A year ago a friend and colleague of mine, animator Terry Tennesen, donated to the Animaticus Foundation ( www.animaticus.com) his “Can-Am Animation Stand” and “Moviola”.  He was moving from Port Townsend, WA to Idaho and couldn’t take the equipment with him.  The Can-Am Animation Stand is now a rare and almost historic piece of animation equipment that in the 1980's was considered state-of-the-art, high-end technology by all cell animators.  It was an animation-based camera that enabled filmmakers to record their animation onto film, either 16mm or 35mm, on a frame-by-frame basis.  Terry’s relocation ad held him in a quandary.  Either he found a ‘safe’ home for all this equipment, or else it would be consigned the way of all suddenly obsolete animation equipment during the 1990’s digital revolution… a scrap metal dealer!  I had long recognized that an animation stand like this was a rare museum piece and although I actually had no where to put it, I accepted it on behalf of the Foundation in the hope that we could one-day find a home for it, where people could see it and appreciate it.  Consequently I rented a local storage facility to house it in, and there it has remained for over a year ever since.

Fast forward twelve and a half months...

Not long ago I was appointed as Chair of the animation department of the DigiPen Institute of Technology ( www.digipen.edu). Part of my duties was the challenge of creating an innovative, interesting display for the lobby of the art campus… something that students, faculty and visitors alike could be inspired and excite to see.  I saw this as a wonderful opportunity at last to find a home for Terry’s equipment! I suggested to the school a theme that represented the ‘past’ and the ‘future’ of animation.  My plan was to have a combined display of this equipment (from the past) and the amazing work that our students were creating (for the future) through the school's BFA program in Production Animation.  The idea was immediately approved and so I commissioned Terry to travel from Idaho to Redmond, WA this week to supervise the construction of the Can-Am Animation Stand, together with presentation of the Moviola.  This work was completed on Friday and so I have entered this weekend, delighted now that both pieces proudly stand (resurrected) in the lobby of the school!

The Can-Am Animation Stand, Camera, Computer and Control Panel in the DigiPen lobby.

For me this was not just a process of bringing apparently obsolete pieces of equipment back into the animation swim.  It was a chance to offer our animators of tomorrow a glimpse of where the great art of animation before them had come from in the past, how it was achieved and how the equipment of that time looked and worked. The few students who have already seen it and commented have shown significant interest and delight in it being there.  None of them can possibly remember a time that preceded the digital age, where cells and film marked the process of animation production. It is great to offer an explanation of this to them, as well as to demonstrate the working processes of animation involved for us all at that time.

As it stands now the equipment is not operational. It remains merely a museum piece.  However, all the elements are there to make it operational and one day it is my full intention to bring it alive again and make an actual animated film using it.  There is a quality about a 'real' film animation that just cannot be achieved through digital technology.  When I was working at Richard Williams’ London studio back in the in the 1970’s we had a genius rostrum cameraman named Alan Foster who would weave wonderful magic with this kind of film equipment.  The most exciting was the process of animating on ‘two-frame dissolves’… or even ‘two-frame overlapping dissolves’, where not one image was ever seen at a 100% exposure on the screen.  These techniques are just not possible using digital devices such as ‘Premiere’ or ‘Final Cut’… and so I look forward to rediscovering the filmic techniques that made this period in my life so special.

The control panel that enabled an early Hewlett Pakard computer to drive the Can-am Animation Stand.

In all this, I thank Terry Tennesen and DigiPen for enabling this possibility to occur and for the Animaticus Foundation can realize just a little more of it’s mission… i.e. to ‘preserve’, ‘teach’ and ‘evolve’ the traditional art of 2D animation in this digital age.  I don’t know if it will take another year, or another ten years, to achieve the dream of creating something quite unique of film.  But it WILL come… I will not rest happy until it does! In the meantime we will seek to acquire further equipment from that era, so we can ultimately display a full production studio set-up from the time, to compliment what we have already.  The main target right now is to get one of the traditional Disney animation desks on show at the school… which undoubtedly was the ‘Rolls Royce’ dream of all 2D animators at the time!

