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Animation Treasures

animationtreasures.jpg

Now here’s a blog I can really sink my teeth into: Animation Treasures. Hans Bacher has painstakingly pieced together frame grabs of pan backgrounds from classic Disney features & cartoons (as well as some other vintage animated films and cartoons like Fleischer’s excellent Superman series and Paul Julian’s work at Warner Bros), giving us the chance to finally see these backgrounds in their entirety. It’s not an easy task, as Bacher notes (see this post), since DVD colors and tones change constantly, not to mention that several backgrounds were shot on the multi-plane camera and shift as the camera pans across the scene. I applaud his tenacity, though. To see these BGs in all their brillant glory is tremendous. This is a highly recommended blog for all you animation students, as well as anyone who digs the art form. Be sure to check out the color studies for What’s Opera, Doc?, too.

I mean, my goodness, take a look at this.

By the way, I did this for the last shot of the Disney short, MELODY, a while back.

UPDATE: Hans has now three Animation Treasures blogs. Here are all the links:

Animation Treasures 1
Animation Treasures 2
Animation Treasures 3

Enjoy!

  • http://jedalexander.blogspot.com/ Jed Alexander

    No comments yet on this?

    Seeing these backgrounds naked without the animation is a real treat. As much as I admire the backgrounds in a lot of classic animation its a different thing altogether to see them this way. And of course, the guy who did this is insane! This must’ve taken hours.

    One thing to really note here, is the continuity of color, and in some of those Warner Brother’s backgrounds, the ellegance of the simplicity of design (Mourice Noble?).

    Also, it makes me want to give those Fleisher Superman’s another look. Everything about these shorts was so cohesively put together–all those bold shadows and art deco buildings and even though a lot of the animation was rotoscoped—the comicbooks were never this good. It seems like such a shame that Fleisher’s features never had the strength of it’s shorts. I read somewhere where someone suggested that they might’ve had better sucess if they had done Gulliver’s Travels with Popeye in the role of Gulliver, and I think I agree. It would have given some much needed charm to a film that was dominated by a big dumb rotoscoped Gulliver. It was as if the prince was the star instead of Snow White.

  • http://jedalexander.blogspot.com Jed Alexander

    No comments yet on this?

    Seeing these backgrounds naked without the animation is a real treat. As much as I admire the backgrounds in a lot of classic animation its a different thing altogether to see them this way. And of course, the guy who did this is insane! This must’ve taken hours.

    One thing to really note here, is the continuity of color, and in some of those Warner Brother’s backgrounds, the ellegance of the simplicity of design (Mourice Noble?).

    Also, it makes me want to give those Fleisher Superman’s another look. Everything about these shorts was so cohesively put together–all those bold shadows and art deco buildings and even though a lot of the animation was rotoscoped—the comicbooks were never this good. It seems like such a shame that Fleisher’s features never had the strength of it’s shorts. I read somewhere where someone suggested that they might’ve had better sucess if they had done Gulliver’s Travels with Popeye in the role of Gulliver, and I think I agree. It would have given some much needed charm to a film that was dominated by a big dumb rotoscoped Gulliver. It was as if the prince was the star instead of Snow White.

  • Mark L.

    Broken links?

  • Mark L.

    Broken links?

  • http://wardomatic.blogspot.com/ Ward

    Humph. I dunno what’s going on there. The blog was up and running and fine just yesterday. I’ll try and see what’s going on.

  • http://wardomatic.blogspot.com Ward

    Humph. I dunno what’s going on there. The blog was up and running and fine just yesterday. I’ll try and see what’s going on.

  • http://wardomatic.blogspot.com/ Ward

    Ah, I see what he’s doing. You’re only allowed a certain amount of MB for images per blog and he’s just trying to avoid the cut-off by making it a multiple blog. I’ll fix all the links….

  • http://wardomatic.blogspot.com Ward

    Ah, I see what he’s doing. You’re only allowed a certain amount of MB for images per blog and he’s just trying to avoid the cut-off by making it a multiple blog. I’ll fix all the links….