There probably are examples from before The Old Mill, but I can't think of any time prior to this film where there was such a feeling of realism - or as close to it as possible, certainly from Walt Disney's studio - in presenting a world in animation in the wild like this. Previously, of course, Disney had been doing the Silly Symphony series (and this is one of them), but this one seems different, an experiment that probably came in, did it's thing, and left. Not to say that people didn't notice (it was one of Disney's *several* Oscars of the decade), but I wonder if it was possibly taken for granted at the time, since it is, even compared to something like Flowers and Trees, so simple and bare-bones in its storytelling.
The thing that is most striking are the sets and animals. I say sets since it is still a movie with a created facade. But look at how the animals interact and act, the birds and frogs especially. There is something of a minor gag as one of the frogs eats a lightning bug and the bug strikes a big light in its belly, though this seems to me less like a gag meant to inspire guffaws and more like a smile or chuckle. The mood here is really controlled but in a good way; it starts off fairly calm, and then it builds fairly quickly (as it is should, it's just a short), and the conflict emerges as Nature itself is coming on to the windmill.
The drama is very small-scale - such as, will the little bird, protecting its nest, be crushed by the gears of the wheel that is set in motion - or what will happen to the owl? This is not the cutesy animation of one of the early Mickey Mouse shorts where animals were played like instruments (not that that isn't a blast on its own). I have to think this was watched and studied by a lot of people (Don Bluth for one thing, a film like the Secret of NIMH seems influenced by the colors and things as simple as the sky and clouds and grass).
Moreover, what's interesting n the film-history sense is if you hear the audio commentary for the Snow White DVD - clips of Disney interviews are cut together to make something of a long interview really - and he mentions, once or twice for sure, that The Old Mill was a kind of test-run for some of the techniques and technology for the feature. Indeed a whole new system of a mutli-plane camera was created to meet what would be required to add depth and nuance to everything that was unfolding. In this sense, this 'experiment' proved to be a massive success.
In other words, The Old Mill is about as stripped down and, frankly, naturalistic as a Disney cartoon can get. You won't watch it and get a lot of laughs, it's not like that. It's about finding a groove in nature, finding the very basic conflicts that come for those around it (not humans, just the animals and setting), and what this home will be when it's all over. A minor masterpiece.
The thing that is most striking are the sets and animals. I say sets since it is still a movie with a created facade. But look at how the animals interact and act, the birds and frogs especially. There is something of a minor gag as one of the frogs eats a lightning bug and the bug strikes a big light in its belly, though this seems to me less like a gag meant to inspire guffaws and more like a smile or chuckle. The mood here is really controlled but in a good way; it starts off fairly calm, and then it builds fairly quickly (as it is should, it's just a short), and the conflict emerges as Nature itself is coming on to the windmill.
The drama is very small-scale - such as, will the little bird, protecting its nest, be crushed by the gears of the wheel that is set in motion - or what will happen to the owl? This is not the cutesy animation of one of the early Mickey Mouse shorts where animals were played like instruments (not that that isn't a blast on its own). I have to think this was watched and studied by a lot of people (Don Bluth for one thing, a film like the Secret of NIMH seems influenced by the colors and things as simple as the sky and clouds and grass).
Moreover, what's interesting n the film-history sense is if you hear the audio commentary for the Snow White DVD - clips of Disney interviews are cut together to make something of a long interview really - and he mentions, once or twice for sure, that The Old Mill was a kind of test-run for some of the techniques and technology for the feature. Indeed a whole new system of a mutli-plane camera was created to meet what would be required to add depth and nuance to everything that was unfolding. In this sense, this 'experiment' proved to be a massive success.
In other words, The Old Mill is about as stripped down and, frankly, naturalistic as a Disney cartoon can get. You won't watch it and get a lot of laughs, it's not like that. It's about finding a groove in nature, finding the very basic conflicts that come for those around it (not humans, just the animals and setting), and what this home will be when it's all over. A minor masterpiece.