Behind the Scenes: Effects Animation

Sixty more years has passed since Pinocchio was on the big screen and yet the animation still looks beautiful. What makes Pinocchio such a beautiful film?

Pinocchio, 1940

Pinocchio was a groundbreaking achievement in the area of effects animation. In contrast to the character animators who concentrate on the acting of the characters, effects animators create everything that moves other than the characters. This includes vehicles, machinery and natural effects such as rain, lightning, snow, smoke, shadows and water, as well as the fantasy or science-fiction type effects like Fairy Dust. 

 The effects animators would created all that was happening in the background put a lot of contribution to make the water believable.

 Effects animator Sandy Strother kept a diary about his year-long animation of the water effects, which included splashes, ripples, bubbles, waves and the illusion of being underwater. To help give depth to the ocean, the animators put more detail into the waves on the water surface in the foreground, and put in less detail as the surface moved further back. After the animation was traced onto cels, the animators would trace it once more with blue and black pencil leads to give the waves a sculptured look. To save time and money, the splashes were kept impressionistic. These techniques enabled Pinocchio to be one of the first animated films to have highly realistic effects animation. Ollie Johnston remarked "I think that's one of the finest things the studio's ever done, as Frank [Thomas] said, 'The water looks so real a person can drown in it, and they do.'"

Source: Wikipedia