Want to learn more about animation from one of its masters? Bill Plympton is an animator who hand draws all of his frames – a dying art that has almost been completely replaced by Pixar-style computer animation. Don’t get me wrong – Pixar films are cool – but it’s nice to see how things were done back in the day before you needed to spend tens of thousands – or more – on computer equipment and software to make “cartoons.”
Bill Plympton (check out his blog) is doing a video blog in short segments to help raise awareness and interest in the latest film he is working on, “Cheatin'”. Plympton goes through the process of developing characters, building storyboards, and drawing scenes and sequences bit by bit as he works on drawing the more than 40,000 individual shots needed for the film. It’s a great marketing idea for the Kickstarter campaign he is running to help fund the film, because the more you learn about how he is putting the film together, the more you want to be a part of it (and have a chance of seeing the final product!)
If you’re just interested in learning about animation, you can check out Bill Plympton’s Cheatin’ Production Blog on Vimeo. This is the first clip in the sequence:
Cheatin’ Production Blog – Episode One – Intro from Bill Plympton on Vimeo.
