Half A Walk

Michael Sporn has a typically interesting post illuminating a problem of poor craftsmanship being inculcated in today's animation students.

It reminded me of a half-walk we did for The Stepford Wives.

Six drawings B13 through B18.

B 13

Sure this was a big Hollywood movie, but here's the rub: they needed rewrites after a test screening and were hoping to help "fix" it in our sequence because the lab needed the new cut in just over a week.

B 14

Given the timeframe another 6 drawings (times two for clean up, times two for paint) wasn't insignificant.

B 15

Above is the passing point, it's the "trick" drawing where the legs switch.

B 16

Fortunately, this shortcut is stylistically acceptable in the context of the whole piece.  It also makes for funny animation.

B 17

Doug Compton is the animator here, and it wouldn't work without his considerable skill.  It's only a "short cut" if 20 plus years of honing one's skills as an animator is a "cheap" way to do something.

B 18

In the context of what he's criticizing, Michael's point is right on target.

I do like George Griffin's thoughts to put the problem in the larger world of motion study:

Plympton made fewer drawings work and it was not a decision based on narrative or character; it was experimental animation; it did break the rules; it let the scratchy lines move slower and not distract. A cycle is anything that’s repeated. The running Nazi gained some interesting qualities with fewer drawings: his head is obsessively facing forward to emphasize his menace, not twisting to the side on the stride; and the crazy legs give him a loping kind of nutty asymmetry.

Advice to students: Forget about “good” or “bad.” Just think about your objective, your time base, your momentary design and how it will flow or jerk in time.

Here's the animation cycled on twos.

Simple Gifts - The Great Frost - Dances

Here's a scene which must have been a real nightmare. But Tissa David excels at two things like almost no other animator -1) elaborate dances 2) making limited animation look like its on ones.

E01

I've pulled what look to be the extreme drawings in this scene.

E02

Traditional dancing like this is easy to go pose to pose and still look natural -after all, dancing is about putting your arms and legs in the right place at the right time.

In a few recent dance pieces we've done, we even go so far to key positions off of reference footage and inbetween from those.

E03

There are eights sets of dancers (plus the star couple) in addition to the musicians.  One couple here is highlighted, the other seven are basically the same.

E04

Although these are extreme positions, they still have a lightness -the kind of thing you often find in straight ahead animation.  The positions aren't hit "hard", they're intrinsic points which the animation/dance moves through.

E05

This scene is silhouetted so that the men face camera.  Typically, a dance involves the man as a centerpoint for the action/motion of a woman.  Here, the men's lines are clearer, so the women's billowing skirts cover the foreground while the men's defined legs (and arms) showcase the motion.

E06

This bow has a few drawings that go into this pose and one more still after this position leading out.

E07

The entire cycle appears to take 50 drawings.

Below is another dance sequence, this one just starring the main characters.

Hey, Good Lookin'

The VHS, portal to yesterday.  Savior of film so forgotten there's no money to be made on the DVD.

Together with Coonskin, Hey Good Lookin' is Ralph Bakshi's only film not available on DVD (although the former can be found on high quality 'unofficial' DVD releases).  [note: while writing this I discovered a DVD of questionable origins which calls this film "Coonskin 2"]


Michael Sporn has an excellent post in Johnny Vita and Ira Turek's background work in Fritz the Cat.   And their work on this film is equal to their exceptional backgrounds in that film, even if they don't feel as fresh a decade later.

What sticks out most in Hey Good Lookin' isn't so much the backgrounds, or the story (with similarities to Heavy Traffic), or the design (which maintains that Bakshi problem- too ambitious for the budget) -what sticks out is the sometimes bizarre animation.  Bizarre in a good way.  The animation his cartoon films never really stuck out apart from a scene or two in Coonskin.

Here, some scenes -especially the animation of the character "Crazy" -elevate the film in a way unlike Bakshi's other pictures.

Over the next week, we'll be posting clips from one particular sequence which showcases the dichotomy of animation styles in the film.

Above we have a three field pan over the ancillary characters to begin the sequence.

They're mostly on 8 drawing cycles. Really funny an interesting cycles.

The last two characters fighting aren't on a single discernible cycle.

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This animation plays on 2's and 3's.  Leather jacket hooks drawing 11 into 4 for #12.  This is a good way to make a cycle -have different hook up points so the action isn't a constant  repeat.  It gives this animation a lot of it's impact.

Darwin Be Damned!

Monkeys evolved into cows.  At least that's what happens here.

This is one transformation in a sequence Doug Compton animated for The Buddha.  No inbetweens, all Doug's drawings.

You'll see two nice four legged walks and a simple morph between the two animals.

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Below is the test.  Drawings are held for exposure where there are no inbetweens.  Ultimately it's exposed on twos.

Globe For Ya

Here's a globe for you.  Full rotation.

We either made it or got it from somewhere a couple years back.  It's very useful.

CLICK for a quicktime movie.  You can download with Quicktime Pro.

Ballpark Statuary

One week into the baseball season.

Last Monday, went down to Washington D.C. for the Phillies' first game.

Most ballparks have statues of their team's legends.  Nationals Park, bereft of legends, has a series of "Washington D.C." baseball heroes.

Sculpted by Omri Amrany, they attempt to capture motion in a still three dimension space.

Their initial impact is kind of monstrous.

Quickly, they become highly rewarding.  Although the Nationals will be cursed as long as they keep Teddy Roosevelt from winning the President's race -the fans are at least rewarded with these statues to greet them.