Animation &Hubley &repeated posts &walk cycle 14 Mar 2008 08:33 am
Recap Friday – Upkeep Cycles
- Back in October 2006, I posted this piece about John & Faith Hubley‘s short film Upkeep which includes an excellent walk cycle by Tissa David. I’ll try to post the storyboard for this film next week, if I can locate it.
– Back in 1973, the Hubleys produced Upkeep, a short film for IBM. It chronicled the history of the service repairman in a light hearted way. Actually an industrial, it was treated like a personal film. (There’s a thin line between some of their industrials and their personal films.) Of Men and Demons was done for IBM though they considered it a personal film; it instructed in the positive aspects of the binary code and was nominated for an Oscar.
___ (John & Faith Hubley with
___composer, Benny Carter)
Tissa David did the lion’s share of the animation for Upkeep. Phil Duncan, Lu Guarnier and Jack Schnerk were the other key animators on it. Helen Komar and I assisted all of them, and I inked the whole film. Gen Hirsch and I colored it. John did all the Bg’s.
The initial animation on the service man was done by Phil Duncan. Tissa had to pick up the character, and she found the walk Phil had done so funny that she kept it throughout the film adding shades and tones to it as she thought appropriate.
The art was inked with a sharpie, bled with thinner, then colored with magic markers. Each drawing was then cut out and pasted to cels. Hubley’s Bg’s followed the same style: sharpie on board, washed & bled with thinner, added watercolor washes.
Posted below are the drawings for that 18 drawing walk cycle.
___(Click any image to enlarge them.)
Walk cycle on twos.
on 14 Mar 2008 at 11:41 am 1.Tim Rauch said …
I always love it when you post Tissa’s cycles. It always looks to me like very economical, strong work.
on 14 Mar 2008 at 3:05 pm 2.Michael said …
Sorry, Dany, your comment was inadvertently deleted.
To answer your comment, yes, it is supposed to be a funny and eccentric walk. “This person” is Tissa David an animator who was Grim Natwick’s assistant for 20 years prior to animating herself. She is now almost retired and a master. Phil Duncan (also discussed in the piece) was one of the principal animators of “Thumper” on Bambi. Both of them knew what they were doing when they animated this. Not everyone walks identically to the Preston Blair chart. That’s the point of my posting it. (Read Dick Williams’ book about different types of walk cycles.)
on 14 Mar 2008 at 3:41 pm 3.J. Shamblin said …
I like it. It shows the character is happy, motivated and maybe even a little socially inept, because he stills seems a little heavy footed and probably isn’t use to expressing himself. And even if you can’t make sense of it, it’s just a fun animation to watch. You gotta love Tissa’s work!
Great blog, Michael. Please share more!
j.
on 16 Mar 2008 at 5:39 pm 4.Eddie Fitzgerald said …
Great walk! Really stimulating to watch!