Anyway, for those who are interested, here is some technical information that relates to the equipment and techniques mentioned above…

CAN-AM ANIMATION STAND (The term ‘Animation Stand’ is also known as a 'Rostrum Camera' in the UK and Europe):  This particular model was in used in 1981 in the Pacific Northwest.  It is believe that only between 10 and 15 of these stands were ever made, although they were very much modeled on the standard "Oxberry" animation stand that was universally used throughout the animation industry at the time. This particular Can-Am design however was specially conceived to service the anticipated need for animated 'special effects'… it was not thought of originally as and animation camera! At the time of its original conception in the late 70’s, there was particular anticipation for a need for this kind of thing, in view of the fact that the 1980 Winter Olympics, Lake Placid in NY were about to explode across the media. However demand did unfortunately live up to expectations and so no further Can-Am animation stands were built. With the advent of digital technology in the 1990’s these stands were rapidly trashed, making this one a particularly rare collector's piece… probably the last in existence?  As stated the Can-AM animation stand was initially designed for creating special effects on film, but the cell animation industry fortunately soon adopted it for basic frame-by-frame film capture, which lengthened its life somewhat.

CELL ANIMATION

The top and bottom pegs tabletop had a 'glass platen' that lifted up to insert animation artwork, then was pulled down to flatten the artwork while it was being shot.

The process of cell-based traditional animation, for which this animation camera stand proved most useful, was identical to the 2D animation we teach at DigiPen (and all other schools that still feature traditional animation techniques as a foundation to their degree courses). I.e. it began with pencil drawings that were hand-drawn on pegs over a lightbox.  However with cell animation, rather than the pencil artwork being scanned and digitally colored, the original drawings were traced onto clear acetate 'cells' where they were then painted using suitable opaque paints then filmed, one-by-one, over a painted background on an animation stand.  If you look carefully at the following pictures of the Can-Am tabletop ('Can-Am' in this case represents 'Canadian'-'American' by the way... it was a jointly sponsored endeavor) you will see a standard set of top and bottom pegs, over which there is a glass platen.  This glass platen was lifted to accommodate each cell being sequentially place over the original background artwork beneath, then the platen is brought down (to flatten-out any bends or cockles in the cell) before the camera shoots one frame of film using the film camera located above of the stand.  Normally there are powerful lights located either side of the stand to brightly illuminate the artwork on the camera 'table' but these need to be fixed independently to the walls (not being connected to the stand itself). This was not possible initially in the DigiPen lobby, but we are planning to do it in the foreseeable future.

THE COMPUTER

The original Hewlett Packard computer that drove the Can-Am Animation Stand. (No doubt the same technology would easily fit into a personal cell phone today!)

The big blue box to the left of the animation stand is in fact one of the first Hewlett Packard computers used to automate the process of shooting animation on this kind of animation stand... as least, as far as it could be automated.  (Prior to that all the operation was manually driven by a cameraman and an assistant cameraman!) This particular computer had an electronic interface located between it and the camera stand mechanisms.  This particular interface was known as the "Cinetron Control System"... which we have on site at DigiPen but which we will not connect-up until we need to make the camera operational again.  The Hewlett Packard computer was programmed using a manual "1" and "0" approach, over a 27-step process.  Each shoot's programming was then separately backed-up on its own "Dos 1", 5.25 inch floppy disk.

CAMERA

The Can-Am Animation Stand's 16mm/35mm dual guage film camera.

The camera mounted at the top of the animation stand is an "Acme 6", 16mm/35mm, single-frame movie
camera that, in this particular case, can also be operational if required.  The camera could be moved up and down the columns of the stand for closer or more distant work through extremely heavy counterweights that are held inside the columns with industrial-standard chain fittings.  The stand’s tabletop could also be independently rotated, moved forward and/or sideways… while the animation artwork itself could also be independently panned from left to right on both the top and the bottom pegs.  There was not ‘tilt’ mechanism on the Can-Am tabletop, although it was known that George Lucas had this function added to his various animation stands during the early days at ILM.

MOVIOLA

The beautifully designed elegance of a 16mm film Moviola.

The Moviola was the standard film editing equipment for all pre-digital era filmmakers in the past... both live-action and animation filmmakers alike.  This featured model is equipped to work with 16mm film only, although other models were available for 35mm or Cinemascope film.  Looking at the front of this particular Moviola you will see a picture 'viewing screen' on the right-hand side which enabled the viewer to see the film passing through at 24 frames per second.  To the left of this are two 'sound heads'… which effectively enabled editors to run two-track audio in sync with the picture on the right.  The foot pedals beneath enable the film to be run at 24 fps, with or without sound-sync, frame-by-frame or at full speed.  As with the DigiPen-based animation stand, this Moviola can be fully operational if required.