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They used a lot of rotoscoping back in the day. Basically they filmed a scene normally with real people, then traced over every frame to give us those fantastic moments of fluid movement in things like Snow White, Mary Poppins, and Beauty and the Beast (which also used 3D by the way).
Fun fact, some of the more impressive examples from that era (like Mary Poppins) primarily used the sodium vapor process to get perfect mattes directly in-camera, no rotoscoping needed. It’s a fascinating and impressive bit of tech: https://www.historicmysteries.com/science/disney-prism/39484/
That is indeed a fun fact! I am somewhat obsessed with sodium vapor lights and the bandwidth of light they produce. I would love to have seen the original camera rig and their special prisms, but apparently they only made three and they’ve been lost.
High intensity discharge lamps are awesome, can confirm. I miss when streetlamps were still HPS/LPS and mercury vapor, the lighting felt a lot more comforting than the harsh LEDs used nowadays.
Ralph Bakshi used it in the 1978 LOTR. It made the battle scene confusing.
Dude Ralph Bashki made things weird for fun. Maybe if I volunteer to watch the Bashki LOTR with my wife, who loves that movie, I can convince her to watch Wizards with me. I have been wanting to watch that.
Rotoscoping is quite old, too. I think it even predates ww1.
yeap
I think animation, when the animators care, has improved. Yes treasure planet looks better fight me. But I think the problem is that there is more shit animation now, and we have forgotten the shit animation of the past.
Fun fact: 101 Dalmatians was the first Disney movie to be produced with the help of xerox. This was as a result of the financial flop that was Sleeping Beauty, that almost bankrupted the company and cut their budgets for future movies all the way from the 60s to the financial success of the little mermaid in 1989. This is why Disney movies within that time period has a rougher look when it comes to the characters’ lineart and the more simple backgrounds compared to the very detailed, painted backgrounds and colored lineart of all Disney movies up until 101 Dalmatians.
The xerox was a cost cutting method to save time and money and while it absolutely killed Walt Disney to have to compromise on the art, it also paved the way for a new look and feel that, especially in the case of 101 Dalmatians, created a timeless look that still looks as fresh and modern today as the day it was made.
Without the invention and utilization of the xerox, there most likely would have been no Disney company today.
The Disney corporation is a better person when it’s poor.
Not arguing with you there xD I have basically boycotted Disney. Last straw for me was their Mulan remake.
Didn’t watch it. Heard it was trash like all the other remakes, but the thing that did it for me was when I learned they had used actual concentration camp prisoners for free labor on the movie. That was it for me.
BuT nO! ReAl ArT uSeS nO sHoRtCuTsOrTecH!
A lot are still “painted by hand”, the use of vector graphics isn’t as prevalent in other cartoon producing countries as it is in the US
really?
I know of zero studios that are still doing any painting. they are all digital. sk, china, japan - no one uses paint filmed one cel at a time, or any of the old analog processes anymore. I’d be happy to be wrong, but I don’t know of anyone that’s still doing painted cels recorded on film.
Even Ghibli. https://www.dqindia.com/features/studio-ghibli-blending-tradition-and-technology-in-the-age-of-animation-8921913
“Ghibli’s selective integration of technology, primarily digital ink-and-paint techniques facilitated by software like OpenToonz, stands in stark contrast to the unbridled embrace of AI in the recent Ghibli-style art phenomenon.”
I didn’t say that they were painting on paper
Digital painting by hand is still qualifies as “painted by hand”
I didn’t say that they were painting on paper
tell me you don’t understand animation at all already… ffs, no one painted on paper. can’t really shine light through it lol. it was all cels man.
Digital painting by hand is still qualifies as “painted by hand”
ROFLS okay bud. Perhaps you weren’t born yet but there have been a few arguments about this… well, more than a few. LOTS. Like, animator holy war levels of arguments. And it wasn’t a one-and-done transition either, lots of productions went back and forth because of the requirements of the episode or availability.
Take a look at the simpsons to see a show that eschewed digital ink and paint until they went all in. when they did, they changed the aspect ratio of the show, knowing it was going to look so different that few would even notice the swap to 16x9 from old crt 4x3.
Somebody is really getting worked up.
aw, sorry, I didn’t realize I was supposed to ignore your ignorance. please, continue to lie about things you obviously know jack shit about.
Actual, handmade art and films are why so many of us look back on the 80’s nostalgically, whether it’s the Muppets, or Freddy’s handmade makeup and practical effects, or the Goonies’ crew building a whole-ass pirate ship on a soundstage. Practical effects will always be 100% better than CGI or some crap spat out by an LLM.
