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Films like The Nose (1963) by Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker or The Night on Bald Mountain by Alexander Alexeieff, use the pinscreens technique. A method of animation that uses small pin tubes that are adjustable to a board, in order to create images. It is the same pin board to the mini toy that you can find at Walmart’s in the States. The toys you use to press against your brother’s face out of pure amusement. I didn’t think that the origins of that the toy could be used to create animations such as these. The use of the adjustable pins allows the artist to change the length of the pins, coming out of the board, creating a 3D effect. Not only were the characters 3D like, the artists created smooth transitions between scenes, that I can really appreciate. The scenes itself were not as smooth, and sometimes hard to make out because of the constant moving black and white images, but the transition from one scene to another was surprisingly smooth.

My favorite film featured in class 12 was The Killing of the Egg (1977) by Paul Driessen who had also worked on the Yellow Submarine (1968) by George Dunning. I thought it was very cute in that ironic sense. The style of the film reminds me of a comic book style, or that of the small daily funny comic strips featured in newspapers. It was short and had a funny ending punchline.

The use of experimental animation techniques such as pinscreen and paint on glass are reminiscent of the first 2-dimensional animations created such as the works of Emile Cohl or Winsor McCay in fluidity of the animation in that there are not a lot of cuts and the shots blend into each other. However, you can see that Alexandre Alexeieff, Caroline Lead and William Kentridge’s animated works are more modern in the experimental qualities of using more dynamic camera movements and interesting compositions. However, animation from both times use straight ahead animation that allows for the fluidity and easy to change aspect of the movement of the characters.

Other narrative based experimental animation produced during this time have the same distinct aspect fluidity in movement to them. This results in, I think, a specific type of storytelling that can only be seen in short films as they are difficult to present as a feature film. This animation allows for fluidity in story as shots are blended together and even the music and sounds feel like they overlap.

Eunhae Mary Park

The role of animation is relevant in a lot more industries than commonly perceived. The application of animation in the film industry was reimagined after the use of trick animation in works such as The Haunted Hotel by James Stuart Blackton. The idea went from inanimate objects moving by themselves into characters that otherwise wouldn’t move moving within the frame.

The technique of animation, after being introduced, split at crossroads. The first direction was into drawing animation and making characters move by changing the drawings of their movements little by little. The other direction was in 3-dimensional puppet animation. The application of puppet animation split into even further roads of completely puppeted fantastical elements and characters in a world built from scratch as opposed to using puppet animation in live-action films to bring fantasy into the real world. The division in the use of stop-motion animation as a technique can be clearly seen in the difference between, Ladislaw Starewicz’s The Battle of the Stag Beetles and Willis O’Brien’s work in King Kong (1933).

It’s interesting to see how the development in the use of certain animation techniques have evolved today. While stop-motion animation in cinematic animation is still relevant today with the work of Laika studios, stop motion animation in effects evolved dramatically into computer graphics and visual effects all done digitally.

Eunhae Mary Park

UPA aren’t just an animation company, they also liscence a bunch of tokusatsu godzilla movies and some other older live action properties. One of the primary thing that they put out were informational videos. They had all sorts of videos like military instruction, general education and politics. I feel like it’s one of the driving forces behind the amount of educational animated programs in the western animation industry. The difference between all the ones from the UPA and all the programs from the current day and the difference is that it was made for adults. I think cartoons that were well made and not ugly/offensive cartoons aimed at adults is a rare thing nowadays but back then that was normal. There used to be such a higher standard for adult aimed animated media. Despite the Hayes Code it didn’t stop the UPA from educating grown people. I think that’s wonderful.

Tex Avery’s wolf cartoon is very influential for being one of the best animated short of all time. One of the best things about the short is that it features an incredible amount of detail. One of the places I noticed the immense amount of detail was in the characters animated in the short itself. It’s wonderful how their personalities are very obvious based on how they interact with one another. The wolf animates the best to me with bulging eyes, banging loud on the table, whistling, his heart beating out of his chest. Animation like that, extremes like that is good animation because it transcends language because no matter what language you speak you can understand the wolf’s motivation and his desires. The movement Itself tells the entire character’s motivation. He’s amazing at expressing emotion so much so it doesn’t seem like dialogue is needed at all.

Walt Disney is a pretty interesting company. Despite it’s humble beginnings, it has exploded in popularity in the early 50s with the animated short “Steamboat Willie” staring Mickey. It’s a bit hilarious that despite starting the company Walt Disney almost lost both his characters Mickey and Oswald not to mention his entire company. The company is very ruthless and has a long history of using dirty tactics to get ahead. One prime example was them being the only studio that benefitted when the Hayes Code was passed. There was no concrete proof but It’s suspicious that their greatest competitor at the time went basically bankrupt while Disney remains unaffected. Not to mention another incident where they tried to trademark day of the dead which is the name of a holiday celebrated by an entire nation. To try and trademark people’s culture is not cool man. They should cut it out.

Animation as a medium is a heavy rhythm involved form of artistic expression. That being said animation has always lent itself well to music. The reason that a lot of Looney Toons are called merry melodies. That’s also what makes a lot of those cartoons very funny because one of the main principles of comedy is timing. One of the best Looney Toons is “What’s Opera Doc”? It stars Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny. They have their crazy back and forth as usual but it’s to the tune of an Opera song. It’s almost poetic if you think about it. It breaks down what makes that chase work which is: tension, build up, delivery and character acting. The two stars sing the whole time but it always feels natural. It’s very self aware but it never feels cynical. It’s like a spoof of their own material but also a love letter.

Cameron and I had used small toys for our first stop motion project. We found some difficulties when it came to moving the different figures, and holding them in place to keep the position we wanted them to stay in. Watching the featured artist’s works in class was a painful reminder of how difficult it was to use figurines. However, it was 1000xs worse because compared to our film, which was only a few seconds long, films like The Cameraman’s Revenge was minutes long.

This film by Ladislaw Starewicz made me really uncomfortable just because the characters were bugs. I absolutely despise bugs, and don’t understand their existence. The storyline itself was so scandalous, with the adultery and a very curious cameraman. It makes you wonder if the little creatures on the ground really live life on the edge in that way.

The Mascot (Puppy Love) by Ladislaw Starewicz was impressive with the character acting. It was clearly displayed and easy to understand what each figure/character was trying to show.

I had also really liked Screenplay by Barry Purvis. The stop motion animation was so smooth, with the different scene transitions and the motion of the narrators hand. I had practice Geisha dancing when I was younger, and watched a lot of various performances that told stories through dance, so watching this film was really entertaining and interesting to me. Although, I personally believed the ending was kind of unnecessary.