Animated cartoons

by Edwin George Lutz

As it is readily understood that any school topic presented in animated pictures will stimulate and hold the attention, and that the properties of things when depicted in action are more quickly grasped visually than by description or through motionless diagrams, it is likely that visual instruction by films will soon play an important part in any course of studies. Then the motion-picture projector will become the pre-eminent school apparatus and such subjects as do not lend themselves to photography will very generally need to be drawn; thereupon the preponderance of the comic cartoon will cease and the animated screen drawing of serious and worth-while themes will prevail.

E. G. L.

CONTENTS

PAGE
I.	The Beginning of Animated Drawings	[3]
II.	The Genesis of Motion-Pictures	[35]
III.	Making Animated Cartoons	[57]
IV.	Further Details on Making Animated Cartoons	[83]
V.	On Movement in the Human Figure	[99]
VI.	Notes on Animal Locomotion	[131]
VII.	Inanimate Things in Movement	[153]
VIII.	Miscellaneous Matters in Making Animated Screen Pictures	[171]
IX.	Photography and Other Technical Matters	[201]
X.	On Humorous Effects and on Plots	[223]
XI.	Animated Educational Films and the Future	[245]

ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustrating the method of making animated cartoons by cut-outs	[Frontispiece]
PAGE
Magic-lantern and motion-picture projector compared		[7]
Geneva movement		[9]
A motion-picture projector		[11]
Illustrating the proportions of light and dark periods during projection in two types of shutters		[12]
Section of an animated cartoon film		[15]
The thaumatrope		[17]
Two instruments used in early investigations of optical phenomena		[18]
Apparatus on the order of Faraday’s wheel		[19]
An antecedent of the phenakistoscope		[20]
A phenakistoscope		[21]
Phenakistoscope combined with a magic-lantern		[22]
Phenakistoscope with a cycle of drawings to show a dog in movement		[23]
The zootrope		[24]
Zoetrope of William Lincoln		[25]
Reynaud’s praxinoscope		[26]
The theatre praxinoscope		[28]
Projection praxinoscope		[29]
Optical theatre of Reynaud		[30]
The kineograph		[31]
Plan of the apparatus of Coleman Sellers		[36]
The ostrich walking; from Muybridge	Facing page [40]
Marey’s photographic gun		[42]
Plan of the kinora		[43]
Plan of Edison’s first kinetoscope		[46]
Projector and motion-picture camera compared		[48]
A negative and a positive print		[49]
Plan of a motion-picture camera		[50]
Types of camera and projector shutters		[51]
One foot of film passes through the projector in one second		[53]
“Animator’s” drawing-board		[61]
A sheet of perforated paper and the registering pegs		[63]
Illustrating the making of an animated scene		[67]
Illustrating the making of an animated scene with the help of celluloid sheets		[71]
Arrangement of board, pegs, and hinged frame with glass		[75]
Balloons		[78]
Three elements that complete a scene		[79]
Phenakistoscope with cycle of drawings of a face to show a movement of the mouth		[80]
Cardboard model of an airplane with separate cut-out propellers	Facing page [84]
The laws of perspective are to be considered in “animating” an object		[86]
Perspective applied in the drawing of birds as well as in the picturing of objects		[87]
Articulated cardboard figures		[89]
Illustrating the animation of a mouse as he runs around the kitchen		[95]
Successive phases of movements of the legs in walking		[101]
Illustrating the action of the foot in rolling over the ground		[103]
Successive phases of movements in walking		[105]
Phases of movement of a quick walk		[107]
Contractions and expansions as characteristic of motion		[109]
Order in which an animator makes the sequence of positions for a walk	[112] and [113]
Phases of movement of a walk. Six phases complete a step		[115]
A perspective walk		[117]
Four positions for a perspective run		[118]
Phases of movement for a perspective run		[119]
Running figure		[121]
Phases of movement for a quick walk		[123]
Walking movements, somewhat mechanical		[124]
Phases of movement for a lively walk		[125]
Phases of movement for a quick walk		[127]
Walking movements viewed from above		[128]
Trotting horse		[134]
Trotting horse (continued)		[135]
A panorama effect		[138]
