I spent an anxious week waiting for my Agfa 40 Moviechrome film to be returned.

You have to correct a yellow cast with a blue filter so I bought 3 from the Cokin range.

My camera has an electronic release (remote control) so there is little vibration when I press the release.

Television’s insatiable appetite for new material has encouraged the development of a more economical style of cartoon animation.

In shot three, the caveman enters. This re-used the cels from shot one. The caveman with the brontosaurus took up most of the cel so walking him into the scene would allow the leading edges of the cels to show.

When all the words had been written in, I went back over the sheets and noted the mouth movements.

When I’m shooting a cycle of cels I start with the pile in order, face up on the left of the rostrum with the first one on top.

Geoff Arme tells us about making the award winning film ETHELFRED THE EVER READY recently shown on the BBC 2 Film Competition.

I slunk off and did a few sketches on this paper and photographed them – I did a whole minute of the start of the film to see if I could do it.

Another time saver was our method of providing the shooting information. We had no time really for sitting down and writing a shooting script or list.

Bill’s brother Jim did all the filming and he always maintained he was the only fellow around with deeply sun¬burnt hands!

These drawings show the five main emotions reduced to a simple form. One of the best ways of learning to draw expressions is to look at your own face in a mirror. Try acting out the various emotions for yourself.

Planning your Film

Ian Whitworth, winner of our animation drawing competition, begins a series on animation.

There are two ways of making a cartoon film. One is to say I am an amateur making an amateur film, so don’t expect too much. The other way is to say I may be an amateur but I will give it every thing I have.

The planning of a film goes through various stages to lets take them one at a time.

The first thing you need is a story, you can write your own, or adapt an existing one. Animation tends to be a solitary thing, don’t lock yourself away and keep everything a secret. Show your story around, discuss it, listen to other peoples ideas, you may be able to use them, or reshape them.

Timing is something which tends to frighten people a bit. There are books you can buy which will explain it in much more detail, but a simple method is to act out the action four or five times, timing each one. Every time will be different, so take the average timing. If a movement takes two and a half seconds, it will require forty five drawings, but if you shoot on two’s, that is two exposures for each drawing, then you can do the same action in twenty three drawings. Not all action can be shot on two’s, some will have to be ones, an example is fast actions, or slow or complex ones. If you are using a sound track, time your music or whatever sound you use and fit your action to the timing. There are two ways to do it. Fit your action to the sound track, or f it a sound track to your action. With experience, your sense of timing will come naturally.

Drawing Cartoons
By David Jefferson

Figures can be based on a series of ovals. Draw the ovals lightly in pencil. When the pose looks right you can go over it and add the details. Rub out the unwanted lines as you go.

Cartoon figures usually differ from real life proportions.

1. Almost human proportions.
2. Body shrinks.
3. Head grows.
4. Head same size as body.
5. Head almost becomes body.

Squaring the Circle

Neil Carstairs tells us about his latest cartoon which won one of Australia’s “Ten Best on Eight” awards.

I finished Nightmare in November 1981, just in time for the U.K. competition season. I was thinking about changing from 2 pin to ACME registration because parts of Nightmare, particularly in the bedroom scene, were unsteady. This feeling was confirmed when one of the judges in the Scottish 8, a professional animator, made the same comment.

My storyboard now had a title “The Circle & The Square” and three designs with the story connecting them: Square draws flower… Circle draws deer… Deer eats flower… Square gets angry… Square draws big flower… Flower eats deer… Circle draws??? I went back to experimenting with a compass.

Beginner’s View
Inking and painting.

Morris Lakin continues his journey of discovery.
Part Two – First go at Painting Cels.

I have just finished painting the cels for the first scene of my first cel animation. Owing to the fact that my spare time has been limited it has taken me about nine months to produce 218 cels, which will fill about 15 seconds of screen time. That is work¬ing on them for about 2½ hours a week most of the time.

There was no problem when the figures were walking forward (fig. 3), but when the figures turned to walk across the screen the problems started. (Fig. 4) Obviously I could not just paint up to the line and over it because there would be no demarcation between the front leg and the back leg.

Illustrations for Drawing Cartoons.

Drawing Cartoons
Part One – By David Jefferson

CAN YOU DRAW CARTOONS? IF YOU ANSWER ‘NO’ OR ‘NOT VERY WELL’ THEN THIS ARTICLE IS FOR YOU. BEFORE YOU READ ANY FURTHER GET YOURSELF A SHEET OP PAPER AND A PENCIL.

Making the Legend of Bolster

LEW COOPER’S FILM ‘THE LEGEND OF BOLSTER’ WAS ONE OF THIS YEAR’S MOVIE MAKER TEN BEST FILMS. HE TELLS US ABOUT ITS PRODUCTION.

Since taking up movie-making I’ve always had an interest in animation. I have dabbled in most types, usually in short experimental attempts. All the completed animated films I’ve made have been made with puppets of some form. The problem here is that you need an area which can be set aside for your film making. In this way, you can leave everything set up, and do the odd bit of filming when you can spare the time.

The drawings were made on thin white bond paper, then traced onto cels using black waterproof ink. I find you can see through the paper without using a light box. This means you can literally make drawings anywhere. I’d often sit in an armchair with my drawing board on my lap.

Cutting the Cost of Cel Animation

By Les Ranyard

My interest in animation began very early in my cine hobby with hand drawn titles and short cartoons drawn directly onto blank 9.5 film – this was very difficult as anyone who has done it will agree – to keep your subject in the same position in the frame – being unable to overtrace – then like many of us, I changed over to Super 8 which made this medium almost impossible due to the reduced frame size.

used the older of my grandchildren who added the desired sound effect on ‘queue’, sometimes. This was a huge joke, with masses of retakes, till the desired effect was obtained. This was the lighter side of animation, enjoyed by all who took part in it, most of the time, except when the wife would poke her head round the door, asking if we want a ‘cuppa’. Back to the start again, after the children had stopped laughing at my remarks to my fast retreating wife.