What is Digg?83 Comments
- nfollmer, on 10/12/2007, -4/+51Wouldn't you take shortcuts too if you had to draw frames of a 2 hour movie
- DFrag, on 10/12/2007, -3/+30Very interesting. If only I could read russian.
- DisposableRob, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15"This is the total opposite as with Anime, which often uses painfully obvious re-used frames of animation."
Which is why Hayao Miyazaki gets so much respect from western animators. Even though Gibli films still have that anime feel of using about half the frames they should, there is almost no repetition of movement in any of the characters. - ReiToei, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13They are simply reusing scenes, not "rotoscoping".
Rotoscoping is the name of the process employed by disney's animators to animate many scenes, not the process of reusing footage.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscope
By your rationale, Scooby Doo, The Flintstones, Top Cat would have all been "Rotoscoped".
They were not.
Buzzwords are cool and all, just know when to use them properly. - gschoots, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11As a father of three I see a lot of Disney, so I do wonder how you could even see the similarities while watching it coming along in 24fps, unless you are involved in the development process. I cannot imagine someone doing this by hand.
I wonder with the Jungle Book/Magic Cauldron comparison how much time it would take to alter the little details like the hair and such, wouldn't it be faster to just recreate the scene? - sarusa, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Try
http://world.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ru_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prodisney.ru%2Fclones.php - aznboi04k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9maybe that's why i get that dejavu feeling when i watch some of disney's movie. creepy.
- cphuntington97, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I remember in Star Wars "behind the scenes" that a tie fighter scene matched an old dog fight movie shot for shot.
Maybe it's a legitimate technique. - Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10It's a Communist plot to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids!
- millixaw, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Very eerie. It looks like for some of them, they just re-used the skeleton sketches but still created a new character over them (like with Snow White and the girl fox from Robin Hood) which still involves a bit of work. I always thought though that some animations seemed familiar, but couldn't put my finger on it. I just always thought they had that "Disney look."
Animators work very hard so it's cool to see they have an array of time-saving techniques to help their work yet seem to be pretty effective at making them look non-obvious.
This is the total opposite as with Anime, which often uses painfully obvious re-used frames of animation. Often characters are just two frames repeating over and over (like when they are standing in one position and talking). - trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Mirror: http://trogdoor.googlepages.com/clones.htm
Translation: http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ru_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftrogdoor.googlepages.com%2Fclones.htm - drawkbox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It may add to brand quality and its a common practice in animation. The best is when the libraries are built up and the focus can be more on the story and prodcution rather than redrawing the same thing over and over. Same with software same with animation.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The most painfully obvious example of this, at least to me was in the Flintstones. Any time they were running indoors they would run past the same window and chair over and over. Heck I noticed that at age 5, I wonder how much more I would notice now.
On the subject of Disney. Their entire business model is based on re-cycling! From plot lines to characters and everything in between. The tactic I hated the most, (this was also used for the Star Wars trilogy) was when certain releases (like Cinderella) were marketed as being "Available for the last time EVER on video!". Of course what they really meant was the "last time ever on VHS!" because they re-released em all on DVD three years later.
This marketing was totally intended to imply that these items would never be made available again PERIOD when really they meant they would never be made available in that FORMAT.
How many people do you know fell victim to this strategy with the Star Wars box set? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It was Jessica Rabbit's snatch if I remember correctly.
But The Rescuers had some big titted porno shots showing in a window as the main characters flew past, and less we forget the giant penis on the VHS cover of The Little Mermaid. - unlived, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The first thing you learn in any animation class is to find scenes or parts that you can reuse. It's a fundamental animation tool and has nothing to do with budgets or conspiracies. The one thing they do not teach you is how to read Russian. It is interesting though to see how some people just see pictures under the illusion of a context and put two and three together. That in itself is an interesting Digg.
- rowanjl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5They probably had trouble making the flight look convincing, so they mapped the path from a real film.
- bloobloo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The animated soldiers in LOTR were generated automatically with AI to drive their movements so they're not a brilliant parallel.Certainly with other epic battle films though small sections of actors were used and then repeated along a battle front, which is more like this case.
