I finally got myself a copy of the 101 Dalmatians Platinum Edition dvd. I have enjoyed almost all the Disney Platinum Series released so far. They usually pack them with great extras. There have been a few duds that have less emphasis on movie making while focusing more on games and songs redone by the latest Disney channel factory produced star. While I have not seen all the extras as of yet I have been pretty impressed so far. I really like the "fan facts pop up" version of the movie. Little Dalmatian spots pop up through out the movie giving little factoids. One pops up in the beginning credit sequence and asks "if you can spot the famous Mickey head icon?" within the spotted pattern background. Sure enough plain as day it was there. Yet I overlooked it the first time around. So if you enjoy things like that it is well worth it.
This is the first time in a Looooong time since I last saw it. I certainly was not studying animation the last time. I thought the human characters were animated amazingly well.
I think Disney's animators were in peak form during this era.
Another thing I like about this era was the use of the Xerography. This is where they would take the pencil sketches and xerox them straight onto the cels. So if you look you can can see the sketchy lines here and there from the pencil. I feel it created a certain raw energy not seen before. The main reason was to save money. They were able to draw a few puppies and xerox duplicates to give the appearance of a hundred and one dogs moving around. It would have been far too expensive and time consuming otherwise.
The last thing I will mention is about the backgrounds and use of color. There are some backgrounds that create such a great mood and feel.
Many background shots are so simplistic in terms of color.
Like the one to the right...the line work is very busy. However the colors stay very monochromatic to create a sense of warmth.