FURTHER DETAILS ON MAKING ANIMATED CARTOONS
One of the inspiriting things about this new art of making drawings
for animated cartoons is that it affords such opportunities for a
versatile worker to exercise his talents. A true artist delights in
encountering new problems in connection with his particular branch
of work. The very fact that he selects as his vocation some art
activity, rather than employment that is mechanical, evinces this.
In making drawings for animated films and in following the whole
process of their making, the artist will find plenty of scope for his
ingenuity in the devising of expedients to advance and finish the
work.
The first animated screen drawings were made without the labor and
time-saving resources of the celluloid sheet. As has been explained,
it holds the still parts of a scene during the photography. The
employment of this celluloid is now in common usage in the art. It
is found an expedient in various ways; sometimes to hold part only
of a pictorial composition as in the method touched upon in the
preceding chapter where ink drawings are made on paper; or, again, in
another method to be used instead of paper, to hold practically all
of the picture elements. By this latter method, in which a pigment is
also put on the transparent material, the projected screen image is
in graduated tones giving the appearance of a monochrome drawing.
Animators sometimes are released from the irksomeness of making the
innumerable drawings for certain cases of movement, as that of an
object crossing the picture field from one side to the other, by
using little separate drawings cut out in silhouette.
[Illustration: CARDBOARD MODEL OF AN AIRPLANE WITH SEPARATE CUT-OUT
PROPELLERS.
The propellers are placed in position on the front of the airplane in
their order continuously while the model, under the camera, is moved
across the sky.
_On the left_: Part of film made from the cut-out model.]
It is an airplane, as an instance, we will say, that is to fly across
the sky. For this, the airplane will be drawn but once on a piece of
thin cardboard, finished in light and shade and then carefully cut
out around its contour so that it will be like a flattened model.
This model, specifically spoken of as a “cut-out,” is pushed over the
background under the camera and photographed. The manipulation of
this airplane cut-out, to a chance observer, would be thought of as
being child’s play. It is anything but that, however, as infinite
patience is required to move it properly and have the distances
between the various positions evenly spaced. If, too, there is a
change of speed intended, the necessary ratio of spacing and timing
must be relatively proportionate. Of course, it is understood that the
airplane cut-out is, after each move, photographed. The distance that
it is moved determines the speed that will show on the screen. If,
for example, it is moved only one-sixteenth of an inch each time, the
movement will be very slow.
When an artist wishes to give a more natural effect in a moving
object in which a cut-out is used, he makes some allowance for the
laws of perspective by making several cut-outs in which the outlines
defining the object observe these laws to some extent.
It is to be remembered that an object looks differently according
to whether it is viewed on an extreme side or in the centre of
the field. To be absolutely correct, there should be a separate
drawing for each position. To explain: Beginning with an extreme
side position, the lines defining the thickness go off somewhat
obtusely to the centre of vision; as the object moves and nears the
middle, these lines keep their direction but change their angle. The
direction is always toward the centre of vision, and the angle, with
respect to a vertical, is always sharper. In the very centre, the
object, if it is on a level with the eye, is in profile.
[Illustration: The laws of perspective are to be considered in
“animating” an object as it passes across the screen.]
The entire matter is one of a different perspective drawing for each
position. In the movement of the subject toward the other side a
reverse change takes place in the direction of the lines. Generally
only a few separate drawings—or cut-outs—are needed to render the
screen illusion sufficiently resembling actuality to satisfy the eye.
There is a form of animated cartoon in which the objects, details
of the view, and the figures are in white on a black ground. Usually
this kind of film is of a comic subject. With the delineations of
the characters in a burlesque style and the actions indubitably
ludicrous, they provoke a great deal of laughter. Such screen
stories, when the figures are well imagined and drawn in an
exaggerated way, and the other parts are conformably incongruous and
with a unity of ridiculousness and absurdity in story and action, are
to be considered as true works of dramatic art.
[Illustration: The principles of perspective are applied in the
drawing of birds as well as in the picturing of objects.]
The mode, generally, of making these strong black-and-white effects
is to have the figures and moving parts of separate units to be
arranged under the camera in connection with a simple scene drawn in
white, or gray, on a black ground. The figures of animals are made as
dummies, with jointed limbs. This makes it possible to put them into
the various positions necessary for giving the illusion of life as
they are moved about over the background.
These dummies are designed with but little detail and are drawn on a
carefully selected white surfaced cardboard or thick paper that gives
in contrast with the background good white-and-black negatives. The
joinings of these figures or animals, are made with the thinnest kind
of wire fashioned into tiny pivoting pins. Sometimes in spite of the
artist’s efforts to conceal these wire pivots by placing them where a
hooked ink line indicates a fold of drapery, sharp-eyed individuals
can detect them on the screen. Where such jointed dummies are used
under the framed glass, the wire pivots will not do. Instead, the
artist must find some way of fashioning cardboard rivets, or washers,
to join the parts of the figures. A thin elastic tissue would do
perhaps, as an expedient, to clothe these little dummies and hide the
joinings of the cardboard segments.
[Illustration: ARTICULATED CARDBOARD FIGURES.]