- r©ain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
- littlebloody, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Thanks HelloCharlie. Sorry if I didn't explicitly explain the term, but that is what any sequence involving the (obvious) reuse of traced live action actors is called, rotoscoping. Even the wikipedia article says so. No where did I say this was like reusing old cel cycles (as in the limited animation series mentioned).
Most people are still commenting below that this technique is like the HB stuff which it clearly isn't. It's just a more technically complicated and sneakier reuse ("let's dig out that old footage we shot of Marjorie Belcher (the dancer used for Snow White) no one will know the difference!"). - dtfinch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7For those who don't know Russian, or babelfish, the last paragraph finishes with a link to page 2.
- bsuto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There's also a Disney Christmas movie called "The Small One" that completely reuses footage of Mowgli from the Jungle Book. This is what my family watched every Christmas... and it bugged me every year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Small_One - inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5> The most painfully obvious example of this, at least to me was in the Flintstones.
Yeah, the repeating background. Funny how many doors and end tables the Flintstones had in their house--and all in one room!
When I was young, I wanted to be an animator and I used to watch cartoons while simultaneously studying them. There are loads of shortcuts in cheap animation. The one I hated the most was the way cheaper cartoons will have the character's head sitting still while just their mouth and eyes move. (Get it? The head is one drawing with the eyes and mouth being animated only as overlays.) Snow and rain falling is another one--hmm... why do I keep seeing the same snowflakes over and over again?
Disney is great because they animated the characters 100%. They may re-use stuff from other shots and other movies, but it's all drawn out and there are no shortcuts when it comes to the actual drawing itself. It's frame-for-frame fully animated. That's a beautiful thing. I've said before that I can watch Disney animation with the sound off.
The better anime stuff is just as good (although the cheap stuff is just horrendously bad.) - karel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The very end of "Beauty and the Beast", they stole the last dance from "Sleeping Beauty" and just changed the color of the dress to match Belle. The director says it right in the comentary.
- bat-21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Disney actually bragged about doing this when they released 101 Dalmatians. It was the first animated film to use photocopying. The animators joked they would have gone insane if they had to draw all the puppies.
Other instances of reuse:
-The Aristocats "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" number and the Robin Hood party scene.
-The Fox & the Hound reused squirrel animation from "The Sword in the Stone" and pheasant family animation from "Bambi". - Silencer7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Try Shoujo Kakumei Utena sometime--There's some fantastic hand-drawn animation, but to make up for that, in almost every episode there's the same 4-5 minutes of stock footage to enter the dueling arena. Pick one: A) Hilarious, B) Deep, C)***** lazy, or D) a chance to go get more Pringles (HOGMP)
There is no excuse whatsoever for dragonball Z. - seannicholls, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3There were actually a couple of instances when nudity got slipped into a cell/frame by an animator that actually made it to the final film. I remember a complaint about a picture of a naked woman in roger rabbit.
Disney are good folk on the whole, but you cant blame them for streamlining a process that is so labour intensive. One of the pictures was just a mirror effect (frame was flipped horizontally...) which is far less excusable, come on. thats just insulting. - redban2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3here is a video of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvhICSVNnCM
- sakuraz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4it's not redrawing to fit the scene, as you've expected, but reusing the settings and movements that was already set beforehands.
Animators are needed to be given instructions, and I guess for some of them, recycling seemed to fit the criteria for putting in enough love into the work - zforrester, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3umm, what?
- xLiKx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3seems like the reuse was during a period when disney had that sketchy look and lower budget for their films. but this is a real eye opener. very cool find.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Dr Katz and Squiglevision are some of my favorite toons. Lack of "serious" animation didn't hurt it at all.
- HiddenForce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Not only that, but to produce a new set of animation for a given move by a character sometimes requires the animators do a new motion study for that move. Generally in a motion study, the animators sit and watch an actor or animal do a certain move over and over so they can see how the parts of the body interact with each other and with their environment (sometimes animators just do the move themselves in a mirror, but Disney is famous for doing live motion studies).
All this obviously costs extra time and money, and so the reuse of certain moves that fit with a given scene is a logical choice -- as long as it's not overused, as other studios (*cough*HannaBarberaEtAl*cough*) do. - reaver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Nice find. Don't blame them though.
