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Title: Animated cartoons : How they are made, their origins and development
Author: Lutz, Edwin George
Language: English
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been
placed at the end of the chapter.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
ANIMATED CARTOONS
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATING THE METHOD OF MAKING ANIMATED CARTOONS BY
CUT-OUTS.
_Above_: Background scene and the separate items.
_Below_: Completed scene showing one phase of the performance of
the little cardboard actors and stage property.
[_See page 90_]]
ANIMATED CARTOONS
HOW THEY ARE MADE
THEIR ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
BY
E. G. LUTZ
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Published February, 1920
[Illustration: (Colophon)]
INTRODUCTION
We learn through the functioning of our senses; sight the most
precious shows us the appearance of the exterior world. Before
the dawn of pictorial presentation, man was visually cognizant
only of his immediate or present surroundings. On the development
of realistic picturing it was possible, more or less truthfully,
to become acquainted with the aspect of things not proximately
perceivable. The cogency of the perceptive impression was dependent
upon the graphic faithfulness of the agency—a pictorial work—that
gave the visual representation of the distant thing.
It is by means of sight, too, that the mind since the beginning of
alphabets has been made familiar with the thoughts and the wisdom of
the past and put into relationship with the learning and reasoning of
the present. These two methods of imparting knowledge—delineatory
and by inscribed symbols—have been concurrent throughout the ages.
It was nearly a century ago that Joseph Nicéphore Niepce (1765-1833),
at Châlons-sur-Saône, in France, invented photography. Since that
time it has been possible to fix on a surface, by physicochemical
means, pictures of the exterior world. It was another way of
extending man’s horizon, but a way not dependent, in the matter of
literalness, upon the variations of any individual’s skill or intent,
but rather upon the accuracy of material means.
Thoughts and ideas once represented and preserved by picture-writing,
recorded by symbolical signs, and at last inscribed by alphabetical
marks were, in 1877, registered by mere tracings on a surface and
photograph, the procedure was purely mechanical, and man’s artificial
inventions of linear markings and arbitrary symbols were totally
disregarded.
Through photography we learn of the exterior nature of absent things
and the character of the views in distant places. Or it preserves
these pictorial matters in a material form for the future. The
phonograph communicates to us the uttered thoughts of others or
brings into our homes the melodies and songs of great artists that we
should not otherwise have the opportunity to hear.
And now a new physicochemical marvel has come that apprehends,
reproduces, and guards for the future another sensorial stimulus. It
is the motion-picture and the stimulus is movement.
Photography and the rendering of sounds by the phonograph have both
been adopted for instruction and amusement. The motion-picture
also is used for these purposes, but in the main the art has
been associated with our leisure hours as a means of diversion
or entertainment. During the period of its growth, however, its
adaptability to education has never been lost sight of. It is simply
that development along this line has not been as seriously considered
as it should be. Motion-pictures, it is true, that may be considered
as educational are frequently shown in theatres and halls. Such, for
instance, are views in strange lands, scenic wonders, and pictures
showing the manufacture of some useful article or the manner of
proceeding in some field of human activity. But these are effected
entirely by photography and the narration of their making does not
come within the scope of this book.
Our concern is the description of the processes of making “animated
cartoons,” or moving screen drawings. Related matters, of course,
including the inception and the development of motion-pictures in
general, will be referred to in our work. At present, of the two
divisions of our subject, the art of the animated comic cartoon has
been most developed. It is for this reason that so much of the book
is given to an account of their production.
But on the making of animated screen drawings for scientific and
educational themes little has been said. This is not to be taken as a
measure of their importance.
It is interesting to regard for a moment the vicissitudes of the
word cartoon. Etymologically it is related to words in certain
Latin tongues for paper, card, or pasteboard. Its best-accepted
employment—of bygone times—was that of designating an artist’s
working-size preliminary draft of a painting, a mural decoration,
or a design for tapestry. Raphael’s cartoons in the South Kensington
Museum, in London, are the best-known works of art coming under this
meaning of the term. (They are, too, the usual instances given in
dictionaries when this meaning is explained.) The most frequent use
of the word up to recently, however, has been to specify a printed
picture in which the composition bears upon some current event or
political topic and in which notabilities of the day are generally
caricatured. The word cartoon did not long particularize this kind
of pictorial work but was soon applied to any humorous or satirical
printed picture no matter whether the subject was on a topic of the
day or not.
When some of the comic graphic artists began to turn their attention
to the making of drawings for animated screen pictures, nothing
seemed more natural than that the word “animated” should be prefixed
to the term describing their products and so bringing into usage the
expression “animated cartoons.” But the term did not long remain
restricted to this application, as it soon was called into service
by the workers in the industry to describe any film made from
drawings without regard to whether the subject was of a humorous
or of an educational character. Its use in this sense is perhaps
justified as it forms a convenient designation in the trade to
distinguish between films made from drawings and those having as
their basic elements actuality, that is, people, scenes, and objects.
Teachers now are talking of “visual instruction.” They mean by
this phrase in the special sense that they have given to it the
use of motion-picture films for instructional purposes. Travel
pictures to be used in connection with teaching geography or
micro-cinematographic films for classes in biology are good examples
of such films. But not all educational subjects can be depicted
by the camera solely. For many themes the artist must be called
in to prepare a series of drawings made in a certain way and then
photographed and completed to form a film of moving diagrams or
drawings.
As it is readily understood that any school topic presented in
animated pictures will stimulate and hold the attention, and that
the properties of things when depicted in action are more quickly
grasped visually than by description or through motionless diagrams,
it is likely that visual instruction by films will soon play an
important part in any course of studies. Then the motion-picture
projector will become the pre-eminent school apparatus and such
subjects as do not lend themselves to photography will very generally
need to be drawn; thereupon the preponderance of the comic cartoon
will cease and the animated screen drawing of serious and worth-while
themes will prevail.
E. G. L.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE BEGINNING OF ANIMATED DRAWINGS 3
II. THE GENESIS OF MOTION-PICTURES 35
III. MAKING ANIMATED CARTOONS 57
IV. FURTHER DETAILS ON MAKING ANIMATED CARTOONS 83
V. ON MOVEMENT IN THE HUMAN FIGURE 99
VI. NOTES ON ANIMAL LOCOMOTION 131
VII. INANIMATE THINGS IN MOVEMENT 153
VIII. MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS IN MAKING ANIMATED
SCREEN PICTURES 171
IX. PHOTOGRAPHY AND OTHER TECHNICAL MATTERS 201
X. ON HUMOROUS EFFECTS AND ON PLOTS 223
XI. ANIMATED EDUCATIONAL FILMS AND THE FUTURE 245
ILLUSTRATIONS
Illustrating the method of making animated cartoons
by cut-outs _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Magic-lantern and motion-picture projector compared 7
Geneva movement 9
A motion-picture projector 11
Illustrating the proportions of light and dark periods during
projection in two types of shutters 12
Section of an animated cartoon film 15
The thaumatrope 17
Two instruments used in early investigations of optical phenomena 18
Apparatus on the order of Faraday’s wheel 19
An antecedent of the phenakistoscope 20
A phenakistoscope 21
Phenakistoscope combined with a magic-lantern 22
Phenakistoscope with a cycle of drawings to show a dog in movement 23
The zootrope 24
Zoetrope of William Lincoln 25
Reynaud’s praxinoscope 26
The theatre praxinoscope 28
Projection praxinoscope 29
Optical theatre of Reynaud 30
The kineograph 31
Plan of the apparatus of Coleman Sellers 36
The ostrich walking; from Muybridge _Facing page_ 40
Marey’s photographic gun 42
Plan of the kinora 43
Plan of Edison’s first kinetoscope 46
Projector and motion-picture camera compared 48
A negative and a positive print 49
Plan of a motion-picture camera 50
Types of camera and projector shutters 51
One foot of film passes through the projector in one second 53
“Animator’s” drawing-board 61
A sheet of perforated paper and the registering pegs 63
Illustrating the making of an animated scene 67
Illustrating the making of an animated scene with the help of
celluloid sheets 71
Arrangement of board, pegs, and hinged frame with glass 75
Balloons 78
Three elements that complete a scene 79
Phenakistoscope with cycle of drawings of a face to show a movement
of the mouth 80
Cardboard model of an airplane with separate cut-out propellers
_Facing page_ 84
The laws of perspective are to be considered in “animating” an
object 86
Perspective applied in the drawing of birds as well as in the
picturing of objects 87
Articulated cardboard figures 89
Illustrating the animation of a mouse as he runs around
the kitchen 95
Successive phases of movements of the legs in walking 101
Illustrating the action of the foot in rolling over the ground 103
Successive phases of movements in walking 105
Phases of movement of a quick walk 107
Contractions and expansions as characteristic of motion 109
Order in which an animator makes the sequence of positions
for a walk 112 and 113
Phases of movement of a walk. Six phases complete a step 115
A perspective walk 117
Four positions for a perspective run 118
Phases of movement for a perspective run 119
Running figure 121
Phases of movement for a quick walk 123
Walking movements, somewhat mechanical 124
Phases of movement for a lively walk 125
Phases of movement for a quick walk 127
Walking movements viewed from above 128
Trotting horse 134
Trotting horse (_continued_) 135
A panorama effect 138
Galloping horse for a panorama effect 139
The elephant in motion 140
The elephant in motion (_continued_) 141
Pigeon in flight; from Muybridge _Facing page_ 142
Comic walk of a duck 143
Cycle of phases of a walking dog arranged for the phenakistoscope 144
Phenakistoscope with a cycle of drawings to show a dog in
movement 145
Running cow 147
Phases of movement of a walking lion 148
Dog walking 149
Various kinds of wave motion 150
Cycle of drawings to produce a screen animation of a waving flag 157
Cycle of drawings for an effect of falling water 159
Cycle of drawings for a puff of vapor 161
An explosion 162
The finishing stroke of some farcical situation 163
Piano practice 164
Three drawings used in sequence and repeated as long as the
particular effect that they give is desired 165
A constellation 166
Simple elements used in animating a scene 167
Symbolical animation of snoring 172
Series of drawings used to show a baby crying 173
A “close-up” 175
Illustrating the use of little “model” hats to vivify a scene 176
“Cut-out” eyes 178
Illustrating the making of “in-between” drawings 179
Illustrating the number of drawings required for a movement 180
Illustrating a point in animating a moving limb 182
Making drawings in turning the head 183
Easily drawn circular forms and curves 186
Foreground details of a pictorial composition 190
Making an animated cartoon panorama 193
Illustrating the apparent slowness of a distant object compared to one
passing close to the eye 195
Distinguishing marks on wheels to give the illusion of turning 197
Elements used in giving a figure the effect of trembling 198
Typical arrangement of camera and lights 203
Part of a length of film for a title 208
Vignetter or iris dissolve 211
To explain the distribution of light in a cross dissolve 213
Illustrating the operation of one type of motion-picture printer 217
Another plan for an animator’s drawing-board 218
Canine thoughts 219
Plenty of movement demanded in screen pictures 224
The plaint of inanimate things 227
The pinwheel effect of two boys fighting, elements needed in
producing it 231
Cycle of drawings to give the illusion of a man spinning
like a top 235
A blurred impression like that of the spokes of a turning wheel is
regarded as funny 236
Hats 239
Radiating “dent” lines 240
A laugh-provoking incident in an animated cartoon 241
The Mad Hatter 246
Detail of a fresco by Michael Angelo 248
Mr. Frost’s spirited delineation of figures in action 249
The peep-show 250
Demeny’s phonoscope 251
Drawings used in making a film of a gasolene engine in operation 255
Character of drawings that would be prepared in producing moving
diagrams of the muscles in action 258
THE BEGINNING OF ANIMATED DRAWINGS
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING OF ANIMATED DRAWINGS
The picture thrown on the wall by the magic-lantern, although an
illusion, and no more tangible than a shadow, has nevertheless a
certain tactile quality. If it is projected from a drawing on a glass
slide, its design is definite; and if from a photographic slide,
the tones are clearly discernible. It is—unless it is one of those
quaintly moving amusing subjects operated by a crude mechanism—a
quiescent picture. The spirited screen picture thrown by the lens
of a motion-picture projector is an illusion, too. It exemplifies,
however, two varieties of this class of sensory deceptions. First:
it is an illusion for the same reason that the image from the
magic-lantern is one; namely, a projected shadow of a more or less
opaque design on a transparent material intervening between the
illuminant and the lens. And secondly, it is an illusion in that it
synthesizes mere pictorial spectres into the appearance of life and
movement. This latter particular, the seeming activity of life,
is the fundamental dissimilarity between pictures projected by the
magic-lantern and those thrown on the screen by the motion-picture
apparatus.
And it is only the addition to the magic-lantern, of a mechanism
that makes possible this optical vibration of life and motion, that
constitutes the differing feature in the two types of projecting
machines.
In the magic-lantern and its improved form, the stereopticon,
separate views of different subjects are shown in succession. Each
picture is allowed to remain on the screen long enough to be readily
beheld and appreciated. But the picture is at rest and does not
move. With the motion-picture projector a series of slightly varying
pictures of the same subject are projected in quick succession. This
succession is at such a rapid rate that the interval of time during
which one picture moves out of place to make way for the next is so
short that it is nearly imperceptible. In consequence, the slightly
varying pictures blend on the screen and we have a phantasmagoria of
movement.
The phenomenon of this movement—this semblance to life—takes
place, not on the screen, but within the eye. Its consideration, a
subject proper for the science of physiology (and in some aspects
psychology), has weight for us more particularly as a matter of
physics.
Memory has been said to be an attribute of all organic matter. An
instance of this seems to be the property of the eye to retain on its
retina an after-image of anything just seen. That is to say, when an
object impresses its image upon the retina and then moves away, or
disappears, there still remains, for a measurable period, an image of
this object within the eye. This singularity of the visual sense is
spoken of as the persistence of vision or the formation of positive
after-images. And it is referred to as a positive after-image in
contradistinction to another visional phenomenon called the negative
after-image. This latter kind is instanced in the well-known
experiment of fixing the eyes for a few moments upon some design in
a brilliant color and quickly turning away to gaze at a blank space
of white where instantly the same design will be seen, but of a color
complementary to that of the particular hue first gazed at.
The art of the motion-picture began when physicists first noticed
this peculiarity of the organ of sight in retaining after-images. The
whole art is based on its verity. It is the special quality of the
visual sense that makes possible the appreciation of living screen
pictures.
An interesting matter to bear in mind is the circumstance that the
first attempt at giving to a screen image the effect of life was by
means of a progressive series of drawings. When photographs came
later, drawings were forgotten and only when the cinematographic art
had reached its great development and universality, were drawings
again brought into use to be synthesized on the screen.
To describe how these drawings are made, their use and application to
the making of animated cartoons, is the purpose of this book.
Before proceeding with a sketch of the development of the art
of making these cartoons, it will make the matter more readily
understood if we give, at first, in a few paragraphs, a brief
description of the present-day method of throwing a living picture on
the screen by the motion-picture projector.
[Illustration: MAGIC-LANTERN AND MOTION-PICTURE PROJECTOR COMPARED.]
The projector for motion-pictures, like the magic-lantern, consists
of an illuminant, reflector, condenser, and objective. This last part
is the combination of lenses that gather and focus the light rays
carrying the pencils of lights and shadows composing the picture
and throwing them on the screen. There is, in the magic-lantern,
immediately back of the objective, a narrow aperture through which
the glass slide holding a picture is thrust. In the motion-picture
apparatus, the transparent surface containing the picture also passes
back of the objective, but instead of the simple process of pushing
one slide through to make way for another, there is a complicated
mechanism to move a long ribbon containing the sequence of pictures
that produces the image on the screen. Now this ribbon consists of
a strip of transparent celluloid[1] each with a separate photograph
of some one general scene but each with slight changes in the moving
details—objects or figures. These changes record the movements
from the beginning to the end of the particular story, action, or
pantomime.
Along the edges of the ribbons are rows of perforations that are most
accurately equalized with respect to their size and of the distances
between them. It is by means of wheels with teeth that engage with
the perforations and the movement of another toothed part of the
mechanism that the ribbon or film is carried across the path of
light in the projecting machine. The device for moving the film,
although not of a very intricate character, is nevertheless of an
ingenious type. It is intermittent in action and operates so that one
section of film, containing a picture, is held in the path of light
for a fraction of a second, moved away and another section, with the
next picture, brought into place to be projected in its turn. This
way of working, in most of the projectors, is obtained by the use of
a mechanical construction known as the Geneva movement. The pattern
of its principal part is a wheel shaped somewhat like a Maltese
cross. The form shown in the illustration is given as a type; not all
are of this pattern, nor are they all four-parted.
[Illustration: FOUR PHASES OF THE ACTION OF THE INTERMITTENT GEARING
KNOWN AS THE GENEVA MOVEMENT.]
It is obvious that while one picture moves out of the way for the
next, there would be a blur on the screen during such a movement if
some means were not devised to prevent it. This is found by eclipsing
the light during the time of the change from one picture to another.
The detail of the projector that effects this is a revolving shutter
with a solid part and an open section. (This is the old type of
shutter. It is noticed here because the way in which the light rays
project the picture is easily explained by using it as an example.)
This shutter is so geared with the rest of the mechanism that (1) the
solid part passes across the path of light while another picture is
moving into place; and that (2) the open section passes across the
path of light while a rectangular area containing a picture is at
rest and its details are being projected on the screen.
It may be asked, at this point, why the eye is not aware on the
screen of the passing shadow of the opaque part of the shutter as
it eclipses the light. It would seem that there should be either a
blur or a darkened period on the screen. But the mechanism moves so
rapidly that the passing of the solid portion of the shutter is not
ordinarily perceptible.
[Illustration: A MOTION-PICTURE PROJECTOR.
_A._ Film. _B._ Upper magazine. _C._ Feed reel. _D._ Lower
magazine, containing the take-up reel. _E._ Crank to operate
mechanism by hand. _F._ Motor. _G._ Where the film stops
intermittently to be projected. _H._ Lamp-house. _I._ Port, or
window in the fireproof projection booth. _J._ Rotating shutter.
_K._ Lens. _L._ Condenser. _M._ Switches. _N._ Fire shutter;
automatically drops when the film stops or goes too slowly.]
One foot of celluloid film contains sixteen separate pictures, and
these pass in front of the light in one second. One single tiny
picture of the film takes up then one-sixteenth of a second. But
not all of this fraction of a second is given to the projection of
the picture as some of the time is taken up with moving it into
place immediately before projection. The relative apportionment of
this period of one-sixteenth of a second is so arranged that about
five-sixths of it (five ninety-sixths of a second) is given to the
holding of the film at rest and the projection of its picture, and
the remaining one-sixth (one ninety-sixth of a second) is given to
the movement of a section of the film and the shutting off of the
light by the opaque part of the shutter.
[Illustration:
ILLUSTRATING THE PROPORTIONS OF LIGHT AND DARK PERIODS DURING
PROJECTION IN TWO TYPES OF SHUTTERS.
1. Old single-blade type; caused a “flicker.”
2. Regular three-blade type; light evenly distributed. It is to be
noted that while the picture is on the screen two opaque sections
of the shutter eclipse the light.]
In the last few paragraphs we have referred to the old type of
shutter which caused a flicker, or unsteadiness of light on the
screen. Nowadays a three-bladed shutter that nearly does away with
an unsteady light is in general use. Its operation, approximately
for the purposes of description is like this: It turns once in
one-sixteenth of a second; one-sixth of this time is taken up with
the moving of the film and the eclipsing of the light by one blade
of the shutter. During the remainder of the time—five-sixths of it,
the following takes place: the film is stationary and ready for
projection, then two blades of the shutter and three of its open
sections pass across the path of the light.
