The article below was published in Perth, Ontario. Jim was Tina Seemann’s teacher and mentor and has helped Max the Mutt from the beginning. Max the Mutt began as a one room studio school , and it was Jim who designed and built (with Tina’s assistance) the portable light tables that enabled Tina to teach classical animation in the same studio that was used by Maxine to teach life drawing!
Thank you Jim for all your generosity to us and your unflagging commitment to passing on drawing skills!
Jim worked with bones provided by Dr. Jack Gerwater to assemble the dog and cat skeletons our students have been working from for the last 10 years. Now he’s working with donated bones of another dog to provide Max the Mutt students with a second dog skeleton. We can never thank him enough.
Retired animator keeps artistic skills sharp
Posted Mar 4, 2010 By Chris Must
Click to Enlarge
Chris Must, Perth EMC
A true renaissance man, Jim Macaulay keeps his artistic abilities sharp by sketching every day.
Click to Enlarge
Chris Must, Perth EMC
One of Jim Macaulay’s current project’s is assembling the skeleton of a dog, to help animation artists learn to draw animals correctly.
Click to Enlarge
With help from Perth resident Doug Manning, Jim Macaulay built this sailing model of explorer Henry Hudson’s ship Discovery for the 1964 National Film Board production ‘The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson’.
Click to Enlarge
Jim Macaulay’s last commercial project was preparing a storyboard for a 1993 Pink Panther cartoon. The storyboard turns the written script into pictures in a process originally developed at Walt Disney Studios in the 1930s.
Click to Enlarge
Chris Must, Perth EMC
Jim Macaulay has made many finely-detailed ship and boat models, including this sailing dinghy. Every detail on the original boat is featured, including a rudder held in place by authentic pins and hinges.
EMC Lifestyle - A visit to the home of retired animation artist and professional model maker Jim Macaulay is like stepping into a fascinating miniature world.
Various-sized models of ships and aircraft compete for space with tools of the model maker’s trade, memorabilia from his long career, and the sketches he does every day to keep his artistic skills sharp. One proudly-displayed model is a replica of explorer Henry Hudson’s ship Discovery, made by MacAulay and fellow Perth resident Doug Manning for a 1964 National Film Board production called ‘The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson’. Both the Discovery and a nearby, smaller, model of a tug boat appear authentically weathered. “I like to make it look like the real thing,” said Macaulay. “That’s why it looks a little used.”
Another work of art with a strong connection to Macaulay’s Scottish roots is a fantastically-detailed model of the Clyde paddle steamer Duchess of Fife. Every part was made by hand except for the radio which controlled the boat during its miniature voyages. The paddle wheels actually work. The model features a planked wooden deck. The planks, made exactly to scale, are only about an eighth of an inch wide, but the finished project required about 250 feet of miniature planking to finish.
A resident of Perth since 1991, the native of Glasgow started his working life as an engineering draughtsman, like his father before him. The opportunity to enter the field of animation came about in the late 1940s thanks to J. Arthur Rank, whose Rank Organization owned two major cinema chains and several large film studio complexes. Rank brought over four ex-Disney animators to teach classical animation techniques in Britain. “They were given the task of training people from scratch,” Macaulay recalled. “There was animation in Britain, but not to the standards of Disney.”
Macaulay learned how to produce that standard of work - “None of the shortcuts you see nowadays: the real thing.”
Later, Macaulay’s aunt offered him a free house in Scotland if he would move back. Looking for freelance work, he said, “I did all sorts of artwork, anything I could find.” He became the principal animator at a small studio in Glasgow that was doing animation work.
Macaulay then went to work in New York City for academy award-winning documentary filmmaker Hilary Harris. After a couple of years in New York, he was invited to come to Canada and work for the National Film Board. The first major NFB project Macaulay worked on was ‘In the Labyrinth’, the NFB’s entry for Expo ‘67. The project was a ground-breaking multi-screen presentation produced for Canada’s centennial exhibition in Montreal. There was a four-hour wait time to get in to view it, MacAulay recalled.
Macaulay spent the last 14 years of his career teaching animation at Sheridan College before retiring in 1988. “Sheridan laid a very good foundation of trained people to encourage the animation business,” he said. Both his daughters also have a strong interest in art, and teach at community colleges.
Macaulay’s last major commercial project was producing the story board - turning a written script into pictures - for a Pink Panther cartoon made for television in 1993. Today he said, “I try to avoid commercial work because it puts pressure on me that I don’t need any more.”
Although retired for many years, Macaulay still finds the time to help out budding artists, however. He is currently sorting out and assembling the bones of a dog skeleton gifted to a company called Max the Mutt Animation School, a private college located in Toronto, founded in 1997 by Maxine Schacker and Tina Seemann. The dog skeleton, which will be held together with wire, will be used to help students “learn how to draw animals properly.”
One highlight of Macaulay’s varied career came in 1958 when he had the opportunity to help design Britain’s entry in the annual America’s Cup sailing competition. The opportunity came about because the boss of the animation studio where he was working at the time was also the manager of the boatyard where the yacht, named Sceptre, was to be built. “My job was to draw the stuff,” he said. “My designer friend had to think out the design of the stuff, do the calculations - and manage the yard.”
The bid to win back the cup from the Americans was unsuccessful - they won the annual challenge every year from 1857 to 1983 when an Australian boat won. “That’s because the Americans are very good at this,” said Macaulay. He said losing the race is never an overwhelming defeat, because the winner came in two or three minutes ahead at the end of a race lasting three hours.
The talented model maker said he first picked up some of the techniques from his father. Describing his dad as “a traditional father,” he said the old man’s highest praise was “not bad.”
Considering the number of models Macaulay has made in his lifetime, he has kept just a few. Aside from the problem of having enough space to display them, he said, “the fun is in making them, not keeping them.” Making miniatures from scratch rather than from a kit requires careful planning and the challenge is in “trying to find ways of making it happen.”
