In continuation of the two previous post about Oscar and Rebecca from the cancelled Walt Disney project Fraidy Cat, here’s another post about the character Doris, the owner of the cat Oscar.
During the period that Harald Siepermann worked on Fraidy Cat, the script described Doris as a single lady in her early twenties, wearing a thick rimmed glasses, and who lives in a small apartment in London. She works as a secretary in a small office building across the courtyard from her apartment. From the windowsill of her apartment Oscar and the goldfishes Bernard and Herman follow Doris throughout the day. They wonder what she’s doing there sitting down all day, while she can do that at home as well. The lonesome Doris has a shy and introverted character, and like Oscar has to gain more confidence throughout the story, Doris makes a personal transition as well.
Here are various illustrations by Harald Siepermann with different design approaches in the search for a possible look for Doris.
A follow up to a previous post about the cancelled Walt Disney movie Fraidy Cat.
In addition to the cat Oscar, Harald Siepermann also worked on the colorful parrot Rebecca. The name Rebecca would later during the production change to Corina.
In the story, Rebecca and Oscar are bound to each other. Oscar is in trouble because it seems like he ate Rebecca, and therefore broke Doris’ house rule: you don’t hurt other animals, let alone eat them. Oscar asks Rebecca to show herself to Doris, as prove that he didn’t ate her. Rebecca promise to help him, only if he helps her as well by finishing business with her no-good owner Jim.
Both characters have opposite characteristics. Rebecca is a strong and confident bird with a big personality. In contrary to Oscar, a rather clumsy cat for who everything is strange and scary.
As a direction to explore the character Rebecca, director Piet Kroon suggested Harald Siepermann to use the actress Goldie Hawn as model. Notable features are her big eyes, big mouth, big hair, and overall sweet look. And her small nose could be used as a small beak for the parrot.
Here are various designs of Rebecca by Harald Siepermann.
In 2002 Harald Siepermann was one of the first artist to be involved in the Walt Disney project Fraidy Cat, an computer animated movie that was in development under the guidance of director Piet Kroon and with Hans Bacher as production designer. The movie was a parody of the classic movies from famous director Alfred Hitchcock, and was filled with his trademark style of mystery and suspense.
When Harald worked on Fraidy Cat the story was about Oscar, a lazy house cat, who’s comfortable life turns around when an injured parrot named Rebecca flies into the apartment. Oscar tries to help her, but when his owner Doris enters the room, it looks like Oscar ate the bird. Although innocent, all the evidence leads to Oscar. To get his comfortable life back, Oscar has to prove his innocence and goes after Rebecca, who had just flee out of the window.
Over the course of six months Harald Siepermann worked on the visual development of all the main character. After Siepermann’s involvement the movie remained in development for several years, with Ron Clements and John Musker on board as new directors, but in 2005 the project was shelved.
However, Harald made a wide range of designs for the movie. Below are some of his illustrations and color variations for the character Oscar. More of his work for Fraidy Cat will follow in future posts.