From this it can be seen that when the picture is viewed on the
screen, there are actually two short moments when the light rays are
cut off. This is not perceived by the spectator on account of the
speed of the revolving shutter and the strong illuminant. Instead,
the use of a shutter of this pattern evens the screen lighting by
making an equal apportioning of light flashes and dark periods. With
the old shutter there was one long period of light and one short
period of darkness. It was this unequal distribution that gave rise
to the flicker. At times, under certain conditions, a two-bladed
shutter is used also.
A reel of film may vary in length for a short subject of fifty feet
(or even less), to a very long “feature” of a mile or so in length.
In width, the strip of celluloid measures one and three-eighths
inches. Between the two rows of perforations that engage with the
teeth on the sprocket-wheels and by which a certain part of the
intermittent mechanism pulls the film along, are little rectangular
panels, already alluded to, containing the photographs. Sometimes
these panels are called “frames,” generally though, in the parlance
of the trade, they are simply designated as “pictures.” They measure
one inch across and three-quarters of an inch in height.
As noted above, these frames contain photographs of scenes that
record, by changes in their action, the incidents and episodes of the
story of any particular reel. In the case of animated cartoons, the
frames on the film also contain photographs, but these photographs
are made from sets of progressive drawings depicting the action of
the characters of the animated cartoon.
[Illustration: SECTION OF AN ANIMATED CARTOON FILM.
Exact size.]
In concluding this brief account of the modern motion-picture, the
attention is directed, as the subject is studied, to a few details
of the mechanism and to the general procedure that are found to be
elementary features in nearly all apparatus used during the round
of years that the art was developing. They are as follows: (1) A
series of pictures—drawings or photographs—representing an action by
progressive changes in their delineation. (2) Their presentation,
one at a time, in rapid succession. (3) Their synthesis, directly
upon the retina of the eye, or projected on a screen and then viewed
by the eye. (4) Some means by which light—or the vision—is shut
off while the change from one picture to another is taking place.
(Projecting machines have been made, however, in which the film is
moved so rapidly, and in a particular way, that a shutter to eclipse
the light is not needed.)
Now, as stated before, the phenomenon of the persistence of vision is
the fundamental physiological fact upon which the whole possibility
of seeing screen pictures rests. One of the first devices made that
depended upon it, and that very simply demonstrated this faculty
of the retina for holding a visional image for a time, was an
optical toy called the thaumatrope. It dates from about 1826. It
was a cardboard disk with two holes close to the edge at opposite
points. Strings were passed through these holes and fastened and
the dangling ends held and rolled between the thumbs and fingers so
that the disk was made to twirl rapidly. Each side of the disk had
a picture printed or drawn upon it. These two pictures when viewed
together while the disk was twirled appeared as one complete picture.
A favorite design for depiction was an empty bird-cage on one side
and a bird on the other. The designs were placed with respect to each
other in the same way as the marks and insignia of the two sides of
most coins. (The coins of Great Britain are an exception, on them
the designs are placed differently. In reading their marks or looking
at the images of the two sides, we turn the coin over like the page
of a book.)
[Illustration: THE THAUMATROPE.
_Above_: How the designs of the two sides are placed with respect
to each other.
_Below_: The combined image when the thaumatrope is twirled.]
The thaumatrope illustrates the persistence of vision in a very
elementary way. Simply explained, the face of one side of the
disk with its design is before the eye, the design impresses its
true image upon the retina, the disk turns away and the picture
disappears, but its after-image remains on the retina. The disk
having turned, brings the other picture into view. Its true image is
impressed upon the retina to blend with the after-image of the first
picture. In rapid sequence this turning continues and the two images
commingle to give the fantasy of a perfect design.
A limited number of subjects only were suitable for demonstration
by a toy of this character. Two other subjects were those showing
designs to give the effect of a rider on a horse and a tight-rope
dancer balanced on a rope.
[Illustration: TWO INSTRUMENTS USED IN EARLY INVESTIGATIONS OF
OPTICAL PHENOMENA.
From _The Saturday Magazine_ of 1837 and 1841.]
Later when scientific investigators were busy inquiring into the
phenomena of visual distortions exhibited by the spokes and teeth
of turning wheels when seen in contrast with certain intervening
objects, a curious apparatus was contrived by Faraday the English
scientist (1791-1867). This apparatus was so constructed that two
disks were made to travel, by cogged gearing, in opposite directions,
but at the same speed. Around the circumferences of the disks were
cut narrow slots at equal distances apart and so making the solid
portions between them like teeth, or spokes of a wheel.
[Illustration: APPARATUS ON THE ORDER OF FARADAY’S WHEEL.
With the disks moving as marked, the disk _B_ will appear to be
motionless when viewed through the passing slots of disk _A_.]
When this machine was set in motion and the eye directed through the
moving and blurred teeth of the front disk toward the far disk, this
far disk appeared to be stationary. Its outline—the teeth, slots,
and circumference—were distinctly seen and not blurred.
Then it was found that the same effect could be obtained with the use
of one slotted disk by simply holding it in front of a mirror and
viewing the reflected image through the moving slots of the disk.
The reflection answered for the second disk of the instrument of the
first experiment.
[Illustration: AN ANTECEDENT OF THE PHENAKISTOSCOPE.
When the disk is twirled the reflections of its spokes appear
stationary when viewed through the moving slots.]
From this type of optical toy it was but a step to the contriving of
various types of instruments constructed on the pattern of a slotted
disk, or some sort of a turning mechanism with a series of apertures,
to use in giving the illusion of movement in connection with
drawings or photographs. The best-known was the phenakistoscope,
the invention of which has been credited to the Belgian physicist,
Plateau (1801-1883). This toy was a large cardboard disk with
pictures on one side that were to be viewed by their reflections
through slots in the disk while it was held before a mirror. The
pictures drawn in sequence represented some action, as a horse
running, an acrobat, a juggler, or some amusing subject that could
be drawn easily in a cycle of actions and that would lend itself to
repetition.
[Illustration: Holding a phenakistoscope before a mirror and ready to
twirl it around.]
The phenakistoscope has some rough resemblance in its plan to a
motion-picture projector—the cycle of slightly different drawings
represents the film with its sequence of tiny pictures; the slots in
the disk by which the drawings are viewed in the mirror correspond to
the open sections of the revolving shutter; while the solid portions
of the disk answer to the opaque parts of the shutter.
As it only was possible in the phenakistoscope that one person at a
time could view conveniently the reflected pictures, the attempt was
made to arrange it for projection. A lens was added with a light and
mirrors so that a number of people could see its operation at the
same time. In another form the pictures were placed on a glass disk
which was made to rotate back of a magic-lantern objective.
[Illustration: PHENAKISTOSCOPE COMBINED WITH A MAGIC-LANTERN.]
When the number of slots in a phenakistoscope correspond to the
number of drawings in the cycle, the different figures of the cycle
are in action but they do not move from the place where they are
depicted. Only their limbs, if it is an action in which these parts
are brought into play, are in movement. But if there is one slot more
and the disk turned in the proper direction, the row of drawings will
appear to be going around a circle. This is particularly adapted to
series of running animals.
[Illustration: PHENAKISTOSCOPE WITH A CYCLE OF DRAWINGS TO SHOW A DOG
IN MOVEMENT.]
Another method of giving the semblance of motion to a series of
progressive drawings, soon devised after the invention of the
phenakistoscope, was the zootrope, or wheel of life. It embodied the
idea, too, of a rapidly moving opaque flat portion with a row of
slots passing between the eye and the drawings.
In form the zootrope was like a cylindrical lidless box of cardboard.
It was pivoted and balanced on a vertical rod so that it could be
made to turn easily and very rapidly. The slots were cut around the
upper rim of the box. Long strips of paper holding pictures fitted
into the box. When one of these strips was put in place, it was so
adjusted that any particular drawing of the series could be viewed
through a slot of the opposite side. These drawings appeared to be in
motion when the zootrope was made to twirl.
[Illustration: THE ZOOTROPE.]
This type of optical curiosity, as a matter of priority, is
associated with the name of Desvignes, as he obtained a patent for
it in England in 1860. Later in 1867, a United States patent was
issued for a similar instrument to William Lincoln, of Providence, R.
I. He called his device the zoetrope.
[Illustration: ZOETROPE OF WILLIAM LINCOLN.]
This cylindrical synthesizing apparatus was sold as a toy for many
years. Bands of paper with cycles of drawings of a variety of
humorous and entertaining subjects thereon were prepared for use with
it.
But the busy inventors were not satisfied with the simple form in
which it was first fabricated. Very soon from the zootrope was
evolved another optical curiosity that preserved the general
cylindrical plan, but made use of the reflective property of a mirror
to aid the illusion. This was the praxinoscope of M. Reynaud, of
France. He perfected it and adapted its principles to create other
forms of rotating mechanisms harmonizing progressive drawings to show
movement.
[Illustration: _A._ REYNAUD’S PRAXINOSCOPE.
_B._ PLAN OF THE PRAXINOSCOPE.]
The praxinoscope held to the idea of a box, cylindrical and lidless,
and pivoted in the centre so that it turned. The strip of drawings,
and the plan of placing them inside of the box—two features of
the zootrope—were both retained. But instead of looking at the
drawings through apertures in the box rim, they were observed by
their reflections in mirrors placed on an inner section or drum.
The mirrors were the same in number as the drawings and turned with
the rest of the apparatus. The mirrors were placed on the drum—the
all-important point in the construction of the praxinoscope—half-way
between the centre and the inner side of the rim of the box. As the
drawings were placed here, the eye, looking over the rim of the box,
viewed their reflections in the mirrors. But the actual place of a
reflection was the same distance back of the surface of a mirror
that a drawing was in front of it; namely, at the dead centre of the
rotating cylinder. It was here, at this quiet point, that it was
possible to see the changing images of the succession of graduated
drawings blending to give the illusion of motion.
Reynaud next fixed his praxinoscope with improvements that made the
characters in his drawings appear to be going through a performance
on a miniature stage. He called his new contrivance the theatre
praxinoscope. This new mechanism, was fixed in a box before which
was placed a mask-like section to represent a proscenium. Another
addition in front of this had a rectangular peep-hole and small
cut-out units of stage scenery that were reflected on the surface of
a glass inserted into the proscenium opening.
[Illustration: THE THEATRE PRAXINOSCOPE.]
Not satisfied with this toy theatre, Reynaud’s next step was to
combine with the praxinoscope, condensers, lenses, and an illuminant
with which to project the images on a screen, so that spectators in
an auditorium could see the illusion. A more intricate mechanism,
again, was later devised by Reynaud. This was his optical theatre in
which there was used an endless band of graduated drawings depicting
a rather long pantomimic story. It, of course, was an enlargement
of the idea of the simple early form of praxinoscope with its strip
of paper containing the drawings. But this optical theatre had
such a complication of mirrors and lenses that the projected light
reached the screen somewhat diminished in illuminating power, and the
pictures were consequently dimmed.
[Illustration: PROJECTION PRAXINOSCOPE.
(After picture in _La Nature_, 1882.)]
From the time of the invention of the thaumatrope in 1826, and
throughout the period when the few typical machines noted above were
in use, drawings only in graduated and related series, were applied
in the production of the illusion of movement.
[Illustration: OPTICAL THEATRE OF REYNAUD.
(After picture in _La Nature_, 1892.)]
Drawings, too, were first employed for a little optical novelty in
book-form, introduced about 1868, called the kineograph. It consisted
of a number of leaves, with drawings on one side, firmly bound along
an edge. The manner of its manipulation was to cause the leaves to
flip from under the thumb while the book was held in the hands. The
pictures, all of a series depicting some action of an entertaining
subject, passed quickly before the vision as they slipped from under
the thumb and gave a continuous action of the particular subject of
the kineograph.
[Illustration: THE KINEOGRAPH.]
Now when the camera began to be employed in taking pictures of
figures in action, one of the first uses made of such pictures was
to put a series of them into the book-form so as to give, by this
simple method of allowing the leaves to flip from under the thumb,
the visional deception of animated photographs.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Celluloid is at this date the most serviceable material for these
ribbons. But as it is inflammable a substitute is sought—one that
has the advantages possessed by celluloid but of a non-combustible
material.
THE GENESIS OF MOTION-PICTURES
CHAPTER II
THE GENESIS OF MOTION-PICTURES
Although the possibilities of taking pictures photographically
was known as early as the third decade of the nineteenth century,
drawings only were used in the many devices for rendering the
illusion of movement. In the preceding chapter in which we have
given a brief history of the early efforts of synthesizing related
pictures, typical examples of such instruments have been given. But
the pictorial elements used in them were always drawings.
It was not until 1861 that photographic prints were utilized in a
machine to give an appearance of life to mere pictures. This machine
was that of Mr. Coleman Sellers, of Philadelphia. His instrument
brought stereoscopic pictures into the line of vision in turn
where they were viewed by stereoscopic lenses. Not only did this
arrangement show movement by a blending of related pictures but
procured an effect of relief.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE APPARATUS OF COLEMAN SELLERS FOR GIVING
THE ILLUSION OF LIFE TO A SERIES OF PHOTOGRAPHS.]
It is to be remembered that in the days of Mr. Sellers, photography
did not have among its means any method of taking a series of
pictures on a length of film, but the separate phases of a movement
had to be taken one at a time on plates. The ribbon of sensitized
film, practical and dependable, did not come until more than
twenty-five years later. Its introduction into the craft was
coincident with the growth of instantaneous photography.
When scientists began to study movement with the aid of instantaneous
photographs, they quite naturally cared less for synthesizing the
pictorial results of their investigations than they did for merely
observing and recording exactly how movement takes place.
At first diagrams and drawings were used by students of movement to
fix in an understandable way the facts gained by their inquiries. In
England, for instance, Mr. J. Bell Pettigrew (1834-1908) illustrated
his works with a lot of carefully made diagrammatic pictures. He made
many interesting observations on locomotion and gave much attention
to the movement of flying creatures, adding some comment, too, on the
possibility of artificial flight.
Again in Paris, M. E. J. Marey (whose work is to be considered a
little farther on) embellished his writings with charts and diagrams
that were made with the aid of elaborate apparatus for the timing
of animals in action and the marking of their footprints on the
ground. Then he traced, too, by methods that involved much labor
and patience, the trajectory of a bird’s wing. And in his continued
searching out of the principles of flight registered by ingenious
instruments the wing-movements in several kinds of insects.
In our first chapter no instructions were given as to how animated
cartoons are made. And although this is the specific purpose of the
book, we must again in this chapter refer but slightly to the matter,
as there is need that we first devote some time to chronicling the
early efforts in solving animal movements by the aid of photography.
Then we must touch, too, upon the modes of the synthesis of analytic
photographs for the purpose of screen projection.
Both these matters are pertinent to our theme: the animated screen
artist makes use of instantaneous photographs for the study of
movement, and the same machine that projects the photographic film is
also used for the animated cartoon film made from his drawings.
What appears to have been the first use of photographs to give
a screen synthesis in an auditorium, was that on an evening in
February, 1870, at the Academy of Music, in Philadelphia. It was an
exhibition given by Mr. Henry R. Heyl, of his phasmatrope. He showed
on a screen, life-sized figures of dancers and acrobats in motion.
The pictures were projected, with the aid of a magic-lantern, from
photographs on thin glass plates that were placed around a wheel
which was made to rotate. A “vibrating shutter” cut off the light
while one photograph moved out of the way, and another came in to
take its place. The wheel had spaces for eighteen photographs. It
was so planned that those of one set could be taken out and those of
another slipped in to change a subject for projection.
The photographs used in the phasmatrope were from posed models; a
certain number of which were selected to form a cycle so that the
series could be repeated and a continuous performance be given
by keeping the wheel going. At this period there were no pliant
sensitized ribbons to take a sequence of photographs of a movement,
and Heyl had to take them one at a time on glass plates by the wet
collodion process.
A notable point about this early motion-picture show was that it
was quite like one of our day, for according to Heyl, in his letter
to the _Journal of the Franklin Institute_, he had the orchestra
play appropriate music to suit the action of the dancers and the
grotesqueries of the acrobats.
Better known in the fields of the study of movement and that of
instantaneous photography and pictorial synthesis are M. Marey,
already mentioned (1830-1904), and his contemporary, Mr. E. Muybridge
(1830-1904). While Marey conducted his inquiries in Paris, Muybridge
pursued his studies in San Francisco and Philadelphia.
Marey, who in the beginning recorded the changes and modification of
attitudes in movement by diagrams and charts, later used diagrams
made from photographs and then photographs themselves. He studied
the phases of movement from a strictly scientific standpoint, in
human beings, four-footed beasts, birds, and nearly all forms of
life. And he did not neglect to note the speed and manner of moving
of inorganic bodies, such as falling objects, agitated and whirling
threads.
[Illustration: OSTRICH WALKING.
Part of a plate in Muybridge’s “Animal Locomotion.” Published and
copyrighted by him in 1887.
An imposing work, made under the auspices of the University of
Pennsylvania, of more than 700 large plates. It was the first
comprehensive analytical study of movement in human figures and
animals.]
Muybridge, on the other hand, seemed to have a trend toward the
educational, in a popular sense of the word; and had a faculty of
giving his works a pictorial quality. He showed this in the choice
of his subjects and the devising of machines that combined his
photographs somewhat successfully in screen projection.
In Muybridge’s first work in which he photographed a horse in motion,
he used a row of cameras in front of which the horse proceeded. The
horse in passing before them, and coming before each particular
camera, broke a string connected with its shutter. This in opening
exposed the plate and so pictured the horse at that moment, and in
the particular attitude of that moment. This breaking of a string,
opening of a shutter, and so on, took place before each camera.
Muybridge in his early work used the collodion wet plate, a serious
disadvantage. Later he had the convenience of the sensitized dry
plate and was also able to operate the cameras by motors.
When Marey began to employ a camera in his researches he registered
the movements of an entire action on one plate; while Muybridge’s
way was to take but one phase of an action on one plate. The two men
differed greatly in their objects and methods. Marey in his early
experiments, at least, traced on one plate or chart the successive
changes in attitudes of limbs or parts, or the positions of certain
fixed points on his models. But Muybridge procured single but
related pictures of attitudes assumed by his subjects in a connected
and orderly sequence. The latter method lent itself more readily
to adaptation for the projecting lantern and so became popularly
appreciated. Perhaps it is for this reason that Muybridge has been
referred to as the father of the motion-picture.
The photographic gun was Marey’s most novel camera. With this
he caught on a glass plate the movements of flying birds. This
instrument was suggested by a similar one used by M. Janssen, the
astronomer, in 1874, to make a photographic record of the transit of
a planet across the sun’s disk.
[Illustration: MAREY’S PHOTOGRAPHIC GUN.]
The kineograph, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, by which
the illusion of motion was given to a series of pictures arranged
like a book, formed the basic idea for a number of other popular
contrivances. One of these was the mutoscope, in which the leaves
were fastened by one edge to an axis in such a way that they stood
out like spokes. The machine in operation brought one leaf for a
moment at rest under the gaze of the eye and then allowed it to snap
away to expose another picture in its place. When this was viewed in
its turn, it also disappeared to make way for the next in order.
[Illustration: PLAN OF LUMIÈRE’S KINORA.
An apparatus similar in principle to the mutoscope.]
As yet experimenters were not altogether sure in what particular way
to combine a series of graduated pictures so as to produce one living
image. Besides the ways that have been exemplified in the apparatus
so far enumerated, some experimenters tried to put photographs around
the circumference of a large glass disk somewhat on the order of the
phenakistoscope. Heyl’s phasmatrope, of 1870, was on this order.
