For the third class, I was happy that we learned about the creation of the character, Felix the Cat. I used to watch the modern adaptations of Felix the Cat as a child. It is really interesting to see how character animation was from the early years and looking at it now. Especially with the discussion’s focus with the works of Fleischer studios. It also showed the start of using rotoscope as another technique for animating. In fact the use of rotoscoping really added to the films Max and Dave Fleischer were creating. They mainly made use of this technique for their character “Koko the Clown.” Which was showcased in the animation, The Tantalizing Fly (1919).
My favorite use of this technique was for Betty Boop: Snow White (1933), because of the scene where Koko the Clown sings “St. James Infirmary Blues.” This song was performed by Cab Calloway, who was a singer, dancer and a bandleader. The rotoscope was used for the dance segment Koko the Clown performed. Cab Calloway was known, not only for his music, but also for his unique dance moves. These were rotoscoped in the film and were really captivating to watch both in real life and in animation.
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.
One of the films that intrigued me from the second class was, “The Haunted House” by John Stuart Blackton. This is why me and my partner for the first project drew inspiration from it. It was one of the first forms of stop motion, so of course it was interesting to see how it was done during that time. The world of stop motion has evolved into many things. Particularly, most people would know the film works of Laika and Aardman Animations. That wasn’t the only thing that first got me interested in stop motion animation. I remember watching this short film on YouTube by the creator, PES. I wanted to share this guy’s work because I think it is phenomenal and it displays how stopmotion can blur the lines between reality and animation. This stop motion animation short in particular was an Academy Award Nominee for Best Animated Short Film.
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
This week, we watched some short films from Walt Disney and Warner Bros which are the most familiar names to me in the animation field. I had watched so many Disney films in my life, including those animation featured movies and short cartoon episode. I used to watch them so often that I can even memorize the Cantonese version dialogues and songs in them when I was young.
Here comes an interesting childhood story: when I was a kid, there was a period of time I was so addicted to one of the animation complications about Minnie Mouse. I watched it again and again with my elder sister every weekend. However, my sis is sick with that episode and she couldn’t stand for it anymore since she had watched with me for so many times! Finally, my sis destroyed that VCD when I was not home. I was so heartbroken when she told me the VCD is mystically gone. What an evil sister!!! And she still hates Minnie when I got to middle school.
Steamboat Willie was one of the film I often watched in childhood. The action of Mickey and animals in this short are so smart, hilarious and creative. Every music in it are just classic and left me a really strong impression! Although I haven’t re-watched it for many years, I can still recall the melody and some performance of Mickey before the video play. People in the old time have many crazy ideas on character performance, which is innovative to everyone .
This week, we had a study on early age of the Walt Disney Studio. It was interesting to know how the studio and their animators had gone through before and after the success of Mickey. In the animation short ‘Trolley Troubles – Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’, it was an animation film that created in an early age when Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks were still in Universal, I can see that they already had different approaches on camera angles and sounds compared with other animation at that time, there were some funny camera angles to show how dynamic Oswald were and engaged the audiences a lot. These approaches had further enchanted the animated shorts. It was also impressing to see how they continued to animate even facing financial struggles and thought out ways to accomplish their passions. I was glad to see how Walt Disney and his partners created such wonderful characters and films, that had influenced everyone till nowadays.
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.
Bartosch’s 1932 film The Idea was based on a book of woodcuts, or a ‘wordless novel’, by Belgian artist Frans Masereel. It was initially conceived in 1930 to be a collaboration between the two artists, but Masereel soon left the project after realizing how tedious animation was.
Perhaps the original author’s departure was key in shaping the final film as we see it today; William Moritz’s article points out the narrative and tonal differences between the original woodcuts and Bartosch’s adaptation. Although war era socialist-pacifism united Masereel and Bartosch, their distinctness from each other is clear. Masereel came from the practice of political satirical woodcuts, while Bartosch was a filmmaker-animator who had worked for Lotte Reiniger on Prince Achmed, which I’ve discussed in previous posts.
