Animator. Winter 1988. Issue number 24. Front cover illustration: Bob Hoskins with human Toon Jessica Rabbit, Roger Rabbit’s luscious wife in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. © 1988 Touchstone Pictures and […]
#24 Winter 1988
Animating for Hartbeat
By Dale Hemenway The BBC programme ‘Hartbeat’ developed from a programme that began two decades ago called ‘Vision On’. I used to return home from school and switch on the […]
Roger the Lucky Rabbit – Who Framed Roger Rabbit review
Brian Sibley reviews the Disney-Speilberg smash-hit, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Roger Rabbit is an anarchist. Probably because he’s a Toon and comes from Toontown, where all the tedious restraints of […]
Roger the Lucky Rabbit – Who Framed Roger Rabbit review – Page 2
More significantly – since it is the probable reason for Roger’s success – this experiment in combining film techniques is founded in a stylishly funny conceit. Toons, it seems, are […]
Roger the Lucky Rabbit – Who Framed Roger Rabbit review – Page 3
The script by Jeffery Price and Peter Seaman (from Gary K Woolf s book Who Censored Roger Rabbit?) is crammed with gags, puns and movie land references: ‘Is that a […]
Richard Williams and Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Jeremy Clarke talks to Richard Williams, Director of Animation on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. RICHARD WILLIAMS: The initial feeling I had about the picture was that it would look a […]
Richard Williams and Who Framed Roger Rabbit – Page 2
Then when I saw it, we all fell around and started to scream because it worked at 100%. I had never before worked on anything where you were trying a […]
Richard Williams and Who Framed Roger Rabbit – Page 3
JC: Yes, I am a great admirer of The Cat Who Hated People. I like King Sized Canary too. RW: That’s the best one! And Bad Luck Blackie, that’s the […]
Richard Williams and Who Framed Roger Rabbit – Page 4
Bob said, “Apart from getting the story right, and the movie right as a film, what this picture is going to stand or fall on is the relationship of the […]
Richard Williams and Who Framed Roger Rabbit – Page 5
JC: What did the rough version say? RW: It just had the drawings with the backgrounds sketched in and the soundtrack. There were two drawings a second at least, sometimes […]
Richard Williams and Who Framed Roger Rabbit – Page 6
Bob Zemeckis thought of a split-screen device to remove a character from the screen. In the scene in the ‘Ink and Paint’ nightclub, Jessica (Roger Rabbit’s cartoon wife) walks up […]
Richard Williams and Who Framed Roger Rabbit – Page 7
Mill Kahl confirmed that. Disney was always trying to do different things. He said he never chewed his cabbage twice, he never did a sequel. But those were the guys […]
Richard Williams and Who Framed Roger Rabbit – Page 8
Animation is very technical. The essence of it is like Vincent Van Gogh starting out, he goes to life class and draws a woman. His early drawings look as if […]
Who Framed Roger Rabbit – some background pictures
1. All the cartoon action was storyboarded to link-in with the live-action. In this scene Roger is hiding in Hoskins’ kitchen sink. He pops up and spits out a mouth-full […]
Who Framed Roger Rabbit – some background pictures – Page 2
7. The animators also prepared a shadow matte to add shadows to Roger. This is painted with hard edges and softened in the optical printing by throwing it out of […]
Who Framed Roger Rabbit – some background pictures – Page 3
Benny the Toon taxi To create the live-action for the cartoon taxi in Who Framed Roger Rabbit a small off-road vehicle was used. The actor, Bob Hoskins, holds a dummy […]
Winsor McCay, His Life and Art
David Williams and Robin Allan have been reading a book which pays tribute to a neglected artist and animator of genius. Those familiar with John Canemaker’s editorship of Funnyworld and […]
Winsor McCay, His Life and Art – Page 2
McCay was fascinated by the theatre and by the circus in particular; his early professional work was to paint posters for a dime museum. This can best be described as […]
Perspective for Animators Part Three Cylindrical Perspective
By George Collin The trouble with ordinary perspective is that it assumes an image fixed on a flat sheet of glass between the viewer and the view, square on to […]
Perspective for Animators Part Three Cylindrical Perspective – Page 2
Chuck Jones reckons that Disney got the idea from Warner Brothers cartoons. I included a similar shot in a recent production, panning down a broken ladder to a figure at […]
Perspective for Animators Part Three Cylindrical Perspective – Page 3
So to construct drawings in cylindrical perspective we need what I would call sine curve graph paper. So far as I can establish such paper does not exist, though I […]
Cartoons, Computers and Antics
In Part Two Alan Kitching gives a detailed account of his own creation: Antics. In the last issue, I gave a general outline of the different types of computer graphics […]
Cartoons, Computers and Antics – Page 2
Frame-grabbing is used to feed images direct into the machine with a video camera, scanner, or any similar gadget and there are facilities for retouching, tinting, colour balance, posterising, solarising, […]
Cartoons, Computers and Antics – Page 3
Camera FX are much the same as on a rostrum camera, but much more flexible, for example, drawings and cels can zoom independently of backgrounds and other drawings., so an […]
Cartoons, Computers and Antics – Page 4
Cartoon production with Antics generally involves a blend of all these techniques. Some are extremely easy, others are quite difficult. Careful planning is essential, right from storyboard stage, to get […]
Cartoons, Computers and Antics – Page 5
In contrast, Antics began as a concept, a clear vision of an “ideal” animation machine, which grew out of my previous ten years experience in conventional animation, graphic design, and […]