Jaime_Weinman
06-24-2006, 11:24 PM
By syndicated entertainment journalist Paul Harrison, July 3, 1937.
The article goes into quite a bit of detail about how cartoons are made, especially toward the end when it talks about timing and lip-synching. Also, Schlesinger makes a prediction. About a movie. And it's not a good one. See if you can find it. :)
An animated cartoon factory is a much quieter place, and more efficient, than an ordinary movie studio. Without bellowing assistant directors and bleating players, life is pleasanter, if more purposeful.
It didn't take long for the animators to introduce machine-like efficiency into their realm of pure fantasy. I used to think that all such films were turned out painstakingly, picture by picture, by a lot of busy little gnomes named Disney, sitting cross-legged in a grotto somewhere.
Instead of that, the pen-and-ink and water-color epics represent just about the highest development of the unit system of production in Hollywood.
There are budgets and shooting schedules and production charts. There are producers and directors and art directors and story departments. From inception to preview, each picture has its own full staff of executives and technicians.
The man who makes the most animated pictures is Leon Schlesinger, a veteran showman who has been in practically all branches of the stage and movie business, but who can't draw a straight line.
In 1930, when he had a prosperous little studio turning out titles and trailer ads and such, Jack Warner suggested making cartoon films.
So Schlesinger started "Merry Melodies [sic]" with a staff of 36 people. Now he has two studios, a staff of 170 workers, and a payroll of nearly a third of a million dollars a year.
This year he will make 20 Merry Melodies in color and 16 Looney Tunes in black and white. That's twice the number of cartoon shorts issued annually by Disney.
Schlesinger is a pleasant, solid man who reminds you a little of Hal Roach. He likes his work and gets a kick out of his own pictures, although with a modesty that is particularly non-Hollywood he says he's just a businessman, and acclaims the artistry of Disney.
As a businessman, though, he doubts that full-length cartoon features ever will make money. Disney has 575 employees and will spend nearly $1,000,000 producing "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Schlesinger's current pride is Porky, a pig that stutters.
"I discovered Porky two years ago," he said. "We had a picture about a schoolroom, and the pupils were a cat, a turtle, an owl, and all sorts of animals, including a pig. Well, the minute we saw that pig we knew we had something. It was just like spotting a promising personality among the extras or bit players in a regular movie. So we got busy and gave Porky screen tests and changed him a little in developing his character. And now he stars in 16 pictures a year, the 'Looney Tunes.'
A stuttering character actor does the Porky dialog for a recording; then the record is speeded up so that the voice is about an octave higher when it reaches the film. Before they attained acting prominence, Rochelle Hudson and Jane Withers worked for Schlesinger, dubbing in their voices for those of cartoon characters.
Hollywood has scores of people capable of imitating voices, and the producer never has any trouble finding talent for impersonating, in sound, the Crosbys, Stepin Fetchits, Garbos and other celebrities whom he frequently satirizes in "Merry Melodies."
If you saw "Coocoonut Grove" you'll recall that Katharine Hepburn was caricatured as a horse. Schlesinger has heard that she was delighted with the impudence and went to see the picture three times.
In cartoon shorts, he explained, the animators are the real actors. They're the artists who sketch the action and the expressions of the characters, and they work from complicated scripts, or charts, plotted by the directors.
On these charts the notion of each scene is minutely described and a certain number of "frames," or individual pictures, is allotted for each bit of action. On the screen you see 24 of these frames a second.
Also on the animator's chart is written the dialog, divided into syllables and each syllable indicated for a certain group of pictures so that the characters' lip movements will synchronize perfectly, as though they're actually speaking.
In fact, the animators actually try to reproduce the true lip movements; they use themselves as models, looking into mirrors to see how certain sounds are formed.
The article goes into quite a bit of detail about how cartoons are made, especially toward the end when it talks about timing and lip-synching. Also, Schlesinger makes a prediction. About a movie. And it's not a good one. See if you can find it. :)
An animated cartoon factory is a much quieter place, and more efficient, than an ordinary movie studio. Without bellowing assistant directors and bleating players, life is pleasanter, if more purposeful.
It didn't take long for the animators to introduce machine-like efficiency into their realm of pure fantasy. I used to think that all such films were turned out painstakingly, picture by picture, by a lot of busy little gnomes named Disney, sitting cross-legged in a grotto somewhere.
Instead of that, the pen-and-ink and water-color epics represent just about the highest development of the unit system of production in Hollywood.
There are budgets and shooting schedules and production charts. There are producers and directors and art directors and story departments. From inception to preview, each picture has its own full staff of executives and technicians.
The man who makes the most animated pictures is Leon Schlesinger, a veteran showman who has been in practically all branches of the stage and movie business, but who can't draw a straight line.
In 1930, when he had a prosperous little studio turning out titles and trailer ads and such, Jack Warner suggested making cartoon films.
So Schlesinger started "Merry Melodies [sic]" with a staff of 36 people. Now he has two studios, a staff of 170 workers, and a payroll of nearly a third of a million dollars a year.
This year he will make 20 Merry Melodies in color and 16 Looney Tunes in black and white. That's twice the number of cartoon shorts issued annually by Disney.
Schlesinger is a pleasant, solid man who reminds you a little of Hal Roach. He likes his work and gets a kick out of his own pictures, although with a modesty that is particularly non-Hollywood he says he's just a businessman, and acclaims the artistry of Disney.
As a businessman, though, he doubts that full-length cartoon features ever will make money. Disney has 575 employees and will spend nearly $1,000,000 producing "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Schlesinger's current pride is Porky, a pig that stutters.
"I discovered Porky two years ago," he said. "We had a picture about a schoolroom, and the pupils were a cat, a turtle, an owl, and all sorts of animals, including a pig. Well, the minute we saw that pig we knew we had something. It was just like spotting a promising personality among the extras or bit players in a regular movie. So we got busy and gave Porky screen tests and changed him a little in developing his character. And now he stars in 16 pictures a year, the 'Looney Tunes.'
A stuttering character actor does the Porky dialog for a recording; then the record is speeded up so that the voice is about an octave higher when it reaches the film. Before they attained acting prominence, Rochelle Hudson and Jane Withers worked for Schlesinger, dubbing in their voices for those of cartoon characters.
Hollywood has scores of people capable of imitating voices, and the producer never has any trouble finding talent for impersonating, in sound, the Crosbys, Stepin Fetchits, Garbos and other celebrities whom he frequently satirizes in "Merry Melodies."
If you saw "Coocoonut Grove" you'll recall that Katharine Hepburn was caricatured as a horse. Schlesinger has heard that she was delighted with the impudence and went to see the picture three times.
In cartoon shorts, he explained, the animators are the real actors. They're the artists who sketch the action and the expressions of the characters, and they work from complicated scripts, or charts, plotted by the directors.
On these charts the notion of each scene is minutely described and a certain number of "frames," or individual pictures, is allotted for each bit of action. On the screen you see 24 of these frames a second.
Also on the animator's chart is written the dialog, divided into syllables and each syllable indicated for a certain group of pictures so that the characters' lip movements will synchronize perfectly, as though they're actually speaking.
In fact, the animators actually try to reproduce the true lip movements; they use themselves as models, looking into mirrors to see how certain sounds are formed.