Frank Thomas is an American animator of Disney cartoons. One of the first beginners mastered modern technologies of that time. His hand touched such world-famous cartoons: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Sleeping Beauty", "101 Dalmatians", "Lady and the Tramp" and others.
Frank Thomas childhood and adolescence
Frank Thomas, full name Franklin Thomas, was born on September 5, 1912 in a subtropical city named after Saint Monica - Santa Monica, a suburb of Los Angeles, California (USA). Frank's father served as president at Fresno State College, where bachelor's degrees were granted since 1949.
Little Frank had a great hobby - he loves to paint. After school he entered the Fresno College. On the 2nd year I got carried away with one of the most interesting and widespread types of animation - classical animation. It was done by drawing on a transparent film (or tracing paper) every single frame. Then these frames were collected in a special editing program. Such animation is very lively, smooth, spatial. As a cool project, Frank Thomas wrote and directed a film about college life that played in local cinemas.
After graduating from college, he entered Stanford University, which is now one of the most prestigious institutions of higher education not only in the United States of America, but throughout the world. As a student at Stanford University, Frank Thomas was a member of the Theta Delta Chi student association and moonlighting at the Stanford Chaparral comic magazine with his friend Ollie Johnston.
After graduating from Stanford, he entered the California Institute of the Arts. Since 1929, the institution has been supported by Walt Disney, who has begun taking his inexperienced animators to Friday night classes, a tradition that will continue for many years. A few years later, Disney hired a Chouinard teacher named Donald Graham to teach more formal classes. In the studio, Chouinard would later be used by Disney as an artists' breeding ground for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Creative career of an animator
Walt Disney
In September 1934, Frank Thomas was recruited by the Walt Disney Company under personnel number 224, where he joined the work on the animated short Mickey the Elephant.
Artists actively used the "Rotoscoping" method, invented back in 1914, but it is still popular today. The cartoon was created by sketching frame by frame (with real actors and sets). Initially, a pre-shot film was projected onto tracing paper and manually drawn by the artist; now a computer is actively used for this purpose. This technique was also used when a very realistic, accurate and lively interaction with real actors and furnishings was required from a fully drawn character. In this case, the digital character was first played by a real person, and then it was completely, “seamlessly” replaced by an animated character. Walt Disney and his artists have successfully used rotoscoping in cartoons such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Cinderella (1950). Frank has been involved in the production of about 20 full-length Disney films, including Pinocchio, Peter Pan, The Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and 101 Dalmatians.
Short cartoons
The work of Frank Thomas was occupied by short cartoons. Among the scenes he animated, for example, such as the scene with Mickey Mouse and the king in "The Brave Tailor" and the dialogue between the Germans in the propaganda cartoon "Education for Death".
During World War II, Frank was also involved in the production of educational cartoons in the "First Block of Movies". In full-length cartoons, Frank was involved in: the scene in which the dwarfs mourn Snow White in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", the scene with Pinocchio singing in the puppet theater in the cartoon "Pinocchio", the scene on ice with the deer Bambi and Thumper in the cartoon "Bambi with eating spaghetti in the cartoon "Lady and the Tramp" and many others.
The famous Frank Thomas retired from the studio on January 31, 1978, after 45 years. He co-authored four books with his old friend Ollie Johnston.
Books by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston
- The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation - New York, 1981.
- Too Funny to Say: Disney's Greatest Gags - New York, 1987.
- Walt Disney's Bambi: History and Film - New York, 1990.
- Disney Villains - New York, 1993
Frank Thomas's personal life
Frank was only married to Jeanette Thomas. The couple had four children. In his spare time, Frank played the piano in the Fire Station Five Plus Two jazz group with his colleague Ward Kimball.
Frank Thomas died on September 8, 2004 in La Cañada Flintridge, California.
