45-531: Ubbe Ert Iwerks (March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971), known as Ub Iwerks ( / ˈ ʌ b ˈ aɪ w ɜːr k s / UB EYE -wurks ), was an American animator , cartoonist , character designer , inventor , and special effects technician , known for his work with Walt Disney Animation Studios in general, and for having worked on the development of the design of the character of Mickey Mouse , among others. Born in Kansas City, Missouri , Iwerks grew up with
90-495: A cameraman's movements). As a result, some studios now hire nearly as many lighting artists as animators for animated films, while costume designers, hairstylists, choreographers, and cinematographers have occasionally been called upon as consultants to computer-animated projects. Uttum Uttum is a village in the region of East Frisia , in Lower Saxony , Germany . It is part of the municipality of Krummhörn . The village
135-566: A cel washer. The Flip and Willie cartoons were later distributed on the home-movie market by Official Films in the 1940s. From 1933 to 1936, he produced a series of shorts (independently distributed, not part of the MGM deal) in Cinecolor , named ComiColor Cartoons . The ComiColor series mostly focused on fairy tales with no continuing character or star. Later in the 1940s, this series received home-movie distribution by Castle Films . Cinecolor produced
180-470: A character as a 2D drawing or painting, then hand it off to modelers who build the character as a collection of digital polygons. Texture artists "paint" the character with colorful or complex textures, and technical directors set up rigging so that the character can be easily moved and posed. For each scene, layout artists set up virtual cameras and rough blocking . Finally, when a character's bugs have been worked out and its scenes have been blocked, it
225-519: A contentious relationship with his father, who abandoned him as a child. Iwerks met fellow artist Walt Disney while working at a Kansas City art studio in 1919. After briefly working as illustrators for a local newspaper company, Disney and Iwerks ventured into animation together. Iwerks joined Disney as chief animator on the Laugh-O-Gram shorts series beginning in 1922, but a studio bankruptcy would cause Disney to relocate to Los Angeles in 1923. In
270-504: A contract with MGM to distribute his cartoons, and the introduction of a new character named Flip the Frog and later Willie Whopper , the Iwerks Studio was never a major commercial success and failed to rival either Disney or Fleischer Studios . Newly hired animator Fred Kopietz recommended that Iwerks employ a friend from Chouinard Art School, Chuck Jones , who was hired and put to work as
315-463: A daily basis, he chafed under Disney's leadership. Iwerks also felt he was not getting the credit he deserved for drawing all of Disney's successful cartoons. Eventually, Iwerks and Disney had a falling out; their friendship and working partnership were severed in January 1930. According to an unconfirmed account, a child approached Disney and Iwerks at a party and asked for a picture of Mickey to be drawn on
360-622: A ditch." He attended Ashland Grammar School, graduating in 1914. Ub's full name, Ubbe Ert Iwwerks, can be seen on early Alice Comedies that he signed. Several years later, he simplified his name to "Ub Iwerks", sometimes written as "U.B. Iwerks". Iwerks spent most of his career with Disney. The two met in 1919 while working for the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio in Kansas City, and eventually started their own commercial art business together. Disney and Iwerks then found work as illustrators for
405-473: A given scene was hand-drawn, then transposed onto celluloid, where it would be traced and painted. These finished "cels" were then placed together in sequence over painted backgrounds and filmed, one frame at a time. Animation methods have become far more varied in recent years. Today's cartoons could be created using any number of methods, mostly using computers to make the animation process cheaper and faster. These more efficient animation procedures have made
450-539: A napkin, to which Disney handed the pen and paper to Iwerks and stated, "Draw it." Iwerks became furious and threw the pen and paper, storming out. Iwerks accepted a contract with Disney's former distributor, Pat Powers to leave Disney and start an animation studio under his own name. His last Mickey Mouse cartoon was Wild Waves (1929) and final Disney film was the Silly Symphony Autumn (1930). (Powers and Disney had an earlier falling-out over Disney's use of
495-598: A photograph of Walt Disney. Then, on a train ride back from a failed business meeting, Walt Disney came up with the original sketch for the character that was eventually called Mickey Mouse . Afterward, Disney took the sketch to Iwerks. In turn, he drew a more clean-cut and refined version of Mickey, but one that still followed the original sketch. The first few Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons were animated almost entirely by Iwerks, including Steamboat Willie , The Skeleton Dance and The Haunted House . However, as Iwerks began to animate more and more cartoons on
