Major Post 8: Composition of Movement

Posted on by Sammy Liu

We looked at a lot of Experimental Animators this class:

Jules Engel worked in Fantasia – UPA – Paris –
Founder of the Experimental Animation Program, CalArts.
He was exploring an abstract or a commercial path.

Mary Ellen Bute worked with no camera, she drew directly on the frames of the film – which is tiny. She was one of the first female experimental filmmakers and believed that the general public would appreciate visual art as such, therefore convinced the Radio City Music Hall, NY, to screen her abstract films regularly, in the 1930s.

Her piece called Rhythm In Light (1934) was described as “a pioneer effort of new art form”, something to appreciate and respect. Her style consists of many geometric, 3D objects, as well as light being a major element, using reflections and refraction bounced off the prisms. These two features combined, along with her ‘mathematical system’ performed to create this piece, makes it visually very posh and refined.

In her next piece Escape, she introduces a more narrative production, with an orange triangle being the protagonist.
Other creations = Spook Sport (1939)

Len Lye (Leonard Charies Huia “Len” Lye from New York, was actually the first to use direct film, which stemmed from him being unable to afford a camera. I admire that story as he didn’t let lack of resources stop him from creating, instead it pushed him to think experimentally.

He is another example of a Fine artist transferring interest to being a film maker. This spurred when he moved to London and joined “Seven and Five Society”.

Len Lye’s other works include:
“The Colour Box”
“Rainbow Dance” (1936) – Silhouette performance. Bold, Entertaining, Colourful, Combined live-action
“Colour Cry” (1953)

Lastly, we looked at Norman McLaren from the GPO Film Unit.
Founder of animation in NFB (Canada, 1941 – now), a company that’s sponsoring still. He made Boogie Doodle (1940) – The music is digital and pixilated at the beginning, in fact, later on he inspired pixilation.


Some quotes of his, that stood out to me:
“Problem with making a surreal film is to be constantly improvising”

He talked about how surrealism is like drawing out of the subconscious and how his subconsciousness is a heavy source of artistic inspiration.

From my understanding, he says something along the lines of how surrealism is cutting down the conscious control when creating.
I love that because there’s a massive sense of freedom in being able to do that. We are taught to be planners, organisers which are all valid and needed, yet it’s refreshing to have a balance of being completely and utterly spontaneous – living in spur of the moment. As demonstrated in ‘Boogie Doodle’ (1940) and a bit in ‘Hen Hop’ (1942).


Fun Fact: McLaren stayed in a farm for long period of time when creating ‘Hen Hop’ – I want to do that too.

Blinkity Blank (1955) – McLaren moves into using finer lines and even more varied colours, compared to Hen Hop and Boogie Doodle.

Neighbours (1952) using pixilation technique.
People argued whether this should be counted as a documentary rather than an art piece as it uses a peculiar technique.

Class Notes:
We touched on how many curious artists move from, e.g. a painter or musician, into animation.
Comic -> Animation
Painter -> visual timeline to make a moving visual
Music -> Visual music
Disney -> commercial and experimental side

Abstract/Experimental VS Narrative
What’s the meaning of experimental animation (spirit of exploring, possibly quite bizarre, takes time to understand)

Major Post 7: UPA

Posted on by Sammy Liu

UPA – United Productions of America (1943)
Founded by Zack Schwarts, David Hilberman, and Stephen Bosustow

UPA is rather design and style orientated, compared to Disney’s more realistic style. After their start up; which was focused on industrial and World War 2 films, they eventually made many original characters, stories, and short films starting from around 1956 and won commercial success.

I really loved UPA’s Brotherhood (1946) , it shared a lot of awareness for issues of equality. A favourite quote from that video was along the lines of needing to ‘practice’ that brotherhood as well as just ‘knowing’.

UPA’s design-driven visuals to spread information, influences many now. Their heavy use of shapes led to more abstract works, which continued to be used everywhere today – mostly within informative subjects.
Below is one of my favourite projects, in which animation is used to explain facts in a way where it’s much easier to absorb.

Even in styles, UPA and the video above, has similarities: the lack of outline and heavy silhouette orientated mind-set allows information to be the focal point, rather than detailed, realistic visuals.

Class notes:
Outline used in specific areas (E,g, John Hubley’s Robin Hood – no outline for BG but has outline for characters to make the stand out).
John and Faith Hubley – after being fired by UPA in 1952, they did not give up and started Storyboard Production in commercials.
Edgar Allen Poe – creepy “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Major Post 6: Golden Age

Posted on by Sammy Liu

The Golden Age of Animation loosely began after the release of Steamboat Willie (1928) by Disney. It was also the beginning of many animators experimenting with easier or more time-efficient ways of creating moving pictures.
Other ambitious animators rose, like Harman and Ising, who tried creating their own studio because of Disney’s perseverance. Many great animators gathered together during this time and encouraged each other to continue to build their curiosity and talent towards different animation and cinematography styles.

