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 […]
#20 Autumn 1987
Advice to the aspiring cartoonist
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 […]
My Top Ten animated films
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 […]
Annecy Animated Film Festival 1987
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 […]
Annecy Animated Film Festival 1987 – Page 2
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 […]
Annecy Animated Film Festival 1987 – Page 3
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 […]
Annecy Animated Film Festival 1987 – Page 4
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. […]
Snow White – Behind the Magic Mirror
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 […]
Snow White – Behind the Magic Mirror – Page 2
“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 […]
Snow White – Behind the Magic Mirror – Page 3
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 […]
Snow White – Behind the Magic Mirror – Page 4
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 […]
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – Disney‘s fabulous folly
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 […]
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – Disney‘s fabulous folly – Page 2
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 […]
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – Disney‘s fabulous folly – Page 3
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 […]
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – Disney‘s fabulous folly – Page 4
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 […]
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – Disney‘s fabulous folly – Page 5
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 […]
Pondles join pre-school market
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 […]
Pondles join pre-school market – Page 2
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 […]
Pondles join pre-school market – Page 3
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. […]
Pondles join pre-school market – Page 4
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 […]
Pondles join pre-school market – Page 5
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 […]
Pondles join pre-school market – Page 6
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, […]
Pondles join pre-school market – Page 7
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 […]
Pondles join pre-school market – Page 8
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 […]