On this plan of a rotating disk, Muybridge constructed his
zoöpraxiscope by which he projected some of his animal photographs.
Another expedient tried by some one was that of putting a string
of minute pictures spirally on a drum which was made to turn in a
helix-like fashion. The pictures were enlarged by a lens and brought
into view back of a shutter that worked intermittently.
Although the dry plate assuredly was a great improvement over the
slow and troublesome old-fashioned wet plate, there was felt the need
of some pliant material that could be sensitized for photography
and that could furthermore be made in the form of a ribbon. The
suitableness of the paper strips for use in the zootrope and the
praxinoscope obviously demonstrated the advantages of an elongated
form on which to put a series of related pictures.
Experiments were made to obtain a pliant ribbon for the use.
Transparent paper was at one time tried but found unadaptable.
Eventually the celluloid film came into use, and it is this material
that is now generally in use to make both the ordinary snap-shot film
and the “film stock” for the motion-picture industry.
Edison’s kinetoscope of 1890, or more particularly its improved form
of 1893, that found immediate recognition on its exhibition at the
World’s Fair at Chicago, was the first utilization on a large scale
of the celluloid film for motion-pictures. It is to be remarked,
however, that in the kinetoscope the pictures were viewed, not on a
screen in an auditorium by a number of people, but by one person at
a time peering through a sight opening in the apparatus. It was the
kinetoscope, it appears, that set others to work devising ways of
using celluloid bands for projecting pictures on a screen.
While some inventors were busy in their efforts to construct
workable apparatus both for photography and projection, others were
endeavoring to better the material for the film and improve the
photographic emulsion covering it.
There is no need in this book, in which we shall try to explain the
making of animated screen drawings, to recount the whole story of the
progressive improvements of the machines used in the motion-picture
industry. But a short notice of the present-day appliances will not
be out of place.
[Illustration: PLAN OF EDISON’S FIRST KINETOSCOPE.
Modified from the Patent Office drawing.]
The three indispensable pieces of mechanism are the camera, the
projector, and the printer, or apparatus that prints pictures
photographically. All three in certain parts of their construction
are similar in working principles. The mechanical arrangements of
the camera and projector especially are so much alike that some of
the first apparatus fabricated were used both for photography and
projection. A few early types of cameras served even for printers as
well.
The essential details of the three machines named above can be
described briefly as follows: (1) A camera has a light-tight
compartment within which a fresh strip of film passes and stops
intermittently back of a lens that is focussed on a subject, a
rotating shutter with an open and an opaque section makes the
exposure. (When the strip of film is developed it is known as the
negative.) (2) A printer pulls the negative, together with a fresh
strip of film in contact with it, into place by an intermittent
mechanism before a strong light. A rotating shutter flashes the
light on and off. (The new piece of film, when it is developed and
the pictures are brought out, is known as the positive.) (3) The
projector moves the positive film by an intermittent mechanism
between a light and a lens; a rotating shutter, with open and opaque
sections, alternately shuts the light off and on. When the light rays
are allowed to pass the pictures contained on the positive film are
projected on the screen.
[Illustration: PRINCIPLES OF THE PROJECTOR AND THE MOTION-PICTURE
CAMERA COMPARED.]
It seems unnecessary, perhaps, in these days of the ubiquity of
snap-shot cameras, and the fact that nearly every one becomes
acquainted with their manipulation, to mention that a photographic
negative records the light and shade of nature negatively, and that a
positive print is one that gives a positive representation of such
light and shade.
[Illustration: A NEGATIVE.
A POSITIVE PRINT.]
A motion-picture camera of the most approved pattern is an
exceedingly complicated and finely adjusted instrument. Its principle
of operation can be understood easily if it is remembered that it
is practically a snap-shot camera with the addition of a mechanism
that turns a revolving shutter and moves a length of film across the
exposure field, holds it there for an interval while the photographic
impression is made, and then moves it away to continue the process
until the desired length of film has been taken. This movement,
driven by a hand-crank, is the same as that of a projector—previously
explained—namely, an intermittent one.
This is effected in a variety of ways. The method in many instruments
is an alternate one of the going back and forth of a pair of
claw-levers that during one such motion draw the film into place by
engaging the claws into perforations on the margins of the film.
[Illustration: PLAN OF A MOTION-PICTURE CAMERA.
_A._ Film. _B._ Top loop to allow for the pulling down of the
film during the intermittent movement. _C._ Magazine to hold the
blank film. _D._ Magazine to hold the exposed film. _E._ Claw
device which pulls down the film three-quarters of an inch for
each picture. _F._ Sprocket-wheels. _G._ Exposure field. _H._
Focusing-tube. _I._ Eye-piece for focusing. _J._ Shutter. _K._
Lens. _L._ Film gate.]
The patterns of the shutters in camera and projector differ. That of
the projector is three or two parted, as stated in our observations
previously made. A camera shutter is a disk with an open section. The
area of this open section can be varied to fit the light conditions.
[Illustration: TYPES OF CAMERA AND PROJECTOR SHUTTERS.]
The general practice relative to taking motion-pictures is to have
one-half foot of film move along for each turn of the camera handle.
Eight separate pictures are made on this one-half foot of film. But
in a camera that the animated cartoon artist uses, but one turn
of the handle for each picture is the method. In most cameras the
gearing can be changed to operate either way. To photograph drawings
in making animated films a good reliable instrument is necessary,
and requirements to the purpose should be thought of in selecting
one. One important matter that may be mentioned here is that there
should be an easy way of focussing the scene. Generally in taking
topical pictures and views, an outside finder and a graduated scale
for distance and other matters is made use of, but for drawings it
is essential to be able to focus on a suitable translucent surface
within the exposure field in the camera.
There are certain numerical formulas that those going into
motion-picture work should learn at the start. It is well, too, for
the general reader, even if he is interested only as a matter of
information to take note of them. Their comprehension will help to a
better understanding of how both the ordinary photographic film, and
the film from animated drawings, are made, prepared, and shown on the
screen.
As the ordinary phrase goes, any single subject in film form is
spoken of as a reel; but in strict trade usage the word means a
length of one thousand feet. As it is generally reckoned, sixty feet
of film pass through the projecting machine every minute. This means
that a reel of one thousand feet will take about seventeen minutes.
Now with sixty feet of film crossing the path of light in one minute,
we see that one foot hurries across in one second. And as sixteen
little pictures are contained in one foot of film, we get an idea
of the great number of such separate pictures in a reel of ordinary
length. All these particulars—especially that regarding the speed
at which the film moves—are vital matters for the animated cartoon
artist to keep in mind as he plans his work.
[Illustration: ONE FOOT OF FILM PASSES THROUGH THE PROJECTOR IN ONE
SECOND]
MAKING ANIMATED CARTOONS
CHAPTER III
MAKING ANIMATED CARTOONS
In the preceding chapter the attention was called to the fact that a
foot of film passes through the projector in one second, and that in
each foot there are sixteen pictures, or frames, within the outlines
of which the photographic images are found. When a camera man sets
up his apparatus before a scene and starts to operate the mechanism,
the general way is to have the film move in the camera at this same
rate of speed; to wit, one foot per second. As each single turn of
the camera handle moves only one-half of a foot of film, the camera
man must turn the handle twice in one second. And one of the things
that he must learn is to appraise time durations so accurately that
he will turn the handle at this speed.
The animated cartoon artist, instead of using real people, objects,
or views to take on his film, must make a number of related
drawings, on every one of which there must be a change in a proper,
progressive, and graduated order. These drawings are placed under a
camera and photographed in their sequence, the film developed and
the resultant negative used to make a positive film. This is used,
as we know, for screen projection. All the technical and finishing
processes are the same whether they are employed in making the usual
reel in which people and scenes are used, or animated cartoon reels
from drawings.
When it is considered that there are in a half reel (five hundred
feet, the customary length for a comic subject) exactly eight
thousand pictures, with every one—theoretically—different, it seems
like an appalling job to make that number of separate drawings for
such a half reel. But an artist doesn’t make anywhere near as many
drawings as that for a reel of this length, and of all the talents
required by any one going into this branch of art, none is so
important as that of the skill to plan the work so that the lowest
possible number of drawings need be made for any particular scenario.
“Animator” is the special term applied to the creative worker
in this new branch of artistic endeavor. Besides the essential
qualification of bestowing life upon drawings, he must be a man of
many accomplishments. First as a scenario is always written of any
screen story no matter whether serious, educational, or humorous, he
must have some notion of form; that is to say, he must know what good
composition means in putting components together in an orderly and
proportional arrangement.
If the subject is an educational one he must have a grasp of
pedagogical principles, too, and if it is of a humorous nature, his
appreciation of a comic situation must be keen.
And then with the terrifying prospect confronting him of having to
make innumerable drawings and attending to other incidental artistic
details before his film is completed, he must be an untiring and a
courageous worker. His skill as a manager comes in when planning the
whole work in the use of expedients and tricks, and an economy of
labor in getting as much action with the use of as few drawings as
possible.
Besides the chief animator, others, such as assistant animators,
tracers, and photographers, are concerned in the production of an
animated film from drawings.
Comments on the writing of the scenario we do not need to go into
now. Often the artist himself writes it; but if he does not, he at
least plans it, or has a share in its construction.
Presuming, then, that the scenario has been written, the chief
animator first of all decides on the portraiture of his characters.
He will proceed to make sketches of them as they look not only in
front and profile views, but also as they appear from the back and
in three-quarter views. It is customary that these sketches—his
models, and really the dramatis personæ, be drawn of the size they
will have in the majority of the scenes. After the characters have
been created, the next step is to lay out the scenes, in other words,
plan the surroundings or settings for each of the different acts.
The rectangular space of his drawings within which the composition
is contained is about ten or eleven times larger than the little
three-quarter-by-one-inch pictures of the films; namely, seven and
one-half by ten inches, or eight and one-quarter by eleven inches.
For some kinds of films—plain titles and “trick” titles—the making
of which will be remarked upon further on—a larger field of about
thirteen and one-half by eighteen inches is used.
[Illustration: “ANIMATOR’S” DRAWING-BOARD.]
Now with a huge pile of white linen paper cut to a uniform size of
about nine by twelve inches, the animator apportions the work to the
several assistant animators. The most important scene or action, of
course, falls to his share. There are several ways of going about
making animated cartoons, and trick titles, and these methods will
be touched upon subsequently. But in the particular method of making
animated cartoons which we are describing now—that in which paper is
the principal surface upon which the drawings are made in ink—all the
workers make their drawings over a board that has a middle portion
cut out and into which is fitted a sheet of thick glass. Under this
glass is fixed an electric light. On the board along the upper margin
of the glass, there is fixed to the wood a bar of iron to which two
pins or pegs are firmly fixed. These pegs are a little less than
one-half inch high and distant from each other about five inches. It
doesn’t matter much what this distance is, excepting this important
point: all the boards in any one studio must be provided with sets
of pegs that are uniform with respect to this distance between them.
And all of them should be most accurately measured in their placing.
Sometimes as an expedient, pegs are merely driven into the board at
the required distance.
These pegs are seven thirty-seconds of an inch in diameter. That the
animator should use this particular size of pegs was determined,
no doubt, by the fact that an article manufactured originally for
perforating pages and sheets used in certain methods of bookkeeping
was found available for his purposes. This perforator cuts holes
exactly seven thirty-seconds of an inch in diameter. Each one of the
sheets of paper from the huge pile spoken of above, before it is
drawn upon, has two holes punched into one of its long edges at the
same distance apart as the distance between the two pegs fixed to the
animator’s drawing-board.
[Illustration: A SHEET OF PERFORATED PAPER AND THE REGISTERING PEGS.]
Fitting one of these sheets of paper over the pegs, the
artist-animator is ready for work. As the paper lies flat over the
glass set into the board, he can see the glare of the electric light
underneath. This illumination from below is to enable him to trace
lines on a top sheet of paper from lines on a second sheet of paper
underneath; and also to make the slight variations in the several
drawings concerned in any action.
Now the reason for the pegs is this: as in an ordinary motion-picture
film certain characters, as well as objects and other details are
quiescent, and only one or a few characters are in action, so in an
animated cartoon some of the figures, or details, are quiescent for a
time. And as they stay for a length of time in the same place in the
scene, their portrayal in this same place throughout the series of
drawings is obtained by tracing them from one sheet to another. The
sheets are held in place by the pegs and they insure the registering
of identical details throughout a series.
When the animator designs his setting, the stage scenery of any
particular animated play, he keeps in mind the area within which his
figures are going to move. Reasons for this will become apparent
as the technic of the art is further explained. The outline of his
scene, say a background, simply drawn in ink on a sheet of paper
is fitted over the pegs. The light under the glass, as explained
immediately above, shows through it. Next a fresh sheet of paper
is placed over the one with the scene, and as the paper is selected
for its transparent qualities, as well as its adaptability for
pen-drawing, the ink lines of the scene underneath are visible.
Let us presume now, that the composition is to represent two men
standing and facing each other and talking. They are to gesticulate
and move their lips slightly as if speaking. (In the following
description we will ignore this movement of the mouth and have it
assumed that the artist is drawing this action, also, as he proceeds
with the work.) The two men are sketched in some passive position,
and the animation of one of the figures is started. With the key
sketch of the men in the passive position placed over the light,
a sheet of paper is placed over it and the extreme position of a
gesticulating arm is drawn, then on another sheet of paper placed
over the light the other extreme position of this arm action is
drawn. Now, with still another sheet of paper placed over the others,
the intermediate position of the gesture is drawn. As the man was
standing on the same spot all the time his feet would be the same in
all the drawings and other parts of his figure would occupy the same
place. But the animator does not draw these parts himself but marks
the several sheets where they occur with a number, or symbol, that
will be understood by one of his helpers—a tracer—as instructions to
trace them. The other man in the picture, who all this time has been
motionless, is also represented in all the drawings line for line as
he was first drawn in the preliminary key sketch. This again is a job
for the tracer.
When the action of the second figure is made, the drawing of the
three phases of movement in his arms is proceeded with in the same
way, and the first figure is repeated in his passive position during
the gesturing of the second man.
It can be seen from this way of working in the division of labor
between the animator and his helper that the actual toil of repeating
monotonous details falls upon the tracer. The animator does the first
planning and that part of the subsequent work requiring true artistic
ability.
So that the artists can see to do the work described above—tracing
from one sheet of paper to another and distinguishing ink lines
through two or more sheets of paper while they are over the
illuminated glass—the expedient is adopted of shading the work-table
from the glare of strong daylight.
[Illustration: COMPLETE SCENE
ILLUSTRATING THE GREAT AMOUNT OF DRAWING REQUIRED IN ANIMATING A
SCENE WITHOUT THE HELP OF TRANSPARENT CELLULOID.]
In this typical process of depicting a simple action, or animating a
figure, as it is called, we have left out specific explanations for
drawing the details of the scenery—trees, foreground, or whatever is
put into the composition as an accessory. They go into a finished
composition, to be sure. One way would be to trace their outlines
on each and every sheet of paper. It is a feasible way but not
labor-saving. There is a much more convenient way than that.
In beginning this exposition on animation it was noted that the
artist in designing the scenery gave some thought to the area within
which his figures were placed, or were to act. He planned when he did
this, that no part of the components of the scenery should interfere
by crossing lines with any portions of the figures. The reason for
this will be apparent when it is explained that the scenery is
drawn on a sheet of transparent celluloid. Then when the celluloid
with its scenery is placed over one of the drawings it completes
the picture. The celluloid sheet has also two perforations that
fit over the pegs, and it is by their agency that its details are
made to correspond with the drawings on paper. And it can further
be understood that this single celluloid sheet will complete, if it
is designed properly, the pictorial composition of every one of the
drawings. (A sheet of this substance that we are referring to now is
known in the craft as “a celluloid” or shortened sometimes to “cell.”)
The employment of celluloid can be extended to save other work in
tracing parts of figures that are in the same position, or that are
not in action throughout several drawings. In this case a second
celluloid will be used in conjunction with that holding the scenery.
To exemplify: In giving an account of the drawing of the arm gestures
in the instance above, it was noted that an animator drew the action
only while he had a tracer complete on all the drawings the parts
that did not move. Now, to save the monotony of all this, the tracer
takes celluloid and draws the similarly placed quiet parts on it but
once. This celluloid is used during the photography with the several
action phases to complete the picture of the figure, or figures.
A matter that the animator should guard against, however, in having
several celluloids over his drawings, during the photography, is that
they will impart a yellowish tinge to his white paper underneath if
he uses more than two or three. This would necessitate care in timing
the exposure correctly as a yellow tint has non-actinic qualities
that make its photography an uncertain element.
[Illustration: Scenery, drawn on celluloid, used with the elements on
the opposite page.]
The methods so far described of making drawings for animated films
are not complex and are easy to manage. For effective animated
scenes, many more drawings are required and the adaptation of
celluloids is not always such an easy matter as here described. For
complete films of ordinary length, the drawings, celluloids, and
other items—expedients or ingenious devices to help the work—number
into the hundreds.
[Illustration: ON CELLULOID
ON CELLULOID
ILLUSTRATING THE SAVING OF TIME AND LABOR IN MAKING USE OF THE
EXPEDIENT OF DRAWING THE STILL PARTS ON CELLULOID SHEETS.]
We will use, however, our few drawings and celluloids that we have
completed to explain the subsequent procedure in the making of
animated cartoons; namely, the photographic part of the process.
A moving-picture camera is placed on a framework of wood, or iron,
so that it is supported over a table top or some like piece of
carpentry. It is placed so that it faces downward with the lens
centred on the table. The camera is arranged for a “one picture
one turn of the crank” movement, and a gearing of chain belts and
pulleys, to effect this, is attached to the camera and framework.
This gearing is put into motion by a turning-handle close to where
the photographer is seated as he works before the table top where the
drawings are placed.
Each time the handle is turned but one picture, or one-sixteenth
of a foot of film, is moved into the field back of the lens where
the exposure is made. The view or studio camera, as we know, when a
complete turn of the crank handle is made, moves eight pictures, or
one-half of a foot of film, into position.
On the table directly under the lens and at the proper distance for
correct focussing, a field is marked out exactly that of the field
that was used in making the drawings. Two registering pegs are also
fastened relatively to the field as those on all the drawing-boards
in the studio. Over the field, but hinged to the table top so that
it can be moved up and down, a frame holding a clear sheet of glass
is placed. The glass must be fitted closely and firmly in the frame,
as it is intended to be pressed down on the drawings while they are
being photographed. Wood serves the purpose very well for these
frames. A metal frame would seem to be the most practical, but if
there is in its construction the least inequality of surface where
glass and metal touch, the pressure put upon the frame in holding the
drawings down is liable to crack the glass. With wood, as there is a
certain amount of give, this is not so likely to happen.
Considering now that the camera has been filled with a suitable
length of blank film and properly threaded in and out of the series
of wheels that feed it to the intermittent mechanism, and then
wind it up into its proper receptacle, we can proceed with the
photography.
The pioneers in the art who first tried to make animated cartoons and
similar film novelties attempted the photography by daylight. Their
results were not very good, for they were much handicapped by the
uncertainty of the light. Nowadays the Cooper Hewitt mercury vapor
light is used almost exclusively. The commonest method of lighting is
to fix a tube of this illuminant on each side of the camera above the
board, but so placed that light rays do not go slantingly into the
lens, or are caught by any polished surface, and so cause reflected
lights that interfere with the work. To get the exact position of
the light for an even illumination over the field means a little
preliminary experiment.
