WEBmikey: Piano playing and shrink takes

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Piano playing and shrink takes
1.25.2005 6:54 PM \| Link	I've been watching lots of old Disney cartoons lately (big surprise!), and something that always stands out for me in these vintage shorts is the care they took to animate playing piano realistically. I've seen so many modern cartoons where the character just randomly bangs on the keyboard, which is usually static (probably painted on the background). But in these old Disney cartoons, Mickey and Minnie are both accomplished pianists! Their hands actually hit the keyboard in the general octave the melody suggests, and the keys themselves actually animate, so you can see chords actually formed. Sometimes the hands move so realistically that I'd swear they were animating the actual musical phrase as it would be played in reality! It's fascinating to me that they would take the time to put so much detail into this, but maybe the audiences of the 1930's had so many more people that played piano at home for entertainment, that they had to be convincing. In any case, it's certainly enjoyable and really impressive to me! Speaking of animation, I recently learned what a "shrink take" is (thanks to the commentary track on my Ren and Stimpy DVDs). I had heard the term before and never really found a good definition, but now that I've watched Ren do a good shrink take frame by frame, I can tell you! Just before a character is about to scream or do something where their head enlarges for comic effect, they draw the head super-small (which is the "shrink") for just a frame or two before. So, when the character's head goes from tiny to really big, the effect is even funnier. How's that for animation education? Labels: animation, disney, life


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