The Illusion of Life; Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Chapter 1

 An Art Form Is Born

"Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive", Walt Disney

Artists have spent hundreds of years trying to capture a moment but to do that with one drawing, painting etc was sometimes the case where they either caught the moment before or after, trying to encapsulate the entirety of the moment sometimes couldn't be done.

"Yet, through all the centuries, artists continued to search for a medium of expression that would permit them to capture that elusive spark of life, and in the late 1800's new inventions seemed at last to make this possible".

This would be the invention of projectors that could project photos at a speed that would emulate life, this was the birth of cinema and with it aniamtion to, as we know it today. Unlike there contemporaries that were limited to what happened infront of them, an artist could create whatever was in his mind and put this onto the screen.

"An artsist could represent the actual figure, if he chose, meticulously capturing its movements and actions. Or hecould caricature it, satirize it, ridicule it...he could show emotions, feelings, even innermost fears. He could give reality to dreams of the visionary".

So far it's not film makers exploring the world of animation its the artists showing that in the early days taht the animation process was born out of an artists need to study and capture a moment, not the technology. Even the realisation of the translation of colour comes into it. When an artist paints or draws its only as bright or colourful as paints are manufactured, but with a light shining through it, the colour can be brighter as film is transparent.

"Their apparent brightness is relative to itself, a range from dark to light of about 20 to 1, but with the light intensity of thr projection lamp and highly reflective screen, this brightness factor increases 200 to 1... Just as the stained glass window had brought dazzling brilliance after centuries of relatively dull frescoes, the introduction of light behind the film made whole new ranges of colour possible to the artist. Add to this the potential for stronger empotional response and, an artsist has before him an incredible medium for self expression".

Animator Vladimir (Bill) Tytla is credited as the first animtor to achieve strong emotions and convincng actions with the human figure. He worked on Snow White, Pinocchio and Dumbo. He described the art form as...

"It was mentioned to me that the possibilities are infinite, There isn't anything you can't do in it as far as composition is concerned", 

When he was asked how he got such amazing results by a couple of young animators,

"The problem is not a single track one. Animation is not just timing, or just a well-drawn character, it is the sum of all factors named... What you as an animator are interested in is conveying a certain feeling you happen to have at the time".

Here is evidence of an animator who is also an artist the way he mentions composition a key draw for him to interpret it, and how sometimes he gets it sometimes he doesn't, he also mentions what was said at the start about the artists doing the animation or being animators is that you as an animator are trying to convey emotion and on some level connect with your audience.

"Conveying a certain feeling is the essence of communication in any art form. It is one of animations gretaest strengths and ceratinly one of the most important aspects of this art for the young animator to study and master".


"As artists, we now have new responsibilities in addition to those of draftsman and designer; we have added the disciplines of the actor and the theatre".

Tha above statement relates to how we as humans communicate basic wants and needs that all men & women understand, before we develop speech. This may ahve been due to the fact that in early cinema there was no audio so actions had to be conveyed through body movement or gestures to eachother that the audience could relate to or understand. An actor knows these because these are the tools of his trade, and now that our drawings are moving and must do so realistically we are compelled to becme actors ourselves. The animation problem is different of that of the actors because we have to communicate the action through pictures which is more difficult thn the actors job which is more immediate.

"In animation we are trying to show that a charcater is sad we droop the shoulders, slump the body, drop the ehad, and add a long face. Yet those same symbols also can mean that the character is tired, or discouraged, or even listless. We can add a tear and pin point our attitude a little better.... The live actor has another advantage in that he can interrelate with others in the cast... There will be chemistry at work that will create charisma, a special excitement that will elicit an immediate response from the audience... in animation we start with a blank piece of paper! Out of nowhere we have to come up with characters that are real, that live, that interrelate".

In this instance for an animator to create that spark, we utilize our own experience in that we as part of the audience (as we are people to) we can sympathize, or empathize to. We inter our emotions onto the paper to create a connection and touch the viewer. Again relating to the most basic of communications that al audiences know in turn we convey something that connects us all as people and involves the audience this can be a character or a feeling, idea, or even a situation people can relate to.

One thing that will always grab peoples attention is personality, Charlie Chaplin once said that,

"Little as I knew about movies, I knew that nothing transcended personality"

In short personality is the audience window for them to identify with the story, the character has to be human enough so the audience can undertsand and identify with them. A character must be more than one note, they must have other facets to them. One good example given here is,

"a simple golfer getting ready to make a crucial shot. He shows concentration and determination as he prepares for that important swing. Then suppose he misses the ball entirely. His true character will be revealed at once!"

