominated short Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983), along with various characters in The Black Cauldron (1985). He first assignment as a Supervising Animator was on the characters of Basil, Dr. Dawson and Olivia in The Great Mouse Detective (1986), but he finally got to animate his first leading lady, Ariel in The Little Mermaid in 1989. He also supervised the animation on Belle in Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Princess Jasmine in Aladdin (1992). His design for Jasmine was inspired by his younger sister, Beth’s, high school senior photo.
Henn was supervising animator for Young Simba in The Lion King (1994), Mulan and her father Fa Zhou in Mulan (1998), and in 2000, he directed the short film John Henry. Henn had loved the story of John Henry as a kid and was excited to bring it to life at Disney. Before working on the film, he and the rest of the film crew visited Big Bend Tunnel near Talcott, West Virginia, where the John Henry legend was born. Henn and the rest of the crew also received inspiration for their short from Paul Bunyan (1958), another Disney short, directed by Les Clark, another of the Nine Old Men. John Henry’s patchwork quilt opening scene was inspired by Mary Blair, who produced a great deal of concept art for Disney movies during Walt’s time.
Mark Henn also supervised the animation on several animals for Home on the Range (2004), Giselle in Enchanted (2007), Tiana in The Princess and the Frog (2009), and Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh (2011). He provided additional visual development for Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and he animated Tinker Bell in Saving Mr. Banks (2013). He has also animated Mickey Mouse for various Disney Parks shows as well. More recently, he was an animator for Judy Hopps in Zootopia (2016) and Mickey Mouse in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph (2018).
Mark Henn will always be remembered for his amazing animation at Disney, but his story is special because of the mentorship that brought it about. He says when he started at Disney, his mentor Eric Larson “Advised us to learn from the past but to bring out own sensibilities to our animation.” And the interest Larson took in Henn undoubtedly led to amazing opportunities. When looking back on Henn’s incredible body of work, I’m sure we can all agree that his “sensibilities” resonated with many, many Disney viewers.
No comments:
Post a Comment