dissolves

in 1977 ANDREAS DEJA and I went to london and visited all the major animation studios, – HALAS&BATCHELOR, WHYATT&CATTANEO, DRAGON, TV-CARTOON, GRAND SLAM and of course RICHARD WILLIAMS ANIMATION. dick williams was not in london at that time, we met him a few years later. but they showed us their latest showreel with a selection of animated commercials. this showreel had a devastating effect, we were depressed for the rest of our london stay. it was the kind of animation we had never seen before, a quality that rivaled disney animation and was very, very different. especially a unique dissolve technique fascinated me. dick williams had developed that technique for his numerous animated titles for live action films like CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE and WHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT. within the commercial-collection there was especially one that looked stunning – PUSHKIN WODKA. the dissolves seemed to go on without stopping and made the animation of more complicated mass-scenes easier. the cameraman explained to me that it was several dissolves on top of each other and even split in speed with masks. I asked him for more details but he did not want to explain it more. well, back at home I started doing endless tests. at that time I did all the camerawork for my animation myself and I wanted to find out how that technique worked. it took me over a year with endless tests. below is a diagram that shows you how it works, it is a mix of 3 exposures they are planned careful that the full exposure of all three is at any frame 100%. that way you only need 5 animation drawings to get 28 frames. usually you need 12 drawings on two’s for 24 frames. from that time on I did most of my tv-work using that technique, it looked like full animation and took only half the drawings. history! today it is probably a software you get for free as a download.

© richard williams animation