Snoopy VS. Lawn Chair

Here's a little something to tide you over until I post more about juggling:

I respect all animators, no matter how simplistic or crude their tastes may be. But I have even greater respect for animators who can take an assignment where they have to adapt to draw in other people's styles from project to project. John Lounsbery from Disney is one example. Lounsbery was the only animator who could replicate Milt Kahl's designs the closest. He took every assignment that was thrown at him & made it work out right, no matter how abstract or "designy" they were.

Another animator that comes to mind is Bill Melendez.

Melendez worked at Disney & Warner Bros. during the Golden Age, & he later worked on what he is probably most remembered for: the Peanuts films & TV specials. As any cartoonist might know, Peanuts characters are some of the hardest characters to draw. Charles Schulz had a distinct style that was (& still is) nearly impossible for any other person to copy exactly. I have never seen anyone who could draw Charlie Brown, Snoopy or any other Peanuts character like Schulz could. Bill Melendez took the challenge of not only drawing Schulz' characters, but also transmitting them into animation.

Here's my all-time favorite scene from any of the Peanuts specials: Snoopy battling the lawn chair from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973). Animated by Bill Melendez (he also provided the voice of Snoopy, too!).

The drawings by themselves may look crude & flat when seen one at a time, but when they're in motion it's an amazing sight! Very fluid & funny stuff.

Take a gander at his filmography. Start from the botton & work your way up the list...

Just imagine: Bill went from working at Disney on classic films like Fantasia & Bambi (uncredited), then on to Warner Bros. to work on some of the greatest cartoons ever to come out of the studio (Baby Bottleneck, Falling Hare, & The Great Piggy Bank Robbery just to name a few), then on to UPA, animating on Gerald McBoing-Boing & Madeline, then ending up animating & producing some of the most memorable TV specials of all time. What a history! & HE'S STILL GOING STRONG!

Check out his official site HERE. Thanks for everything, Bill!

Juggling in Animation

Earlier this week, I posted a clip of Donald Duck juggling from the cartoon "Mickey's Circus". To me, juggling scenes in animation always catch my eye. I guess it's because of several things:

-A) The intricacy & complexity of the juggling itself

-B) What the character is juggling (balls, pins, household objects, knives, etc...) & how many objects is he/she juggling at once.

-C) The amount of control that a character has (very skilled? very clumsy? Is it their first time?)

-D) The character's attitude while juggling (cocky? cautious? scared?)

Scroll down to the Donald post & watch the clip again, now having these four elements in mind. What did you notice? What did you learn?

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Let's start off with A: At first, Donald is doing a normal juggling act, juggling only with his hands. As it goes on, he really gets into it & starts bouncing & rolling them off his feet & head without missing a beat. He even balances all the balls on his rear & butts them back up in the air!
A normal person could never do these things. It's impossible. But in a cartoon, anything is possible, so to us it's pure magic. I'd LOVE to do something like that, but I can't because my actions are limited, but Donald's movement is limitless.

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Now on to B: Donald is only juggling with rubber balls, so chances are these probably wouldn't do much harm if he screwed up. Plus, he's juggling SEVEN rubber balls! It's an odd number, but to a superstitious person, luck would probably be on his side.

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Now C: Donald's juggling is effortless. He's probably had plenty of practice & has done it millions of times before. He's so good at it, he doesn't even drop a beat of sweat. He could probably do this all day if he wanted to.

Donald has complete control over what he's juggling. He knows what's coming next because it's probably all routine to him. He only loses that control when an outside force comes in & disrupts him.

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Finally, D: Since Donald has experience with juggling, he's a lot more confidant than someone whose just starting out. He's so confidant in himself that he hardly pays any attention to what he's doing & becomes somewhat cocky. He's having a good time, not only because he's juggling, but because someone is watching him juggling! He smiles & ogles the audiece watching, almost shouting "Look at me! Look at me! Aren't I swell? Aren't I a talented, skillful, suave, handsome, irresistable little duck?"

