Sunday, July 19, 2009
Bill Tytla - Stromboli Pencil Test
Animation by Bill Tytla of the character Stromboli from "Pinocchio".
I found good quality scans of this scene on Michael Sporn's excellent blog: http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/
I wanted to try syncing it up with the sound, so am reposting it here. If you compare it to the final color version there are a few drawings missing. On the hold after he says "knock you silly" and is looking menacingly off-screen at Pinocchio the animator had a moving hold on drawing marked "D H-66" . The body is traced back from D H-66, but the beard continues to overlap and settle for 10 frames as Stromboli glowers . I covered this by adding a small interpolation within that 10 frame hold so D H-66 isn't completely held. Later drawing D-132 is missing , so I added another interpolation between D-130 and D- 134 so the timing would be accurate when adding the sound .
Then again from drawing D- 174 to D-178 the inbetween drawing D-176 is missing. This is covered by interpolating D-174 and D- 178. If you look closely you'll notice these little "dissolves" , but it's not too distracting and it keeps the flow of the timing .
Also at the very end when he says "my little wooden gold mine" on the end of the word "gold mine" there should be a blink , but those drawings are missing from the scans. I simply held the last drawing D-224 for the length of time that the blink would take place if it was there. (again, the body was traced-back as a moving hold , with the eye blink. )
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6 comments:
I love all of the secondary action going on. I was watching this frame by frame to get a better understanding of how the belly drags behind the main action.
What are all of those notes and numbers around Stromboli's shadow for? Are they just for timing purposes?
Hi, David,
The notes and numbers around the bottom of the drawings are for the inkers:
TR Bal. = Trace Balance , or Traceback. So, for instance the note on drawing D-107 to "TR Bal. 110 & shadow" means that the inker should trace the lower legs/feet from key #110 onto drawing D-107 , as well as tracing the balance of the shadow from 110.
The notes "Reg. To BG" on the shadow mean that the inkers should register the shadow line to the background layout .
If you step through this frame-by-frame you can see a little bit of unsteadiness in the feet and/or the shadow, which is an unfortunate artifact of the photocopying process (since these are not the original drawings, but are copies of copies ) ; the photocopying process actually introduces a small bit of distortion into the drawings, so they don't always line up as precisely as the original drawings would have . When it runs at full speed it looks fairly steady, but the original drawings would be rock-solid steady , reg.'d to the BG and the tracebacks to the feet.
Very interesting.
Thank you
hi dave,
bert klein here...
i love your blog. thanks for all the great stuff!
Hi, Bert,
Thanks for dropping by and the kind words on the blog.
I'm really looking forward to seeing your latest work on the Princess & the Frog movie !
-DN
Even the best photocopy machines are seldom copy at a true 1:1 ratio, and animation studios tend to have the best maintained such devices, of necessity. The original pencil drawings would have absolutely been rock steady, as the images were meant to be projected so very large.
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