1984

With the collapse of G.B. Animation, British Animated Productions and Signal Films and the defection of Anson Dyer’s animators, the field was narrowing. It is not surprising therefore, that an American sponsor should turn his attention to the strongest remaining studio. Louis de Rochemont and his associates approached Halas & Batchelor with a somewhat surprising proposition. George Orwell’s book ‘Animal Farm’ had been published in 1945 and they believed it could work in cartoon film form. The project was an immense undertaking for H & B and their partner Allan Crick. In order to honour their other commitments and do justice to the new contract the studio began to expand, and a start was made on the pre-production planning which was to take them 16 weeks.

Layouts for the barns, food store and cow shed where some of the most important action in ANIMAL FARM takes place.

The same meticulous attention was paid to Matyas Seiber’s musical score. Seiber was neither a newcomer nor a slouch when it came to composing music for cartoon films. He had joined the studio during the war, scoring the M.O.I. film DIGGING FOR VICTORY (1942), JUNGLE WARFARE; (1943), the famous ‘Charley’ series, and many others including a daring abstract fantasy titled MAGIC CANVAS (1948).

MORRIS LAKIN LOOKS AT TWO BOOKS: ‘ANIMALS IN MOTION’ AND ‘THE HUMAN FIGURE IN MOTION’

Previously, if you had suggested to me that a nineteenth century photographer could be of help to me in animating I would have been rather dubious about it. But Eadweard Muybridge was more than a photographer, he was an innovator and a student of motion, the first man able to prove that he had made accurate assertions about how animals moved. It may seem incredible to us but a hundred years or so ago people did not know how animals moved for sure, until Muybridge came along and utilised dry plate photographic techniques to study the subject.

Of course, you need not only copy life, but in the process of characterization you need a real starting point to work from. Walt Disney made a comment to that effect (but you can read all about that in ‘Disney Animation – the Illusion of Life’- for yourself). From the Muybridge books you are able to appreciate the balance and weight of real creatures in motion.

An interesting incident is captured an plate 74. A pigeon has wandered in front of a performing acrobat and has been scared into flight and been captured by the cameras. There are more intentional studies of ‘Animals in Motion‘ in the so titled second book.