Disney's Frogumentary

[Sewie]

This cleanup artist is saying some interesting things about drawing and animating on the computer (from 6:37 min)



You can see the other parts of the documentary here and here.

[Elodie]

A very interesting video. Thanks for sharing it

Does someone know this guy, in order to send him a Demo version of TVP ?

[slowtiger]

I think he complains about the hardware, the tablet and stylus, not about the software they use. And I'm right with him, the pencil line on paper is still unsurpassed in delicacy and exactness.

[ematecki]

I was always wondering how the drawing on paper is transfered to a cell for the coloring ?
How well are these nice lines preserved in that process ?
The only time I saw this, the drawing on paper was redrawn with 'Indian ink' on the cell (that's probably why it's called 'inking'), so it has become a solid line !
Obviously other methods are used which keep the pencil look. What are they and how well do they keep that look.
This is kind of the recent 8/16 bits thread, how does your image degrade at each step to the final product ?
If in the traditionnal paper workflow that nice line degrades at each step, then, in the digital process, even starting with a line that isn't as nice, it won't degrade, and at the end it may look better than the degraded real pencil line.

Anybody did any comparison of the *end result* for real pencil drawing vs. digital ?

[Sewie]

In the seventies they used to photocopy the animation cleanup drawings directly on cell. One reason they did this was to save money but it also preserved the drawing qualities of the animation artists better. What they do now is cleanup the animation with a pencil (on a separate sheet of paper) and after they have scanned it in the computer they ramp up the contrast to get that hard looking animation ink line that we are used to seeing in later hand drawn animated films.

I think he complains about the hardware, the tablet and stylus, not about the software they use. And I'm right with him, the pencil line on paper is still unsurpassed in delicacy and exactness.

He does have a point, but it sounds to me more like he's talking nostalgia.
With the proper software and modern tablets you can scarily close, though. I agree ,it's not the same but you can come very close to the same feeling and drawing/sketch qualities as with paper, I believe.

[Paul Fierlinger]

I think he's yearning for job security.

And I'm right with him, the pencil line on paper is still unsurpassed in delicacy and exactness.

It depends on who is doing the drawing. I will claim that I can draw in TVP with the same degree of exactness and delicacy and will add to that package 'with greater speed' if I had the desire, which I don't. I remember a couple of the twelve old men wishing that somehow their original lines could remain the final drawings, instead of ending up as impersonal wire lines of the cleanup artists and inkers.

[slowtiger]

Anybody did any comparison of the *end result* for real pencil drawing vs. digital ?

I did. It is possible to adjust brush settings and scan parameters in a way that the "source" of a drawing becomes undetectable. At the same time it is possible to achieve anything between a clean "ink" line and a rough "pencil" line. It's all a matter of tweaking. It is even possible to achieve a "pencil" look from a clean vector line, though the results vary from software to software.

Since the final look of a line can be nearly totally independent from the input or method of drawing nowadays, the line quality depends only on the decision of the director /art director of a film.

[ematecki]

So this guy needs a demo of TVPaint :)

[Elodie]

In the seventies they used to photocopy the animation cleanup drawings directly on cell.

I read someday that W. Disney disliked the Xerox process (which began with the 101 Dalmatians, if I remember well), because it always gave a rough looking to the final result.

[ZigOtto]

So this guy needs a demo of TVPaint

packaged with a Cintiq 21ux, not a Bamboo Fun A6 ...

[Elodie]

We will care about the TVP Demo =p

[Sewie]

packaged with a Cintiq 21ux ...

Or an Intuos4 XL.

[Paul Fierlinger]

In the seventies they used to photocopy the animation cleanup drawings directly on cell.

I read someday that W. Disney disliked the Xerox process (which began with the 101 Dalmatians, if I remember well), because it always gave a rough looking to the final result.

I was a guest of the Disney studio in 1979 and I saw their Xerox machine. It was about the size of a dumpster, stretched acroos three rooms, the middle one having to be completely dark. One person fed the pencil drawings into the machine and exposed it to light, which took about 20 seconds. After this the drawing had to be removed by a second person while a third person removed a cassette from the side of the machine and placed it onto a conveyor belt, which transported the cassette through a slit in the wall into the darkroom, where three people operated the process under a dim red light. Each exposed acetate was removed from the cassette which had to be first swung around it's center axle about half a dozen times to allow graphite pebbles inside to slip slide over the exposed acetate and cling onto the lines, at which point the acetate was retrieved from the cassette and placed onto another conveyor belt which carried the "printed" cel into the third room where another set of three people had to carefully scratch off the stray flecks (what we call stray pixels).

I was entirely flabbergasted by the entire process because at that time I was using a wet Agfa system, a machine about the size of a very small copier which was connected to a water faucet and emptied into the machine, where the water washed the light-exposed cels with a set of rolling brushes, after which the cel came out absolutely clean and almost dry. I operated the machine by myself and it went about ten times faster than the Disney contraption. I told my guides about this as we were walking down a long hallway towards another esoteric contraption for mixing paint. One of the guides whipped around so fast that I crashed into him and he growled into my face, "Now hold it right there... which one of us makes more money, you or us?"

[Elodie]

"Now hold it right there... which one of us makes more money, you or us?"

Ouuurg, bad words I guess...

But when we see the poor animation Disney corporation made after Walt's death, until the 90's... I think this guy wasn't very well placed to give you a lecture =)

[Paul Fierlinger]

I remember they were working on the Hound and the Fox at the time. The guy might have been 25 years old and I'm sure he was very poorly paid, as were most of the people there at the time (which I'm sure helped Disney make more money than me )