In looking over the material for our little film we find that we have
but a few drawings and celluloids. Now, if we were to photograph them
and give each drawing one exposure—one picture, or section on the
film for each drawing—we should get a length of film not even a foot
long, and the time on the screen not even lasting a second, but an
insignificant result for so much work. Here at this stage of the work
the able animator must exercise his talents in getting as much film
as possible, _i. e._, “footage,” out of his few drawings.
[Illustration: ARRANGEMENT OF BOARD, PEGS, AND HINGED FRAME WITH
GLASS.
(For its position under the camera, see engraving on page 203.) A
perforated sheet of paper holding a drawing is fitted over the pegs
and the frame lowered.]
To begin: The first drawing in which the men are quiescent is fitted
over the pegs; but the picture is not complete until the celluloid
with the scenery is also fitted over the pegs. When this is put
in place and the frame with the glass is pressed down it is ready
for photography. The first figures will not begin to gesticulate
immediately—no, a certain time is necessary for the audience to
appreciate—have enter into their consciousness—that the picture on
the screen represents two men facing each other and about to carry on
a conversation. Therefore the drawing showing the men motionless is
photographed on about two or three feet of film. This will give on
the screen just so many seconds—two or three—for the mental grasping
by the audience of the particulars of the pictorial composition.
Next to show the first figure going through his movements we lift
the framed glass and take off the celluloid with the scenery and the
paper with the two men motionless. Now we put down over the pegs
the sheet of paper with one of the extreme positions of the moving
arms, and then as that is all there is on the paper we must, to
complete the portrayal, place over it the celluloid with the rest of
his figure. (This celluloid also holds the complete drawing of the
other individual as he is motionless during the action of the first
one.) Next the entire composition is completed by putting down the
scenery celluloid. Then when the framed glass is lowered and pressed
down so that everything presents an even surface, the picture is
photographed. After two turns of the handle—photographing it on
two sections of the film—the frame is raised and the celluloids and
the drawing are both taken off of the pegs. The photographing of
the second or intermediate position is proceeded with in the same
way. After this the third or other extreme phase of the action is
photographed.
The photography is continued by taking the intermediate phase again,
then the first position, then back to the intermediate one, and so
on. The idea is to give a gesticulating action to the figure by using
these three drawings back and forth in their order as long as the
story seems to warrant it.
It is not to be forgotten that the celluloid with the scenery is used
every time the different action phases are photographed.
The same procedure will be followed with the celluloid and drawings
of the other figure, only before beginning his action a little extra
footage can be eked out by giving a slight dramatic pause between the
ending of the first man’s gesticulating and the beginning of that of
the other one. By this is meant that the first scene with the men
motionless is taken on a short length of film.
[Illustration: BALLOONS.]
In a little incident of this sort, dialogue, of course, is required
to help tell the point of the story. This is effected by putting the
wording on a separate piece of paper—balloons, they are called—for
each case and placing it over the design somewhere so that it will
not cover any important part of the composition. The necessary amount
of film for one of these balloons with its lettering is determined by
the number of seconds that it takes the average spectator to read it.
It is by the interjection of these balloons with their dialogue that
an animator, in comic themes, can get a considerable length of film
from a very few drawings.
After the photography is finished the exposed film is taken out of
the camera and sent to the laboratory for development.
[Illustration: Three elements when fitted over the pegs complete the
scene above.]
[Illustration: Phenakistoscope with cycle of drawings of a face to
show a movement of the mouth. ]
FURTHER DETAILS ON MAKING ANIMATED CARTOONS
CHAPTER IV
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
CHAPTER V
ON MOVEMENT IN THE HUMAN FIGURE
Having now chronicled in a brief way the development of the
cinematographic art, particularly in its relation to animated screen
drawings, and having tried to give some notion of the fundamentals
in their making with an account of their exhibition on the screen,
it is in order now that we consider the matter of movement and its
depiction by drawings that will give the visional synthesis of life.
The very first thing that a tyro in the animating art must learn is
to draw a walk; or in other words, to become skilled in sketching the
successive phases of limb and trunk movements so that they give in
their order the appearance of walking when projected as a film.
Walking directly effected by the lower limbs calls into action
the upper limbs too. The upper limbs act, as they swing from the
shoulders, in concord with the legs, as counterpoises in maintaining
the equilibrium. An understanding of the principles underlying
locomotion in man—walking or running—is an important matter to
consider in this art. When an artist knows the basic facts of
movement in the human figure, he will more readily comprehend animal
locomotion and all other movements in general.
All forms of motion are pertinent as studies for the animator, and
the all-important study is that of the human organism.
Although we observe at once, in considering a simple walking
movement, that there is also a simultaneous activity of the arms
accompanied by a harmony of exertion in the trunk, we will at the
start dwell mainly upon the phases of action in the legs only.
Imagine now that the figure that is to serve us as a model is
walking. The trunk in the air, some thirty inches above the ground,
is moving forward. Attached to it are the nether limbs, alternately
swinging pendently and alternately supporting the trunk in its
position above the ground.
[Illustration: SUCCESSIVE PHASES OF MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGS IN WALKING.
Above: Diagram to indicate the length of a stride and to show how the
head describes a “wave.”]
Further to simplify our study, we will, at first, consider the
mechanism of one limb only. As one foot swings forward and reaches
a certain place, it seems to hesitate for an instant and then come
down, heel first, on the ground. As the heel strikes, the body is
slightly jarred and the oblique line of the limb, its axis, moves
and approaches the vertical. In a moment, the limb is vertical as
it supports the trunk and the sole of the foot bears on the ground.
Then the axis of the leg changes its verticality and leans forward,
carrying with it the body. Soon the heel leaves the ground and only
the fore part of the foot—the region of the toes—remains on the
ground. But before the foot is entirely lifted from the ground, there
is a slight pause, almost immeasurable, coming immediately before the
foot gives a push, leaves the ground, and projects the body forward.
During the time of the phases of movement described above, the foot,
in a sort of way, rolls over the ground from heel to toes.
Immediately after the toes leave the ground, the knee bends slightly
and the limb swings pendulum-like forward, then, as it nears the
point directly under the centre of the trunk, it bends a little more
and lifts the foot to clear the ground. After the limb has passed
this central point under the trunk and is beginning to advance, it
straightens out ready to plant its heel on the ground again. When
it has done so it has completed the step, and the limb repeats the
series of movement phases again for the next step.
Now, the limb of the other side has gone through the same movements,
too, but the corresponding phases occurred alternately in point of
time.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATING THE ACTION OF THE FOOT IN ROLLING OVER
THE GROUND.]
One of these positions of the leg, that when it is bent at the
knee so as to clear the ground as it passes from the back to its
advancing movement forward, is rarely represented by the graphic
artist in his pictures. The aspect of the limbs when they are at
their extremes—spread out—one forward and one to the back, is his
usual pictorial symbol for walking. But the position, immediately
noted above, is an important phase of movement, as it is during its
continuance that the other limb is supporting the trunk.
A movement of the trunk in walking that is to be remarked is its
turning from side to side as it swings in unison with the upper limbs
while they alternately swing forward and backward. It is a movement
that animators do not always regard, since only an accomplished
figure draftsman can imagine movement clearly enough to reproduce it.
To describe the movement better we will consider it visionally.
[Illustration: SUCCESSIVE PHASES OF MOVEMENTS IN WALKING,
ILLUSTRATING ESPECIALLY THE RECIPROCAL ACTION OF THE LIMBS.]
We are looking at the walker from the side and see the trunk in
profile—exactly in profile, of course, when the arms are at the
middle position. As the near-side arm moves forward we see a slight
three-quarter back view of the upper part of the trunk, then when the
arm swings back we see the profile again, and with the arm moving
still farther back, the corresponding side of the shoulder moves
with it and the upper part of the trunk is seen in three-quarter
front view. If the artist shows, in a walk, these particulars: (1) A
three-quarter view from the front; (2) profile; (3) a three-quarter
view from the back, and then carries them back and forth, he will
add to the effectiveness of the screen representation. It gives to
a figure, when slightly exaggerated in a humorous picture, a very
laughable swaggering gait.
The arms were mentioned as swinging in a walk so as to help maintain
the equilibrium. It will not be difficult to understand the phases
through which they go if it is remembered that an arm moves in unison
with the lower limb of the opposite side. This can be observed if
one looks from an upper window down on the passers-by. It will
then be noted how one arm as it hinges and oscillates from the
shoulder-joint, follows the lower limb of the opposite side as it
hinges and swings from the hip-joint.
[Illustration: PHASES OF MOVEMENT OF A QUICK WALK.
Four phases complete a step.]
Contemplating the arms only, it will be perceived that they keep
up a constant alternate swinging back and forth. The point where
they pass each other will be when they both have approached their
respective sides of the trunk. This particular moment when the arms
are opposite one another and close to the trunk, or at least near the
vertical line of the body, is coincident with the phases of the lower
limb movements when one is nearly rigid as it supports the body and
the other is at its median phase of the swinging movement.
These middle positions of the four limbs—the lower near to each
other, and the upper close to the body—is a characteristic that
should be taken note of by the artist. It illustrates, in connection
with the extreme positions, certain peculiarities of motion in living
things, in general. This is a sort of opening movement following by
a closing one. These reciprocal changes, expansion and retraction in
organic forms, symbolize the activity of life.
In the human body, for instance, during action, there are certain
times when the limbs are close to the trunk and at other times when
they are stretched out or extended. This is adequately made plain in
jumping. Specifically: in the preliminary position before the actual
jump, the appendicular members bend and lie close to the trunk.
The entire body is compact and repressed like a spring. Then when
the jump takes place, there is a sudden opening as the limbs fling
themselves outward.
A rower in a shell plying his sculls exemplifies this phenomenon
of a spring-like closing and expansion. In this case there is also
a typical example of reciprocal compensating movements in the two
pairs of limbs. When the rower leans forward and the arms are
extended ready to pull on his sculls, the lower limbs are flexed and
in contact with the front of his trunk. Then when the sculls have
been pulled back and he has reached the other extreme position, the
arms are flexed and close to his chest, while the lower limbs are
stretched out straight.
[Illustration: A SUCCESSION OF ALTERNATE CONTRACTIONS AND EXPANSIONS
CHARACTERIZES MOTION.]
If the animator is planning to walk a figure across the field
of the screen, there is one matter in the representation that he
punctiliously takes heed of. It is this: to have the trunk rise as it
is in turn supported upon one rigid leg and then upon the other, and
to show that it falls slightly when the two limbs are outstretched
at their extreme positions. In this alternating rise and fall of the
trunk in walking, the head can be observed as describing a wave. The
highest point of the wave is when the trunk is supported on the rigid
leg and the lowest point when both limbs are stretched out as if
flying from the vertical of the body.
(_For the following few paragraphs, see illustrations on pages 112
and 113._)
In scheming out the positions for a walk, the artist first draws one
of the extreme outstretched positions (_A_). (It is supposed that
we are drawing a figure that is going from left to right.) Then on
another sheet of paper the following outstretched position (_B_),
but placed one step in advance. These drawings are now placed over
the tracing glass of the drawing-board. All the following drawings
of this walk are to be traced over this glass, and they will be kept
in register by the two pegs in the board. As now placed, the two
drawings (_A_ and _B_) cover the distance of two steps. A foot that
is about to fall on the ground and one that is about to leave it meet
at a central point. Here a mark is made to indicate a footprint. A
similar mark for a footprint is made on each side to indicate the
limits of the two steps.
A sheet of paper is next placed over the two drawings (_A_ and _B_),
and on the central footprint the middle position (_C_) of the legs
is drawn. In this the right limb is nearly straight and supporting
the body, while the other limb, the left, is bent at the knee and has
the foot raised to clear the ground. The next stage will be to make
the first in-between position (_D_) between the first extreme and the
middle position. It is made on a fresh sheet of paper placed over
those containing the positions just mentioned. The attitude of the
right limb in this new position would be that in which it is about
to plant its foot on the ground and the left limb is depicted as if
ready to swing into the position that it has in the middle one (_C_).
[Illustration: ORDER IN WHICH AN ANIMATOR MAKES THE SEQUENCE OF
POSITIONS FOR A WALK.]
[Illustration:
Illustrating how alternating series of positions are the same in
outline, differing only with respect to whether the near or the far
limb is moving forward.]
Then with the middle position (_C_) and the last extreme one (_B_)
over the glass, on another sheet of paper, the next in-between one
(_E_) is drawn. This shows the right foot leaving the ground and the
left leg somewhat forward ready to plant its heel on the ground. We
have now secured five phases or positions of a walking movement.
The two extremes (_A_ and _B_) spoken of as the outstretched ones
have the same contours but differ in that in one the right limb is
forward, and the left is directed obliquely backward, while in the
other it is the left limb that projects forward and the right has an
obliquity backward.
Now, if we make tracings, copying the outlines only, of the three
other positions (_C_, _D_, and _E_), but reversing the particular
aspects of the right and the left limbs, we shall have obtained
enough drawings to complete two steps of a walk.
[Illustration: PHASES OF MOVEMENT OF A WALK.
Six phases complete a step.]
As a better understanding of the preceding the fact should be grasped
that while one limb, the right we will say, is assuming a certain
position during a step, in the next step it is the turn of the other
limb, the left, to assume this particular position. And again in this
second step, the right limb takes the corresponding position that the
other limb had in the first step. There are always, in a walk, two
sets of drawings, used alternately. Any particular silhouette in one
set has its identical silhouette in the other set, but the attitudes
of the limbs are reversed. To explain by an example: In the drawing
of one middle position, the right leg supports the body and the left
is flexed, in its coincidental drawing, it is the left that supports
the body and the right is flexed. (See 2 and 3+, of engraving on page
113.)
From this it can be seen that the two sets of drawings differ only
in the details within their general contours. These details will be
such markings as drapery folds, stripes on trousers, indications of
the right and the left foot by little items like buttons on boots.
Heeding and taking the trouble to mark little details like these add
to the value of a screen image.
One of the most difficult actions to depict in this art is that
which the animator calls a perspective walk. By this term he means a
walk in which the figure is either coming diagonally, more or less,
toward the front of the picture or going away from it toward the
horizon. It is obvious that according to the rules of perspective, in
coming forward the figure gets larger and larger, and in travelling
in the opposite direction it gets smaller and smaller. To do this
successfully is not easy. Only after a worker has had a great deal of
experience in the art is he able to draw such a movement easily.
[Illustration: A PERSPECTIVE WALK.]
The constant changing sizes of the figures and getting them
within the perspective lines in a graduated series are perplexing
enough matters. But this is not all. There is the problem of the
foreshortened views as the limbs are beheld perspectively. Imagine,
for instance, an arm pointing toward the spectator in a foreshortened
view. Every artist would have his own individual way of drawing this.
Those with a natural feeling for form and understanding anatomy solve
problems of this kind by methods for which it is impossible to give
any recipe. Some would start with preliminary construction lines
that have the appearance of columnar solids in perspective, while
others scribble and fumble around until they find the outlines that
they want.
[Illustration: FOUR POSITIONS FOR A PERSPECTIVE RUN.
_Below_: How the drawings are placed on the separate sheets of
paper.]
[Illustration: PHASES OF MOVEMENT FOR A PERSPECTIVE RUN.
_Above_: In the last of the series—on the right—the figure has
taken a position nearly that of the first of the series.
_Below_: How the figures are placed with respect to each other when
drawn on separate sheets of paper.]
Happily in most of the occasions when a perspective walk is required
in a story it is for some humorous incident. This signifies that it
can be made into a speedy action, and that but a few drawings are
needed to complete a step.
Artists when they begin to make drawings for screen pictures find a
new interest in studying movement. In the study of art the student
gives some attention, of course, to this question of movement.
Usually, though, the study is not discriminating, nor thorough. But
to become skilled in animating involves a thoughtful and analytic
inquiry into the subject. If the artist is a real student of the
subject its consideration will be more engrossing than the more
or less slight study given to the planning of the single isolated
phases, or attitudes, of action in ordinary pictorial work.
A great help in comprehending the nature of movement and grasping
the character of the attitudes of active figures are the so-called
“analysis of motion” screen pictures. In these the model, generally
a muscular person going through the motions of some gymnastic or
athletic activity, is shown moving very much slower than the movement
is in actuality. This is effected by taking the pictures with a
camera so constructed that it moves its mechanism many times faster
than the normal speed.
[Illustration: RUNNING FIGURE
_Above_: Six positions complete two steps.
_Below_: Diagram to show that, considered as outlines, the six
positions resolve themselves into three silhouettes.]
The speed of the ordinary camera, as we know, moves during every
second but one foot of film and on which sixteen separate photographs
are made. Now, in one type of camera for analysis of motion
photography, eight times more film is moved with a corresponding
increase in the number of separate pictures taken on it during this
same time of one second. To take a specific movement of a model
lasting one second: the ordinary camera catches sixteen phases
of it, but the extra-rapid camera takes about one hundred and
twenty-eight separate pictures of as many corresponding separate
phases. In other words, the ordinary camera takes about as much as
our eyes appreciate, while the fast camera records on a length of
film many more attitudes during the course of the given activity
than the unaided eye can ever hope to see. When this long film of
the extra-rapid camera is run through the projecting machine at the
normal speed it shows us on the screen, in a period of eight seconds,
that which took place in reality in but one second.
[Illustration: PHASES OF MOVEMENT FOR A QUICK WALK.
Lower diagram shows how the several drawings, each on a separate
sheet of paper, are placed in advance of each other.]
[Illustration: WALKING MOVEMENTS, SOMEWHAT MECHANICAL.
Suitable for a droll theme.]
The animated drawing artist becomes, through the training of his
eye to quick observation and the studying of films of the nature
immediately noted above, an expert in depicting the varied and
connected attitudes of figures in action. Examples for study on
account of the clear-cut definitions of the actions, are the acrobats
with their tumbling and the clowns with their antics. Then in the
performances of the jugglers and in the pranks of the knock-about
comedians, the animator finds much to spur him on to creative
imagery. The pictorial artist for graphic or easel work, in any of
these cases, intending to make an illustration, is content with some
representative position that he can grasp visually, or, which is more
likely to be the case, the one that is easiest for him to draw. But
the animator must have sharp and quickly observing eyes and be able
to comprehend and remember the whole series of phases of a movement.
[Illustration: PHASES OF MOVEMENT FOR A LIVELY WALK.
Lower diagram shows how the drawings, on separate sheets of paper,
are placed with respect to each other to continue the figure across
the scene.]
A fancy dancer, especially, is a rich study. To follow the dancer
with his supple joints bending so easily and assuming unexpected
poses of body and limbs, requires attentive eyes and a lively
mental photography. The limbs do not seem to bend merely at the
articulations and there seems to be a most unnatural twisting of
arms, lower limbs, and trunk. But it is all natural. It simply means
that there is co-ordination of movement in all parts of the jointed
skeletal frame. This co-ordination—and reciprocal action—follows
definite laws of motion, and it is the business of the animator to
grasp their signification. It is, in the main, the matter already
spoken of above; namely, the alternate action of flexion or a
closing, and that of extension or an opening.
With these characteristics there is also observable in the generality
of dancing posturing a tendency of an upper limb to follow a lower
limb of the opposite side as in the cases of walking and running.
Very strongly is this to be noticed in the nimbleness of an eccentric
dancer as he cuts bizarre figures and falls into exaggerated poses.
For instance, when a lower limb swings in any particular direction,
the opposite arm oscillates in the same direction and brings its hand
close enough to touch this concurrently swinging lower limb.
[Illustration: PHASES OF MOVEMENT FOR A QUICK WALK.]
This symbolical phenomenon of the activity of living things—the
negative quality of a closing or flexion, and the positive one of
an opening or extension—is not a feature entirely confined to human
beings and animals, but is a characteristic showing in the mechanics
of many non-living things.
