David Hilberman
| David Hilberman | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 18, 1911 Cleveland, Ohio |
| Died | July 5, 2007 (aged 95) Palo Alto, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Case Western Reserve University B.S.(ArtEd) 1934. UCLA M.A.(Theater Arts) 1965 |
David Hilberman (18 December 1911 – 5 July 2007) was an American cartoon animator and one of the founders of classic 1940s animation. An innovator in the animation industry, he co-founded United Productions of America (UPA). The studio gave its artists great freedom and pioneered the modern style of animation. As Animator and Professor Tom Sito noted: "Arguably, no studio since Walt Disney exerted such a great influence on world animation." He and Zack Schwartz went on to start Tempo Productions which became an early leader in television animated commercial production. In short, he played an important role in the new directions the art form took in the 1940s and ‘50s.
Hilberman studied art in schools in both Detroit and Cleveland. The great depression began when he was 18, and with its huge economic dislocation promoted political activism and consequential legislation: the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act. In 1932 he traveled with friends to Russia, where all of their parents had been born. He stayed for six months in Leningrad, worked in a theater and studied stagecraft and art. Unable to speak Russian and finding Russians too dogmatic, he returned to Cleveland. There he resumed his education at Case Western Reserve University, earning a B.S. in Art Education in 1934 and continuing his involvement with theater at the Cleveland Play House eventually securing a job teaching art in high school. He married, became aware of a talent search for artists being held by Walt Disney Productions and submitted a portfolio. He became one of 29 artists hired out of several thousand applicants. Hilberman began in animation as an assistant animator and shortly was asked by Bill Tytla to join his unit working on the dwarf sequences in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film), the world's first animated feature film. The movie, which had been a major gamble for the Walt Disney studio became a huge artistic and financial success and lead to a series of pioneering animation features. He went on to do layout on six short films and was then put in charge of pre-production layout for Bambi. In preparation, he learned how to use the studio's huge new multiplane camera used for the panoramas through the woods. He was proud of the work done at the studio.
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