I tried to learn more and I understand animators have to draw each frame but do they draw every single movement that happens in a different frame? How do they record the drawings from paper to become an actual film. Do they draw the background/scenery the same time they draw the movements of the characters or are they drawn separately and tacked on?
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different animators use different techniques on different projects, and technology has advanced over time.
in general, the most common pre computer form is called cell animation. scenery and characters are drawn on transparent film like you’d have for an old overhead projector. they’re then layered on top of each other to create a scene and a camera looks down from above and takes a single picture. that’s one frame of animation done. the cells are then adjusted for the next frame.
for body movement, in this form, each frame needs the character to have a new drawing, but they work carefully to avoid redrawing anything they don’t need.
things like mouth shapes and faces are constantly reused: the base face drawn blank and the mouth layered on top to provide speaking animations and expressions.
once computers started to get involved, the cells only provided what were called “key frames” and the computer was used to do the tedious work of moving between the frames, called “tweening”, as in “the inbetween bits”.
now of course, they’re usually entirely done in computer. using similar techniques maybe, but with much more sophisticated software to help out.
it’s actually quite fun to find common characters and animations between Disney films. mowgli and christopher robin are basically the same character, as are baloo and little john.
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