KEN HARRIS INTERVIEW

c. 1975

KEN: Ask the average guy to do an animation test, and he'll try to make a

big production of it.  He'll want to do a whole scene of a guy coming in and causing a fight, picking another guy up and throwing him out and all that sort of thing - instead of just doing a walk, or something simple.  And then they get all lost in the timing and everything else. Then they get discouraged when you criticize them.

DICK: So they should just concentrate on walks?

KEN: Well, a walk is the first thing to do;  I'll do other things too, but I

wouldn't make a great production out of anything until you get pretty good at animating;  Walks are about the toughest thing to do right.  Don't try to do dancing and all this theatrical stuff until they get the basic thing down right;  It's not easy;  After you've flipped a fellow's drawings to see what's going on - then it's easy to tell him what to do; But it's pretty hard to come right out and say how to start animation.  You've got to know what's in your mind;  You've got to be an actor, really, because that's what you're doing - you're sort of acting with a pencil.  You've got to learn to draw well enough to draw them - which is the hard part.

DICK: What if you already draw well?

KEN: There are a lot of terrific artists who'll never be animators, because

they just don't know how to do it.

DICK: How do you learn to time the actions?  If you're acting it out in your

mind, how do you time it?

KEN: That takes experience.  You just time it by timing it.  You get to know

how long it takes to do a thing the way you want to do it.

DICK: When you started, did you have stop-watches?

KEN: We had metronomes;  You could set a metronome on 6's or 8’s or 10's

if you wanted a walk or anything like that.  We had Carl Stallings, the musician Disney first brought to Hollywood.  Carl used to give us a lot of pointers on music timing.  We would ask Carl about what music phrase or number of bars that he wanted to do a thing in.  Also, the Director would time it out himself - the way he wanted to do it, and we would also confer with Carl in getting the music timing.  Oh, learning timing comes so gradually;  It's like Benny Washam's 12-frame yawn.

When you first start out animating something, it takes so long to make those drawings that you think, "Gee, whizz, this will take up a lot of screen time.  It's taken me half a day to make 12 drawings, and that must make a long, slow yawn."  Well, half a second for a yawn isn't very long, is it?  It just takes experience in timing, and doing things, and tapping it out with a pencil - beating it out per foot, 'till you get to know.

DICK: You time things out way in advance, don't you?  I notice that you put

the numbers for your main drawings on the exposure sheet way in advance of where you are actually drawing.

KEN: Oh, yes.  I time things out way ahead: I time things about 5 feet ahead

sometimes.  If I want a guy to do something, and I want him to land 'over there', 5 feet later, I'll number the drawings, and put the drawings down, and number the end one;  Then I'll work up to it.

Say, it takes about 4 feet to do something;  So I'd put drawing number 33 here;  I need about 33 drawings in between there - on twos - that will make about 4 feet.

DICK: When you time ahead, I notice you even write down the exact

numbers on the X-sheet - working in twos.  You put the numbers down before you draw it?

KEN: If I figure it's going to be on twos all the way, I do.  But if it's the kind

of animation that needs some fast wallops or fast action in between there and here, well, you're going to have to use ones in there to do it.  Normally, I work four drawings ahead - on normal animation;  I make drawing number 1, and my next extreme will be number 5, then number 9.  And maybe if it's faster, I'll put 5 closer to 1 and maybe I'd want the action to slow down, and I'd put 9 a long way from 5, and 13 a long way - then maybe 17 and 21 right close together as part of the speed.

That's for 'progressive' animation.

DICK: How do you learn to work that way?  How do you learn to do just

the extreme positions while working out what you want the in-betweener, or assistant to do?

KEN: Well, you know the timing.  You know how long three in-betweens on

twos is.  If you make drawings 1 and 5, that's eight frames - so for animation, if you make a '1' here and '5' there, and you've got 3 here, that's going to be slow.  And if this guy here comes forward really fast, I'd make 1 and 5 close together, and maybe 7 would be well over there, with maybe a 'long-headed' inbetween to zoom over here, and then he shouts or something there, and maybe I'll make that in five drawings.  I figure, if he's talking, his head ought to go out, so I would draw that out there, then I might just draw the mouths in between, and nothing else - and let my assistant draw the in-betweens of the head going out.  No use me wasting my time, you know.

