WEBVTT - How Hand-drawn Animation Works 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:05.240 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:13.840 stuff dot com. Hello again, everyone, and welcome to tech stuff. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:15.560 My name is Chris Poulett, and I'm an editor at 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.119 how stuff works dot com. Sitting across from me and 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:22.960 as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. There. So, Chris, 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:27.680 you're looking a little animated today. I don't understand how 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.240 you drew that conclusion. Well, you know, you're a pretty 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:36.240 sketchy person yourself. We should stopped. This is going to 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.160 is going to turn uglier in any second. Yeah, Today 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:43.960 we wanted to talk about the traditional hand drawn animation process, 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.519 what goes into it, why does it work, and how 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.519 has it changed over the years. Uh. And we were 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.559 specifically focusing on hand drawn animation because I think we 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:55.800 may have I know we've talked about computer animation in 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.280 previous podcasts. I don't think we've done a full episode 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:03.320 on it, but but the two two disciplines are different 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.520 enough where I think it warrants two different podcasts. Yeah, 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:09.680 the UM I have done some research on it, just 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.160 by accident, just because I was interested in a topic 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:14.760 from time to time, and I started thinking about it 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:18.320 the other day when I saw something and suggested it. Um. 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.839 It's uh, it's very different in quite a few ways 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.200 from from computer animation, and Jonathan and I like to 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:30.280 talk about how old styles of tech have affected us 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.919 and uh, the kinds of things that people used to do. Um. 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:35.959 You know, there are some very famous studios that have 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.520 have gone computer only these days, but um, some of 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.240 the very same studios were pioneers and some of the 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:47.240 amazing tech that went into making a piece of hand 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.680 drawn animation look very realistic. Um, and I thought, you know, 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.040 it would be really fun to kind of touch on that, um, 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.840 which is uh, which is why I think we decided 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:58.440 to go ahead and make an episode of it. We 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:02.600 should probably already uh attached this into our movie making 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.120 tech series of stuff, just because we haven't done one 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.520 in a while, and then now we can say we have. Yeah, 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:11.640 I think it's been I think it's been like a year. Um. Yeah, 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.520 okay that that that's fine with me. This belongs in 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:20.160 our movie magic technology series. It really does. It's just 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.280 that I wasn't thinking of it that way. So before U, 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:28.080 before we get into the actual process of making a 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:32.600 hand drawn animated project, whether it's television for television or 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:36.240 for film or whatever. Um, we should kind of explain 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:40.400 the whole concept behind animation. It's the idea is that 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:44.760 it's an illusion, obviously, an illusion of movement. And this 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.480 is because the way our our brains and our eyes work, 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.280 we have this, uh, this sort of it's it's almost 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:53.880 like a visual memory in a way, and we're able 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.000 to fill in enough information where if you have a 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:03.280 sequence of images of an object that appears to move 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:09.360 because it has a different um orientation, or you've slightly 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.840 changed the location of the object from one page of 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.480 of a like a pad of paper to another, and 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.600 then you move those at a fast enough clip, it 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.040 gives the illusion that that that's actually an object that's 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.960 physically moving through a space. Yeah, persistence of vision, Yes, 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.760 you might call it. Yes, in fact, that's it's and 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:31.880 that is a good reason to call it that. And 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:33.760 so I mean anyone who has played with a little 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.720 notepad or post it notes or whatever and have created 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.360 their own little versions of this knows that you know, 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.720 you you get a uh, you create this illusion of movement, 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.880 You move the figures, you draw the next figure a 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.080 little bit further away from the first one, or you 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:54.000 give it some other form of motion. Uh, and when 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.600 you flip the book, then it looks like something's happening. 0:03:57.720 --> 0:03:59.160 I used to do this all the time with post 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:02.440 it notes. I went through so many packs of posted notes, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.280 drawing my own little cartoons, which almost always ended in 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:10.920 violent mayhem. They usually began innocently enough. Yeah, I'd be like, okay, 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.640 and now he's jumping over hurdle, and now he's opening 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.040 up a door, and now he's hit in the head 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.080 with an ax, and now he's running away from a monster. 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.560 And yeah, things fell apart pretty quickly for me. If 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:26.960 you're if you've ever read the comic strip Calvin and Hobbs, 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.000 where Calvin is uh, you know, coming up with these 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.159 scenarios and now look, the giant tanker truck full of 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:39.560 acid is coming toward it and meteor from space. How 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.360 can they avoid this? And this is the image I'm 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.520 seeing of Jonathan doing this. Yeah, it wasn't pretty. So 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.800 how do you take that and you transfer it over 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.640 into making an animated show or film. Well, it's been 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:56.240 done for centuries now really in a way. In a way, 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.159 but the the process that kind of defines the a 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:06.200 modern animation worked throughout the twentieth century was really defined 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:12.359 by Earl Heard, and Earl Heard actually patented the cell 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:16.800 animation process, and we call it cell animation. The original 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:21.119 material that people drew the drawings of figures or whatever 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.400 was being animated within a scene. They would draw draw 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:30.760 that on celluloid. Eventually the industry made a transition from 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:36.200 celluloid to cellulus acetate. Part of that was because celluloid 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:41.680 is um yeah, extremely flammable, very flat. It's both flammable 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:46.719 and inflammable, and also it uh, it could be prone 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:51.960 to spontaneous decomposition, so you couldn't store it indefinitely. Are 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.760 using those stack of drawings they were right, they see 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.400 that puddle of goo over there, Yeah, that's snow white. 