At the end of his act, he smiles & opens his arms to the audiece, absorbing their applause & cheering, until he's knocked over by larger balls thrown by his seals off-screen, finally losing control & dropping the balls. He's angry, embarrased & has a face full of dirt. "There goes the whole act!"

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I probably didn't have to go through all that evaluation, but it's true! It may look like just some cartoon character juggling, but behind all that there's that "Why? factor" that might explain why a character is doing what he/she is doing.

I'll talk more about juggling in animation later on, probably sometime in the next two weeks. & don't worry, I'll include video for you to watch!

Thanks again to Kevin Langely for helping me out again!

Oh, & by the way, if anyone can identify who animated Donald in that scene, drop by & let me know. That would be great! Thanks!

*Update 2/22/08* Hans Perk has the draft for this cartoon, but it's missing the first three pages! Still, he told me the other animators on the film, so it's either one of these three people: Frank Thomas, Al Eugster & Shamus Culhane. If there are any IDer's out there who can tell which one did it, I'd really appreciate it, thanks!

My SVA Animation (AAARRRGGGH!)

Here's 3 animation assignments I did in my 1st semester at the School of Visual Arts! I decided to leave out the minimal stuff (for now) & just go right to the meat & potatoes!

These three scenes were all part of our "final" of the semester. Each student was assigned a different character. One person got a polar bear holding a fish, another got Little Bo Peep, somebody got a superhero, etc. I got a pirate.

The first clip is a walkcycle of the pirate. My professor, Doug Crane, designed the pirate. The cycle contains 16 drawings, 14 of which are mine (Doug gave me drawings 1 & 9 for me to work off of). I think I drew him mostly on model. The walk itself was alright, but I messed up by not making the head bob up and down as he walks. His head stays in one place, which is very odd looking and out of place, especially for a pirate with a peg leg.

This next clip was my first shot at making the pirate morph completely into another character. For this, I was given a totally different character for me to transform into: a businessman with a briefcase. The plan was that we'd all get a character to morph into, then in the end we would shoot all the scenes at once and we'd wind up with one continuous morph cycle (ex: pirate walks then morphs into businessman, businessman walks then morphs into polar bear, etc.). But unfortunately, the day the characters were assigned, some people were absent, so the order of things was completely screwed up, and people got characters being done by someone else.

For my first attempt, I thought I would make the morph look completely insane. Things were flying off one place and forming somewhere else, the eyes & nose blow out like a balloon, and it was just a complete hodgepodge of action. It looks like the aerial battle around the Death Star in Star Wars. I thought it looked awesome at first, but when I showed it to Doug, he critiqued me, saying how that there's so much going on in such a short time that you'd miss the main action. I was slightly heartbroken, but I agreed with him, there was too much going on. Luckily, thanks to Blogger video, you can watch over & over to see all the stuff going on in it. Enjoy!

After that, I went back to the drawing board (literally) and tried again. This time, Doug was at my side helping me out with the preliminary stuff. He offered some advice, & I took it like a fish takes water. After our little chit-chat, I drew like hell, ideas running through my head. In the end, I showed my new test to Doug & he really liked it. He laughed at the wackiness going on on screen and patted me on the back saying "Great work!". It felt great that I got Doug's approval, & I was satisfied with what I did, too.

Unlike my first test, this morph seemed a lot more organic. It moves like Silly Putty instead of a bunch of wooden blocks or cardboard cutouts. The flying stuff was reduced to a minimum (if you look closely, you can see his tooth fly out & transform into his tie!) & the nose is the icing on the cake. Things seem a lot more fluid & this is probably my favorite thing that I've ever animated (so far)! See it yourself:

Well, I hope you enjoyed my stuff. My animation still needs work, since I'm only in my freshman year, but hopefully I'll improve over time.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!!!!

