
Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (1957) [video] - madethemcry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdHTlUGN1zw
======
fermienrico
Old instructional videos so much more informative than today’s. They’re so
simple. Clear narration, simple animations, music is appropriate and minimal.
They don’t overload our senses in the way modern videography does. It seems to
me that everything today is optimized for the highest cognitive load - sort of
similar to the “loudness war” in music, but for videos. Popular videos on YT
are optimized for clicks and likes and subscribes.

For example, compare Mythbusters first season vs the last. Another example is
“The secret life of Machines”; amazing BBC series on how things work.

I love old videography so much. I could watch highly technical instructional
videos like this all day without fatigue. Such a great pleasure. Thank for
sharing this!

~~~
Stratoscope
If you like old instructional videos and documentaries, the Internet Archive
has a bunch of them, particularly in the Prelinger Archives.

Here are a few favorites...

Private Life of a Cat (silent):
[https://archive.org/details/PrivateL1947](https://archive.org/details/PrivateL1947)

Back of the Mike:
[https://archive.org/details/Backofth1938](https://archive.org/details/Backofth1938)

How a Watch Works:
[https://archive.org/details/HowaWatc1949](https://archive.org/details/HowaWatc1949)

Using the Bank:
[https://archive.org/details/Usingthe1947](https://archive.org/details/Usingthe1947)

~~~
peterkelly
One of my favourites is this 1953 explanation of the workings of mechanical
analog computers used by the US Navy:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4)

~~~
JorgeGT
I was going to link this. I think we should seriously consider how the skill
to produce such clear and didactic explanations to complex concepts has
seemingly degraded nowadays.

Specifically I wonder: who was making these videos? how where they trained?
where they attached to the different unit or was it a dedicated group that was
commissioned by the different units?

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robbiet480
If you are interested in this or anything Walt Disney, I _strongly_ recommend
visiting the Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio of San Francisco
([https://waltdisney.org/](https://waltdisney.org/)). It even has an original
MultiPlane camera in the gift shop! I also recommend taking the Walk In Walt's
Disneyland Footsteps ([https://disneyland.disney.go.com/events-
tours/disneyland/wal...](https://disneyland.disney.go.com/events-
tours/disneyland/walk-in-walts-disneyland-footsteps/)) guided tour at
Disneyland which I just did this weekend and greatly enjoyed.

~~~
heinrichf
The Walt Disney Family Museum in SF is indeed amazing! Notably, there are many
fascinating things to see on the technology behind animated films and the
EPCOT concepts.

It is also worth noting that it is run by 501(c)3, not directly affiliated
with the Walt Disney company.

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samastur
Camera itself was actually invented by Lotte Reiniger and then improved (and
patented) by Disney.

Source (and more about Lotte Reiniger): [https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/the-
animation-genius-youve-...](https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/the-animation-
genius-youve-probably-never-heard-of/p05t9bsn?playlist=unsung-heroines)

~~~
drawkbox
That was the predecessor not the multiplane aspect of it with moving layers,
definitely inspired it. Lotte mostly just used it to swap out colored
backgrounds on her silhouette cel style to adjust placement and color.

 _A predecessor to the multiplane camera was used by Lotte Reiniger for her
animated feature The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). Berthold Bartosch,
who worked with Reiniger, used a similar setup in his film L 'Idee (1932)._

Ub Iwerks invented the multiplane camera with movable layers to create
parallax and zooming [1] which created immersive depth. It also saved on
budgets, tedious background animation and allowed animators to focus more on
the character cels, the star of the show.

 _The first multiplane camera, using movable layers of flat artwork before a
horizontal camera, was invented by former Walt Disney Studios animator
/director Ub Iwerks in 1933, using parts from an old Chevrolet automobile. His
multiplane camera was used in a number of the Iwerks Studio's Willie Whopper
and Comicolor cartoons of the mid-1930s._

Fleischer Studios (Popeye/Betty Boop) also made one or copied in 1934 [1]

 _The technicians at Fleischer Studios created a distantly related device,
called the Stereoptical Camera or Setback, in 1934. Their apparatus used
three-dimensional miniature sets built to the scale of the animation artwork.
The animation cels were placed within the setup so that various objects could
pass in front of and behind them, and the entire scene was shot using a
horizontal camera. The Tabletop process was used to create distinctive results
in Fleischer 's Betty Boop, Popeye the Sailor, and Color Classics cartoons._

William Garrity took Ub Iwerks invention further and that iteration was used
in many large successful movies they made [1]

 _The most famous multiplane camera was invented by William Garity for the
Walt Disney Studios to be used in the production of Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs. The camera was completed in early 1937 and tested in a Silly Symphony
called The Old Mill, which won the 1937 Academy Award for Animated Short Film.
Disney 's multiplane camera, which used up to seven layers of artwork (painted
in oils on glass) shot under a vertical and moveable camera, allowed for more
sophisticated uses than the Iwerks or Fleischer versions, and was used
prominently in Disney films such as Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, The Adventures
of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sleeping
Beauty and The Jungle Book_

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplane_camera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplane_camera)

