SMFA Animation

Pas de Deux

2011-04-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

Where would we be without Adobe today? How could we possibly manipulate images?Well, in case you have already forgotten--I know I sometimes do--it bears mentioning that people have been doing the same things we're doing with Photoshop long before Photoshop came along.Norman McLaren's "Pas de Deux" (1968) is truly a masterpiece of image manipulation. The title is the name of a type of ballet dance

North American Film Festivals and the Fate of Animators

2011-04-21T02:36:00.000-07:00

I've been to the Ottawa International Animation Film Festival twice now, and it's given me a tiny peek into how people find work and get noticed in the independent animation community. Cards are exchanged, demos are handed out, promotions are held and there are competitions even for high school and undergraduate students just starting out. It struck me as very healthy to the community of artists

"The only thing was to stay at home and wait for it to happen" Caroline Leaf - The Street

2011-04-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

After watching the hand-crafted animations of Caroline Leaf , I felt intrigued. There was something so therapeutic about her work, the color scheme, the music and sound effects. I enjoyed how her art told a clear story about the loss of a loved one, dealing with the death and the family's reaction. I wish that there was more animation made in this style today, even as a young adult I would watch

Confronting Death

2011-04-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

The dynamic, beautiful animation When the Day Breaks addresses the emotional turmoil of a young female anthropomorhpic pig character. She witnesses the death of a total stranger and the experience sends her reeling. In the aftermath she puts the death in quiet perspective through an animated exploration of the city in which she lives, including to the dwelling of the stranger who was killed.The

This little Piggy went to market, This little Piggy wishes she had stayed home

2011-04-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

When the Day Breaks is a cartoon animation, with a theme that uses the song, and a plot that uses it as a double-entendre. It begins with a Chicken, who finishes his breakfast, and goes to the store to buy more lemons, and biscuits. Meanwhile, over on the other side of town, a cheerful Pig sings the song’s title to herself as she peels potato skins for her breakfast. As she

There Will Be A TIme When We'll Be Nostalgic About This.

2011-04-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

The thing that I respond to most in A Letter To Colleen is the frankness of the time and place. This could have been any suburban home in America. Even though this took place in the early '90's when people wore baggy Jenco's and Kathleen Hanna was getting into fights with Courtney Love; the story of testing out boundaries is timeless. Being young thinking everything at the moment is so important

Post-Oscar

2011-04-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

In searching the internet for more information on Frank Mouris, I discovered very little past what I already knew of his Oscar-winning animation: Frank Film, made in 1973. I did happen upon a website taken from the April of 1999 issue of Animation World Magazine titled On Winning an Oscar. The article interviewed Frédéric Back, Gene Deitch, Faith Hubley, Tyron Montgomery, Jimmy Picker, and

The Animator Who Flattened Bambi

2011-04-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

Marv Newland started his animation career in LA with the animated short Bambi Meets Godzilla in 1969. from here he animated commercials for a short period of time lasting until he moved to Canada. While there, he worked on animated advertisements for Sesame Street and Educational Television. He also worked on pieces of longer films. He co-designed and story-boarded "Super Joe." He did other

Norm McLaren's Neighbors

2011-04-20T11:04:00.001-07:00

Norm McLaren was born in Stirling Scotland in 1914. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art. His earlier works involved scratching the enamel off of film and painting on it. Two of his earlier films won several prizes at the Scottish Amateur Film Festival.McLaren moved to New York just before World War II, and asked to join the National Film Board of Canada a few years later. In 1952, McLaren

Martha Colburn's World of Anarchy

2011-04-18T11:26:00.000-07:00

Stills from Martha Colburn's "Myth Labs" 2008Martha Colburn is one of my favorite contemporary animators, and having been able to see her work and listen to her speak at the Museum School last semester was definitely a highlight of my academic career at the Museum School. My favorite animation by Colburn is "Myth Labs" (2008) and "Dolls VS. Dictators VS. Deerhoof VS. Evil" (2010). Her marriage

The Draw of the Dark and Mysterious

2011-04-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

Polish artist Walerian Borowczyk is not too well-known today. Or perhaps he is, though not necessarily for his animated short films. Trained in painting at the Academy of Fine Art in Krakow, Borowczyk first earned public attention as an artist through his poster designs for cinema features, which earned him a national award in 1953.Soon thereafter he found his way to animation, and produced some

Michaela Pavlatova

2011-04-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

Early Czech animators were faced with the misfortune of Soviet censors scrutinizing their work. Michaela Pavlatova was fortunate enough to miss these times in Czech history, but they are evident in her work in other ways. Absurdity and sexuality seem to be a response to the "sphere of personal relationships rather than the Communist State" in her work. Michaele Pavlatova has claimed that real

2011-04-13T22:57:00.000-07:00

Igor Kavalyov is an animator born in Ukraine in 1963 at the time part of the USSR. Igor animated a short in 1990 called Yego zhena kuritsa. I haven't any idea what the piece means however I am in love with the illustrative treatment and the kinetic residue on even the stillest of frames. In moments of stagnancy the animation still jets color about abstractly within its strong graphic containers

Bjork has good taste.

