Dick Huemer on Timing - Feb. 20th, 1936

Thirty-seven years before the event covered in my previous posting, Dick Huemer was asked to give a talk on timing for Don Graham's class, less than two months after Walt Disney's famous inspirational and visionary memo to Graham.

Discussed are the then just-released Mickey's Polo Game (beginning with Huemer's own scene 32) and the 9-months old Water Babies [mentioning Huemer's own toreador and bullfight sequence], but examples are also found in Alpine Climbers which would not see daylight until five months later, as well as The Band Concert, On Ice and The Tortoise and the Hare, all released the previous year.
Among the people asking questions are Al Eugster and the feared but not very respected George "Flop-ears" Drake who headed the inbetween department.

Note especially the interesting snippets of information on animation to music, the use of "twos" and extremes vs. straight-ahead animation on pages 5 and 6. Later on we get Huemer's take on Speed Lines. This was a period of learning by doing, the pioneering spirit still permeated the studio, and you feel the openness to exchange ideas and the eagerness to get to the bottom of the craft.

That said, I feel I need to point out that the things discussed here still hold true today, also in computer animation. A principle is a principle, whatever the medium. If we do not learn about the successes and failures of yesterday, how can we be sure we make the right decisions today? Don't mistake these documents for "funny old stuff." If you are employed in the animation business, know that they are part of the groundwork of what pays your salary today!As always, I welcome comments wholeheartedly!

Steamboat Willie Exposure Sheet

[Don't forget to read the posting below this: "Congrats Børge!"]

Courtesy of Leslie Iwerks' great film about her grandfather Ub, "The Hand Behind the Mouse," as found on the Disney Treasures DVD set for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, here is a composite of two frame grabs of a shot of the exposure sheet of the first public close-up of Mickey Mouse in his role as Steamboat Willie. Who knew this still exsisted?You will find that the beats are marked with dots every 8 frames, the lyrics are written in as guide for the animator (Ub), and that a beat was cut out at the cross (no more or less, I checked it with the film).

Curiously there are 46 frames to a page, not 48 (3 feet or 6 beats), which could lead one to speculate that this maybe was a page from some random ledger. In any case, in the animation, Mickey's head, arms and hands are on the top level, his body and feet on the next (which also has him completely for a few drawings), then the wheel by itself. Interestingly, the scene actually starts 2 feet (32 frames) before the line indicating the start of the scene, so I suspect this was a later addition to be able to see him "normal" before he started whisteling.

This may well be the first "sound animation" done at Disney's, maybe around June or early July 1928. It seems to me that the title of the page and the instruction "Start scene here" are in Walt Disney's handwriting, while the lyrics of the song are not...

On the second image I filled out the bottom of the left two columns as they are missing, just in case you want to have a look for yourself. By the way, I thank David Gerstein for an interesting resource for the study of the song Steamboat Bill.

This leads me to another question: obviously the sound films were made for a projection speed of 24 frames per second. But what about the earlier silent films? What about Oswald? I can step-frame through it and see things on ones, having one drawing per frame, on a 24-like frame per second DVD. But was this not, as most silent films, made for 16 frames, or one foot of film per second? For then all the silent films have been misrepresented and are all running too fast on DVDs! Anyone?
[Addition: the VERY interesting first comment answers this!]

Dave Hand on Staging (II)

Here is the second part of Dave Hand's class on staging for story artists. An interesting though somewhat roundabout new ending is suggested for Pinocchio...This is important stuff! I advice anyone dealing with drawing storyboards to read this!

Dave Hand on Staging (I)

On October 13th, 1938, as the Disney studios on Hyperion Avenue was working on Pinocchio, Fantasia and Bambi, Snow White's Supervising Director Dave Hand (the "number two creative" at the studio, whom I introduced elsewhere on this blog) held a class on "Staging as Applied to Presentation of Story and Gag Ideas."

This document, found in the 6/20/39 revision of the "Story Department Reference Material," gives us a wonderful insight into Hand's experiences after Snow White. Especially his comparison to a magician's way of guiding the eye is interesting. I remember my old mentor Børge Ring teaching me similar analogies - not surprising, as he worked closely with Hand in 1950.

The second half follows tomorrow...

Forensic Detective

...is what Børge called this bit in an email to me yesterday.
"Pinocchio walks to school. Fox and Gideon originally entered the film where Pinocchio runs unbetween them and the Fox does his wonderful take. At least the scene is called number 1.