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.680 Um yeah, they they would, they would. It seems problematic, Yeah, 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.960 so that you couldn't you know, you couldn't archive this stuff, 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.240 which in the early days of the industry wasn't a 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:12.720 big concern. You know. The concern was to create this 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:16.040 this product and then have it shown, usually in a 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:18.360 movie theater. In the early days, you know, this is 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:22.120 this is before television. So this was something where you 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.479 would go to a like a theater and see it 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:29.680 projected on a screen, but there was people weren't too 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:34.200 concerned about storing stuff for for pos posterity, not prosperity. 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:39.000 They wanted prosperity, posterity. They weren't so concerned about um. 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:40.960 But yeah, so so it wasn't a big deal. But 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.720 then the move to cellulous estate, which is essentially kind 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:48.279 of plastic, helped take that that problem out of the picture, 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:53.320 so to speak. Yeah. The reason that now this this material, um, 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:57.119 the celluloid was was clear, yes, basically a clear sheet 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.680 of plastic, if you will, just just for the sake 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.039 of uh, the image in your head. Actually, most of 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.840 you have probably seen somebody working on cells for animation. 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.880 It's you know, we sort of know what this looks like. 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.360 We haven't gotten so far out from that realm that 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:18.040 it's foreign to us. Yeah, but this is this was 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:21.600 a big improvement because before this, uh, there were some 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:26.560 very early animation uh you know, moving pictures that were 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:31.000 made with drawings on paper, and that is so much 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:35.480 more time consuming because just as you know, um, there 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:41.240 are several frames of film that passed. Each second is 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:46.520 the standard, Yes, I couldn't remember per second of standard 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:51.600 for film, thirty for television, I think television. If you're 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.240 in the United States, I have to you have to 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:59.080 make these qualifiers because other other countries have different standards. 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.800 So it's so imagine if you will, that you are 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:03.680 one of the animators and you have to draw twenty 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:09.200 four complete drawings for each second of film. This is 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:13.000 very time consuming, where using the the cell method allows 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.760 you allows the animator to make a subtle change to 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.239 the original drawing and and just change make those subtle 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.920 changes and you can see it because um again, if 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:26.360 you watch a video of somebody making an animation with cells, 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.240 they are able to overlay them on top of one 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.920 another and they can make those subtle adjustments seeing where 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.640 the differences are between the two drawings, which you you 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:39.199 won't be able to do as well with paper because 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.000 it's o pack you, especially if you're using hand, especially 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.640 if you're using paper. Like if there's a background image, yes, 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.560 that's involved with paper, you have to draw the whole 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.760 thing each time, right, So you're drawing that whole background 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.040 because you know, again your paper is not transparent, so 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.160 you're joining the whole background. Plus they're drawing whatever is 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:01.160 in the foreground that's that's animated. And then the next frame, 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:03.400 you have to draw it all over again. Whereas with cells, 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.280 what you could do is you could have a pre 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:11.520 generated background image that is laid down in a frame, 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.160 and then you could overlay these cells on top of it, 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.320 one at a time, and because the cell itself is clear, 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:22.400 anywhere that you have not drawn, you could see the background. 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:25.640 And then you take that cell out, you put another 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.800 cell in, you take another picture, which represents a frame 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:32.200 of the film. You know, when you think about film, 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:36.960 really is animation, even live action film is technically animation 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.800 because you're talking about looking at a series of photographs 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.160 that are played at such a speed as to create 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.360 the illusion of movement. Uh. Now, the granted this is 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:48.560 we're talking about physical film here, because once we get 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.800 into digital there's different things to you know, consider, But 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:56.319 in the old film days, that's that's really what we're 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.319 talking about. So with animation, each of those frames is 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.280 essentially a potograph. You're using a camera to photograph this drawing, 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.000 and with the cells, like I said, you take one 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:10.920 cell out, you put another cell in, the background remains static. Uh. 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.200 Then you have a character that is appearing or object 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.239 or whatever that's appearing to move on top of this background. 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:22.239 If it's a movement that is, you know, easily repeatable, 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.600 you don't even have to draw more than the number 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:28.080 of cells it takes to complete one cycle of that action. 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.240 So let's say that you wanna picture. You've drawn a 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:36.440 cartoon kangaroo, and the kangaroo is just jumping straight up 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.360 and down five times. Well, you don't have to draw 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.080 enough cells to do that five times. You draw it 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.200 so it does one full cycle, one jump from start 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.160 to finish, and then you you could photograph that sequence 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.440 five times using these that same set of cells. So, 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:54.199 in other words, you've just cut down on the amount 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:55.520 of work you would have to do if this were 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.000 all done on paper. Yes, and that's one of the 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:03.000 important points to that that so many animators have used 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.680 in the past. Um uh the the illusion of movement. 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:10.400 You've got your kangaroo hopping up and down. Now, if 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:14.480 the background stays static, um, then it looks like the 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.480 kangaroos hopping up and down in place. Um. This technique 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:22.199 that Jonathan was just saying UM or just talking about 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:27.520 UH is often used to create the illusion of movement 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.160 across a linear surface from point A to point B. 