Here we may note the so-called “trick” titles that are shown in
theatres for special occasions, or in connection with the regular
films. They add with their liveliness a little variety to the tedium
of a long presentation of monotonously toned photographs. In them,
the letters make their appearance one at a time, and in most cases
they are white on a black ground. The production of these titles
with their letters that merrily cut capers all over the background
before they come into their orthographic order is a very simple
manœuvre. The separate letters, cut out of cardboard, are laid down
to be photographed one at a time as they spell the words. Where they
are first made to move about in an amusing manner, they are similarly
manipulated on the background under the camera by being pushed about
as desired and photographed at each change of position.
The best background for these titles, when it is to be solid black,
is a piece of black velvet. This material is a serviceable article in
motion-picture work as it gives an intense and certain black, and if
wrinkles form in it they do not betray themselves by any lights or
shadows in the photographic print.
Sometimes in trick work it is intended that some part of the design
is masked while another part is being photographed. This is a simple
matter if the background is a dark one, as a piece of paper, or
cardboard, of the same color is placed over it while the photography
is taking place. A line of letters, for instance, that is already
drawn on the dark ground is to appear letter by letter. A strip of
this dark-colored paper covers the words at first, but is pulled away
to expose the letters one by one. Another way would be to clip off
a section of the paper bit by bit. Blackening the edges of the paper
will provide against these edges showing as light lines and so giving
away the ruse.
In selecting for working under the camera of dark-colored cardboards,
it is advisable to pick out only those with dead mat surfaces and
reject those with any enamelled or shiny surfaces.
As previously mentioned, for trick titles, a larger field is used
than that for animated cartoons. It makes the manipulation of dummies
and detached items much more convenient.
An amazing and wonderful screen illusion is that of animated
sculpture. The audience first sees a shapeless mass of clay which of
itself seems to assume in a few seconds a plastic composition. It
is a portrait of a notable, perhaps, or it may take the form of a
grotesque mask.
The trick of animated sculpture is produced like this: A camera is
centred on a rough mass of clay, which is first photographed in this
shapeless form. A sculptor now pushes the clay around to a desired
preliminary effect, then when he has stepped out of the picture, that
is, gets out of the range of the lens, the clay is photographed
again. Once more the sculptor moulds the clay to a stage approaching
the contemplated form, steps out of the picture and the camera
brought into action again.
The proceeding is continued: modelling the clay, the sculptor
getting out of the range of the lens, and the camera brought into
action, until the clay has been fashioned in its complete form. The
interruptions during which the sculptor was working will not be
represented on the screen as the camera was not working then, and so
no exposures were made. Instead, the effect will be a continuous one
of a mass of clay miraculously forming itself into a plastic work.
The way of working in making animated sculpture, like that of the
process of using dummies that are moved, little by little, while the
shutter is closed and then photographed after each time that they
have been moved, is called the “stop-motion” method. The motion of
the camera is stopped, in other words, while the particular object is
placed in a new position each time before it is photographed.
When on the screen you see some thin black line appearing on one
side, crawling reptilian fashion, suddenly turning upward, twisting
and soon beginning to outline the silhouette of a figure or part of a
pictorial composition, there is exemplified another instance of this
“stop-motion” photography.
This extraordinary performance of a plain line, to the average
spectator seems wondrous, and its production a veritable mystery. But
it is managed very easily.
For news picture reels it has been found judicious for variety’s
sake, as well as for business reasons, to combine with them cartoons
satirizing topics of the hour. When they are wanted, they are wanted
in a hurry, and as the regular type of cartoon takes not a little
time to make, the living line drawings adverted to above, as they are
quickly made, are often used for the purpose. We shall try to give in
the following few paragraphs an elucidation of the method of making a
film like this.
The general idea or composition of the drawing is sketched out first
on a piece of ordinary paper, then its outlines are traced in blue
markings to a sheet of Bristol board that has been fastened down
to the table beneath the camera within the photographic field.
Light-blue marks do not take on the ordinary sensitized film. But
the blue markings, it is to be remembered, must be of the faintest.
The very cautious artist in beginning a work of this sort makes a
preliminary test of his blue pencilling by photographing a short
length of film and developing it to see if the marks show on the
negative. If they show at all, it will be necessary to take a soft
eraser and go over the drawing and make the blue marks less distinct,
and only have them show enough to be able to follow the drawing in
executing the pen work.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATING THE ANIMATION OF A MOUSE AS HE RUNS
AROUND THE KITCHEN AND FRIGHTENS THE COOK.
The general scene is drawn on celluloid, while fifty or more sheets
of paper hold a sequence of pictures of the mouse in attitudes of
running.]
When quite sure that the blue marks will not photograph, the artist
begins his drawing. It is not a difficult task that he has before
him—he merely inks his previously drawn lines little by little. Each
stroke of the pen, after it has been made, is photographed. If the
ink lines are short the movement on the screen will be very slow, and
if they are long the movement will be very rapid. And, again, whether
the artist turns the camera handle once, twice, or three times for
each pen stroke has its effect upon the speed with which the lines
grow on the screen. If somewhat long pen strokes are made and the
exposure is but one picture for each stroke the lines will run in and
finish the design at a rapid rate. On the other hand, if they are
very short strokes and three pictures (about one-fifth of a foot of
film) are given to each one, the lines will creep in on the screen at
a snail’s pace.
All this, making a line, a patch of tinting, a small detail of a
picture, and photographing each item after it has been made, is
continued until the entire pictorial design is completed.
Variety is produced by having the lines go slowly or fast according
to the requirements of the idea to be expressed or the story to be
told.
ON MOVEMENT IN THE HUMAN FIGURE