Huemer or Davis

[Daffysleftfoot]

At work, we've just started watching the Richard Williams Animation Guide dvds. Along with his animation tips he also gives a little bit of history.

On dvd #1, he stated that Dick Huemer invented inbetweening sometime in the 10's. But, didn't our own Ray Pointer on this very site state that it was actually Art Davis who invented inbetweening at the Fleischers back around 1923?

So, who invented inbetweening, Huemer or Davis?

[Tom Stathes]

Huemer questions are definitely for Ray Pointer. I could be mistaken but I recall hearing that Natwick and/or others may have been doing it at IFS in the late 10s.

[J Lee]

At work, we've just started watching the Richard Williams Animation Guide dvds. Along with his animation tips he also gives a little bit of history.

On dvd #1, he stated that Dick Huemer invented inbetweening sometime in the 10's. But, didn't our own Ray Pointer on this very site state that it was actually Art Davis who invented inbetweening at the Fleischers back around 1923?

So, who invented inbetweening, Huemer or Davis?

Huemer was the Fleischers' best animator, and in order to allow him to do more footage, they gave Artie the job to draw the poses between his key drawings. So Davis was the first in-betweener, but without Huemer there would have been no immediate desire to create the job (though obviously someone would have invented it sooner or later).

[Daffysleftfoot]

Thanks, everyone. That definitely clears things up.

[Ray Pointer]

Aw, shucks, Mr. Lee beat me to it. It shows he has been paying attention. For that, he gets a Gold Star for the day and is advanced to the "head of the class.":D

But as far as who acutally "invented" the process, there are stories that Otto Messer learned to animate the same way. But the Inbetweening step was really never formally applied to animation production until Max Fleischer started using it. The result was a faster and more efficient method of production that allowed the key animator to animate more cartoons by doing the key poses, leaving the "fill in" drawings to be done by asistants.