Published between 1982 and 1995
I think when you are drawing and developing ideas and skills you need to develop a kind of feedback from your work to develop and improve it – to be able to ‘feel’ the quality and the nature of the media. To do this you have to get on and actually do it. I’m only a beginner so I don’t yet have any real feel for the media of animated films, but I know about what I call ‘feeling the media’ from other disciplines.
Open Letter to an Enthusiast
KEN CLARK WROTE THE FOLLOWING LETTER TO SOMEONE WANTING TO START ANIMATION.
Dear Pete,
It is always a great pleasure to meet fellow enthusiasts in the field of animation. Of course I will help you all I can. Your letter did not explain how advanced your knowledge of the subject has reached to date, and so I will assume you to be a raw beginner.
There are other ways of reducing the number of drawings you will need.
REPEAT CYCLE – is an action of cyclic movement that can he repeated over and over again. The walk cycle is the most common of these. Say, it takes six drawings to take a step with the left foot and six more for the right foot, if your character must go for a walk through the forest you simply repeat the ‘cycle’ of twelve drawings over and over, in fact, until you want to stop him or proceed to the next action. This form of ‘cheating’ however must never be overdone since it is boring on the eye when it involves your character – but perfectly acceptable with objects such as a windmill, or a record on a turntable, get the idea?
A cine camera capable of taking single frames is of course essential. This is mounted on a rostrum. Elaborate rostrums are available but when I was secretary of the Grasshopper Group and Bob Godfrey a mere member of it, I remember he used a small upturned table, a plank of wood was fixed firmly to the leg tops, four converted dried milk tins were pressed into service as reflectors for 4 x 100 watt household bulbs. A wooden block with a Whitworth bolt secured the camera in position pointing down at the underside of the table.
Making Puppets for Stop-motion Films
COLIN DUNN TELLS US HIS METHOD OF MAKING PUPPETS WHICH IS BASED ON TECHNIQUES USED BY PROFESSIONAL ANIMATORS WHO HAVE DEVELOPED THEM OVER MANY YEARS.
At their simplest, puppets to be animated might be buttons, match sticks, or the perennial angle-poise lamps. We have all seen how the most unlikely objects can be imbued with real character by an imaginative animator. But if your project requires puppets that bear some resemblance to the human or animal form, you will run up against the problem of puppet construction, and for many beginners it is a real problem. You cannot animate well if you have only a poor puppet to work with.
Illustrations from The Legend of Bolster.
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.