[Illustration: WALKING MOVEMENT VIEWED FROM ABOVE.
Illustrating how the diagonally opposite limbs move in unison.]
NOTES ON ANIMAL LOCOMOTION
CHAPTER VI
NOTES ON ANIMAL LOCOMOTION
In the usual manner of locomotory progress in the four-footed beasts,
with but a few exceptions, the actions of the limbs with respect to
the reciprocal movement of the two pairs, is the same as that of man.
When, for instance, a fore limb moves, corresponding to the human
arm, the diagonally opposite hind limb, corresponding to the human
lower limb, moves also.
To explain this matter, again, we shall find it helpful to give a
somewhat humorous, but at the same time a very practical example. An
artist intends to draw the picture of a man crawling on his hands
and knees. Before beginning to work, the artist will visualize the
movement if he can, if not, try it by personal experiment. Then he
will see that when the right hand, we will say, is lifted to go
forward, immediately the left knee leaves the floor and the two
limbs—the right arm and the left leg—advance at the same time.
On the completion of this advancing action, the hand and the knee
touch the floor nearly at the same instant. (Exactly, though, the
hand is carried forward more rapidly and anticipates the knee
in reaching the floor.) After this action, which has just been
described, is concluded, it is the turn of the other arm and leg to
go through the same movements. This is the manner, in a general way,
that the four-footed animals walk, successively moving together the
diagonally opposite limbs.
An understanding of this locomotory principle—the reciprocal actions
of the two pairs of limbs—in the generality of quadrupeds, will help
an artist to animate the various types of animals that he will from
time to time wish to put into his cartoons. Naturally, they will be
in most cases combined with a comical screen story. Their depiction,
then, can be represented in a humorous way and the artist merely
needs to show in his drawings the essentials of animal locomotion.
Instantaneous photographs of moving animals, especially those
of Muybridge, are helpful in studying the movements of the dumb
creatures. The mindful examination of such photographs gives hints
as to the particular phases of movement adaptable to animation.
Besides photographs, an ingenious auxiliary, as a help in study,
would be a little cardboard jointed model of an animal. Say it is
one to represent a horse, it can be employed by moving the limbs
about in their order as they successively make the steps while the
artist selects from a series of photographs a cycle of positions for
a movement. In making a jointed cut-out model, however, and fastening
the limbs by pivoting pins, it is well to remember that the model
can be approximate only. Take the fore limbs, for instance. In your
model you will probably fasten them to the trunk at some fixed place.
That is not the way that they are joined in the bony framework. The
joining of the fore limbs is not by a hard articulation as in the
arms of man which are joined, through the intermediary collar-bone,
to the breast-bone. In the horse and in quadrupeds, generally, the
joining to the main bulk of the body is by soft tissues. That is, by
layers and bands of muscle.
[Illustration: TROTTING HORSE.
The horse in the first series moves from _A B_ to _C D_. The
drawings in the second series, on the next page, with plus marks
are the same in silhouette as the correspondingly numbered ones of
the first series.]
[Illustration: TROTTING HORSE (continued).
In the second series the horse moves from _C D_ to _E F_, where he
takes the same attitude as that of number 1 of the first series.]
In studying the actions of animals it will be observed, especially
in the antelope and deer kind, that in leaping they land on their
forefeet. Any hard articulations of the fore limbs with the rest of
the skeleton could not submit to the shock of these landings. When
they land, it is the soft yielding and elastic muscular parts of the
shoulders and adjacent regions that absorb the force of the jolts.
The characteristic of life activity, flexion and extension, is
exemplified clearly in the actions of an animal’s hind limbs as they
double up in the preparation for a leap; and then suddenly spread out
during the first part of the leap.
Taking it as a whole, in fleet-footed animals, the function of the
hind limbs is to furnish the forward propelling force while that of
the fore limbs is to land on the ground at an advanced position.
This observation, of course, applies to certain rapid methods of
progression, and it will do as a general statement only, as it has
been shown by photographs that the fore limbs have a share in giving
an impulse in locomotion. For example, photographs of the horse
in action show the quick springing action of the fetlock and the
pastern joints as they bend in the hoof’s impact, and its subsequent
extension when the foot leaves the ground.
In a rapid walk of a horse a phase of movement that is apprehended by
the eye is the lifting of a forefoot and then the immediate impact of
the hind limb of the same side as it nearly falls into the impression
left by the fore foot. There are speeds in which the footprints
coincide. In a more rapid pace than a walk, the imprint of the hind
foot is farther forward than that of the forefoot. As the speed
increases the stride lengthens and the footprints are much farther in
advance.
In a certain type of humorous animation—the panorama—to be explained
in a succeeding chapter, the artist is quite satisfied with his
animation of a quadruped if a lively bewildering effect of agitated
limbs is produced on the screen. This bewildering blur has after all
a resemblance to that which the eye sees in rapidly running animals;
namely, a confused disturbance of limbs. This effect on the screen
always causes laughter and the artist considers that as a proof of
the success of his work.
To produce this effect, the animator selects from his studies three
or five consecutive positions of a gallop, or trot, that will animate
well. This means, specifically, that any particular drawing should,
with the next in order, give an appearance of movement when they
are synthesized. The drawings are made in a cycle so that when used
continuously in their order they will give the illusion desired.
[Illustration: A PANORAMA EFFECT OBTAINED BY THE USE OF THE THREE
DRAWINGS ON THE OPPOSITE PAGE.]
In a panorama it is not necessary to trouble about a matter that
in other forms of screen representation of locomotion are highly
important. This is to have the feet register, by which is meant that
in any several succeeding drawings where a foot is represented as
touching, bearing down, and leaving the ground, it should do all this
on a footprint that coincides in all of the series. Tracing over the
illuminated glass, while making the drawings, is the only way to get
footprints accurately placed.
[Illustration: GALLOPING HORSE.
Three phases of the action for panorama effects.]
The droll-looking giraffe, with his awkwardly set limbs, has a
different sort of movement, in some of his paces, from that remarked
as natural to quadrupeds. In the giraffe, the two limbs of the same
side move at the same time and in the same direction. The camel is
also noted as going this way, and the elephant has a pace that seems
to be a combination of the amble and the typical four-footed way of
walking.
[Illustration: THE ELEPHANT IN MOTION.]
Now and then the animator has as one of his characters a walking
bird; an ungainly ostrich is a good example, or a droll duck,
perhaps. Here he will have plenty of scope in applying his skill as
a humorous draftsman. A nodding of the head and a bobbing of the
body from side to side in the duck, and in the case of the ostrich a
wiggling of the neck, are appropriate adjuncts to such animation.
[Illustration: THE ELEPHANT IN MOTION (continued).]
In the walking movement of a bird the method of getting the different
phases will be the same as that of planning a walk for the human
figure. Particularly, too, must the artist observe in the bird’s
walk, the middle phases in which one leg crosses the vertical of the
body to go forward for the implanting of its foot upon the ground.
With respect to the study of wing movement in flying birds, it
is interesting to note that the Japanese artist apprehended the
various positions that wings took in flying before the fact was
demonstrated by photography. The Occidental artist, before the
days of the instantaneous snap-shot camera, had but one or two
stereotyped positions for picturing flying birds. Generally one of
these positions had the wings pointing upward, and another with
them outspread, more or less, horizontally. But the Japanese artist
anticipated the snap-shot picture; he often had his flying birds
with the wings drawn below the level of the bird’s body and pointing
downward.
[Illustration: PIGEON IN FLIGHT.
Note the positions with the wings pointing downward. These are phases
of wing movement anticipated by the Japanese artist before their
existence was clearly shown by instantaneous photography.
Part of a plate in Muybridge’s “Animals in Motion.” Copyright, 1899,
by Eadweard Muybridge. London, Chapman & Hall, Ltd. New York, Charles
Scribner’s Sons. A valuable work for the artist in studying movement
in animals.]
[Illustration: COMIC WALK OF A DUCK.
Series of drawings required to move the bird from _A_ to _C_.]
One good way, if an animator wishes to represent a bird flying across
the sky, is to have several—five or seven—positions for the action
drawn on cardboard and then cut out. These little bird models are
placed, one at a time, over the general scene during the photography
and manipulated in the same way as described for other cut-out
models. The slight wavering from the direct line of the bird’s flight
that may occur by this cut-out method would not matter very much. The
bird describes a wavering line anyway as he flies—its body dropping
slightly when the wings go up and a correlative rise occurring when
the wing flap takes place.
[Illustration: CYCLE OF PHASES OF A WALKING DOG ARRANGED FOR THE
PHENAKISTOSCOPE.]
[Illustration: PHENAKISTOSCOPE WITH A CYCLE OF DRAWINGS TO SHOW A DOG
IN MOVEMENT.]
If an artist wishes scrupulously to be exact in drawing a bird flying
across the sky, he should observe certain rules of perspective
applying to the case. The problem is the same as that of the
airplane, previously noted, which flew across the field of the
picture. Regarding this matter, to specify: When the bird appears on
one side it is represented in a side view, which changes as it gets
near the centre to a profile. After it has been viewed in profile,
the perspective changes again and when it reaches the other side it
is again in a perspective side view, slightly from the back.
In the mode of progression that was given as the usual one in
quadrupeds, in which a diagonally opposite fore and hind limb moved
simultaneously, there is a sinuous lateral twisting of the back-bone.
It is not so perceptible to us in the larger beasts. It is an effect,
though, that takes place in other creatures and in some of them can
be clearly seen. In the walk of the lizard, as an instance, when
viewed from above, a successive undulation of the back-bone takes
place. As one fore limb—the right, to particularize—moves forward,
that side of his body—the right shoulder, moves forward, too; while
approximately at the same time the left hind limb moves forward and
carries with it that side or the left pelvic regions. This causes an
alternating obliquity of the transverse axes of the shoulder and the
hind regions of the body of the reptile as he walks on the ground.
And this alternate changing of these axes gives rise to a continuing
sinuosity in the spine.
[Illustration: RUNNING COW.
Positions selected and adapted from Muybridge’s photographs.]
[Illustration: PHASES OF MOVEMENT OF A WALKING LION.]
[Illustration: DOG WALKING.]
The mode of progression in legless creatures is distinguished, too,
by a lateral bending in and out. Snakes and eels, for example,
as they proceed agitate their bodies in wave-like motions. The
waves pass from the head to the tail, the fluctuations taking the
form of rather large loop-like wrigglings of the elongated body. A
spring-like coiling up and then an expanding—flexion and extension
again—is the principle of the locomotory manœuvre in the snake.
[Illustration: VARIOUS KINDS OF WAVE MOTION.
A characteristic of many forms of movement which the animator gets in
certain of his delineations.]
The undulatory motive impulse of a creeping animal is somewhat like
the sudden lashing of a whip, or the wave-like disturbance given to a
rope when it is sharply and strongly shaken in a certain way.
INANIMATE THINGS IN MOVEMENT
CHAPTER VII
INANIMATE THINGS IN MOVEMENT
There is very little effect of motion on the screen of a moving
straight line by itself without any contrasting elements. Or, as the
moving-picture draftsman would say, it does not animate well.
Now supposing a picture is intended of a man tugging at a rope. He
pulls hard and the rope is taut and it appears practically straight.
The animation of the arms shows that they are moving and give a good
illusion of the tugging, but the rope shows no movement on account of
its rectilinearity. It will be only when the artist gives the rope a
little undulating—or even a snake-like—motion now and then that he
can give the effect of any disturbance in it. This sort of thing,
a slight shaking or a wavering of the line, would do for ordinary
cases but it would be better if the artist showed a loose strand
of cordage fibre creeping along in the direction that the rope is
supposed to be going. But still better would it be to have a few
kinks forming in the rope and showing them agitated as they go in the
direction of the pull on the rope. In producing this latter illusion
the likely expedient that the skilled animator would use is that of
having a set of celluloids with drawings—three or five—showing the
kink represented in a number of progressive positions. The plan would
be to have the details in a cycle, so that when the last detail of
the cycle is photographed, the first one exactly follows in a proper
order. The artist can put these rope drawings on the same sheets of
paper that hold the arm movements—we have in mind the picture of the
man tugging at the rope, of course. Then the cycle of drawings with
the arm movements and the kinks of the rope in their progressive
order can be used over and over again as long as it seems consistent
with good judgment.
This idea of arranging things in cycles is the general way of
animating inanimate things. Nearly all the technical items in this
chapter are managed with some such plan. Generally, too, the details
are drawn on the transparent celluloids.
The problem in devising the components of any cycle is to have these
components so arranged that the orderly movements take place from
the first of the series to the last and then begin with the first
again. The action must not skip, cause a hesitation, or go backward.
This simply means that the components are to be spaced properly with
respect to their relations to each other.
It would be difficult to give by words any directions exactly how to
do this; actual drawing, with a testing in the preliminary sketches
is the surest way of accomplishing it. As general directions,
however, the advice would be to have an odd number of drawings and to
vary the spatial intervals between the separate items. They should
not, above all things, be equidistant.
Where the artist wishes to present to the spectator an animated
drawing of a waving banner, or flag, he makes a cycle of different
drawings. If it is a flag, these drawings are made with undulating
folds that pass the length of the flag as if it were agitated by the
wind. Almost any sort of rippling effect, necessitating but three
slightly different drawings, will satisfy the average audience. But
if the artist wishes to do conscientious work, he will give a little
more attention to his planning and try to make it nearer actuality.
Then he will contrive that there be one dominant drapery fold which
is carried out farther and farther along the ruffled flag. As this
fold nears the end it lessens its volume and at last disappears in a
sudden flap. This will take five or seven drawings. In planning the
cycle it will be arranged that immediately before the last flapping,
the first phase of the dominant fold begins again.
This effect of ruffling drapery by a fixed set of cycles used always
in the same order will, of course, give a monotonous waving. But
it can be diversified by an occasional break in the order in which
the separate elements of the cycle are photographed, or an added
modification obtained by a supplemental large flapping fold which can
be produced by one extra drawing.
An ordinary fragment of drapery in a garment is easily animated by
making it in three phases. This will give a satisfactory quivering
motion when projected in any bit of drapery that is blown about or
flutters on a figure in action.
[Illustration: CYCLE OF DRAWINGS TO PRODUCE A SCREEN ANIMATION OF A
WAVING FLAG.]
Flowing water, waves, and rippling on the surface of a stream, are
not difficult matters to animate if the artist keeps in mind that the
plainest unelaborated line work gives for these elusive pictorial
ingredients the most striking effects on the screen.
It is customary, again, for artistic particulars like these to be
made in cycles of three or five drawings. The action for this class
of subjects is nearly always quick, and so drawings for the purpose
need not be numerous.
A water-splash is a detail of a screen animation rather frequently
introduced. Animators have adopted a stereotyped way of rendering
it. When it is associated with a falling of some unlucky character
into the water, it is very effective from a pictorial and a humorous
point of view. The succeeding up-rushing column of water, after the
splash, is made in the form of a huge mushroom—rather conventional
but extremely comical.
In such a particular as a jet of water, a cycle of drawings is also
used. In planning such drawings for animation care must be taken that
they give in the combined screen illusion a proper one of falling
water. The slightest misplacing of succeeding details representing
the jet may give an effect of the water going backward. A funny
touch is what is wanted in a humorous picture, but, generally, not of
this sort.
[Illustration: CYCLE OF DRAWINGS FOR AN EFFECT OF FALLING WATER.
The drawings are repeated, number 1 following number 3.]
Imparting an appearance of rain over a scene is produced by having
several celluloids with lines indicating this. They would be used in
their order as designed during the photography in the usual way.
Falling snow—that indispensable ingredient of the provincial
melodrama—is simply managed by spreading, at haphazard over several
celluloids, spots of white pigment. A general tinting, of course,
over the underlying pictorial composition would add, by contrast of
tone, to the illusion.
A blank sheet of celluloid placed over the entire drawing is often
employed to hold components of some quickly moving element of an
incident. Each separate detail of its drawing, in this case, is
made on this blank celluloid under the camera and photographed as
it is made. Supposing that it is lightning zigzagging across a dark
background. There will be drawn over this celluloid the first part
of the bolt, photographed and then another part drawn which is
photographed, and then the end of the bolt which is also separately
taken. This drawing of the lightning-bolt, in white pigment, can
be easily rubbed off with a paint rag, or cotton wadding, and then
another lightning-bolt drawn and photographed in the same way.
In some cases where a large volume of smoke is to be shown in hurried
movement, the animator draws the smoke in distemper pigment—sombre
dark grays, half-tints, or in white—on a blank sheet of celluloid
covering the scene. The effect of smoke moving very quickly could
also be drawn in progressive fragments on the upper surface of the
glass in the frame that is pressed down upon the drawings each time
that they are photographed. If it is a house burning, for instance,
the flames in white paint and the smoke in grays and black can be put
on its surface.
[Illustration: A cycle of three drawings is sufficient to give a
vivid representation of the puffing exhaust from an automobile.]
Little happenings that form part of a general scene are managed,
as a rule, too, by cycles of drawings or cycles of details in a
drawing. To specify a few things, we may cite puffs of vapor from an
automobile, steam pouring out of the spout of a teakettle, and smoke
from a chimney.
Vapor, steam, and smoke are best represented by pigment, as hard ink
contours are not exactly suited for such elements of a pictorial
composition. But such elements defined by ink lines in a comic
drawing are, of course, excusable. Sometimes to show smoke moving
where the drawings are all on paper, representing it by crayon-sauce
with a stump has been found to be effective.
[Illustration: AN EXPLOSION.]
If an artist is picturing in a comic cartoon the firing of a cannon,
he indicates a globular projectile leaving the cannon’s mouth. The
artist does not do this because of any scrupulous care in picturing
reality but merely that it seems in keeping with the idea of vivid
comic delineation.
In producing the appearance of a cannon-ball following its trajectory
off into the far distance he takes heed of the law of perspective
that requires an object to become visionally smaller as it nears
the horizon. This animation is easily managed. A certain number of
models of the missile are cut out of thin cardboard graduated in
size from the first that leaves the cannon’s mouth to the smallest
for the distance. They are used by putting one at a time in their
proportionate places under the camera in connection with the other
work during the photography. Not many of these models would be
required, as the action is so rapidly represented that almost any
sort of illusive effect will do for the purpose.
According to the popular idea, every comic scenario should provide
for some cataclysmic climax in which the entire picture area, or a
large part of it, is to be filled with the graphic symbols denoting
an explosion or any sudden occurrence or mishap. Such things for the
animator are not hard.
[Illustration: THE FINISHING STROKE OF SOME FARCICAL SITUATION.]
[Illustration: PIANO PRACTICE.
_A._ General effect of the animation.
_B._ Part of the design which is drawn on the transparent celluloid.
_Below_: Three separate drawings, used in sequence, with the design
on the stationary celluloid.]
Then radiating lines, exclamation-points, zigzagging lines, and
similar whimsical markings—shorthand signs emphasizing the comic
note—are ideographs of expression that the animator delights to put
into his work. Besides their forcibleness, they add variety to the
film.
[Illustration: These three drawings are used in sequence and repeated
as long as the particular effect that they give is desired.]
But bits of dramatic business like these should be used in moderation
and in their proper places and always at the right time. Besides,
being easily drawn, their accomplishment on the film presents no
difficulties.
The several methods by which they can be produced are: (1) To arrange
their components in cycles; (2) drawing them in their order under
the camera and photographing progressively; (3) have little cut-out
pieces to move about under the camera and photographed at each place
that they have been moved to.
[Illustration: A CONSTELLATION.
The four simple elements above give on the screen the lively
animation indicated by the lower sketch.]
