An Interview with Burny Mattinson
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The Disney Artists
Burny Mattinson
by
Scarlett Stahl
Recently at an Italian restaurant near the Disney Studio, I had a luncheon interview with Burny Mattinson and Joe Grant. Burny was honored as a Legend at the summer NFFC 2001 Legend Luncheon as was Joe a few years ago. Since I had already featured Joe in a previous Disney Artists column, this time it was Burny that I was interviewing. With two such witty men to entertain me, it was a fun luncheon. Burny commented that his birthday and Joe’s are only two days apart, both being Taurus, the Bull. He said that they often fight like Bulls, which gives you an idea of how the luncheon went
In San Francisco, California on May 13, 1935, Burny was born the first child of two, with a sister born in 1941. Burny’s father was from Canada and was touring as a drummer with Horace Heidt’s Big Band. Burny’s mother was from San Jose and was working at a theatre there, where she met and soon married the talented drummer. Both parents were of British heritage. Before Burny was 6 years old, his mother took him to the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, where he saw "Pinocchio." He knew from that moment on that he wanted to work drawing and making fairytales come to life. When the Horace Heidt Band broke up, his family moved to Los Angeles, where Burny continued drawing through his school years.
After he graduated from school, his mother asked what he wanted to do. When he said he wanted to work for Disney, she told him that she would drive him over to Burbank to the Studio. As she dropped him off at the entrance, she told him that she would be back in an hour. When he started in the gate, the guard stopped him and told him that he couldn’t go in without an appointment. However since it was a hot day, he allowed Burny to come inside his shack to wait for his mother. After awhile the guard, Pappy, asked to look at Burny’s portfolio and began commenting that the color was pretty good and the lines weren’t bad. Finally the guard called the head of Personnel and told him that there was a guy there with work that he should see. Burny got the interview and the job. However there were no openings in animation and he began work in traffic. Six months later he started work as an inbetweener on "Lady and the Tramp." Inbetweeners are the lowest level job in animation, working to connect one major movement to another.
After that film, most of the crew was let go, but he went with Johnny Walker to work with Marc Davis on "Sleeping Beauty." When Johnny left the film, Burny became Marc’s assistant. During this time, another assistant, who was a friend of Burny’s had become engaged to a girl, hired by Disney to work as an inbetweener on "Sleeping Beauty." At their wedding Burny met Sylvia Fry, who was a friend of the bride’s and had also begun work at Disney as an inbetweener on "Sleeping Beauty." Burny invited her to go out after the wedding, Sylvia accepted and Burny proposed marriage two weeks later, which Sylvia also accepted. They had three children, one son who is a Rock musician, another son who works at corporate Disney Store headquarters and a daughter, who worked for a time in printing at Disney but is now a teacher. Burny has four grandchildren.
For awhile Burny worked in management timing drawing counts, which is giving a value of time for an animation sequence to be completed, in order to help speed up production on "Sleeping Beauty." When that film ended, again a large part of the crew was let go but Burny had been picked by Eric Larson to be his assistant. For the next twelve years, Burny worked with Eric on "The Wonderful World of Disney" for television, on the short "It‘s Tough to be a Bug", on the animation of "Mary Poppins", "Sword in the Stone", and "Aristocats" and "Robin Hood."
Prior to "Robin Hood", only the 9 Old Men or nine original animators and a few seasoned veterans were allowed to animate the films. Everyone else could only be an assistant. During "Robin Hood" the studio realized that they were losing a lot of talent this way and began allowing four people during eight week sessions to be given a crack at animating. Along with Don Bluth, Burny did his eight weeks stint and made it through. Then they assigned him to work with Ollie Johnston.
When he was working on Winnie the Pooh, Frank Thomas saw his thumbnail sketches and asked him to help on "The Rescuers Down Under" with storyboard. Drawing storyboards is Burny’s favorite. As he explained, storyboards are the closest thing to direction as you can get. You are telling cameras where to go, what is happening on screen, where to cut, and thus giving direction and making a blueprint for the film.
For a brief time he worked on "The Black Cauldron", which he wasn’t enjoying. His wife, Sylvia, now his assistant reminded him that he had an idea for a film so he sent a note to Ron Miller, head of the Studio. The next day at the meeting Ron demanded to know why he had been sent this thing. Burny told him that he thought it was a good idea to do "Mickey’s Christmas Carol," but feared it was the end of his own career the way Ron was acting. Ron then barked at him saying he thought it was a good idea too and said Do it! He directed and produced "Mickey’s Christmas Carol", working with Glen Keane and John Lassiter. He also produced and directed "The Great Mouse Detective." These two are among his favorite films along with "Beauty and the Beast."
Burny has collaborated with his friend, Joe Grant, whom he met on "Beauty and the Beast." He is so involved with his work that he doesn’t have time for hobbies. He does have a large viewing room and an extensive video library that he uses for his work. At present he is working on Dumbo II, a story of the childlike animals in the circus like the ostrich and the hippo who want to run away to the big city. Burny doesn’t want to retire as he is having too much fun.
Discuss It
-- Posted January 8, 2003