Scenery, drawn on celluloid, used with the elements below.
The methods so far described of making drawings for animated films are not complex and are easy to manage. For effective animated scenes, many more drawings are required and the adaptation of celluloids is not always such an easy matter as here described. For complete films of ordinary length, the drawings, celluloids, and other items—expedients or ingenious devices to help the work—number into the hundreds.
ILLUSTRATING THE SAVING OF TIME AND LABOR IN MAKING USE OF THE EXPEDIENT OF DRAWING THE STILL PARTS ON CELLULOID SHEETS.
We will use, however, our few drawings and celluloids that we have completed to explain the subsequent procedure in the making of animated cartoons; namely, the photographic part of the process.
A moving-picture camera is placed on a framework of wood, or iron, so that it is supported over a table top or some like piece of carpentry. It is placed so that it faces downward with the lens centred on the table. The camera is arranged for a “one picture one turn of the crank” movement, and a gearing of chain belts and pulleys, to effect this, is attached to the camera and framework. This gearing is put into motion by a turning-handle close to where the photographer is seated as he works before the table top where the drawings are placed.
Each time the handle is turned but one picture, or one-sixteenth of a foot of film, is moved into the field back of the lens where the exposure is made. The view or studio camera, as we know, when a complete turn of the crank handle is made, moves eight pictures, or one-half of a foot of film, into position.
On the table directly under the lens and at the proper distance for correct focussing, a field is marked out exactly that of the field that was used in making the drawings. Two registering pegs are also fastened relatively to the field as those on all the drawing-boards in the studio. Over the field, but hinged to the table top so that it can be moved up and down, a frame holding a clear sheet of glass is placed. The glass must be fitted closely and firmly in the frame, as it is intended to be pressed down on the drawings while they are being photographed. Wood serves the purpose very well for these frames. A metal frame would seem to be the most practical, but if there is in its construction the least inequality of surface where glass and metal touch, the pressure put upon the frame in holding the drawings down is liable to crack the glass. With wood, as there is a certain amount of give, this is not so likely to happen.
Considering now that the camera has been filled with a suitable length of blank film and properly threaded in and out of the series of wheels that feed it to the intermittent mechanism, and then wind it up into its proper receptacle, we can proceed with the photography.
The pioneers in the art who first tried to make animated cartoons and similar film novelties attempted the photography by daylight. Their results were not very good, for they were much handicapped by the uncertainty of the light. Nowadays the Cooper Hewitt mercury vapor light is used almost exclusively. The commonest method of lighting is to fix a tube of this illuminant on each side of the camera above the board, but so placed that light rays do not go slantingly into the lens, or are caught by any polished surface, and so cause reflected lights that interfere with the work. To get the exact position of the light for an even illumination over the field means a little preliminary experiment.