It is said most of the best story/animation are ones born out of conflict. The goal obvioulsy to get our audience to feel the characters emotions. To care, to show concern, and importantly invest in the character, and in turn the story.

When the art form was first discovered it was till trying to figure itself out, what it could do? and how it worked? One person who had an idea was Winsor McCay who was the cartoonist at the time for the New York Herald. He made many films between 1911 to 1921 with convincing cartoons that made the audience think he traced them from photos. To prove these people wrong he would draw his most famous character Gertie the Dinosaur, which in turn helped discover the importance of a characters personality in connecting with an audience. Although these were great works in history they were commercial flops and McCay had to return to his newspaper for steady income. Historian John Canemaker said that,

"Gertie was the first animated personality, showing shyness, stubborness, and even actually weeping big tears when jeered".

After the other studios appeared and had "gimmicks that where successful and made the cartoons popular. Out of the Inkwell, by Max Fleischer was one and Felix the Cat, by Otto Messmer was also out there. Out of all the followers of McCay's "Gertie" only Felix the cat seemed to have a personality that the audience could relate to and in the end by 1923 people in the biz felt that everything that could be done in the field had been done.

"...only the films about Felix suggested the idea of giving a character personality, but his creators had failed to develop this past rudimentary beginnings, relying on visual tricks that got audience response. Most people felt by 1923 just about everything had been done that was possible, and the exhibitors were looking in other directions for something new to keep their audiences laughing".

Enter Walt and Roy Disney. Walt by no means was an overnight success, but he fought hard through fights over the rights to his cartoons, staff, contracts, even when he got a studio people tried to run him out of town. He was supported by his staff, and family who in the end like all there predecessors cared more about keeping animation alive than making money.

"Walt was fighter and had great determination; he was no aesthetic artist living in a dream world...There were constant battles, many defeats, endless disappointments: he lost the rights to his contracts. And then when he finally began to achieve a bit of success, his studio became a prize to be taken over! Yet through all it all he never lost his love for people or his faith in their judgement."

Work to Date, Animation tests and Renders

The Art of Anatomy by Sarah Simblet (History)

"The body has always been a core subject for the artist, be it to honour God, or to question and doubt the very nature of humanity itself"

"Claudius Galen (AD 129-201) is the most dominant figure in early European anatomy. He was the medical officer to Gladiators in the Roman Empire, and later physician to the emperor Marcus Aurelius... In the middle ages, translations and derivations of Galens works were read from a pulpit, while below, a barber cut open a body, and a demonstrator pointed with a stick to the salient parts."

"Leonardo da Vinci's place in the history of art and anatomy is unique. The detailed observations  and speculations that fill his notebooks are both inspirational and startlingly original. His studies were driven by intense curiosity... His knowledge of mechanics, architecture, and engineering guided his understanding inside the body. Leonardo saw structures taht demonstrated how the body should work, and although not wholly acurate, he invented  a new attitude and mind frame that carried the subject forwars to greater heights... The level of detail in his work asks for gretaer insight, the level of imagination demands that we see the physical structure of the human body in relation to other things in the world...However, da Vinci contributed nothing to the development of science, and was overtaken by Vesalius becuase he did not publish his work. After his death his notebooks passed through generations of private hands, remaining largely unknown for 300 years. They were not published in a facsimile edition until the late 19th century. In spite of this they are still regarded as the finest anatomical drawings ever made, and when they finally came to view they had  agreat impact on the representation of the body in 19th and 20th century medicine".

"In 1540 Thomas Vicary, surgeon to Henry VII of England, persuaded him to unite the London Guilds of Barbers and Surgeons. He was elected there first master, and int he same year they were granted Four hanged criminals (per year) for dissection".

"Methods of anatomical preperation were significantly developed during the 19th and 20th centuries. Donation is now sufficiently popular for all departments to be highly selective in their choice of suitable subjects".

In 1747 the University of Leiden published "Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum Corporis Humani" which is a human atlas, that unified the work of artist Jan Wandelaar and eminent scholar and anatomist Bernard Siegfried Albinus whose friendship and collaberation lasted more than 30 years.

