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Project Angels
John Kricfalusi, Mike Van Eaton, Rita Street, Jorge Garrido, Andreas Deja, John Canemaker, Jerry Beck, Leonard Maltin, June Foray, Paul and John Vinci, B. Paul Husband, Nancy Cartwright, Mike Fontanelli, Tom & Jill Kenny, Will Finn, Ralph Bakshi, Sherm Cohen, Marc Deckter, Dan diPaola, Kara Vallow
Project Heroes
Janet Blatter, Keith Lango Animation, Thorsten Bruemmel, David Soto, Paul Dini, Rik Maki, Ray Pointer, James Tucker, Rogelio Toledo, Nicolas Martinez, Joyce Murray Sullivan, David Wilson, David Apatoff, San Jose State Shrunkenheadman Club, Matthew DeCoster, Dino's Pizza, Chappell Ellison, Brian Homan, Barbara Miller, Wes Archer, Kevin Dooley, Caroline Melinger
Project Volunteers
Gemma Ross, Milton Knight, Claudio Riba, Eric Graf, Michael Fallik, Gary Francis, Joseph Baptista, Kelsey Sorge-Toomey, Alexander Camarillo, Alex Vassilev, Ernest Kim, Danny Young, Glenn Han, Sarah Worth, Chris Paluszek, Michael Woodside, Giancarlo Cassia, Ross Kolde, Amy Rogers
All directors and writers lie. They make movies about lying. They try to tame the masses. They write about what they think will make money. They are writing to entertain people in theaters. They are not writing about what they really feel. I never thought in those terms. I just wanted to write about what I thought was right. Pandering to an audience never entered my mind. I was not sitting there thinking about who is sitting in the theaters watching my picture. My whole attitude has been, “I hope you like my picture. I really want you to like my picture. But, if you don’t, I don’t give a shit.” I did lie to the motion picture companies about what the pictures were about. I told the studios that Heavy Traffic would be another Fritz the Cat. My sell for the movie companies was nothing like the end result. I didn’t mind if I didn’t tell the truth to the motion picture companies. – Ralph Bakshi
So yesterday, had a phone conversation with Ralph Bakshi. As he always does when he calls, he asked me what I’ve been looking at lately. I told him that I had found a great 1917 collection of Rudolph Dirks “Hans und Fritz” cartoons. Ralph asked why I liked those cartoons and I told him that I loved the energy in the poses. Characters get thrown through the air, but in very specific ways, not the typical static legs up in the air pose… So dynamic the panels almost look like they are moving.
Ralph said he understood exactly what I was talking about. But he wondered aloud… “I know what I see when I look at this stuff. But what do the kids see when they look at your website?”
I told Ralph that 90% of them just see something old that might be vaguely interesting. Ralph sighed, “That’s what I was afraid of.” But I told Ralph, “The reason that Animation Resources exists isn’t for the 90%… it’s for the handful of people who are artists, not just fans of animation. Of the 10% who are artists, 9 out of 10 of them will look at things and not connect how it relates to their own work. To them, it will still just be something old and vaguely interesting. But I hope it acts as a depth charge. Artists aren’t born seeing. Someday when the scales fall off their eyes, they’ll realize what was in front of them and they’ll come rushing back. I can’t make them understand. They have to open their eyes and their mind themselves.”
“But those people *still* aren’t the ones I’m doing this for… I’m sending messages in a bottle out to the one person in a hundred… the artist who is open and ready to learn. The person who looks at this “old stuff” and doesn’t see a quaint antique, but instead sees a valuable prototype for applying the foundational principles of art… line of action, clear silhouettes, composition… all the things that are in the Preston Blair book.”
“I talk to kid artists all the time, and they’ve all read about these things and say they understand. A lot even claim to have mastered these principles, but when you look at their work, the foundation is exactly what is missing.” Ralph said, “You never stop building the foundation.” “Right,” I said… “The 1% of artists who really get what I am talking about, never stop working on strengthening the foundation. Those are the ones who are always experimenting, always learning. They are rare birds, but they’re out there and Animation Resources is like heaven to them.”
Ralph said, “It’s been like that for me for years and years with my own library.” I replied, “You, Andreas Deja, John K… all of you artists who have really accomplished something have libraries and build your work on the foundation of the past. That’s the difference between the 99% and the 1%. I’m looking for the kids that think like successful artists. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them think. I just throw the good stuff out there and wait for the light bulbs to go off.”
“Those kids are lucky to have your website, Stevie. They better appreciate what they’ve got there.” Then I asked Ralph what is up with him…
He said that he has been working hard on his film, “Last Days of Coney Island” and he’s very tired. He said, “It’s hard, Stevie. I’m 70 years old. Whenever I’m down on my film and I’m tired and want to set it aside and rest, I go to Animation Resources and look through the stuff you’ve compiled there. I see wonderful things. Things I could never do myself. I’m just an animator from Terry-Toons. I’m still just an old animator from Terry-Toons. I look at this stuff from the giants of cartooning and it charges me up and gives me ideas. I go back to the film refreshed and ready to go again.”