Here's an extra little scene I did in my spare time for kicks & giggles. After doing one of my small assignments, I had a few sheets of paper left, so I drew a quick little scene involving everybody's favorite duck, Steve-O, pulling a lever with a little effort. This is what is called a "stagger". Staggers are usually used when a character is vibrating (ex: Goofy's head vibrating in Clock Cleaners), or lifting a heavy object (ex: Goofy lifting dumbells in Goofy Gymnastics). For this test, there's only 6 drawings, but when animating a stagger you repeat drawings in a kinda "two-steps-forward, one-step-back" order (ex: 1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4, 3, 4, 5, 4, 5, etc.). It took me about 3 minutes to draw the 6 drawings, & I was taken completely by surprise when I played it back on the Lunchbox. I can almost sense the weight & force Steve-O is pulling on that lever. Can you?

If you want to see the little, insignificant tests I did before these, let me know & I'll put them up. Thanks for watching!

Remember to leave comments!

"Wow! What an act!"

Yesterday, I went to a recording of "A Daily Show with Jon Stewart" with my friends Mike, Chris & Allison. Great show! I'd show you guys pictures, but there was no cameras or camera phones allowed. Besides, I didn't bring one.

We got to the studio around 2-ish and waited there until around 5. I was cold and my legs were tired from standing the whole time.

Once we got into the studio, we sat down & waited another 45 minutes or so. Before the show started, a comic came out to warm the audience up for Jon, giving away tickets to a comedy club.

Finally, Jon came on the set (the rumors are true, he is short). He answered a few questions as he & the crew got ready to record. Finally, the cameras began to roll & the show began. Because of all the political hype recently (by the way, isn't today Super Tuesday?... Oh boy! I'm going to Carvel! It's two sundaes for one day!) we expected there to be some sort of political guest or former senator on the show talking about the candidates or the election. Boy, were we in for a treat...

After the first commercial break, Jon gets a surprise visit from Stephen Colbert (of the Colbert Report), who thanks him for helping him out last week. You see, there's this whole controversy over presidential candidate Mike Huckabee & who gave him a bump, Colbert or Conan O'Brien, Blah Blah Blah. Anyway, as they're talking, non other than Conan O' Brien himself is sneaking up behind him. The audience went completely insane. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert & Conan O' Brien all there at the same time. Conan can't take this anymore & he challenges Colbert to a fight then & there. Jon interrupts, saying he's got a show to do, agreeing to fight backstage after the show, & the two leave.

My friend Allison, was even more amazed then the rest of us, because Tim Gunn from Project Runway was the guest on the show that night. They talked about fashion for a while (a guy's dream subject), then the show was over. After the last break, Jon "left" to "fight" Conan.

Jon came back & told the audience that this fight was a three-way crossover between Daily Show, Colbert Report & The Late Show with Conan O'Brien & to make sure to watch the fight on Conan's that night. We couldn't wait for that. After the show, we headed back to SVA, picked up some Chinese & watched the shows.

You can catch last night's Daily Show & Colbert Report again tonight at 8 on Comedy Central. As for the big fight with Conan, somebody probably uploaded a clip of that on Youtube by now, so enjoy it before NBC takes it down.

Have you ever heard someone say "...once in a blue moon." when talking about something never happening? Well, we saw the blue moon last night, & boy was it blue!

Donald Juggling from "Mickey's Circus" (1936)

Here is a short clip of Donald juggling some rubber balls from Mickey's Circus (1936). You can check out the full cartoon HERE.

The cartoon itself has some of the best animation I've ever seen in a Disney short, but the animation of Donald here really stands out the most for me, I'm completely hooked on it! The animation is timed right to the beat & Donald's effortless performance blows me away! This is the kind of animation I'd like to do someday. Does anybody know who animated this scene?

*Update 2/22/08* Hans Perk has the draft for this cartoon, but it's missing the first three pages! Still, he told me the other animators on the film, so it's either one of these three people: Frank Thomas, Al Eugster & Shamus Culhane. If there are any IDer's out there who can tell which one did it, I'd really appreciate it, thanks!

I heard somewhere that this was first cartoon Milt Kahl worked on as a full-fledged animator, but I'm not sure if it's entirely true (I think he animated Mickey announcing Donald at the beginning of the cartoon, though). Can anybody verify this for me?

