Published between 1982 and 1995
Whilst it fits in with the idea of Fievel’s growing up while separated from his parents, there is insufficient dramatic material here to furnish a workable sub-plot. Mice plotting against cats does have such potential, but the cats’ visual design lets it down. Low-life, street criminal type New York Cats seem trivial after the truly … Read more
If Bluth is good when he is borrowing from other film-makers, it must be said that he is easily their equal when exercising originality. His credits on the film include designing and storyboarding in addition to producing and directing, and it is an impressive achievement. The Cossack Cats must be mentioned again in this regard; … Read more
Animator Brian Borthwick is a rare combination of talents hiding behind a warm retiring personality, writes Ken Clark. After more than forty years in the business Brian Borthwick is an accomplished master of his craft. His modesty and dedication has endeared him to the profession at large but no more so than to his associates … Read more
“There are so many things I have worked on, and one is never really satisfied with one’s work. In some ways you may say I have been in a rut, but it has been a steady old job and I’ve been lucky because I’ve dipped a finger in every part of production. Character animation is … Read more
By Barry Salt. “But the study of drawings is not only indispensable to our knowledge of the different masters; it also serves to impress more sharply on our minds the distinguishing characteristics of the several schools. Much more clearly than in painting we recognize in drawing the family features, both intellectual and material, of the … Read more
6. In the story sketches and animation layouts the drawing styles of the different artists are quite evident. This artist draws Snow White as a tall, slim young woman, whose total height is nearly seven times the height of her head. 7. These body proportions largely carry through into the same section of the … Read more
15. When her eyes are open, some artists drew them all the way across the lid, while others drew them only on the outer part of the lid, as here. 16. Still others drew them only on the inner part of the lid. Actually, it was only in close shots like this one that … Read more
Animator. Autumn 1987. Issue number 20. Front cover illustration: Two characters from Girls Night Out by Joanna Quinn. This short cartoon film won three awards at Annecy ’87. Printed in Animator Issue 20 (Autumn 1987)
DRAW, DRAW, DRAW Malcolm McGookin is an animator and a part-time cartoon strip artist. He offers some useful advice to the aspiring cartoonist and comments on the state of the British cartoon market. The problem with cartooning is that you cannot go to college to learn jt. I don’t know if it is a unique … Read more
Godfrey Jones tells us about his favourite animated films plus a few pet hates. I enjoyed the article by Paul Thomas about his top ten shorts in (in Animator issue 19). May I give you my ten favourites? Two are on Paul’s list. However, I’ll start at the beginning. 1. Little Nemo – Windsor McCay. … Read more
The biannual International Animated Film Festival, held in June in Annecy, France, is regarded by many as the greatest animation show on earth. David Jefferson reports. Annecy ‘87 may become known as the year of the electronic invasion. Computer and video imagery were there in force, partly reflecting a change in the industry and partly … Read more
QUESTION: How did you come to make this film? JOANNA QUINN: I went to art college to study graphics and did animation most of the time I was there. I started Girls Night Out at college but it was unfinished when I left. It took a further two years to complete which means I worked … Read more
Q: The animation seems so realistic it could almost be done in live-action. Why did you choose to make it so realistic? PL: Strangely enough I did try to take it further away from reality. The figures are extreme, like Fellini, but somehow the end effect is curiously natural. One was as thin as a … Read more
Q: You make a reference to Bogart and Wells, a general reference to that kind of movement. AH: Most of the references are to Greed by Von Stroheim. The Dr. Matigue character is from Greed. The idea was to have the hunt and chase mixed up with Sierra Madre. Then, because the actor who was … Read more
It took 750 artists three years to produce Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Richard Holliss looks at the innovation that went on behind the scenes. Almost as legendary as the premiere itself of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, was the reception it received from the celebrity audience. Hardened movie-moguls and their … Read more
“One of the problems we got into when we started Snow White”, remembered Walt, “was how to animate the girl. It was the first time we had gone in for realistic human beings and it was a tough nut to crack. It was easy to animate animals. The audience wasn’t familiar in the finer points … Read more
An important aid in perfecting the technique was the storyboard. When devised in the early Thirties it was simply a series of drawings arranged in sequence on a board, illustrating film scenes as the camera might see them. If changes needed to be made, whole sections were unpinned and new ones inserted. Widely used in … Read more
Used on the water rippling effects in the wishing well sequence of the film, the Multiplane camera required three technicians to operate it. The reason being that it stretched to the top of a high ceilinged room in the camera department with the camera mounted facing down through a stack of glass frames. Each of … Read more
Brian Sibley tells the story behind the making of Walt Disney’s first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, fifty years ago this year (1987). The trouble with Walt Disney was he was never satisfied: no sooner had he achieved one thing than he was striving to achieve something else. “By nature,” he once … Read more
Much of this remarkable atmosphere was generated by Disney himself and his visionary approach to animation. Everyone, as animator Ken Anderson has recalled, was carried along by Walt’s personal enthusiasm for the Snow White project: “We had no concept that we were ever going to do anything else or ever want to do anything else”. … Read more