That was the greatest complement Ralph could have paid me.
My friend Joseph “JoJo” Baptista worked with Ralph Bakshi making an animated commercial for his Kickstarter campaign. JoJo produced an excellent bit of animation for Ralph, so I asked him to share his process with you. I’ve uploaded the videos to YouTube in HD, so click through the link below each video to go to its page and select HiDef. -Stephen Worth
Over the past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to work for Ralph Bakshi. I’ve been a fan of Ralph’s films since I first saw them when I was in college. The fact that I was able to test and receive direction from him was an absolutely amazing experience. I’ve done some design jobs and even a little bit of storyboard too, but I had never animated before, so I was very fortunate that Ralph took this chance on me because it was the first scene I had ever done. Ralph was very encouraging. He and I communicated over phone and e-mail. He would come up with ideas and tell me how to improve the performance by adding more frames to certain actions. He also explained to me the importance of anticipations.
I drew the animation on a Cintiq using Toon Boom Animate Pro. Toon Boom has been a tremendous help to me. No more shooting your animation with a camera. It’s been so easy to delete the drawings you’re unsatisfied with and start over. I even get to be my own ink and paint lady!
Bakshi Character Design
Here is the doodle Ralph sent me. Ralph explained that the characters think they’re total hot shots, but they’re really not. He wanted them smoking, scratching, spitting, yak yak yak! So before I did any animation I decided to pose them first, just to get a feeling of how to draw them and hopefully get a better sense of their personality, as well as a feel for Ralph’s unique proportions and design sense.
JoJo’s Character Studies
I felt the relationship between these two characters was natural: The short bossy little guy and the big dumb oaf. The little guy, or “Nifty” as we ended up calling him, really doesn’t care about the oaf, unless he’s got something he wants.
JoJo’s Tight Drawing
So I began to do some rough layouts of situations the characters could enter. I sent these to Ralph, but he thought they were way too tight. He was right, they were. In fact, it wasn’t until I started animating where I really started to loosen up. So I jumped into it.
First I began animating some simple stuff where I could easily showcase some personality. I wanted to figure out how these designs would move. No interaction yet.
JoJo’s Character Interaction
This drawing showed me how I could really show a relationship between the two. One has something the other wants, the perfect concoction to drown his years of sorrows and regrets, alcohol!
The oaf has had his fill, and complies with Nifty’s request. I originally came up with this fountain pose for the pour. Ralph didn’t like it. Looking back I think it looks too flamboyant and doesn’t display how drunk he is. Instead he suggested leaning the oaf back as he pours, he said he didn’t care how long his arm got! I came up with the head wobble before the lean. I think this helps give a clear sense that he’s tanked.
One of the things I learned on this scene through Ralph was the importance of anticipations and breathing spaces between actions. Anticipations are crucial when you want to jump into one action from the next. For example, many of the broad actions done by Nifty have anticipations before they’re executed. Pay close attention to the way Nifty goes into a squashed pose before shouting, “HEY!!” It’s very short, but it’s there. This is what helps give the following extreme pose some oomph. If it wasn’t there it just wouldn’t read well. Putting spaces between actions is also essential when you want certain actions to read against another character who may be in a moving hold or doing a much more subtle gesture. Otherwise, with so many actions happening at once you won’t know where your eyes are supposed to look. It’s all about the control of motions.
Color Models
Once the animation was done it was time to add color. Steve provided me with color cards, and I made color models in Photoshop. Kent Butterworth had been experimenting with colors earlier on some of my sketches (above) so I went with those. As soon as that was figured out I began painting the characters. This part was very time consuming. Because the drawings are very rough, I had to create another layer in Animate Pro and paint each frame of animation and in several passes too. One for the main color, another for open mouths, hats, shading, etc. It took forever!
Next, it was time for music and sound. Steve was a great help here; he knew the perfect piece of music for this sequence, Naftule Brandwein’s, “Nifty’s Froelich”. It’s also where we got the name for the little guy. With the music in we added sound effects. We not only added sound to actions but also where an accent was hit in the music. Just like anticipations add the space to the action clearly, the placement and choice of sound effects make the sound clear.
I hope you enjoyed this and found it helpful. Since this article was published originally, Ralph’s kickstarter achieved its goal and then some! As we speak, Ralph is hard at work in New Mexico animating “Last Days of Coney Island”. I’m really proud to have helped him get the chance to make a personal film. Ralph’s work is totally unique to everyone else in animation, and his films are still very relevant today. The Last Days of Coney Island short is sure to be another incredible experience.
Ralph regularly posts updates on his progress to Facebook. Like his page and cheer him on!
Please Help! Animation Resources depends on your contributions to support its services to the worldwide animation community. Please contribute using PayPal.
Please Help! Animation Resources depends on your contributions to support its services to the worldwide animation community. Please contribute using PayPal.
Please Help! Animation Resources depends on your contributions to support its services to the worldwide animation community. Please contribute using PayPal.
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