12 BASIC PRINCIPALS OF ANIMATION ===>>>

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THE ILLUSION OF LIFE

The term 'illusion of life' was coined by the Disney animator Hamilton Luske in the 1930s. Earlier Disney cartoons had looked like little more than moving drawings, but, for the studio's upcoming feature films like Snow White (1937), there was a need for greater realism. Through a thorough study of movement, the human body and artistic drawing, the animators arrived at a set of principles that would make their figures appear more life-like. The term 'illusion of life' summed up the Disney philosophy: while the Warner animator Tex Avery drew cartoons which depended on surreal humour , Disney strove for a style that was exaggerated, yet rooted in reality. In Walt Disney's own words: "Our work must have a foundation of fact in order to have sincerity. The most hilarious comedy is always based on things actual".

The chief animators at the Disney studios were referred to as the 'Nine Old Men'. While the animators in reality were relatively young, Walt Disney jokingly used Franklin D. Roosevelt's dismissive description of the nine justices of the US Supreme Court to describe the group.Two of the 'Nine Old Men', Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, had worked on such animated feature films as Snow White, Cinderella and Peter Pan. After their retirement they wrote the book The Illusion of Life, and by the time it was released in 1981, they had spent nearly five years in research and writing.The book represented over forty years' experience in the field of animation, and instantly made minor celebrities of the two, a fact the Disney company knew to exploit commercially.

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