~~~
Aloha
You said what I came here to say - "this really should be called Ub Iwerks'
multiplane camera"

------
madethemcry
I can only imagine how much work is put into modern 3D animated movies and
that it's far from being easy or quick to produce.

On the other side, if I look at the creation process of hand-drawn animation
movies and the involved physical man labour, which is so vastly different from
labour in front of a computer, that makes it so much more worthy as a memory
than any modern animation movie. Or is this simple nostalgia tricking me ?

Regarding that MultiPlane Camera. I never though about the parallax effect in
those old movies and just dismissed it with "well they just draw it frame by
frame". Watching this was a real eye-opener.

~~~
bayindirh
The feeling and texture of the stop-motion animation or hand drawn animation
is not matched by the computer animation. Since we can feel the materials,
labor and the _natural features_ of such animations. As a result, we feel more
connected.

Computers are the other hand isolated from us by their very nature.
Resolution, details and other things are higher and better, but they are not
natural. So it feels more distant from us.

Because of the same reasons I use a mechanical watch, because I can feel the
materials, labor and naturalness of the device.

edit: Fixed some grammatical errors.

~~~
madethemcry
Oh yes you're right. The feeling of texture and natural imperfection is a big
part of my feelings.

I love to spot the shortly being animated parts of an animation movie. Those
parts always show a _slightly different coloring_ so that you know that
_something is happening_ soon.

I bet this is coming from the classic layering shown with Mickey at the
beginning in the video.

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joering2
You have to listen to him no longer than 2 minutes, to realize it doesn't
matter how good of a drawer Disney was; first and foremost he wan an engineer!

Just listen how he explains the problem with the Moon, and then goes to
explain solution. Clear cut: problem we faced, and solution we applied. That's
where genius of people (and financial success) like Mr. Disney comes from.

This guy might have been put in Lockheed's Skunkworks labs with the task to
design a solid rocket booster, and he would be just fine.

~~~
olavk
Walt Disney did not invent the multiplane camera personally. He is just the
narrator here, probably working from a script. He was a visionary though and
understood how technology like this could aid storytelling.

~~~
joering2
I'm pretty sure Jobs wasn't designing PCB boards or touch screens himself; he
had whole team of people doing it for him. Very sure Musk wasn't sitting by
CAD desktop and draw engines himself, although involved I am sure he didn't
engineer it all himself, he had teams of people doing it for him. I think you
missed my point.

------
exodust
This makes me fonder of the parallax website effects. By that I mean those
done for creative purposes suitable to the website content, such as a game or
digital art. I don't mean the needless visual distraction of everyday websites
trying to look impressive.

I particularly like the side-scrolling forest in this film. Computer generated
3D forests can look great, sure, but missing from the aesthetic of CGI forests
is that painterly illustrated look which adds warmth and atmosphere.

------
mosselman
This is technology that has a clear benefit over the old. The effect that is
shown from Bambi is a huge leap forward. Current 3D movie technology has not
been as big a leap for me. Whenever I watch a 3D movie I always think that it
would have been mostly the same in 2D and it would have been more comfortable
to watch the movie without the glasses/headset. The effect of the multiplane
camera however lifts the scene to a completely new level without the comfort
disadvantages.

Also, this might be one of the best informational videos I have seen in a long
time. The ease with which the issues and solutions are explained shows us that
the producers of this video understand the domain very well.

~~~
majewsky
I watch movies in 2D exclusively, including the big Marvel features. I have
watched my fair share of 3D movies, but never noticed it except when the crew
went out of their way to include a scene where a sword blade comes very close
to the camera for a split-second. I'm not paying extra charge for this. Plus,
with 3D, if you're not in the center of the room, you will have weird
distortions because the separate images do not match the perspective from your
location.

------
avian
Interesting how none of the workers in the video use gloves to handle cels and
glass plates. I would be afraid of leaving visible fingerprints.

~~~
exodust
I noticed that too, but then figured the area being photographed is well and
truly inset from the edges, allowing by design the handling of the glass.

------
sundvor
Very interesting and well done video.

