Smears, Multiples and Other Animation Gimmicks

Ah! I know what you mean! It kinda freaks me out a little, looks a little bit off. But it’s interesting to see how gaps are filled between the frames like that. 

I heard about this a while ago, back when Roy Disney was still alive. This was one of the few things he was trying to spearhead while he was still at the company. I think Don Hahn was another guy on this too. But at this rate, and where the company currently stands, I don’t think they’d ever invest their capital into this. There’s a better chance of them releasing Song of the South on video (and you know how they feel about that). 

Besides, even if they did, I don’t think Williams himself would want to dive back into it and deal with all that overhead rigamarole again. It hurt him an awful lot, and he’s moved on since then. 

Yeah, all that stuff is marvelous. 

I will say this, while Richard Williams is an incredible animator and a hell of an amazing draftsman, story definitely isn’t his strongest point, and that movie clearly shows that. That and he’s a terrible perfectionist, as you can probably tell. But Thief has a lot of charm and is absolute eye candy.  

Oh that’s quite alright, it’s quite a remarkable film. And NO COMPUTERS, MIND YOU! That in itself is one of the 9 wonders of the (animation) world!

It both amazes and depresses me knowing the story of the production of The Thief, and how horribly it all turned out in the end. Richard Williams and the crew he had put their heart and soul into that movie for DECADES, and it all fell apart right before finish line. It’s such a shame, because that film is a animation masterpiece, and it just got swept under the rug. 

You mean post a bunch at once, or clump a bunch of smears from the same show into one post or a day’s worth of posts? I guess I could do that, as long as there was enough variety that it would still be interesting to see on a regular basis. 

Usually, for every 1000 followers this blog breaks, I add one more post a day. Right now, there’s over 8,850 followers, and I post 8 times a day. And for every 1000 I breach, the less time it takes to reach the next milestone (and exponentially more submissions, which I’m glad I temporarily put the kibosh on). I guess I thought it was better to spread the wealth out gradually rather than dump it all in one go, but I think I spread it a little too wide! XD

Ooh, that’s a tough one. I like a lot of movies, and it’s hard to choose favorites, but I’ll try and keep things to a minimum. 

While I watched a lot of movies as a kid, the first one that really inspired me and got the animation cogs in my head turning was Fantasia. I remember watching the old Walt Disney shows when Disney Channel would play them on weekend nights in the early-mid 90’s, and Walt would show how animation was made. But I didn’t understand it at the time, because I was a little too young to comprehend it. Then I watched Fantasia, and my mind just blew a gasket! “Wait a minute… somebody had to DRAW Mickey and all those brooms moving!? I WANNA DO THAT!”. I will admit, it is a little boring at times, but I love the hell out of it. Same with Allegro Non Troppo, which is a like a bit of a more political, darker Fantasia, but I love it too. 

Then there’s the classics; Dumbo, Pinocchio, Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Alice in Wonderland and Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Great animation, great stories and (most important for me) great characters, especially in Pooh. The story can be the stupidest, most out-there thing imaginable, but those characters and the world they live in is just so charming and inviting that you don’t care about the stupid stuff. It’s wonderful! The scene where Tigger introduces himself to Pooh and eats his honey in Blustery Day is my favorite piece of animation of all time. 

Rounding out the rest, I’d have to put Whisper of the Heart up there too, because it’s such a strong movie on an emotional level. I discoveredLe Roi et l’oiseau and Thief and the Cobbler (the Recobbled Cut) a few years ago and I love them, mostly for the art and the scope. They’re such big movies! 

I’ll stop here for now. I don’t want to go on a long spiel about what I think of these movies and bore people XD 

Sadly, I’m not a technical thinker or a gamer, so a lot of that stuff is like rocket science to me XD

I guess in some cases it’s fine, as long as it’s not too distracting! I’m not really sure I’ve seen that before myself, so I wouldn’t really know what it looks like until I see it. 

Oh yeah, the Preston blair book is great, especially with people starting fresh, and it’s a good reminder for pros too! The best version is the original, un-edited version from the 40’s, with the original MGM characters like Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery’s characters as examples.

Thanks for the reminder! 

Yeah, I just noticed that. Sorry about that, but after so many submissions come swimming past you, sometimes you miss or forget one was posted before and it slips through the cracks. Sometimes it’s good, because the people who didn’t see it the first time get to see it, but it sucks to find the newest post and it’s one you’ve already seen before. 

Usually if it’s really bad quality, as in its almost unrecognizable, then I won’t post it. But that happens very rarely. If I find an example that is of a better quality than the one that was posted before, I usually just let it go. Not every post has been properly tagged, and it’s a lot of work digging through posts just to find and replace a submission with a slightly-better version.

Yeah, that’s right. 

And another thing, it sometimes bothers me how much realism they put in animation like these. I guess they want to make things more believable, as in it could happen or exist in our world. But I think animation is meant to do things realism can’t, things that a live-action film CAN’T do. And whenever I see animation that looks very realistic, I think “What’s the point of making an animated movie when this would work in live action with computer effects?”. Sometimes it works to it’s benefit, but most of the time I think it’s a waste. 

But those are just my two cents on the matter.  

I’m trying to think of some specific ones, but my mind is blank all of a sudden! 

I will say this, the best “looking” smears are the ones that are the most organic, don’t distract or pop when you see them and are super quick (1 frame is all you need!). A lot of subpar examples are ones that add a lot of extra bits that you’d think help, but in reality do just the opposite, and you DEFINITELY see them. Speed lines are one of them.

Speed lines (those black “whoosh” lines like you’d see behind a cartoon character running) are meant to represent motion in a still drawing, like a comic strip, but somehow it ended up being used in animation. The genesis of the animation speed line came from the days when dry brush effects were in common use, in the 1930’s and early 1940’s. The animator would draw out guides for when the drawings were later traced onto cels, and the paint girls would put the dry brush effects over them.

Like this:

Later on, when the budgets for animation went down, a lot of the fancy bits like dry brush fell by the wayside. But some animators continued to put these speed lines in, continuing well into the age of Xerox and low-cost TV production in the 70’s and 80’s and it kinda stuck. The black speed lines usually just hang in the air, like a tail on a kite or arrows in someone’s back, and it looks really weird when you see it in action. Same with shake lines, those little parenthesis that pop in and out when a character shakes his head or hits something. It’s more of a distraction than anything else. Sometimes it works, like in more graphically designed pieces or simple black and white shorts like Simon’s Cat or something, but other than that I’d say it doesn’t work well.

Glad to help out! And good luck to you, sir!