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this walrus didn't get these dance moves
on his own they came from Cab Calloway a
1930s jazz superstar in bamboozled
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DC's now cab was a source of endless
inspiration for early animators who
transformed his dancing into that walrus
and a ghost and a very Milwaukee old man
of the mountain the way these moves got
from real-life to cartoon was a
breakthrough in technology and method
it's an idea that forever changed
animation when an inventor took pictures
that had just started to move and made
them dance
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[Applause]
as riveting as that was early animation
had a problem the first animated shorts
didn't look right don't focus on the
drawing look at the motion see how
clunky his arm move is here and how his
shoulder doesn't move realistically Max
Fleischer saw that problem too this is
him
the inventor blowing bubbles in some of
the first films that revolutionised
animation and this is the clown that did
it
see how naturally koko the clown moves
compared to the umbrella guy that's
where the invention called the rotoscope
comes in you can understand it from the
patent application he was a way to film
real movement to create better animation
first they filmed live-action motion in
the wild for koko the clown they filmed
Max's brother Dave Fleischer dancing
around in a clown costume on Max's room
he was in front of a white sheet for
contrast the sheet actually blue round
so much that Dave almost fell off the
roof so don't try this at home that film
gave them individual frames of cocoa
moving around like in the patent they
used two projector hooked up to a car
headlamp to amp up brightness and it
showed each frame on a screen with
tracing paper then they just played it
back frame by frame tracing what they
needed
it had the creativity of animation but
the precision of live action the results
were astonishingly smooth and lots of
people noticed the New York Times said
Coco the inkwell man leaps as a human
being and it made sense he was one take
cab calloway performance
now animators didn't have to guess what
subtle movements came in the middle they
had a filmed guide to every frame
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later it helped out with Superman using
photos and film to model Lois like here
Gulliver's Travels
also had hyper-real movement inspired by
real motion when the patent expired
other Animation Studios followed but
Fletcher's work was more than just one
invention
now these cartoons and other ones at the
time are filled with tons of cringy
stereotypes that wouldn't pass muster
today but the creativity that that is
not dated at all place your Studios
invented the bouncing ball song where
you can follow along with the lyrics oh
yes there's a patent Max and Eve
patented multi-plane animation as well
see how they could film the main
character moving and separately move the
background elements like pictures and
models this created depth and saved
animators time it enabled gorgeous
motion like in this scene from Superman
as it evolved pleasure animation mixed
all these technologies with skilled
artistry and improvisation and that's
why rotoscoping is a versatile tool
still whether it's inspiring some of the
animation in early video games or in its
logical extension in motion capture
where real movements are given over to
animators fancy but even that under
cells their achievements of level that
cab calloway a walrus cartoon Minnie the
moocher is a Betty Boop cartoon but it
is a work of art filled with infinite
delights that tend to scratch that it is
straight-up weird in the best way
possible phones have lips handkerchiefs
talk ghosts skeletons get drunk tonsils
scream the list goes on
when Cab Calloway saw himself turned
into a dancing walrus he fell to the
floor laughing an invention made that
work but it was a different type of
genius that made Cab Calloway fall to
the floor
you can patent a device but you can't
patent that
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that's it for this episode in this
series about big changes to movies that
came from outside of Hollywood if there
are any other animation examples you
find striking let me know in the
comments I do want to take a chance of
the underscore just how far outside of
Hollywood the Fleischer's were in
addition to their New York studios they
had one in Miami Florida
and that is where Gulliver's Travels was
actually made
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