Snow White Cel Animation Re-creation

Summary

Brandon Corey details his meticulous recreation of a scene from Disney's 1937 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' using traditional ink and paint cell animation, combined with modern techniques. He walks viewers through the entire process, from isolating the background to painting 620 individual cells, layering them to replicate the original animation. With an emphasis on complex animation and accurate image registration, Corey explains how he overcame various challenges, including issues with loops, layering, and digital corrections. The video showcases his dedication to craftsmanship and his passion for preserving animation techniques.

Takeaways

• 😀 The project is a recreation of a scene from Disney's 1937 *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs*, using traditional ink and paint cel animation techniques combined with some modern methods.
• 😀 Brandon Corey chose a complex scene with numerous animation layers, including flying birds and flowers, to challenge his skills and explore the intricacies of the original animation.
• 😀 The first step in the process was isolating the background using a photo editing program to remove non-background elements, allowing the focus to be on the animated cels.
• 😀 Instead of recreating the background, Brandon opted to focus on hand-inking and painting only the animated elements, which were printed onto 334 individual frames.
• 😀 Cels were hand-traced using fine markers in various colors to match the animation's original details, and each cel was baked to prevent ink smearing during drying.
• 😀 The floating paint technique was used to apply acrylic paints onto the cels, allowing for smooth and opaque coverage without visible brushstrokes.
• 😀 The animation was divided into multiple layers (A to H), each containing different elements like birds, flowers, and water, and each layer had its own distinct animation timing and looping.
• 😀 Image registration proved challenging, as slight variations in the placement of the printed frames required digital correction to ensure accurate alignment with the background.
• 😀 Some mistakes in the original scene, such as a disappearing flower and misplaced birds, were corrected, but other errors, like a hummingbird flying under birds, were left unchanged for authenticity.
• 😀 The project took over four months to complete, working 4-12 hours a day, and cost approximately $430 in materials to produce the entire scene recreation.
• 😀 Brandon experimented with inking and painting cells of various other Disney characters, including Dopey, Mickey Mouse, and Jiminy Cricket, and even used actual makeup for Snow White's blush.
• 😀 After completing the animation, Brandon presented a side-by-side comparison of his recreated scene with the original scene and soundtrack to showcase the final result.

Q & A

Why did Brandon Corey choose this specific scene from *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs* to recreate?

Brandon Corey chose this scene because of its complexity in animation, involving numerous cell layers and intricate movements of the birds and flowers. It provided a challenge in terms of both animation and the detailed work required to reproduce the original scene's multi-layered structure.

What was the first step in Brandon Corey's recreation process?

The first step was to isolate the background from the animated cell elements. Corey used a photo editing program to clone out the non-animated parts of the scene, leaving a clean background onto which he would later place the hand-inked and painted cells.

How did Brandon Corey address the issue of image registration during his recreation?

Corey faced image registration challenges due to slight variations in where the image was placed on the paper when printed. He solved this by digitally correcting each cell in the computer to align it properly with the background, ensuring accurate compositing of the layers.

What technique did Corey use to create the cells for his animation?

Corey used traditional hand-inking and painting techniques. He traced the outlines of the animated elements with fine-point markers and then painted the cells using acrylic paints. He applied a technique called 'floating' where the brush does not touch the surface of the cell, allowing the paint to fill the outlines smoothly.

What was the purpose of baking the painted cells in an oven?

The cells were baked in an oven to speed up the drying process and to prevent the inked lines from smearing. This technique allowed the painted cells to set more quickly, making the recreation process more efficient.

How did the different layers in the scene affect the animation process?

The different layers represented various animated elements, each with its own behavior and frame rate. For example, some layers were updated every frame (24 fps), while others were updated at half the speed (12 fps). These layers were designed to loop or repeat certain animations, making the process more efficient by reusing cells in different moments of the scene.

What were some of the errors Corey noticed in the original scene, and how did he fix them?

Corey noticed several errors in the original scene, such as a flower disappearing and a bird flying under a leaf. He fixed these by redrawing and painting the missing flower repeatedly on subsequent cells and correcting the frame order of the bird's movements to restore continuity.

How did Corey handle the digital composition of the cells?

Corey scanned each individual cell and used digital compositing to place them over the isolated background. He used a contrasting color behind each cell to make it easier to remove the background digitally, achieving precise layering and alignment in the final composition.

What was the total number of cells used in the recreation, and how were they organized?

A total of 620 inked and painted cells were used in the recreation. Corey organized them into envelopes by layer (A through H), and he created a spreadsheet to track which cells were to be used in each frame, ensuring that the correct cells were layered and displayed in the right order.

What other characters has Brandon Corey worked on besides Snow White?

In addition to Snow White, Corey has worked on other characters such as Dopey, Sneezy, the Genie from *Aladdin*, Diana from *Alice in Wonderland*, Timothy Mouse from *Dumbo*, Donald Duck, Roger Rabbit, Goofy, Mickey Mouse, Br'er Rabbit from *Song of the South*, and Jiminy Cricket.