Mark Mayerson and Thad Komorowski (whose blogs I should have added to my BlogRoll a long time ago, recently rectified) posted an excellent video each on the subject of animation re-use. The first, posted by Mr. Mayerson, shows many examples of Disney animation re-use, particularly in the films of director Wolfgang Reitherman. Warning: this video is set to a jaunty chanson française.
The second, created by Mr. Komorowski, shows many examples of extensive animation re-use in cartoons by famed director Bob Clampett. Warning: this video is set to awesome music by Raymond Scott.
I find this stuff fascinating, especially the Disney one. It’s like rotoscoping². It also appears that dancing is difficult/laborious/expensive to animate from scratch. But: why bother completely re-doing something picayune but complicated like a dancing scene when the audience hasn’t seen the original version in years? The re-use of animation in the dancing scene is certainly not the biggest problem occurrant in Disney’s Robin Hood, nor the most egregious example.
April 6, 2009 at 8:31 am |
[...] to Dark Roasted Blend for the heads up on this video. More on this topic from The Journal of Cartoon Over-analyzations. Bookmark [...]
April 23, 2009 at 1:00 pm |
The repetition is probably done for the same reason every fast food chain has a distinctive iconography. It would work to link the films together in the viewers subconscious and increase the sense of nostalgia that Disney often relies on to peddle their wares.
This makes me wonder if the choreography itself could be copyrighted? Anyone that maybe works in theater know how that might work?
August 11, 2009 at 4:57 pm |
Hmm, very interesting.
I’d imagine as it progressed these complex scenes have become a way to tribute the previous films and work done on them as much as to cut costs.
The animation is truely beautiful. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.