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This book is dedicated to Walt Disney and the staff of artists who brought the magical quality of lift to character animation. Copyright © 1981, Walt Disney Productions All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Publisher. Printed in Italy. For information address Disney Editions, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011. Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data Thomas, Frank, 1912– The illusion of life : Disney animation / Frank Thomas and 011ie Johnston. —1st Hyperion ed. p. cm. Rev. ed. of : Disney Animation. Popular ed. 1984. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7868-6070-7 1. Walt Disney Productions. 2. Animated films—United States—History and criticism. I. Johnston, 011ie, 1912– . II. Thomas, Frank, 1912– Disney animation. III. Title. NC1766.U52D58 1995 741.5'8'0979494—dc20 95-19427 CIP 10 9 L869-1710-7 10183 Preface Acknowledgments 1. An Art Form Is Born 13 2. The Early Days 1923-1933 29 3. The Principles of Animation 47 4. Discovery 1934-1936 71 5. Cartoon Comes of Age 93 6. Appeal and Dynamics 119 7. Hyperion: The Explosion 141 8. Burbank and The Nine Old Men 159 9. Our Procedures 185 10. How to Get It on the Screen 243 11. The Disney Sounds 285 12. The Follow-up Functions 303 13. The Uses of Live Action in Drawing Humans and Animals 319 14. Story 367 15. Character Development 393 16. Animating Expressions and Dialogue 441 17. Acting and Emotions 473 18. Other Types of Animation— and the Future 509 Notes Appendices Index 13. The Uses of Live Action in Drawing Humans and Animals `This is a very important thing. There are so many people starting in on this, and they might go hay-wire if they don't know how to use this live action in animating." Walt Disney Our term "live action" refers here to the filming of many jobs, and it led to some important discoveries. actors (or animals) performing scenes planned for car- Live action could dominate the animator, or it could toon characters before animation begins, as compared teach him. It could stifle imagination, or inspire great to "regular animation," which develops entirely from new ideas. It all depended on how the live action was an artist's imagination. The direct use of live action conceived and shot and used. film has been part of the animation industry for years— In the early 1930s, animators drew from the model as an aid to animation, a companion to animation, and regularly, but as the necessity grew for more intricate even as a replacement for animation. From time to movement and convincing action in our films, this time, almost every studio has fallen back on a strip of type of static study quickly became inadequate. We live film to perfect a specific action animators were had to know more, and we had to draw better to accom- not able to capture. At the Disney studio, filmed action plish what Walt Disney wanted. Some new way had to of humans and animals was used in many ways to do be found for an artist to study forms in movement, and Helene Stanley, left, por- for this to be useful it had to relate to the work on our trays the gentle Anita in was a gold mine. Freddie Moore had the assignment It drawing boards. Running film at half-speed in our 101 Dalmatians, while Mary of doing the experimental animation on Dopey, and ha action analysis classes was helpful for a general under- Wickes is her overbearing, ran the Collins film over and over on his Moviola flamboyant friend Cruella standing of weight and thrusts and counter thrusts, but searching not so much for specifics as for the overall deVil. Each actress contri- the principles were not directly applicable to anima- buted her own ideas on concept of a character. Then he sat down at his de: personality and mannerisms tion. Our instructor Don Graham had chosen certain and animated a couple of scenes that fairly sparkle within the framework of the film segments as clear, isolated examples of move- with fresh ideas. Walt turned to the men gathered in action devised for this par- ments he could use in his lectures, but, while they ticular scene. the sweatbox and said, "Why don't we do more of gave us insight into articulation, they were still essen- this?" tially classroom exercises. Immediately other comics were brought in—enter- ANIMATORS: Milt Kahl, Anita; One day, during a discussion of how the Snow White Marc Davis, Cruella- tainers from vaudeville, men who had done voices for 101 Dalmatians. dwarf Dopey should act in a particular situation, some- the other dwarfs; all were put before the camera. No one suggested that his actions might be similar to those The animators' drawings routines were filmed, just miscellaneous activities and show the freedom used in of burlesque comedian Eddie Collins. This led to every- expressions that might help delineate a character. Our interpreting the action on one's going down to the theater to see the exceptional own storymen who had a special talent for acting were the photostats. Milt, ani- Mr. Collins perform. We invited him to the studio, mating Anita, chose not to dragged to the sound stage, and animators even photo- and a film was shot of his innovative interpretations of use the cringing body posi- graphed each other. As Bill Cottrell said years later, tion suggested by Helene, Dopey's reactions—a completely new concept that "It all seems so amateurish now—but it was fun! It while Marc went even fur- began to breathe life into the little cartoon character. was fun!" And that spirit of fun and discovery was ther with Cruella, adding Dopey had been the "leftover" dwarf, with no partic- the thrust to the neck and a probably the most important element of that period. thin, bony body. By work- ular personality and not even a voice; so, now, to see Now we had film that had been shot just for us, ing closely together, the the possibility of his becoming someone special, and, directly related to the characters we were drawing, and two animators were able to particularly, someone entertaining, was an exciting even though the acting was crude, we all picked up make the drawings match moment! And best of all, everything Collins had sug- in size and scale, while the ideas to enrich our scenes. We quickly found that gested was on film. performances of the ac- there were two distinctly different ways this film could tresses maintained the per- There was nothing in the film that could be copied be used. As resource material, it gave an overall idea sonality relationship. or used just the way it was, but as source material it of a character, with gestures and attitudes, an idea that 320 could be caricatured. As a model for the figure in movement, it could be studied frame by frame to reveal the intricacies of a living form's actions. At that time, the only way of studying live action frame by frame was to trace the film on our rotoscope machine. This was simply a projector converted to focus one image at a time, from below, onto a square of clear glass mounted in a drawing board. When draw- ing paper was placed over the glass, tracing after tracing could be made, each sheet kept in register by pegs at the bottom of the glass. It was tedious work and time- consuming, but this was the way it had been clone for twenty years. Naturally, Walt changed that situation in a hurry. He had the film processing lab work out a system of printing each frame of a film onto photographic paper the same size as our drawing paper. These sheets, which we called photostats, were then punched to fit The animation of the wick- ed, scheming stepmother in the pegs of an animation desk, and the animator could Cinderella was based on the now study the action by flipping "frames of film" strong actions and expres- backward and forward, just as he did his drawings. sions of Eleanor Audley. Here could be seen every tiny detail of changing shapes These photostats show the relationship of the features and relationships in the movements. At last, the ani- and the timing of the move, mators could study all of the mysteries that had in- but the face had to be rede- igued them so long. signed to match the other characters in the picture. We were amazed at what we saw. The human form Nothing on the photostats in movement displayed far more overall activity than could be traced or copied, working gone had supposed. It was not just the chest but they still gave an excel- against hips, or the backbone bending around, it lent guide for the action needed in the scene. v the very bulk of the body pulling in, pushing out, stretching, protruding. Here were living examples of the ''quash and stretch'' principles that only had been theories before. And here was the "follow through" and the "overlapping action" the changing shapes, the tensions and the counter tensions, the weight shown in the "timing" and the "exaggeration"—unbeliev- ablebroad exaggeration. We thought we had been drawing anything action, but here were examples surpassing we had done. Our eyes simply are not quick enough to detect the whole gamut of movement in the human figure. Some actions were so complicated they were impos- sible to draw in caricature, and many of the moves that gave touches of personality were too subtle to capture at all The tilt of the head as it turned, the changing shape of an eye, the slight swelling of a cheek in a 321 fleeting smile, the raising of a shoulder as the body that is there, with an impartial lack of emphasis.

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