2011-04-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

Revisiting an old tidbit of information from a previous animation course, "Human Behavior", the music video to the song of the same title by singer Bjork, gives little nods to the classic short film "Hedgehog in The Fog". The references, most notably the hedgehog running through the woods, the setting, and the small hint of the latter's musical score, are neat to see in the more current piece.

The Quay Brothers: The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer

2011-04-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

The image above is a still from The Quay Brothers' animation The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer (1984). In a world of banal objects and structured environments a series of events both surreal and unexpected are wielded into the world by these objects. In dissecting the structure and mind of Jan Svankmajer, The Quay Brothers (pictured below) create a clever dialogue with the master animator, but also

Mythology and the Uncanny

2011-04-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

The use of mythology has been a constant theme in our class. In Harpya(Harpy) an extremely creepy and unreal short made by Raoul Servais. In the Greek Mythology Phineas who had the gift of prophecy angered Zeus by revealing too much of the future. He was punished by being blinded and left stranded on an island with a large buffet of food which he could never eat. The harpies always swooped in and

Priit Pärn

2011-04-13T19:10:00.000-07:00

Born in Estonia in 1946, Priit Pärn is one of the most recognized animators from the area. Although art and animation were not Pärn's first profession, he always found time to draw. His drawing were featured in local papers and he eventually was asked to work with Rein Raamat on the film Kilplased. After this experience, Pärn directed his own film, called Is the earth round? In the years

Jan Svankmajer

2011-04-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

Jan Svankmajer is a Czech artist known for his unique surreal animations. He attended the College of applied Arts in Prague as well as the Department of Puppetry at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts. The study of puppetry greatly influenced his animation works; especially with the use of stop motion. Svankmajers animations are amazing examples of the stop motion technique and often

Raoul Servais

2011-04-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

Raoul Servais, an independent film maker "The Magician from Onsted" earned a world famous reputation. In 1963 Servais attended The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, this school has produced many animators and film makers who soon made it to The United States of America. Servais felt comfortable there because of a teacher named Albert Vermerien . Servais' first camera was made out of a cigar-box , but

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

2011-04-13T17:28:00.000-07:00

Jiri Trnka’s The Hand is a puppet animation with a theme equivalent to the Twilight Zone. It is a story about an artist who makes ceramic pots, so that when the pot for his beloved plant breaks, he can replace it with another one. Here he lives his peaceful life, devoid of any awareness to events that would be taking place in the world outside. But then, he suddenly hears a noise coming from the

2011-04-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

Yuriy Norshteyn was born during a World War II evacuation in Penza Oblast. He studied at an art school, but his first career was working in a furniture factory. He soon took a two year animation course, though, and was able to find work at an animation studio. He was involved with the animation for the 1962 film "Who Said Meow?" He would work on about 50 films before getting the opportunity to

Lenica and the Grotesquery of Ubu Roi

2011-04-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

There are some high quality images from Jan Lenica's animation film, "Ubu et le Grande Gidouille," posted on one of my favorite image-sites, 50watts.com. The explosive, grotesque and surreal theatre work by Alfred Jarry is an inescapable one, revisited and re-made numerous times by the creative minds it attracts. Lenica's own aesthetic makes it his own, especially with his strong and bold, yet

Self Reflexivity, Modernism, and the American Cartoon

2011-04-07T04:38:00.001-07:00

While reading Norman M. Klein's Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon, one aspect that was fascinating was Klein's relations between the modern constructs of painting and the advent of modern American animation. The major characteristic that makes both a painting and an animation modern is self-reflexivity (as seen in the 1863 painting Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (The

Disney World

2011-04-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

Both Warner Brothers and Disney are incredible forces in film. Perspective on the origins and development of these major studios is incredible. Disney's successive failures before professional success. The bouts with Disney and his employes to the crossovers of staff to Warner Brothers. Considering the volume of internal drama its remarkable the amount of work that was produced, the stability

The Art of Going Off-Model

2011-04-06T22:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, so, I was going to start off by linking to an old post from John K.'s blog (the creator of Ren and Stimpy, the Ripping Friends, George Liquor, and renowned misogynist/bitter has-been), but not only can I not find the post, looking through all his remaining posts about Bugs Bunny it became evident I wasn't going to find anything nearly as relevant to the topic I wanted to touch on. It was

Tane?