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.880 Let's say the characters are walking down a street in 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:40.000 the city. Man, I remember those old Marvel Comics heroes 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.360 animations from the sixties, and all the buildings. If if 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.400 you watch a lot of these shows, um, Hanna Barbary 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.319 did this kind of thing to all the time, where 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.560 you're moving down the urban landscape and they've you've got 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.839 your drawings of the city. And after a while, the 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.000 build the buildings begin to look the same, which is 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:04.360 because underneath what the characters are doing the same images 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:07.320 of the city. You know, once they've gotten uh you know, 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.880 let's say twenty four for each frame, they probably had 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.960 uh you know, a certain number of those, and once 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:15.640 they got to the end of that, then they started 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.320 over the beginning and loops and loops. And so if 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:21.000 you think of if you think of like a cell, 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.520 a cell is generally the size of whatever the the 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.200 whole frame of that images. Right. So so one cell 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.840 has the character or object or whatever or characters or 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.360 objects or mix of whatever. Um, it has those in 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:40.319 the center, or has those on the on the center, 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.040 it doesn't really matter it has on the cell. The 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:44.959 rest of the cell is clear. That's what's showing you. 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:49.400 The background. Generally, the backgrounds are much wider than the 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.040 frame on sometimes taller as well than the frame that 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:56.800 you are looking at. So when you take that picture 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:58.960 and you remove the cell so you can put the 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.600 next cell into gating the next movement of that character, 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.839 you would also adjust the position of the background so 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.360 that you would have that illusion of a character walking forward. 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:12.920 So let's say the characters staying in the center of 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.800 the frame, and the animation is the character is making 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:19.080 a walking motion. Then what you would do is between 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:23.680 the different shots you would move the background horizontally so 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.800 that it would look like the characters making progress. Well, 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.360 eventually you're gonna run on a background, you'll have to 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.679 switch to a different background, or you have to reuse one, 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:34.880 which is what Chris was talking about. You also notice 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.840 in a lot of those old animations characters have very 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.680 limited movement. Sometimes it looks like a static character who's 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:42.600 just kind of bouncing up and down a little bit 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:46.200 as the background is moving. And again that was a 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:51.080 way of saving money by drawing fewer cells. You draw 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.679 a character on a cell and you're using that same 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.080 static image of the character, You're just repositioning the cell 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:01.920 slightly and adjusting the cameras frame so that there the 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.480 character appears to be moving up and down as if 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.240 they are walking, but in fact you're just using the 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.959 same picture over and over and over again. Pretty get 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.600 to the clutch cargo days, where you replace the cartoon 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.720 character's mouth with a human mouth and generate a whole 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:21.840 generation of nightmares. I'm pretty sure though, that this this 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.280 method is exactly why he Man always appeared to be 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.680 moon walking everywhere he went, right. Yeah, The match matching 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:34.600 the the background movement with the animated character movement is 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:36.960 an art form of it's in and of itself, and 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.160 if you don't do it carefully, then you get this 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:43.240 weird glide e motion where the character either seems to 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:47.600 be uh walking too quickly but not making enough progress, 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:52.320 or walking slowly but moving really fast. And um yeah, 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:54.680 it's it's a it's a form of art really to 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.240 get that just right, we're kind of getting a little 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.280 too far into this, though. I want to talk kind 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:02.520 of about the whole process of building an animated feature. 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.360 But before I jump into it, one other thing I 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.320 need to say is that this traditional form of animation 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:11.960 we're talking about, where you're drawing pictures on cells. Uh, 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:14.240 it takes up a lot of space, Yes, it does. 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.440 The equipment takes up a lot of space because you 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.480 usually have to have a table on which you are 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.160 photographing all this stuff and you're not using like a 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:29.880 hand camera. No, this is professional, huge camera, And generally speaking, uh, 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.000 this kind of helps cut down on the amount of 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.480 materials you need. But generally speaking, for film, most animation 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:40.640 is done where they call it animating on two's, which 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:46.640 means they take two pictures per uh position, which means 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:50.040 that well, the playback is twenty four frames per second, 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:55.160 the positions are more like twelve frames per second. So uh, 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.440 that way, you've just cut the number of cells you 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.560 need to create in half. Also, the number of times 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.560 you need to adjust the background, you've cut that in half, uh, 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.640 which makes a big difference. Now, for things that are 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.120 like action that's moving really really quickly where you want 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.640 to really smooth, you might be animating on ones, which 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.280 means every single time you take a picture you have 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.440 to change whatever you know, either the background or the 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:26.600 foreground or both between each picture. So you've just added 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.640 twice as much work, you know, sometimes even more than 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:32.640 twice as much because you think about all the departments 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.840 that are involved in this, but um it creates a 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.120 lot more work that way. It also means you have 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:43.120 to have storage space for all this stuff because cells 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:47.200 take up room, backgrounds take up room, the equipment takes 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:50.400 up room, and film itself takes up room. So you 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:54.120 know you talk about film footage, well that really does 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.720 that really does refer back to how many feet of 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:01.720 film you've shot? Right footage. I mean when you think about, oh, yeah, 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.159 I got some great footage, but you don't think of 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:05.919 what that really means. Well, in the film days, that 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:10.240 actually meant how many feet of film you had exposed, 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:12.840 how many you had you had shot of whatever scene. 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.959 If you want to know how much film animated, an 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:24.680 animated picture takes about sixteen frames is a foot okay. 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:29.000 One second of film is twenty four frames, So one 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:33.400 second of film is a foot and a half okay, 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:39.480 most about half a Most cartoons are longer than a second. 