CHAPTER III
MAKING ANIMATED CARTOONS
In the preceding chapter the attention was called to the fact that a foot of film passes through the projector in one second, and that in each foot there are sixteen pictures, or frames, within the outlines of which the photographic images are found. When a camera man sets up his apparatus before a scene and starts to operate the mechanism, the general way is to have the film move in the camera at this same rate of speed; to wit, one foot per second. As each single turn of the camera handle moves only one-half of a foot of film, the camera man must turn the handle twice in one second. And one of the things that he must learn is to appraise time durations so accurately that he will turn the handle at this speed.
The animated cartoon artist, instead of using real people, objects, or views to take on his film, must make a number of related drawings, on every one of which there must be a change in a proper, progressive, and graduated order. These drawings are placed under a camera and photographed in their sequence, the film developed and the resultant negative used to make a positive film. This is used, as we know, for screen projection. All the technical and finishing processes are the same whether they are employed in making the usual reel in which people and scenes are used, or animated cartoon reels from drawings.
When it is considered that there are in a half reel (five hundred feet, the customary length for a comic subject) exactly eight thousand pictures, with every one—theoretically—different, it seems like an appalling job to make that number of separate drawings for such a half reel. But an artist doesn’t make anywhere near as many drawings as that for a reel of this length, and of all the talents required by any one going into this branch of art, none is so important as that of the skill to plan the work so that the lowest possible number of drawings need be made for any particular scenario.
“Animator” is the special term applied to the creative worker in this new branch of artistic endeavor. Besides the essential qualification of bestowing life upon drawings, he must be a man of many accomplishments. First as a scenario is always written of any screen story no matter whether serious, educational, or humorous, he must have some notion of form; that is to say, he must know what good composition means in putting components together in an orderly and proportional arrangement.
If the subject is an educational one he must have a grasp of pedagogical principles, too, and if it is of a humorous nature, his appreciation of a comic situation must be keen.
And then with the terrifying prospect confronting him of having to make innumerable drawings and attending to other incidental artistic details before his film is completed, he must be an untiring and a courageous worker. His skill as a manager comes in when planning the whole work in the use of expedients and tricks, and an economy of labor in getting as much action with the use of as few drawings as possible.
Besides the chief animator, others, such as assistant animators, tracers, and photographers, are concerned in the production of an animated film from drawings.
Comments on the writing of the scenario we do not need to go into now. Often the artist himself writes it; but if he does not, he at least plans it, or has a share in its construction.
Presuming, then, that the scenario has been written, the chief animator first of all decides on the portraiture of his characters. He will proceed to make sketches of them as they look not only in front and profile views, but also as they appear from the back and in three-quarter views. It is customary that these sketches—his models, and really the dramatis personæ, be drawn of the size they will have in the majority of the scenes. After the characters have been created, the next step is to lay out the scenes, in other words, plan the surroundings or settings for each of the different acts. The rectangular space of his drawings within which the composition is contained is about ten or eleven times larger than the little three-quarter-by-one-inch pictures of the films; namely, seven and one-half by ten inches, or eight and one-quarter by eleven inches. For some kinds of films—plain titles and “trick” titles—the making of which will be remarked upon further on—a larger field of about thirteen and one-half by eighteen inches is used.