101 Dalmatians: Give the Lady a Hand

Above is an early section of 101 Dalmatians that I regularly show my students when talking about walks.  The three women are great contrasts in design and movement and we analyze how the visuals form our impressions of these characters.

There are variations in timing.  The first woman walks at 15 frames per step, which is a relaxed gait.  The second at 10 frames per step, showing more urgency and the third woman walks at 8 frames per step and is clearly in a hurry.  There are variations in body shape.  The first woman is gangly, the second stout and the third svelte.  There are variations in dress which imply what class the women belong to.  The first woman wears an ill-fitting coat and is bohemian, the second woman wears a smartly tailored outfit and is middle class and the third woman wears fur and is upper class.

While I've seen the film many times and I've shown this clip easily dozens of times to students, there was something I didn't notice until this week: the way each woman holds her leash.

The first woman is the most casual of the three.  Her hand is in her pocket.  The second woman is quite rigid in her arm motions and she holds the leash in a fist.  This implies that she's very guarded and not willing to take chances.  The third woman holds the leash with an open hand.  That shows her confidence that nothing will go wrong.

Then there's Anita, the woman who Roger will eventually marry.

She holds the leash in a fist, but isn't holding the leash by the loop.  She's not as rigid as the second woman, but not as confident as the third.  Also notice what she's carrying.  The first woman, we see later, is a painter.  She's carrying her supplies.  The second two women are carrying purses.  Anita is carrying a book, implying intelligence.

At this point in the film, the women, including Anita, are just vignettes.  The audience is only given brief glimpses of them.  Yet it's clear that the artists have worked hard to visually differentiate the women and to give the audience clues as to who these women are.  Even something as potentially trivial as how someone holds a leash has been thought out to be consistent with what the artists want to communicate.

The credited animators for the walks are Frank Thomas and Blaine Gibson.  It's impossible to know what came from the designs and what was added in animation, but these walks are a testament to how much information can be compressed into a short amount of time.  That's the power of good design and expressive movement.

FMPU Animation Unit

UPDATED! Turner Classic Movies ran the 1943 documentary The First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Forces and it did include a section on the animation department. Here is the relevant section. The bit at the end is included because I spotted Frank Thomas in the chow line.


Below are some frame enlargements from it. Can anyone identify any of these people? Click any image to enlarge.
According to Amid Amidi in the comments, the man at right in the above photo is Jules Engel.
According to Amid, the man in the center above facing the camera is Joe Smith.

The man above is possibly Gus Arriola.
A short clip from an animated film about the principles of flight is included in the documentary. This character below represents the drag on an airplane, and his animation smacks of Disney. Perhaps he was done by Frank Thomas or Bernie Wolf.

In a later section of the film, as the men line up for chow, I spotted Frank Thomas in line. He's the fourth from the right. According to Amid, Rudy Larriva is third from right. Are any of the others from the animation section?

101 Dalmatians: Part 3A

This section of the film re-uses animation very heavily. You can tell that the people behind this film are doing everything they can to hold down the costs. As sequence director Gerry Geronimi got his start in silent animation, where re-use was a standard tool, it's no surprise.

Shots 54 and 57 by Ollie Johnston use the same drawings of Pongo. Shots 52 and 66 by Johnston use the same drawings of Pongo. Shots 81 and 88 by Marc Davis use the same drawings of Anita, though 88 is 81 in reverse. Shots 50,56 and 69 by Milt Kahl use the same drawings of Roger. The Roger scenes are a repeating gag, with him about to light his pipe and failing because Pongo's leash pulls on his arm, but the gag could have been put across without resorting to re-use.

In addition, Hal Ambro's animation of Anita in 111.4 and 113 has always looked to me like it relied very heavily on live action. There is something about Anita's proportions and timing when she laughs that have the look of rotoscope to me. Shot 62, where Roger zigzags along a path, is also credited to Ambro and also suggests rotoscope, though not as strongly as the Anita scenes.

There is a continuity error regarding Roger's hat. In shot 93, the hat is clearly left on the bench as Pongo pulls Roger towards Anita, yet in shot 94, the hat is back on Roger's head.

While some corners have been cut, there are some amazing scenes here. Shots 79, 83 and 85 are Pongo romping with Roger's hat in his mouth, animated by Milt Kahl. All I can say is that Kahl seems to be showing off as much as Pongo. Kahl revels in his ability to draw Pongo's dog anatomy from odd angles. Take a look at these:




(Click any image to enlarge.)

This is what it looks like when an animator brags.

Frank Thomas's shots of Perdy and Pongo in 114.1 and 115.1 are (the pun is unavoidable) unusually frank. Perdy's smile is saying "yes" to a tryst. Pongo actually licks his lips in anticipation of what's to come. While the sexual content of these shots goes unnoticed by children, there's no question their parents read the shots as intended. What's really funny is that the next sequence starts off with the dogs getting "married," so their lust is okay as it has been sanctified by clergy.