Many memorable characters emerged from this period, including Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, Popeye, Betty Boop, Woody Woodpecker, Mighty Mouse, Mr. Magoo, Tom and Jerry, Droopy and a popular adaptation of Superman, among many others that haven’t survived along the way. Feature length animation also began during this period, most notably with Walt Disney‘s first films: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi.
Source:https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation

One of the highlights for me during screening in class, was Red Hot Riding Hood (1943) by Tex Avery, who demonstrated unique choices in voice and performance when directing Red Hot Riding Hood (1943). He was apparently one of the first animator to use smear – dry brush motion for a blurred effect. Reason for use is to portray extremely fast movement, a technique they’d explored to draw more exciting, stylized in-betweens.

Hans Fischerkoesen, who was employed by Hitler was forced to make cartoons to compete against Disney, eventually earning the nickname “Germany’s Walt Disney”. It demonstrates how Hitler was determined to use even the entertainment industry to gain favour among his country. I feel like passive power gain like that are still happening in the form of, what we now call, “Soft Power”. An example of this soft power is seen in J-pop, anime, and in the more recent years K-Pop, where one country’s culture can earn particular favour within other countries.

Class Notes:
Ub Iwerks – Pat Power Studios, worked on most of the works for Disney so ppl highly valued him. Thought Disney would fail. BUT didn’t?!?!?! infact, Ub iwerks didn’t really work out/gain audience attention.
Jack Frost – Techicolour?
Trolley Troubles – Oswald the lucky Rabbit (1927)
Style developed by Harman Ising (who tried to open their own studio, but was fired)
Chuck Jones: Duck Amuck – often breaking fourth wall and explores interaction with the animator.
Bosko: HughHarman – Black Caricature
Contract wuth MGM for developing new series for Bosko

Sammy Liu


Project02: Cut-out Animation| W.I.P. 1 | Inspiration and Hot Chocolate

Posted on by Sammy Liu

To start off our idea, we looked at some of our favourite concepts and vibes.
We decided to dive right in with a Deep Ocean concept, the protagonist being a girl with some typical Disney scenery and ‘magical girls’ vibes like in Bee and PuppyCat.

We used platforms like Pinterest and Instagram as well as They Drew as They Pleased – Volume Four Concept Art Book for inspiration and to create our desired mood-board for our scenery and character.

Having found a relaxed setting in a lush cafe near SCAD (:9) We brainstormed for our own possible scenes, actions, storyboard and character designs, accompanied by a sick spot of hot choco.

This is our very first rough sketch of a potential storyboard: Where it starts off with our protagonist’s point of view > cutting into a scene where she is sinking into the DEEP.

Major Post 5: Reason and Emotion

Posted on by Sammy Liu

In our earlier classes, we started to look at animation’s use beyond entertainment.

Donald duck, the fuhrer’s face
The animation was made to express anger or mocking, and many other emotions. It reminded me of HK’s current situation, where some artists also expressed their feelings, reasoning and information through animation.

Reason and emotion – Bill Roberts
I loved this animation as it was unexpectedly educational. Serious and rather psychological information was presented in a way where it was light-hearted and comedic – easier for people to swallow or accept. Its ultimate goal is to educate people to be able to choose how they act.

We see in the present that business and companies carry on using animation as a source to explain information. The development in this area is that there are now many different illustrative styles to choose from to convey different emotions and levels of seriousness.

Class notes:
“Iwerke-Disney Commercial Artist” (1920)
With Ub Iwerks
Started 19, young, failed.
Friendship, same goal, support.
Disney Bros Studio = Roy Disney in Hollywood
Experimental animation
Alice in wonderland
Disney studio: 6 to 100 to ~1600 employees

Sammy Liu

Major Post 4: Visual Music

Posted on by Sammy Liu

Music is not limited to the world of sound. There exists a music of the visual world. — Oskar Fischinger,1951

https://www.google.com/logos/2017/fischinger/fischinger17.html (When searching for Fischinger, his google link has this fun, interactive game that allows you to make your own visual music composition!)

We were introduced to the beginning of visual music and the “Father” of Visual Music; screening Oskar Fischinger’s abstract animation, which was a concept first explored respectfully by Leopold Survage. Fischnger’s earlier pieces remind me vividly of the ‘sound visualizer’ of the old default screens of Windows Media Player back in the early 2000s.

This is stuff I grew up staring at when I had all the time in the world, and confidently believe in Fischinger’s influence on this too.


I especially enjoyed the more colourful experiments of Fischinger’s like The Composition of Blue (1935), which was made in a 3D stop-motion format. The style in terms of colours, composition and timing is still very much done in the present – showing a piece that feels timeless.

