Thursday, July 13, 2006

HAWLEY PRATT (1911-1999)



Here in Flutopia we pay homage to another great artist who also made a huge impact to animation . If Friz Freleng was Michael Jordan, then Hawley Pratt would have to be Scottie Pippen. Hawley Pratt was Friz's consistent layout man. He did almost all of director Friz Freleng's background and character layouts(subject for correction) . Friz Freleng and Hawley Pratt were a dynamic duo. They've had quite an artistic partnership during their stay at Warners. Although Chuck Jones also had a somewhat steady collaboration with Maurice Noble but I think Friz and Hawley held on to each other far longer than anyone else. He blew us away with his expressive layout designs on his run on the Speedy Gonzales cartoon shorts (which is also my all-time fave Hawley Pratt cartoon series) his skewd perspective and straightforward design is so graphically appealing. I guess he never paid much attention on how an object or a scene should look like in reality but instead he focused on the overall impression,design, impact and mood of the scene. In my opinion, a typical Hawley Pratt interior layout design won't show you how the walls and furniture were realistically copied from its real life models but instead it'll give you a very elaborate parody of the interior more like a funny caricature rather than a highly detailed portrait. For me, this is what cartoons should be made of. I included an embedded Speedy Gonzales short to prove my point..please enjoy