How to tell what the animator animated

[OriginalGagBonkers]

I dont know if this question has been asked on here, but I will ask it anyways. Now I know that animators are required to make an animated feature. And I know that most of the time that in interviews and such its told what scene the animator animated. So does anyone know how to tell what the animator animated while watching the animated short and film?

[C. Siemens]

I dare say unless you're really, really into a particular animator's work and drawing style which is very distinctive and can't even be 'masked' by clean-up to look like the rest, the only way to know for sure is to check a feature's footage sheet. Those detail which artists were responsible for which scenes. Since such sheets are production-internal documents and usually not available to the general public, to come up with them is an equally difficult task, especially if the features or animated shorts are old.
Hans Perk from A.Film LA has a blog (http://afilmla.blogspot.com/) with many old footage sheets from Disney films.

[Rodney]

As Chris mentions having the draft or assignments is generally the best way but even there the results may vary. You may find that an animator had assistants do the majority of the work but their name is the one credited.

Did I read somewhere that you hang out with John K and crew? Some of the folks in that forum are pretty good at spotting the various artists (primarily for Warner Bros but for others as well). There are several websites that are devoted to identifying the animators involved in classic animation.

For the complete novice one effective method might be to make note of where the artistic styles in the film change. You could temporarily assign a title to each of these styles such as Animator A, Animator B etc. and then start listing things that are prevalent with that particular animator. This might consist of thickness of lines, methods of squash and stretch or preferences in movement or stylistic changes of a character. From there it is then a matter of researching who worked on the film and beginning to match the art with the animator. Once you've got enough evidence, statements from reliable witnesses, or expert testimony you then replace the temporary title with the animator's name.

It's a great way to learn about some of the great animators of old but remember that even the experts are fooled occasionally. In such cases where the animator isn't known you can always identify your best guess (pending more research) and then move on to the next sequence.

Note that with today's CG animation this task is a bit more complicated as we must focus on identifying differences in performance without the tell tale signs of stylistic drawing of the characters.