Pixar made this 4-minute vintage version of Monsters Inc and it's terrific

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Originally published at: Pixar made this 4-minute vintage version of Monsters Inc and it's terrific | Boing Boing

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its a fun idea but honestly i would have expected better quality from pixar. it looks like flash animation with a film texture filter over it. I think Cuphead did an almost perfect job of nailing that look and i think it really just involved having people literally hand draw stuff instead of relying on the computer tools illustrators use now to make drawing easier. the perfect lines and shapes. the computerized moving of elements etc. I know pixar is a 3D CGI company mostly but seeing all the concept art that they do i know they have people there that can really really draw well.

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also something that old silent cartoons did well that a lot of modern animation (especially most TV animation) doesn’t even try was to rely on acting and gags rather than dialogue. title cards were rare in the silent era cartoons. modern TV cartoons are almost all dialogue and voice actor gags rather than visual gags. which is fine, but in this context it’s a major difference in the animation style.

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And the version with commentary:

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thats awesome. I love that! I hadn’t seen that before! ha.

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the end of that movie makes me tear up no matter what version it is, apparently.

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Very nice! See, Disney can do something good.
They’re not ONLY about murdering poor people to burn their bodies for energy to run Space Mountain!

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Agreed- it’s pretty decent, but I would have expected something amazing with the talent Pixar have got.

Cuphead is an incredible achievement - the only thing that’s stopped me buying it is that I really only play games where you can wander off and make a cup of coffee between moves. Maybe I should get it anyway to support them…

For modern 20s style animation, have you seen The Ghost of Stephen Foster by Squirrel Nut Zippers? Animation kicks in at around the 40 second mark: Squirrel Nut Zippers - Ghost of Stephen Foster - YouTube

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This even lower-quality film was another Easter egg on the DVD:

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oh yeah that one was great too!

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hahahha! i actually LOVE that.

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Exactly. Their animators would have been happy to pull out their pegboards for old time’s sake I’m sure. It’s very time-consuming though and very expensive compared to the tools they have now. Even so, it would have been interesting for them to put it on actual film and then digitize it back in just to see the quality.

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i work in animation. honestly i dont think it would even take that. you could draw every frame on a cintiq and write more visual gags instead of dialogue and i think they could have pulled it off. it’s not so much the fake film filter that throws me off as it is the articulated puppet style animation (think adult swim shows like archer) and the dialogue heavy writing that don’t fit with the genre… for me… but yeah it IS more time consuming and maybe thats really the answer. man, if you look back at some of those early disney cartoons like plane crazy and the skeleton dance i think Ub Iwerks drew almost every frame himself. probably was working himself to death with no free time and was young enough to have the stamina, but still. ha. Its not for everyone.

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Well I enjoyed it. I take the point about the speech images, but to my mind that’s simply emphasising the faux archaic nature of the rendition.

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It was cute, but it could have been more “rubberhose-y”, if you know what I mean.
Also, 20 years allready?

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Disney really pulled off the vintage look with Get a Horse in 2013. But this was made for a special show in a theater, not as a little side project to be released on the web.

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Yep. Bottom line, this was someone’s fun side project rather than something Pixar had the resources and inclination to do as authentically as possible. It’s fun for what it is.

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Animation companies were already working in teams by the time Charles Mintz married Margaret Winkler (distributor of the Oswald shorts) and hired away much of the Disney Brothers’ staff. Ub remained head animator, but there were a few who remained loyal. Hence, Mickey was born.

When it comes to animators doing all (or most of) the work themselves, you have to go back a few more years…

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Especially when he was doing those live cartoons broadcasts.

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im sure there were other people doing something (backgrounds and inking and painting on cels?) and not sure the details of the staff but it was my understanding that Ub did all the animation on some of those. this is from the wikipedia article on Plane Crazy:

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