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🕑 Added 2025-12-09 03:53:25 +0000 UTCCOOL WORLD was a combination of live actors and cartoon characters, and the combination was worked out with the method used way back in the OUT OF THE INKWELL times; the live action was shot first; then single frames were blown up to animation paper size, then the animated character drawings played their role over these blown up photos. No doubt this cumbersome process was a big chunk of the very large budget. No computers, of course, which makes this method seem ridiculous.
In the 1920s, the the combo of the live and the cartoon was deceptively simple. The live actors allowed the cartoons a wide berth; overlapping the two was avoided. There were no camera moves in these scenes. Sometimes only one still of the live performer was on the screen, and the cartoon was placed over it, like a cel over a backdrop. Everything was as simple as it could possibly be done, and to the audience, with no time to question or knowledge to analyze, the effect was sumptuous.
By ROGER RABBIT, the interaction between the live and the cartoon was infinitely more complex. The drawings and the actors overlapped constantly; there was more physical interaction. And the camera was constantly active. Animation of figures had to be planned with precision to match the perspective shifts of the camera. That's one reason the film was so big, beyond its content. It was the first time that a movie had not whittled down to the simplest methods. It was now a true, believable byplay, with no seams. Live and animated combined and made a total film.
Richard Williams was a precise animator too the point of fetishism. The more challenging the task, the more he'd work over it. Making a film with this precision tedium mix of live, animation and an active camera probably delighted him. He was not an idea man first and foremost. He was a cerebral artist; a practitioner.
Ralph is an idea man; a disorganized cartoonist with ideas to translate as succinctly as possible. His art is visceral, based on instinct and impulse. When he took on the COOL WORLD, I don't believe he gave a thought to it as being any more tortuous than doing a Koko the Clown or Dinky Doodle. It was all about cartoon characters FUCKING!!
On about the third month of my arrival, the studio arranged a viewing of the work print of the film thus far. A goulash of completed scenes, storyboard frames and pencil tests, some with characters on tissue paper over live footage. It was a mess. The story was vague and the animation had obvious knowledge, but was arbitrarily placed. It was a collage, but in a bad way, because there was the pretense of a story. The nadir came when, after some tumultuous chaos, a single hand slashed message appeared on the screen. It said “HOLLY EXPLODES”. No hint that a climax had been devised. A major plot thread and character were eradicated by blowing them up.
The staff left the auditorium gobsmacked, shaking their heads. THIS is what the blood, sweat and tears amounted to? I felt distanced because I had comics work to go home to. I was, I guess that's how they make 'em here.
Work continued, even more aimlessly than before. Story changes were an everyday occurrence. Yes, Ralph is an idea man with too many ideas, always changing and being supplanted. I think he's too impatient. Gets bored with one concept and deviates until the ideas don't hook up together. This lack of discipline worked to the benefit for FRITZ and HEAVY TRAFFIC because they were a series of vignettes. COOL WORLD had a story that never really had a conclusion.