Albinus began with the skeleton and built the body from it's architecture of the bone. He would soak the ligaments of a prepared skeleton in vinegar to preserve them, he would suspend the body with a frame of a delicately adjusted ropes that filled the room, and he would then freeze them.

Meret Oppenhiem's X-Ray of a skeleton, 1964, is a witty and elegant self-portrait in the European vanitas tradition where the presence of the life and death share the same moment, the same stage, without anxiety or morbidity

The Walt Stanchfield Lectures

 1. Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is essential in any form of animation. One thing animator must be good at is gesture drawings. Necessary to good gesture drawings are acting, caricature, anatomy, body language, perspective etc.

Your mental and emotional processes are you.

Without motivation you would accomplish nothing, and without enthusiasm, motivation would atrophy before you could make a quick sketch. A good example would be that your mind is a projector - Whatever you choose to put into it is what will be seen on the screen.

"Enthusiasm is the mainspring of the mind which urges one to put knowledge into action"  
                                                                                                                              Wally "Famous" Amos

2. Principles of Animation

There are some principles of animation that can be consciously used in any scene. You should familiarize yourself with them for both animation and animation clean up. These rules can be applied in any scene as very rarely is a character doing nothing. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty spend a short time in complete inactivity, but even then certain of these principles were used. The following list of (principles) are what should be found in all animation.

Pose and Mood                                      Planes
Shape and Form                                     Solidity
Anatomy                                                 Arcs
Model and Character                            Squash & Stretch        
Weight                                                    Beat and Rhythm
Line and Silhouette                                  Depth & Volume
Action and Reaction                              Overlap and Follow Through
Perspective                                             Timing
Direction                                                 Working from Extreme to Extreme
Tension
Straights and Curves
Primary and Secondary Action
Staging and Composition
Anticipation
Caricature
Details 
Texture
Simplification
Positive and Negative Shapes

The purpose of studying and analysing a scene is to acquaint oneself with the possibilities in the use of the principles in animation. Above is 28 principles, although they may be more at first these will have to be consciously, then hopefully in time will become second nature. When emotions are lax, knowing these principles will enable the artists to animate his scene intellectually, logically and artistically as well as emotionally.

Further Reading On Chuck Jones...(Chuck Amuck)

• Don Graham, taught philosphy of drawing and movement at Disney when the features were in production
• Tex Avery: King of Cartoons; Joe Anderson
• Friz Freleng: Birds Anonymous, Sahara Hare, Knighty Knight Bugs.
• Laugh with your characters-not at them. This great rule is as true of Friz's characters as it's true of Diane Langdon, Buster Keaton, Chaplin and Woody Allen.
• Six minute cartoons usually required about 150 story sketches assembled on a storyboard 8x4 feet. The writer and director working topgether as a team would then turn out a story for a cartoon in 5 weeks.
• All ideas for me seem to be based on variations of observable human behaviour.
• Comedy is unusual people in real situation's, farce is real people in unusual situation's
• A plot without characters is like a tennis court without it's player's.

. The Idea: Parody of Buck Rodgers
  The Characters: Daffy and Porky. Marvin the Martian and Dr. IQ High.
  The Incident: The search for Illudium Phosdex
  Environment: Outer Space and the City of the Future

I. The Story The writer and director agree on the stroy idea or premise, and the writer (Maltese) starts some rough storyboards, sketches, ignoring continuity, concentrating on "Business" between the characters. After about a week, the director calls a story session known as....

II. The Jam Session Attended by three directors (Friz, Bob and Chuck) the writers, (Warren Foster, Tedd Pierce and Maltese), and the production chief (Johnny Burton) and often, sadly, the producer. This was not a Brain Storming session, it was a "yes" session, but not an "anything goes" session. Anyhting went, but only if it was positive, supportive, and affirmitive to the premise. Anyone can say "no". It is the first word a child learns and often the first word he speaks. But what if nothing happens? What if the premise just lies doggo with faint response or no response at all from anybody?

Answer: The director will know, not because there is silence, but by the quality of response; if the suggestions are unresponsive to the basic idea the director will know in a half hour. In any case the moderator is the director who called the meeting.

III. Storyboard There was never a script at Warner Bros. All we developed on rough storyboards. Approx. 150 rough story sketches and rough dialogue were needed for six minute cartoon storyboard. After this is created, another story session is held, but this is breif and to the point, to see if there are any obvious errors in structure, dialogue or character. The stroyboard is then turned over to the director.