2011-04-06T21:59:00.000-07:00

In a more sound-related post, I was suddenly reminded yesterday of a website a friend of mine made as an experiment of sound, animation, collaboration and interactivity. He took a meaningless word, being TANE, and decided to run with it, asking other artists to contribute to a growing maze of little puzzles, personally mixed music, quirky art and silliness. If you'd like to know who's behind it

Sitting Ducks: Duck Amuck and Existentialism

2011-04-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

In first reading about animation I found it interesting to learn just how much philosophy visually influenced the artistic styles of the animators. Cartoons of the 1950's reflected existential themes through the animators stylistic approach: "empty landscapes" of flat planes and a nigh on minimalist style featuring dark, saturated colors and heavy shadows. Though the landscapes of animations done

Catch Me If You Can

2011-04-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

This past week we all watched some prime examples of chase scenes in classic Looney Tunes and Tex Avery cartoons that utilized the chase scene as a crux for gags and emotions. It is not hard to understand why the chase is easily one of the most used gags. From laughing at the constant flummoxing of the dim-witted-single-focus-instigators, to off-kilter genius that is used by the prey to get away

Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-... That's all, folks

2011-04-06T17:54:00.000-07:00

Porky Pig was designed in 1935 by animator Bob Clampet. Porky the pig had a minor role in the film I Haven't Got a hat. During this time Porky's stutter became famous. The man behind the stutter was Joe Dougherty who actaully had a stuttering problem. The stutter became a nuisance, the production costs of recording became expensive andwould take hours. Mel Blanc took Doughetry's place where he

"Hmm that's funny, just all of a sudden I don't quite feel like myself!"

2011-04-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

Clip from "Duck Amuck". Image was taken from www.thelmagazine.comThe classic Daffy Duck episode, “Duck Amuck” is a cartoon both hilarious to cartoon lovers, and terrifying to cartoon ducks! The cartoon originally starts off as a spoof of “The Three Musketeers”, starring Daffy Duck. He lunges into the first scene, with his rapier in

"Ain't I a Stinker?"

2011-04-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

Chuck Jones is the only director to have three films deemed "culturally significant" by the United States and selected for preservation by the National Film Registry. Among these films is "Duck Amuck" (among "What's Opera, Doc?" and "One Froggy Evening"). The movie was released in 1953, during what is generally considered Warner Bros.' golden age. And, truly, it is a masterpiece--at least in my

Dali Tribute

2011-04-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

Appropriately set to a song titled "Dali" from Bernard Fevre's 2009 album The Strange New World Of Bernard Fevre, a youtube video plays Warner Bros. 1938 short film Porky in Wackyland and its 1949 color remake Dough for the Do-Do side-by-side to easily compare the changes made. Taking place in a Salvador Dali inspired world, the introduction of color allows for more obvious references to Dali's

A brief history of the Warner Brother's and the Looney Tunes

2011-04-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

The Warner (Wonskolaser) Brothers, who were born in Poland, started in the movie business by opening a small theater in 1903. Harry (born Hirsch), Albert (born Abraham) and Sam (born Schmuel) called their theater The Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania. Then in 1904, the brothers, now including Jack (born Jacob), started began a a company that distributed films. This soon lead the brothers to

What's Up Doc?

2011-04-02T12:46:00.000-07:00

The creation of Bugs Bunny stemmed from the Disney character Max Hare, a popular 1930s Disney figure who received an Academy Award in 1934. The first cartoon involving Bugs was a short film directed by Ben Hardaway (who's childhood nickname had been Bugs) and Cal Dalton in 1938 called Porky's Hare Hunt. In this cartoon, Bugs is not afraid of being hunted down, but instead makes a game out of it.

Visualizing a Migraine Headache- Abstract Animation as a Force for Description of Human Experience

2011-03-30T23:06:00.000-07:00

Watching abstract animations reminded me heavily of trying to explain what a migraine can "look" like from the affected brain. As someone who suffers from frequent migraines, sometimes triggered by light or flashing, I can speak from personal experience as to there being a noticeably different visual experience from the brain experiencing normal function, to a brain under the affects of a

Pixilation

2011-03-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

Pixilation is a type of stop-motion animation that uses people instead of things such as objects or puppets. One of the earliest experiments with this form of art was in 1909, when Segundo de Chomón created a comedy-fantasy called, El hotel eléctrico. The film is a surreal short that depicts a suit case unpacking and furniture rapid swirling around in a room. The film was a part in several

Particles

2011-03-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

After the screening of abstract animation, I couldn't help but think of the influence these experimental, explorative works had on special effects in filming. Abstractions are and integral part of reality, reality is after all an intricate pattern of abstraction. Layering these abstract techniques on top of film would make for infinite possibilities in the realms of both natural and super natural

Norman McLaren's Soundscapes and the use of Jazz in Abstract Animations

2011-03-30T19:27:00.000-07:00

The still above is from Norman McLaren's (1914-87) animation, Neighbours, from 1952. Although in itself it is not a non-objective abstracted animation, the soundtrack functions in itself as a form of abstracting the visual dialogue that unfolds throughout the duration of the animation. With bleeps and bloops that form an electronic soundscape the piece easily dissolves into a wordless dispute