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.480 So you have lots and lots of film that you're 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:46.840 dealing with. All right, So that's that's the space issue, 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.240 and we'll talk more about how we've kind of worked 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:53.240 around that, uh and move beyond the cell based animation 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:57.520 these days while still staying hand drawn. Um So, if 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:02.280 you wanted to make an animated film, Uh, the way 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.520 you would generally approach this is you come up with 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:10.320 an idea for a story. That the best thing, the 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.640 best way to start, in my opinion, I just drew 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.080 some stuff bouncing around? Is that all right? You could 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:20.679 do that? It's not terribly you know interesting, um beyond 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:23.800 maybe a certain group of friends who are amused by anything. 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.560 You My friends know who they are. Um, hey, they 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:32.399 like my stuff. So anyway, so you create a story 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:35.800 and then you think of how you want to visualize 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.600 this story. This is where you create a story board. Now, 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:41.840 a storyboard is kind of like a comic strip or 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:45.760 a graphic novel. It tells the story in a series 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.480 of frames and uh, it all depends on how detailed 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.480 you want to get. Sometimes you just show a uh, 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.199 you know, a frame, and then you might make a 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:59.120 note about what is happening as far as the action goes, because, 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:01.200 of course, a frame is a still image. We don't 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:05.280 see movement in a frame. We can see the implication 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:09.720 like that it's implying movement perhaps, but it doesn't actually move. 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.359 So you might say, you know, like I have a 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.679 have a picture of a character who is holding an 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:20.240 American football, and is, uh, that's for my friends in 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:22.399 in places other than the United States. But holding an 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:24.359 American football is if they're going to throw a pass, 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:26.760 so their arm is cocked back they're holding the football, 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.639 And then you might draw some arrows showing that this 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:31.840 is the forward motion that the character is going to 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:33.919 throw the ball. And then the next shot might be 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.680 the football in the air, and then the next shot 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:39.240 might be a character with arms wide open trying to 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.560 catch this ball, and the next shot might be the 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.560 ball passing right between the character's arms. That would be 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.600 several frames within a storyboard. You fill out the entire 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.879 story this way, so you end up with a huge, 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.240 depending upon the length of your project, a huge comic 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:59.760 strip that is your story, and it's told in this 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:03.719 visi dual format. Um. Once you've got an idea of 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.240 what it looks like and the mood you're trying to 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.840 get across in various parts of the story, the next 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.040 step uh, and and not every project takes these steps 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.720 in this exact order, but in general, the next step 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.119 would be you get your cast together and you record 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:25.240 all the voice work, So it all depends on the 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:29.560 project of how you do this. Some some animation companies, 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:31.080 what they would do is they would bring in the 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:36.720 voice actors uh individually and they would just deliver their lines. 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.040 And they might deliver a line five six different ways, 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.080 so that the director has the choice of which line 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:48.800 to use, which which delivery to use. Right, So the 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.600 line might be, Chris, I need you to say this line, 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.320 don't go in there. Don't go in there now. I 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.320 need you to say it like you're scared, don't go 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.000 in there. Now. I need you to say like there's 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:03.359 a big surprise and you just you can't let this 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:06.920 person see the surprise yet, don't go in there. See. 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.760 So that's exactly what the voice actors would be doing, 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.800 and it sounds ridiculous, but that's truly the way a 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:16.480 lot of these studios work, unless they're casting Robin Williams, 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:21.000 in which case they give him a microphone like like, 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:24.000 here's here's your stuff, here's your queue line, here's the 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.320 line you need to give so that the next actor's 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:30.719 line makes sense. Go at it. Yeah. The stuff that 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.920 ended up on the cutting room floor for Aladdin is phenomenal. 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:37.440 I mean, the stuff that made it in was great. 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:39.720 The stuff that made it on that was cut was 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:45.080 pretty amazing too. Anyway, that's that's one way of doing it. 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.480 Another way, sometimes studios will bring in groups of actors 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:51.679 and they will all have headphones on. They'll be uh 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:54.160 in the studio and they will they will read out 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:58.160 lines together and you will actually have actors acting off 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:01.760 of one another's delivery like a group read, which which 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.320 is great. And usually there's also a group read before 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:06.439 they even go into the recording process so that they 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.400 can kind of get that feel. This is particularly true 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.560 for television animation, where they'll get a table read so 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:16.040 that the actors kind of know where they need to 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:18.560 go with their performance before they go into the studio. 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:21.639 But if they're together, it makes it easier at least, 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:24.199 and I have done this for me. It makes it 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:26.760 easier for me to act when I have someone to 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:30.840 act opposite of that way, we can we can judge 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:33.560 how to deliver the next line based upon what the 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:36.760 other person has said. It's a lot more challenging when 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:38.800 you're doing it in a void and you just hope 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:40.840 that the way you deliver a line matches up with 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:46.080 the way they delivered their line. But both approaches are used, 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.640 and there are some phenomenal animated works out there where 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:53.640 every single actor never ever encountered any of the other actors, 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:57.320 which to me blows my mind. Um, So they record 0:22:57.400 --> 0:22:59.680 this thing and then you have what is called a 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:04.360 ratch track. This is the audio track of the film 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:08.119 that includes all the vocal acting, including songs if there 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:10.640 are any vocal songs that the characters are performing in there, 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.600 and usually some temp music tracks because often the music 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:17.479 for a film is not finished until you've got at 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.080 least something to look at so that the composer can 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:22.720 kind of match the mood of the music to whatever's 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:26.520 on screen. But they'll be temp music tracks to kind 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:29.840 of give the the you know, music tracks that are 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:32.680 selected that give sort of a similar feel to what 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:35.399 the filmmakers are going for, so that the animators have 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:38.800 something to work off of. So you've got the scratch 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:40.960 track done. By the way, this was not how it 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:45.960 was always done prior to the nineteen thirties. Animators would 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:49.520 create an animated film and then record the sound matching 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:52.240 trying to match the sound to what was already created 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:56.040 in film. Format, so they were going the opposite way. 0:23:56.080 --> 0:23:57.960 They would create the film and then they would try 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:01.600 and essentially do Foley or whatever the animated film was. 