Take for instance such a nonsensical conceit as that of having a
constellation of stars encircling a dazed man’s head. This could be
made by having (1) a cycle of drawings for the effect; or (2) drawing
it progressively under the camera over a piece of celluloid; or,
again, (3) by having a number of little stars cut out of paper and
moved around and manipulated the same as other cut-out models.
[Illustration: The simple elements, 1, 2, and 3, are used with sketch
_B_ to give the screen effect shown in _A_.]
One can see from all these particulars that making animated cartoons
is not always a matter of drawing, pure and simple. The animator
would make very little progress if he were to refuse to take
advantage of any proper expedients or tricks to accelerate his work.
[Illustration: The animator, as well as the comic graphic artist,
makes use of signs to elucidate the story.]
MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS IN MAKING ANIMATED SCREEN PICTURES
CHAPTER VIII
MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS IN MAKING ANIMATED SCREEN PICTURES
Many of the striking ways of telling incidents of an animated cartoon
put one in mind of the pictorial symbols of primitive man. An example
is that of a vision appearing above the head of some one in doubt
or in a revery. Then there is the miniature scene floating over a
sleeper to tell that of which he is dreaming. These and other similar
forms are supplementary ways of explaining incidents in a screen
story. They are also used in the regular photographic film; but they
are specifically typical of the animated cartoon.
They are amusing additions to a film that are certain to please
whether used to apprise the audience of what is going on in the
character’s mind, or to explain the dream of a sleeper as he lies
abed.
There are several modes of creating any of these effects. The usual
way would be that of having the quiescent part, say it is a sleeper,
limned on the celluloid; and the details of the moving part, say the
vision, on three or five sheets of paper.
[Illustration: SYMBOLIC ANIMATION OF SNORING.
To effect this, the sleeper would be drawn on celluloid and the
pictures in the clouds on separate sheets of paper.]
Perhaps the humorist-artist wishes to make his picture a little bit
more telling by indicating, with appropriate onomatopœic consonants,
the sound of snoring. These additions can be drawn while the
photography is taking place on a blank celluloid sheet superimposed
over all the drawings in a way explained in a preceding chapter.
Symbols of musical notation and sound-imitating words are often
introduced into a screen picture. They can be made to dance in
rhythm, or at haphazard, by drawing them in series of three or so,
on celluloid sheets. These would be placed, one at a time, in their
order over the general scene and repeated as long as desired.
[Illustration:
Series of drawings marked _A_ show the screen effect desired.
_Below_: the elements representing it that are used with the simple
component—on celluloid—marked _B_.]
The employment of balloons—they have been alluded to before—is
a frequent one in comic screen work. They are the mouthpieces
containing the dialogue of the characters. Their outline, more or
less balloon-shaped, hovers over the heads of the speakers. The lines
defining the balloons can come into the scene gradually in a lively
way, and the dialogue itself can come in word by word. This latter
scheme itself suggests talking.
When the first animated cartoons were produced and an effect with
balloons was intended, the artist thought that he was doing well
enough if he showed the lettering and merely had the person supposed
to be speaking standing motionless. But now an artist who cares
enough for his craft to put as much business into the scenes as
possible will show the lips moving and the arms gesticulating at the
same time that the lettering appears.
There are innumerable things that the artist must think of while he
is photographing his drawings, and one of the weighty ones is to have
the lettering for any particular dialogue, or explanation, held long
enough on the screen for it to be read. Every studio has its own
special rule as to the number of separate frames of a film to allow
for a word. The only way to arrive at any conclusion as to how much
film to take for any sentence in a balloon, or on a title, is to have
some one read it and then time this reading. In this way the artist
will be able to tell how much to give any particular wording. He will
be able, too, after a while, to formulate his own rule with regard to
the matter.
[Illustration: A “CLOSE-UP.”]
A favorite method of telling something, or to hint as to that which
is to follow, is to have a character discovered reading a newspaper
upon which the item explaining the matter shows in an exaggerated
type. The design is usually enclosed within a circle with the outside
space a solid black. There is no special reason for using this
particular encircling design. It is a way often used. Technically it
is a good plan to employ this telescopic mat, as it may be called, as
its forcible contrast of solid black margin breaks the monotony of
the general uniform photographic tone of the rest of the film.
[Illustration:
To vivify this on the screen, little “model” hats are used during
the photography.]
An amusing occurrence sometimes brought into a story is that of
having a man’s hat fly from his head into the air and come down
upon his head again. Of course, the practical way of putting this
on a length of film would be that of having a little cut-out dummy.
The artist, however, takes the trouble of making several dummies of
the hat drawn in different views. A single dummy would show but a
mere mechanical turning, but by using several in different views, he
gets a very good similitude of actuality in the wind twirling the
hat around in a lively way. A little point to help the humor of the
situation is that of having the hat hesitate, as it were, and give an
extra spin immediately before it lands upon the head.
It isn’t always necessary for an artist to make a cycle or a series
of drawings for a movement. For instance, he is showing a rather
large face on the screen and it is intended that the eyes move. This
could be effected by drawings, but there is a much simpler way. The
places for the eyes on the main drawing are left blank and holes cut
out the size of these blank spaces. On a narrow piece of paper at the
proper distance, two eyes are drawn. This paper, with the eyes, is
slipped underneath the one with the drawing that has the eye spaces
cut out. Now the manipulation of this paper, holding the eyes while
in position under the face, is easy. The various positions in which
the eyes are placed, it is understood, will be photographed by the
stop-motion method.
[Illustration: “CUT-OUT” EYES.]
The true artist, in keeping with his talent for creative work, will
be disposed to devise helpful contrivances or expedients to lighten
irksome and monotonous details arising in this art. And in addition
to the possession of this talent, and that of good draftsmanship, he
must be quick in deciding on the best means of economizing labor,
so that he can spend more time where thorough drawing is needed. He
must, in short, in any particular case, put in as much work as it
requires and no more. By experience he will learn to know where to
slight—“slight” isn’t exactly the word, but it will do—the drawing.
With respect to this latter point, suppose there is some arm
movement, with the arm swinging as it does in a hurried walk. Hands,
it is certain, are difficult details to draw, and if they are
carefully rendered in all of the positions it would take a long time
to draw the entire series. But the experienced animator has learned
that at times he can, for some of the positions, every other one
perhaps, make quickly lined marks indicative of hands. These quickly
made lines, however, must be drawn in a way that will help the
action. Exactly how to make them and to what extent to “slight” them
is learned only by long experience.
[Illustration: For some quick actions, “in-between” drawings can be
slighted as shown in numbers 2 and 4.]
Often there is a question as to the number of drawings necessary for
a movement. If a hand, for example, is to be moved from the side of
the thigh to the head and then to touch the brim of the hat, one
single position half-way between the two extreme ones may do for some
swift action in a humorous cartoon, but if it is for a slower action
it should have at least three positions between the extremes.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATING THE NUMBER OF DRAWINGS REQUIRED FOR A
MOVEMENT.
_Above_: for a quick movement.
_Below_: for a slower movement.]
But it doesn’t worry the skilled animator very much whether he makes
three, five, or even more drawings between the extreme positions
of any gesture or action. Nevertheless, while the artist is making
these arm movements he must put thought into the work. There is, for
instance, a certain matter with respect to drawing the relative axes
of the segments of a limb that requires reflective attention. To be
precise, suppose the action is to represent an arm moving from below
and pointing with the index-finger skyward. Now, in any directly
following phases of the movement the same degree of flexure at the
articulations must not be present in the drawings. The whole arm as
it hangs by the side, before the action begins, is nearly straight,
with very little bending at either elbow or wrist. In moving it
upward, it is not to be traced with this same relative straightness
and same degree of joint angularity in all the positions. It would
move then on the screen with the ungracefulness of an automaton.
Instead, the several drawings should have the joints—elbow and
wrist—at different degrees of flexure. Especially is this difference
to vary from one drawing to a succeeding one, with the angle at the
joint, just a little more, or just a little less. The whole matter
can be best comprehended if the artist, before depicting this
action, try it himself. Then he would see that if he moves the arm as
if it were a rigid thing, only hinged at the shoulder, the movement
would be false and not characteristic of a living organism. The
natural way is an unconstrained, easy bending movement. The animator
in his drawings slightly emphasizes this manner of moving.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATING A POINT IN ANIMATING A MOVING LIMB.
_Above_: moving automaton-like with no bending at the joints.
_Below_: moving with various degrees of flexion at the joints.]
An artist shows his aptness for character delineation in the way in
which he draws the views of a face for turning it from side to side.
A graphic caricaturist of limited scope has a proneness for adhering
to a few stencil patterns, in the matter of pose, for his characters.
Front face, profile, and occasionally a three-quarter view make up
his catalogue of facial picturing. The animator uses this delineatory
trilogy, too, in the ordinary turning of the head from side to side.
But he must be skilled, besides that of portraying a face in these
views, in drawing it in any view. And a skill that is still more
needed is that of being able to keep the portraiture of a character
throughout any series of drawings.
[Illustration:
In turning the head from profile to full face, one drawing between
the extremes is sufficient for a quick movement. But when it
is desired that the action be “smoother” two more drawings are
required.]
To keep the features the same throughout a number of drawings it is
found advantageous to spend a little more time in the preliminary
planning when creating the original sketch for the character. The
idea is not so much to make a face that is easy to draw as to give
it certain distinguishing lineaments that are recognizable in the
varying positions needed in animating it.
Besides, when originating a face for frequent repetition in a
cartoon, seeking one that can be drawn quickly and easily represented
in any view facilitates the work of the tracers.
A little trick of comic graphic artists is that of making the
features of a face in small circles, or somewhat roundish curves.
This sort of thing is not conducive to good character drawing. The
animator also uses these forms—round eyes, circle-like nose, and
a circular twist in other parts of the features. Now in his case,
this can be forgiven, perhaps, when one considers the difficulties
of his art; for these particular forms are, as we shall try to
explain immediately below, easy to copy and trace. As in caligraphy,
unfixed and diverse in its qualities and peculiarities, so with every
individual in pen drawing, certain traits occur in the strokes. In
pen-and-ink drawing the more individual and distinctive the style,
the harder it will be to copy or counterfeit it. But if the markings
approach the geometric, definite and precise, then they are easily
copied and imitated. This is why the little circles and similar
curved markings are so frequently used in animated cartoons. There is
nothing ambiguous in the lineaments of a face made with saucer-like
eyes, and a nose like a circle. Its peculiarities are quickly
noticed, easily remembered, and traced with facility.
As has been explained, an artist rarely finishes an entire set of
drawings for a film without help, but has a staff of helpers. It
can be well understood, then, that an essential to success is that
the members of this staff keep the same quality of line in all the
drawings. One of the difficulties in a staff of helpers is that of
keeping a uniformity of portraiture in the characters. And because
the circular lineaments are easy to trace that is the reason why they
are chosen to form the basis for the details of a face.
[Illustration: Easily drawn circular forms and curves make for speed
in animated cartoon work.]
There is a tendency in every one, even on the part of the author of
the original model, to depart from the first-planned type of face.
The approved way of avoiding this is to have a set of sketches of
the characters drawn on special sheets of paper that are to be used
by all the workers to trace from. In a studio with numerous workers,
all rushing to finish a five-hundred-foot reel in every week, it is
the custom to have plates engraved from the original sketches and a
number of copies printed, so that all may have a set. With these
printed copies it will then be merely a matter of having a steady
hand and an ability to trace accurately from the copy on to a fresh
sheet of paper placed over the illuminated glass of the drawing-board.
No doubt, as it has been referred to so many times, it is clearly
understood now what an important part transparent celluloid plays in
this art. It is employed not only to save the labor of reproducing a
number of times the details of a scene, but also to help keep these
details coincident, or uniform. In a face, there is a certainty that
its lineaments will be the same if it is drawn but once on celluloid;
but if it is copied each time on a long string of successive sheets
of paper, there is a likelihood that it will vary and so give the
lines on the screen an effect of wiggling about.
There are many little matters of technic and rendering that arise in
this art. For example, in making certain parts of a figure, say a
coat, in solid black, it has been found best, instead of making it an
absolute silhouette, to indicate by the thinnest of white lines the
contours of the details. A sleeve, for instance, should be outlined
with such a white line. This seems to be a lot of trouble for so
little, but, judged by the result on the screen, has been shown to be
worth while.
At this point we can touch upon the question of what is meant by
“animation.” An artist with little experience may make a series of
movement phases for an action, but when the drawings are tested it
is found that they do not animate; that is, give in synthesis the
illusion of easy motion. It may be a matter of incorrect drawing,
perhaps, or he may have the drawings nearly correct, but he has
failed to make use of certain little tricks, or, shall we say, failed
to observe certain dexterous points in the technic of the art?
We will cite one little trick—humoring the vision, if one may put it
this way: have a spot, or patch, of black repeated relatively in the
same position throughout the series of a movement. An example is that
of having the boots of a figure of a solid black. The eye catching
the two black spots as they alternately go back and forth is deluded
with respect to the forcibleness of the animation even if the walking
action is not as correctly drawn as it should be. An added effect is
given to this illusory ruse if a tiny high light is left on the toe
of each black boot.
The final test for drawings for animation is, it stands to reason,
the result on the screen. One may, though, approximately find out
whether or not any sequence of drawings animate by flapping them in
a sort of way akin to the book-form kineograph novelty noted in a
preceding chapter. Two immediately following drawings can be tested
this way: with one hand they are held near one corner pressed against
the drawing-board, then with the other hand the top drawing is moved
rapidly up and down. In this way the two drawings are synthesized
somewhat, and if the action is delineated correctly there will be
some notion of the appearance on the screen.
This little experiment crudely demonstrates the phenomenon of
after-images and the operation typifies a simple synthesizing
apparatus.
A significant addition to a scene, if it is suited to the story and
consistent with the general plan, is to have some foreground detail
in front of the moving figure, or figures. This sometimes consists
of a rock, a clump of foliage, or a tree trunk. The contrast of the
inertness in these details gives an added force to the animating
that takes place back of their mass.
[Illustration:
Foreground details of a pictorial composition help the animator in
several ways. Their inertness, for one thing, affords a contrast to
the moving figure.]
This feature of a picture is drawn on celluloid that is placed on top
of the rest of the set having to do with the particular animation.
It is possible, though, for an artist, if he is dexterous, to fasten
this inert foreground to the under-side of the glass in the frame
which is pressed down over the drawings during the photography. The
foreground feature, of course, is cut out in silhouette and fastened
with an adhesive like rubber cement. This cement is an article of
great usefulness in a photographic studio; especially for temporary
use over drawings, as it can be easily rubbed off afterward by the
friction of the finger-tips.
Radically opposite in method to the scheme described above, in which
an inert object helps the animation, is the panorama. In this screen
illusion the figure, which is thought of as moving, occupies the same
position; while the landscape, normally quiet, is in motion.
Certainly we have all experienced the sensation, when seated in
a railway-train waiting for it to go, of suddenly imagining that
it has started; when, in fact, it has not budged. This simply
has happened: while occupied with thoughts not pertaining to our
surroundings—perhaps reading—we casually caught sight of a moving
train on an adjacent track, and as we were in the state of expectancy
of at any moment being on the move, we immediately thought that our
anticipation had been fulfilled. Even if, in a moment or two, we
realize that our senses have deceived us, it is hard to shake off the
first-formed delusion of being in motion.
Now the screen panorama is a similar delusion. We see near
the centre of the screen a figure going through the motions of
progression, but we know perfectly well that he is in the same place
all the time. And we know that the landscape is drawn on a band of
paper that is pushed along back of the figure. All our knowing does
not help us. In spite of it the little figure spectrally advances and
the landscape deceptively passes by as we know it does (visionally)
when we ourselves are running very fast.
[Illustration: MAKING AN ANIMATED CARTOON PANORAMA.
The figure is depicted in a series of movement phases drawn on
separate sheets of celluloid. These are used continuously, one
at a time, and in their proper order during the photography.
The landscape, drawn on a strip of paper, moves along under the
celluloid little by little in the direction of the arrow.]
The manner in which a panorama is produced is this: the landscape
is drawn on a long strip of paper; this is to be moved little by
little and photographed at each place to which it has been moved.
The figure that is to walk, or run, is drawn in the different phases
of action on sheets of celluloid. These are placed in their order
over the landscape during the photography. The separate drawings of
the actions of the figure were drawn so that the bodies remained
relatively in the same place, but the limbs, or heads, varied in
attitudes. The planning of the action in a figure for a panorama is
proceeded with in the same way as that for producing a regular walk
or run. One special care in the work, however, is this: the limbs
as they are sketched in their appropriate attitudes in the several
drawings must not have identical outlines. That is, explaining it
in another way, if all of the set are placed together over the
illuminated tracing glass, no two drawings should correspond with
respect to the positions of the limbs. The bodies in the drawings
should exactly concur in position, but if some attention is given
to the rise and fall of the trunk, as in a typical walk, the screen
illusion will be very much better. Slightly shifting it up and down
on a vertical would effect this.
The band of paper with the landscape is moved in the direction
opposite to that in which the figure is supposed to go.
The photographer has many things to think of while he is putting
this panorama effect on a film. He must move the landscape strip;
sometimes as little as one-sixteenth of an inch at a time; put a
celluloid sheet with one of the phases of the action in place, get
it in its proper order, and then turn the camera gearing to make
the exposure. In some special cases he will have another matter to
think of; namely, a second panorama strip to move, and at a different
speed.
This is when he wishes to give a little better representation of
verisimilitude than that produced by the single panorama strip.
Far-off moving objects, as we know, appear to go slower than those
that are close to us. We are aware of this in looking at a distant
airplane high up in the sky that we know is going very fast but
seems as though it is going very slowly. And at night an illuminated
railway-train in the valley below us, when we are on an elevation,
seems to creep along like a snail.
[Illustration:
ILLUSTRATING THE APPARENT SLOWNESS OF A DISTANT MOVING OBJECT
COMPARED TO ONE PASSING CLOSE TO THE EYE.]
To bring it to pass that a panorama have the effect of near objects
going faster than those that are distant, it is necessary to have two
strips of panorama details. One strip will represent the foreground,
which is to be moved much quicker, one-eighth of an inch, or so. A
second strip will answer for the distance, which is moved, about
one-sixteenth of an inch, or even less. If the foreground strip is
moved at rather wide intervals, the effect on the screen will be a
little like that which we see from the window of a railway-coach when
telegraph-poles and near objects seem to fly by.
The panorama strip for the foreground is designed with simple
elements so that it can be cut out in silhouette and laid over the
other one. With reference to the quality of the details of a scene
on a panorama; although it is usual to fill up the whole length with
items of interest, there must be observed some degree of simplicity.
Perhaps it might be best to say that there should be a subordination
in the details, even if they are numerous, and then have some
striking feature or object occurring every once in a while, to catch
the eye and so help the movement.
Objects, too, automobiles and other vehicles, are combined with these
panoramas. This brings us to the consideration of the matter of
animating wheels, or making them turn in the screen illusion.
[Illustration: Some distinguishing mark on a wheel is needed to give
it the screen illusion of turning.]
A wheel true and accurately adjusted and going rapidly gives—with
the exception of a blurring of spokes, if there are any—very little
evidence of rotation. It is only when it turns unsteadily, or when
there is some distinguishing mark found on or near the rim, that
we see plainly that the wheel turns. Sometimes it is a stain, a
spot on the tire, a temporary repair, or a piece of paper that has
caught in the spokes that indicates a turning of the wheel. Further
amplification is needless, as a glance at the vehicles, as they pass
in the roadway, will make clear. So the animator, when he wishes to
show a wheel turning, simply copies actuality by drawing a wheel
with some such feature as noted above. A mere black spot on a wheel
near the circumference is sometimes sufficient. It is usual to have
the wheels drawn on thin cardboard and cut out and fastened in their
proper places so that they can be turned. They are turned a little at
a time and photographed after each turn.