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#1732849040053540-405: A team of story artists, and synchronizing lip or mouth movements to dialogue already prepared by a screenwriter and recorded by vocal talent. Despite those constraints, the animator is still capable of exercising significant artistic skill and discretion in developing the character's movements to accomplish the objective of each scene. There is an obvious analogy here between the art of animation and
585-459: Is not a character; most commonly vehicles , machinery , and natural phenomena such as rain, snow, and water). Stop motion animators do not draw their images, instead they move models or cut-outs frame-by-frame, famous animators of this genre being Ray Harryhausen and Nick Park . In large-scale productions by major studios, each animator usually has one or more assistants, " inbetweeners " and " clean-up artists", who make drawings between
630-417: Is closely related to filmmaking and like filmmaking is extremely labor-intensive, which means that most significant works require the collaboration of several animators. The methods of creating the images or frames for an animation piece depend on the animators' artistic styles and their field. Other artists who contribute to animated cartoons , but who are not animators, include layout artists (who design
675-880: Is complete and has been perfected through the " sweat box " feedback process, the resulting data can be dispatched to a render farm , where computers handle the tedious task of actually rendering all the frames. Each finished film clip is then checked for quality and rushed to a film editor, who assembles the clips together to create the film. While early computer animation was heavily criticized for rendering human characters that looked plastic or even worse, eerie (see uncanny valley ), contemporary software can now render strikingly realistic clothing, hair, and skin. The solid shading of traditional animation has been replaced by very sophisticated virtual lighting in computer animation, and computer animation can take advantage of many camera techniques used in live-action filmmaking (i.e., simulating real-world "camera shake" through motion capture of
720-427: Is handed off to an animator (that is, a person with that actual job title) who can start developing the exact movements of the character's virtual limbs, muscles, and facial expressions in each specific scene. At that point, the role of the modern computer animator overlaps in some respects with that of his or her predecessors in traditional animation: namely, trying to create scenes already storyboarded in rough form by
765-436: Is located to the northeast of the village Pewsum . Uttum used to be a seat of East Frisian chieftains , seated at Uttum Castle . The meaning of the village's name is presumably home of Otte or Utte . The Evangelical Reformed Church of Uttum dates from the 13th century and is home to an organ that was made around 1655. [REDACTED] Media related to Uttum at Wikimedia Commons This German location article
810-413: The "key poses" drawn by the animator, and also re-draw any sketches that are too roughly made to be used as such. Usually, a young artist seeking to break into animation is hired for the first time in one of these categories, and can later advance to the rank of full animator (usually after working on several productions). Historically, the creation of animation was a long and arduous process. Each frame of
855-433: The 16 mm prints for Castle Films with red emulsion on one side and blue emulsion on the other. Later in the 1970s Blackhawk Films released these for home use, but this time using conventional Eastmancolor film stock. They are now in the public domain and are available on VHS and DVD. He also experimented with stop-motion animation in combination with the multiplane camera , and made a short called The Toy Parade , which
900-688: The 2014 feature film Walt Before Mickey , in which he is portrayed by Armando Gutierrez . Iwerks received three nominations at the Academy Awards , for which he won one. He also posthumously received the Winsor McCay Award at the 1978 Annie Awards and the Hall of Fame award at the 2017 Visual Effects Society Awards . Iwerks was born in Kansas City, Missouri . His father was born in the village of Uttum in East Frisia (northwest Germany, today part of
945-559: The Kansas City Slide Newspaper Company (which was later named The Kansas City Film Ad Company). While working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, Disney decided to take up work in animation, and Iwerks soon joined him. There he attached a motor drive to the camera with a switch that resembled a telegraph key, reducing the number of people needed to animate from two to just one. Iwerks was responsible for
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#1732849040053990-504: The Powers Cinephone sound-on-film system—actually copied by Powers from DeForest Phonofilm without credit—in early Disney cartoons.) The Iwerks Studio opened in 1930. Financial backers led by Pat Powers suspected that Iwerks was responsible for much of Disney's early success. However, while animation for a time suffered at Disney from Iwerks' departure, it soon rebounded as Disney brought in talented new young animators. Despite
