How is it Done?

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 236, 24 December 1927, Page 22

How is it Done?

Making Cinema Cartoons

(Written for THE SUN by GRENFELL T. THOMAS)

HE principle of cinema cartooning is simplicity itself. The carrying out of the principle involves much thought and the work of, not

one, but many men. Next time you sit comfortably in a Queen Street theatre and laugh over the inanities of Felix or chuckle at the cleverness that comes “Out of the Inkwell,” you’ll know that the little comedy you see projected on the screen for ten minutes has taken a whole month to produce. Screen cartooning involves the photographing of a series of successive actions by a figure or a number of figures. So that the illusion of action will result when the film is thrown on the screen, each action must be a trifle different from the previous one.

As the little figures have to give the appearance of moving about, the animation of the picture requires a great number of separate drawings each slightly different from the one before it.

In knowing just what degree of change to make in the action of each successive picture, lies the secret of successful cinema cartooning. Insufficient action change means too many pictures. The figure moves too slowly. Too few pictures, and the figures move unnaturally in a jerky manner. To save labour wherever possible the backgrounds for the various pictures are drawn but once. Sometimes the background is drawn on a sheet of transparent celluloid. This has the effect of making the figure appear to pass behind the objects in the picture. Sometimes the background forms a border covering certain parts of the sheet carrying the animated figures. Often this sheet is cut out more or less and the figures made to overlap certain portions of background. The figures then appear to pass in front of the objects in the pictures. The cartoonist works on an easel of ground glass held in a frame which is placed over an electric lamp. The light rays passing through the paper from below enable the artist to indicate the new or progressive line for animation, on a fresh sheet of paper placed over the last drawing. Easels and photographing apparatus must be carefully arranged so that each new sheet will maintain the same relative position. . Perfect register is essential because the picture is so magnified when thrown on the screen that even the slightest lack of register looks monstrous.

Much thought is given by the artist to the spectators’ point of view. All minor elements must be subdued iu order to emphasise one important object. Should a figure throw a ball, there must be no further movement of the arm after the ball leaves the thrower s hand. Other objects must remain motionless while the ball travels across the picture, otherwise the effect is ruined. When the "balloon” is used showing the words spoken by the character, there must be no motion in the picture until the “balloon” disappears.

One thousand feet of film would call for 16,000 different pictures. Since some drawings are used several times to prolong a scene, and as titles reduce the number of drawings a foot, round about S.OOO drawings prove sufficient.

Making even this number requires many “pencils” and much patience. The master cartoonist does not make each of the 8,000 drawings in detail. He simply wouldn’t have the time. He makes a sketch indicating the degree of action he wants expressed. Hero lies the real skill. Then the artists in the production department fill in the details.

By clever manipulation, very few drawings sometimes can be made to represent many actions. When a figure is shown doing the same thing a number of times such as dancing or running round in a circle, only one complete set of actions need be drawn.

After the drawings are completed, they are numbered, assembled in order and photographed. The camera is adjusted in a wooden frame with the lens pointing downwards on the framing or registering device. Electric mechanism regulated by a little push button turns the camera, and the photographer’s real job is to place the drawings one after another in the frame, fitting them to the proper backgrounds. Sound knowledge and long experience are needed to plan a schedule for the camera man. Compiling the list of exposures, indicating what drawings are to be used and how to arrange them, and calculating the number of exposures each drawing will need, means a highly trained technical skill. Surely the man who does the thinking for the photographer is the real genius behind the production of animated cartoons. Sidney Smith, who, with Bud Fisher, the creator of “Mutt and Jeff,” and Pat Sullivan, who “found” Felix, completes the supreme trio of the world s screen cartoonists, says: “There are lots of folk who think jubt because you make funny figures you don’t have to know anything about drawing- I’m here to tell them they’re all wrong. Cartoons require action, and in order to illustrate action properly, you’ve got to know as much about the human figure as if you were going to paint beautiful ladies without many clothes on.

“You’ve got to know human nature, and the more you know about people the funnier they seem. You have to know why people do certain things, what their reactions to the normal,everyday occurrences are.

“A man is funnier when he gets peeved about his wife’s millinery bill than when he slips on a banana peel A cartoonist has to watch people pretty closely in order to be able to translate their actions and reactions into words a.nd pictures, so that every minute of his daily life is devoted to a constant study of human nature. “But there is one thing more vou must possess—Patience. You’ve got to go just one better than Job. It’s one thing to draw a few pictures and expect to get a laugh—and it’s another to prepare the thousands of drawings that are necessary to make one short screen cartoon.”