[Illustration:
To represent the hunter in sketch _A_ suddenly trembling with fear
as in sketch _B_, two drawings, 1 and 2, with varying wavy lines
are used alternately during the photography.]
PHOTOGRAPHY AND OTHER TECHNICAL MATTERS
CHAPTER IX
PHOTOGRAPHY AND OTHER TECHNICAL MATTERS
Respecting adaptability and results, the same motion-picture camera
that is used in the field, or the studio, can be used to make films
for animated cartoons. In making cartoons, however, two particulars
at variance with the usual procedure first must be noted: (1) The
camera is pointed downward and not horizontally, as is ordinarily
the case, and (2) with each turn of the camera handle only one
frame—one-sixteenth of a foot of film—is photographed, and not eight,
as is commonly the case.
The camera in making animated cartoons is held, pointing downward, by
a firmly built framework. The artist, having decided on the dimension
of the field for his drawings, determines the height approximately
of the camera above the table top, where the drawings are placed.
Naturally it will be high enough so that when he works at the table
while disposing the drawings, adjusting the dummies, or in some cases
making drawings, his head will not come in contact with the front
of the lens. The particular distance between the lens and the table
top is dependent upon the kind of lens in the camera. It is a common
practice to equip a camera with a two-inch (fifty-millimetre) lens.
It is possible to use a lens of this focus for cartoons.
There is no special type of structure for supporting the camera above
the board upon which the drawings are placed for photography. An
artist contemplating embarking upon this line of work, and intending
to carry on the whole process from the beginning to the time when he
hands the exposed film to the laboratory for development, will have a
chance to put any inventive ability that he may have into practice in
designing a framework for the purpose. In building such a structure
these things must be thought of: (1) The structure must be firmly
built so that the likelihood of the camera being jarred is lessened;
(2) the distance between the camera and board to be ascertained,
approximately at first; (3) an arrangement for fixing the camera in
a grooved sliding section so that its exact height can be adjusted
when the field and focus are definitely fixed or there is to be any
later readjustment. The camera, for instance, may get jarred and put
out of focus, or get set obliquely with respect to the lines defining
the field.
[Illustration: TYPICAL ARRANGEMENT OF CAMERA AND LIGHTS TO PHOTOGRAPH
DRAWINGS FOR ANIMATED CARTOONS.
_C._ Camera. _L._ Lights. _M._ Mechanism to turn camera shutter.
_F._ Hinged frame with glass to press down on the drawings. _B._
Board holding the registering pegs.]
Some animators have mounted their camera so that the same framework
can be used for a small field as well as a larger one. This
necessitates, each time that the size of field is changed, a
troublesome setting of the camera in order again. It is wisdom to
keep to one size of field for all work, so that when the camera is
once in position it need not be changed.
The frame that holds the glass, and which is hinged to the board
where the drawings are placed, and the registering pegs have already
been described. It is an excellent plan to have this board with the
above-named adjuncts separate but screwed down upon the table top. By
having it this way it is possible to have another means of getting
the camera and the field lines adjusted. Then if the outline of the
field on the board and those defining the field in the camera do not
fit each other exactly, the board can be unscrewed, shifted until it
is right, and fastened again.
In any film where there is a preponderance of straight
lines—horizontal ones, especially—it is a serious fault to have
the slightest obliquity. It will be emphasized on the screen. The
outlines of the little rectangular area, where the pictures are
taken in the camera, must coincide with the outlines of the field
on the board. When the field is fixed and permanently marked with
ink lines, it is a good plan to draw a smaller rectangle, one-half
inch all around, within the outer one. The idea of this is to have a
limiting area within which all important matters of the drawing are
kept.
If the animator has had any experience with the ordinary still
camera, the practical knowledge gained then will help him in the
matter of focussing, or regulating the diaphragm of the lens, so that
all the details of the picture are sharply defined. This comes next,
or rather in conjunction with the determining of the field and the
permanent fixing of the camera. In a still camera—that is to say,
an ordinary portrait or view apparatus—the focussing is on a ground
glass, while in a cinematographic instrument it is usual to place a
piece of celluloid with a grained surface somewhat like ground glass
into the place where the film passes. The picture is focussed on this
celluloid. Some, however, find a piece of blank film answers the
purpose.
To the above consideration of setting up the camera and ascertaining
the correctness of the field and the sharpness of the image, the
worker wise in perception will, before beginning any important work,
make a test. This is merely a matter of photographing a drawing, or
two, on a short length of film, taking it out of the camera, and
developing it. Here, again, any knowledge of photographic processes
previously learned will be found useful.
There are in all metropolitan centres film laboratories to which the
animator can send his exposed films to be developed and printed. But
for a test before beginning the work it is prudent and expeditious to
keep a supply of chemicals on hand, and then, in a few minutes, it
will be possible to tell how matters stand in any particular that is
in doubt.
The next step, after the camera has been fixed in place, is to
construct a mechanism by which it can be turned conveniently by the
photographer, as he is seated below at the board where the drawings
are placed. This is contrived by a system of sprocket-wheels and
chain-belts coming from the camera and carried down to the side of
the table top, where it ends in a wheel with a turning handle. For
the average individual this would not be a difficult construction
to put up; but it would be an altogether different problem if the
animator wished to equip his camera with an electric motor to turn
the camera mechanism. In this case he would have many things to
consider, getting the particular type of motor, for instance, that
will operate with the continual turning on and off of the power. Here
certainly the best course is to have an expert install the motor and
fix the intermediary mechanism connecting it with the camera-working
parts.
Electric motors to drive camera mechanisms are in general use among
those who make titles for moving-picture films. For this particular
branch of the industry they are an indispensable adjunct.
[Illustration: PART OF A LENGTH OF FILM FOR A TITLE.
For every second that the wording is viewed on the screen, sixteen
of these frames pass through the projector.]
It would seem to the spectator in the theatre, unfamiliar with the
technic of cinematography, that when he sees a title held on the
screen for any lengthy period, the practical way of effecting this
would be to have a single picture of this title kept stationary
during the period. But this is not the way the matter is worked out.
A title in a screen story is given a certain length of film, with
every frame in this length containing the same words. The particular
length—footage—allowed for a title depends upon the amount of its
reading-matter. Some titles are very long. One such, requiring,
say, fifteen feet, makes it necessary to turn the camera handle
two hundred and forty times, if the operation is by hand. A very
monotonous job. So title studios attach a motor and appropriate
mechanism to a camera, and with it, too, an automatic counter. Then
in photographing a title it is a simple matter of starting the
mechanically driven shutter, watching the figures on the counter
dial, and when the required exposures have been registered, pulling
the lever that stops the mechanism. Where a camera, however, is
used for animated drawings exclusively, a motor is not absolutely
necessary.
An automatic counter would be a very useful addition to a camera in
making dissolves. One form of these fantasies is that in which the
screen is perfectly black at first and then a small spot of light
appears, which grows larger by degrees, to reveal at the full opening
the scene or subject of the film. This is produced by a vignetter, or
iris dissolve. A vignetter is a device, fixed generally in front of a
lens, that consists of a number of crescent-shaped segments of thin
metal pivoted on a circumference. When these segments move in unison
toward the centre, they gradually decrease the aperture in the lens
tube. But when the movement is in a contrary direction, they cause
the aperture to open by degrees. Those who have used an ordinary
snap-shot camera no doubt are familiar with a similar device—the iris
diaphragm, or lens stop. But in the diaphragm the segments do not
completely close, and there is always a tiny opening left in the
centre. The iris dissolve, or vignetter, is made to close completely.
The way by which pictures are “faded on” is to start with the
vignetter closed and then open it while the camera handle is turned
to take the picture. To “fade off” a picture, the process is simply
reversed; _i. e._, gradually closing the vignetter while the last
part of the picture is being taken.
The most frequent application that an animated cartoon artist makes
of a vignetter is making cross dissolves, or causing one picture
to blend into another. Imagine now that the idea to be expressed,
through the medium of one of these cross dissolves, is that of a
character standing in an attitude of reflection and supposed to be
thinking of how he would look in a complete suit of armor. There
will be two drawings: one with the figure in ordinary dress, and the
other with him clad in the armor. First the picture with ordinary
dress is photographed. During this operation the vignetter is closed
by degrees. When it is closed, the film that was just photographed
upon is wound back again into the magazine. Now, as we know, during
this procedure the light, which was getting weaker and weaker,
proportionately lessened its effect on the sensitized emulsion of the
film, so that its picture-forming property was not all used up. There
is still a certain proportion of photographic potency left for the
next exposure. The next step is to replace the first drawing with the
one showing the character in armor.
[Illustration: VIGNETTER, OR IRIS DISSOLVE.
_Below_: Three stages during the movement of the pivoted segments.]
We left the vignetter completely closed, and the same length of film
that had just passed back of the lens has been wound back into
the magazine and is ready to cross the exposure field again and be
photographed upon the second time. Now the vignetter is gradually
opened, the new picture is being taken and blended with the image of
the first picture.
These two procedures in their method of operating and their effects
compensate one another. The gradual closing of the vignetter has its
reciprocal part in the gradual opening; the lessening of the light
strength is reciprocal to the increase of the light strength; then
the fading of definiteness in one picture is made up by the gradually
increasing clearness in the other.
In trick work of this kind a mechanical counter would be very useful
in measuring the length of film as it is turned into the magazine
and then out again. It is understood, of course, that our particular
counter also counts backward. And, again, with reference to cameras:
an animator when he selects his camera should be certain that he gets
one with which it is possible to turn the camera backward for making
these dissolves and any other trick work involving like manipulation.
Immediately above we gave certain reasons for the making of tests on
a small piece of film before photographing. Another matter for which
tests should be made is the question of illumination. It is important
that the field should be evenly illuminated. All this is an affair of
adjusting the lights; that is, getting them one on each side of the
camera in their proper positions with reference to the lens opening
and the distance away from the drawing-board.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM TO EXPLAIN THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIGHT IN A
CROSS DISSOLVE.
_A._ When the vignetter is gradually closed during the taking of
the first picture. (The film having been wound back is ready to be
photographed upon again for the second part of the procedure.) _B._
While the vignetter is gradually opened during the taking of the
second picture. _C._ The percentages of light in the two exposures
combined and giving the complete exposure time.]
The mercury vapor-lamp which, as has been mentioned, is in general
use for cartoon films, has besides its illuminating qualities
another great merit. It is this: it does not emit heat rays. When
it is remembered that an artist sometimes spends hours at a stretch
photographing his numerous drawings for a cartoon film, and that all
this time his head is but a few inches from the lights, this absence
of heat is a desirable feature.
The manner of going about the photography, which is the next stage of
the work, has been touched upon in another part of the book.
There are many more minute particulars in the making of an animated
film to be considered. Take, for instance, the technical questions
respecting the preparation of the drawings. In the process where most
of the drawings are made on paper, the paper should be a fair quality
of white linen ledger paper—but not too thick, as transparency is
a thing to think of, and it is preferable, too, that there be no
water-mark. The design of a water-mark would be a disturbing element
in tracing from one drawing to another. Ordinary black drawing ink
is used for the line work, but when a large area is to be solid
black, it has been found best to employ one of the black varnish
stains that are mixed with turpentine. In spite of the turpentine
medium it is possible to apply it to paper. These black stains are an
intense black and do not lose their strength when viewed through the
celluloid sheets.
It is not usual to obliterate a mistake in drawing with white
pigment, as it is an uncertain quantity in photography. Whether or
not it will come out as a patch of gray, or photograph correctly
as white, is difficult to judge beforehand. It is best to take out
ink lines that are not wanted with a sharp-bladed penknife and then
smooth the surface of the paper with an ink eraser (of rubber).
In drawing over the smooth surface of the celluloid a preliminary
cleaning with weak ammonia water will make the ink flow evenly. It
is of course understood that the celluloid sheets can be used again
after any particular film is finished. Ink or pigment can very easily
be washed off with water.
In drawing on celluloid with a pen it is well to select one that
will not scratch the surface. Scratches will hold, in their shallow
depths, enough ink or pigment to break the evenness of a uniform
background. They will come out as spots on the film. A well-worn pen,
one that has been “broken in,” as the pen draftsmen say, is the best.
The scheme of employing celluloid sheets to hold simple ink drawings,
which scheme is in common usage in the art, has been adapted to the
purpose of holding intricate drawings in distemper pigment. Before
drawing any series of movements on celluloid it is the usual plan to
work out all the scenes and actions on paper first and then trace
them, from these drawings, to the surface of the celluloid.
When the drawings for a cartoon have been photographed, the
magazine into which the exposed film has been wound is taken out
of the camera. Then, in the dark room, the film is taken out of
this magazine and put into a regulation tin can and sent to the
laboratory. And so as to make it quite certain that the lid will not
slip off and spoil the whole reel, it is sealed around the edge with
a piece of adhesive tape.
After the film has been developed, the next step in the process
is that of printing the positive. This as well as the remaining
technical matters is attended to by the laboratory. Titles, to
be sure, could have been made at the same time that the animated
pictures were taken; but it is found advisable to have titles made by
a studio that does this work exclusively and then have them joined to
the film in their proper order.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATING THE OPERATION OF ONE TYPE OF
MOTION-PICTURE PRINTER.]
With respect to this joining, or splicing, this is also looked after
for the animator at the film laboratory. But as it is not difficult
to do, the animator—impatient to have his film completed, and not
caring to wait until the laboratory finish it—will try his hand at
it, no doubt.
[Illustration: ANOTHER PLAN FOR AN ANIMATOR’S DRAWING-BOARD.
Reflecting the light with a mirror does away with the direct glare of
the electric lamp.]
He needs for this a little device to hold the two ends of the film
together in their proper relationship while he spreads on the
overlapping section a little film cement. This is a firm adhesive.
The emulsion on the film where the cement is spread must be removed
by a little moistening.
When the positive is entirely finished, with main title and
subtitles, it is ready for screen examination. Then only will the
artist be able to see, as a finality, his skill as an animator, his
expertness as a technical worker, his cleverness as a humorist, and
the extent of his adroitness in plot construction.
[Illustration: CANINE THOUGHTS.
In giving screen life to the above, the dog and dish would be drawn
but once on celluloid and the other parts separately drawn for each
phase of the movement.]
ON HUMOROUS EFFECTS AND ON PLOTS
CHAPTER X
ON HUMOROUS EFFECTS AND ON PLOTS
The purpose of the animated cartoon being to amuse, the experienced
animator makes it his aim to get, as the saying goes in the trade, a
laugh in every foot of film. The animated cartoon is allied in its
kind to an extravagant farce or a lively comedy of the spoken stage.
Although strongly limned character and that there be something moving
all the time seem to be the two important ingredients of a film of
this type, it is not to be forgotten that plot is an essential in the
work.
Naturally, a scenario, or skeletonized plan of the story, is
written out first. The full details of the action and business,
from the beginning to the very end, are not worked out as they are
in a manuscript for a stage play. It is simply that some sort of a
framework, on which to build the story, is first required.
In the early days of the art a film with a string of incidents only,
but with plenty of movement in the animated figures, would find
a ready market and an appreciative audience. At the present time
not only must the pictorial properties be well rendered imageries
of nature but the story must be artistic in form. This signifies
that the idea of plot, and all its attendant concomitants, should
be present. The usual requirements of a dramatic story are now
sought for in an animated cartoon. The plot must be the orderly
establishment of parts leading up to some main point, or the working
to a climax and a subsequent untangling of it all.
[Illustration: PLENTY OF MOVEMENT IS DEMANDED IN SCREEN PICTURES.]
If the artist does write the first sketch of the play himself, he at
least will elaborate it and add various bits of dramatic business.
This is all very well if he understands and knows what he is
about, but if, on the other hand, he has not the dramatic idea, his
additions are quite likely to confuse the story.
Whether a film is for the purpose of amusement or to educate, the
plan should show that the attainment of something is being striven
for. In an educational film this is brought about by an adherence to
pedagogical principles. If it is a comic story, due regard must be
paid to dramatic construction.
It is obvious that if a humorous scenario has but two characters
this will simplify the telling, and the idea of their antagonisms,
obstacles, and embarrassing difficulties are easily told. The clash
and the struggle between the two can be expressed in many simple
ways, the story carried on, curiosity stimulated, and an expectant
feeling engendered as to what will happen. The final episode is apt
to be some calamitous fall with the whole picture area perhaps filled
with a graphic representation of an explosion, to be followed by an
after-climax, when the smoke has cleared away, of the victim rubbing
his head.
To be sure, an animated cartoon needs a good many more incidents
than one calamitous occurrence. It is indispensable, for the sake
of an uninterrupted animation, that it should have a succession of
distressing mishaps, growing in violence. This idea of a cumulative
chain of actions, increasing in force and resultant misfortune, is
peculiarly adapted to animated drawings.
The animator, if he is a good draftsman, can manage his little
picture people much easier than the theatrical manager does the
members of his company. A great danger, nevertheless, is that the
animator, with this facility of doing whatever he pleases with his
characters, may overdo the matter. He must be careful that he does
not create too much business for his actors, and so retard the
sequence of those episodes proper to the plot.
The very best type of animated cartoon tells the story from the very
first incidents and throughout its whole continuance to the crisis,
and the ending by pantomimic acting only. This means that there is
no dialogue lettered on the drawings themselves. Symbolical signs,
like exclamation-marks, sound-suggesting letters, or the like, are
naturally proper and happy additions to drawings; but as little
dialogue as possible should be used in drawings. They break the
continuity of the animation, for one thing. Although it is true that
balloons with their wording make an easy way for the animator to have
the automatic counter register “footage” (a consideration appealing
to the business sense of the artist), it is only when there is a good
jest brought out that lettering on the drawings themselves can be
forgiven.
[Illustration: THE PLAINT OF INANIMATE THINGS CAN BE RENDERED
EFFECTIVELY ON THE SCREEN.]
In the early period of the development of animated comic drawings,
not even subtitles were interspersed throughout a film. The entire
story was told by pantomime. Nowadays it is becoming the fashion
to use subtitles, and have them to introduce incidentals, mark
a change of scene, or bring in a witty remark. Wording brought
into a cartoon film this way is often felicitous and technically
legitimate. But dialogue, as has been stated, should be kept out of
the drawings themselves, not only for the sake of artistic form,
but for commercial reasons. (Films intended for exportation to
countries where English is not spoken are much more valuable if they
are without lettering in the pictorial parts. With all wording on
separate titles, it is very easy to change them and have them joined
to the film proper.)
The above statement with its frank allusion to a matter of business
seems to be getting away from our subject; but it is not, as it
calls to our attention the principal quality of a comic screen
drawing—namely, pantomime—and it emphasizes, too, the universality of
pantomime. An animated cartoon clever in gesturing is understood by
all races.
It is to be remembered that pantomime is a matter of interpretation,
both on the stage by an actor and by the artist when he essays to
represent it pictorially. If it were an actual copying of nature, it
only would be as interesting as a normal photograph; and that is not
very interesting. As in all interpretative arts there is a slight
betrayal of the mechanical means, or processes, so in pantomime there
is a suggestion of the mechanistic. Let us recall the rhythmical and
toy-like movements of the actors whom we have seen playing in some
whimsical dumb show.
How often do the clowns pretend in their foolery that they are
automatons, or that they can move only by mechanistic motions.
They find need, too, in their ludicrous acting, for mechanical
properties—slap sticks, absurd objects, or toys.