If you had to do a lot of animation, and had to get out 35, 40, 50 feet a week - you could do it that way, with a good assistant.

Now, for instance, if you've got a 'progressive' scene where you want a guy coming in and maybe walking over and picking up something and carrying it over and putting it down and then coming back and getting…[missing]

I work about 4 drawings apart. 1 to 5 to 9 and so forth.  Then, if the in-between (or breakdown drawing) looks too involved for the assistant to do, I will just make 3 or 7, and maybe make some ones some place.

But timing is just experience;  That's the only way you can get it.  You've got to get a feel for it - the way it ought to be.  Like hand actions: Hold it out here for a certain length of time, bring it in, then it goes out, and then he brings it in again, or something;  That's acting.  You get that by studying guys like John Barrymore.  In personality dialogue, that's very important.

DICK : So you get to know the length of time of a second.  It’s completely

set in your mind;  You know exactly what you're going to do?

KEN: Yes, I know pretty much.  And I know how many frames I need to

accent something, and I know how many frames I need to slow out of it;  A guy says something like, "Get going!", well, "get" would be this picture here, and here, and an in-between, and that's the accent, and when the head is up here you slow out of it.  You don't just bang it back down again - you use maybe 6 to 8 drawings to get back to where you started it.  But that's all timing that you've gotten by experience which you've had.  You know how fast the film goes through.  A stop-watch is good to time the length of scenes and such, but the stop-watch doesn't cut it down to a point where you can get a quick accent.

It’s like that guy where you made him shoot himself.  You took some frames out of where his head went back when the bullet hits his head.  You even could take all the frames out.  If his head was here and he pulled the trigger, and his head went clear over to here without any in-between, it would work.

It works well the way it is - but if you want it to bang harder, and if it was a bigger bore gun, and you wanted a real blast you could just leave out the in-betweens.

Lots of times, we will take a little fish, or a humming bird going from one rose to another…this humming bird will flutter here and then, bang! - he's over there with maybe just one elongated blur on ones, and then a 'cushion'.

You can do almost anything by just starting something here and cushioning it way over here.  You don't need any in-betweens.

DICK: When I was 23 and I traced off your animation in 'Broomstick

Bunny', I was surprised that where the witch went up in the air, you had her do an anticipation on the floor, for which you had 2 or 3 drawings, then POW! - you just cut to her way up in the air when she was laughing.

KEN: There's a lot of that in there.

DICK: You used 3 or 4 drawings of her getting ready to leave and then

suddenly she was in the air, or just 'gone' entirely.

KEN: Yes, and instead of making a blur, or something we used to just leave

hairpins where she was - and that gives you the effect of her leaving.  We learned that from Disney, in a fish picture: He'd have these little fish swimming around and something would scare them, and they were gone - that's all - with just a few bubbles for the path they took.

But that just takes experience.  A guy should gain that experience while he's an assistant, if he really bears down and watches animators.

DICK: Since we don’t have a real assistant system going here, the guys just

don't get trained…

KEN: I don't know how you get animators without them being assistants

first.  The average animator is an assistant for 4 to 5 years - unless he's an unusually adaptable guy.  I was an assistant from June 20^th 1935 to September 1^st 1936: I was an assistant in-betweener and then the Assistant Animator, but, I worked nights, and animated.  I probably did about 400 or 500 feet of animation in that year and a half.  I got filmed tests of it; Some of it they used and some they didn't. But I was no kid you know; I was married, and had to make a living. I couldn’t horse around like the young guys did.  They’d just go into it and say "Well, I'm working here in this studio, and some day I’ll be an animator."  They didn't care about how quick, and they didn't seem to worry much about it.

