DVDizzy Forum

"The fact is that technology has crossed my path consistently throughout my career, from doing the first computer animation with John Lasseter (Where The Wild Things Are), and even before that on Fox and the Hound. After doing all this charcoal drawing, I wanted that to be up on the screen, I did not want it to be cleaned up and painted traditionally. I was hunting around for a way to do it, and ran in to the Head of Research Don Iwerks (son of Ub Iwerks).

He said “Well, you know I’m thinking about another process of photographic cels, where you can actually photograph the artwork and it’ll be on the cel and you just paint the back of that, and we can have your charcoal drawings up on the screen.”

“Woah! Yeah, let’s do it!” But we ran out of time.

The Black Cauldron used the traditional ink and paint process where the drawings were xeroxed onto cell and hand painted one by one. I remember that they experimented with a “new” xerox technique (I can’t remember the name) that prooved a failure as the line faded off the cell over time so they returned to the traditional xerox process. But production fell behind and everyone painted cells in the end.

A brief interlude into three years of xerography’s history, from 1966 to 1968, reveals just how many “networks of assumptions, habits, practices, and modes of representation” could coalesce in a single technology. In 1966, an estimated fourteen billion photocopies were made in the United States alone. That same year, Marshall McLuhan described Xerox’s rapid ascent as a “reign of terror” that threatened the wholesale destruction of the publishing industry and copyright laws: “Anyone can take any book apart, insert parts of other books and other materials of his own interest, and make his own book in a relatively fast time.”

Motion picture industry experts will be watching box office receipts for Disney's next animated feature, "The Black Cauldron," set for release next year. A new process called the Animation Photo Transfer process has shaved about $500,000 from the budget, according to a studio publicist.

The first film to utilize Disney's revolutionary Animation Photo Transfer process, which transfers drawings to cells with greater speed and resolution than the usual Xeroxing method.

