 Book cover (1995 edition) | |
| Author | Frank Thomas Ollie Johnston |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Published | 1981 |
| Publisher | Abbeville Press |
| Pages | 576 |
| ISBN | 0-89659-233-2 |
Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life (later republished as The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation) is a book by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two of the key animators at Disney during the Golden age of American animation. [1]
This book gives a history of Disney animation, explaining the processes involved in clear, non-technical terms. The philosophy is expressed in the so-called 12 basic principles of animation. It contains 489 plates in full color, as well as thousands of black-and-white illustrations, ranging from storyboard sketches to entire animation sequences. [2]
The 1981 edition published by Abbeville Press ( ISBN 0896592332) used better quality paper and consequently possessed higher image quality than either the 1988 edition or the revised edition from 1995 ( ISBN 0-7868-6070-7) (published by Disney's Hyperion with the inverted title The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation). [3]
Topping the list of "best animation books of all time" in a poll at AWN, The Illusion of Life is still used as reference on and source of inspiration for character animation. [4]
In 2013, the book's third chapter (which explains the twelve basic principles of animation) was republished in its entirety with the permission of the authors' heirs in the Disney Animated iPad app from Touch Press. All the illustrations were fully animated in the app version, and many parts of the chapter were annotated with explanatory comments from Disney's current animators. [5] [6] [7]
The Rescuers is a 1977 American animated adventure comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution. Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor respectively star as Bernard and Bianca, two mice who are members of the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization dedicated to helping abduction victims around the world. Both must free young orphan Penny from two treasure hunters, who intend to use her to help them obtain a giant diamond. The film is based on a series of books by Margery Sharp, including The Rescuers (1959) and Miss Bianca (1962).
The Chain Gang is a 1930 Mickey Mouse animated film produced by Walt Disney Productions for Columbia Pictures, as part of the Mickey Mouse film series. It was the twenty-first Mickey Mouse short to be produced, the sixth of that year. It is one of a group of shorts of strikingly uneven quality produced by Disney immediately after Ub Iwerks left the studio.
Franklin Rosborough Thomas was an American animator and pianist. He was one of Walt Disney's leading team of animators known as the Nine Old Men.
Squash and stretch is the phrase used to describe "by far the most important" of the 12 basic principles of animation, described in the book The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.
Oliver Martin Johnston Jr. was an American motion picture animator. He was one of Disney's Nine Old Men, and the last surviving at the time of his death from natural causes. He was recognized by The Walt Disney Company with its Disney Legend Award in 1989. His work was recognized with the National Medal of Arts in 2005.
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is a 1977 American animated musical anthology comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by Buena Vista Distribution. It was first released on a double bill with The Littlest Horse Thieves on March 11, 1977.
Character animation is a specialized area of the animation process, which involves bringing animated characters to life. The role of a character animator is analogous to that of a film or stage actor and character animators are often said to be "actors with a pencil". Character animators breathe life in their characters, creating the illusion of thought, emotion and personality. Character animation is often distinguished from creature animation, which involves bringing photorealistic animals and creatures to life.
Cyrus "Cy" Young was a Chinese-American special effects animator, best known for his work for The Walt Disney Company.
Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution. Based on Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale, the production was supervised by Clyde Geronimi, and was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, Eric Larson, and Les Clark. With the voices of Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, Barbara Jo Allen, Taylor Holmes, and Bill Thompson, the film follows Princess Aurora, who was cursed by the evil fairy Maleficent to die from a prick from the spindle of a spinning wheel. She is saved by three good fairies, who alter the curse so that the princess falls into a deep sleep and is awakened by true love's kiss.
Randy Cartwright is an American animator.
Leslie James Clark was an American animator and the first of Disney's Nine Old Men, joining Walt Disney Productions in 1927.
Retta Scott was an American artist. She was the first woman to receive screen credit as an animator at the Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Frank and Ollie is a 1995 documentary film about the life and careers of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two chief animators who had worked at Walt Disney Animation Studios from its early years until their retirement in the late 1970s.
William Norman Ferguson was an animator for Walt Disney Studios and a central contributor to the studio's stylistic development in the 1930s. He is most frequently noted for his contribution to the creation of Pluto, one of the studio's best-known and most enduring characters, and is the artist most closely associated with that character. He is also credited for developing Peg-Leg Pete and the Big Bad Wolf. Ferguson, known at the studio as "Norm" or "Fergy", was the primary animator of the witch in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first in a long line of great Disney feature villains. He was also a sequence director on the film.
Disney's twelve basic principles of animation were introduced by the Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. The principles are based on the work of Disney animators from the 1930s onwards, in their quest to produce more realistic animation. The main purpose of these principles was to produce an illusion that cartoon characters adhered to the basic laws of physics, but they also dealt with more abstract issues, such as emotional timing and character appeal.
Disney's Nine Old Men were a group of Walt Disney Productions' core animators, who worked at the studio from the 1920s to the 1980s. Some of the Nine Old Men also worked as directors, creating some of Disney's most popular animated movies from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Rescuers. The group was named by Walt Disney himself, and they worked in both short and feature films. Disney delegated more and more tasks to them in the animation department in the 1950s when their interests expanded, and diversified their scope. Eric Larson was the last to retire from Disney, after his role as animation consultant on The Great Mouse Detective in 1986. All nine members of the group were acknowledged as Disney Legends in 1989 and all would receive the Winsor McCay Award for their lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation.
Anticipation is one of the fundamental 12 basic principles of animation, as set out by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in their authoritative 1981 book on the Disney Studio titled The Illusion of Life. An anticipation pose or drawing is a preparation for the main action of an animated scene, as distinct from the action and the reaction.
Follow through and overlapping action is a general heading for two closely related animation techniques which form part of the 12 basic principles of animation identified by Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in their authoritative 1981 book on Disney animation, The Illusion of Life. The term drag is sometimes included to form three separate but related concepts in the art of animation.
Straight ahead is a term used in animation that refers to a method that uses only the first key pose of a character, and then continues drawing the character to create the desired motion. It was first referred to in the 1981 book by Ollie Johnson and Frank Thomas The Illusion of Life, and is a part of the 12 Basic Principles of Animation. It contrasts with its converse, pose to pose animation, in that it does not use inbetweening. Straight ahead action is so named because the animator literally works straight ahead from the first drawing of the scene. Disney director-animator Woolie Reitherman said, "When I didn't know what I was doing in an action, I always went straight-ahead. I'd just start on ones. Half the time I didn't know what I was doing. To me, it's fun. You find out something you wouldn't have found out otherwise."
Julius Svendsen was a Norwegian-born animator, storyboard artist, and comic book illustrator for Walt Disney Productions.