Illusion of Life: Disney Animation Overview
As animation progressed into the late 30’s and 40’s, the so called Golden Age of Animation, Walt Disney pushed his team to be more cutting edge and more innovative than anyone else in the business. Disney brought in professors from local colleges to teach anatomy classes and movement drawing. He insisted that the animators go to vaudeville shows to study live action and continually got the best work possible out of them. As audiences’ taste in animation became more sophisticated, they expected higher quality films. Disney decided it was time to tackle a feature length film. He relied heavily on his animating team for their expertise and input in the production. He appointed four animators to be the directors of the first feature length film, Snow White.
The first of the directors was Norm Ferguson, aka Fergy. He was a quiet, introverted man with no formal art training. He took most of his inspiration from vaudeville and live action. Perhaps his greatest feats were the animated short Pluto and the Flypaper and the witch in Snow White, Disney’s first super villain. Hamilton Luske, Ham, was the only one with a college education of the four directors. He graduated from University of California Berkley. He was obsessed with movement and pinpointing exact poses. He perfected the drawing of Disney Heroines with the animation of Snow White.
The third director was Fred Moore. He had perhaps the most appeal of the four because he could supposedly never do a bad drawing. He had a very charming and cute style. He transformed Mickey into a much more believable, dynamic character. Fred created his own list of the 14 points of animation because everyone kept asking him for advice. They were: appeal in drawing, staging, most interesting way?, Is it the most entertaining way?, are you in character?, are you advancing the character?, is this the simplest statement of the main idea in the scene?, is the story point clear?, are the secondary actions working with the main action?, is the presentation best for the medium?, does it have 2 dimensional clarity?, does it have 3 dimensional solidity?, does it have 4 dimensional drawing?, are you trying to do something that shouldn’t be attempted?
The last director was Bill Tytla. He was an intense and emotional person whose personality came out in his drawings. His speciality was portraying character’s inner feelings and emotions. These four main guys were later replaced with perhaps the most well known Disney animators, the Nine Old Men. Les Clark, Woolie Reitherman, Eric Larson, Ward Kimball, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Johnny Lounsbery, and Marc Davis were the most talented and dynamic group of animators to every come through Disney studios. They all had their own specialties and quarks, but all worked incredibly well together. The studio was full of energy and practical jokes. No one could get away with anything for very long before a caricature was done of if. Eric Larson was the master of anything that flew, Milt Kahl was the best at drawing people and Marc Davis was the best at animals. They all played a very important role in the making of the films.
The seven steps to animating a scene were as follows: (p.236)
1. Think-think about the scene, the story, the character and their actions. Having a clear idea of what you are about to draw is very helpful.
2. Thumbnails-Like story-boarding, it is important to get important movements down on paper in the form of thumbnails.
3. Mechanics of Presentation- figure out how characters are going to move throughout the scene.
4. Solve Special Drawing Problems- figure out which scenes may cause a problem and draw them out in a more detailed way. This will make the animation easier in the end.
5. Double Check Ideas- Make sure everything is ready to go and makes sense.
6. Blow Up Drawings Full Size- No more thumbnails, the drawings are as they will be.
7. Put the “Juice” in it- Give the drawing life.
The other parts of making the film included the effects and backgrounds of scenes, the music score and timing, story, and character development. By the end of an 80 minute feature, approximately 2.5 million drawings have been done. All of the work done by the original disney animators have made it possible for animation to progress through the years. The future looks bright with new innovations coming all the time.
