ARL: ANIMATION RESEARCH LIBRARY

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       If you are an artist.. no let me say that again, If you are Disney Fiend AND an artist the animation research library is the place for you. What is it this you ask?

       Every piece of art made by the Walt Disney Animation Studios goes to this place and is stored. I'm talking about original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs concept art, original animation cells from peter pan and more! This is our in-house resource to a wealth of art that almost spans a century. They are entrusted with the responsibility to conserve all this cool art!

 

This is where decades of magic are stored. Imagine all the art that never see's the light of day!! 

         With millions of pieces of art at their finger tips they use their access to create great books and projects like the one below. The animation Research library are responsible for installations all around the world such as Walt Disney world and cruise lines everywhere. If you guys have not checked out the new Ipad app DO IT. This is a must have and here's a video of a guy going through it if you aren't familiar with it. This app is a gold mine with hours upon hours (nay, i say MONTHS!)  of fun! the video shows off the app better than I can ever do. So enjoy!

All The art from this book is from the ARL

       The ARL is located in Glendale California. I do not know the status and conditions about visiting the ARL if you are not a cast member. but I don't see any reason why you can't look them up and call! The ARL tries to make itself very accessible. They have their own Facebook page that they update frequently with cool facts and images! Here is the link DISNEY_ARL_ FACEBOOK. Here is a sample of knowledge they like to drop from time to time! They also have a twitter: ARL Twitter URL and a YoutTubeChannel: ARL Youtube Channel Check them all out! 

 Did you know, that one of the early songs of The Beatles had something of a Disney connection? John Lennon explained:

"My mother was always... she was a comedienne and a singer. Not professional, but, you know, she used to get up in pubs and things like that. She had a good voice... She used to do this little tune when I was just a one- or two-year-old... The tune was from the Disney movie - 'Want to know a secret? Promise not to tell. You are standing by a wishing well.' So, I had this sort of thing in my head and I wrote it and just gave it to George [Harrison] to sing."

That was how "Do You Want To Know A Secret?" came to be written.

"Gawrsh!" Remembering performer Vance DeBar Colvig (though we know him better by his childhood nickname, "Pinto"), born the 11th of September 1892.

Best known as one of the actors who performed the voice of 'Goofy' (a role currently performed by Bill Farmer), Colvig did voices and sounds for other characters in the Studio's animated productions, including both 'Dopey' and 'Grumpy' in SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, the 'Practical Pig' in "The Three Little Pigs," and 'Pluto.' Pinto was honored posthumously as a Disney Legend, in 1993.

Outside of the Studio, he worked for studios such as Warner Bros. and M-G-M (which included the voice of a 'Munchkin' in "The Wizard of Oz"), and he was the first 'Bozo the Clown' for television.

In this photo, Pinto (left) is shown with director Jack Kinney, along with the storyboard from the 1945 short, "African Diary." (Story is credited to Bill Peed [Peet].)

I did this post because a lot of people don't know that these places and people exist and their efforts to preserve and keep the Disney Heritage going is remarkable. 

MOMENTUM 101

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Momentum! aka INERTIA

      Always remember my advice and views are just one possibility. Chocolate might not be the best ingredient for every cake... This post is less of a lecture but more of a bunch of tips put together that have helped me out over the years. 

     When animating things move you must establish a force. Ask yourself: what is making this object/body-part move? Can you 'see' that visually?
For example: if you are observing a body is walking across the screen you could ask yourself: what is making it move? You answer: The legs. Can you see it? Are the legs moving the body realistically?.....

     Believable Animation always dies when things move for just the hell of it. When your object moves realistically, the viewer then has the freedom to observe the story/character instead of wasting time figuring out why the animation looks so weird.

small ball vs. BIG BALL
     Heavy objects take longer to accelerate and decelerate but they can move just as fast as anything else. (the ease in and ease out will just take more frames!)
      Now for CG animators we have to translate this knowledge into the all mighty graph editor (DUN Dun dun) That might sound like a scary task so I made a cheat sheet for you. Some teachers might just say, go explore the graph editor and figure it out for yourself. Why waste your time when i have the answers right here. Leonardo Davinci would have his students copy to learn! And they all ended up as great accomplished painters in their time.
      Below check out how the small ball has short ease in and ease outs. Smaller things usually have less mass which equals less momentum when it's moving around. Heavy objects will have longer ease in ease outs.

On the left is the graph editor for the small ball and the right side has the graph editor for the heavy ball. 

MORE TIPS
-Make sure anything pulling something heavy has a 'straight' line in it
-In a walk cycle: heavy spends more time at the bottom

The Balloon Exercise 
-will challenge you to: animate something light with little momentum, perfect your bouncing ball skills by forcing you to animate the same pattern upside down. Animate a ballon bouncing across the ceiling!

Remember this is just like a bouncing ball but upside down. 

Shapes
         When looking at your animation you should be able to pause it and still see what direction the momentum is going in the object that is moving. Moving your characters and objects around isn't the whole story. You must construct appealing shapes that communicate where the momentum is going. The silhouette can say so much about what direction your object is going.

You should always tell where the mass is at in soft objects. 

-Just in case I didn't make it clear enough, here are the definitions of the concepts I am typing about.

MOMENTUM from wikipedia
In classical mechanics, linear momentum or translational momentum (pl. momenta; SI unit kg m/s, or equivalently, N s) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. For example, a heavy truck moving fast has a large momentum—it takes a large and prolonged force to get the truck up to this speed, and it takes a large and prolonged force to bring it to a stop afterwards. If the truck were lighter, or moving more slowly, then it would have less momentum.

Issac Newton on INERTIA
"The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavors to preserve its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line."