This made me think of Uridium on the good old C64, for the reason of parallax
scrolling.

------
pjonesdotca
Oddly enough last week I showed this video to my 9 year old daughter who has a
passing interest in animation and she understood the technology clearly.

That fact alone means that we have to step up our game in modern technical
documentation.

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bwang29
I can't imagine how painstaking it is to do every frame through the panning
camera backdrop, and the amount of work gone through the planning phase. It
definitely seems like Disney invented interesting technologies back then.

~~~
JKCalhoun
Nerd me wants to yell, "Walt, drive all the planes with stepper motors and you
can record/playback sequences from a computer!"

Or better still, "Digitize all the artwork for each plane and composite them
in a computer!"

Seriously though, it is amazing what patience and ingenuity can accomplish.

~~~
therein
"Walt, are you aware of how much money you can save if you just did some ray
tracing? This is crazy."

Seriously, though. Despite having seen this video before, I am glad it is
posted again.

------
PaulHoule
Now all Magic Leap needs to do is put two of these babies on your face and...

------
drawkbox
Ub Iwerks invented the multiplane camera with movable cameras and
parallaxing/zoom [1]

 _The first multiplane camera, using movable layers of flat artwork before a
horizontal camera, was invented by former Walt Disney Studios animator
/director Ub Iwerks in 1933, using parts from an old Chevrolet automobile. His
multiplane camera was used in a number of the Iwerks Studio's Willie Whopper
and Comicolor cartoons of the mid-1930s._

Ub Iwerks is the same guy that created/drew Mickey Mouse[2] and Oswald the
Lucky Rabbit, two cartoons that got Disney animation going.

 _American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special
effects technician, who co-created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse.
The works Iwerks produced alongside Walt Disney went on to win numerous
awards, including multiple Academy Awards_

Iwerks was instrumental in getting Disney started. Walt was the Steve Jobs and
Ub was the Woz.

Even though Ub and Walt were best friends, Iwerks pretty much got effed over
by Disney and later left to go to MGM to make Flip the Frog [3] and other
animations.

It is sad most people don't know Ub Iwerks created Mickey Mouse and parallax
via the multiplane camera tech/machine and many other things, nor his impact
on animation and animation technology.

Ub Iwerks son, Don Iwerks [4], later worked at Disney and on 20,000 leagues
under the sea, and some other neat stuff and is a Disney Legend member. Like
his dad he later went to start his own thing in Iwerks Entertainment after 35
years at Disney.

 _In 1954, Iwerks got a camera technician position for the film 20,000 Leagues
Under the Sea, starring Kirk Douglas and Peter Lorre. He would spend the next
30 years driving film innovations for the Disney company. Notable
contributions include the first 360 film techniques, 360-degree camera, and
first Circle-Vision 360 film, America the Beautiful, and developing the
process for creating seamless live action shots with animated backgrounds._

 _In 1985, after nearly 35 years at Disney, Don left to form his own company
called Iwerks Entertainment. Iwerks became a leading developer of special
films, special venues, and virtual reality theaters throughout the world._

Ub Iwerks really should get more respect as he created early Disney and it
wouldn't have happened without him probably. Typical doer that ended up
getting effed over and should be more recognized for the guy that created
Mickey Mouse and Disney tech, he just didn't have the business prowess that
Walt had.

 _Despite a contract with MGM to distribute his cartoons, and the introduction
of a new character named “Flip the Frog”, and later “Willie Whopper”, the
Iwerks Studio was never a major commercial success and failed to rival either
Disney or Fleischer Studios._

He did attract the legendary Chuck Jones[5] to work with him though, Chuck
went on to create some of the best animation and cartoons ever with WB.

 _Newly-hired animator Fred Kopietz recommended that Iwerks employ a friend
from Chouinard Art School, Chuck Jones, who was hired and put to work as a cel
washer._

Ub would probably hate what Disney has become but he was instrumental in
helping create the magic of the early days.

If Ub was alive today he'd probably be making adult swim/cartoon network type
cartoons or stuff like Pixar made pushing tech limits. His granddaughter made
the documentary 'The Pixar Story'[6]. The Iwerks family and legacy towards
animation/movie tech should be more known, especially Ub.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplane_camera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplane_camera)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ub_Iwerks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ub_Iwerks)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_the_Frog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_the_Frog)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Iwerks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Iwerks)

[5]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Jones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Jones)

[6]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pixar_Story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pixar_Story)

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drk4
That looks like a lot of work to make a movie, all hand drawn.

~~~
wmeredith
It's an enormous amount of work.