Similarly, Walter Ruttman, who started off with painting and who had helped produce backgrounds for Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed using Wax Slicing Machine (licensed from Oskar Fischinger), moved towards abstract animation . Ruttman specially looked at visual music with colour – by tinting his films with dye. I thought it’s very innovative and admirable of his efforts to explore the broader potential of his mediums.

Extra notes I want to keep:
“WAX SLICING MACHINE 1922” (synched vertical slicers with movie shutter)
“Allegretto” (1936) 
“Motion Painting #1” (1947) O.F

Sammy Liu

Major Post 3: Lotte Reiniger

Posted on by Sammy Liu

We looked at The Adventures of Prince Achmed, a very long but sweetly intense fairytale, by Lotte Reiniger. As it was made entirely of silhouettes and cutouts, Reiniger demonstrated precise craftsmanship shown in the detailed, ornamented designs within the characters, clothes, building structures, and etc… Her elegant beautification of protagonists versus the spooky, elongated limbs and twig-like fingers for the antagonists clearly became an inspiration for future Disney fairytale visuals.
As well as visuals, her multi plane camera was also a technical starting point for Disney’s more complex camera later on.
I’m extremely glad to have been able to acknowledge and appreciate her work this class.

Small thoughts noted while watching The Adventures of Prince Achmed:
It is very obvious and amusing to see the “first” of Aladdin in the form of an animation (as a side character!)
Similarly, the fight scene between the sorcerer and the witch, had also reminded me of the fight scene in Merlin (shown below).

This is an incredibly sweet clip of Lotte’s background and story 🙂
It helped me a lot in reviewing and appreciating her as an influencer.

Sammy Liu

Major Post 2: Winsor McCay

Posted on by Sammy Liu

Winsor McCay; a man of detail and precise craftsmanship, with reminiscences of stylistic art nouveau. 🙂
By chance, during my journey to the massive library in Causeway Bay (HK Central Library), I saw, sitting in the specially book stand…
“Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice and Further Adventure and Further Adventure”

Much to my joy, I could say I know the name because of ANIM223!
In this comic, the plot is based on the DREAMS of Little Nemo, where he explores different worlds and stumbles into problems with the Princess of Slumberland.

To my surprise, it seemed like the comic caught Japan’s interest and Film Director, Masami Hata, collaborated with America’s William Hurtz to transform the comic into an American-Japanese animation in 1989.
(Side note: Masami Hata also directed one of the episodes in “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure” in 2016!)

We’re jumping further ahead here in the timeline of animation, however this is such a good opportunity to see how American Cartoonists/Animators influenced worldwide – to Japan, another country known for their iconic animations, and vice versa.
However, despite having many talented creatives involved in creating “Little Nemo”, many came and left, leaving the project unstable. To further complicate it, there were language barriers as well. Bet they learnt a lot and overcame many different obstacles as some still carried on and persevered.

Another side note: Before Little Nemo, Masami Hata also directed “Ringing Bell” (1978) and “The Sea Prince and the Fire Child” (1981), both of which were accomplished in their own right.
This is def a personal note, because it’s super cute, with magical yet ‘dour’ tones, and has Little Mermaid (1989) vibes, or rather, Little Mermaid has Sea Prince and the Fire Child vibes.

Sammy Liu

Project01: Object Animation | Documentation 2 | Production

Posted on by Sammy Liu

On the day of the shoot, it was boiling hot and extremely sunny.


Sammy: “I’m sure we got 3 shades darker after this, but the lighting was pretty and we initially wanted a natural environment.
We hit some problems with setting the tripod and getting a stable camera position at the first location of the shoot, so we had to decide to move else where.”

Wendy: “I think problem solving skills is definitely what we needed during the production process. We imagined lots of silly things that the food can do such as the using ketchup to do the explosion of the volcano.
We asked for only 3 little bags of ketchup from McDonald’s, but it was not enough at all. We wanted to pinch some holes on the package and squeeze it to make the explosion. It was just not working out as we imagined and our hands are full of ketchup. 🥫🥫🥫
What we can do better next time is to do a rehearsal before the acting shooting, so we can encounter and prepare for the problem we might have.”

Please check out our short “behind-the-scenes” clip we made for fun!

Wendy Kong

Claudia Lau

Sammy Liu

Project01: Object Animation | Documentation 1 | Planning and Storyboarding

Posted on by Sammy Liu

To start our brainstorming process, we met up in Macdonalds to look at possible props and eat lunch.

We wrote down immediate, silly ideas from looking at our possible props, noticing the capabilities of the food (e.g. the layers in the chicken wings, the chunky-ness of the burger), and potential objects and/or animals that they resembled.

Brain storming notes
Storyboarding/potential camera angles and shots

This is the video we looked at for inspiration and guidance, as it was all of our first times to attempt stop-motion.

Wendy Kong

Claudia Lau

Sammy Liu