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:04.040 But but eventually it moved to the other way. Yeah, 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:05.760 if I were going to do this, it would probably 0:24:05.800 --> 0:24:09.760 be more like that, right, that would be because I'm 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:12.600 not an animator. Yeah. So, because what the animators are 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:16.000 doing is they take that that that soundtrack, that scratch track, 0:24:16.560 --> 0:24:21.360 and they start to create the animation. Now, sometimes there's 0:24:21.359 --> 0:24:23.720 another step. In fact, very often there's another step called 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:28.959 an animatic or a pencil test. This is a very 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:33.080 primitive version of the film, so it goes beyond the 0:24:33.119 --> 0:24:38.640 storyboard model where you've got some some movement usually involved 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:41.840 in the animatics. But it's if you think, you know, 0:24:41.960 --> 0:24:44.119 the most primitive form of the animatic could just be 0:24:44.200 --> 0:24:47.560 a storyboard set to the scratch track. And this again 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:50.120 is a reference for the animators to look at when 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:57.280 they start to really generate them the visuals for the film. Now, 0:24:58.040 --> 0:25:00.280 at this point you can start to divide it up 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:03.720 the labor which is very useful because it means that 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:06.840 you can have different departments working on various stuff all 0:25:06.880 --> 0:25:11.199 at the same time, and people can specialize in very 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:15.480 particular tasks, and it makes the whole project move much 0:25:15.520 --> 0:25:18.320 more quickly. It's like a it's it's an assembly line approach. 0:25:19.359 --> 0:25:21.840 So and it's it's kind of key to how they 0:25:21.840 --> 0:25:24.760 started making animated motion pictures. I'm glad you said the 0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:27.760 word key, but I'll get to that. So that you 0:25:27.800 --> 0:25:31.320 might have a background department. This is the department's purposes 0:25:31.440 --> 0:25:34.040 just to create the backgrounds that you're going to see 0:25:34.119 --> 0:25:36.760 in this animated feature. We'll be back here if you 0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:39.840 need us. So they actually are. That's that's their job 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:42.600 is to create the backgrounds. And these backgrounds might, like 0:25:42.640 --> 0:25:45.760 I said, be larger than the frame is when you're 0:25:45.800 --> 0:25:49.040 taking pictures with your film camera, so that you can 0:25:49.160 --> 0:25:52.080 move the background around in relation to what's going on 0:25:52.240 --> 0:25:54.720 in the foreground, so that you can have that illusion 0:25:54.720 --> 0:25:57.840 of characters moving around a scene and you aren't you 0:25:57.880 --> 0:26:01.360 aren't restricted to just what you can see in any 0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:05.880 given frame. Uh. So they that department starts to work 0:26:05.920 --> 0:26:08.320 on the backgrounds. You've got the drawing department, and what 0:26:08.359 --> 0:26:11.480 they usually do is start on paper and they'll start 0:26:11.560 --> 0:26:15.920 drawing out the characters. They'll they'll start creating character concepts. 0:26:16.080 --> 0:26:19.359 This is the time where, uh, they really start to 0:26:19.400 --> 0:26:25.200 refine the way characters look and move, and not just 0:26:25.280 --> 0:26:27.840 the characters themselves, but anything the character happens to have 0:26:28.000 --> 0:26:31.119 on him or her. So, for example, if you've drawn 0:26:31.640 --> 0:26:34.040 a space marine character who's got a big gun and 0:26:34.119 --> 0:26:36.439 big clunky armor, you would want to draw a lot 0:26:36.480 --> 0:26:39.240 of different poses for this character to kind of define, like, 0:26:39.320 --> 0:26:43.400 this is how this character moves. Like the armor restricts movements, 0:26:43.400 --> 0:26:45.560 so things need to be really angular and there can't 0:26:45.560 --> 0:26:48.119 be a lot of flexibility here. And when the character 0:26:48.240 --> 0:26:52.480 expressed a surprise, um, his eyebrows actually go down, not up, 0:26:52.520 --> 0:26:54.080 and that sort of stuff. And these are things that 0:26:54.119 --> 0:26:59.480 really define acting choices in the movie. You know, it's 0:26:59.480 --> 0:27:02.679 a weird and of the weird things that a performance 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:05.359 in an animated film is defined by not just the 0:27:05.359 --> 0:27:08.880 person who's recorded the voice, but the person who has 0:27:09.000 --> 0:27:12.920 drawn that character. And so you've got an acting performance 0:27:12.960 --> 0:27:17.280 coming from at least two different people, and usually more 0:27:17.359 --> 0:27:21.639 than two different people. Yeah, there there are times in uh, 0:27:21.760 --> 0:27:25.040 for example, I know this is not a hand drawn animation, 0:27:25.080 --> 0:27:28.320 there are times in Monsters, Inc. When I'm watching Mike 0:27:28.400 --> 0:27:31.600 Wazowski and I'm seeing Billy Crystal in my head because 0:27:31.640 --> 0:27:37.240 they've captured some of the same facial and that's that's 0:27:37.240 --> 0:27:41.920 not unusual either. Often, often people will film or videotape 0:27:42.000 --> 0:27:45.720 the cast recording sessions in order to get a look 0:27:45.760 --> 0:27:49.080 at how the actors, uh, you know, some of the 0:27:49.160 --> 0:27:52.400 some of the facial expressions they use, or the quirks 0:27:52.480 --> 0:27:56.000 they have, and they'll even incorporate that into the character designs, 0:27:56.720 --> 0:27:59.640 which is that's always fun when you see an animated 0:27:59.680 --> 0:28:03.000 character make a movement that is something you associate with 0:28:03.040 --> 0:28:06.520 a physical human being, that's always a fun moment. Yeah. Yeah, 0:28:06.560 --> 0:28:10.159 And I think that's another benefit of doing it the 0:28:10.200 --> 0:28:12.000 other way around. Not only do you have to not 0:28:12.400 --> 0:28:15.399 match up the voice to the animation, but you actually 0:28:15.400 --> 0:28:17.680 get to to breathe a little life into the animation 0:28:17.680 --> 0:28:20.640 to and make it more appealing. Right. So, the next 0:28:20.680 --> 0:28:23.439 step is, once you've got the drawings on paper, you 0:28:23.480 --> 0:28:28.320 start to trace it onto cells. Now technically it's on 0:28:28.359 --> 0:28:31.040 the back of the cells that you're tracing this stuff on. 0:28:31.119 --> 0:28:34.639 And after after you've drawn the line drawing, you know, 0:28:34.720 --> 0:28:38.800 after you've inked it, it's the inking phase. It's time 0:28:38.840 --> 0:28:42.120 to go to paint, where you have to use the 0:28:42.240 --> 0:28:46.959 very specific colors you have designated or that character. Um, 0:28:47.000 --> 0:28:50.040 there are you know, there are guides for every single 0:28:50.080 --> 0:28:55.200 animated feature or television show about what color belongs to 0:28:55.400 --> 0:28:58.719 which character. And you know, it's a very specific thing 0:28:58.760 --> 0:29:03.040 because when it's off, it's noticeably off, particularly if it's 0:29:03.120 --> 0:29:07.920 off within a single uh episode of a show or 0:29:07.960 --> 0:29:11.360 a single film, but if it's something that's between episodes, 0:29:11.400 --> 0:29:15.440 even then it can be noticeable, like Homer Simpson's pants 0:29:15.480 --> 0:29:19.160 aren't the right color of blue. It's true, you know, 0:29:19.280 --> 0:29:21.360 you can. In fact, there are companies that have had 0:29:21.360 --> 0:29:25.160 problems where the paints they were using no longer existed 0:29:25.200 --> 0:29:27.240 because the company that produced them was gone and they 0:29:27.240 --> 0:29:29.040 had to try and figure out how to recreate that 0:29:29.160 --> 0:29:33.160 exact color or or there are times too when um, 0:29:33.200 --> 0:29:36.120 you know, especially for TV shows, whether they're they're creating 0:29:36.480 --> 0:29:41.920 many episodes of a show where uh, the producing studio 0:29:42.160 --> 0:29:46.280 farms the animation work out to other studios, so you 0:29:46.280 --> 0:29:50.560 don't see differences sometimes in colors when one studio does 0:29:50.600 --> 0:29:53.360 it versus another. Yeah, and that's that's not be distracting 0:29:53.360 --> 0:29:55.640 for long time fans. That's another issue I was going 0:29:55.720 --> 0:29:57.680 to mention, is that so you get to this point 0:29:57.680 --> 0:29:59.520 where you're drawing the cells and you're painting the cells. 0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:02.000 You're thinking and painting the cells. Everything is being done 0:30:02.000 --> 0:30:03.960 on the back of the cell that also hides the 0:30:03.960 --> 0:30:07.480 brush strokes, so that way, when you turn the cell over, 0:30:07.520 --> 0:30:11.200 you've got this beautiful color image of a character or 0:30:11.200 --> 0:30:14.200 an object or whatever, but you don't see the individual 0:30:14.280 --> 0:30:16.120 brush strokes or anything because that's on the back of 0:30:16.160 --> 0:30:19.720 the cell. Uh. Then once those cells are done, if 0:30:19.760 --> 0:30:21.960 if you were to do all the animation yourself, you 0:30:22.000 --> 0:30:25.920 would produce all the cells you needed two complete the 0:30:25.960 --> 0:30:29.000 animation for the various scenes you're doing. And sometimes that 0:30:29.040 --> 0:30:30.720 means that you're going to be using some of the 0:30:30.920 --> 0:30:34.320 same cells again and again. Like if there are a 0:30:34.360 --> 0:30:36.320 lot of scenes of a character walking down the road, 0:30:36.360 --> 0:30:39.760 then you may have a certain sequence of cells that 0:30:39.880 --> 0:30:43.640 you use several times. Uh. You don't want to rely 0:30:43.680 --> 0:30:45.959 on it too much, of course, because otherwise it just 0:30:46.000 --> 0:30:49.520 looks like it's the same thing through the whole picture. 