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The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation Hardcover – Illustrated, October 19, 1995
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The authors, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, worked with Walt Disney himself as well as other leading figures in a half-century of Disney films. They personally animated leading characters in most of the famous films and have decades of close association with the others who helped perfect this extremely difficult and time-consuming art form. Not to be mistaken for just a "how-to-do-it," this voluminously illustrated volume (like the classic Disney films themselves) is intended for everyone to enjoy.
Besides relating the painstaking trial-and-error development of Disney's character animation technology, this book irresistibly charms us with almost an overabundance of the original historic drawings used in creating some of the best-loved characters in American culture: Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, Snow White and Bambi (among many, many others) as well as early sketches used in developing memorable sequences from classic features such as Fantasia and Pinocchio.
With the full cooperation of Walt Disney Productions and free access to the studio's priceless archives, the authors took unparalleled advantage of their intimate long-term experience with animated films to choose the precise drawings to illustrate their points from among hundreds of thousands of pieces of artwork carefully stored away.
The book answers everybody's question about how the amazingly lifelike effects of Disney character animation were achieved, including charming stories of the ways that many favorite animated figures got their unique personalities. From the perspective of two men who had an important role in shaping the art of animation, and within the context of the history of animation and the growth of the Disney studio, this is the definitive volume on the work and achievement of one of America's best-known and most widely loved cultural institutions. Nostalgia and film buffs, students of popular culture, and that very broad audience who warmly responds to the Disney "illusion of life" will find this book compelling reading (and looking!).
Searching for that perfect gift for the animation fan in your life? Explore more behind-the-scenes stories from Disney Editions:
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- Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney's Animation
- Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons, Revised Special Edition
- Disney Villains: Delightfully Evil - The Creation, The Inspiration, The Fascination
- The Art and Flair of Mary Blair: An Appreciation, Updated Edition.
- Reading age10 - 14 years
- Length
576
Pages
- Language
EN
English
- Grade level5 - 9
- Dimensions
10.7 x 1.4 x 11.4
inches
- PublisherDisney Editions
- Publication date
1995
October 19
- ISBN-100786860707
- ISBN-13978-0786860708
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Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Disney Editions; Subsequent edition (October 19, 1995)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 576 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0786860707
- ISBN-13 : 978-0786860708
- Reading age : 10 - 14 years
- Grade level : 5 - 9
- Item Weight : 6.28 pounds
- Dimensions : 10.66 x 1.4 x 11.39 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #14,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #15 in How to Create Anime & Cartoons
- #22 in Movie History & Criticism
- #25 in Art of Film & Video
- Customer Reviews:
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About the authors

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Oliver Martin "Ollie" Johnston, Jr. (October 31, 1912 – April 14, 2008) was an American motion picture animator. He was one of Disney's Nine Old Men, and the last surviving at the time of his death from natural causes. He was recognized by The Walt Disney Company with its Disney Legend Award in 1989. His work was recognized with the National Medal of Arts in 2005.
He was an animator at Walt Disney Studios from 1935 to 1978, and became a directing animator beginning with Pinocchio, released in 1940. He contributed to most Disney animated features, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia and Bambi. His last full work for Disney came with The Rescuers, in which he was caricatured as one of the film's characters, the cat Rufus. The very last film he worked on was The Fox and the Hound.
Johnston co-authored, with Frank Thomas, the reference book Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, which contained the 12 basic principles of animation. This book helped preserve the knowledge of the techniques that were developed at the studio. The partnership of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston is fondly presented in the documentary Frank and Ollie, produced by Thomas' son Theodore, who in 2012 also produced another documentary, Growing up with Nine Old Men, included in the Diamond edition of the Peter Pan DVD.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Janke at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
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I read this for the history with no intention of becoming an animator. However my doodles have improved a lot since I've been reading this.
I didn’t grow up with Disney movies. When I was a kid in the 70’s Disney was in kind of a slump with their animated films. I even remember reading something somewhere about how they would never get back the old magic. But I was still affected by Disney. I was in their “Record Club” for a short while. We also somehow had little plastic Disney character figures to play with (Kids - this was before Wal-Mart and China and the Internet) I still got to see Disney Illustrations everywhere and imagine the movies that were so famous in our culture.
Then later when Disney got it’s magic back (after this book was written) I went out on a date with a girl to see Beauty and the Beast. And then got married to that girl and we lived happily ever after. And we had kids that grew up with Disney on video. So I got to see what I missed. Thank you Disney you have made my life a dream come true! Ok it wasn’t all you.
Anyway about the book . . . It’s great history. Walt Disney doesn’t actually invent anything . . . but his workers do and he creates a whole new industry and world looking for magic . . . that “golden moment” that takes an audience to another place and leaves them feeling good. The book is extremely well written, wonderfully illustrated . . . but will cost you part of your life to read word for word.
I think the lessons learned in animating are good lessons for life. Look for what is inspirational and moving. Creative teamwork can bring results no one imagined. Keep moving, and keep people engaged. Make something beautiful that people feel a part of. The character and the story are the driving and meaningful factors.
So I feel happy and sad. Sad because maybe deep down I thought there was some real magic in Disney. Happy though, that the magic they were going for was after all, life. And life is pretty special.
It is not a how-to book but More to read and inform yourself about these amazing animators.
Book came in wonderful conditions and I had no problems. Definitely a very heavy book. The cover is beautiful and so is the detailing of the hardcover.
Overall happy with purchase ❤️
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2023
It is not a how-to book but More to read and inform yourself about these amazing animators.
Book came in wonderful conditions and I had no problems. Definitely a very heavy book. The cover is beautiful and so is the detailing of the hardcover.
Overall happy with purchase ❤️
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2019
As I grew older I was to learn that Pinnochio, along with Bambi, is regarded as among the very best, if not THE best of Disney animation. I have both these films on DVD, and any law abiding animation fan shouldn't be without them.
Nor should any animation nut be without this book. This is a most comprehensive, colourfully illustrated document of the why's and wherefore's of Disney animation.
While it goes into considerable detail, it is strictly speaking not a manual as such.
It is more designed as an insight into the mysteries of animation for the lay person, with more than enough to inspire and inform any potential animator. It covers the various aspects of the animation process, and the history of Disney animation. It is accompanied by ooddles, and oodles of full page colour photos, reproductions of animation sequences of famous Disney characters, diagrams, sections on each of the main Disney animators, and hilarious caricatures that animators did of each other.
This book is simply a "must have" for any Disney animation fan, or any animation fan period.
I am thrilled to have this book. It arrived in record time too, and well packaged.
Do yourself a favour, and get this. You'e GOT TO HAVE IT!
You won't be disappointed.
That being said, it's no wonder that this was a must-have in class. It's pretty wild that my school depended on this and only a couple of other books to teach our classes. In the end, animation's really about how much time and experience you have with it, but... If you wanna up your game in the field, this is one of the best books out there I can think of.
Good luck out there, guys!




















