Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
to a new, much higher level. This Academy Award-winning film was based
on little more than a story of how a run-down old mill weathers a storm, but
it demonstrated how the artistry and beauty of animation could enthrall an
audience.
The Disney animators did not use the rotoscoping techniques developed by
the Fleischer brothers to create their animation, but they did film performers
for the action of a number of characters in
Snow White
. Mostly the live footage
was used as reference material forming the basis for the animation. Although
this was not the first occasion on which such referencing techniques had
been used, the Disney studio did much to establish the tradition of recording
live action and action analysis for animation, a tradition that many animation
studios follow to this day.
The importance of art and animation training; the establishment of the
principles of animation, acting, and performance; and, most of all, action
analysis were uppermost in Walt Disney's thinking. To make the best possible
animation, he clearly understood that the animators needed a deeper, more
profound knowledge of anatomy, life drawing, and dynamics, and he set
about putting this knowledge in place. We should all be thankful for that.
Topics About Animation
A wide range of texts are now available on animation and are generally
divided into topics that deal with the historic context of animation
production, theory, political economy of animation production, techniques,
production processes from storyboarding to editing, and everything in
between.
The first published text on the study of animation production was written by
Edwin G. Lutz in 1920:
Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin
and Development
. Lutz also wrote a number of topics on other design-related
areas:
Practical Graphic Figures
,
Practical Drawing, Practical Art Anatomy,
and
Drawing Made Easy
. Although
Animated Cartoons
isn't a text that concentrates
on the study of dynamics or action analysis, it does provide notes on animals
in motion and inanimate objects, which must have made it a very valuable
early source of reference for animators. Disney Studios used this topic as a
reference in the early days of the studio, before they commenced their own
far more in-depth study of motion. For that reason alone
Animated Cartoons
is
worthy of note for its serious approach to the study of animation and holds a
place in the history of the animation industry.
Naturally there are landmark texts covering animation, such as
Cartoon
Animation,
by Preston Blair;
Timing for Animation
, by Harold Whitaker and
John Halas;
The Animator's Survival Kit,
by Richard Williams, and perhaps best
of all,
The Illusion of Life,
by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson. In addition, a
great many texts dedicated to the creative and practical aspects of animation
production are now available to the animator on the craft skills of cinema,
