Scarlett Stahl: A Profile of Mike Gabriel
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There were three different reasons that made me want to interview Mike
Gabriel.
The first one that drew my attention to him is that he was the co director of
the Disney animated film, Pocahontas. As I am a direct descendant of Pocahontas
through her great great great granddaughter, Mary Bolling Bland but have no real
information on her, I was interested in his research on my ancestor.
The second reason is his work on the Disney animated short film of 2005,
Lorenzo. This film noir had been nominated for an Oscar, but did not win.
However the film did indeed win the coveted Annie Award. In my own opinion, the
film should have won both for its unusual story line, music and color. Mike used
tempera paints seeping into black construction paper to achieve the unique look
and a new CG application called Sable was used to translate the look into the
film.
Lastly after viewing the wonderful documentary of Don Hahn�s Waking Sleeping
Beauty and seeing the snippet of the masked animators acting out their
frustrations during the dark days before the Renaissance, I wanted to meet one
of the Masterminds of that caper, Mike Gabriel.
As I entered the Roy Disney Animation Bldg. (the building with Mickey�s Sorcerer
Hat on top), I was excited to see the building and meet the man who had enticed
my interest so much. On the wall of his office was Walt Disney�s face, done in
metal by Kevin and Jody. It was soon evident that this very intense and
attractive man revered Walt Disney and his craft.
Mike Gabriel was born on November 5, 1954, in Long Beach, Ca. with 10 siblings.
Mike was fifth of the children. His ethnic background is more Irish with some
French and English. His grandmother was from Ireland and her name was Flynn.
His mother doodled a little bit but there were no known artists in the family
except for Mike. She was a fulltime home maker with so many children while his
father was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force for many years requiring moves
to other cities. His father�s war career story was so interesting that it would
make a book of its own! When he retired from the Air Force, he returned to where
his family lived in Long Beach, Ca. and worked for several more years in the
aeronautics field with McDonnell Douglas.
Mike was always interested in Disney Animation Art, cartoons, more than art
itself. �I remember being a little tiny kid, somewhere around five or six years
old, seeing Pinocchio in a theatre and really wanting to draw Pinocchio. Someone
had told me that it was animation, where you had to draw it from all angles and
that was fascinating to me. So I was captured by the idea of animators and
animation.�
He always loved cartoons and went through a phase of Mad Magazine immersion and
wanted to draw like Don Martin and others. �I went through my Charles Schultz
phase (Peanuts comic strip) and finally got to meet him and get an original that
I will always treasure.� He went through a phase of drawing and building
Revell�s Wierdos model kits with Big Daddy Roth, Rat Fink and would make up his
own wierdos. In sixth or seventh grade he had an assignment of designing
everyone in the class as a weirdo for a big party. �It was a daunting gig but I
had a ball doing it.�
Mike went to Golden West Junior College in Huntington Beach and took animation
classes. In one class his teacher brought in an executive from Disney. As Mike
asked a lot of questions, the guest told him that he reminded him of Card
Walker, who was the President of Walt Disney Studios at the time. Mike kept
telling himself that someday he would work there. �I was just this super
determined little guy that was determined to get into Disney and I started
writing letters when I was a teenager.� They always sent very kind letters back
but every time he received the packet back he would think �This is it, the
manila envelope with the little triangle Mickey and the paint brush and what did
they say? I kept thinking they were going to say Come on, you�re hired. But they
always said Go to college, Get art classes, Learn art drawing, we�ll teach you
how to cartoon from there.� At a certain point he received a packet from
Ed Hansen of Disney for Cal Arts, suggesting he go to Cal Arts if he wanted to
work for Disney. After Junior College, Mike just did not want to go back to
college and just wanted to go to Disney so �In my stubborn way, I didn�t follow
up on that and decided to learn to draw on my own.� He went to libraries and got
all the art and photographic books, practiced drawing from them about six hours
a day for two or three years. When he was about twenty-two, he did a book
on cartooning animals, which was published, called Gabriel�s Friends, An A to Z
Guide, on Cartooning Animals.
He was twenty-four before he finally got his interview and had been determined
that he would be sure that he was good enough before he went after them again.
�At a certain point I saw my line work and my drawing style start to get good.
It�s amazing if you really determinedly go after it, at some point your hand
starts to get good.� At the time he was working in Stanton, doing safety cards
for airlines, painting in the hair colors and shirts on the line drawings on the
cels, showing how to evacuate the plane, etc. So he had an old packet that said
Disney was looking for artists and to call Donald Duckwall, so he called and got
an interview. So he gathered his best work together, put on a suit and tie and
had his interview. �It was like the Walton�s, when John Boy went off to the City
with most of the siblings at home, waving me goodbye in the street, with my
little Ford Pinto putting away.�
As soon as he walked on the lot, he felt so relaxed, comfortable and at home. He
felt in sync with it. Don Bluth had left a few weeks before, which was good
timing as they were looking to hire. �I walked into the animation building and
this was the hallowed halls. In the distance I could hear a few of the young
people�s voices, shouting a little bit and I just remember getting the feeling
that I could get really good here. This is where all that good animation gets
created�.. Donald Duckwall was very kind in his Disney issue cardigan sweater
and open shirt. He started looking at my portfolio and complimenting it. He said
maybe you want to work in backgrounds and I said No I really want to be an
animator in my stubborn way. I should have said anything man, whatever�.�
Donald told him that they needed pictures drawn from life, not books and that
what they were looking for were silhouette drawings. Mike was really
disappointed and depressed at not being hired but right before he left the
office; he told Donald that he thought he understood what they wanted. On the
way home, he decided to do what they wanted. He spent the entire weekend
drawing, going to the beach and sketching his brothers throwing a Frisbee around
and trying to capture the movement. Even at night he would be running and
sketching his brothers on a basketball court. He sent all of these loose little
sketches into Disney that following Monday. When he didn�t hear back all week,
he finally called on Friday and spoke to Ed Hansen, who said �Oh Mike, we got
your drawings and everyone loved them. You�re hired. We couldn�t get hold of you
as you gave us the wrong number.� He told his family that he was in and his Dad
gave him the proverbial pat on the back. Everyone was so thrilled for him.
