Published between 1982 and 1995
Marked on the tunnel is the start of the motion – there seemed to be little point in doing the drawings before this because they would be too small to be seen and too tiny to draw! From the start point I will paint the tiny figures light grey since strong colour (or black) is … Read more
The first of a series of articles on peoples cartoon favourites put together by Mike Lewis begins with Dave Dursley’s opinion of TV’s biggest supplier of cartoon entertainment. Insofar as there is respect for any kind of animation in this country, it is reserved for “Theatrical” cartoons. That is those made for the cinema – … Read more
The alley they lived in was a great setting for their urban adventures, beautifully rendered in early decay and immortalised in the unforgettable opening credits – some of H-B’s most attractive animation. Their nemesis, Officer Dibble, was the perfect adversary, suspicious, self-centred, but with an ever-ready streak of gullibility leading him to act as a … Read more
Maggy Clark tells Animator what paint and trace is all about. It is based on a taped interview conducted by David Jefferson. I started at Halas and Batchelor, like a little factory girl sitting there painting the white bits on the cels and somebody else did the red bits or whatever, and moved into tracing … Read more
Animator. Winter 1984. Issue number 11. Front cover illustrations: Top: Richard Williams at his London studio. The Oscar is for A Christmas Carol. Small insert: The hands of fate from Richard William’s The Thief.
Ken Clark: I think it fair to say that the long term commitment to your feature length cartoon extravaganza The Thief’ is the subject of much speculation. A short extract was shown on television and was exciting enough for me to ask: How is the project progressing? Richard Williams: A great deal of the work … Read more
K.C.: You place great emphasis on acting. R.W.: Totally, totally! It is the main emphasis. Without it people would get bored after 20 minutes, as they so often do with animated features. The Disney features aren’t boring – not the good ones. K.C.: Do you think that is one of our problems here in Britain, … Read more
K.C.: I think you proved that point with ‘A Christmas Carol”. R.W.: “Christmas Carol” we animated fully, but it was a race because we had just seven months. We went bananas! That was before we became heavily unionised. K.C.: I’m surprised. Why, then, did you put so many perspective shots in the film; soaring over … Read more
K.C.: Except, perhaps, at G.B. Animation, Cookham? R.W.: …whcre they tried to avoid the problem. From what I have heard of David Hand it would seem he was a ‘committee’ man. Walt really directed the films and used Hand and the other guys. K.C.: What went wrong with your attempt to run open evening classes … Read more
K.C.: What lessons did you learn from “Raggedy Ann”? R.W.: One big one. You know the Golden Rule? The person who has the gold makes the rules. Initially, when they were in trouble and I came in as supervisor, I had a lot to say – in fact, they did everything I said; but as … Read more
This is a brief history of Animated cartoons as televised programming in the United States 1946-1981. From small beginnings in Uncle Willie’s Cartoon Show to the big dollar earners of the six hour Saturday morning cartoon shows featuring monsters and mayhem, then the action pressure groups step in. George W. Woolery looks at what went … Read more
If in theatres the short cartoon was developed for a general audience, after the graphic films were leased for television programming the focus changed. By the early fifties, the film cartoon was scheduled almost exclusively on children’s shows, usually those hosted by an adult. Routinely dropped in a multipurpose format, which fused many elements too … Read more
The ripple effects continue unabated. Since 1966, there has not been a cartoon series scheduled during a regular season after 7:30 PM on network television. (4) Instead, web programmers have preferred periodic animated specials always telecast during the earliest prime-time hours, which affords a larger juvenile audience. With few exceptions, the cartoon specials adhere to … Read more
Pressure groups act In the late sixties, the cartoon formats featuring fantastic super beings engaging grotesque monsters in colourful mayhem, aroused alarmed citizens groups. Also in their competitive zeal, Saturday morning advertisers were making the most of their liberal commercial time with pitches for everything from sugar-coated vitamins to outrageously expensive toys, some of which … Read more
David Jefferson talks to Steve Flack about the exciting new projects his company are getting involved in. Hierographics is a trace and paint service that is situated in a Wardour Street basement. You enter through a small shop front office, down a flight of stairs to be confronted with a maze of rooms set out … Read more
Bigger companies were using Hierographics for the odd two or three scenes that they needed to get finished by the end of the day. Then companies with four productions would pass on one of them for trace and paint including the job of making up the colour models. Hierographics was becoming paint, trace and co-ordination, … Read more
The Burglar was voted the most popular film at the Animator’s Association (ANIMA) Festival held in September. Film maker Tina Fletcher tells how she progressed from puppet shows to puppet films and the production of The Burglar. ‘The Burglar” was shot in our kitchen. Nothing very extraordinary about that, for in the amateur film making … Read more
My son and I were the chief film enthusiasts. We filmed for the new play in the kitchen but since it was during the holidays and we needed space and solitude, we worked mostly by night, going to bed only when the others were getting up. Animating puppets and cut-outs, we had no knowledge of … Read more
16mm and Henry King I was over the moon. I bought an elderly second-hand Bolex; redheads replaced the old theatre lights; I found an out of work engineer camera lighting man who lived near and was willing to come in, fix the lights and camera and then leave me to animate. Working with my first … Read more