Disneyland Park guests who visit the recently opened World Premiere Circle-Vision attraction, presented by PSA, are treated to a memorable eight-minute pre-show film entitled "All Because Man Wanted to Fly." Few are aware that the cartoon--a combination of live action and animation--showcases Disney's latest improvement in the art of animation.
A new system, conceived and developed by Disney Studio's Still Department Manager Dave Spencer, transfers animation drawings to clear sheets of celluloid (called "cels") by means of a photographic process. The innovative process is labeled "APT," or Animation Photo Transfer.
"All Because Man Wanted to Fly" was the first cartoon to be produced entirely with the APT procedure. The process was initially tested in the graveyard sequence in "Mickey's Christmas Carol" (1983) and will be used for scenes throughout the forthcoming feature, "The Black Cauldron," scheduled for release in 1985. Disney's next animated feature, "Basil of Baker Street," will be produced entirely with the APT system.
Inspired by the leadership of Walt Disney, the company he created has developed many of the basic tools and principles used throughout the animation industry. "Disney is still an innovator," says Dave Spencer," still trying to do something new and better." Disney himself was instrumental in the development of many of the steps which eventually led to the creation of the APT process.
...
[history of animation, cels, inking]
...After World War II, changing economics seemed to call for a faster, cheaper means of transferring the drawings to the cels.
The animatiors were also looking for a way to retain all the vitality of their drawings. For all the skills of the Disney inkers, something was still lost in the translation from drawing to traced cel.
Ub Iwers, master animator of the early Mickey Mouse days and developer of special processes in later years, came up with a system that was something of a compromise between the penciled animation drawing and the carefully inked cel. Iwerks had experimented with the Xerox photocoping system during the 1950s, and by 1959, he was using a modified Xerox machine to transfer animation drawings directly to cels.
The animators were pleased with the way this new system preserved the spontaneity of their drawings, but perhaps more importantly, the Xerox system cut costs...
The Xerox system made its debut with a 1960 short, "Goliath II," but the real testing ground was the feature-length "101 Dalmations" [sic] (1961). The careful, colored tracing of the inkers was replaced by a heavy black line. The new look (actually a throwback to the unrefined inking of the 1920s) was integrated by production designer Ken Anderson in to the film's backgrounds so the characters would not clash with their surroundings.
The box office success of "101 Dalmations" [sic] proved Disney's style of full character animation could still thrive with a less expensive approach. Audiences, however, missed the elegant look of the inked cartoons, and Walt Disney considered "Dalmations" [sic] to be one of his minor successes simply because he didn't like the film's ovrall look.
The Xerox "look" comes from the tiny ridges of electromagnetically charged powder that make up the Xerox line. These ridges easily crumble, making the cels untidy and hard to handle. The powder flakes must be continuously cleaned from the cel or they create dark spots in the finished film. The ridges of powder also cast shadows, giving the line a fuzzy, unfocused appearance.
Disney dveloped a soft grey Xerox line in the mid-'70s which restored some of the delicacy of the inked films to "The Rescuers" (1977).
The Xerox system had long since been adopted as the industry standard in spite of any drawbacks. These drawbacks led Dave Spencer, for one, to consider an alternative. "I'd been thinking about the APT concept off and on for about five years," he relates, "knowing the problems that exist with the Xerox process."
The APT process involved photographing the drawings onto a special lithographic film. It is then exposed to a material specially adapted from a substance currently in use in the graphics industry for color proofing. Unlike the Xerox line, the APT line cannot crumble or be chipped.
The APT line casts no shadow--resulting in the sharper on-screen image. "All Because Man Wanted to Fly" features new, APT-processed animation or Orville the albatross and footage culled from his debut in "The Rescuers." The difference in clarity of line between the Xerox and APT scenes is obvious.
Referring to "The Black Cauldron," Dave Spencer observes that "people looking at dailies are beginning to say they can see the difference. The animators love it because we're giving them a facsimile of the line they draw. When they tail off or broaden a line, they do it for a reason. Xerox, to some extent, destroys that simply because the Xerox line is supplied electrostatically and that's not as accurate as photographing the line."
Another plus: APT provides a wider range of available colors than the Xerox process. The possibility exists for APT lines of different color to appear on the same cel, but presently only two colors can be achieved by coating each side of the cel with a different colored dye.
Flexibility of size is another major advantage of the APT process. "The Black Cauldron" is the first Disney feature to be produced in a widescreen format since the '50s. As Spencer observes, if the Xerox system were used with widescreen animation, "they'd have to make at least six shots, maybe eight, to produce that one cel and try to hold it all in registration, and it just doesn't work." With APT there is no size limitation for a one-shot cel.
The full, carefully crafted cartooning which spells Disney animation grows more expensive with each new picture. "We've got to do something to turn that around," Spencer says. As Xerox was in the 1960s, the development of APT is a major step in limiting costs: the process is expected to save some $500,000 on "Cauldron." DIsney Vice President-animation administration and production Ed Hansen says he's very confident that within a short period of time everybody in the industry will be using APT simply because it's a moneysaver.
The new process is less expensive because it's at least twice as fast as Xerox. The photographing and processing steps are automated.
"We have only four people involved in the APT system," continues Spencer, "and they're doing about twice the work Xerox is doing with 12 people."
The efficiency of APT goes beyond that of speeding up the drawing-to-cel process. The replacement of a Xerox cel accidentally ruined during handling, painting or photographing is a complex, time-costly procedure, necessitating the location of the original animation drawing. Dave Spencer points out that with APT "we have a negative backing up every piece of paper, they're all filed by sequence, scene and drawing number; so if something happens in the Paint Department or wherever, we just make them another cel."
With a new staff of talented young animators, Disney has been interested in increasing its animation output, and APT will help achieve that goal. More starring vehicles are being planned for Mickey Mouse, including a featurette with Mickey starring as Christoper Columbus, and the APT process will clearly make it easier to bring Disney's biggest star to the screen.
Concludes Dave Spencer, summing up the APT process, "We're at the point now where it can only improve."

Rumpelstiltskin wrote:Where did you find the link?

Also wish they would release the animation from "All Because Man Wanted to Fly."

(The fact that it was first tested in Mickey's Christmas Carol is interesting...It was the first Mickey cartoon (a featurette) that used the Xerox process, and the first that used the APT-process.

Rumpelstiltskin wrote:It can't be Google, because when I use some of the content to search for it, nothing shows up.

Rumpelstiltskin wrote:(Also, since this is also about the Xerox process, does anyone have any details about line overlay? In One Hundred and One Dalmatians the colors seems to spread outside the lines.)

Disney first used the Xerox process for a thorn forest in Sleeping Beauty; even then, a couple of small television-commercial studios had already made some use of it, as had UPA on its Boing Boing Show.

Once training was started, Walt decided to test the applicable usage of this technology with the current film in production. "It was right near the end of Sleeping Beauty where the scenes were shot," [Don] Iwerks remembered. [Eleanor] Dahlin recalled the scene. "It was the shot of the whole procession of the people across the bridge [walking] up into the castle that was xeroxed. It was a long shot, so it wasn't close enough so you could see the difference."
Iwerks concurred. "A large crowd scene, which had a lot of heads and people--that's an ideal one to work on because of the time it takes to draw every one of those complex cels."