I captured this clip using a program I have called SnagIt!, which I usually use for framing/capturing pictures of webpages or snippets of a picture for reference. I didn't know that it captured video too, so I'm a pretty happy camper right now. I've been trying to get a decent video capture/converter program all week to no avail. It may not be the best program to use for this sort of thing, but I'll have to manage for now. Maybe I can do more of these animation clip posts in the future (that is, if you want to). Expect to see some of my SVA animation up in the next few days.

Oh, & I'd like to thank Kevin Langley for helping me out this past week. Make sure to check out his blog "Cartoons, Model Sheets & Stuff" to see some really great cartoons with a lot of informative insight behind them. There's a direct link to his blog on the right side of the page too! Thanks again, Kev!

The Lunchbox Debacle

Hiya folks! Did ya have a good week?

I have an announcement to make, but first, I must explain the invention that is the "Lunchbox". Let me start from the beginning (an ideal place, I believe).

In Animation class here at SVA, we shoot our scenes with a little gadget called a "Lunchbox".

It's called that...well...because it looks like a lunchbox. The only difference is that instead of it storing Lunchables or Caprisun, it stores snapshots like a large memory card or a backup drive.

Here's how it works: the Lunchbox is connected to a camera (a camcorder, preferably) which shoots downward towards an animation disc. Using the Lunchbox as the control, it snaps a photograph of your animation drawings and stores them in the Lunchbox. Once all your drawings are recorded, you can play your drawings in sequence to see how they move, what we in the business call a "pencil test".

While all this tedious work is going on, the Lunchbox is also plugged into a TV, where you can see all the drawings on screen as you're shooting it. You can play a scene at normal speed (24 frames per second, or on "one's"), slower speed (12 frames per second, or "two's") or even backwards. When you're done fooling around, you record the scene onto videotape with a VCR plugged into the TV for future reference.

You see, back before the days of computers (or even VCRs), if an animator wanted to see what his scene looked like, he'd have to send all his drawings to a cameraman, who in turn had to shoot each and every drawing with a film camera. Once all the drawings were shot, the cameraman had to take the reel of undeveloped film to a photo/film lab to develop it, while the animator waits a full day to see how his/her scene looks. Now, thanks to video & computer technology, you can now do all that work in a matter of seconds instead of hours or even days time.

Now to where I come in:

This past semester, I animated numerous tests in class to hone my developing animator skills. Bouncing balls, rotating heads, walk cycles... the usual animation mumbo-jumbo. At the end of the semester, I recorded all my scenes at once on tape with the Lunchbox. Now I can bring my work home to show my friends, family, colleagues & blog visitors!

"Let me just set up the old VCR, blah-blah blah, start up the computer, mmm-hmmmm... let's see... how do I....?"

...


"Aw crap."

Now how do I take the footage off a VHS tape & transfer it onto my computer?

Long story short, I had to go out to Best Buy, buy a VCR-to-DVD recorder to transfer my tape footage onto a DVD. I needed to buy one of those anyway, with all our old home movies and baby tapes deteriorating over the years, it's worth the cost. Better do it before they turn to dust!

Here's where my announcement comes in... in the next week or two, I'm going to post at least some of my SVA animation tests up here on the blog! Cool, isn't it? I can't wait to show you my morph!

What morph, you ask? Find out soon!


--Oh, while your at it, think up some questions for me to answer & please post a comment or two. It's getting lonely around here!

Question #2: "How do you Draw Steve-O?"

Here's another question coming my way!

David Spector from Long Island asks me "How do you draw Steve-O?". & what better way to demonstrate this than by videotaping the whole process!

I apologize for the quality of the video. From a distance, the camera works great! But close-up, everything looks like distorted, blurry garbage. When & if I get a better camera for this, I'll redo the whole thing.

I never really noticed how deep my accent was. Now after listening & watching these videos, I'm extremely shocked by it. Maybe I should take some sort of lecture to fix that, huh?

Keep those questions coming & remember to leave comments!