Destroy All Podcasts DX Episode 242 - Cool World

Jeremy mentioned something about movement in animation and how it was used in Cool World. A better demonstration of that would be to talk in terms of what hand-drawn animators would coin as "1's, "2's and so-on. In standard animation, animating on "2's" means doing 12 drawings a second (so that every drawing is shot twice under the camera). This usually leads to a slight stiffness in the movement but is generally used for most western productions anyway. Animating on "1's" means 24 drawings a second, so every drawing is shot once, giving it such a fluidly paced action. In many Japanese anime productions, the use of drawing 8 drawings a second (or "3's") is commonplace.

Glad to see another podcaster has noticed the same problem with the toon/live action interactions as well. The way Roger Rabbit accomplished that was through filming the actors with stand-ins of all sorts (puppets, cut-outs, human doubles, etc.), this way the actors have something to look at which they can match their eye movements with the cartoon characters accordingly. The characters themselves would be animated afterwards when the live-action frames could be xeroxed onto sheets of paper so that the characters are essentially "rotoscoped" into the action (if only to keep them in place with the camera movements since the camera never stays still in the film). I say it is a costly process to get it done effectively as they did it and it shows, Cool World, not so much.

Noticed a mention of "Evil Toons", I didn't see it myself, but have saw some pics of it can could say it's pretty ugly (a lot more amateurish than Cool World to say the least). I will however recommend this other Roger Rabbit clone to check out. From Italian animator Guido Manuli and comedian Maurizio Nichetti, here's a parable of a sound effects artist's sudden transformation into a cartoon in "Volere Volare"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izoQgyuScbo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX2XrEz4u7w

Love to hear a "Rock & Rule" podcast if that ever comes up!

Probably one of my favorite movies of all time.