Animation &Hubley &Tissa David 17 Mar 2010 08:10 am
Expanded Upkeep Cycles Recap
Two years ago, I posted part of this piece which included the drawings. I’ve expanded it and added the QT so you could see how it moves.
– 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 and view whole animation page.)
Note: this meant that the BG was designed to pan on two’s as well.
To run QT click on the left side of the black bar below the image.
To run one frame at a time, click the right side of the bar.
Now, excuse my driving a point home for the fifth time. Please observe that the feet are on two different planes. The two feet do not hit the same horizon line; one is drawn behind the other, consequently it’s drawn slightly shorter.
Most students today (if they actually draw both legs animated instead of repeating 1/2 of the cycle over and over) have both feet touching the same line on the horizon.
on 20 Mar 2010 at 8:04 am 1.Cheng said …
Really think this one is a good example for cartoon beginner.
Also a useful one for character design.