The first animated screen drawings were made without the labor and time-saving resources of the celluloid sheet. As has been explained, it holds the still parts of a scene during the photography. The employment of this celluloid is now in common usage in the art. It is found an expedient in various ways; sometimes to hold part only of a pictorial composition as in the method touched upon in the preceding chapter where ink drawings are made on paper; or, again, in another method to be used instead of paper, to hold practically all of the picture elements. By this latter method, in which a pigment is also put on the transparent material, the projected screen image is in graduated tones giving the appearance of a monochrome drawing.
Animators sometimes are released from the irksomeness of making the innumerable drawings for certain cases of movement, as that of an object crossing the picture field from one side to the other, by using little separate drawings cut out in silhouette.
CARDBOARD MODEL OF AN AIRPLANE WITH SEPARATE CUT-OUT PROPELLERS.
The propellers are placed in position on the front of the airplane in their order continuously while the model, under the camera, is moved across the sky.
On the left: Part of film made from the cut-out model.
It is an airplane, as an instance, we will say, that is to fly across the sky. For this, the airplane will be drawn but once on a piece of thin cardboard, finished in light and shade and then carefully cut out around its contour so that it will be like a flattened model. This model, specifically spoken of as a “cut-out,” is pushed over the background under the camera and photographed. The manipulation of this airplane cut-out, to a chance observer, would be thought of as being child’s play. It is anything but that, however, as infinite patience is required to move it properly and have the distances between the various positions evenly spaced. If, too, there is a change of speed intended, the necessary ratio of spacing and timing must be relatively proportionate. Of course, it is understood that the airplane cut-out is, after each move, photographed. The distance that it is moved determines the speed that will show on the screen. If, for example, it is moved only one-sixteenth of an inch each time, the movement will be very slow.
When an artist wishes to give a more natural effect in a moving object in which a cut-out is used, he makes some allowance for the laws of perspective by making several cut-outs in which the outlines defining the object observe these laws to some extent.
It is to be remembered that an object looks differently according to whether it is viewed on an extreme side or in the centre of the field. To be absolutely correct, there should be a separate drawing for each position. To explain: Beginning with an extreme side position, the lines defining the thickness go off somewhat obtusely to the centre of vision; as the object moves and nears the middle, these lines keep their direction but change their angle. The direction is always toward the centre of vision, and the angle, with respect to a vertical, is always sharper. In the very centre, the object, if it is on a level with the eye, is in profile.