The reason why so many people look on the 80s nostalgically is because they were children or teens during the 80s.
And had virtually no responsibility, with tons of free time, and friends, and play.
This was 1961 which is definitely not the ‘80s. However, I get your point; practical effects may have been — and were often — jank, but it was real and tangible and I loved it, warts and all.
Sauce on that gif por favor?
The movie is called Deadly Friend. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend taking the time to watch the whole thing just for the gif moment. It is totally ‘80s cheese, if you are into that sort of thing.
Edit: I’m looking at what community I have posted in and realizing I probably could and should have picked literally any scene from Mary Poppins but I didn’t and now you all have to watch a watermelon in a wig explode.
My theory is that since practical effects ultimately rely on physics of the world we occupy, that despite their unpolished look, they feel more real. The hyper realistic, but completely reality breaking effects of today just hit the same way cartoons do.
Speaking of cartoons, I love finding the shortcuts that animators would take, there’s something so artistic about how they did it.
I am just so much more engaged when I can watch a movie while also trying to figure out how they pulled off an effect.
The line has blurred enough for make it difficult to draw a clean line between true practical effects and special effects. Visual effects studios can and do merge real photography with digital rendering or retouching. Over 20 years ago, Andy Serkis had to don a special motion capture suit to play Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies, but the advances since then now allow for more subtle (or less subtle) transformation of characters. The Mandalorian made extensive use of digitally rendered scenes actually projected on set so that the reflections and actor interactions feel more real in a computer-generated environment.
And of course, actual movie editing tricks have always been around, where cuts and multiple takes can create real footage presented in a fictional sequence: a single actor playing twins/doppelgangers by simply filming each side’s lines separately, and then editing them together. Plus things like costume design and wardrobe, set design, props, etc.
The effectiveness of all these tricks do depend a lot on the skill and effort of the people involved, and that often means budget (including time). Rush jobs, or farming the work out to cheaper/less skilled workers, on any of these mean that corners will be cut and the end result will be less convincing, regardless of actual method.
*just don’t hit
Nah, I mean that even thought they look so picture perfect, my brain just doesn’t see them as real, and parks them in the same category as a cartoon.
Whereas a practical effect, might look hilariously bad, but sometime a jello filled, papier-mache head exploding, is the perfect amount of gore to make me wince.
OK, I can appreciate that phenomenon.
Facts, it’s why the thing is still my favorite horror movie.
Same here. I occasionally look back at 80s stuff and even the limited animation stuff of the era still made me realize that a whole army of people had to draw all of these by hand. So even if some stuff was ‘bad’ due to time and budget constraints, the sheer effort they had to put in was incredible.
For me I use AI for one thing only: furry porn, and stupid furry porn at that. I did write stories and novels before the Trump gang fucked with my creativity in ways I dont want to talk about. Using AI for any serious creative purpose is insulting to me.
Regarding “CGI is bad” - pls watch this Video series, it’s not that simple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ttG90raCNo&t=2
Bunch of old people here in the comments
And young ones too. Also, the middle-aged.
TBF it was also a time before the corporate entity realized maximum short term profit doesn’t come from perfected products.
Yeah I feel old too.
That behind said, I don’t think a modern drawing tool is inherently less capable than an older one to produce magic. Digital painting used to have limitations in comparison with traditional technics, but a good 2d illustrator can do gorgeous drawings with a tablet nowadays.
When I see magic in animated movies, its when people do things by love and passions, and not for seeking additional profit. Flow and Arcane are examples of animation with such ingredients.
Thankfully they’re learning this and we get movies that are starting to look less like plastic cgi and are using painted textures and drawn in motion blur like in k pop demon hunters which gives the movies more character and makes them look like a mix of the old and the new
They were more interested in telling a memorable story than making a quick buck
The only counter argument would probably be something like Flow. But what Zilbalodis did was perhaps as handcrafted as 3D animation can get.
The original Mobile Suit Gundam 0079. The US cartoons from the 1960’s and 70’s were the best with plenty of lessons from Wile E. Coyote.
When’s the last time you watched the original MSG? I too love the old Gundam series… I’ve actually been rewatching the og recently but there’s been more than a few instances where I’ve seen some very dodgy and poorly drawn frames pop on screen. I say this with love and respect but it’s not a great example for good animation. There are beautifully drawn examples to draw from. 0083 Stardust Memory comes to mind. Absolutely gorgeously drawn and animated. 08th MS Team is another great looking one.
