Ink & Paint the Women of Walt Disney's Animation - Book Review

Описание: Ink & Paint the Women of Walt Disney's Animation - Book Review

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Ink & Paint The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation is a book that covers the history of women and the women that worked at Disney. This is the first book about Disney Animation that really concentrates on the women that worked at Disney. It starts out with an interview with Walt Disney from 1949 for Parents Magazine. He had two daughters Sharon and Diane. Women have played a big part in the lives of Disney and he treated them with respect. The book is a mix between a historical reference of women in all the different eras. Disney started out in the twenties and the women he hired would do the ink and paints on the animation cells. From the beginning the Ink & Paint department was separated from the animators. It was very precise work and Disney did not want the animators to visit the Ink & Paint girls for obvious reasons.

All of the movies were black and white. The first colour in film was hand painted on the film itself. Most of the time that was done by women. In France the filmmaker Georges Méliès had his films coloured as well. It was very precise work, because the colouring was done on the film itself. It was a thriving business.
In the beginning of animation the backgrounds and characters were drawn on on piece of paper. Later celluloid was invented so the characters could be drawn on cells. The Ink & Paint girls would get the cleaned-up animation of the character, which they had to trace with an ink pen on the top. The colors were applied on the back of the cell, so that the characters would be opaque.
When the animation was recorded the cells were placed on top of the background and then photographed. One frame at the time. The inking was very precise work. The animation was recorded at 24 frames per second and each drawing was held for 2 exposures. So for each second of film 12 cells were needed. When the lines were inconsistent the lines would wobble.


One of the first Ink & Paint girls were Lilian and Edna that later became the wives of Walt and Roy Disney. Disney started out with the Alice series. A girl that was filmed with a white background and lived in a cartoon world. Virginia Davis played the first Alice. In 1925 The Disney Studios was still called the Disney Brothers Studio. The ink department was then called the Blackeners, because there was no color in the cells. Most of the characters had black bodies and white masked faces. After the Alice Comedies Disney started with a new series called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. The studio was moved to Hyperion Avenue. Disney lost the rights of Oswald to his distributor Margret Winkler. All of the animators left except two Ub Iwerks and Rudolph Ising. Disney all over and Mickey Mouse was born. Through out the book a lot of ink and paint women are highlighted. The book also shows a lot pictures I have never seen before. During the depression in the thirties it was hard to get by. But the inkers and painters were payed better than seamstresses and nurses. Disney also started the Silly Symphonies which allowed him to experiment more. The first full color Disney movies was Flower&Trees it was the first TechniColor film. Originally the film was made in black and white. The paint department washed all the black and white paints from the back of the cells and applied color to them. The entire movie was shot again. It had its premiere in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. It was a smashing hit.
The ink and paint department had to develop a new system for all the colors and how to apply them. The next big challenge was the making of Snow white. The department was split up in a sort of assembly line.

In the middle of the book the whole process of inking and painting is explained step-by-step. Especially the paint lab where all the colors were mixed. The pens that were used to ink and the brushes to paint the cells. When you look at the cells for Snow white they have coloured ink lines and a wide range of colors applied to it. With each new feature film, the techniques would improve. Especially the Fantasia. This book is very well archived . It not only highlights the women that made all the Disney characters visible on screen, but it also shows an in depth explanation how the whole inking and panting department worked. I really do recommend this book. If you are a Disney fan, Ink & Paint The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation is a must have.