Painter: Walt Peregoy - 101 Dalmatians
1. For the painting technique for 101 Dalmatians: flat areas of color to match the handling of the flat values on the characters, with all the details and drawing left in line on a covering cel. (On the left, the painting without the lines; on the right, the completed background.) This idea, pioneered by Ken Anderson, made a perfect wedding of characters and background.

The model of Cruella's car was painted with black lines that made it look like a drawing when reproduced on the photostats. The image was cut out and pasted on a cel, then copied by the Xerox process like any drawing. Once it was painted in flat colors, as shown here, it looked just like the other cels in the picture.

A cel overlay is a cel with inanimate objects used to give the impression of a foreground when laid on top of a ready frame.[27] This creates the illusion of depth, but not as much as a multiplane camera would. A special version of cel overlay is called line overlay, made to complete the background instead of making the foreground, and was invented to deal with the sketchy appearance of xeroxed drawings. The background was first painted as shapes and figures in flat colors, containing rather few details. Next, a cel with detailed black lines was laid directly over it, each line is drawn to add more information to the underlying shape or figure and give the background the complexity it needed. In this way, the visual style of the background will match that of the xeroxed character cels. As the xerographic process evolved, line overlay was left behind.

Cel Overlay
A cel with inanimate objects made to make the impression of a foreground when laid on top of a ready frame. This creates the illusion of depth, but not as much as a multiplane camera would. A special version of cel overlay is called line overlay, made to complete the background instead of making the foreground, and was invented to deal with the sketchy appearance of xeroxed drawings. Next a cel with detailed black lines was laid directly over it, each line drawn to add more information to the underlaying shape or figure, giving the background the complexity it needed. In this way the visual style of the background will match the visual style of the xeroxed parts of the animation. As the xerographic process evolved, line overlay was left behind.

LINE OVERLAY: Starting with Walt Disney's film, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, a new painting technique for creating backgrounds was conceived by Disney artist, Ken Anderson. General shapes and shading painted in flat colors on the production background were defined by a detailed line drawing done directly onto an overlay celluloid. This overlay finished creating the final film image used as the background.

...Whenever there is some non-moving prop in the foreground – a tree, rock, stump, bush, etc. – behind which the action of the scene works at some time, it is placed on the top cel level and termed an “overlay.” The prop, portion of the terrain, or whatever it might be, is painted in the same fashion tones and colors as the background, either in cels directly on the cel, or on regular water-color paper – then cut out and cemented onto the cel. The purpose of an overlay is to increase the pictorial effectiveness of a scene by providing it with a feeling of depth and third dimension. It can also help “frame” a scene to enhance pictorial composition, This technique was lavishly used in such Disney productions as “Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs” and “Bambi,” and in the more recent full-length animation feature “Sleeping Beauty,” to be released by Walt Disney early in 1959.

Art director Ken Anderson came up with the idea of overlaying cels of line drawings over the painted backgrounds to match the Xeroxed cels of the characters. For the next twenty years, all Disney features - with the exception of The Jungle Book (1967) and the animated segments in Mary Poppins (1964) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) - would use this technique for their backgrounds. With The Fox and the Hound (1981), Disney returned to fully painted backgrounds, with a brief reprise of the cel overlay for Oliver & Company (1988).

Peregoy’s distinctive use of color is accentuated by the simplicity of line. “I would approach color freely – painting behind the Xerox overlay. This gives the work a free, almost watercolor quality.” A clear example of this can be found in the beginning sequences of the film at the park. “It’s all staging,” notes Peregoy. “The color styling serves the sequence and the animation. None of my backgrounds take away from the beauty of the animation.”

I am not sure if this artwork is actual production, but the xerox line overlay sure doesn't register with the color painting. Beautiful color choices though.

Commenter named Peter wrote:On the 'Pongo down the stairs to Perdita' set-up, no attempt has been made to register the three elements: character cel, BG overlay cel and colour BG, which had presumably had their pegholes trimmed off earlier. This appears to be some kind of test set-up, or perhaps an illustration of layout for an article - the background xerox is from the drawing used for the production BG, but the colour painting is not the one used in the film (the towel hanging on cupboard door is a different colour, for one thing). In this assemblage the colour BG is not only well out of registration but also rotated at a slight angle - the registration is closest bottom left and furthest top right. My guess is that the original taped set-up had come apart and someone just squared up the sheets as closely as possible, when in the original set-up (with the pegholes registered) the sheets' edges were irregular.