L'Illusionniste 2010, A Love Letter from Tati

2011-03-30T19:19:00.000-07:00

After doing some research and coming up with nothing too remarkably sound-related, I found I couldn't focus on anything after I saw L'Illusioniste last Thursday at Kendall Square Cinema. I first saw advertisements for the film, directed by Triplets-famed Sylvain Chomet, while studying abroad in Paris, and it was unfortunately so close to the end of my stay that I couldn't see it there in a

Line Dance

2011-03-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

Renown Canadian animator Norman McLaren made this short titled "Begone Dull Care" in 1949. Set to Oscar Peterson's jazz ensemble, it does a phenomenal job at visualizing music using simple means. McLaren scratched right onto film to create these great images.Though the whole piece is totally worth watching, the part I like best begins at 3:32. A number of white lines do a sort of dance against a

Mary Ellen bute

2011-03-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

Mary Ellen Bute was one of the first female abstract animators. She first studied painting in Philadelphia but felt this medium did not enable her to use light in the way she desired.She then studied stage lighting at Yale University where she took great interest in the color organ ( a device that demonstrates how sound influences light colors) eventually creating her own. From that point Bute

John Whitney

2011-03-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

John Whitney is sometimes called the father of computer animation. Although he started by making films on 8mm, and in 1939, he and his brother, James, began to make more abstract films. One of their pieces, Five Film Exercise, was given the first place prize at the International Experimental Film Competition in 1949.Whitney, having been an inventor and having experience with computers, used these

Beyond the Caribbean Islands

2011-03-30T17:07:00.000-07:00

Out of the many things to love from this wondrous bit of animation I find myself drawn to how the selected muisc really complimented the animation. As opposed to what I felt was the strange proto-darkwave/industrial music of Diagonal Symphony. The pairing of the Afro-Caribbean sounds of Don Baretto with an abstract animation that matches the energy of the music that I associate with my childhood

Why Momotaro?

2011-03-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

The story of Momotaro is a beloved bit of folk lore in Japan. It is a story that combines a bit of Moses and a coming of age story. Momotaro is a child of the heavens transported in a peach, which a poor elderly couple were about to eat until the child talked informing them about his origins. When Momotaro turned fifteen he wanted to do something to help his country and set off to Onigashima or

I see Skies of Blue, Clouds of white, Bright blessed day, when I listen to tunes, and I think to myself… “what a colorful view!”

2011-03-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

Synesthesia is a rare, yet incredible condition, which allows the individual with said condition to literally see sound! Being somebody with mild Synesthesia, I get a taste of it whenever I listen to music, so I know automatically what to picture when Synesthesia is brought up; but for those of you without the condition, mild, or full blast, what I found to be the most

Oskar Fischinger's Lumigraph

2011-03-30T04:07:00.000-07:00

Being an abstract animator, Oskar Fischinger wanted a machine to help him make spectacular light arrangements to be paired up with music. He invented the Lumigraph, a type of "color organ," a term describing a wide array of electromechanical machines that were capable of producing visuals in accordance with sound. These machines had a variety of ways of doing so. "Color Organ" was a name that

Fran the Man's Sketchbook Animation

2011-03-29T05:14:00.000-07:00

Fran Krause is a fab animator and he has a fun way of getting tan-minimalist animators out into the wild (so to speak.) Check out his film and then his "how I made it" videos! And don't forget to visit his site, too!

2011-03-16T22:39:00.000-07:00

Kihachiro Kawamoto's 1979 short, Kataku, amalgamated a variety of different animation styles including puppetry, stop motion, and hand drawn. The contrast of aesthetics creates a complex dynamic that gives the viewer a sense of atmosphere and depth.Today, combining animation techniques is common with popular japanese animation. There are a great deal of animated works that rely on the layering of

Yōji Kuri/Shin Chan?

2011-03-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

Yōji Kuri is an animation artist most known for his work during the 1960's and is known to be of large importance to the history of animation. Known to be dark humored, independent and minimal artist, his work seems to capture a disturbing perspective of love and sex. Some such films as Human Zoo(1960) and Ai-Love (1963) depict this type of imagery and end fairly quickly. The time range for

Multi-Plane Camera on Bald Mountain

2011-03-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

The Multi-plane Camera was invented by Walt Disney and gave clear advantages to creating depth and more of a cinematic look. The technique was first used with experimentations and then to film Snow White (1937). Later in 1940 the camera was used to capture Fantasia. A segment from the film, Night on Bald Mountain, was also filmed with this technique and wasgiven a distinct look compared to

Shan Shui & Feelings from Mountan and Water

2011-03-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

Shan Shui is a traditional form of Chinese painting. The subject matter is often very serene depicting natural scenery usually including mountains and water. The paintings are very organic utilizing soft brushstrokes and earthy colors. Shan Shui was like a form of meditation as well as a spiritual experience. The artist pays close attention to their personal thoughts on nature rather than the

