Drawing 28/5

Screen Arts 28/5

World Animation 1920-1950

George Studdy was a UK pioneer in commercialisation of animation, created Bonzo the puppy during his stint making cartoon strips.

Fernand Leger from France used a technique of stopframe, live action and painting on film to create his avant-garde animations. Known for The Mechanical ballet(1924). Reminds me of Eadward Muybridges stuff.

Walter Ruttmann was a german creator that used abstract cinema for his art. Loved Hitler(what a dick) and died as a war photographer from wounds received. Worked with Lotte Reiniger on The Adventures of Prince Achmed(1925)

Lotte Reiniger is another german artist in the early 1920's. He created the first film that used a multiple plane camera to create a 2D animation with depth. His worked was destroyed in WWII, but a print later found and restored in 1970.

Hans Richter, friends with Viking Eggeling. Combined live action with animation and camera tricks to blur and create smears. Made minimalist, geometric abstract films in the 1920's.

Viking Eggeling worked in both Sweden and Germany producing both avante-garde films, and nazi propoganda in the 1930s-40s. He has a minor classic called Diagonal Symphony(1924).

Ladislaw Starewicz took 10yrs to make his first feature film The Tale of the Fox. Uses his signature animation style or humanised animals wearing clothes and standing upright. Used funding from Nazis  to create the soundtrack for the premier in 1937. Switched to a french soundtrack in 1941. Anti-Semitic, and based on Dutch and French folk tales.

Berthold Bartosch collab'ed with Lotte, Viking, Hans and Walter in Berlin. Moved to Paris in 1930. Used cutout drawings on glass layers to create his film The Idea based on a stylised woodcut book by Frans Masereel. His anti war film was destroyed in WWII ironically.

Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker created the Pinscreen device to produce relief shadow images when side lit as a new method for animation. Made Night on Bald Mountain(1932) which may have influenced the 1940 version of Fantasia.

Anthony Gross and Hector Hoppin created La joie de vivre(the joy of living) in 1934. Was an escapist film created just before the war. Began to create Around the World in 80 Days until the footage was lost during WWII.

Aleksandr Ptushko made New Gulliver in 1935 as an adaptation of the original Gullivers Travels. using 3000 puppets. Russia at the time highly encouraged its film makers to create moralistic works, and inject pro soviet propaganda into kids films.

Ivan Ivanov-Vano created The Little Humpbacked Horse(1947) during the time of using Rotoscope to use live actors movements and translating it to animation(called the Eclair system). This system was abandoned in favour of cel animation.

Oskar Fishinger. In 1933 the Nazis banned "degenerate art"(modernist/abstract art). While most animators stopped working or left Germany, Fishinger continued, calling his work decorative to bypass the policy. Created tobacco commercials, and also spent time at Disney, Paramount and MGM studios.

Norman McLaren used different techniques, including the drawing on film technique that NZer Len Lye pioneered.

Halas & Batchelor were a married couple that contributed to the british war effort with propaganda films. Their studio experimented with all sorts of techniques ranging from paper cutouts to computer animation. Produced over 2000 films.

Larkins Studio, owned by Bill Larkins in 1940 to produce training films during WWII. His studio spearheaded the trend towards stylised, simplified animation. T for Teacher in 1947 was a film showing how to make a proper cup of tea using rations, in a progressive animation style for its time.

Wan Brothers created Chinas first animated short in 1924 called Uproar in the Studio. They produced several protest films when Japan invaded in 1937. The first animated feature film was Princess Iron Fan(1941) inspired by Snow White.

Kenzo Masaoka created the first Japanese animation with sound in 1933, and the first fully cel animation in 1934. Made The Spider and the Tulip in 1943, and got reprimanded because it contained no propaganda during WWII.

In 1936, Toy Box: Picture Book(also known as Momotaro vs Mickey Mouse) was part of a series of propaganda cartoons trying to motivate the Japan military resources against USA.

I still dont really understand the abstract animations. To me it just seems like they took a triple dose of LSD and dumped all their mental diarrhea out into film/animation and called it art. I most definitely prefer films/animations that have a clear idea/story behind them, maybe Im too logical to get it lol.

Screen Arts 28/5

How Aladdin Changed Animation (by Screwing Over Robin Williams)

A video essay essentially on how before Aladdin, animated movies were sold on their merits, storyline and characters. For Aladdin however, the writers created the personality of Genie based off of Robin Williams stand-up comedy act.  Robin agreed to voice him, with the proviso that he wasnt used as a merchandising tool to promote the movie. Unfortunately for him, he was the biggest star to voice a character to date, and so Disney worked the grey area to get around this proviso. Due to the success of Aladdin at the time, Disney cartoons became more about the big name stars they could attract, than the story itself. It took many many years and a dismissal to heal the rift, at which point Disney began to return to the original method of focusing more on the story/character than what A-List stars it could attract. Despite this being an opinion piece, I found it interesting to hear about the controversy behind this film from my childhood, and the effect it had on animations at the time.

Principles 27/5

catch up class today. time to get my walk cycles done! Doing the reverse of the first 4 frames is proving trickier than I thought originally. Something about the 3/4 perspective is just throwing me off. I think I need to try and find more examples to get a better understanding of what to do.

Research 27/5

How to Write a Literature Review in 30mins or less - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdJxY4w9XKY

Principles 23/5

4 frames of the 3/4 walk done. Ruby was right, the angled grid (in green) makes a huge difference in terms of foot placement and matching the angles. I ended up restarting due to my first attempt not having the perspective in the feet, and them all matching one single line. Should only take me a couple more hours to get the walk done, then onto line art with my character instead of sketch man. Amazing what a little bit of success does for the motivation!

Storyboard 22/5

Music and soundfx. Spent the whole class trying to find the sounds i want for my piece. I think Ive got most of the tracks i want, I just need to add them to the animatic to figure out the blank areas and what I could fill them with.