New Xerographic Animation Presented In Walt Disney's "Dalmatians" Feature

 Click Here to read the previous post about the 101 Dalmatians: Painting of Spots Huge Job in Producing Disney's "Dalmatians"

03.31.11 - Xerography, a new word in animation and motion pictures, snaps up the action and personalities of the dogs and humans in Walt Disney's brilliantly conceived $4,000,000 cartoon comedy, "One Hundred and One Dalmatians."

Xerox, as the new process is called, has the effect of transferring every artistic touch laid down by the artists' pencils directly to the screen and thus enormously improving the entertainment values of the animation.

Previously the transfer from talented pencils to film — color by Technicolor, in this case — had been done by girls with pen and ink in hand. Although the girls were artists in their own right, the copying had a tendency to lose a little of the feeling originally imparted by the creators.

Now the ink and paint girls are on the crews of the Xerox cameras.

The Haloid Company of Rochester, New York, inventors of the process, describe it as "a clean, fast, dry direct positive, electrostatic copying process" which eliminates the need, as well, for a darkroom or an intermediate film negative.

For his Dalmatians feature, Disney has expanded the system and adapted it to his own artistry. Recently Ub Iwerks, the studio's director of technical research, received the Herbert T. Kalmus Gold Medal Award for achievements which included his further development of the Xerography process.

From the 101 Dalmatians original press materials. 

Click Here to read the previous post about the 101 Dalmatians: Painting of Spots Huge Job in Producing Disney's "Dalmatians" 

Painting of Spots Huge Job in Producing Disney's "Dalmatians"

The painting of spots was one of the biggest creative factors facing some 150 artists during three years of working on Walt Disney's cartoon-feature comedy-romance, 101 Dalmatians.

In all, there are exactly 6,469,952 spots on the back of 101 heart-warming dogs and puppies as they appear in 113,760 frames of brilliant color by Technicolor.

Pongo, the cartoon canine lead, wears 72 spots while his love, Perdita, has 68 on her coat. The spots and all other color effects required 800 gallons of very special paint weighing nearly five tons, enough to dress the exteriors of 135 average homes.

Using a secret process, the studio has always mixed its own color in its own laboratories for all Disney cartoons. For 101 Dalmatians, 1,000 different shades were produced, 100 of them especially for that picture to achieve the subtlety and variety needed to handle the dogs and humans as they move through interiors and exteriors in summer and winter.

Producing the "white" for the dogs alone— Dalmatians are white under the spots— required enough very light gray paint to make this category the predominant one in the picture's broad spectrum. Pure white, of course, would have been too garish, too difficult to define, especially against snow.

From the 101 Dalmatians 1979 re-release press materials.