The Idea’s conception in the novel, springing forward from the Thinker’s mind.
The Idea’s conception in the film, who appears before the contemplative Thinker seemingly from the starry cosmos.
Firstly the intrinsic difference between a static image format and a video one, meant Bartosch had to significantly shorten the story from Masereel’s 70-plus page epic novel; Bartosch only chooses select woodcuts to be animated into real time. In the original novel where the protagonist The Idea goes through many more hardships, and eventually returns to her creator, only to find that she has been replaced by a new Idea in the form of a blonde woman, which is subsequently sent out to the world, and the original Idea is crucified. Changes of scenario that Bartosch made turned the story of The Idea not one of sardonic tragedy, as in the original, but a tragic drama that still remains noble and hopeful, finally letting The Idea return to the starry cosmos that she had originally appeared from. Another important part of the film, is the role Arthur Honneger’s music, played on an early electronic instrument, which repeats certain leitmotifs for the Idea throughout the film, and maintains the dignity of the Idea as she goes through her tribulations. The multiplane glass method that Bartosch designed for Reiniger, and his use of soap to create soft haloes of light, contribute significantly to The Idea’s atmospheric look, as well as the overall visual motif of light, which was not present in Masereel’s original novel. Though the thick outlines and use of highly contrasting light and dark no doubt evoke Masereel’s woodcut quality, the overall resulting imagery is vastly different.
Though the starting point of The Idea was Masereel’s work, the film took flight and became distinctly Bartosch’s — in form, visual style, theme and message. It is a shame that many Bartosch’s other works are lost; otherwise we would have a better picture of Bartosch’s entire oeuvre, and be able to better understand his artistry.
I am a big fan of Walt Disney and the Disney Company as a whole, so finding out that we were going to be covering it as the topic for class, was really exciting for me. I did a lot of papers on Walt Disney in my elementary school days. Walt Disney was the reason that I had gotten into animation. I had watched Walt Before Mickey (2015) and learned a lot about his financial struggles that he had faced getting into animation, and it was no surprise that we talked about it in class. It’s quite inspirational, from nothing, to following his dreams and passion, Walt Disney was able to go from the grounds up to creating one of the most renowned companies in the world. Seeing the development of the first “golden year” animations to what Disney is today, is such a milestone. 2D propaganda to 3D animations and simulations, Disney has come a long way, with how he ran his company in a small cramped room with a few animators, to a large company that basically runs the animation industry.
Side Note: I thought it showed commitment when they had hired the child actress of Alice in Wonderland, to move from Kansas City to Los Angeles, to continue their project.
Before you read, I suggest watching the film here* on youtube.
Major Post 3, by Victoria Courchesne
The Firebird is a masterpiece retelling of the concepts of death and rebirth. It is featured in Fantasia 2000, Disney’s long awaited sequel to the first Fantasia. Walt Disney himself always wanted a sequel to Fantasia, as his original plan for the first film was to continuously replace different shorts so no one would see the same film twice. But the sequel was shelved until 1991. It took 9 years to create the film, but what came out of it was a marvel of 2D and 3D animation.
The Firebird’s concept was first thought of after the eruption of Mount St.Helens in Oregon. The event was so catastrophic the land was left completely barren. The Disney producers imagined what it would be like to witness a time-lapse of the rebirth of the land, and thus The Firebird was born.
Most of the scenes in the film relied on 2D animation, with a large amount of that being 2D effects. The technical team was called on to create many assets for the short, such as the particles, rotoscoping mesh that acted as the character’s robe, and more.
The Firebird concludes Fantasia 2000 in a fantastical demonstration of talent from the Disney Studio.
If you’d like to learn more, there is a video below featuring the making of Fantasia 2000.
*The video is kind of low quality, I suggest playing it without headphones to get a better quality of sound.
ANIM223 - HISTORY OF ANIMATION - FALL 2019 