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Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (Filmed Feb. 13, 1957) [video]

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Re: Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (Filmed Feb. 13, 1957) [video]

#31

Post by emmanueloga_ »

spaceguillotine wrote: post #10

You can go see one in person, it sticks through the floor of the Disney Family Museum in the Presidio. There is lots of animation history in that building. If you just wanna see the camera the top part pokes into the gift shop which you don't need admission to go into

...and it's a hunk of steel that must weigh a few tons and is built to withstand an extinction-level disaster. I mean, even for the '30s, it seemed a little bit excessive. I understand it had to be somewhat heavy for stability and all, but I suspect it could have been made more lightweight.

Re: Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (Filmed Feb. 13, 1957) [video]

#32

Post by Keyframe »

Aeolun wrote: post #30

I feel like movies in the past were so much more technically amazing. I mean, sure they look a hundred times more amazing now, but the amount of human physical effort involved (as opposed to ‘butts in seats’) was immense.

they were but also so are current ones, it's just invisible due to layers of techniques and technologies added over time.

Maybe a good analogy would be microcomputers and home computers of 80's and 90's compared to a modern phone. Latter is absolutely miles ahead in everything but it's standing on giant stacks of work and on the face of it it's a commodity vs maybe what we had before where more artisan approach was needed throughout to get something great out of it.

Re: Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (Filmed Feb. 13, 1957) [video]

#33

Post by devb »

emmanueloga_ wrote: post #31
spaceguillotine wrote: post #10

You can go see one in person, it sticks through the floor of the Disney Family Museum in the Presidio. There is lots of animation history in that building. If you just wanna see the camera the top part pokes into the gift shop which you don't need admission to go into

...and it's a hunk of steel that must weigh a few tons and is built to withstand an extinction-level disaster. I mean, even for the '30s, it seemed a little bit excessive. I understand it had to be somewhat heavy for stability and all, but I suspect it could have been made more lightweight.

It could have been made bigger too. Who cares?

Re: Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (Filmed Feb. 13, 1957) [video]

#34

Post by gwbas1c »

emmanueloga_ wrote: post #31
spaceguillotine wrote: post #10

You can go see one in person, it sticks through the floor of the Disney Family Museum in the Presidio. There is lots of animation history in that building. If you just wanna see the camera the top part pokes into the gift shop which you don't need admission to go into

...and it's a hunk of steel that must weigh a few tons and is built to withstand an extinction-level disaster. I mean, even for the '30s, it seemed a little bit excessive. I understand it had to be somewhat heavy for stability and all, but I suspect it could have been made more lightweight.

> I suspect it could have been made more lightweight.

Perfection is the enemy of done.

Those are the kind of improvements that happen when many items are made. I suspect Disney only made a few, and thus what was more important was creating a working multiplane camera than lowering its weight.

I also suspect that the weight added a lot of stability which prevented shaking between frames.

Re: Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (Filmed Feb. 13, 1957) [video]

#35

Post by pchristensen »

spaceguillotine wrote: post #10

You can go see one in person, it sticks through the floor of the Disney Family Museum in the Presidio. There is lots of animation history in that building. If you just wanna see the camera the top part pokes into the gift shop which you don't need admission to go into

Huge recommendation for the Disney Family Museum! It greatly exceeded my expectations, and there’s a lot of focus on Disneys innovations during Walt’s lifetime.

Re: Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (Filmed Feb. 13, 1957) [video]

#36

Post by pchristensen »

nuccy wrote: post #26
aweiland wrote: post #6

I wonder when and why they stopped making films like these. I've been enjoying watching Behind the Attraction and The Imagineering Story on Disney+ with my kids. They are full of these old films of Walt going over their ideas and explaining the things they are and have built. It's a shame that stopped.

Some technologies have been lost, even though they were superior to what is available today. Take, for example, the old “green/blue screen” technique using sodium vapor lamps, used by Walt Disney in film production in the pre-digital era: https://youtu.be/UQuIVsNzqDk (12 minutes long, but totally worth it).

This video was fascinating!

Re: Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (Filmed Feb. 13, 1957) [video]

#37

Post by HelloUsername »

Previous discussions:

01-jun-2011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2605831 1 comments

25-feb-2012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3633366 1 comments

22-apr-2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11550779 21 comments

06-apr-2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16768953 62 comments

Re: Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (Filmed Feb. 13, 1957) [video]

#38

Post by havblue »

These are definitely techniques that you take for granted, even moreso now with computer animation. I definitely am impressed now when I see scenes like the opening of Sleeping Beauty as the camera zooms in on the inside of the castle. My wife and kids get confused at this point as to what I'm making such a big deal about.

Re: Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (Filmed Feb. 13, 1957) [video]

#40

Post by smitty1110 »

999900000999 wrote: post #39

I absolutely love the background music here. What's this genre called? Big Band?

It's not really a genre, per se. This sort of comes from Opera, and was generally referred to as Incidental Music. Music written specifically to accompany the action on screen or stage. You don't really see albums or collections, because it doesn't generally make sense without the visual context.
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