Ladislaw Starewicz & Today

2011-03-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

In Ladislaw Starewicz's The Cameraman's Revenge (1911), a grasshopper seeks revenge on a beetle by filming the beetle's wrong doings and projecting them for others to see. The early stop-animation gives a glimpse at a world of bugs similar to the more recentPixar film A Bug's Life (1998). The two films are somewhat similar in that the bugs live in a somewhat human-like society. Although it is not

Past & Present: Animation-Hallucination

2011-03-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

More..There have been many advances and changes to animation, but somethings still remain in the art today. Emile Cohl's The Hasher's Delirium (1910), translated in one way or another, the hallucinations of Absinthe. Using abstract shapes and lines, the pictures seem to flow in and out of one another. Animation seems to be if not one of the best devices to translate the abstract and unknown,

Yoji Kuri

2011-03-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

Kuri began his career as a cartoonist. His work is artistically varied. In 1960 he started his own independent studio where he used a 35 mm animation camera. In 1961 Human Zoo won the bronze metal at the Venice Film Festival. Winning the bronze metal set of Kuri's career. In 1967 he launched the film The Room . The film s only 5 minutes long , it was shot frame by frame in an admixture of

American Influence on Early Japanese Animation

2011-03-16T17:56:00.000-07:00

In 1914, Emile Cohl's "Fantasmagorie" was screened in Japan. It was really the first animation people in Japan got to see. For this reason, it remained an inspiration to artists pioneering the genre.The influence of American animation can also be traced in Japanese animation. As the Fleischer animation gained popularity in the USA during the 1930s, the Fleischer films were soon also introduced to

Momotaro's Child Soldiers

2011-03-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

Momotaro's Sea Eagles's, a feature length propagandistic animation was intended to explain the events of Pearl Harbor to the Japanese youth of the 1940's. In posterity, the animation speaks to an intersection between child rights and warfare, an issue addressed in the United Nation's Millenium Development Goals. Momotaro's Sea Eagles sheds light on a historical instance of the involvement of

Tengu, scourge of the skies… and people with protruding lumps on their faces

2011-03-16T15:35:00.000-07:00

Painting of a winged Tengu, and a Buddhist Monk. Image was found on Wikipedia.comThe Tengu are an ancient spirit creature from Japanese, and Buddhist myth. They have taken on many forms, from flaming comets, to red faced bearded men with unusually large noses. Originally, the Tengu were known as Tiangou, and were portrayed as fierce, canine-like creatures, which would fly

Takashi Murakami: Superflat

2011-03-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

As a fan of japanese animation since middle school (when I was a horrible nerd, even more so than today), it's interesting to see modern anime versus its beginnings, as well as the impact it's had on both western culture and its own. That being said, it's especially fascinating seeing contemporary artist Takashi Murakami's commentary on these cultural phenomena, and more specifically the

Themes of Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

2011-03-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

Hayao Miyazaki's began created Nausicaa in manga form in 1982. He finished the last chapter of the manga in 1994, spending his time in between working on Studio Ghibli films. In 1984, after reading the first few chapters of the manga, Miyazaki was asked if he wanted to make Nausicaa into a film. Miyazaki originally refused the offer. He then agreed, but only if he could direct the film.Nausicaa

Osamu Tezuka: Jumping

2011-03-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

Osamu Tezuka's short animation, Jumping, is a wonderland of industrialized eye-candy. The palette of this animation is more sophisticated than many of the palettes that were existing in animation before this time in the sense that there was more variation in texture and detail with concern to mark, but also, the idea that color was being used not only to highlight space, but was a source that

Momotaro no Umiwashi

2011-03-12T07:52:00.000-08:00

"Momotaro no Umiwashi" is Japanese for Momotaro's Sea Eagles. This film was created in 1942 as a propaganda film. It is rather disturbing because of the appearance of the pilots of the Japanese planes. they seem like they could be stuffed animals and yet they are climbing into fighter planes to wreak havoc. This film was not quite long enough to be called a feature film. However, it's sequel,

Winsor McCay's Lusitania

2011-03-12T06:48:00.000-08:00

Winsor McCay's The Sinking of the Lusitania was created because there was no footage of the disaster. It has it's desired effect, which was to portray the horror of the event to the public. As the author of the article I read pointed out, during the film there are many scenes which depict the whole ship instead of a section of it. This strategy informs the audience that this was no small fishing

American Cartooning In World War II: A Sociological Approach

2011-03-10T05:01:00.000-08:00

Its widely accepted that the most notorious villains of human history were Adolf Hitler and his Nazi army. Through the lens of American wartime cartoons, the serious, deadly reality of Hitler's regime is reduced to one of discomfort and a differing ideology portrayed as "bad". The animations focus around the experiences of healthy, able-bodied, white, cis-gender, heteronormative individuals.

