Shamus Culhane

Who was Shamus Culhane?

James "Shamus" Culhane was an American animator, film director, and film producer.

Culhane worked for a number of American animation studios, including Fleischer Studios, the Ub Iwerks studio, Walt Disney Productions, and the Walter Lantz studio. He began his animation career in 1925 working for J.R. Bray studios, and is known for promoting the animation talents of his inker/assistant at the Fleischer Studios in the early 1930s, Lillian Friedman Astor, making her the first female studio animator.

While at the Disney studio, he discovered while working on Hawaiian Holiday's crab sequence an animation method that involved stewing for multiple days, before drawing the entire thing in rough sketches all at once, straight ahead, without invoking the left side of the brain. He was a lead animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, animating arguably the most well-known sequence in the film, the animation of the dwarves marching home singing "Heigh-Ho". The scene took Culhane and his assistants six months to complete. During this time he developed his 'High-speed' technique of using only the right side of the brain and animating with quick dashed-off sketches.