1035-519: The South (1946), as well as the xerographic process adapted for cel animation, which was used in 101 Dalmatians (1961). He also worked at WED Enterprises, now Walt Disney Imagineering , helping to develop many Disney theme park attractions during the 1960s. Iwerks did special effects work outside the studio as well, including the birds for his Academy Award nominated achievement for Alfred Hitchcock 's The Birds (1963). Iwerks' last credit for Disney
1080-519: The South . Iwerks had two children, Donald Warren Iwerks and David Lee Iwerks, with his wife Mildred Sarah Henderson. Iwerks died of a heart attack in Burbank, California , in 1971 at age 70. Iwerks was posthumously named a Disney Legend in 1989. His likeness has been featured in his granddaughter Leslie Iwerks ' 1999 documentary The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story as well as
1125-517: The Walt Disney company and to found Iwerks Entertainment . His granddaughter is documentary film producer Leslie Iwerks . David Iwerks became a portrait photographer. Iwerks died in 1971 from a heart attack in Burbank, California , aged 70, and his ashes are interred in a niche in the Columbarium of Remembrance at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills Cemetery . The last project he worked on
1170-420: The animator's job less tedious and more creative. Audiences generally find animation to be much more interesting with sound. Voice actors and musicians , among other talent, may contribute vocal or music tracks. Some early animated films asked the vocal and music talent to synchronize their recordings to already-extant animation (and this is still the case when films are dubbed for international audiences). For
1215-401: The art of acting, in that actors also must do the best they can with the lines they are given; it is often encapsulated by the common industry saying that animators are "actors with pencils". In 2015, Chris Buck noted in an interview that animators have become "actors with mice ." Some studios bring in acting coaches on feature films to help animators work through such issues. Once each scene
1260-400: The backgrounds, lighting, and camera angles), storyboard artists (who draw panels of the action from the script), and background artists (who paint the "scenery"). Animated films share some film crew positions with regular live action films, such as director, producer, sound engineer, and editor, but differ radically in that for most of the history of animation, they did not need most of
1305-402: The creation of Mickey Mouse . Iwerks was portrayed in the episode by Tony Hale . All Comicolor shorts All Comicolor shorts Animator An animator is an artist who creates images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animation
1350-650: The crew positions seen on a physical set. In hand-drawn Japanese animation productions, such as in Hayao Miyazaki 's films, the key animator handles both layout and key animation. Some animators in Japan such as Mitsuo Iso take full responsibility for their scenes, making them become more than just the key animator. Animators often specialize. One important distinction is between character animators (artists who specialize in character movement, dialogue , acting , etc.) and special effects animators (who animate anything that
1395-483: The distinctive style of the earliest Disney animated cartoons , and was also responsible for designing Mickey Mouse. In 1922, when Disney began his Laugh-O-Gram cartoon series, Iwerks joined him as chief animator. The studio went bankrupt, however, and in 1923 Iwerks followed Disney's move to Los Angeles to work on a new series of cartoons known as "the Alice Comedies " which had live-action mixed with animation. After
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1440-500: The end of this series, Disney asked Iwerks to design a character that became Oswald the Lucky Rabbit . The first cartoon Oswald starred in was animated entirely by Iwerks. Following the first cartoon, Oswald was redesigned on the insistence of Oswald's owner and the distributor of the cartoons, Universal Pictures. The production company at the time, Winkler Pictures, gave additional input on the character's design. In spring 1928, Disney
1485-640: The main Schlesinger lot. Iwerks then did contract work for Screen Gems (then Columbia Pictures ' cartoon division) where he was the director of several of the Color Rhapsody shorts before returning to work for Disney in 1940. After his return to the Disney studio, Iwerks mainly worked on developing special visual effects . He is credited as developing the processes for combining live-action and animation used in Song of
1530-452: The majority of animated films today, the soundtrack is recorded first in the language of the film's primary target market and the animators are required to synchronize their work to the soundtrack. As a result of the ongoing transition from traditional 2D to 3D computer animation , the animator's traditional task of redrawing and repainting the same character 24 times a second (for each second of finished animation) has now been superseded by