0:30:50.120 --> 0:30:53.640 But you would put those cells individually on top of 0:30:53.840 --> 0:30:59.000 the respective backgrounds. Take a photo, make the adjustments, take 0:30:59.040 --> 0:31:02.360 the next photo, make adjustments, take the next photo, until 0:31:02.480 --> 0:31:04.800 you were done, and you know you do that all 0:31:04.840 --> 0:31:06.479 the way through and you're matching it up to that 0:31:06.560 --> 0:31:09.600 scratch track. You actually have to make sure that the 0:31:09.640 --> 0:31:13.520 animation matches up with the soundtrack for the film. And 0:31:13.560 --> 0:31:17.160 then uh they the final soundtrack comes through with the 0:31:17.240 --> 0:31:21.960 music and effects and everything, and uh you master out 0:31:22.000 --> 0:31:25.160 the film and then you've got your finished animated project. However, 0:31:25.640 --> 0:31:28.360 like Chris was saying, a lot of television shows in 0:31:28.400 --> 0:31:34.160 particular farm out animation to other countries, particularly Korea. Korea 0:31:34.360 --> 0:31:41.280 is is like a known factor in animation UM and 0:31:41.440 --> 0:31:45.160 shows like The Simsons and Futurama, they use these studios 0:31:45.160 --> 0:31:51.200 in Korea to complete the animation. What usually happens is that, uh, 0:31:51.360 --> 0:31:55.080 the team back in the United States will create what 0:31:55.160 --> 0:32:00.000 are called key frames. Key frames are showing very specific 0:32:00.160 --> 0:32:04.680 points in the animation that need to happen, and you 0:32:04.800 --> 0:32:11.000 have these segments between the key frames that are left unfinished. 0:32:11.280 --> 0:32:14.520 They need to be filled in, and that's called in between, 0:32:15.120 --> 0:32:17.680 which makes sense. You're you're creating this the action that 0:32:17.760 --> 0:32:21.200 exists in between the key frames. So if you think 0:32:21.240 --> 0:32:23.320 about it, back when I was talking about the storyboard 0:32:23.840 --> 0:32:28.960 with the whole football, uh example, you would probably have 0:32:29.120 --> 0:32:32.400 more key frames than just the three or four panels 0:32:32.400 --> 0:32:34.520 I had talked about, but that would essentially be the 0:32:34.560 --> 0:32:36.960 same sort of thing saying this is your starting point, 0:32:37.040 --> 0:32:39.680 this is your ending point. We need to have the 0:32:39.720 --> 0:32:43.480 pathway connecting these two. It needs to be this many 0:32:43.560 --> 0:32:46.680 frames long. So that's that kind of dictates how fast 0:32:46.720 --> 0:32:50.560 the action takes UM and then once that is all done, 0:32:50.640 --> 0:32:55.680 the the foreign for us anyway, the Foreign Studios sends 0:32:55.760 --> 0:32:59.440 the footage back and you can incorporate into your show. Now, 0:32:59.480 --> 0:33:02.160 often you have to do a lot of work to 0:33:02.960 --> 0:33:07.360 match up things like vocal work in particular with UM 0:33:07.440 --> 0:33:10.440 with the animation that's sent back, because you're talking about 0:33:10.440 --> 0:33:14.480 a language barrier. Often you're talking about people who may 0:33:14.520 --> 0:33:17.960 not get the gist of a joke because of either 0:33:18.040 --> 0:33:22.400 linguistic or cultural differences. So something that makes sense and 0:33:22.520 --> 0:33:24.720 is funny to us may not be funny to another 0:33:24.760 --> 0:33:28.640 culture because they don't have the same cultural background or 0:33:28.760 --> 0:33:32.200 same linguistic background, so they're there are adjustments that need 0:33:32.280 --> 0:33:36.160 to be made at that point. But the idea is 0:33:36.200 --> 0:33:39.280 that the bulk of the work is done, which ends 0:33:39.360 --> 0:33:42.840 up being less expensive for the studio here in the 0:33:42.920 --> 0:33:48.080 United States because frankly, it's the people, the animators who 0:33:48.080 --> 0:33:50.360 are working in Korea are doing it at a much 0:33:50.560 --> 0:33:53.560 lower cost than it would be to produce it all here. 0:33:55.080 --> 0:33:58.760 So that's the general approach. Now, we have a couple 0:33:58.800 --> 0:34:01.480 of special things we want to talk about, one of 0:34:01.480 --> 0:34:05.560 those being something that was invented, uh many decades ago 0:34:06.080 --> 0:34:12.120 by Disney animators Disney engineers. Yeah, this may uh, I'm 0:34:12.160 --> 0:34:16.600 not certain that that we're talking about the same thing. Yes, 0:34:16.640 --> 0:34:19.760 the multiplane camera. That's exactly I'm doing the multiplane camera 0:34:19.880 --> 0:34:22.239 gestures so that Chris would know. Yes, that's the the 0:34:22.280 --> 0:34:25.680 international symbol for the multiplane camera, which is putting putting 0:34:25.680 --> 0:34:31.560 your horizontal hand in five different levels. This um, this 0:34:31.640 --> 0:34:35.919 is a little different in technique um and and it's 0:34:36.000 --> 0:34:39.560 it's similar in other ways. Now, um, this is something 0:34:39.600 --> 0:34:41.680 that the Disney studios there were there were several people 0:34:41.680 --> 0:34:44.439 who worked on this. Um Disney himself did some work 0:34:44.440 --> 0:34:48.879 on it, and the the semi famous ou By works 0:34:48.920 --> 0:34:54.560 also worked on it as well. Um and Uh. Basically 0:34:54.640 --> 0:34:57.120 they had noticed there's a there's an awesome film of 0:34:57.200 --> 0:35:01.040 Disney himself introducing this and talking about it. I assume 0:35:01.120 --> 0:35:04.120 that it looks like it came from the Disneyland uh 0:35:04.360 --> 0:35:07.719 TV show that was out in the fifties and Stax 0:35:08.680 --> 0:35:10.800 or or so, and I'm sure it was used in 0:35:10.840 --> 0:35:13.879 something like The Wonderful World of Disney. You know, it's 0:35:14.200 --> 0:35:18.040 it's He did a whole series of films where he 0:35:18.160 --> 0:35:21.600 talked very you know, just just a matter of fatter 0:35:21.640 --> 0:35:24.080 of fact approach about how they do what they do 0:35:24.120 --> 0:35:26.680 and how they make Disney magic, which in my mind 0:35:26.719 --> 0:35:29.279 made it all the more magical because you saw the 0:35:29.360 --> 0:35:34.520 amount of thought that went into producing the stuff they made. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, 0:35:34.600 --> 0:35:36.240 But it's been in about five minutes. I had actually 0:35:36.280 --> 0:35:38.799 read about this in a biography of Walt Disney, but 0:35:39.400 --> 0:35:43.440 seeing it actually explained step by step and how they 0:35:43.480 --> 0:35:47.560 make it work. Um. Now, when you show a traditional 0:35:47.680 --> 0:35:52.240 two D animation, UH cell being shot, a photo being 0:35:52.280 --> 0:35:56.640 taken of the cell against the background, Basically there's a 0:35:56.719 --> 0:35:59.280 frame that holds the cell in place over the background. 0:35:59.440 --> 0:36:02.160 They clamped down so it's not gonna wiggle while they 0:36:02.160 --> 0:36:05.080 take the shot, and the camera is mounted above the table, 0:36:05.160 --> 0:36:07.240 so it is taking a picture of what is inside 0:36:07.239 --> 0:36:10.560 the frame, the physical frame on top of the table. 0:36:11.000 --> 0:36:15.000 So you basically have a shutter shutter release control you 0:36:15.280 --> 0:36:17.319 mount that you put the cell in place, lock it 0:36:17.360 --> 0:36:19.640 down in place. Uh, you know, back out so you 0:36:19.680 --> 0:36:21.200 don't take a picture of the back of your head 0:36:22.640 --> 0:36:25.440 and gets some weird reflection in there or something. Yeah, 0:36:25.480 --> 0:36:27.360 and and and do the shutter release, you know, with 0:36:27.400 --> 0:36:30.480 your with your thumb, you know, finger and uh, you know, 0:36:30.560 --> 0:36:35.600 take your two shots if you're doing uh you know. Okay, 0:36:35.680 --> 0:36:38.280 so you got it. But what what Disney was explaining 0:36:38.280 --> 0:36:42.120 in this video was, uh, basically the problem of perspective. 0:36:43.160 --> 0:36:47.439 How certain things appear larger when they're closer to you 0:36:47.640 --> 0:36:52.399 or smaller farther away. Now you have, um something like 0:36:53.560 --> 0:36:57.319 a barn, and that's specifically from this with a moon 0:36:57.719 --> 0:37:00.480 hanging in the sky and the background. Yeah. Now you 0:37:00.560 --> 0:37:02.760 as you get closer, as you walk toward the barn, 0:37:02.960 --> 0:37:05.759 it's going to start to appear larger. But in in 0:37:05.800 --> 0:37:10.480 traditional animation, you know, to d animation, you start basically 0:37:10.520 --> 0:37:13.680 if you build, everything gets larger because you're basically zooming 0:37:13.719 --> 0:37:17.400 in on your if you if you're thinking of it 0:37:17.440 --> 0:37:21.400 in purely physical terms, you are either moving the camera 0:37:21.560 --> 0:37:24.359 closer or focusing the lens so that the focal length 0:37:24.400 --> 0:37:27.040 is different, but you're you're essentially moving the camera closer 0:37:27.120 --> 0:37:29.799 to the frame, or you're moving the frame closer to 0:37:29.840 --> 0:37:33.080 the camera. In that either case, you're decreasing the distance 0:37:33.600 --> 0:37:37.360 between camera and frame in order to create the illusion 0:37:37.440 --> 0:37:40.719 that you are zooming into a physical landscape. So in 0:37:40.760 --> 0:37:44.200 a real world situation, it'd be like a cameraman holding 0:37:44.239 --> 0:37:47.600 a camera and walking toward this barn that's on a 0:37:47.680 --> 0:37:50.080 hill on the moon is hanging behind it. And in 0:37:50.120 --> 0:37:55.640 that situation, the barn would gradually start to appear larger 0:37:55.719 --> 0:37:57.959 in the frame because you're getting closer, but the moon 0:37:58.480 --> 0:38:01.680 would not start to it larger because the moon is 0:38:01.719 --> 0:38:04.560 so much further away. You would have to go a 0:38:04.640 --> 0:38:07.319 really long way before that moon started looking like it 0:38:07.360 --> 0:38:10.840 was getting bigger. But an animation, because it's a static 0:38:10.880 --> 0:38:14.680 background and it's drawn on a two dimensional piece of 0:38:14.719 --> 0:38:19.680 paper or whatever, uh, when the camera gets closer, everything 0:38:19.719 --> 0:38:24.280 gets bigger because you cannot selectively say, hey, static image 0:38:24.320 --> 0:38:26.680 that it was drawn once that we're going to use 0:38:26.760 --> 0:38:29.120 over and over again. Make sure the moon doesn't get 0:38:29.120 --> 0:38:31.399 bigger when I get closer to it. It doesn't work 0:38:31.440 --> 0:38:35.520 that way. So the way that that the Disney Studios 0:38:36.560 --> 0:38:40.759 decided to work around this was to essentially, and it's 0:38:40.800 --> 0:38:43.640 not exactly like this, but if you will essentially use 0:38:43.680 --> 0:38:49.000 a stack of layered cells um mounted you know, one 0:38:49.440 --> 0:38:52.319 over the other, over the other over the other, so 0:38:52.360 --> 0:38:55.320 that the table underneath them still has the bottom and 