Level 3 Film & Photography

Interactive Media 90 Credit Diploma

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2D Animation Production (U53)
Animation Past and Present

Pinnochio 1940
Research into Pinnochio and make notes on the Plot of the film and also its production.
What was the plot/story about?
Pinnochio tells the story of a carpenter, who wishes for his wooden puppet to become a real
boy. The wish is granted by a fairy. For the remainder of the story we follow the puppet
Pinnochio and Jiminy Cricket, who acts as pinnochio's conscience. Jiminy is not greatly
successful with this task so subsequently we observe the trouble and misfortune the duo
face.
How was the animation produced?
Based on the 1883 italian childrens novel the idea for Pinnochio started in 1937, when
Disney was producing Snow White. Due to the huge success of Snow White, Walt Disney
wanted more famous voices for Pinocchio, which marked the first time an animated film
had used celebrities as voice actors. During production a character model department was
formed by the story artist. This department was responsible for creating maquettes (three-
dimensional clay models of the characters in the film.) The artists filmed a variety of the
maquettes on a miniature set using stop motion animation.
Then, each frame of the animation was transferred onto animation cels. The cels were then
painted on the back and overlaid on top of background images Rather than tracing over the
images; which could have created unnatural movement, the animators decided to use
footage of actors playing the scenes in a pantomime, as a guide by studying human
movement and then incorporating some poses into the animation