Eric Cleworth

Born: Eric Alfred Cleworth
Birthday: January 3, 1920
Location: Minneapolis, MN, U.S.
Occupation: Inbetweener, Animator, Director
Years active: 1938-1989
Died: December 10, 1999

Eric Cleworth started at Disney straight out of high school in 1939. He was hired as an in-betweener for Fantasia and worked his way up to full-animator for Alice in Wonderland. He specialized in character design and movement, and preferred to study live action references for his character assignments. Eric studied rattlesnake film footage for the dragon’s fight in Sleeping Beauty.

Cleworth worked in Wolfgang Reitherman’s unit for Lady and the Tramp, animating Tramp defending a muzzled Lady from other dogs. He also animated the elephant inspection sequence for John Lounsbery’s unit on The Jungle Book. Eric contributed to other Disney films like One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Aristocats, and Robin Hood.

Eric eventually tired of studio politics and inter-office conflict, and resigned from the studio in 1972. He cashed in his many Disney stock options and lived is a very comfortable lifestyle.

Cleworth came out of retirement from time to time to animate projects like the Popeye the Sailor series, a new Pink Panther show, and Richard Williams’ The Thief and the Cobbler. Shortly before he passed away, Eric animated The Wuzzles and the Adventures of the Gummi Bears television shows.

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Lavalle Lee

Lavalle Lee

Lavalle Lee has been creating animated cartoons online since 1999/2000 for his website flashcartoons.org. Many cartoons on the site have gained viral video status reaching millions of viewers online. In 2009, Lavalle started learning hand drawn animation from Don Bluth in his animation classes, as well as attending his Masterclasses in Arizona. He has also personally studied animation and visual effects from Veteran Disney animators in Orlando, FL.

Lavalle is widely known in the animation industry as the creator of the TraditionalAnimation.com website. After seeing that most animation sites were about all types of animation, not any specific to classical hand drawn animation, Lavalle knew Traditional Animation needed to be represented online. TraditionalAnimation.com has become the leading website and social media account for all things 2D. The website served as inspiration for “The Traditional Animation Show” in which Lavalle was both producer and host.

His partnership with Don Bluth began when he championed the Dragon's Lair Indiegogo campaign as lead project manager, editor, voice actor and in-betweener. The campaign reached $730,000 dollars to produce a 7-minute pitch video. In 2017, Lavalle brought the idea of creating a school to Don Bluth, and Don Bluth University was born. After a decade of learning from Don Bluth and working together on multiple pitches and business ventures, Lavalle accepted the position as Vice President of Don Bluth's new company Don Bluth Studios.

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