- bigpeeler, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Very cool. I mean, I always suspected...but to see proof. I don't blame them a bit quite frankly. I've seen worse use of repetitive backgrounds in non-animated movies. Well done, Disney.
- everfalling, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6then again, you have to understand that it would be pointless to animate the mouthes of anime characters to the native japanese language, seeing as it's just going to be dubbed over with english later on. because of this, neither language fully syncs with the anime lip movements. if they did, one language would be right on while the other language would look like one of those old kung fu movies. plus, and i'm just guessing here, an anime series is gonna have a smaller budget with larger time constraints than a full length feature film. if you look at some of animes full length films the quality in animation and how the characters move and interact is much more varied than in a TV series.
the whole all anime characters look alike except for hair and eyes is true though, but it's so obvious it's not even really an issue. - everfalling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2hey, no harm no fowl right? you have to take it with a grain of salt considering half those shots were of either a repetetive motion or a shot with multiple characters. you get the same thing in even bigger bidget films like lord of the rings. you think all those 3d animated soldiars are moving independantly? Nope, they take a few motion captures for variety and then just place them around nearly randomly for uniform chaos and movement.
- surfing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Finally, object oriented cartooning
- Rmplstltskn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Probably just pressure to get it done.
- cdrudy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2 While I'm sure that they reuse reference film, If you look closely at the frames most of the outlines of the figures in question (not counting cosmetic items such as clothes) are pretty much identical. It's really cool how putting the same motion in a different context makes it unique to the viewer.
This reuse truly isn't surprising considering the amazing amount of work that really does go into Disney movies. Like 'em or not, one can't deny the impact that Disney has made on the animation industry esp in the field of modern animation techniques. - dnder, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I have a feeling you probably never watched an anime in your life, cept probably that crap dragon ball z. Saying that all animes suck is like saying all sci-fi or all disney genre sucks, you can't just generalize an entire genre. Some animes suck, some are good.
- martindale, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You may want to note that anime tends to get much less funding. To pick some random figures, a Disney movie may get one million USD for an hour and a half of animation, while an anime gets the same amount for 200 episodes at twenty minutes each. Even Disney does this to keep costs low...
Do take a look at some of the anime's that actually got funding: Princess Mononoke... Spirited Away... see a trend? I was also impressed by vehicular animation in Ranma...
Also, try "The Animatrix". It's a little closer to home. - Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I find this technique very compelling, creative and even artistic in its own way.
- CubeFarmDrone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The great thing for the studios is that kids don't know the difference between the newly animated movie and the cheapquel. They still love them both. They care more about the story and the comedy than how it looks. I feel the same way about the cartoons that I watch on Cartoon Network. ATHF still looks like crap compared to most animation standards, but great characters like Meatwad, Frylok, and Shake more than make up for it.
- jackal123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'd say that its more an artform that is vast enough to encompass many genres.
- phil.busch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Is is just me or does that final scene look like half-cg? That floor doesn't look "cartoonish" at all...
- millixaw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"You my friend are a retard. Disney cartoons are movies, while most animes are television shows. You can't expect a tv show that has to come out every week to a 1 hour movie in which they spend years to create."
I point you towards such high-quality animated shows like Duck Tales, Gummi Bears, Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop, etc which are all held against the same Disney animation standards as their feature films.
On a side note, comparing Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers to the current crop on Cartoon Network (the few shows left that aren't Anime), or even the newer Disney Channel cartoons... what went wrong?? - hellocharlie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I believe littlebloody was referring to the outlining of skeletal characters as commented by millixaw. Those characters don't have reused animation but resued source footage in the rotoscoping process. If so, that comment was technically correct.
- Criterion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's not just you. That was a defining moment for Pixar actually. It was a pretty big deal when it came out.
- haloevo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's sweet.
- 16x9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Some of them were obviously the same animation cells used in a new context, over a different background or flipped horizontally, for example.
However, a few of them would have to have been drawn from scratch! I mean, the "action" seemed to be identical but the drawing itself was different. I'm guessing that in these cases they simply used the on-screen character's movements from one film to plot another character's movements in another film.
As been said by others in this thread, I sure don't blame them. :) Interesting find! -
Show 51 - 83 of 83 discussions
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is