Saw the first one in Nagano, Japan and then recently on Netflix. My favorite is the MSM-04 ACGuy and I built the model kit from Bandai.
the opening to beauty and the beast remains my favourite piece of animation ever <3
Beauty and the Beast features computer animation, by the way. I think it’s only in the ballroom scene though.
thanks! i’m not an expert so i wasn’t sure (i know they did switch sometime in the 90s but i thought 91 would have been too early for computer/cgi)
If you rewatch the ballroom scene it’s pretty obvious. It’s like partially 3d. But it’s subtle enough to not stick out.
Wasn’t the first use of CG in a major Disney animated film the carpet in Aladdin? No necessarily the whole movie, but certain scenes at least.
yeah i remember the carpet scene in the cave of wonders with the lava being particularly cgi (i mean as a kid it looked awesome but still)
Uh, sure, why not! Seems believable enough to me.
Wikipedia has a pretty good list of big “firsts” for cgi.
It notes that Disney first used cgi for the clock tower in The Great Mouse Detective. However it seems like it may have been cgi generated frames that were then hand animated over.
As for Aladdin, maybe first to have cgi character? As Beauty and the Beast came out 1 year earlier and definitely had cgi effects in the ballroom scene.
Note: no idea how accurate the whole list is, but that one checks out.
I would love cartoons that don’t traumatize children, that would be awesome. I watched bambi when I was young and got so traumatized I can’t wach animal movies anymore, than I went to see Elio with my niece and she was crying so hard I had to apologize to her parents.
Life is horrible enough lets make cartoons nice
I disagree that this is an actual problem, we have so few sources anymore that show any kind of reality that kids can connect with.
It’s worse than ever. It’s a world of AI slop that is often far more disturbing, youtube kid’s channels that are completely lacking in value or education. Life lessons are avoided like the plague in media and in families now. Parents avoid “hard topics” with their kids at a level that has left an entire generation of adults unable to function under any level of pressure, or unable to do basic things like count change and make eye contact.
Will seeing Bambi’s parents die help with that? Not directly, but there is a type of psychological “grounding” that can come from careful exposure to distressing topics as a child.
Life is horrible, but avoiding it makes the problems worse. Avoiding something distressing because you can’t take negative emotions is a valid choice but it doesn’t make you stronger. Your mental capacity, your emotions and your perceptions are all muscles that wither and die without exercise.
If we taught our children that bad things happen but it’s okay and we can recover, maybe there would be less fear and scared adults who cling to violence as a means to feel in control.
I just don’t like the idea of sanitizing and shaving every hard corner off a world that desperately needs people with mental and emotional strength like never before.
I don’t think we lack nice cartoons. My siblings children watch Bluey and Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood and they are both great. they also watch the unavoidable paw patrol bu I like this too. My older niece lover frozen but she FF the part where the parents die lol
We have plenty of “nice” cartoons, my point though is that after a certain age, a child should have a solid understanding of some mature concepts like mortality, because if you’re going into your pre-teens and still can’t watch certain scenes in kid’s media, you’re going to have a very hard time with an array of things as life rapidly comes at you.
You should try The Fox and the Hound. It’s uplifting.
or brave little toaster T_T
There are like five popular Disney movies where a parent or both parents dont get murdered in order to drive the story forward. Of those left a handful has the parents dead before the story even starts.
Disney really seems to love killing parents. Someone ought to talk to them, seems like an unhealthy obsession.
Aren’t they animations of existing fairy tales, at least the early ones?
Coco and Encanto, Moana and Brave, it seems like in the newer movies they’re not as addicted to killing the parents, so maybe someone did? I haven’t seen wish or raya so idk. The parents are also alive in Tangled I think but she’s kidnapped so I don’t think we can really count it as no parental trauma (or we could count it as 3 parents?)
Was it the melting child scene? That caught me off guard.
Yeah, that came out of no where. I thought it was great, but also figured it would likely traumatize a number of kids.
I was sad the movie didn’t do better in the box office. It wasn’t the best, but it was a fun original story.
Also this, but she was watching with me, her aunt, and her parents were not there so she kept asking me if her parents were going to die too. At the end she was crying and saying “i don’t want to live with you I want to live with mom and dad” lol. Didn’t take offense. I also want her to live with her parents hahaha
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi fucked me up, nightmares about snakes for a couple of years. And having Orson Wells narrate didn’t help a bit.
Flowknocks the crap out ofDalmatians.
