Virtual Cinematography in 2D animation

“Popeye the Sailor meets Sinbad the Sailor” was one of the animated shorts that used the Fleischer’s patented “Rotograph” camera setup. It used a horizontal multiplane camera setup, where the background (as well as middleground and forground) for the cartoon is actually modeled 3D miniatures in the same scale as the drawn cartoons. This gives a real stereoscopic depth of field when panning, also known as “parallax”.

It is clear that the cinematic narrative as found “Love Me Tonight” is evident in “Popeye the Sailor meets Sindbad the Sailor”, but the animated short adds further dynamic to the camera movements as it is not restricted to constructions such as a crane or a dolly to move the viewpoint in space.

In 2D animation, camera tilts and turns are done by using warped perspective in the background paintings, so when they are moved under the physical camera, you get a simulated tilt or turn. Such as in the opening scene of this animated short, where we are first introduced to island of Sindbad.

In the second shot of the first scene, we are presented with a camera tilt up from the “welcome sign” on the island, but the virtual camera is also moving in to the picture as it is tilting. Both physically by moving the real camera closer to the cels, and virtually by panning over the warped perspective on the painted background. The camera is following the winding road up to the castle for the first ten seconds of the scene, before slowing down its movement in depth and only continues tilting up to show the castle on the mountain top.

We are then presented with a long shot of the castle, a similar shot as to the long shot of Nosferatu’s castle in “Nosferatu” (F.W. Murnau, 1922). Then a medium shot from the same angle followed up by a close shot where the perspective is slightly different, as the angle of the viewpoint has slightly changed. A minor detail that enhance the illusion of a three dimensional world. In the following scene the camera follows Sindbad (the antagonist) as he walks across his island. Since the backgrounds are miniature models, the camera movement gives us a stereo-optical effect with a deep sense of depth and parallax, further enhancing the illusion of a three dimensional “reality”.

In the scene where Sindbad discovers Olive Oyl through his scope, we see the iris focusing in on Olive. It has a clear resemblance to the iris focus technique used in one of the romantic scenes in “Birth of a Nation” (D.W. Griffith, 1915).

The third time we see the evil bird fly in the sky, 6 minutes and 30 seconds into the movie, we see an interesting use of simulated camera. It is a mid shot of Sindbad’s evil bird who is flying in a circle up in the air screeching at Popeye’s ship (that is out of sight in this shot), while the camera is stationary it tilts and turns following the flight pattern of the bird. But the camera does not do so perfectly, it lags behind as if it is a filming of a real bird filmed by a cameraman who is a bit uncertain about the pace and direction the bird is flying, emulating the style of a shot from a nature documentary. By simulating the weaknesses of a real camera man in the movements of the virtual camera, it adds a layer of reality to the shot making it more believable as it fit with conventions the audience already know from the “reality” of nature documentaries in cinema.

These examples shows that the directors of traditional animation where mimicking the cinematography of different genres from cinema. By using a cross pollination of different from different genres in a production, they can play on conventions and grammar that the audience already know, and recall their associations to them in different shots as they see fitting by the narrative of the animation. By playing on conventions that are already being accepted as cinematic reality, they increase the believability of the constructed world.

Since the basic nature of the 2D animation in lacks real depth, I discovered that the animators compensate by using different techniques to give the constructed world a sense of three-dimensionality. Examples of these techniques are changing the angle of the viewpoint between shots, creating a parallaxing effect when panning, let action take place along the Z-axis of the viewpoint and building up a scene by positioning the action in the middleground while constructing the scene around it (in the foreground and background).