Finding appropriate voices for the characters was also far from easy, since the studio had only limited experience in this field, most of the shorts having featured song and pantomime rather than extensive dialogue. Disney instinctively turned to film, radio and burlesque comics for the dwarfs, casting Billy Gilbert (who had a celebrated sneezing routine) … Read more
The dwarfs, who began life as earthy, ugly little men, were animated in a rather more endearing style by Fred Moore (who had been responsible for the roly-poly look of the Three Little Pigs), Bill Tytla, Fred Spencer and Frank Thomas. Three of the studio’s youngest animators – Milt Kahl, Eric Larson and Jim Algar … Read more
Much of the original fairy-tale was simplified – the three attempts made by the Queen to destroy Snow White, for example, were reduced to one – and many of Disney’s more extravagant ideas (including the rock crusher and the forge) were abandoned. One deleted sequence, set in the Queen’s dungeons, was to have shown the … Read more
The use of stock animation to reduce costs, and money from merchandising to finance production, are important considerations for some TV series. David Jefferson discusses these points with film producer Terry Ward. “American producers can make a series popular by spending huge amounts of money on promotion. That’s good for them but it doesn’t do … Read more
A system of stock sequences has enabled a high standard of animation to be achieved within the £18,000 per episode budget. The idea of stock animation is not new, Ward used it on Bananaman and many other studios work this way for TV series. He planned his stock material right from the start, deciding all … Read more
Ward showed me examples from a pile of layouts on his desk. The first had Grandad sitting at the dinner table; he was required to raise his arm and point. “We may not have stock of Grandad pointing in that direction so we use stock for as long as we can and then create new … Read more
They also control the style of trace lines on the cels when matching the new sequences with the stock scenes. “We have three tracers and they’ve all been fantastic. At the beginning of production we decided on the type of line required and gave the tracers example cels to follow. These showed exactly what weight … Read more
Example of the Pondles stock system. Part of Grandad Stock 6. LB Body/Head (bottom level) LA, 4A, 1 LA Various arms (2nd level) 1E – 3E Standard eye blink (3rd level) (eyes front) A – G Lip/Moustache sync (top level) Standard A – 0 shapes The “T” on each drawing means that it has been … Read more
Once the film is shot, although there are certain points where it can be tightened up with editing, there is less flexibility than with live-action. “In The Puddle Town Puffer, the train looked so good when shot we decided we would gain by having it on screen longer. A whole scene was dropped and more … Read more
Flowchart from episode seven. Each episode is broken down into scenes on a modified dope sheet. From left to right: The action, scene number, footage, sections to be filled as completed (Key, animation, layout), stock number (if any), backgrounds and overlays, peg positions and any other information. This sheet is filled in by the Layout … Read more
A single record of the theme song of the series will be released to tie-in with the series. “It is not a pre-school record, it is an up-market production. We are also putting out a cassette of songs from the series for children, there will be three 40-minute videos, and four story books. Other elements … Read more
Animator. Summer 1987. Issue number 19. Front cover illustrations: From the production of When the wind Blows. Top left: Jimmy Murakami adjusting furniture after the bomb. It shows the scale. Top right: Puppet of Jim used to check camera angle before shooting the scene. Bottom: Cel showing Jim and Hilda against the photographic background. Printed … Read more
Dr. Scratch (Paul Thomas of Tiger Trax Animation) gives us his top-ten short film choice. 1. UBU — Geoff Dunbar My lords, ladies and gentlemen, this is my favourite short, till I make one better that is. (tee! hee!) Until then, enjoy the rampaging Mr & Mrs UBU, who wallow in some brilliant animation, with … Read more
Blowing in the wind Brian Sibley has been to see the new British feature length cartoon When The Wind Blows. Raymond Briggs is triffic! As Jim Bloggs would say, “Absolutely triffic!” I loved his funny little, pot-bellied Father Christmas, the thoroughly obnoxious Fungus the Bogeyman and the magical Snowman. And I was devastated by Jim … Read more
David Jefferson and Geoffrey Mackrill have been behind the scenes of TVC’s latest feature production When The Wind Blows, to reveal the process that enabled model background sets to be combined with drawn animation. The latest animated feature from TV Cartoons, When The Wind Blows, uses a clever combination of cel animation and … Read more
“In some ways the success of The Snowman worked against us. When we went to backers to raise production money they wanted us to make Snowman II. We wanted to make When The Wind Blows because it excited us and offered the possibility of delivering an important message. “Many films have touched on this sort … Read more
As soon as the papers were signed work began in earnest. The complete voice track for the film was recorded in three days. Neither Dame Peggy Ashcroft or Sir John Mills had done voice-overs before. In fact when they walked in for the recording session it was the first time they had met. “You are … Read more
Although the backgrounds are models they have the texture of a painting. “If they had been made to look like real rooms, which model maker Errol Bryant was quite capable of doing, the animators would not have been able to blend in the characters the way they did.” The background models were shot at ‘The … Read more
See the next page for the scene as it appears in the film. page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4 | page 5 | page 6 | page 7 | page 8 | page 9
“I had the camera mechanism dated by a competent camera technician, the movement was made in 1914 and the gate in 1916,” says Friswell. It was converted to single-frame work many years ago. So, although it is old its mileage is disproportionate to its age. It is a rack-over Mitchell, in other words it does … Read more