Simmy Speaks - Smear Frames (The Dover Boys)

ah yes the beauty and majesty that is the smear frame every pause a movie at the exact right time and have your eyeballs treated with something like this or this or this is a good one these are what's known as smear frames for those of you who are not animation savvy and it's a technique that's been around in the industry for a long time so an outsider these frames looks bizarre and hilarious but there's actually some important artistic and stylistic reasons we have smear frames and no it's not a sign of laziness in fact smear frames can be quite difficult to pull off well and just like a movie has art direction that has to adhere to smear frames also need to work within the art directions own set of rules and then animation for it to look natural this is why some smear frames can look like this while others look like this an animator has to be aware of these things to make sure that even one silly frame flows with the rest of his work so let's break down smear frames and what they actually do animation is the rapid succession of drawings to conveys movement this rapid succession is called FPS or frames per second and that's exactly what it sounds like the frame or drawing in each second of animation animations have a wide variety of frames per second you can work at but the most common industry standards are 6 8 12 24 and 30 frames per second the smaller the number the less smooth the animation is going to be now this all works because Ric something called persistence of vision persistence of vision is an optical illusion that lets our eyes see still image after still image and then our brains translates those still images into movements why do I bring all this up because this ties directly back into fear frames when you pause the movie and see a sphere frame it looks funny because you're seeing it as a still image but when the animation is played your brain translates that smear frame into movements so the smear frame is using persistence of vision on its side by tricking your brain into seeing faster movements than what's really there it's how Looney Tunes and TV shows can produce snappy looking animation even though they usually anime is lower frames per second this doesn't mean higher FPS movies haven't used the technique though two of my favorite examples of smear framed used in 24 frames per second movies are Aladdin in cats don't dance Aladdin is actually kind of notorious for its smear frames there's a gold line of these everywhere throughout the movie but the amazing thing is that you'd probably be pretty hard pressed to actually see any of these without watching the movie on a slower speed give me typically used smear frames very cautiously before then and that was because they were working on movies for smear frames once it well with the art direction of the film but when a Len hit the scene it was first and foremost a comedy and with that came art direction that called for the animation to be snappier and as we already established smear frames helped make that possible Aladdin still uses mere frames with a lot of thought though like I said Mir frames aren't obvious when watching the animation and that's good because while Aladdin is a comedy it still wants the characters and conflict to feel human it's a fine balancing act to walk and the Disney team pulled it off fantastically now back to my other example cats don't dance this is another high FPS film that uses mere frames to make its character animation snappy and fluid but the youth here is so much more broad and wild really taking advantage of the fact that these characters are cartoon characters neither method is better than the other in fact I feel like both of these films use smear frames perfectly for their moving cats don't dance is energized animation is a love letter to the Looney Toon style of animation with its super sense of stylization to the character and a beautiful Golden Age Hollywood aesthetics it just makes cats don't dance as animation so much fun to watch it's hard for me not to smile as I look at this stuff it's so controlled and yet wild and bursting with character and in this movie it's very easy to see the severe frames this is because cats don't dance isn't trying to hide them from you and in this film that's what makes it work speaking of love letters to looney tunes and not being ashamed to show your smear frame let's look at a short that is really given credit for first utilizing the smear frame the Dover boys the Dover boys of the Merrie Melodies animated short by the Warner Brothers Studio in 1942 more importantly it was directed by the legendary Chuck Jones it was actually on the verge of getting fired at Warner Brothers before the debut of the short Chuck Jones who started his career at Warner trying to recreate the more elegant styles and stories from the Walt Disney Company's Silly Symphonies series until some higher-ups supposedly yelled at Jones who told him to stop trying to copy Disney this pressure probably mostly came from other legendary director and animator at Warner Brothers Tex Avery so made a name for himself as being as opposite Disney as possible as a response to this pushback Jones tested the boundary of animation comedy and created one of the most memorable and timeless cartoons to come out in its time but even the Dover boys almost seal the deal for Chuck Jones is executives at the studio weren't exactly thrilled with the first screening of Dover boys in fact you could say that some of them hated it luckily the public at large disagreed and the Dover voice was a huge success it's veiny cartoon style was fresh the characters memorable but most importantly it was hilarious so the Dover boys is actually a parody of the rover boys but luckily the callbacks to that part of it are