Wreck It Ralph was a beautiful animation and a great tribute brought to video games. However, the real star was Paperman, a short black and white film that played before it in theaters. The six minutes animation presents the love story between a young man and a charming girl he met on a train station.
When describing the inspiration for the film’s unique style of animation, which was created with a new in-house technology called Meander, director John Kahrs stated, “We brought together as best we could the expressiveness of 2D drawing immersed with the stability and dimensionality of CG. It really goes back to working with Glen Keane on Tangled, watching him draw over all the images.”
Paperman – A Black and White Love Story ( Disney )
The technique, called “final line advection” gives the artists and animators a lot more influence and control over the final product as everything is done within the same department; “In Paperman, we didn’t have a cloth department and we didn’t have a hair department. Here, folds in the fabric, hair silhouettes and the like come from of the commited design decision-making that comes with the 2D drawn process. Our animators can change things, actually erase away the CG underlayer if they want, and change the profile of the arm. And they can design all the fabric in that Milt Kahl kind-of way, if they want to.”
Paperman – A Black and White Love Story ( Disney )
Paperman – Short black and white animation produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and directed by John Kahrs.
Eusebiu Oprinoiu