Cartoon Wars

2011-03-10T03:19:00.000-08:00

During the Hight of World War II it was assumed everyone would "do their part". Including large animation studios. World War II was a battle on many different terrains. During the peak of the war varieties of media and arts were wagging war of a different aesthetic. Propaganda films were mass produced like weapons of a mental war. Disney, a prominent animation studio was being paid heavily to

Gremlins go to War

2011-03-09T19:30:00.001-08:00

Fifinella was the character developed by Roald Dahl for Walt Disney Productions featured in The Gremlins, a children's book. Published in 1943, The Gremlins tells the story of gremlins who are protecting their forest lands. The main role of Fifinella is to serve as a gremlin who prevents malfunctions in air combat that supposedly are caused by male gremlins who sabotage planes in order to

Political Correctness--what's that?

2011-03-09T19:18:00.000-08:00

"Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs"--This war-time animation from 1943 directed by Bob Clampett is truly an internet gem. There's hardly an animated short film on the internet that is as racist as this one, which is also why UPA added it to its notorious list of offensive shorts banned from being broadcast, the Censored Eleven (1968). Without meaning to defend this cartoon's potentially offensive

Tanks, Torpedos & Bomber-jackets: WAR & POP-CULTURE

2011-03-09T18:10:00.000-08:00

Desperate times call for desperate measures and Mickey's "gang" was the answer. During WWII, just like any war, there was mass amount of propaganda flickering across the globe; On one side one sees "purity" trying to triumph over the "weak" and on the other Mickey and the gang confronting the World's worst nightmare.The Disney characters were a main motivator for Americans to get in the war, but

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah !!!!!!

2011-03-09T17:37:00.000-08:00

Along with the WWII propaganda that Disney created in their cartoons, They also created a film called "Song of the South" (1946). Produced by the man himself , Walt Disney. The film is based on characters named Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit and his friends. In this film the famous song was Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah , which is still played in Walt Disney World/Land and also local convenience stores like

Disney during World War II

2011-03-09T17:09:00.000-08:00

During World War II the pressure for the allied forces to fight off the axis powers was at its height. But just as vital as it was to fend off the enemy, the military was also under extreme pressure to gain support from the people to continue the war. We all know of the bogus “Duck and Cover” campaign the military used during the 50’s to make people feel protected under the

Business American = Not Evil.

2011-03-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

A lot of what was watched in History of Animation last week can be compartmentalized by placing it in context of the times. I can understand that during war times and pre-civil rights people thought and acted differently to their fellow humans.. I hope that most people today do not condone the use of stereotypes to create antagonists, otherness, or like Larry the Cable Guy comedy. The use of

Private Snafu

2011-03-08T16:09:00.000-08:00

In the final years of World War II, Colonel Frank Capra, along with Ted Geisel (Dr. Suess) created a character named Private Snafu (Snafu in military terms stands for "Situation Normal, All F***ed Up"). Private Snafu was intended to be shown to all branches of the armed forces and provide entertainment as well as inform soldiers to remain weary of their efforts. Snafu was always used to show

The Appropriation of Icons, and Propaganda

2011-03-08T00:04:00.001-08:00

Growing off my post last week, mainly about how Betty Boop is such an icon in mainstream American culture that her image still appears frequently decades after her apparent height of popularity, I got to thinking about other pop culture (and specifically cartoon) characters that are still appropriated for various marketing and appeal purposes. If one goes to any large indoor mall, or major city

The Lusitania

2011-03-03T16:46:00.000-08:00

This large vessel was designed by Leonard Peskett for the Cunard Line in 1907. The name"Lusitania" comes from an ancient Roman province. The ship was designed with the latest technology in mind in order to help Cunard compete with other companies involved in the trans-Atlantic passenger trade. The Lusitania with the assistance of another ship, The Mauritania, was able to create a convenient

Diagnosing Popeye

2011-03-03T05:12:00.000-08:00

The Fleischer Brothers created a number of memorable and iconic cartoons that retain a historical relevancy even until today. Characters ilke Betty Boop and Popeye, some of their most famous original characters, were made popular by the social commentary utilized in their creation, utilization or characterization. Betty Boop was a hyper-sexualized femme who, throughout her misadventures, is

2011-03-03T04:45:00.000-08:00

David Oreilly is a contemporary English animator who has been collecting awards in film festivals around the globe for his work. Davids animations explore a spectrum of styles ranging from 2d-3d influenced and building on visuals found throughout animation history. The content is often an explosion of both violent and sexual concepts explored through cute characters a smart color palette and an

"I am what I am and that's all that I am!"

