Going for the “Rembrandt look” in a cartoon…
Vaudeville, radio and broadway star Cliff Edwards provided the voice of Jiminy Cricket and child actor Dickey Jones portrayed Pinocchio. The Disney-made documentary about their 1940 animated classic (in Part three here) shows how the voices influenced the personalities as drawn by the animators.
The video also shows how the animators used rotoscoping, not for tracing frames of live actor footage, but to spark ideas and give them reference on which to base the more exaggerated actions and behaviors they’d give the characters in the cel drawings.
The multiplaned camera technique attributed ot the Disney studios and seen here in video three was used to great effect in Pinocchio. Also the animators strove for a “richer, deeper, darker look” then they’d given Snow White.
You can see parts one and two of this documentary here.
E.B. dazzles
Spend a moment watching award winning children’s book illustrator E.B. Lewis paint some watercolor scenes impromptu for the Austin Chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (Austin SCBWI) back in February and read more about the work and ideas of this New Jersey based fine artist in the latest post on How To Be A Children’s Book Illustrator.
