Adam Koford located the original, provocative Al Hirschfeld piece critiquing Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (particularly critiquing the relatively bland, "realistic" designs of The Prince and Snow White compared to the vigor and charm of the dwarf animation). I have read bits of it quoted over the years , but never been able to find the entire article . Thank you , Adam .
(Click on the image to see it at a more readable size or to download it.)
Hirschfeld makes some great observations about the use of caricature as being superior to slavish attempts at animating "realism".
(I actually disagree with Hirschfeld's lumping the Queen in with the Prince and Snow White. I think Art Babbitt's animation of the Queen is a fairly successful use
of live action reference , translated into an understated, subtle
animated performance. If I recall correctly, Babbitt himself claimed
that he didn't use the live action for more than reference , looked at
it a few times to get his impressions, then animated the scenes.) I know that Mr. Hirschfeld was especially pleased that his design sensibilities (channeled via the brilliant Eric Goldberg) were such a huge influence on the drawing of The Genie and other characters in Disney's "Aladdin" and certainly in the directly Hirschfeld-inspired designs of Eric's "Rhapsody In Blue" sequence from Fantasia 2000 .
It is interesting to read how the use of rotoscoping and trying to do "realistic" characters was very much on the mind of the animators at the Disney Studio in the late 1930's , as evidenced by the transcripts from Don Graham's action analysis classes that Hans Perk has been so generously posting on his blog .
In reading these transcripts it seems to me that the animators were very aware that the caricatured animation of the dwarves and animals was much superior to the results produced by the rotoscope "crutch" . But already they were feeling the pressure from the front office accountants to use more rotoscoping because it was "cheaper and the public doesn't really notice the difference" (as if the ignorance and bad taste of the general public, and accountants , should be informing creative/artistic decisions ?!! note: apologies to all the nice accountants who may be reading this) . Definitely read the transcripts on Hans' blog . They are an eye-opener. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
Reading the Hirschfeld piece critiquing Disney's Snow White design
makes me wonder what Mr. Hirschfeld would have to say about this :
(© Dreamworks Animation )
Progress?