Here is an interesting You Tube documentary on View-Master, and specifically on their Disney sets. The methods used look to be similar to those used for the Golden Books Lenticular Fairy Tale books that were covered recently.
With the animated Disney films, instead of using images from the cartoons themselves, the scenes were sculptured in clay by various artists. Then two photographs were taken from slightly different positions, to create a stereoscopic image.
The documentary shows these photographic set-ups, and the artists who created them. Similar techniques were used for the View-Master fairy tales, Bible stories, and other sets.
Paul Adams from New Zealand
Fascinating! I loved those Viewmaster images as a kid.
ReplyDeleteI experimented with making a 3D comic around the turn of the century. I mostly composited flat B&W illustrations to be viewed through red/blue anaglyph glasses. But for the last page, the story turns into full clour and I sculpted up dimensional figures that I then photographed with a sliding camera rig I made specially.
I'd like to make my own View Master reels, but the prices these days, for transferring digital images to traditional film stock is stratospheric!
Also, as with a lot of my dreams, I need the "content" first!
Maybe I could fire off some extra 3D setups when I get around to filming my puppets!
That sounds like a good idea - you have already done more than 90% of the work.
ReplyDeleteI always wondered why View-Master used models instead of the original artwork for its cartoons - this video explained all that.
A lot of the early space viewmaster sets, such as Man on the Moon and the excellent 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea, use models to great effect. Some of them look like adapted GI Joe figures, but the majority are custom models and effects. Wonderful stuff! Bill
ReplyDeleteMy folks kept lots of stuff from my childhood, including a movie viewer that still has a couple of Disney cartoon sorts and a short Herbie film, all in working order, my kid loves them!!
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