​Like stepping on Legos, dropping one’s ice-cream, or standing near freshly chopped onions, the animated feature film Bambi (1947) is sure to draw some tears. Its success and historical influence can be found in our emotional connection with the young deer protagonist. This connection to the audience is accomplished through realism. But saying “real” only means what the audience feels to be real. Bambi embodies what the audience imagines deer to look like with a tacked-on personality. If Bambi had been rendered fully realistic, there would be no acting potential (Thomas and Johnston 332). However, to get this feeling of what feels real, the animators had to go to great lengths to learn and discover what was real (Beck 83). This is what made Bambi a historical turning point for animators. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston wrote in their book The Illusion of Life, “When learning to draw anything, it is important the artist go to the source” (332). When creating this film, the animators quickly realized how important it was for them to learn the anatomy and movement of their character. They would go to great lengths to learn as much as they could. For example, Disney had a live deer brought in for the animators to study, and they attempted to film the birth of a fawn (Thomas and Johnston 339). They would spend hours each day—and more on the weekends—trying to squeeze in time to learn about the animals in their scene. This in turn brought new life to their animations, and it changed people’s perspective on the importance of understanding what was real first.

​The film Bambi, because it is a historical turning point for the way animators approached their animations. This film brought about a realization of what brings life and appeal to a character. The animators of Bambi observed in their own work what could be achieved by studying the inner workings of animal anatomy. James Baxter, the world renowned character animator, while visiting SCAD told us that the reason he had wanted to work on Spirit was because of his desire to draw animals well. This desire came from what he had learned from the Bambi animators. Baxter mentioned that the animators who worked on Bambi—as compared to those who worked on Dumbo—where the ones who learned to draw realistically and who went on to do greater things. I would like to take this approach in my own work. It would be a great loss to ignore a method that so strongly brought Disney animations to life. While animation is not always based on pure realism, learning why things are the way they are will give us the foundation as animators to characterize our creations. The effect that the making of Bambi had on the animators stayed with them for the rest of their career (Cavalier), and it is something I see great value in adopting as well.



Works Cited

Bambi. Dir. David Hand. Walt Disney Productions. 1942. Film.
Beck, Jerry. Animation Art. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2004. Print.
Cavalier, Stephen. The World History of Animation. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011. Print.
Thomas, Frank and Ollie Johnston. The Illusion of Life. New York: Disney Editions, 1981. Print.

The Bambi Effect

There is a famous aphorism which states: “If you love something, let it go.” While it can be true that letting something go might be an ultimate end of affection, it can also be true that this act may be the very thing that kills it. Particularly, if that thing you love is a bird, and the thing that kills it is the hawk maliciously waiting outside your apartment window. When you let something go to be free, it is not always quite enough to simply “release it into the wild”. It must also be prepared to adapt and be set forth properly with leadership and upkeep. 

The act of committing art to becoming open source is very much the same. It is a choice that is often both revered and avoided in the artist community. A typical artist who spends a considerable amount of time bringing hard, sought after content into the world will most likely have the disposition to seek compensation for that time and effort spent. However, the artist that goes against this grain will often find this method to be unsustainable due to the nature of the open source’s common lack of a return profit. While this can be problematic to many artists, particularly to the un-established, it can have a tremendous effect on both the art community culture and the artist via means of non-monetary value.

After many productions, vast amounts of production work and assets can get archived, never to be seen or used again. From animation rigs to pipeline tools, once the project reaches the end, regrettably so do many of these assets. Rather than retain or archive production resources and intellectual property, I propose studios and artists freely release a selection of these elements to the creative community in what I will call a Bellwether. This method would go beyond just releasing an asset for free by creating goals and a clear intent as well. When a Bellwether is created and distributed, it will find new life outside the production, helping other artists, students, and studios alike, making the original creator a leader and trend setter in the industry. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a Bellwether as, “[O]ne that takes the lead or initiative; [L]eader.” And, as “an indicator of trends.” 


Jonathan DeLeon

The Bambi Effect

Open Source, Bellwethers, and Animation