Last class, we talked briefly about an early visual effects technique called “front projection”. I found this interesting because I wondered how filmmakers would be able to project the images without the actors being in the way of the screen. I realized how it works after watching the Shanks FX video shown in class and another video I found.
Front Screen Projection by Shanks FX
Front projection is used to act as a backdrop for filmmaking. In the video by Shanks FX, most of the examples were using the projector with moving images. One of the examples that used this technique was a film called Oblivion. I was so excited to see this because I remember first watching this film years ago and seeing the behind the scenes footage. In the movie, several scenes are made to appear as though we’re many feet in the air. The filmmakers used a large open space and their projection screen wrapped all around the four walls, the corners curving gently to not disturb the image. In the center, they had their set pieces and props, such as a home with large glass windows and a futuristic helicopter.
Front Projection in Oblivion
The footage they used was of the movement of clouds with the sunrise and sunset, taken from a volcano in Maui called Haleakala. This was a great application of the front projection technique because building a set near a volcano and hauling filming equipment out there wouldn’t have been realistic. The filmmakers of Oblivion were able to achieve a seamless and believable environment for the film using front projection. I would like to give the technique a try as well, possibly in a future project!
Jumping by Japanese animator Osamu Tezuka is really interesting because the main character is never shown. The only hint at the character is at the very end, when they leave Hell and land back on the street. Here we kind of hear a “sigh” that sounds like maybe it’s a little girl who has been jumping around. Also it would make sense if it was a child because with all the jumping they do, they must have a lot of energy!
Figure 2: Jumping by Osamu Tezuka
The use of perspective is so precise in the animation. The use
of a horizon line and vanishing point is evident in each section of Jumping.
In the opening scene, the we see that the streetlights all vanish to the same
point in one-point perspective (fig. 1). Also, when the character has jumped
above the city, the buildings seem to use 3-point perspective to look down on
them (fig. 2).
Figure 3: Arthur by Marc Brown
The style of the drawings in Jumping reminded me of an animated show I used to watch as a child called Arthur. The show used a similar style of hatching marks to show shadows and the colors feel like they were drawn in with a marker, as there is streaking in the colors (fig. 3). Arthur also has a clear use of perspective to create the backgrounds.
In class we talked about Chinese animator A Da, who created funny and ironic narratives in his animations. He created Super Soap in 1986. The animation features characters that have thin black outlines and bright colors on their clothes. They are all placed on a simplistic, gray background and the buildings and environment are very minimal too (fig. 1). It is interesting to see A Da use the flat color style as the topic for Super Soap as all the characters no long want to be bright and unique once they see that the soap can make their clothes white. It is kind of a comment on how in society, people will follow the bandwagon when there is a new trend and then move onto the next trend, like at the end, when the man creates “Super Color”.
Figure 2: Rooty Toot Toot by UPA
A Da was inspired by the simplistic designs that UPA used in
its animations. A good example of this is Rooty Toot Toot. UPA used the
same thin black outlines and bright colors for its characters and used a simple
brown background (fig. 2). The environment is drawn only with lines and tends
to blend into the background.
Another small thing I noticed in A Da’s work was the use of the same character in two different animations. In Super Soap and The New Doorbell, a little girl wearing a pink pinafore appears! (fig. 3 and 4)
In my last post, I talked about how Alexander Alexeieff used his pinscreen technique to create animations. A film he used the technique on is The Nose which he created in 1963. After watching the documentary, I can now understand how he achieved the look of the light passing over the roofs of the buildings in the opening scene. Alexeieff would have begun with the pins pushed out to where they were showing a mid-gray. Then he probably pushed the pins back in for a light gray, doing this line by line to make the movement gradual. This same technique would’ve been repeated in the next scene when the light shines in from the window and moves down the wall (fig. 1).
Figure 1
Figure 2
It’s cool that the pinscreen technique automatically includes shadows. The darker object on the floor was probably created by pushing the pins outward far enough to create black and cast a shadow on the pinscreen as a result (fig. 2). I can compare this to how in 3d software, the shadows are generated for the animator. Usually in 2d animation, the shadows would be drawn in by the animator, but The Nose is like a mixture between drawn and 3d animation; it has an “illustrated” look, yet it uses 3-dimensional objects.
We looked at some films by animator Alexandre Alexeieff who
invented the technique of pinscreen animation. This technique is basically another
form of stop motion animation. At first, I didn’t really understand how the
technique worked to create images, and so I watched a documentary on the
process. The pinscreen is large and consists of a white background that had thousands
of small holes. In each hole there is a cylindrical pin that sits flush in the
hole or can be pushes out from the backside (fig. 1).