IV Direction The story as it will appear on the screen is now less than half done. We are at the point where the live action director, script in hand, would step onto the soundstage, but unlike the live action director, the animation director cannot tell his actors what to do - whips or gentle persuasion are equally useless when dealing with drawings.

Notes On Chuck Amuck (Autobiography of Chuck Jones) Pt 1

1. "Character  always comes first, before the physical representation. We are not what we look like, we are our personalities."

2. " First and most important Rule of animation ; individuality, oddity and peculiarity that counts. Eschew the ordinary, disdain the commonplace. If you need something let it be the unusual, esoteric, the bizarre and the unexpected."

3. "if there are ten pictures on a wall, only the one off balance will get much attention."

4. "Comedy is nearly always, the stuff of the ordinary, concerning itself with simple matters and simple ambitions, with ordinary pursuits and ordianry ambitions."

5. "Charlie Chaplin and the Coyote are simply just trying to get something to eat".

6. "Daffy Duck is simply trying for a little dignity, with the added need to get a little money in the process".

7. "Daffy after betraying Bugs Bunny to the Abominable Snowman, "Sure, it was a rotten thing to do, but better him than me, i'm different from most people, pain hurts me".

8. "Bugs Bunny films always start with him down a rabbit hole, where he should be. Then someone comes along with designs on his life."

9. "Cal Howard, writer, gagman, unofficial commisary to Schlesinger Productions."

10. "In-betweener = esoteric term for those who insert drawings between the animators drawings, which in turn are known as extremes"

11. "The art of animation is timing as Tex Avery once told me"

12. "Masters of timing are Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Langdon and Tex Avery"

13. "What I learned from Tex, Friz, Mike Maltese, Tedd Pierce and others in my field was:-

       i) You must love what you cariciture. You must not mock it unless it is ridiculously self-important, like those solemn live action travelogues.

       ii) You must learn to respect that Golden Atom, that single frame of action, 1/24 of a second, because the difference between lightning and the lighning bug may hinge on that single frame.

       iii) Respect the impulse hought and, try to implement it. You cannot perform as a director by what you all ready know, you must dep[end on the flash of inspiration that you do not expect and not all ready know.

       iv) You must remember awlays that only man, of all creatures, can blush, or needs to; that only man can laugh, or needs to; and that if you are in that trade of helping others laugh and to survive by laughter, then you are priveleged indeed.

       v) Remember always that character is all that matters in the making of great comedians, in animation, and in live action.

       vi) Keep always in your mind, your heart, and your hand that timing is the essence, the spine, and the electrical magic of humour - and of animation"

14. "All of you have 100,000 bad drawings in you. The sooner you get rid of them the better- Chuck Jones 1st instructor at Choinard Art Institute."

15. "The most important and stunning discovery I made at Chouinard, one that has been shared by every artist, cartoonist, painter in history... was the ability to live by the single line - that single honest delineation of artist's intent. No shading, no multiple lines, no cross-hatching, no subterfuge. Just that line. That is rule number 1 of all great drawing, there is no rule number 2"

16. "There is often talk of a golden age of animation. There was actually two. The first was the great years between 1933 to 1939 (Three Little Pigs, Disney, 1933). Nearly all the great writers, directors and animators of that period went on to features such as Snow White etc."

12 Rules of Animation as described in Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

Rule 1: Squash and Stretch, the purpose of which is to give a sense of weight and flexibility to an object. This can be for simple objects or for complicated objects, for example a bouncing ball to a fully drawn character. If exagerrated this can create a ratehr comic effect but in realism it is preffered that the objects volume looks liek it hasnt changed shape at all.

Rule 2: Anticipation is used to prepare the audience for an action to build up to a climax or anti-climax in a scene. This can be things like the pull back in a baseball players swing or a bend in a balet dancers knee. This technique can also be useful for not so physical animation, for example someone looking off camera for another character to enter the scene.

Rule 3: Staging, this has the same meaning as it does in Theatre and in Film. It's purpose is to direct the viewer or audience to what matters in a scene, to what's relevent, what's happening or indeed what is about to happen. To quote Ollie Johnston and Frank Johnston it's " the presentation of an idea so that it is completely and unmistakeably clear", wether this idea is an action or a personality.

