The blog of someone who worked on Balto !!!

steet · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2007 2:45 pm

I found this blog while checking the backlinks from my site.
This is a very amazing discovery, because this is the blog of Hans Bacher, who was "production designer" (according to the film credits, but background artists considering his actual work)

http://its-a-wrap.blogspot.com/

Some of his work :

But also some awesome photos from the Amblimation studio :

[img]http://baltosource.timduru.org/img/users/1/6colin's%20workplace.jpg[/img]

And, last but not least, a photo with Spielberg talking to Simon Wells (director of Balto...Err I suppose he got an hair cut then? lol) and Phil Nibbelink (I think he was co-director with Wells on An American tail : Fievel goes west)

Of course, all of these pictures are copyrighted to Universal pictures and Amblin entertainment.

Now, I want you to know that I've emailed him yesturday, I asked him if he would be willing to do an "interview" and he answered that he would agree to answer our questions!

So this is your chance to ask questions to someone who worked on the film! Post them here, I'll gather them and send them to him as an interview!

Snickelfritz · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2007 2:58 pm

How did you come about the website? Were you just looking on Google and you found it, or what? (I'm just curious because it's a really amazing find. :wink:

)

Rusty the Fox · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2007 2:59 pm

Now that is the sweatiest and possibly the rarest find. Way to go Steet!

It might just be the photos but Amblimation is surprisingly dark.

steet · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:07 pm

Ms. Shanecae wrote:

How did you come about the website? Were you just looking on Google and you found it, or what? (I'm just curious because it's a really amazing find. :wink:

)

I said it, I check the backlinks of the site (links to my site which were posted on other sites), and I came on the blog of someone who was mentioning things about another blog talking about Amblimation. So I followed the link and...got there.

Quote:

It might just be the photos but Amblimation is surprisingly dark.

"Was" would suit that sentence better. But yes, a bit dark, probably because it's an only very big room. Not really what I expected. But in fact, I don't really know how I expected it to be :lol:

HrryNrmn · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:17 pm

Dude.................wow..............that's trippin' as hell! Awesome find, I'm telling you. Lemme think of some questions and I'll shoot em to you!

sunkissin · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:51 pm

WOW

AWESOME find Steet! Those are some pretty fantastic pictures ya got there o_O xD

WOW :shock:

Running Wolfie · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2007 6:28 pm

Wow

That's a great find, Steet. :wink:

Highland Wolf · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:37 am

Wow, that is a great discovery Steet! The backgrounds in Balto are beautiful so its nice to see who did them, I never really thought about that actually. So, if your aloud to ask questions, here is one that has been on my mind that I would like to ask him.

"What do you actually think of the Balto films?"

Pretty simple I know, but I think it is an important question (I imagine you would ask him that anyway) :wink:

steet · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2007 12:16 pm

He says that on his blog :

Quote:

it is surprising that there is no publication
about a very productive period in london the end
of the eighties until the mid nineties. during that
time steven spielberg had his own animation studio
A M B L I M A T I O N, located not in one of the
nicest areas in london, in acton located north of
chiswick and not too far away from kew gardens.
within these few years the studio produced FIEVEL
GOES WEST, WE'RE BACK and BALTO.
they might not be absolute masterpieces,
but compared to the junk that we better
don't watch nowadays they don't look too bad.

the studio had collected after a short time the
probably best available talent in europe. most of
the animators came from france ( school gobelins )
and of course england. but a lot were from germany,
italy, denmark and holland. what an incredible melting
pot! and what incredible talent!
you can judge yourself today, because
most of the talent of DREAMWORKS-animation
is from the original london amblimation crew. when
spielberg, katzenberg and geffen formed
dreamworks in 1994 in los angeles, most of the
talent from the london studio moved to L.A.

in 1991 I was a bit bored with my development
work on KING of the JUNGLE at that time, later
THE LION KING. it was not my favorite story
and not too many artists at disney believed in
the project. in annecy that year I met some of
the artists of AMBLIMATION that I had worked
with on ROGER RABBIT some years earlier,
simon wells and phil nibbelink. they were working
on a very interesting project, the animated version
of the andrew lloyd webber musical CATS.
the story details sounded very interesting as well,
so I went to london, one of my favorite cities, in
sept.1991. the studio was at that time finishing
WE'RE BACK. probably not too many people
remember that movie. it had major story problems
and for rating reasons some of the more interesting
'horror-movie' parts were cut out. most of them
were already animated. it was a shame, the whole
movie did not make sense anymore and the
animation had been incredible. some very good
animators worked in the studio, kristof serrand,
rudolphe guenoden, eric bibo bergeron, rob
stevenhagen, nicolas marlet, jeff varab, daniel
jeanette and many more.

some more incredible artists in art direction
neil ross and color styling daniel cacouault.
the same top talent in layout and background,
too many to name them all. later I worked with
all of them on BALTO.

UKthewhitewolf · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2007 12:38 pm

Wow, you've got some awesome luck finding that Steet!! :shock:

As for questions, erm...

1: If Universal were to make a fourth Balto film at the same quality of the
first would like to work on it?
2: Do you agree with the idea of making a Balto Special Edition DVD?

3: If so, do you think it should include as much content as the Lion King
Special Edition DVD?

Maugrim · **Posted:** Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:11 pm

Wow! That's excellent. -pats Steet on back- Congrats!!

I'd like to see what questions others have to ask before I post any of mine really... oooh, except for one:

1. Do you own a Balto plush? :lol:

steet · **Posted:** Thu Mar 22, 2007 2:37 am

Whitewolf(uk) wrote:

Wow, you've got some awesome luck finding that Steet!! :shock:

As for questions, erm...

1: If Universal were to make a fourth Balto film at the same quality of the
first would like to work on it?
2: Do you agree with the idea of making a Balto Special Edition DVD?

3: If so, do you think it should include as much content as the Lion King
Special Edition DVD?

I don't reply for him, but : he doesn't work for Universal now, I'm not even sure he has seen the sequels. (well that might be a question to ask...)

Some of my questions :

1/ What was exactly your job on Balto?

2/ Do you have any idea why the film didn't encounter success? Why it wasn't well promoted by Universal? (problems between Universal and Amblimation? Toy Story?) We have the feeling that it has been "abandoned" by both its makers and its publisher, even before its release.

3/ Why did Spielberg decide to make a new animation studio (Dreamworks) when he already had one?

4/ What does the white wolf exactly represents?

5/ What was the film budget?

6/ Was "Snowballs" a code name for the film?

7/ What started the project? (the initial idea?) When did pre-production start?

8/ Why Don Bluth wasn't involved in the film, unlike the previous Amblimation ones?

9/ Do you have more photos/artworks to show?

10/ Do you know any other people from the Balto crew we could contact?

11/ What do you think of the current whole-CGI trend? Do you think the computer animated films have the same "value" as the traditionally animated ones?

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The blog of someone who worked on Balto !!!