0:38:55.360 --> 0:38:59.520 the camera is still above them. But what this enables 0:39:00.040 --> 0:39:04.160 the the animators to do is to adjust. Uh. So 0:39:04.239 --> 0:39:05.919 the moon in this case will be on the very 0:39:05.920 --> 0:39:10.120 bottom because it's not going to move, but there might 0:39:10.200 --> 0:39:13.879 be a tree between you and the barn. So as 0:39:13.960 --> 0:39:17.399 the camera gets closer to the layer with the tree 0:39:17.400 --> 0:39:20.640 on it, it eventually goes out of sight because at 0:39:20.640 --> 0:39:23.840 this point you uh, there, the illusion is that you 0:39:23.920 --> 0:39:27.400 have passed the tree. The barn is still ahead of you, 0:39:27.760 --> 0:39:30.800 and it still appears to be getting larger, but more 0:39:30.880 --> 0:39:35.160 slowly than the bush on another layer in between. And 0:39:35.200 --> 0:39:37.560 then you eventually don't see the bush anymore because you 0:39:37.600 --> 0:39:41.640 have theoretically passed it. And uh as you get closer 0:39:41.680 --> 0:39:43.640 to the barn is still appearing larger, but the moon 0:39:44.400 --> 0:39:48.120 still appears to be the roughly the same distance away. 0:39:48.239 --> 0:39:52.040 So as the the camera gets you know, layer by 0:39:52.080 --> 0:39:56.759 a layer closer and closer down the stack of layers, um, 0:39:56.800 --> 0:39:59.600 you know, you do have that illusion that you are 0:39:59.760 --> 0:40:01.680 that the perspective is working the way it would in 0:40:01.719 --> 0:40:05.120 real life. Um. Now it is not exactly the same 0:40:05.200 --> 0:40:07.799 as as sell animation. In this case, they're actually using 0:40:07.800 --> 0:40:12.480 oil paint on glass. Don't drop that layer I worked 0:40:12.480 --> 0:40:15.640 on all day, Bill, don't don't get your filthy, smudgy 0:40:15.719 --> 0:40:17.960 hands off the layer I just felt. So they for 0:40:18.040 --> 0:40:20.560 every shot. Now this this again, this is an expensive 0:40:20.920 --> 0:40:26.280 process because now they are drawing not just one frame 0:40:26.640 --> 0:40:29.560 at a time, they are drawing several layers that you 0:40:29.600 --> 0:40:32.560 may or may not get to reuse later. Um, but 0:40:33.239 --> 0:40:37.640 they have to mount these in the holders for each frame. 0:40:37.719 --> 0:40:41.400 So let's say you've got seven layers. Um, the bottom 0:40:41.400 --> 0:40:43.439 one with the moon on it, that's gonna stay the same. Yeah, 0:40:43.480 --> 0:40:46.040 it's just it'll be on a stationary table. Yeah, but 0:40:46.160 --> 0:40:48.880 you might have to animate. You might have to replace 0:40:48.920 --> 0:40:52.080 the ones on the first three more frequently, and then 0:40:52.120 --> 0:40:54.920 the four, and then the five. So you're you're for 0:40:54.960 --> 0:40:58.560 every shot, you're going to have to adjust the different 0:40:58.640 --> 0:41:02.160 layers at needed. And so you've got you've got this 0:41:02.320 --> 0:41:06.600 device that has all these platforms that can hold each layer. So, 0:41:06.960 --> 0:41:09.359 and the platforms themselves are adjustable where you can move 0:41:09.400 --> 0:41:11.640 them closer to or further away from the camera, the 0:41:11.680 --> 0:41:14.719 camera remains stationary. You can also move them left to 0:41:14.840 --> 0:41:19.640 right or up or down. Frankly genius. So yeah, again, again, 0:41:19.680 --> 0:41:22.600 you can create a much wider scene than can be 0:41:22.680 --> 0:41:25.560 seen on a single shot of the camera. And remember 0:41:25.600 --> 0:41:28.680 we're still doing this this approach where we take one 0:41:28.719 --> 0:41:31.680 picture than you adjust, take one picture, then you adjust. 0:41:31.760 --> 0:41:34.279 You couldn't theoretically do this live if you really wanted to, 0:41:34.360 --> 0:41:37.080 but it would look it would probably be a chaotic mess. 0:41:37.719 --> 0:41:42.680 So um. Instead, let's say that you are doing a 0:41:42.719 --> 0:41:46.240 panning shot through a forest. Well, the stuff that's closer 0:41:46.320 --> 0:41:49.960 to you is going to appear to move more dramatically 0:41:50.000 --> 0:41:52.600 than the stuff that is much further away. Well, that 0:41:52.719 --> 0:41:55.080 was the shot that used in the video you were 0:41:55.080 --> 0:41:57.920 talking about was from Bambi, where it was a panning 0:41:57.920 --> 0:42:01.640 shot through the forest. And and this effect was very 0:42:01.680 --> 0:42:06.240 impressive because you had different layers of the background moving 0:42:06.480 --> 0:42:11.880 at different speeds relative to our perspective, and so it 0:42:11.960 --> 0:42:16.840 creates a much more realistic feeling than just camera panning 0:42:16.880 --> 0:42:20.640 across a static painting, which doesn't have any other layers 0:42:20.680 --> 0:42:24.680 to it. Um. And it really did add this level 0:42:25.040 --> 0:42:29.840 of immersion to those early animated films. Now, it was 0:42:29.840 --> 0:42:33.640 a very kind of primitive form of three D sense 0:42:33.640 --> 0:42:35.560 because you're not you're not having any it's it's giving 0:42:35.600 --> 0:42:38.080 the illusion of depth. It's not coming out at you. 0:42:38.400 --> 0:42:41.799 And also ultimately it's the illusion of depth of a 0:42:41.960 --> 0:42:47.640 series of two dimensional paintings. Right, So it's almost like, uh, 0:42:47.640 --> 0:42:50.480 And I've seen this with televisions that do three D 0:42:50.560 --> 0:42:53.640 conversion two D to three D conversion. The problem I 0:42:53.680 --> 0:42:55.799 have with two D to three D conversion is that 0:42:55.920 --> 0:42:59.279 it always gives the appearance of a bunch of cardboard 0:42:59.320 --> 0:43:03.080 cutouts that are at different depth levels. So if you 0:43:03.160 --> 0:43:05.719 had if you took a photo with a two D 0:43:05.880 --> 0:43:10.080 camera of a bunch of people lined up so that 0:43:10.200 --> 0:43:12.880 they are like, like, there's one guy who's really close 0:43:12.920 --> 0:43:15.680 to fairly close to you, another person who's a little 0:43:15.680 --> 0:43:17.560 further back, another one a little further back, and another 0:43:17.600 --> 0:43:19.520 one at the very back of the picture. And you've 0:43:19.560 --> 0:43:22.120 adjusted the focus so that everyone's more or less in focus, 0:43:22.320 --> 0:43:24.360 and you take the photo and then you converted to 0:43:24.440 --> 0:43:27.280 three D. Well, now it looks like a cardboard cutout 0:43:27.360 --> 0:43:29.920 of your friend is really close, and a cardboard cutout 0:43:29.960 --> 0:43:31.680 of your other friend is in the middle, it doesn't. 0:43:31.719 --> 0:43:33.960 That doesn't they don't appear to be three dimensional objects. 0:43:34.440 --> 0:43:37.080 The same thing is true with this multiplane camera approach 0:43:37.160 --> 0:43:40.160 is that the backgrounds all look like two dimensional paintings 0:43:40.160 --> 0:43:43.319 because that's what they were, but that there were some 0:43:43.400 --> 0:43:45.680 that were closer to the camera than others. So it 0:43:45.719 --> 0:43:48.920 created a very interesting effect and it was immersive, but 0:43:49.040 --> 0:43:54.800 it was not so immersive as a true three dimensional background. Yeah. Um. Nonetheless, 0:43:54.840 --> 0:43:57.840 I think it was a very clever way to to 0:43:58.200 --> 0:44:03.200 work around the limitations of two D and uh, you know, 0:44:03.320 --> 0:44:05.920 in thinking about it just now, I think in a 0:44:05.960 --> 0:44:11.399 way it inadvertently forced the ken Burns effect because when 0:44:11.400 --> 0:44:14.759 you're when you're shooting documentaries as as he has, and 0:44:14.800 --> 0:44:18.200 he's showing still images and they're you know, they they're 0:44:18.239 --> 0:44:22.160 interviewing somebody, they're talking and basically you're watching a photo 0:44:22.239 --> 0:44:25.400 that was taken a hundred years ago. There's it's it's 0:44:26.160 --> 0:44:30.880 a static photo of a real person, and it's what 0:44:30.880 --> 0:44:33.120 are you gonna do. You're gonna sit there and stare 0:44:33.160 --> 0:44:36.319 at the photo of Abraham Lincoln for two minutes while 0:44:36.320 --> 0:44:38.560 this guy is talking about him. No, you gotta do 0:44:38.640 --> 0:44:41.200 something to make it more. I think it's sort of 0:44:41.200 --> 0:44:44.080 set an expectation that when you're watching a video, it 0:44:44.080 --> 0:44:48.080 should be moving yea, and it should appear realistic. So UM, 0:44:48.120 --> 0:44:49.680 I started thinking about it one. You know, I bet 0:44:49.760 --> 0:44:52.600 that's why we have the ken Burns effect, because you know, 0:44:52.680 --> 0:44:55.800 we we came in with that perspective of moving in 0:44:55.840 --> 0:45:00.000 to the photo or panning across a still photo. Um. 0:45:00.000 --> 0:45:01.799 And that's exactly actually what I was thinking when I 0:45:02.000 --> 0:45:04.959 he was when Disney was narrating this. This thing is like, well, 0:45:04.960 --> 0:45:07.000 you know, you can zoom in if you want to, 0:45:07.080 --> 0:45:09.000 and it sort of seems like you're getting closer, but 0:45:09.040 --> 0:45:11.359 it does it's not as realistic as if you had 0:45:11.400 --> 0:45:13.880 this sense of perspective as we will create with the 0:45:13.960 --> 0:45:17.520 multiplane camera. So I just kind of thought about that now. 0:45:17.840 --> 0:45:20.040 The other thing I wanted to talk about is another 0:45:20.080 --> 0:45:23.880 development that has dramatically changed the way hand drawn animation 0:45:23.920 --> 0:45:29.040 works today, and that is using a digital platform to 0:45:29.080 --> 0:45:32.279 create hand drawn animation. So it's not computer animation. You 0:45:32.280 --> 0:45:35.640 are not building computer models. You're still drawing stuff by hand, 0:45:36.160 --> 0:45:38.560 You're just doing it with a computer right to assist 0:45:38.560 --> 0:45:41.600 to you and tip. Typically this is through the use 0:45:41.640 --> 0:45:45.239 of things like Wacom tablets, specifically centreat tablets tend to 0:45:45.239 --> 0:45:48.439 be favored by a lot of the artists sign note 0:45:48.640 --> 0:45:51.200 mainly because you can with the right tablet, you can 0:45:51.239 --> 0:45:55.319 actually still look down and see as you're drawing. That's 0:45:55.320 --> 0:45:57.319 a that's a something that I've I've got a friend 0:45:57.320 --> 0:45:59.160 who does animation, actually got a couple of friends to 0:45:59.160 --> 0:46:02.360 do animation. My buddy Lucas Ryan was talking to me 0:46:02.400 --> 0:46:03.880 about this because I said, we're going to do an 0:46:03.880 --> 0:46:06.719 episode about hand drawn animation. What would you suggest we 0:46:06.760 --> 0:46:08.640 talked about? And he says, well, you know you're going 0:46:08.680 --> 0:46:10.239 to cover the whole history and that's great, but I 0:46:10.320 --> 0:46:13.160 want you to talk about what it's like for an 0:46:13.200 --> 0:46:16.000 animator today to use one of these digital tablets. And 0:46:16.040 --> 0:46:18.359 he talked about, you know, there's a disconnect. There are 0:46:18.400 --> 0:46:22.080 some tablets where it's like a giant touch pad, right, 0:46:22.520 --> 0:46:25.319 and you've got a stylistic use a pen that you 0:46:25.440 --> 0:46:27.319 use