Virtual Camera in Classic Animation

“The Old Mill” (Wilfred Jackson, 1937) is a milestone in camera simulation in 2D animation as it is the first to take the use of a multi-plane setup that allows refined camera movements. This setup consists of up to seven glass layers of artwork and a moveable camera, this setup made it possible for a more versatile use than the Fleischer’s setup, as it was able to simulate that the camera was moving into and through the painted background. As in the Popeye short, “The Old Mill” is also using backgrounds that are painted with warped perspective to simulate turning or tilting. But it does it less subtle and more as an active part of the narrative, as with the crane shots from “Love Me Tonight”.

Right from the opening scene they show us the both potentials and limitations of the multi-plane cameras. While the virtual camera dollies in to the picture through the landscape and over the water, a shot that would be hard to duplicate in traditional cinema at that time, it still has to jump cut forward in motion four times to come to the end of the camera motion in to the picture, this could be seen as an artistic choice, but it had to be made because of the physical limitations of the multi-plane camera setup (as the physical camera cannot move through the glass plates that makes up the layers). Probably in an effort to enhance the feeling of depth and 3D space, elements in the scene comes out of focus as it gets close to the camera. This helps the audience to except the reality they see on screen, as it reminds them of how reality is depicted through a conventional camera.

Most notable is the third scene in the movie, where the virtual camera moves around inside the old mill. At first it’s tilted down moving upwards, and then it tilts up and dollies forward through the beams, before moving and tilting upwards. Some of the animals in this scene are responding and somewhat aware of the virtual camera and reacts to its presence. An interesting discovery is that although the movements of virtual camera in theory could be more floating, they are not, but they rather mimicked the style of the rigid movements the camera in traditional cinema at the time (tilting, turning, dollying and paning as separate movements). A possibly to reasons for this is that most of these movements were illusions in 2D space, and by not separate the camera movements to something the audience is already familiar with from cinema, the camera movements could be interpreted as confusing or in worst case not interpreted at all.