It took me a long time to get around to reading this, but I’m glad I came back to it.

I think the production time is about equal to hand colored and photographed animation. The difference is in the ability to change and alter the scenes, which is easier than having to recolor by hand and then reshoot it on film. Changes are now done immediately. This is good for the client and hard for the producer. There has to be a point where you say it’s done.

One thinks of the animators in the earlier days (up to Snow White, speaking roughly) where animators didn’t see a pencil test of their animation, and some animation mistakes, coloring pops or cel flares or other problems often lived to the final project.

What bothers me is that although digitally assisted animation makes it a lot easier and faster to combine animation with rich textures and delicate colouring, not many seem to care about that chance - they only want to have it done fast and cheap, so they end up with films varnished with solid HTML colours over boringly clean vector lines.

Do you, by any chance, now involve computers in your work?

My own first paid job in animation was for an animator who worked on a Hubley project. I had no training and completely botched it. The animator I inbetweened for probably had to do it all over again, under the stress of a tight deadline.

The memory of this is so painful that I blocked it out til now, but your article brought it all back. You made me realize that the experience wasn’t all bad. It’s amazing that any of us survived youth.