Later, Disney chose to give the two guys a solid presentation with dialog etc. in the good old Orson Welles-and-Circus manner. It can be seen from the numbers of the new scenes. Walt even managed to slip Stromboli into the expectations "while we are at it anyway," for otherwise the Italian would have entered just as abruptly as the Fox and Gideon originally were planned to.
"People have got to meet them" as he said about the dwarfs at the foot-end of the bed. In a machine-written continuity (and in a novel) it is logical to meet the villains when they are needed. On film it seems appropriate to show them off first. "Here it comes, dear audience - sit up straight on your chair!" "

You wouldn't think Børge turned 86 a few days ago...

Action Analysis Class - July 26th, 1937 (II)

The last of this bunch of Action Analysis Classes, this one brings us Don Graham's (and, indirectly, Walt Disney's) interesting views on rotoscoping and the use of live action. This has direct application in today's world, with MoCap films nominated for Academy Awards. Pages 7 and 8 should be required reading for Academy voters...

Comments on rotoscoping also from Stan Quackenbush, J[acques] Roberts, Snyder, John Elliotte, [Walter F.] Clinton and Les Novros. Note also that [Dick] Anthony says "...they're going to give us the deer now" - Bambi was on the table, but Pinocchio was decided upon at the last moment.

Don Graham notes that "to learn to animate you have to animate", and that "Spencer, Thomas, Woolie and Quackenbush" got to animate rather quickly. The lesson ends with a look at the High Jump...

Action Analysis Class - July 26th, 1937 (I)

Today we join Don Graham to look at the Pole vault. The discussions add Robert Leffingwell and Shamus Culhane. We saw Leffingwell as animator on The Whalers. Børge Ring tells me an anecdote about him: Leffingwell was down in Paris working for Paul Grimault (whom I met only once, in Arnhem, Holland, in the early 80's at a Holland Animation Film Festival), and tried to get him to use twos, where Grimault only wanted to use ones. He got Grimault to give him the cells of his favorite scenes from all of his shorts and had them shot on twos, removing every other cell. This convinced Grimault: from then on he used twos.

Note the last lines on page six. We get into this a LOT more tomorrow!

Beatronome Update

Here is a little update to my metronome program (see below). What's new: I added a row of buttons with the standard beats as described by Albert Hay Malotte in his lecture notes. (Again in .zip format) PC ONLY!

[Added: It updates the program found here and the manual is here.]

The Bar Sheet DIY...

Not long ago, I wrote somewhere in a bar sheet posting that it might be fun to recreate bar sheets from shorts from the 30s, as a classroom activity. Well, to begin with, you will need a pencil and paper with bars written on them - find inspiration from the previously posted examples. "Here is one I prepared earlier" in PDF format. Finally you will need a metronome. And for that, I wrote a little program I unimaginatively called Beatronome, which you can download here. It is packaged inside a zip archive.
If you are an animation director, animator, or animation researcher, and you use a PC, you might like to have a look at it, as well...

It is really simple, uses the PC speaker, and should work under Windows XP SP2. (No, not on a MAC...) You can convert beats, play them, tap beats and play those. Now, you only have to be able to count. If it doesn't work, or protests by telling you that the run-time is missing etc., you can download a full distribution package here. Sorry, PC ONLY!

I look forward to hearing your findings!

Timing and bar-sheets revisited...

Following Dave Hand's theory, I think it is time for some practical application of his abilities. Now, the 1936 Mickey Mouse short "Mirrorland" (M41) was called "Through the Looking Glass" on the draft, and was released as "Thru The Mirror", Production UM41.

Here is a bar-sheet that was prepared for the planning of the sound effects. It is for all intents and purposes a true bar-sheet, with beat indications, so it is easily followed, especially since music is such a great part of it. Take out your Disney Treasures DVD: Mickey Mouse in Living Color Vol.1 Disc 1, and tap your way through it, and study how Dave Hand timed this classic Mickey film, beat for beat.

To keep the small green letters readable, I decided to retain the size of my original photos. Each is around 200 KB. I also stuffed all 13 into one 2.5 MB ZIP file, that you can get by clicking the .zip image.

								< Get the .zip file!

Here is a bit of an explanation...

< Click on it!

Say, folks, not many of you are commenting. Is anyone but the usual three die-hards even reading this stuff?