For news picture reels it has been found judicious for variety’s sake, as well as for business reasons, to combine with them cartoons satirizing topics of the hour. When they are wanted, they are wanted in a hurry, and as the regular type of cartoon takes not a little time to make, the living line drawings adverted to above, as they are quickly made, are often used for the purpose. We shall try to give in the following few paragraphs an elucidation of the method of making a film like this.
The general idea or composition of the drawing is sketched out first on a piece of ordinary paper, then its outlines are traced in blue markings to a sheet of Bristol board that has been fastened down to the table beneath the camera within the photographic field. Light-blue marks do not take on the ordinary sensitized film. But the blue markings, it is to be remembered, must be of the faintest. The very cautious artist in beginning a work of this sort makes a preliminary test of his blue pencilling by photographing a short length of film and developing it to see if the marks show on the negative. If they show at all, it will be necessary to take a soft eraser and go over the drawing and make the blue marks less distinct, and only have them show enough to be able to follow the drawing in executing the pen work.
ILLUSTRATING THE ANIMATION OF A MOUSE AS HE RUNS AROUND THE KITCHEN AND FRIGHTENS THE COOK.
The general scene is drawn on celluloid, while fifty or more sheets of paper hold a sequence of pictures of the mouse in attitudes of running.
When quite sure that the blue marks will not photograph, the artist begins his drawing. It is not a difficult task that he has before him—he merely inks his previously drawn lines little by little. Each stroke of the pen, after it has been made, is photographed. If the ink lines are short the movement on the screen will be very slow, and if they are long the movement will be very rapid. And, again, whether the artist turns the camera handle once, twice, or three times for each pen stroke has its effect upon the speed with which the lines grow on the screen. If somewhat long pen strokes are made and the exposure is but one picture for each stroke the lines will run in and finish the design at a rapid rate. On the other hand, if they are very short strokes and three pictures (about one-fifth of a foot of film) are given to each one, the lines will creep in on the screen at a snail’s pace.
All this, making a line, a patch of tinting, a small detail of a picture, and photographing each item after it has been made, is continued until the entire pictorial design is completed.
Variety is produced by having the lines go slowly or fast according to the requirements of the idea to be expressed or the story to be told.
ON MOVEMENT IN THE HUMAN FIGURE
CHAPTER V
ON MOVEMENT IN THE HUMAN FIGURE
Having now chronicled in a brief way the development of the cinematographic art, particularly in its relation to animated screen drawings, and having tried to give some notion of the fundamentals in their making with an account of their exhibition on the screen, it is in order now that we consider the matter of movement and its depiction by drawings that will give the visional synthesis of life.