Tuesday, June 12, 2012

From Storysketch to Rough Animation


It's always interesting to see how Walt Disney's animators handled the transition from storyboard to  animation.
The story sketch is supposed to inspire the animator to give life to a particular scene.
I have seen story drawings that were very well worked out as far as staging, personality and the character being on model. In this case the animator has a relatively easy time to get started, because the material had already been given a lot of thought.
Other times the story sketch is only a loose suggestion, and real brain work is required by the animator in order to plus the scene's situation.

I am not sure who drew this story sketch, showing Maleficent just before she sends the raven off to find Aurora. It is a nice drawing, the two characters are facing each other in profile.
Marc Davis however improved the staging quite a bit by choosing a 3/4 camera angle. Now there is depth, and Maleficent and the bird seem to relate to each other within real space. Drawing wise this would be a challenge, because the film's character styling is very graphic and flat.
Not too many animators could work with these shapes and move their characters in three dimensions.
As you can see Marc was an expert at this.



12 comments:

  1. Marc's drawing is wonderful, but I'm not sure he deserves the credit for pushing the 3/4 angle. I suspect the layout person, the director, and the live action reference had something to do with it. Of course Marc was likely there as they shot the reference, but the credit for the choice is possibly more involved.

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    1. You're right, there were probably other people involved in the choice for the final staging. Marc was such an authority on this film, so I imagine he had something to do with that decision.

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  2. Andreas Deja and John Musker (if it's the John Musker) discussing the great Marc Davis's drawing of Maleficent - I love the internet! Whatever the case this fabulous post confirms exactly my ethic to storyboarding the drawing is very important - loose or laboured it has to have appeal and the above example certainly does so. The addition of shadow gives it depth and cinematic staging it is Far beyond the childs scrawl being blasted out in some hollywood productions today as is the production design , art direction and animation within this beautiful masterpiece that is Sleeping Beauty...From movies like this to Wreck it Ralph...

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  3. This just made my day even better then it already was. Yes, the internet keeps providing fuel for our dreams. Andreas I don't know if I read it or heard it somewhere, but I'm sure that you said that the highest compliment that can be paid to an Animator is to call them an Artist, well, to me you guys are the ultimate Artists.

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  4. I like the 3/4 view best. Really gives it some depth. Thanks for sharing!!

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  5. Generally, does adding depth automatically make any staging/ drawing better? If so, why wouldn't the storyboard artist include it in every drawing? I do agree that Marc Davis' does a better job of focusing your eye on the action at hand- the conversation from Maleficent to Diablo.

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    1. There are cases when a character shown in profile works very well. I'll try to dig up some examples.

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  6. In cases like this, would he have drawn a rough layout to give to the layout and background people, and given them some time to get that in place before animating?

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    1. As John mentioned, a small team probably worked this out, perhaps on the live action set.

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  7. Even the storyboard looks amazing!

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