pretty small meaning the Dover boys can still stand on its own even 75 years after its initial release which is something that all cartoons of the time can brag about we start off our short with a stuffy narrator introducing us to good old tu that is cemento University of course and what can only be assumed is the school theme songs answer [Music] right and we get introduced to the Dover boys themselves out and away the most popular fellows at old bu are the three Dover boy Tom the fun-loving member of the trio dick is serious lad of eighteen summers plus a winter in Florida as related the Dover boys in the Everglades and eleven the youngest of the three jug brothers so remember how I said that Chuck Jones was on the verge of getting fired for not being silly enough well Chuck Jones took that criticism and ran with it as sort of a nephew to his bosses he made this short as ridiculous as possible the Dover boys go get their fiancee Dora standpipe and yes all three of them are her fiancee but who could blame them really just look at this ideal woman look at her beauty grace born with wheels for feet probably the standards for women even back then were outrageous am i right also Dora transcends comedy for her own generation and still manages to know how to be cool with kids seventy-five years later but shimmy I hear some of you ask where are those smear frames you mentioned I'm beginning to think that this was all a ruse for you to talk about some old cartoon well you want to be wrong but no trust me let's just watch the next bit little weed oh that even now within this very tavern then backslide the former sneak a Roquefort all coward bleak hadn't Pete and hot enemy of the Dover boys wonders his misspent life mark the Dover boys tread them double drat them they are escorting Dora standpipe dear rich Dora standpipe how I love her father's money confound those Dover boys oh how I hate them I hate Tom I hate dick and I hate Larry they drive me to drink we found them oh my goodness gracious how I love Dan backslide let's take a look at some of those smear frames again slower this time majestic so the Dover boys and Dora go to the park to play hide and seek cuz of course why wouldn't they and the Dover boys hide in the saloon while Dora is counting then Dora must be alone and unprotected a runabout I'll steal it no one will ever know buzz everyone who made this short here's where we starting to get to smear frames heaven though as Dan backslide feels a car to go get Dora standpipe these smear frames are amazing Dan backslide can move across the screen in three frames and all of this helps push the comedy of the scene this short is also attributed credit for making what is called limited animation popular because limited animation requires less frames for the artist to draw the budget for the animation can be less obviously this comes with both pros and cons when used effectively limited animation knows its limits and how to sell its comedy with it on the other hand this also later gave rise to hanna-barbera and then even later your typical adult comedy cartoon shows where characters mostly stand around talking through each other and the comedy is mostly if not completely derived from the writing this isn't necessarily a bad thing but its misuse of animation as a medium is really sad after all Dover boys mostly succeeded here because of this visual comedy not because of the writing whereas most limited animation shows we see today work in the opposite factions there's a lot of reasons shows have switched to becoming more writing focus than visual focus nowadays but that's another talk for another time it's good to see how Dover boys at least started the trend of limited animation doing what it does best so our short starts to wrap up as we reach the climax there's so many good gags in these last few minutes and yet again more beautiful smear frames like Dora's face stretching over the whole screen here or this Boy Scout who finds Dora and then runs to send a signal to another Scout and then Dora bless Dora [Music] Oh Dora dear sweet Dorothea courage attention have either stole from the hope you are here at hand to do or die beauty oh we offer you yay oh don't worry boys I think Dora has the situation under control this little bit is also gold unhand her Dan backslide unhand her Dan backslide unhand her Dan backslide I love how he blinks here as if he's realizing that he's talking to the wrong person it really sells the joke by giving him just the tiniest bit of humanity to him so the Dobermans beat up Dan backslide and each other and Dora gets her happy ending as she and now it is time to say goodbye goodbye and that's the Dover boys the first ship post ever to be aired on television in all seriousness though the short stands as a testament to the idea that you don't have to have more frames to make a good animation and smear frames are not a sign of laziness you can create masterpieces of animation with limited resources and sometimes doing things out of spite can turn out some amazing work Chuck Jones obviously benefited from it the Dover voice is probably one of the most revered shorts ever made and the thing you could say a lot about how we look at animation today in films and on the Internet it's important to remember that each project is different and how you animate should reflect the tone of your project I'm sending and I'll see you all next time you [Music] Oh

Channel: TennelleFlowers

Views: 235,018

Keywords: simmy speaks, aladdin, cats don't dance, the dover boys, dover boys, 1942, smear frames, animation, animation smears, elongated inbetweens, chuck jones, animated shorts, tennelle, tennelleflowers, simmy speaks smears, simmy

Id: ojXdaYn3ebo

Length: 14min 23sec (863 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 19 2017