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ASIFA
Israel Mourns Zack Schwartz
Disney
Animator and ASIFA Israel Member Passed Away on
Monday
by
Harriet Goitein
January 15 2003 |
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Zack Schwartz and ASIFA Israel's
T. Oren |
Zack
Schwartz passed away on Monday, January 12. He
leaves his wife Drora and daughter Yael and son
who lives in America.
Zack was an animator and director at Disney in
the mid 30's and was one of the founding fathers
of UPA which caused a revolution in animation
style during the late 40's and 50's. He has been,
to many here in Israel, our animation mentor.
Always willing to listen to students needing advice
on entering a career in animation, to experienced
animators wanting a wise opinion, and to old timers
loving to reminisce about the Golden Years of
animation in Hollywood. Warm, curious, lively,
stubborn, never willing to give up and always
wanting to conquer a new arena; he even bought
a computer at 85 on which to write his stories.
He was a special talent and a talented educator.
We will miss you Zack.
Asifa Israel will include in this column more
in memoriam in the coming few days. We invite
you to send
in your stories about Zack, pictures and
sketches of him. He had a great face just begging
to be characterized.
Zack Memoriam
From
awn.com:
UPA FOUNDER ZACK SCHWARTZ HAS DIED.
Karl Cohen of ASIFA-SF has brought AWN the news
that animator Zack Schwartz, one of the founders
of UPA, passed away on January 13, 2003 in Israel.
After working at Disney, most notably as an art
director on BAMBI and FANTASIA, Schwartz went on
to work under Frank Tashlin at Screen Gems and was
a founder of UPA. In 1946, Schwartz sold his interest
in the studio and moved to New York, where he worked
in television advertising, eventually becoming an
advertising agency executive.
After teaching at Sheridan College in Canada in
the '70s and '80s, Schwartz eventually moved to
Israel, where he taught at the Animation Center
in Tel Aviv.
Karl sends this memoriam: "I had the pleasure
of hearing Zack talk about his career in animation
in the 1980s. I also heard him talk to students
at San Francisco State University once about being
an art director at Disney on the Mickey Mouse sequence
in FANTASIA. It was a truly memorable talk, as he
pointed out the many technical problems they were
presented by the sequence and how they solved them…
I know he will be missed by many people."
ASIFA-Israel will be accepting written memories,
sketches or photos of Schwartz for the ASIFA-Israel
Internet magazine. They can be emailed to asifanews@studiopolygon.com.
My
name is Tahsin Ozgur, Turkish animator, formerly
of Don Bluth, Richard Williams, and Walt Disney,
presently working from my home in Istanbul. I
received my professional training at Sheridan
College, that excellent animation school in Canada,
where the late Zack Schwartz was a teacher- and
an excellent one.
He drilled into us the importance of story, and
the telling of that story through good staging
and cutting. Young and eager as we were to get
on with the actual animation, we certainly needed
the discipline Zack managed to instill in us,
learning to take the time to ponder and resolve
all story problems before starting to make things
move. Teaching to an international body of students,
his influence was far-reaching. Condolences to
his family, the animation community, and to all
his students.
Derek
Lamb, Zack Schwartz and Kaj Pindal at Sheridan College
in 1993.
Derek and Kaj
Hello,
I was very lucky when I was a student at Sheridan
back in the mid 80's. I did attend the 'winter'
school. I kept hearing about Zack from my other
instructors. Only good things. So I did found out
that he was going to be teaching in the winter and
this was his only time doing it! So I was in third
year when I did have him as an instructor. He taught
me a lot about story telling in animation and character
development!
Thank you Zack!
Pam Rose
Zack
was a great teacher who knew the ins and outs
of story telling.
What is a good story and what makes up a good
story, I learned that
from Zack. He had a fun sense of humour and was
good at listening
and sharing what he knew.
I miss the summers at Sheridan College and mainly
because of the wonderful lessons from Zack.
Thanks,
Kevin Dooley
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