2011-03-02T20:50:00.001-08:00

'Gobs' of Work, the first appearance of PopeyePopeye the Sailor Man! He fights to the finish, cause he eats his spinach, and Bluto doesn’t stand a chance! But, he wasn’t always a cartoon, or even the main character! In fact Popeye was once a comic strip for Thimble Theatre, and wasn’t even a character at all until his first appearance in 1929. Now before I get into too much detail about his

Popeye: A Brief History

2011-03-02T18:53:00.000-08:00

Popeye started as a comic strip Elzie Segar in 1929. In 1933 Fleischer studios adapted the comic into a cartoon. Popeye became largely more accepted as an animated series than a comic strip, quickly becoming the most popular cartoon charter surpassing Mickey Mouse and Donald duck in ratings. The characters Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Bluto first made there appearance in a Betty Boop short entitled "

EAT YOUR VEGGIES, KIDS!

2011-03-02T18:29:00.000-08:00

Watching Popeye the Sailor when I was younger, I remember wanting to eat spinach, just like him. It's strange because aren't kids supposed to hate spinach? I mean, sure, Popeye eats it too, but is that enough to convince a little kid to eat the gross green stuff? Apparently so, because I still did.That makes me wonder what an immense impact such product placement can have. It's one thing to have

Wanna be a member?

2011-03-02T17:47:00.000-08:00

Back in the late 19th and early 20th century there was a movement towards the occult. Secretive organizations or orders devoted the hidden or forbidden knowledge. Today, people try to find any reason to connect Masons and other societies to politicians, performers and anyone else in the spot light. This tradition of lampooning fringe groups has been around longer than Scientology. There were

Mickey's Makeover (1938)

2011-03-02T17:25:00.000-08:00

In the year 1938 Mickey Mouse had a drastic makeover. The animators wanted to create characters that had similarities to themselves. Fred Moore was the animator who made changes to Mickey Mouse's head and his body shape. He was small, and had mouse-like features. Moore's design of Mickey Mouse is the classic Mickey Mouse we know today. In 1940, the public viewed the new Mickey Mouse in the

The Betty Boop Film

2011-02-28T23:57:00.000-08:00

Many, many many people do not know that a Betty Boop feature was in production back in '93. Fleischer Studios got about six months into production when Frank Mancuso took over MGM studios, and everything came to an abrupt halt. This is the only known footage available from the film that never was- an animatic for a musical sequence between Betty and her father. Like the old shorts, the producers

Referencing of animations on The Simpsons

2011-02-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

In the most recent episode of The Simpsons, Bart made his online flash animation into a short animated feature. This short was then nominated for several awards, such as an Academy Award, and Oscar and several others. The episode not only talks about animation and some of the basics of making a short film, but makes reference to some classic and big name animations as well. The "other nominees"

The Buzz

2011-02-19T10:05:00.000-08:00

To begin, I absolutely love Cab Calloway. From his grandiose "Hi De Hi De Ho's" to his leg shakes and exaggerated maestro flails, he was the epitome of 1930s swing jazz. I first saw him in the Fleischer Brothers' Minnie the Moocher clip from 1932. He learned his scat style of singing and performing from Louis Armstrong (Armstrong was also a frequent source of inspiration and a collaborator for

Superman

2011-02-17T14:27:00.000-08:00

In watching the lecture slide show today, I read that Superman was created by two teenagers. Being one myself, I found it inspiring that something so iconic was created by someone when they mere around my age. 1933 is the date of the earliest (remaining) sketch of Superman, drawn by Jerry Siegel who created the superhero with his friend Joe Shuster when they were 17. They told the public that the

The Old Mill

2011-02-17T04:40:00.000-08:00

Disney's 'The Old Mill' is an single-handed testament to Walt Disney's dedication to visually striking, well rendered, well written and mentally fascinating cartoons. As a child who watched Disney films, I was always seized by the visual experience, while not quite being able to appreciate quite why or how. As an art student looking back on my favorite Disney classics, and appreciating some newly

Multiplane

2011-02-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

The multiplane camera was an integral piece of animation equipment, creating an enormous sense of depth by separating elements based on a hierarchy dictated by foreground, middle ground and background. It instantly dated all effects and equipment prior to it, and could only be used by prominent studios that could afford the technology and had the space to house the massive unit. Its exciting to

How Sound Revolutionized Animation

2011-02-16T17:07:00.000-08:00

While Disney made his first experiments adding sound to shorts like "Plane Crazy," animators in Europe, like Oskar Fischinger, also experimented with sound in animation. Fischinger, an artist with a background in abstract painting, eventually found his way to animation as a way to enliven his paintings. Disney and Fischinger later crossed paths in working on Fantasia, Disney's grandiose feature

Music, Disney and appropriation.