Figure 1
Figure 2
The actual images seem to be created using the shadows that the pins cast on the white background, once pushed out (fig. 2). In the video, someone demonstrates how the animator would achieve the shades of black, gray, middle gray, light grey, and then white. Depending on the angle of the light source, when all pins are pushed out to their max, the shadows overlap and cover all the white, creating a black surface. When the pins are pushed in just a bit, more of the white shows and looking from far away, the mixing of the black shadows and white background create mid-gray (fig. 3). And so, the pins can be placed at different lengths to experiment with the tones created (fig. 4).
Figure 3
Figure 4
In my next post, I will discuss how the technique is applied to some animations by Alexeieff.
In class 12, we focused on some animations that were created
using inventive techniques. One film was The Street created by Caroline
Leaf in 1976. It’s an adaptation of a short story by Mordecai Richler that he wrote
sometime around 1969. The story tells of a little boy whose grandmother was
sick. He was promised to receive her bedroom once she passed away, yet almost
three years went by before she died.
On Caroline Leaf’s website she talks about her setup for
creating films like The Street. The film was animated using paint on
glass. She worked in a dark room that had top-down lighting, using gouache and
watercolors as her paints. She added glycerin to her paints so that they wouldn’t
dry, giving her more working time. Leaf painted her drawings on the glass
surface and used a wet cloth to wipe away the old drawings and continued until
the film was complete.
This technique reminded me of a film we watched in class one,
called “The Bigger Picture” by Daisy Jacobs. I wonder if Jacobs was inspired by
artists like Caroline Leaf, as Jacobs film was created by painting and
repainting drawings on the walls of the film set. Both films feature dynamic
camera movement as transitions between scenes. In The Street, drawings
will swirl together and unfurl into the next image. In one scene, the mother is
stirring something in a bowl and the bowl transforms into the son’s face, revealing
the mother’s spoon is now a brush that she is using on the son’s hair.
I really enjoy the use of the paint as a storytelling technique and that Caroline Leaf worked with the messy aspect of paint and used it to her advantage in this film.
Previously, we talked about a film called “Felix in Exile” that was created by William Kentridge. I was interested in knowing more about the context of the film. It was created in 1993 and is the 5th film in a series called Drawings for Protection which Kentridge started in 1989.
The film is about a time in South Africa called “The Apartheid” which meant “apartness” in Afrikaans. It was a time of segregation and discrimination against the Black South Africans. It began as early as 1709 when “pass laws” were enacted, meaning Blacks were required to carry around a type of passport in order to move around South Africa or they’d face consequences. Things escalated in 1948 when the segregation began due to the National Party ruling South Africa in favor of white supremacy.
Later, the African National Congress (ANC) started the Defiance Campaign organizing boycotts of white owned businesses, strikes, and non-violent protests. In 1960, which was the same year as the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the police killed 69 of the peaceful protesters. In the same year, Nelson Mandela organized a smaller group within the ANC that would feature protesters armed with weapons. A year later in 1961, Mandela was arrested for treason and sentenced to life in prison.
By the end of the 1980s, White South Africans were not happy at the resistance they were facing, and the government was being pushed to bring an end to the Apartheid’s discrimination. In 1989, P.W. Botha stepped down as president of South Africa and the ban over the ANC and other groups was dissolved. F.W. de Klerk became the new president in 1990 and had Nelson Mandela released from prison. Later Mandela became president of South Africa in 1997 and enacted a new constitution that did not include discrimination.
Felix in Exile, features an “alter ego” of William Kentridge who is named Felix Teitlebaum (“Felix In Exile”). Felix is exiled in a hotel room where he is studying the maps of a Black woman named Nandi. She created maps of the landscape of the East Rand, a town near Johannesburg. Felix stays locked away in his room while the violence occurs outside in South Africa. The more Felix watches the violence, the more the pieces of paper cover up the fallen bodies.
The Guggenheim.org had an interesting view of this saying, the “figures and structures are subsumed into the landscape… [are] allegories for how the land can bear the scars of crimes against humanity” (“Felix In Exile”). I related this to a poem I read by Carl Sandburg called The Grass. This poem speaks of wars and bodies falling, and how the grass “cover[s] all” of our violent mistakes. The grass grows over everything and in a few years, we say, “what place is this?”, forgetting the terrible things that happened there (Sandburg).
I appreciate a film like Felix in Exile for representing those Black South Africans who suffered and for bringing my attention to an event that I had never even heard of. Time really does cause us to forget important things such as the Apartheid, and it’s crucial that we continue to create and remember works that help remind us of the past so that we don’t repeat it.
