Taking A Line...

Monday, 6 April 2015

D is for Drawn Disney - the nine old men

I must apologise.

I like Disney cartoons,

be they short or feature length.

But I prefer the ones

that don't contain computer generated imagery.

King Louis from The Jungle Book - Source

Maybe it is the drawn lines
combined with the expanses of plain colour.
The smooth and realistic movement
that reflected "the illusion of life".

Or is it the combined work of a collection
of the old nine men?
The name given to the core animators
from the 1930's to the mid 1970s.

The Nine Old Men - Source

Alphabetically, and not working from the image above,
I am not doing all the work for you. they are Les Clark,
Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson,
John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman and Frank Thomas.

Les Clark, died in September 1979, was known for animating
Mickey Mouse as well some of the first feature-length animated films.

Source

Marc Davis, died in January 2000, cut his teeth on Snow White
and worked on the villains in Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians.
His work was also used in the Imagineering Department
with the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion.

Source

Ollie Johnston, died in April 2008, was one of the authors
of The Illusion of Life, animated Smee in Peter Pan,
Cinderella's stepsisters to name but two (or three).

Source

Milt Kahl, died in April 1987, worked on Shere Khan in The Jungle Book
and Madame Medusa in The Rescuers to name but two..

Source

Ward Kimball, died in July 2002, was a joker
and used his life experiences to animate Jiminy Cricket and the Cheshire Cat
as well as many others.

Source

Eric Larson, died in October 1988, animated the Beatle'esque Vultures
from The Jungle Book but also helped to teach the next
generation of Disney Artists.

Source

John Lounsbery, died in February 1976, was known for
his squashed and stretched animation and created the
animation of the elephants in The Jungle Book.

Source

Wolfgang 'Woolie' Reitherman, died in May 1985,
animated Monstro in Pinocchio and the Crocodile in Peter Pan.

Source

Frank Thomas, died in September 2004, was the co-author with
Ollie Johnston and also collated a collection of sight gags
entitled "Too Funny For Words".

Source

The Nine Old Men produced an elastic set
of rules for animation, these included:
1) Squash and stretch
2) Anti-ci-pation
3) Staging
4) Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose
5) Follow Through and Overlapping Action
6) Slow In and Slow Out
7) Arcs
8) Secondary Action
9) ...Timing
10) Exageration
11) Solid Drawing
12) Appeal

Here is the first video of
the 12 Principles of Animation.

Source

A good summary of this page can be found here.

Sunday, 5 April 2015

C is for Crowd Control

Crowds and numbers of elements when shot on film,

be it the can or within a render farm,

have to be controlled.

This post looks at some of the

more populated films and the

techniques needed to wrangle the

crowds.

The AMC Filmsite

has recorded the numbers

within crowds for the earlier films

on their blog post here.

Cecil B. De Mille's silent "The Ten Commandments" (1923)

included a crowd scene with over 3,500 extras.

(Youtube.com)

Friz Lang's Metropolis from 1927

included 38,000 people.

(Youtube.com)

Look at the title scene of 101 Dalmatians

for managing

and animating the dots.

Xerography certainly helped the process,

despite Walt Disney allegedly stating that

he disliked "the rough drawing style

brought about by the Xerography process". (IMDB)

(YouTube.com)

The dots have been counted - 6,469,952 dots in the whole film.

In 1994, an original story partially based on a Shakespeare play
gave the public The Lion King.
Within this film, the alpha lion Mufasa
has to be eliminated by the usurper Scar.
What better way to do this in Africa than
with a wildebeest stampede.

Source

IMDB.com states "The wildebeest stampeded took Disney's CG department approximately three years to animate. A new computer program had to be written for the CG wildebeest stampede that allowed hundreds of computer generated animals to run but without colliding into each other." The coloured wildebeest denote the characters with certain movements or behavioural traits.

(Youtube.com)

In 1996, another Disney film,

The Hunchback of Notre Dame,

used crowd simulation for a scene

where we see the crowds in the square below

during the song The Bells of Notre Dame.

(Around the 3.55 minute mark, the crowd appears - YouTube.com)

This should give you enough to get on with, but I shall be adding to this blog post with the use of the crowd simulator from Weta Digital. Happy Easter, oops, this dates the blog post.

Friday, 3 April 2015

B is for Berkeley Breathed

Guy Berkeley Breathed is a man who reintroduced the comic strip in the 1980's by combining comments on society, politics and American life with the inclusion of bizarre but beautifully crafted characters.

He also used his own experiences to add life and plot to the cartoon strip.

Have a look at either Bloom County, Outland or Opus.

What do you get if you cross a penguin with a tie, shirt collar, trainers and a humungous nose?

Add to that a ginger cat that looks like it has just eaten some space dust.

Finally a purple cockroach that wears a bowler hat.

Source

It reminds me of Pogo by Walt Kelly,

although I did come to this after Mr. Breathed;

it combines socio-political commentary

from swamp critters.

Source

It could be said that Liberty Meadows by Frank Cho

was the successor to both Kelly and Breathed.

He combines the anthropomorphic animals

set in an animal clinic with the vet and nurses

dealing with their own relationships.

Source

So why do artists use animals or anthropomorphic forms
within comic strips that comment on society and politics?
TBH (to be honest), I don't know
but I presume it may have something with it
being easier to access something that looks like
a comic strip but putting a very strong message across.

Spitting Image,
the satirical puppet show
on British television
didn't hide behind animals in
such the ways illustrated above.
Peter Fluck and Roger Law created
the cast of latex caricatures to
wreak havoc on a Sunday evening.
Source

I am sure there are people and readers, out there,
who know a better way of putting this across.

Wednesday, 1 April 2015

A is for April Fool

The first of April is one

of the Creative's better days

be it for fun or

just to hype a brand.

Here is a pick of this

year's crop.

Clear Marmite

Source

The Force is found at Cern,
a great article with some clever references
including these are not the droids you are looking for!

The RNIB
releases CatNav
for the Blind

RNIB

Dragons are real

according to Nature

Playstation Flow

immersive gameplay

(YouTube & Playstation)

Amazon Dash

the button

(Youtube & Amazon)

And not forgetting

Google Maps Pac Man

(was this not a subtle advert for

a film called Pixels?)

What did I miss out?

Friday, 27 March 2015

Taking A Line Round Up - March 2015

It has been a good week

for our creatives.

Simon Newbury has

completed a sketch of a dog's head

for a friend and client

Simon Newbury

Tim Seelig has
recently collaborated with
Antony Vergettte-Lynn,
also known as
The Ink Captain,
to make a tee shirt to celebrate
the opening of a new studio
as wel as the craft itself.

Tim Seelig

T-shirts can be bought directly from
the studio,
Ink Captain, for £12.
(Postage and packing is extra, so please enquire beforehand)

Kerry Bennett
has flown to New Zealand
but has had time to
capture a bird
in watercolour

Kerry Bennett

The New Zealand Fan Tail

Add caption

Patryk Hardziej
is holding an
Exhibition/Exhibition
"Illustrations" Patricia Podkościelny & Patryk Hardziej
15.04.2015 h. 19.00
Gallery in Hall of CKiS, Kalisz

Patricia and Patrick/Patryoja and Patryk

Renee Willoughby
is curious about recreating her inward space
into an immersive performance and seeing how
that presence transfers through screens.