Mike worked under famed Eric Larson�s tutelage. He worked first as an
inbetweener and then became an assistant animator. He worked on Fox and the
Hound, Black Cauldron, and Fun with Mr. Future. He had animated around 400 feet
before he was promoted to animator, which was frustrating. Then he worked on The
Great Mouse Detective. John Musker and Ron Clements let him help design the
dog,Toby, and the cat, Felicia. He likes designing cats and dogs. He enjoys
doing the elongated squash and stretch of cats as the run at full speed. Mike
has been with Disney for thirty years.
When questioned about the clip entitled the Guns of Flower Street, which was
shown in the documentary of Waking Sleeping Beauty, Mike laughed and said �It
was fun, raping and pillaging, to take a gun and put a head bandana and sun
glasses on, with some fatigues and go in and put a gun to Walt Stanchfield�s
head�These strange suits from Paramount had come in from over the hill to throw
us off the lot that really didn�t have any connection to Disney and now they�re
running it. The hallowed halls were built by Walt for animation and it seemed a
little unjust�.We hit a kind of strange period there and when the new guys came
in, it changed the vibes. The first few years in the early 80s before the new
regime took over were kind of stress free as we didn�t have a lot of
deadlines�.It was such a small crew of twenty five animators�Mark Henn was fast
and Glen Keene but most people were doing about two to three feet a week. We had
Tim Burton and John Lasseter in the building and nobody realized their potential
in the old Disney executive guard�.� Flash ahead to 1985 and the animators were
frustrated by being banished from the lot to trailers and relieved their
frustrations by acting out the hostage takeover. And then came the Renaissance
of animation and all the wonderful decade of hits, such as Little Mermaid,
Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, etc.
Mike co directed Pocahontas and did extensive research on her. From his
research, he concluded that she was indeed in love with Captain John Smith. When
questioned regarding the fact that Captain Smith had written a second book about
another young woman falling in love with him and saving his life, which seemed a
little implausible, Mike said he might have been like a Rock Star and just
attracted women easily. Mike also added that he was a romantic and would like to
believe it. �Romance aside, based solely on the facts regarding Pocahontas� life
among the early English settlers we know she and Smith spent months and months
together, over a two year period, more than any two people from either group.
The bond was palpable according to every written account including her emotional
meeting with Smith when she visited England as the wife of John Rolfe in 1616.
That affection was never questioned until our film came out which was
frustrating. According to current trends they had much affection for each other
but were definitely not in love. Huh? Slicing the unknowns a little too thin for
me. Pocahontas was a child when they met but soon bloomed into early womanhood
for that period. After Smith left, she was forced by her father into a
politically motivated marriage to an Indian named Kocoum soon, so the argument
that a by then teenage girl was too young to feel love for a dashing foreign guy
in his twenties seems a little unrealistic. John Smith�s account of being saved
by Pocahontas might be fabricated but the bond they had clearly was not. You
don�t spend vast amounts of time with people you can�t stand unless they are
members of your family. �
Mike was given a choice of a few short films to do. He chose to do Lorenzo, a
tale of a pampered cat, who has a black magic spell put on his tail and in the
sequence of events dances a tango with it. The original idea was suggested by
Disney Legend, Joe Grant, with Don Hahn and Roy Disney as Producers. Don
suggested the tango would be the music for the film, but not sure which tango
music to use. Mike listened to about $350 worth of CD�s of tangos that he bought
with his own money and ended up choosing the first one he listened to, Borde-
neo E 900! In the middle of it was an explosive obvious moment, where the tail
came to life, which broke the film in half. He really enjoyed working on the
film. It is supposed to be released Dec 2 on the Fantasia DVD.
As for Mike�s private life, he has been married twenty-two years with three
children, 19, 18 and 13. His oldest daughter, Kelsey, is studying design and
marketing and has always had a strong graphic sense. She really is into fashion.
His son designs, too, and is great but he doesn�t think he is going to stay in
that. He is very proud of his wife and children. Mike is still working long
hours and staying until 9:00 in the evening and working even on weekends. An
animator is also married to his work. He would like to be helping out at home
more but is art directing now. He had even helped out on Princess and the Frog.
At present he is doing art direction on a huge new CG picture. It�s a whole new
thing for Mike, who is working with a second new art director. The film, called
Reboot Ralph, is set to come out in 2013 and is original and fresh, according to
Mike. who is delighted to be working on it.
Discuss It
-- Posted October 14, 2010