Ladislaw Starewicz is noted as the creator of the first stop motion puppet animation in 1910. Two years later, he created “The Cameraman’s Revenge”. I’ll be focusing on some of the storytelling techniques used in the film.
I read a small bit about Starewicz and I found that he does in
fact use real insects in this animation and others. That added a challenge to
creating the stopmotion, as Starewicz had to create puppeting skeletons and
rigs to control the insects. This was successful, as the characters can stand upright
and walk while staying balanced.
I noticed that in each scene, the camera is always flat and
static. There are no closeups or medium shots; rather the camera stays pushed
back, using full body shots to capture the insects and different environments. This
stationary camera creates a unique cinematic feel compared to other animations
I’ve seen that use dynamic cameras. The camera use makes it easier to focus on
what actions are taking place, as I’m not focused on the aesthetics and visuals
as much.
As is common in older films, text is used to tell the main
story points, such as introducing Mr. and Mrs. Beetle or explaining that the
grasshopper is the camera man. Because the camera is static and Starewicz’s puppets
don’t have facial expressions, the text becomes vital in explaining to us what
is happening when the animation isn’t clear enough.
I realized that films that don’t use dialogue require more from the viewer. Because there is no dialogue, the viewer cannot look away from the screen without missing what’s taking place in the story. They must watch the characters intently to understand to storyline. Films like “The Cameraman’s Revenge” usually feature a continuous soundtrack in the background that’s used to catch the viewer’s attention. The soundtrack is only one component of this, as the rest relies on solid storytelling, which this film exemplifies. It uses the text screens as mentioned before, establishing shots when cutting to new locations, a static camera to ensure all actions are clearly seen, and of course, solid stop motion animation.
Ragtime bear is from UPA and was created in 1949. It was the first appearance of character Mr. Magoo, a nearly blind old man who enjoys peace and quiet. From the first scene Magoo’s personality is already introduced as we see him crash into the tree, which is soon explained by his poor eyesight as he tries to read the road sign in front of him. To show that his glasses magnify what he sees, Mr. Magoo’s eyes also grow larger when he wears them. He is stubborn and fully believes that he has everything under control although he decides to ask for help with reading the blurry sign. He believes that his nephew and everyone else are scatter-brained and don’t pay attention, which is ironic since Mr. Magoo is the one who is utterly confused.
The bear is shown as being oblivious to what is important to
the people and only cares about Waldo’s banjo. When Waldo falls into the abyss,
the bear reaches for the banjo instead of Waldo, letting him fall. Similarly,
when Mr. Magoo falls off the stairs at Hodge Podge Lodge, the bear saves the banjo
before it hits the ground but doesn’t catch Magoo.
Magoo is later fooled by his own weakness in believing that he
has just shot his nephew. Upon realizing Waldo is alive, Magoo returns the banjo
to him but still threatens to use the gun again, showing that his character has
not developed much, as he’s still stubborn. Also, the bear hasn’t changed either,
as he continues to play notes on the banjo, despite Magoo’s threatening to
shoot at the next sound the instrument made.
Both the bear and Mr. Magoo are stubborn characters who want everything to go their way. They both face difficulty because of each other and neither change by the end of the story, which is not the norm with the character development I’ve seen in today’s animations.
I’ve written about Winsor McCay before, however I wanted to revisit
another animation by him. McCay created “How a Mosquito Operates” in 1912. We
discussed that McCay created comic strips before he did animation, and it
really shows in how clean and precise his drawings are. Since he is first an
illustrator, it is interesting to see how he turned drawings into animation.
There is nice movement in the second scene as the man walk towards the door of
his house. His dress drags behind him and there are wrinkles in the fabric to
show the twisting of his body. McCay’s draftsmanship shines most when either
the man or mosquito do any rotating motions. While they rotate, they stay exactly
on model and the forms really seem round, which McCay achieved without any interior
construction lines.
The design of the mosquito is hilariously large. It really
adds a fun element to the animation starting from with first scene to see the scale
in comparison to the man. I noticed that McCay uses looping animation and this “stuttering”
where the animation will reverse and then continue several times. At first, I
thought it looked strange, yet now the more I watch the animation, the more I enjoy
the style and the overall look that the looping adds.
The man feels more like an illustration in motion while the mosquito, more like an animated character. It is less stiff and does some expressive movements with its legs and long nose. Lastly, I really like this animation because it is relatable. I have dealt with mosquitos pestering me while I try to sleep, and I’ve been in the man’s position. It feels like the mosquitos are never satisfied after one bite and it’s funny to see that experience translated into this animation with a ginormous mosquito.
ANIM223 - HISTORY OF ANIMATION - FALL 2019 