It is very certain that there are some forms of motion productive of
laughter that do not imitate actions natural to the human organism,
but seem to acquire their power of risibility from their resemblance
to mechanical motion. This is on the order of the notion that Bergson
has elaborated upon in his treatise in explanation of the comic. He
states, in substance, as one law of the ludicrous, that the human
body appears laughable when its movements give a similitude of a
machine in operation. There is no question of the correctness of this
view as a matter of mere exterior observation. Rather it seems to us
that machine-like movements in organic bodies amuse us because of
the rhythmic, orderly, or periodic occurrences of these movements in
themselves, and not to any matter of comparison.
In a boisterous low comedy it is always incumbent upon the victim of
a blow to reel around like a top before he falls. It never fails to
bring laughter. An effect like this is easy to produce in animated
cartoons. There is no need to consider physiological impossibilities
of the human organism, the artist can make his characters spin as
much as he pleases.
In a screen picture two boys will be seen fighting; at first they
will parry a few blows, then suddenly begin to whirl around so that
nothing is visible but a confused mass and an occasional detail like
an arm or leg. It will be exactly like a revolving pinwheel. This
is made on the film by having a drawing representing the boys as
clinched and turning it around as if it were a pinwheel.
In a panorama screen effect it seems to be sufficiently realistic,
for laughter purposes, to have the legs and arms of the individual in
a hurry give a blurred impression, in some degree, like that of the
spokes of a rapidly turning wheel.
[Illustration:
The pinwheel effect of the two boys that have come to blows is
produced by turning around to four different positions a drawing
representing the boys fighting.]
It is an indisputable fact that the human mind finds fascination in
any movement resembling a rotary one. Witness the interest that a
novel mechanism or an automatic toy creates in a shop-window. Such
interest is still further stimulated if there is an added item of
anything of the human, or something definite accomplished in the
operations.
We require, it seems, if we are really alive, not occasional, but
constant, stimuli of some sort. When we become weary of toil—which
in itself is often an unwelcome and imposed form of stimulus—we
seek stimuli in recreation. Or if we haven’t energy enough for the
self-stimulation of sports, or the like activity, we look for it
outside of ourselves.
Perhaps it is music, exciting us metronomically; or a play where our
emotions are agitated—rhythmically or in dissonance; maybe it is a
circus or the music-hall, where color and sound vibrations stimulate
us. Everywhere it will be some form of measured time, movement, or
rotation, whether the theme be comic or serious.
Idlers will stop to gaze at a machine in motion where there is
building going on, or they will stop to peer into the windows of
a busy factory. There is something in all this that shows that the
human mind craves the periodicity of stimulation.
Perhaps one of the reasons why those crudely executed white on
black animated cartoons—alluded to in a preceding chapter—are so
laugh-provoking is that they represent the characters performing
their antics more or less mechanically. A windmill effect, a
twirling, a spinning, and a merry-go-round movement are of striking
import in animated cartoons. They never fail to cause laughter when
depicted in some such fashion or other.
Sometimes in a pursuit in a comic picture there is an introduction of
a chase around a house or around a tree. The gyration about the house
is particularly productive of laughter. The slight interruption while
the figure passes back of the house gives occasion for the necessary
pause in this comic business.
The author recalls a film of real people and scenes that exemplified
the potency of a mechanical turning and the value of a pause for
laugh-provoking purposes. The scene represented a tiny bungalow that
was blown from its foundation by the force of the storm and made
to revolve as if it were pivoted in the centre. The droll character
of the play saved himself from being blown away by clinging to one
corner of the porch. The laughter of the audience although continuous
came in waves of different strength. The twirling house itself caused
laughter, but it increased when the ludicrous figure clinging to the
porch came into view, and it decreased when he disappeared while he
was being twirled around the far side of the house.
Possibly one of the reasons why this performance was so successful
was because this movement allowed for the physiological necessity
of a rest on the part of the spectators. The emotional excitement
would have been fatiguing to the breaking point had the incitement to
laughter been continuous. The humorous proceeding operated so that
any individual member of the audience was not compelled to shake or
be agitated by laughter all the time, but could slacken up and rest
rhythmically.
[Illustration: A cycle of drawings, like those above, used in turn
and repeated for a time will give the screen illusion of a man
spinning like a top.]
The need of a rhythmic slowing-up, or pause, to allow for a respite
for the emotions and the convulsed physical organism is well
illustrated in the following incident often introduced into animated
scenes. A little figure is observed running up hill and down dale.
The manner of his performance is like this: he runs up the first hill
and disappears; there is a moment or so when the scene is empty and
during which he is supposed to be running down the far side of the
hill. Soon he is discovered running up the second hill, at the top of
which he again disappears for a time to run down its far side. In
another moment he is scrambling up the next hill and down the other
side again. This continues until he is lost as a tiny black spot near
the horizon.
[Illustration: A blurred impression like that of the spokes of a
turning wheel is regarded as funny in comic picturing.]
This disjointed hill-climbing causes hilarious laughter and, as
in the case cited above, comes in waves. The rise and fall of the
laughter waves can be distinguished as the little figure runs up the
hills and down the valleys.
A pause is a necessary element in any continued comic situation. It
is, in fact, proper to any series intended to arouse the emotion of
laughter. And in some respects a pause corresponds to the negative
moment of flexion—adverting our thoughts for a moment to physical
activity—while the outburst of laughter corresponds to the positivity
of extension.
A bit of striking animation is that of having a continuous stream
of individuals pouring out of a building, or a procession of funny
animals coming out of a receptacle from which we did not expect such
a parade. These episodes of movement do resemble a parade—a species
of regularly recurring stimulation.
[Illustration: FROM “THE ‘BAB’ BALLADS.”]
The psychological questions in regard to these effects is related
certainly to the matter of the delight of the human mind in a
stirring up by repetition. Undoubtedly the same liking or pleasure
in these little bits of screen animation bear a resemblance to
the delight experienced in watching a parade. What is there in
a spectacle of this sort that tickles our senses? Is it the
regularness of the step-keeping, the hypnotic music of the band, or
the show of varied uniforms? Perhaps the principles of unity and
variety—two essentials of any art work—enter into the matter. The
variety in the uniforms of the different sections satisfies the eye,
and the unity of the marching pleases the mind.
[Illustration: Pictures of this sort can be presented on the screen
more vividly than in this simple graphic sketch.]
Keeping step is an artificial recurrence of movement. It pleases,
of course, but when this motion is rendered strongly mechanistic
it takes on immediately an element of the comic. In some of the
little figures drolly drawn by Bab (W. S. Gilbert, of “Pinafore” and
“Mikado” fame), this is well expressed. A little picture of his,
for instance, shows three tiny men stepping out like mechanically
operated toys.
[Illustration: HATS.]
[Illustration: (Cartoon man chasing hat) ]
One of the most primitive of practical jokes is that of throwing
a stone at a hat on some one’s head. And its most aggravated form
as a joke is that in which the hat is of a stovepipe pattern. In
a humorous stage play, merely to show an individual with a stone
in his hand while a sprucely dressed one wearing a high hat is
passing is motive enough to cause laughter. The graphic artist
copies this situation by representing a stone in the air nearing the
hat. Action lines, as they are called, indicate that the missile is
flying through the air. In both of these cases—in reality and in
the picture—mere anticipation is enough to awaken the risibilities.
The animator, of course, can gratify both the spectator’s joy of
anticipation and the mischievous delight of seeing the consummation
of the action.
[Illustration: Radiating “dent” lines give emphasis to this bludgeon
blow.]
Many professional entertainers have built their reputation on some
dramatic business with hats. Either they wear some odd head-gear
or else it will be in their manner of wearing a hat or a trick in
doffing it. If a hat is too small, it is sure to create laughter; and
if too large, it is a certainty that there will be mocking hilarity.
And even if it is of the right size, it need only to be perched on
the head at an angle to be considered ludicrous.
[Illustration: A chase around some object is a never-failing
laugh-provoking incident in an animated cartoon.]
The spirited screen actors, too, of the animator’s pencil are shown
going through all sorts of strange doings with their hats.
ANIMATED EDUCATIONAL FILMS AND THE FUTURE
CHAPTER XI
ANIMATED EDUCATIONAL FILMS AND THE FUTURE
Nearly everything in our book so far, in accord with its title, has
had reference to the making of comic screen drawings. They gratify
a proper human longing and they strike a responsive chord in the
consciousness. Now there is another kind of appeal, in the matter of
satisfying a human need, to which animated screen drawings can be
put. It is that touched upon in the introductory chapter; namely,
animated films of educational subjects. By educational films would
be meant, if the strict definition of the term is intended, only
those that are instructional. It is to be remarked, however, that
enlightened opinion now includes in the category of educational
subjects any theme, or story for children, even if a slight touch of
the humorous or diverting is to be found in it.
The kind of stories, with the latter thought particularly in mind,
especially fitted for the screen are those of Lewis Carroll. His
“Alice in Wonderland” is a good example of the type of fanciful tale
on the order of which animated cartoons could be made for children.
And Sir John Tenniel’s interpretations of the characters seem to
have been created especially for translation to the animated screen.
The Mad Hatter, with his huge beaver (signalizing again the hat as
inspiring the comic), would make an admirable figure to pace across
the screen.
[Illustration: THE MAD HATTER.]
An artist desiring to be the author of an animated story built on the
model of Carroll’s classics would need a gleeful imagination and a
turn for the fantastic. And he would require, besides, if he hoped to
draw characters on a par with Tenniel’s depictions, more than the
ordinary qualifications of a screen draftsman.
As in the rough-and-tumble antics of the rustic clown little
refinement is either prevalent or expected, so in the ordinary
comic animated cartoon exquisiteness of drawing is neither found
nor ordinarily looked for. But in a story with fineness of wit,
and told artistically, it is obligatory that its interpretation
be of a corresponding quality. It is necessary, in other words,
that the artist be good at figure work and especially skilful in
drawing difficult actions and perspective walks. As remarked before,
when the latter subject was considered, this requires dexterity in
picturing figures in foreshortened views. And to become expert in
this particular means study. For examples of foreshortened figures
to contemplate, the student of animation can find no better ones
than those in the frescos of Michael Angelo. Especially valuable
are the decorations of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Photographs or
copies, no doubt, of these wonderful art works can be found in the
print-rooms of public libraries or in any collection of engravings of
a picture-gallery.
[Illustration: DETAIL OF A FRESCO BY MICHAEL ANGELO.]
It is an entertaining speculation as to whether or not Michael
Angelo, being a man of many artistic activities, would have tried his
hand at animating drawings, had the art been in existence in his time.
In our own day, patterns for emulation in the matter of depicting
action and the delineation of character are found in the drawings of
Mr. A. B. Frost. Witness his achievements in these respects in his
book “Stuff and Nonsense.” Then, too, Mr. Frost’s appreciation of the
comic spirit is particularly noteworthy. His graphic work could with
every success be set forth on the animated screen.
[Illustration: MR. FROST’S SPIRITED DELINEATION OF FIGURES IN ACTION.]
The old-fashioned peep-show has long since passed its way, and in its
place has come the cinematographic exhibition. Children consider it
a commonplace occurrence in their lives to be taken to the “movies.”
Very soon they will imbibe knowledge as well as receive entertainment
through the medium of the films. There are many instructional themes
that could be elucidated in the school by animated drawings.
[Illustration: THE PEEP-SHOW.
Detail of a composition of a French eighteenth-century tapestry
designed by Boucher.]
Educational, travel, and scenic films are frequently presented in
motion-picture theatres, but the possibilities in these subjects have
not been exhausted.
Some of the first investigators who looked into the problems
connected with photographic analysis and pictorial synthesis to
produce the appearance of movement had ideas of applying the results
of their labors to practical purposes. M. G. Demeny, in Paris, to
cite an instance, invented an instrument by which deaf-mutes could
learn to speak and to read lip movements. His instrument consisted
of an optical contrivance that gave the representation of a person
speaking by the turning of a glass disk upon which there was placed
a series of photographs of a person speaking. The pictures were
arranged in a cycle which, when the disk was made to rotate, produced
a continuous effect of the action.
[Illustration: DEMENY’S PHONOSCOPE.
Modified from a picture in _La Nature_, 1892.]
One form of this apparatus, or photophone, was made to be turned by
hand, and the combined picture or illusion viewed through a lens
by one person at a time. Another type was constructed so that the
synthesized picture of the speaking face could be thrown on a screen.
There is a natural curiosity in nearly every one to want to know
about methods in art. And the interest is general in watching a
craftsman create an object of art, or an artist bring into graphic
being some imagery of his brain. It would not be out of place for
these reasons, as well as a matter of instruction, to produce films
showing art methods.
Especially for elementary pupils would it be a desirable thing to
show the way of making simple free-hand drawings. Then, instead of an
instructor repeating the process—sometimes with indifferent interest
or enthusiasm—it can be arranged that some one skilled in drawing,
and when he is feeling at his best, go through the procedure under
the motion-picture camera. The result could be multiplied a number of
times and shown in many classrooms with an evenness of performance
not possible when some one does it day in and day out.
Methods and principles of the more advanced branches of art
instruction—pictorial composition, for instance, could be taught, too.
As one example, we will suppose that the purpose is to show what
good pictorial composition is. First an indifferent picture, poorly
arranged, is shown; the various components appear on the screen
exactly as they would in making a picture on canvas or paper; then
little things pointed out that are lacking in artistic merit,
or an explanation given of any detail that is not quite clear.
(For this purpose a drawing of a pointer is made on cardboard
and cut out in silhouette. It is moved around precisely as if it
were a real pointer.) After showing the faulty construction the
various components can be moved again, but into places to form the
well-composed picture.
Methods of designing in the crafts could be demonstrated by animated
drawings; and they could also be employed to explain visually the
story or history of design. Ornament can be shown as it evolves from
its natural form, to the first rudimentary basic type; then it passes
into the best classical style, after which it becomes, as in all art
evolution, the merely decorative. And it can be shown, as is usually
the case in the history of an ornamental form, terminating in a
debased and meaningless figure or scroll. All these screen pictures
could be managed so that the pictures go through their mutations
before the eyes as if they were living things.
Presuming that in the acquiring of knowledge all brains function in
a similar way, what could be better as a means of instruction than a
film of some educational subject?
In any special study or theme in physics, for instance, an entire
course could be planned for an animated film. Some of the divisions
of the theme could be actual photographs of the experimental
apparatus in operation. But other matters would need to be moving
diagrams, or progressively changing charts. Explanations on the
titles and other wording, previously thought out with due regard to
their educational value, would be combined with the film.
Could there be anything more interesting than screen drawings of
machinery in operation? To draw the successive pictures required for
work of this character would present no great difficulties to any one
trained in mechanical drafting. It would be a great improvement on
the diagrams and mechanical plans with their complicated markings to
see the work of the draftsman projected on the screen and giving the
appearance of motion. With vivid object-lessons of this kind, the
eye can comprehend in a few moments that which it would take lengthy
paragraphs to make clear.
[Illustration: A FEW OF THE DRAWINGS USED IN THE MAKING OF A FILM TO
SHOW A GASOLENE-ENGINE IN OPERATION.]
On this subject of animating machinery, it is an interesting fact to
note that as early as 1860, Desvignes, who invented one form of the
zootrope, is recorded as having made a series of pictures for his
optical instrument that showed a steam-engine in motion.
The teaching of history could be made still more interesting than
it is by series of changing maps. Such maps would show, as their
outlines changed, the growth or modification of a country as affected
by events of history. Historical battles could be illustrated with
the usual reference marks and symbols. But they would not be still;
instead, they would move about to illustrate the progress of the
battle. This form of animated maps frequently has been used in
connection with pictorial-news reels.
Physiology and anatomy are two studies that need good pictorial
exposition in the classroom. Scientific moving pictures of the actual
subjects are in many cases available and their photography is
feasible. But for some details that cannot be taken with the camera,
animated diagrams would have to be substituted. To suggest a very
good theme in physiology, we may mention that of the circulation of
the blood. Only a few particulars of this could be photographed.
Most of the story of the blood circulation would have to be told by
animated diagrams.
There would be at first, perhaps, a sectional view of the heart
showing the auricles, and ventricles with the valves and their
reciprocal action. The flow of the vital fluid, to be sure, would be
indicated very clearly as it passes through the cavities. A striking
animation of this film would be that of the blood flow in its course
through the body. This would be represented by a schematic diagram
like those usually set forth in the books. It would have an added
interest if the fluid were colored—the arterial blood red and the
venous blood blue. (This is the usual way, when printed in colors, in
which they are distinguished in textbooks.) A film like this, it can
be understood, must be planned well—a scenario practically would be
written for it.
The manner in which the muscles move the bony frame of the body can
be strikingly demonstrated by animated diagrams. Take as a simple
case the bending of the arm. The two antagonist muscles of the front
and the back of the upper arm can be made to show as swelling and
lengthening, alternately, as they flex and extend the forearm.
[Illustration: THE ACTION OF THE MUSCLES ON THE FRAME COULD BE SHOWN
ON THE SCREEN.
A series of drawings like this would be the first thing to prepare
for making the film.]
A similar animation of the skeleton would be that of the bony levers
in the human frame. And as a comparison, actual mechanical levers of
all three orders could be made to operate in connection with the
levers in the skeleton.
It would be possible, to some extent, to put the “Origin of
Species” on the screen with the help of animated diagrams. For the
vertebrates, a section of the film could represent a schematic
evolutionary tree. On it, the lower forms of back-bone life, such
as amphibians and fishes, would be placed on an offshoot near the
lowest part of the main trunk. Odd creatures like marsupials would
branch off a little higher up, and still higher a larger branch of
the tree would split into two minor branches for reptiles and birds,
respectively.
The tree would show above a branching off into three important
divisions for the ungulates, carnivores, and quadrumana. The story
could be continued by separate delineations of the different branches
and tell in further detail the development of the forms that belong
to them.
The art of the animated cartoon and the educational screen drawing
has as yet not been developed to its highest point. It needs, for one
thing, color. Such films are only shown, at present, in monochrome
or simple outlines. Of course colored cartoons will come. Effecting
the tinting by hand would be easy as a process, but very tedious
and costly. A practical way of coloring the ordinary photographic
film is now in use by tinting them with the aid of stencils. Both
the stencil-cutting and the coloring are accomplished by the help of
machinery.
At present there are color processes that produce very beautiful
photographs on the screen; but they do not show, at least in those
that so far have come under the observation of the author, all colors
of nature. The craft is awaiting the inspired inventor who will
produce motion-pictures in colors that will exhibit nature’s full
range of hues and shades. Then in comparison with Niepce’s simple
process, of about 1824, of fixing a lens-formed image upon a metal
plate coated with bitumen, the photographic art will have attained to
a marvellous degree of technical development.
A consummate color process should reproduce, too, an artist’s work
upon the canvas without losing any variations of hue that he has set
forth. Then it will be possible to have animated paintings. One will
go, when this wonder has been achieved, to an exhibition gallery to
see art works with the additional interest of movement as well as
those of color and individual interpretation. And, too, our museums
will have projecting rooms and fireproof libraries for keeping films.
It seems like fantastic dreaming to hold such notions; but many
things that were once considered purely visionary—have now become
commonplaces.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations.
Illustrations without captions have had a description added, this is
denoted with parentheses.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Pg xx: “Michel” replaced with “Michael”
Pg 31: “give” replaced with “gave”
Pg 40: “Franscisco” replaced with “Francisco”
Pg 45: “Word’s” replaced with “World’s”
Pg 73: “constructon” replaced with “construction”
Pg 102: “its” replaced with “it”
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