How did old animated movies (Sleeping Beauty, Dumbo etc) get made without computers?

Question

So my basic understanding is they were hand drawn, but how does this even work? Did they hand draw every frame brand new each time? Did they erase then redraw the characters that moved and keep the background the same? But wouldnt that mess up the background if they erased even some tiny parts??

SO MANY QUESTIONS

In: Technology

Answer 1

Cels have already been mentioned, but there are a few things they could do to help get cool effects without breaking the bank.

One of Disney’s big inventions that made their animated movies so ground breaking was the multiplane camera. It was very large cabinet like thing with the camera at the top pointing down. There were several horizontal racks stacked underneath the camera on which they could lay an image painted on glass or plastic. Each of those racks could be moved independently up or down and side to side to position all the layers correctly for a particular frame. This let them get dramatic perspective effects as the camera would pan or zoom through a scene. If they needed an animated figure (say Mickey Mouse walking through a forest), they’d place the correct painted cell of Mickey at that point in the film on the correct rack of the multiplane camera. That way Mickey would walk and would be walking behind some trees but in front of others. Here’s a video talking about the camera: [https://youtu.be/YdHTlUGN1zw](https://youtu.be/YdHTlUGN1zw)

Another thing that could save animators time is that cels can often be reused. Something like walking is often a loop: right foot… left foot… right foot. Cels would be drawn for all the frames of the loop… but you wouldn’t necessarily have to draw cels for the next loop and could just reuse cels from the first. Likewise, for someone talking, you might make a cel of the face but not put a mouth on it. The mouth would be on another cel, and you’d have a few cels painted for the mouth in different talking positions.

Ultimately though, it is a very time consuming process and quite expensive. That’s why it’s rarely done anymore and most people just use computer animation.