THEA 80N Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Silly Symphony, Soltyrei, Janet Gaynor
Lecture 4: The Mickey Phenomena and The Silly Symphonies Continued
4/10/2018
Innovation
● Allowed animators to shoot tests of drawing
● Gave assistants to lead animators
○ Walt knew that the rough animated scenes had vitality; worried that it would lose
vibrancy
● The Silly Symphonies
○ New York Times praised the new cartoons saying its new stories and characters
● Color
○ Got exclusive rights with Technicolor
■ 3 years
○ 3 colors: red, green, blue
● Flowers and Trees - 1932
○ First color animated feature
○ Walt got an academy award that year for animation
Hyperion Studios
● New studio
○ A lot of open space so that workers could talk together
● Where a lot of the lore comes from for how Disney developed key stories
● Walt creates an art school
○ Encourages animators to watch films and other forms of entertainment to create
animation that resembles life
● Rubber hose
○ The current form of animation before the animators came up with the 12
principles for animation
○ Animals and other life forms lacked realistic movement
12 Principles of Animation
● Squash and Stretch
○ Size and volume
○ Enables the illusion of movement
● Anticipation
○ Wait for it…
○ Prepares the audience for what the character is about to do
○ Helps the audience anticipate the gag
● Staging
○ The presentation of ideas so that it is completely understood
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○ The pose/action has to communicate to the action what is happening
○ Needs to make sense to the story
○ Control the gaze
■ Making sure the audience sees what you want them to see
● Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose
○ Straight Ahead
■ Shows the entire sequence from start to end
■ Loses volume, size and movement
■ Has spontaneity
○ Pose to Pose
■ Focuses on the individual poses by the characters and fills in the gaps of
the story
■ Contains volume, size and movement
■ Loses spontaneity
● Follow through and overlapping action
○ Where parts of the body stops but other parts are still moving
○ Does not distract from the main action
● Slow in and out
○ An action starts
■ A lot of drawing at the beginning of the action
■ Less near the middle (more spread out)
■ A lot of drawing near the end of the action
○ Makes the action sequence more believable
● Arcs
○ Living things don’t work angularly
○ Walt was curious to see how life moved
■ Wanted to show that in animation
● Secondary Action
○ Gives more body to the scene and reinforces the dynamic of the scene
○ Again makes the movement of life more believable
● Timing
○ Timing is everything in comedy
○ Physical timing
■ Caters to the laws of physics
○ Theatrical timing
■ Elongate the time of the action
● Exaggeration
○ In animation you have to exaggerate certain characteristics
○ Facial expressions and the body need to resemble like a caricature so that it seems
realistic
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Lecture 4: the mickey phenomena and the silly symphonies continued. Allowed animators to shoot tests of drawing. Walt knew that the rough animated scenes had vitality; worried that it would lose vibrancy. New york times praised the new cartoons saying its new stories and characters. Walt got an academy award that year for animation. A lot of open space so that workers could talk together. Where a lot of the lore comes from for how disney developed key stories. Encourages animators to watch films and other forms of entertainment to create animation that resembles life. The current form of animation before the animators came up with the 12 principles for animation. Animals and other life forms lacked realistic movement. Prepares the audience for what the character is about to do. The presentation of ideas so that it is completely understood. The pose/action has to communicate to the action what is happening. Needs to make sense to the story.
