Dream Worlds: Production Design for Animation

FOREWORD

Once upon a time in a parking lot at Universal Studios in Hollywood, California sat a small trailer — the kind of seedy temporary office space that elementary schools use when they are out of classroom space. Hans Bacher sat at a drafting table deep inside, bathed in cigarette smoke and Magic Marker fumes strong enough to kill a lesser man. He was working to flesh out the bones of a film called Who Framed Robert Rabbi. People like Bob Zemeckis, Chuck Jones, Steven Spielberg, and Richard Williams would make the trip back to the trailers to smell the markers and see what Hans and others (like the great storyman Joe Ranft) had come up with for Roger, Jessica, and Baby Herman.

Hans was always the kind of artist I wanted to get in early in ...