We’re all familiar with bloopers in films and TV series (especially the now-iconic Starbucks cup featured in one of the episodes of Game of Thrones earlier this year), but did you know that these kinds of mistakes can happen in animated films too? We presumed that it’s so easy to make corrections with animation, that we wouldn’t be able to find any bloopers, but we were wrong! So we wanted to share some of the best (or worst, depending on how you see it) bloopers that we’ve spotted.
It’s easy to see how these mistakes can be missed due to the sheer number of people working on each film, and each frame of a scene. These errors could also arise due to cuts being made in the animation.
Some errors may also be for aesthetic effect. For example, Sebastian in The Little Mermaid is red, which is probably just because the colour contrasts well with the surrounding ocean and also connects him with Ariel. However, there is one problem with Sebastian being red: there is only one variety of red crab in the world which can only be found near Christmas Island which is nowhere near where The Little Mermaid is set. The other issue is that the majority of the time when you see a red crab it means that it has been cooked (which would be quite a morbid character for a kids film).
Continuity is such an easy error to spot within any film, but particularly animated films. There are a series of errors in Finding Nemo, but one of the most obvious mistakes takes place in the Dentist’s office. When Nigel the Pelican flies into the Dentist’s office, there is a blank wall behind the dentist, next to the window, but when he flies out of the window, there is suddenly a giant green crocodile poster on the blank wall.
In Beauty and the Beast, we see that a portrait of Prince Adam has been slashed by the beast. However, the damage done to the painting changes in different scenes. When we first see the portrait the slash goes straight across Adam’s face and hairline. But in the next scene, the slash only goes across the lower jaw, allowing the viewer to see much more of the portrait.
The Lion King seems to be full of quite a few small mistakes. This could be because Disney put all of its top animators to work on Pocahontas, which was being released at the same time. Two of the most consistent continuity error through the film is the number of whiskers each lion has and the colour of their eyes. But one of the more obvious errors is the moment Simba scratched a hyena in the face, however, when we see the same hyena in the next shot there is not a single mark on its face.
Each frame in Monsters Inc that included Sully took 12 hours to produce because he was made of 2.3 million individual hairs, so it’s easy to see how a mistake could have been missed. One of the best examples of this is the moment when George Sanderson, one of the equally as hairy monsters, gets a child’s sock stuck to his back. When we first see the sock the toe of the sock is facing right, but when it is removed the sock has magically changed directions.
Shadows and reflections can also be a cause for error in a lot of animated films. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel and Eric are on a boat during ‘Kiss the Girl’ and Ariel has her hair down, but when we see her reflection on the water her hair is now in a ponytail. A similar problem arises in Frozen, when Anna and Hans dance in front of a lighthouse whilst singing, but, their silhouette on the sail of a ship depicts them floating.
In Toy Story 2, Rex and Hamm are watching TV when it suddenly cut out. When we see the TV from rex and Hamm’s perspective we can see that they are not shown in the reflection of the TV despite the rest of the room being visible.
One of the biggest problems we’ve had a giggle was when we created our Christmas card 2018. We had to ensure that everything matched up perfectly so that we could actually get the video to work. Here’s one of the first versions that Ed created, as you could see from this there was lots of work still to be done. To see the final version click here to check it out.
