Attached is the footage report I referred to in the post above. It shows Ollie Johnston averaging 15 ft. a week. (that’s 10 seconds a week). Hal King has the second highest average footage at 10 ft. a week. (close to 7 seconds a week) Others like Milt Kahl and Frank Thomas are averaging 9 ft. a week (Kahl just two frames less than 9-00 ft. with 8-14; Thomas two frames more than 9-00 with 9-02) 9 ft. a week = 6 seconds a week). The rest of the animators on The Jungle Book were averaging between 4 ft. – 7.5 ft. a week (2.6 – 5 secs.)

This Jungle Book footage report is a snapshot in time… at any other time each of these animators may have been averaging more footage or less footage each week, depending on the complexity of the scenes they were issued. Scenes with multiple characters take longer to animate than single-character scenes, so if an animator was issued a lot of scenes with multiple characters and complex action ON 1’s then they were going to be stuck at the bottom of the footage report. However, I’ve seen footage reports that distinguish between an animator’s “Scene Footage” vs. “Character Footage”. For example, say an animator is working on a scene with a running time of 4-00 ft. BUT it has 5 characters in the scene …that makes it worth 20-00 ft. of Character Footage even if the length of the scene is only 4-00 ft.

Ollie Johnston – 15-04
Hal King – 10-03
Frank Thomas – 9-02
Milt Kahl – 8-14
John Lounsbery – 7-08
Eric Larson – 7-08
Eric Cleworth – 6-01
Fred Hellmich – 4-13
John Ewing – 4-12
Walt Stanchfield – 3-15

Overall average footage per week for the entire dept. = 7-10

(Again, keep in mind that “footage” refers to a foot of 35mm film , which is 16 frames. If the animation is ON 2’s that means 8 drawings per foot. If the animation is ON 1’s they had to do 16 drawings per foot. Depending on the complexity of the action , the animators might have to do every drawing in the scene , but often they could leave inbetween drawings to be done by assistant animators.)

Have you seen our 2D class, which has a basic tutorial about OpenToonz? https://www.animatorisland.com/courses/2d-animation/lessons/open-toonz-beginner-tutorial/

And this is a good beginner’s exercise: https://www.animatorisland.com/courses/2d-animation/lessons/best-animation-exercise-for-beginners/

Good luck with learning animation! 🙂

Nah that’s a silly point. That’s like saying we should all give up playing actual instruments bc we can make songs using apps with fake instrumentals