Galloping horse for a panorama effect		[139]
The elephant in motion		[140]
The elephant in motion (continued)		[141]
Pigeon in flight; from Muybridge	Facing page [142]
Comic walk of a duck		[143]
Cycle of phases of a walking dog arranged for the phenakistoscope		[144]
Phenakistoscope with a cycle of drawings to show a dog in movement		[145]
Running cow		[147]
Phases of movement of a walking lion		[148]
Dog walking		[149]
Various kinds of wave motion		[150]
Cycle of drawings to produce a screen animation of a waving flag		[157]
Cycle of drawings for an effect of falling water		[159]
Cycle of drawings for a puff of vapor		[161]
An explosion		[162]
The finishing stroke of some farcical situation		[163]
Piano practice		[164]
Three drawings used in sequence and repeated as long as the particular effect that they give is desired		[165]
A constellation		[166]
Simple elements used in animating a scene		[167]
Symbolical animation of snoring		[172]
Series of drawings used to show a baby crying		[173]
A “close-up”		[175]
Illustrating the use of little “model” hats to vivify a scene		[176]
“Cut-out” eyes		[178]
Illustrating the making of “in-between” drawings		[179]
Illustrating the number of drawings required for a movement		[180]
Illustrating a point in animating a moving limb		[182]
Making drawings in turning the head		[183]
Easily drawn circular forms and curves		[186]
Foreground details of a pictorial composition		[190]
Making an animated cartoon panorama		[193]
Illustrating the apparent slowness of a distant object compared to one passing close to the eye		[195]
Distinguishing marks on wheels to give the illusion of turning		[197]
Elements used in giving a figure the effect of trembling		[198]
Typical arrangement of camera and lights		[203]
Part of a length of film for a title		[208]
Vignetter or iris dissolve		[211]
To explain the distribution of light in a cross dissolve		[213]
Illustrating the operation of one type of motion-picture printer		[217]
Another plan for an animator’s drawing-board		[218]
Canine thoughts		[219]
Plenty of movement demanded in screen pictures		[224]
The plaint of inanimate things		[227]
The pinwheel effect of two boys fighting, elements needed in producing it		[231]
Cycle of drawings to give the illusion of a man spinning like a top		[235]
A blurred impression like that of the spokes of a turning wheel is regarded as funny		[236]
Hats		[239]
Radiating “dent” lines		[240]
A laugh-provoking incident in an animated cartoon		[241]
The Mad Hatter		[246]
Detail of a fresco by Michael Angelo		[248]
Mr. Frost’s spirited delineation of figures in action		[249]
The peep-show		[250]
Demeny’s phonoscope		[251]
Drawings used in making a film of a gasolene engine in operation		[255]
Character of drawings that would be prepared in producing moving diagrams of the muscles in action		[258]

THE BEGINNING OF ANIMATED DRAWINGS

CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING OF ANIMATED DRAWINGS

The picture thrown on the wall by the magic-lantern, although an illusion, and no more tangible than a shadow, has nevertheless a certain tactile quality. If it is projected from a drawing on a glass slide, its design is definite; and if from a photographic slide, the tones are clearly discernible. It is—unless it is one of those quaintly moving amusing subjects operated by a crude mechanism—a quiescent picture. The spirited screen picture thrown by the lens of a motion-picture projector is an illusion, too. It exemplifies, however, two varieties of this class of sensory deceptions. First: it is an illusion for the same reason that the image from the magic-lantern is one; namely, a projected shadow of a more or less opaque design on a transparent material intervening between the illuminant and the lens. And secondly, it is an illusion in that it synthesizes mere pictorial spectres into the appearance of life and movement. This latter particular, the seeming activity of life, is the fundamental dissimilarity between pictures projected by the magic-lantern and those thrown on the screen by the motion-picture apparatus.

And it is only the addition to the magic-lantern, of a mechanism that makes possible this optical vibration of life and motion, that constitutes the differing feature in the two types of projecting machines.