DICK: I'm the only one I know of in this country who did systematic tests

like you did on the wolves' run.  They would do a test of the entire scene and if the scene worked, they’d leave it.  But no one ever took a run and  shot it six different ways, with six different drawings.  I did empirical tests, with slates on the front telling you which test was which - to see what would work.  I always did that, because in the beginning hardly any of my stuff worked.

KEN: That's right.  You've got to do that;  I still do that;  After 35 years of

experience, making all kinds of swaggering walks and strolling walks, and fairy walks and sneak walks and everything else - if I have a guy that is just on a little walk cycle that is going to mean  something in a scene - maybe the body is on a cycle while he's walking, and his head’s got to move around while he's talking - now that walk has got to be right or I’ve wasted all of my time.  I may use 16, 18 or 20 drawings, or whatever number of drawings it takes to get that walk cycle;  I'd get that walk cycle right before I go ahead and put heads and dialogue on top of it.  Even now.

DICK: Few here do that…

KEN: You've got to do that.  Now I have worked at studios where you never

had pencil tests at all.  At Ray Patten, we never did a pencil test - it just had to work or else!  They didn't have a test camera, and he didn't like to spend.

DICK: But you can't learn, you can't see your mistakes…

KEN: No, you can't.  But the men Patten hired were all pretty experienced.

I'd been animating for 18 years before I went there for six months, and I knew pretty much how it was.  We seldom did re-takes.  You know what your director wants.  For instance, working for Chuck Jones, I know what Chuck wants, and I do it the way he wants it, and usually it is all right.  But it pays to get tests.  I don't know how these young fellows can do it without getting tests.

DICK: I found that they have about four formula walks, and they keep to

that for safety.

KEN: Yes.  Now, like Pat with that bird flapping - I told him, "Why don't

you just do a 4-drawing test?  We had a camera just for shooting tests, and we could develop the test in 20 minutes.  I would draw maybe 4 or 5 different wing flaps on just one sheet of paper, and I'd shoot them all together.  When they came on t'he screen you'd see them all flapping together at once, and you'd be able to pick the one you wanted - or the one that worked best.  The way Pat is doing it now should work, and if you do it 3 or 4 other ways it will all work, but if he's not sure it's going to work, he should get a test or show it to someone who would know.

DICK: And save 3 weeks’ effort which in the end doesn't work!

KEN: Yes, because if you go ahead and shoot it, flying the bird into the

scene around the tree and back out again - maybe you're using 100 drawings there, and if the basic flap isn't right, you'd have to do them all over again.

DICK: How would you start to teach someone?

KEN: There is a system of teaching anything;  The best way to teach is to

have him do it.

DICK: I like tracing off other people's work;  When I traced off your work, I

learned an enormous amount.

KEN: I learned a lot of stuff from Disney and from live-action.  Chuck used

to get us live-action dance film and we would pick out the 'extreme' positions and just outline them.  Disney traced a lot from live action; Snow White herself was all rotoscoped:  They had the girl act it out, filmed it, and traced it off.  I don't like to work that way, and most animators don't.  The best of them put the live-action on the moviola and turn it over frame by frame and study it.  I did a dance with Gene Kelly - matching him dancing with a little mouse;  I did another one of Bugs Bunny matching Jack Carson, one time.

DICK: Since dancing is one of your specialties, do you dance it yourself?

KEN: I can animate anything I can do or see somebody do.  Mike Maltese

used to do these dances;  He could do any type of jig step, and he would do it slow, kick this toe here and move it out, and down and out, and then add them up, and you could do it.  One of the girls in the studio was a dancer - she danced in the Salome picture.  We could get her, and she would dance, do it, and show me the steps and everything.  But the quickest way is to go over to a morgue and get a film;  We'd get something that Warners had in stock, with real live people, and get the guy jumping up into the air, and see how fast he turns;  They're looking at you like this - and they turn their heads right back again, zoop-zoop-zoop, and they do these spins, and all that stuff and the timing.  You don't know how to do it unless you see somebody that does know how to do it, do it.  Of course, you exaggerate it a lot in animation.