2011-02-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

For most of Disney's work music is an integral part for many of the animated shorts and feature movies he helped produce. From the very beginnings of Mickey Mouse where his movements are synched up with the accompanying music. To when Disney crusaded to show animation as art and not something that can be casually thrown away as child's entertainment. He sought out to combine animation with

Steamboat Willie, and the Introduction of Mickey Mouse

2011-02-16T14:32:00.000-08:00

Scene from 'Steamboat Willy'. Image from http://www.cartoonreviewsite.com‘Steamboat Willie’, a comical film about a little mouse named Mickey, who works on a steamboat, under the command of the big and disgruntled Captain Pete. Feeling overworked Mickey decides to take a couple of breaks, and sings, dances, and plays music (occasionally at the expense of a couple of animal’s discomfort) and

Tangled

2011-02-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

Walt Disney Studios has a long list of achievements in the animation industry. They created the first animation in technicolor (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), in cinemascope (Lady and the Tramp), and large format animation (Sleeping Beauty). Disney Studios also made great strides when it came to digital processing and computer generated imagery.Most recently, Disney has made developments in

Mary Blair

2011-02-15T20:47:00.001-08:00

Mary Blair was a illustrator whose art was very influential in many Disney animated films. Her use of color and unique aesthetic brought a modern look to Disney animation. Mary's whimsical style had a authentic child-like quality in which Walt Disney loved.Mary started her career as an artist exhibiting watercolors. She then went on to work at Ub Iwerks studio before being hired at Disney in

Silly Symphonies

2011-02-15T17:55:00.001-08:00

Starting in 1929, the Walt Disney Production Company began to experiment with the idea that an animation could be made based on musical scores. The first Silly Symphonies were composed by Carl Stalling. 'The Skeleton Dance' was the first of the animations, it involves a group of four skeleton's waking up one evening and dancing to the sound of there own bones and the wind blowing through the

Margaret Winkler

2011-02-13T05:52:00.000-08:00

Margaret J. Winkler initially worked as a secretary for Warner Brothers. For the better part of the period of silent films, Warner Brothers served as a film distributor. However, in 1917, the company began the distribution of cartoons such as Mutt and Jeff. When the creators of the series "Out of the Inkwell" approached the company with their series, Harry Warner, who was Winkler's boss,

Song of the South and Ub Iwerks' Storyboards

2011-02-10T21:01:00.000-08:00

Above is an image of Ub Iwerks who was a main man behind the creation of the Walt Disney empire. As I was researching Iwerks, I came upon storyboards from a Disney release called Song of the South (circa 1946), a live action and animated feature length film. I found some great details of what a storyboard of Iwerks' would actually look like at Cartoon Brew.com. In addition, this film is

HPO

2011-02-10T03:10:00.000-08:00

The surreal choreography of the dancing women directed by a delicate symphony screams Fantasia in Anthony Gross's La Joie de Vivre. I was curious to learn whether Gross's subsequent animations as strongly reflected his Disney influence. In my search I happened upon a site from the UK, a site of the history of British film. I proceeded to watch a 1938 animation by Lotte Reiniger 'HPO' (Heavenly

Character Design/Early Cartooning In ‪Ladislas Starewicz‬'s the Devil's Ball

2011-02-09T21:34:00.000-08:00

Can we just talk about ‪Starewicz‬'s character design for a minute? It is AWESOME.He's developed a style and animation language all his own, just at the dawn of animation history. ‪His rendition of Satan is borderline iconic.The execution, attention to detail, expressive movements and depth of thought put into the Satan character is indicative of Starewicz‬'s mastery of animation as an art

"L'Idee" (1931): A Fantastic Short in both Theme and Technique

2011-02-09T21:27:00.001-08:00

L'Idée (1932)Uploaded by Tomsutpen. - Check out other Film & TV videos.Artist Berthold Bartosch, born in Bohemia, created his most well-know animated short film "L'idee" ("The Idea") in 1931, after moving to Paris in 1930. He based his animation on woodcuts by Flemish artist Frans Masereel. The opening words are taken from Masereel's prologue to his book, which included the woodcuts. The basic

Oskar Fischinger

2011-02-09T18:40:00.000-08:00

Oskar Fischinger was born in Gelnhausen, Germany in 1900. He had careers in painting, film making and abstract animation. Through out his lifetime, Fischinger made over 50 short animations.In 1921, Fischinger was introduced to Walter Ruttman, who made abstract films. He was inspired to experiment with coloured liquids, wax and clay. He developed a "Wax Slicing Machine", which was programmed to

Lust For Life

2011-02-09T17:23:00.000-08:00

The title of this posting is also the title of a great song from 1977 by Iggy Pop, but I felt it was an appropriate juxtaposition to the 1934 animation by Anthony Gross and Hector Hoppin by the title of La Joie de Vivre (The Joy of Life/ Zest for Life)--mainly due to the titles' similarities but also because of the embrace of youth. Anyhow, totally different time periods, completely different

You like it? I stole it!

2011-02-09T15:51:00.000-08:00

Upon viewing I was amazed by the similarities between this and Disney's rendition in Fantasia. To the point of one of my favorite Picasso quotes about appropriation: "If there is something to steal, I steal it". There is no doubt the Walt was exposed to this work. Fantasia followed Night on Bald Mountain around seven years later. Of course this could be attributed to the composition , which