1575-404: The modern task of developing dozens (or hundreds) of movements of different parts of a character in a virtual scene. Because of the transition to computer animation, many additional support positions have become essential, with the result that the animator has become but one component of a very long and highly specialized production pipeline. In the 21st century , visual development artists design
1620-504: The municipality of Krummhörn ) and emigrated to the United States in 1869 around the age of 14. The elder Iwerks, who worked as a barber, had fathered and abandoned several previous children and wives. When Ub was a teenager, his father abandoned him as well, forcing the boy to drop out of school and work to support his mother. Iwerks despised his father and never spoke of him; upon learning that he had died, he reportedly said, "Throw him in
1665-745: The new studio, Iwerks continued to work with Disney on the Alice Comedies as well as the creation of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit character. Following the first Oswald short, both Universal Pictures and the Winkler Pictures production company insisted that the Oswald character be redesigned. At the insistence of Disney, Iwerks designed a number of new characters for the studio, including designs that would be used for Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar . One of Iwerks' most long-lasting contributions to animation
1710-653: Was 1930's The Cactus Kid . Following his separation with Disney, Iwerks, operating under Iwerks Studio , created the characters Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper along with the ComiColor Cartoons series as part of a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , but the new studio failed to rival its competitors. Iwerks later directed two Looney Tunes cartoon shorts for Leon Schlesinger Productions and several Color Rhapsody cartoons for Screen Gems before joining Disney again in 1940, after which he worked with special visual effects on productions such as 1946's Song of
1755-419: Was a refined version of a sketch drawn by Disney that would later go on to become Mickey Mouse . Iwerks was responsible for much of the animation for the early Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons, including Steamboat Willie , The Skeleton Dance and The Haunted House , before a falling out with Disney led to Iwerks' resignation from the studio in January 1930. Iwerks' final Mickey Mouse cartoon
1800-513: Was for perfecting the travel matte system for the Mary Poppins sequence "Feed the Birds" Iwerks' most famous work, outside animating Mickey Mouse, was Flip the Frog from his own studio. While he was at Disney, he developed a variety of patents for applying Xerography for use in animation . Iwerks had two children with his wife, Mildred (née Henderson): Donald and David. Donald went on to work for
1845-485: Was named a Disney legend . In the 1996 The Simpsons episode " The Day the Violence Died ", a relationship similar to Iwerks' early relationship with Walt Disney is used as the main plot. A documentary film, The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story , was released in 1999, followed by a book written by Iwerks' granddaughter Leslie Iwerks and John Kenworthy in 2001. The documentary, created by Leslie Iwerks,
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1890-444: Was never released in public. In 1936, backers withdrew financial support from the Iwerks Studio, and it folded soon after. In 1937, Leon Schlesinger Productions contracted Iwerks to produce four Looney Tunes shorts starring Porky Pig and Gabby Goat . Iwerks directed the first two shorts, while former Schlesinger animator Robert Clampett was promoted to director and helmed the other two shorts before he and his unit returned to
1935-470: Was released as part of The Walt Disney Treasures, Wave VII series (disc two of The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit collection). A feature film released in 2014, Walt Before Mickey , showed how Ub Iwerks, portrayed by Armando Gutierrez , and Walt Disney, portrayed by Thomas Ian Nicholas , co-created Mickey Mouse. The sixth episode from the second season of Drunk History ("Hollywood") tells about Ub's work relationship with Disney, with stress on
1980-592: Was removed from the Oswald series, and much of his staff was hired away to Winkler Pictures. He promised to never again work with a character he did not own. Disney asked Iwerks, who stayed on, to start drawing up new character ideas. Iwerks tried sketches of frogs, dogs, and cats, but none of these appealed to Disney. A female cow and male horse were created at this time by Iwerks, but were also rejected. They later turned up as Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar . Ub Iwerks eventually got inspiration from an old drawing. In 1925, Hugh Harman drew some sketches of mice around
2025-696: Was the Hall of Presidents . The Ub Iwerks Award for Technical Achievement , as part of the Annie Awards , is named in his honour. A rare self-portrait of Iwerks was found in the garbage bin at an animation studio in Burbank. The portrait was saved and is now part of the Animation Archives in Burbank, California. After World War II , much of Iwerks' early animation style was imitated by legendary manga artists Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori . In 1989, Iwerks
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