Rule 4: Straight ahead action and, pose to pose. These are the names given to the types of approaches used in the drawing process. Straight ahead action means to draw or animate frame by frame from start to finish. Pose to pose involves starting with drawing a few key frames such as the start, middle and end pose and filling in the intervals. Straight ahead creates a more fluid illusion of movement and is used to create a more realistic action sequence although it can be hard to create exact, and convincing poses.

Staight ahead

Good points:

• very open for creativity during the keyframing work;
• can result in more fluid and natural looking animation;
• done for all frames in a sequence it totally eliminates the use of computer interpolation;
• a talented artist in a good day can achieve very spontaneous and elaborate results;
• specially good for fast, wild actions;
• only after finishing the animator will know how the scene ended up.

Bad points:

• it's easy to come to dead ends, where work may have to be discarded and redone;
• hard to make the character respect "marks": be somewhere or grab something at a definite frame;
• hard to create strong poses, well staged, solid and appealing;
• the resulting set of keyframes will probably be complex and disorganized, hard to work with;
• only after finishing the animator will know how the scene ended up.

Some might also add: more work while animating.

Pose to pose works better for dramatic or emotional scenes, where composition and relation to the surroundings are essential. In CGI it is more pose to pose based where things like IK and hierarchy's designed to create deformations remove the need for the animator to over see every frame however it is necessary for the animator to overlook what has been created and make sure the other rules are applied

Pose to pose

Good points:

• more control over the results, easy to respect marks;
• less room for pitfalls;
• more work in less time;
• the created extremes (plus soundtrack) can be used as animatic for critique and corrections;
• with planning, there's a better chance to come up with elaborate poses and moves;
• done every N frames or so, results in a clean layout of keyframes, easy to work with;
• randomness is played down.

Bad points:

• easy to result in “robotic”, dull animation;
• less room for creativity while creating and keyframing poses;
• randomness is played down.

Some might also add: requires proper planning, sketches, etc.

Rule 5: Follow through, and Overlapping action. These techniques help to put across realism in movement and show how the animation follows the laws of physics. Follow through means that if a character suddenly stops then his arms may still move or hair wills till flow. Overlapping action is the tendency for the parts of the body to move at different times. i.e an arm will move out of time with the head and so on. There is also a technique called "drag" where a character moves and the rest of him has to catch up. This can be used in inanimate objects like clothing and antenna on a car. The torso of a character (Human) is the core, the arms, the legs etc follow the toro's movement. Like with Squash and Stretch you can create a comic effect whereas the realistic  animation must be exact to produce a convincing result.

Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston also developed the principle of a "Moving Hold". This is when a character not in movement is rendered completely still to draw attention to the main action, although this is considered dull and should be avoided.

Rule 6: Slow in, Slow out. All animated objects must accelerate and decelerate, this helps to create realism. This goes for characters that are doing 2 extremes such as sitting down and standing up. Inanimate objects also apply to this rule like a bouncing ball.

Rule 7: Arcs. Most human and animal actions occur in an arched trajectory, an animation should reproduce that for realism. This  can apply to a limb moving by rotating a joint or a thrown object moving along a curved trajjectory. The exception is mechanical movement which is rather linear.

Rule 8: Secondary Action is when you add another action to help the main action. In walk cycles this can be evident when the characters arms move with his legs The job of a secondary action is to draw attention to the main action not to draw it away.

Rule 9: Timing refers to how many frames there is for a given action, which translates to the speed of the action on film. When done correctly this gives the animation more realism and makes them appear to abide by the laws of physics.

Rule 10: Exaggeration is great in use of a comdey effect and is incredibly useful in animation as it can alleviate a dull scene. The classic defination used by Disney was to remain true to reality but, to present it in a wilder, more extreeme form. Other forms of exaggeration can involve surreal or supernatural elements. It is important not to over do this and if your secene has a lot of elements you should balance these accordingly so youdon't over power the viewer.

Rule 11: Solid Drawing. This means that the animator should be able to take into account, 3D space, Volume, Weight, Balance, Light and Shadows. This requires that the animator takes art classes and drawing from reality. Ollie Johnston and frank thomas warned about twining as well where a character is posed the same on both sides.

Rule 12: Appeal is to a charcter what charisma is to an actor. Appeal doesnt mean sympathetic, villains and monsters have appeal also. it means that your character is interesting.


A link to Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnstons Website:
http://frankandollie.com/PhysicalAnimation.html