DICK: Did you ever get much out of that Muybridge book?  You know, with

the still life photos of people in stages of movement?

KEN: We used it quite a bit for runs, to get an accurate run on animals

especially.  I never used it for humans at all.  I didn't even buy the human book.  The animals I did in action were an elephant walk and run, and a giraffe run, and things that you don't see very often.  It showed that a horse run is very different than lots of people imagine;  They used to run horses like a dog, you know;  Horses in the first old rubbery Mickey Mouse run like dogs, but it doesn't look right.  Horses run just about the opposite to a dog;  With horses, all four feet are right together here when they are off the ground, and the dog's is pretty much out like this.  The horse almost always has one foot on the ground.  There's just a little space in there where it isn't. Muybridge proved that.  That was one reason he got his book out.  He bet that the horses' foot did leave the ground and some people said they didn't; So, he took these photographs and they gave him the idea to do all these things for a book.  He did that about 100 years ago, and it turned out it is a good book to use right up to today on animal action.

DICK: No one has ever done it since.

KEN: Nobody could do it any better.  You couldn't do it any better.

DICK: Except using real movie film.

KEN: Yes, you could take film, but what I mean is a book with all the

necessary stages of movement on one page to do something.  It is actually clearer than the book that Preston Blair, the MGM man, did.  You know, everybody's got it.

DICK: But a lot of it doesn't work.  I mean, if you trace it, it doesn't work.

KEN: No.

DICK: Yet, everybody uses it, even professional guys because people

believe anything that is in black and white.

KEN: I only used one thing out of it and it didn't work - a little girl

skipping.  She just floated through the air and [missing].  But the general idea is there for kids to pick up.

DICK: This is the only book though.

KEN: Yes, somebody ought to make a book, and if he [missing] , it

ought to work, you know.  Maybe have lots of drawings on the side, so you could flip it;  You could do it that way.  Muybridge had something pretty good though - he had these little squares behind [missing], so that you know how much up and down it goes.  I [missing] from a lot of Disney model sheets that the guys gave me off [missing] certain takes and speed runs and things.

DICK: Did they put them on the model sheets?

KEN: Yes. They put a guy in one - just one drawing on h [missing];  One

drawing tells you a whole story.  That's the reason [missing] pretty good animation;  He does the drawing, but it’s got a [missing] n in it.  It's got a feeling of just about what he wants. He's [missing] at that.  You could take that one drawing and say, Gee, I can [missing],e wants here;  He wants this guy to run with his knees up to [missing] ust churning away.  You can feel what he wants just by [missing] that drawing.  Sometimes, he'll have a guy rearing way ba [missing] g like this, and you'll know he wants that kind of feeling to [missing]

DICK: Is there any advice you can give to anybody?

KEN: The only advice I know is to think it all out in your mind and then

visualize it the best you can;  Then, draw it out the best you can, and then test it and see if it's right;  Unless you have somebody here who can say, “Oh, throw this drawing out,” and “You need to speed it up here, and put in a couple of in-betweens to slow it down here.”

Timing is just something you can't tell a guy how to do.  He's gotta feel that himself.  It's obvious that when you hit something from here in anticipation and all you want is some kind of a path over to the hit.  I don't know - the only thing I can tell a guy to do is just to animate.  What's this author, he says, “If you're gonna learn to write,  write.”  That's the only way to write - he says, “I can't tell you how to write - you just gotta write.”

To animate, you take a sheet, and then you write down what you want to do and so forth and so on, which is a good way to do it.  You just get a stop-watch and time the action and yourself.  Act it out, and time it and put it down here and then draw it so it fits those marks, so it fits those things.

But that comes after experience.  The first thing to do for anybody, to learn to animate, is to practice making walks.  Do walks of all kinds, 'cause that's about the most important and hardest thing to do.  All this hand action and personality and dialogue and expressions, that's from learning to act, watching guys like Barrymore, or any good actor.

It’s funny that nobody's done a good book, though.