This animation cel overlay sheet of detail for a jungle background was produced at the Disney Studio during the production of the animated feature based on the stories by Rudyard Kipling. Beginning with the making of 101 Dalmatians (1961), the backgrounds in Disney's animated features were created by marrying a somewhat indistinct watercolor painting to a matching cel overlay that provided detail and form to the areas of color in the painting. The detail in the overlay was achieved by transferring a drawing on paper to the cel sheet by the Xerox process then at use at the Studio. This is one of a number of such overlays for the scene that were made when the film was in production.

The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
original production animation cel paintings and background line overlay gouache on three (3) animation cel sheets, Xerography on one cel sheet; painted cel image size: 8.25" x 8.75"; 10.5" x 14" image size including background line overlay cel print...Each of the three (3) painted cels (one of Basil and two of flames) was laminated in the standard practice of that time. The fourth cel sheet is a Xerographic print of the line overlay that was photographed over the background painting in the scene to enhance definition.

After "Sleeping Beauty, " 1959, there was no longer hand inking of the lines on the tops of the cel; rather this was done by a process called xerography. Such is the case for not only this full figure cel of Robin Hood, but also for this background. The background is an original hand painted watercolor background, but in addition there is the original production line overlay cel; which contains all the black outlines for the background's various features and objects.

The line overlay cel was created through xerography and allows for much more detail for example; the trees and grass now contain black line highlights for branches, leaves, and both clumps and individual blades of grass. The tent and Prince John's viewing platform are also highlighted with black lines to showcase fabrics as well as the wood planks making up the stage's floor. The resulting work of art is a very large and wonderful animation set-up showcasing the great animators attention to every detail.

...this is a great hand-painted production background of the basement where the dog bed is kept. Artwork is on 3-peghole background board measuring 16" x 12.5"; the painted area is 11.5" x 9". The Key Line test cel overlay is placed over the painted background. Two of the puppies are cut to the image and mounted to the line test cel. A clear overlay cel is placed over this.

...This is an unusual 1980s or 90s Walt Disney’s 101 Dalmatians Buena Vista re-release 4-color overlay proof sheet, complete. The color overlay measures approx. 10 x 14 inches and comes with four acetate sheets on top of a white back drop. The top overlay is printed in black, the 2nd is blue, 3rd is red and 4th s yellow. This may be the color proof to posters or advertisements published when Buena Vista re-released the movie, though we have yet to be able to find this exact image anywhere so any info or help on this piece would be greatly appreciated.

...753. Original prOductiOn cels and prOductiOn backgrOund with cel Overlay featuring “cruella de vil” frOm 101 daLmatianS. (Walt Disney, 1961) Untrimmed cels and production background measure 12 x 16 in.The image size is 7 in. In very fine condition. $5,500 - $6,500...

This hand-painted background features an exterior environment of a petrol (gas) station on a snowy street, and was created at the studio and used during the production of the film. The background also has its xerographic line work cel overlay. 101 Dalmatians was the first feature length film to utilize xerox line work on the cels rather than hand-inked lines, and the xeroxed line overlays for the backgrounds really captured the style of the film developed by head background artist, Walt Peregoy.

Original hand-painted production cel, on the original master hand-painted production background with original line overlay cel.

https://www.peterharringtongallery.co.u ... 06132.html
(Google Cached: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/ ... clnk&gl=us)

A lot more on Xerox & APT to come!!!!

Complete image elements from the Xerox process...(top right) Xerox background overlay...

...xeroxed cel overlays against painted backgrounds

Rumpelstiltskin wrote: I assumed line overlay was done like this; draw the whole background scene in black lines. Make a transparent Xerox copy of it in the same size. Add colors to the original artwork, and then lay the Xerox copy over it, and finally the animation cels and foregrounds.

APT test cel of Gurgi...

Don Hahn wrote:You have a sheet negative and you put the drawing up and you expose it like a giant sheet negative to the drawing, which creates a negative image and then a positive piece of clear sheeting coated with UV sensitive ink, and expose light through the negative to the sheeting where the ink cures. Wash away the residue and you would end up with a nice, thin line just exactly like ink.

Gretchen Albrecht wrote:It needed a surfactant!...So we put dish detergent in the paint...

...computer printouts were transferred via Xerox onto large-format...cels, which were then hand-painted.

Separate green and white Xeroxed overlays set slightly askew created a realistic water effect...