Major Post 6: The Barn Dance

Posted on by Sydney McPherson

Two ways through which Disney’s older animations create entertainment, are exaggeration and character development. A fitting example is “The Barn Dance” created by Ub Iwerks in 1929. In the opening scene, Mickey Mouse is riding in his carriage. He whips the horse to get it to accelerate and suddenly the horse quickens from a steady trod to a jumping gallop. Soon the carriage begins to gallop as well, instead of rolling along smoothly. Next, we arrive at Minnie Mouse’s house as Mickey has offered her a carriage ride to the barn dance. Mickey’s love for Minnie is established through the hearts floating around his head throughout.

In this scene, Minnie is presented as the woman that all the men want, as a competition between Mickey and Pete ensues when Pete arrives in a swanky vehicle. Mickey doesn’t have a car horn like Pete, and so he uses a duck’s call by squeezing the duck to impress Minnie. Minnie continues to test the waters throughout the animation, going back and forth between Mickey and Pete when one disappoints her. During the dancing scene, Mickey continuously steps on Minnie’s feet and legs and his shoes grow impossibly large until he is trampling Minnie. Upset, Minnie goes to dance with Pete, reinforcing the way she is portrayed as having no commitment to neither Pete nor Mickey. This spurs on the love Mickey has for Minnie as he continues to impress her.

Another interesting aspect is the repetition of movements that make the character’s cohesive. In the scene at Minnie’s house, Mickey and Minnie both throw their noses upwards towards Pete in dislike. This is typical for Mickey because he does dislike Pete. However, after Mickey steps on Minnie’s toes while dancing, Minnie throws up her nose towards Mickey in dislike. Before, we didn’t see the full extent of Minnie’s non-commitment to the two boys, yet now Minnie has returned to Pete who she left just a scene prior, which in turn spurs on Mickey’s competition with him.

Sydney McPherson

Major Post 5: Norman McLaren #2 (Pas de Deux)

Posted on by Sydney McPherson

I believe I have a new favorite animation or visual effects video to add to my list after watching Pas de Deux by Norman McLaren from 1968. I have a background in dance through ballet and other genres, and so seeing the title interested me; its means “dance for two” in French and I often watched other students in my dance classes performing Pas de Deux.

The music choice for the film works well, as it allows the dancer to gradually increase the intensity of her movements. As the film begins, the ‘onion skin’ effect isn’t used immediately, it is not revealed until a kind of exposition could be put in place. The film allows us to become acclimated with the music, dancer, and tone of the overall film before it begins to experiment with its visuals. The dancer then begins to create bigger movements and use more of the space around her.

Regarding the visuals, the film being in black and white is successful. The stark contrast created by the light source they used makes the dancers look graphic, as if they’ve been drawn. It’s clear that Norman McLaren made choices about which moments he would use the ‘onion skin’ effect on and which moments would remain untouched.  This is a work I am considering as a topic for my research paper, as I’m fascinated by it and want to study it more.

Side Note: When I first saw this film I immediately thought about a music video by a band called OK Go. It’s called “WTF?” and uses the same ‘onion skin’ effect with plenty of vibrant colors and patterns to create a unique and jumbled visual.

Sydney McPherson

Major Post 4: Norman McLaren #1 (Spook Sport)

Posted on by Sydney McPherson

I really enjoyed the time spent discussing the work of Norman McLaren. His animations stand out for me from other animators because they are so expressive. I feel like he tries to tell stories and give his animations personality and experiments with his visuals to create interesting work.

Spook Sport is a collaboration between McLaren and Mary Ellen Bute in 1939. It’s great that they had a basic narrative for the film, as many of the abstract and experimental animations we have viewed, have been only about translating music into visuals. They included this basic narrative at the beginning of the film along with a breakdown of which character each shape represented.  We discussed the direct-to-film method and I’m blown away by this. Animation today with our intuitive technology is still challenging and time consuming, so I can only imagine the dedication McLaren and bute put into Spook Sport to create the animations.

 In the film on McLaren’s process, he showed how he used a light behind the film strip on a tall drafting table and drew on each frame one by one. He had no ‘onion skin’ or way of previewing the animation that he was doing and had to stick with whatever marks he made, until he viewed the finished film strip. In the first minutes of Spook Sport, there are several Spooks lined up behind each other and they all begin hopping towards screen left. This movement is executed so smoothly and is perfectly timed to the music. I am not sure how Norman McLaren drew these film frames without a way to track where the characters were in the previous frame; regardless, it’s quite impressive.

Sydney McPherson

Project 2 – WIP 1 – Experimentation

Posted on by Sydney McPherson

For our second project, Chandi and I wanted to be a little more ambitious. Before we met up to brainstorm an idea, I started doodling a character to practice the cutout technique. I made some quick sketches of a girl in a dress and I drew out each body part separately. Then I cut out the dress, legs, arms, head, and so on. Soon I realized I might need more poses for her legs, so I drew a couple bent legs and one of her standing on her toes.

The coffee table in my dorm has a glass top, so I used my phone and an app called Stop Motion Studio to shoot a quick test animation. The character isn’t connected at the joints yet, but I was still able to learn a bit about the technique we’ll need.

I went out and bought some fasteners that we can use for the joints on our actual characters and they’re quite big, so I know we can scale up our characters and backgrounds a bit. I also bought some scissors, so I don’t have to keep borrowing my roommate’s!