and you draw on the touch pad, and the 0:46:27.320 --> 0:46:31.120 touch pad itself doesn't display anything. You have to look 0:46:31.160 --> 0:46:34.839 at a screen. He says, there's some people who they 0:46:34.920 --> 0:46:37.200 just can't get past that. They can't get past the 0:46:37.239 --> 0:46:39.640 fact that they are looking at a screen but they're drawing, 0:46:40.200 --> 0:46:42.000 you know, on a on a surface that they are 0:46:42.080 --> 0:46:45.279 not looking at, and that that's kind of understandable. I 0:46:45.280 --> 0:46:48.960 mean someone who's just learning to touch type. It's pretty 0:46:49.040 --> 0:46:51.920 intimidating because you have to you have to really teach 0:46:51.960 --> 0:46:55.799 yourself the layout and everything. So there are a lot 0:46:55.840 --> 0:46:59.360 of tablets out there now where there's also a display 0:46:59.400 --> 0:47:02.880 built into the tablet itself, so you're drawing on the tablet, 0:47:02.960 --> 0:47:05.640 it's also being reflected on a display on a computer, 0:47:05.680 --> 0:47:07.520 but you can look down and see what you're doing, 0:47:08.000 --> 0:47:10.799 so that way you can make these adjustments. Also, Uh, 0:47:11.000 --> 0:47:15.880 you talked about the the benefit of moving from a 0:47:16.000 --> 0:47:19.480 raster based system to a vector based system. We've talked 0:47:19.480 --> 0:47:22.839 about this before. Where raster is all pixel based, right, well, 0:47:22.920 --> 0:47:26.200 vector is math based. Yeah, it's a line art, line art, 0:47:26.200 --> 0:47:29.320 which is yeah, And and the nice thing about vector 0:47:29.400 --> 0:47:33.800 graphics is that it's it's relatively easy to adjust lines 0:47:34.080 --> 0:47:37.360 after you draw them, So you can reshape a line 0:47:37.880 --> 0:47:40.600 much more simply with a vector based drawing than you 0:47:40.600 --> 0:47:43.120 could with raster, where you would essentially have to erase 0:47:43.200 --> 0:47:45.480 what you did and draw it again. So there's some 0:47:45.880 --> 0:47:50.200 illustrators and animators out there who they're just used to it. 0:47:50.239 --> 0:47:52.319 They'll be they'll draw a line and say, no, that's 0:47:52.360 --> 0:47:54.000 that curves not right, and a racing they'll draw a 0:47:54.000 --> 0:47:55.560 line some well it's closer, but that's not what I want, 0:47:55.560 --> 0:47:57.719 and they'll erase it and they'll draw another line. But 0:47:57.800 --> 0:47:59.880 then with the vector based ones, you can draw a 0:47:59.880 --> 0:48:01.239 lot and and say, oh, you know what, I just 0:48:01.239 --> 0:48:02.719 need to tweet this a little bit and it's going 0:48:02.760 --> 0:48:06.560 to be exactly why I need UM. So that helps 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:10.520 cut down on on a lot of stop and start work, 0:48:10.600 --> 0:48:16.120 and also the inking and painting part is much more 0:48:17.040 --> 0:48:21.000 much simpler. Now you have a huge variety of colors 0:48:21.000 --> 0:48:23.240 you can choose from depending upon what sort of programs 0:48:23.280 --> 0:48:26.239 you're using. You don't have to worry about it not 0:48:26.320 --> 0:48:29.040 being consistent from one shot to the next because it's 0:48:29.040 --> 0:48:32.799 all digital, so that that code of color is going 0:48:32.840 --> 0:48:35.680 to remain the same no matter what UM. And you 0:48:35.719 --> 0:48:39.480 might even be able to use some effects in some 0:48:39.560 --> 0:48:43.000 software to create lighting effects that you don't have to 0:48:43.080 --> 0:48:47.480 necessarily do yourself, so it would know that, all right, 0:48:47.560 --> 0:48:49.959 if you're going to put a shadow of this intensity 0:48:50.000 --> 0:48:53.120 over this particular picture, it needs to adjust the color 0:48:53.600 --> 0:48:56.640 to look like that, so that you know, so that 0:48:56.719 --> 0:49:02.239 it's natural to the viewer. So that's really changed the 0:49:02.280 --> 0:49:06.040 way illustrators and animators have created artwork. I know there 0:49:06.040 --> 0:49:08.439 are a lot of people who create web comics who 0:49:08.640 --> 0:49:11.880 exclusively use tablets. Now. For the longest time, they would 0:49:11.920 --> 0:49:14.280 do all their art on paper, and then they would 0:49:14.280 --> 0:49:17.000 scan the paper and they would upload the art that way, 0:49:17.040 --> 0:49:18.640 so that Kurts used to do it that way, the 0:49:18.680 --> 0:49:21.080 guy's at Penny Arcade used to do it that way, 0:49:21.160 --> 0:49:25.800 and then they all began to switch over using digital tablets. 0:49:26.120 --> 0:49:29.399 And almost every single one I hear the animator or 0:49:29.520 --> 0:49:32.440 or the artists talking either on a blog or on 0:49:32.480 --> 0:49:37.640 a podcast or whatever about how the initial transition period 0:49:37.719 --> 0:49:41.320 is incredibly painful and frustrating, and then after they get 0:49:41.480 --> 0:49:44.239 past the learning curve, they're like, I don't know why 0:49:44.400 --> 0:49:47.560 I didn't do this earlier, because it makes things so 0:49:47.640 --> 0:49:51.759 much easier. And so that's that's become sort of the 0:49:51.760 --> 0:49:55.200 new standard is using these this digital format to do 0:49:55.280 --> 0:49:59.120 hand drawn animation. And we also have seen some combinations 0:49:59.400 --> 0:50:04.680 of hand drawn animation paired with computer generated backgrounds. So, 0:50:05.160 --> 0:50:07.439 I know Beauty and the Beast did that the Big 0:50:07.480 --> 0:50:12.080 Ballroom sequence with the dance and Angela Lansbury singing and 0:50:12.719 --> 0:50:18.600 um and stuff that had a computer generated background. Uh. So, 0:50:18.960 --> 0:50:22.160 you know, we were seeing some marriage of computer generated 0:50:22.360 --> 0:50:26.520 animation and hand drawn animation, uh happening, and it's been 0:50:26.560 --> 0:50:28.120 going on for a while. It's not like Beauty and 0:50:28.120 --> 0:50:30.640 the Beast was the first and only example. It's just 0:50:30.840 --> 0:50:34.480 one example. Uh So, you know, I'm sure we'll see 0:50:34.480 --> 0:50:37.520 more of that. I'm glad to say that there are 0:50:37.600 --> 0:50:41.000 plenty of artists and studios out there that still support 0:50:41.080 --> 0:50:43.800 hand drawn animation because I think that there is something 0:50:43.920 --> 0:50:47.960 special to that. There's a feel hand drawn animation has 0:50:48.000 --> 0:50:51.840 that's its own thing, and I like that. Yeah, and 0:50:52.000 --> 0:50:54.640 it seems like, well, at least in my opinion, it 0:50:54.640 --> 0:50:57.640 seems like there's a warmth to it. Um. But you 0:50:57.719 --> 0:51:02.120 don't necessarily get Yeah, there's an asteriscreener you can't. Yeah. 0:51:02.360 --> 0:51:04.520 And there are companies. There are companies out there like 0:51:04.560 --> 0:51:08.839 Pixar that can make you sob like a little baby 0:51:09.040 --> 0:51:14.319 with some computer generated graphics. Yeah, yeah, and I you can. 0:51:15.000 --> 0:51:16.800 You can ask my wife. There is not a Pixar 0:51:16.920 --> 0:51:20.000 movie that I see without me going look at the 0:51:20.000 --> 0:51:22.560 fill in the blank here, like The Water and Finding 0:51:22.600 --> 0:51:25.840 Nemo or the hair the fur un Sully in Monsters 0:51:25.880 --> 0:51:28.920 and absolutely blows my mind. The the the story of 0:51:28.960 --> 0:51:31.880 the the balloons and up where they did the computer 0:51:32.000 --> 0:51:36.279 modeling to determine how balloons would actually behave. Yeah, it 0:51:36.360 --> 0:51:39.320 kind of made me think of the engine that what 0:51:39.480 --> 0:51:43.040 I've built for um, the Armies, for Lord of the Rings. 0:51:43.080 --> 0:51:45.279 It's like, let's why don't we take that technology and 0:51:45.280 --> 0:51:50.319 convert it for helium balloons. It's essentially what they did. Uh, 0:51:50.800 --> 0:51:54.319 that's fascinating stuff. But there is there's a um I 0:51:54.360 --> 0:51:57.600 agree with Jonathan, there's a feeling that you get when 0:51:57.600 --> 0:52:00.560 watching hand drawn animation that is different than the that 0:52:00.719 --> 0:52:03.160 you get when you're watching a computer It doesn't doesn't 0:52:03.200 --> 0:52:05.960 mean better or it's just different. It's just different. And 0:52:06.080 --> 0:52:09.680 and you know Lasseter of Pixar, he would argue the 0:52:09.719 --> 0:52:13.400 same thing. He says, you know, it's we use at Pixar, 0:52:13.480 --> 0:52:16.960 we use computer animation because that's the tool we use. 0:52:17.480 --> 0:52:20.880 But to us, the most important part of any film 0:52:21.120 --> 0:52:25.600 is the story, and that ultimately the tool you use 0:52:26.200 --> 0:52:29.640 is nowhere near as important as the story is. So 0:52:29.680 --> 0:52:33.040 if your story is solid, then as long as you 0:52:33.080 --> 0:52:37.440 are good at using whatever tools you have, you should 0:52:37.440 --> 0:52:40.400 be able to tell that story effectively. Now that if 0:52:40.440 --> 0:52:42.880 those tools are hand drawn animation, that's great, and if 0:52:42.880 --> 0:52:46.560 it's computer animation, that's great. There's no there's nothing wrong 0:52:46.600 --> 0:52:49.080 with either choice. You're going to get a different experience 0:52:49.080 --> 0:52:51.560 depending on which one needs to use, but it doesn't 0:52:51.600 --> 0:52:55.640 mean that one experience is superior or inferior to the other. Uh. 0:52:55.760 --> 0:52:58.120 And So I think I think it's a good discussion 0:52:58.160 --> 0:53:01.360 about the traditional hand drawn innivation and how it's evolved 0:53:01.400 --> 0:53:05.399 over time. It's a really neat thing. If you guys 0:53:05.440 --> 0:53:07.440 have never watched any documentaries about it, I mean there 0:53:07.480 --> 0:53:09.920 are plenty there, even things like I remember there was 0:53:09.960 --> 0:53:12.640 one of their an episode of Tiny Tunes where Plucky 0:53:12.800 --> 0:53:16.960 learns about the process of animation, uh in a tortuous 0:53:17.160 --> 0:53:20.279 but effective way. UH say, there are a lot of 0:53:20.280 --> 0:53:23.720 different videos out there in movies that cover this, and 0:53:23.719 --> 0:53:27.160 and I love watching all of them. I've always found 0:53:27.200 --> 0:53:31.560 them interesting and uh um, anyone who has that level 0:53:31.560 --> 0:53:36.800 of patience and attention to detail gets my admiration because 0:53:38.120 --> 0:53:41.120 when you look at that and you think, Okay, if 0:53:41.120 --> 0:53:45.000 you're talking about a film, even a seventy seventy minute film, 0:53:45.120 --> 0:53:47.279 and you think all right, Well, that means at bare 0:53:47.360 --> 0:53:55.359 minimum twelve drawings per second. That's a lot of drawing. Yes, 0:53:55.440 --> 0:53:59.120 it is. It's it's hard to imagine. So hats off 0:53:59.160 --> 0:54:02.120 to any animator out there. You guys are doing some 0:54:02.120 --> 0:54:06.840 some great work and I really admire the discipline that 0:54:07.000 --> 0:54:10.759 takes to pursue a career in animation. Uh. If you 0:54:10.760 --> 0:54:14.480 guys have any suggestions for future topics of tech stuff, 0:54:14.560 --> 0:54:17.880 please let us know. 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