Ken Clark went along to Art Babbitt’s seminar on animation held in London and organized by the Richard Williams Studio. Dateline Tuesday August 28th 1984. I arrived outside the Richard Williams Studios as Art Babbitt was leaving for the preview studio where he was holding his third seminar on the art of animation. At first … Read more
“Everybody writes books about the history of animation, and the technicalities of the rostrum camera, but few tell you how to animate. Some call it Art – that’s wishful thinking. It is little more than finger-painting. Although we are going one step further than finger-painting, animation at present is still at the stage where we … Read more
David Jefferson went on safari down The Old Kent Road to find Britain’s smallest animation studio. Tiger Trax Animation is situated in a block of flats just off the Old Kent Road. As Paul Thomas, who owns Tiger Trax, lead me up the concrete stairs and along the open passageways that lead to his front … Read more
An avid collector of animation memorabilia, Paul has off-cuts from Bob Godfrey’s editing bin, paper animations from “Rhubarb”, cels from various well known productions and a collection of posters issued by animation studios plastered over the walls of his work room. Working from home can be a problem if tradesmen call and he has cels … Read more
page 1 | page 2 | page 3 Printed in Animator Issue 11 (Winter 1984)
Alastair Taylor tells how he made The Fridge D’or at Bath Academy of Art. The film was a big hit at the Cambridge Animation Festival 1983. “The Fridge D’or’ was made in rather makeshift style during my final year as an illustration student at Bath Academy of Art. It is concerned with destiny, the foreknowledge … Read more
I promptly decided to reduce the number of drawings in the walk cycle (to about 18) and shoot three frames per drawing. As for getting the drawings onto cels, I already had the walk cycle drawn on paper and it was just a matter of tracing these down onto the ink and then scratching through … Read more
Frank Baker is a member of the USA based Cartoon/Fantasy organization. He tells us what it is all about. The Cartoon/Fantasy Organization is an association of tans of Japanese animated science fiction and fantasy-adventure cartoons. Founded in 1978 C/FO as it is called for short was started by a small group of dedicated fans of … Read more
Obituary by Ken Clark. Charles R Noble had just cause to be proud of his two Sons: George and Charles Jnr. When the younger son began to assert himself, he was nicknamed ‘Joe’ to avoid confusion. Joe Noble became Britain’s oldest active animator. Born on Christmas Day I 894, he was 23 when he joined … Read more
Obituary by Ken Clark. Bob Privett was not content just to practice his craft, he spent his latter years teaching the art to a succession of grateful students in the heart of London at the Central School of Art, Southampton Row, where he was Head of the Animation Department. I visited him once during class … Read more
Animator. Autumn 1984. Issue number 10. Front cover illustration: Character model sheet for “Dick Deadeye or Duty Done” drawn by Ronald Searle. Top: Dick Deadeye. Bottom: Little Buttercup.
Introduction The Richard Williams Animation studio in London has now won a grand total of 212 International Awards, mostly for their TV commercials, but Williams wants his 40 artists and technicians to take their craft much further. To that end, one of the all-time master craftsmen of animation, Art Babbitt, began a one month animation … Read more
The pressures of “time” and “economics” have so bastardized the medium, we have even forgotten how to stumble. The generation of fine animators spawned at Disney’s in the 1930 -1940 period is fast vanishing. Hopefully some of you, some day, will not only restore the craft to its status of forty years ago – but … Read more
The Course Objectives The secondary purpose of this course is to endow its members with some proven animation formulas that will help them earn a better living, sooner. The clichés we arrived at after years of experimentation will be the subject of our earliest lessons – to give you a head start, we will strip … Read more
The use of live action as a source of information for animators brings me to Eadweard Muybridge. He set up a series of matching cameras, in a row. These cameras were tripped successively by a galloping horse hitting the wires which activated the camera mechanisms. The original purpose of the experiment was to prove Muybridge’s … Read more
One of the great artist-animators from the golden years of the Disney Studios, Art Babbitt, is at the Richard Williams Studio in London running an animation course. Richard Williams paints a pen-portrait of Babbitt. He is a funny mixture. He has the bearing of a Marines sergeant (which he was during the war, after leaving … Read more
When he taught in our studio he insisted that people take the course. He started off by saying: “Please, in my lectures, do not be British. Be crude, be revolting; ask stupid questions. Please do not be polite; otherwise I’m wasting my time.” He’s as tough as nails; yet it literally hurt him when someone … Read more
In just three years Siriol Animation has grown into one of Britain’s largest animation studios. Frank Baker looks at their background. Siriol Animation was set up in 1982 to make a series of SuperTed cartoons for the then new Welsh television authority S4C. SuperTed proved such a success that in under two years Siriol has … Read more
SuperTed’s creator, Mike Young, is an executive producer on the series as well as looking after the merchandising side of SuperTed. He also wrote the original SuperTed books. The scripts for the cartoons were written by another Welshman, Robin Lyons. Robin has a varied background ranging from reading Russian at Oxford to singing and writing … Read more
SuperTed A series of 12 episodes, first shown on 540 in 1982 then on BBC television in 1983. Made by Siriol Animation Ltd Produced by Roger Ficking Executive Producer and creator of SuperTed; Mike Young Directed by Dave Edwards Series Storyline: This is a story about an ordinary teddy bear. When he was made they found … Read more
In part 7 Ken Clark concludes his history of British animation. The first Cambridge Animation Festival was staged on a shoe-string budget one long weekend in November 1967. The event was so successful the City fathers decided to sponsor a more ambitious five-day animation celebration the following year. This time the emphasis was on a … Read more