Chandi and I came up with a fun idea about a girl who is performing on the street for tips. She will trip and fall into a sewer that has toxic waste in it. She’ll then emerge as a mutated monster will glowing yellow eyes. As a monster she will now force all the people watching to dance for her. We might add an ending where someone comes and gives her an antidote, but for now the plan is to just have the camera pedestal towards the sky and it fade to black.

Storyboards and Character Experimentation
Test animation

Sydney McPherson

Chandi Marsh

Major Post 3: Krazy Kat and Felix the Cat

Posted on by Sydney McPherson

I really enjoy watching the cartoons featuring Felix the Cat. He was created by Pat Sullivan around 1919 and really grew in popularity, even having his own merchandise. Together, Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer created shorts with Felix.

I noticed that he has some similarities with Krazy Kat, in that they both are very expressive with their tails. Felix often uses his as a prop and they both swing and curl their tails when walking. Krazy Kat’s design is interesting to compare to Felix the Cat’s. Krazy’s much taller than Felix and has a larger rounded mouth. They both have a short circular nose. Krazy has a large white area around his eyes, while black surrounds Felix’s eyes.

Krazy Kat reminds me more of a monkey because of his design and his personality. In “Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse at the Circus”, Krazy is very bold in his speech and playful with Ignatz as they take turns scaring a woman. This reminds me of the saying “monkey business” as he doesn’t take things too seriously. Also, the way his words are misspelled is quite playful. Felix seems more cat-like because he is witty, likes to sneak around, and runs on all fours. In “Felix in Hollywood”, Felix shapes his body into that of his owner’s bag and makes his way to Hollywood.

I also like how the text and exclamation and question marks are used to complement the characters emotions when they’re surprised or confused. In a later scene, Felix hears someone yelling “help” and the text does a swooping motion along with squash and stretch. It creates a cool visual, especially since there is not sound in this short. In response, Felix’s tail turns into a question mark above his head and later reattaches when he begins to run to help the person.

Felix the Cat and Krazy Kat have some similarities, however I still find them both entertaining in their own ways; they are two of my favorite cartoons now.

Sydney McPherson

Major Post 2: Persistence of Vision

Posted on by Sydney McPherson

In class 2, we discussed artists that learned to work with the “persistence of vision” that our eyes have. Emile Reynaud’s optical theater was quite and amazing creation. It surpassed the ideas of the thaumatrope, phenakistocope, and zoetrope. Reynaud hand painted over 500 drawings to make a short 15-minute film. I would love to see an optical theater in action with the live orchestra and try my hand at operating the hand cranks.

Other artists whose work I enjoyed were Georges Melies and Winsor McCay. Melies’ “The Untamable Whiskers” used an interesting technique to give the appearance that the man is changing form. Melies overlapped his strips of film to create the gradual transitions. I also enjoyed “A Trip to the Moon” by Melies. He built out the more important props in 3dimensions and created painted backdrops for the rest of the settings. This creates dynamic visuals and depth without needing full sets. The paintings almost trick the viewer’s eye and they’re so well painted that it just works.

A film by Winsor McCay that I enjoyed was “Gertie the Dinosaur”. McCay made 10 thousand drawings and it took him 6 months., however it was worth the work because the animation is fluid and beautifully drawn. I like that McCay interacts with Gertie using the text and uses a simple story to develop Gertie’s personality.

Sydney McPherson

Major Post 1: Daisy Jacobs & Stop Motion

Posted on by Sydney McPherson

In class one, we discussed several films that were created using stop motion techniques. One film I really enjoyed was “The Bigger Picture” by Daisy Jacobs. The artists mainly animated the characters by painting them on the walls of the set and taking many pictures of the paintings. In the first scene, Richard drives up to the house in his car. Considering that this was animated using paint on a flat surface, the finished product is quite dimensional. They used the elements of scale and value to create the look of the car growing as it drives down the hill.

The artists also used three-dimensional props made from paper mache. Whenever the bodies of the two-dimensional characters extended away from the wall, there was a paper mache prop to create that illusion. An example of this is also in the first scene when Nick picks up the teapot. Another interesting aspect is how the artists animated water. When the boiling water is poured, they animated the paint to imitate water. In a later scene, Nick again pours a cup of tea, but this time three-dimensional transparent plastic is used.

There are many more interesting elements in this animated film; all of which help add to the overall mood. I’m looking forward to watching more of Daisy Jacobs’ work.

Sydney McPherson

Pre-Quarter Assignment

Posted on by Sydney McPherson

Ami Yamato is an animator on YouTube who I’ve been watching for about 1 year now. She does 3d animation and a running gag in her video comment section is that she is the animation and yet neither she nor her subscribers acknowledge it. Ami is Japanese and lives in London where she produces parodies of her favorite movies and TV shows. Some of these parodies include Breaking Bad, Stranger Things, and Star Wars.

Ami’s ability to entertain is what really inspires me. I have never seen Star Wars, yet each of her videos based on those movies always has me laughing and wanting more. She only uploads once every two months, but that is due to the dedicated time she puts into animating, compositing, and editing each creation. Ami Yamato has also done a wonderful job of making her character “Ami” a likeable and relatable personality, something I will strive to do with my future animations.

Sydney McPherson