The art of metaphor and the animations that was shown during that class was very interesting. Aside from the intriguing storylines, it is accompanied by really beautiful animations that help convey the story a lot more. Although the styles may be different, this kind of reminded me of the musician Jack Stauber.
Jack Stauber is an American Avant-Pop musician and visual artist. His works feature animation, live action, and makes use of obsolete media. He does most of the vocals and voice acting for all of his media. His most notable albums include Pop Food (2017), HiLo (2018), and Micropop (2019). He also goes by Jack Stauber’s Micropop.
He creates shorts and music videos and he has an iconic style of design for characters and its overall feel. He specializes in 2D & 3D animation and claymation. His main medium for 2D animation is MS Paint. He would feature all of these techniques into his music videos. Each video feels like a distortion of reality. Everything feels experimental. There is no concrete message from these works, it really is how you interprate it.
It was cool seeing another unique technique to create animation. I was really interested in the Pinscreen and the films that were created using it. This was invented by Alexandre Alexeieff. It is a small metal frame that holds thousands of movable pins in small tubes. Each pin that sticks out casts a shadow. When these pins are placed strategically, it creates an image.
This technique is not used that much nowadays, but I would guess that the modern equivalent to it would be pixel animation. Here is a music video for the song “White Flag” by Delta Heavy. I noticed it had a very similar motion comparing it to the works of alexander Alexeieff. Though they are different in style, the thought and execution is simalar. Especially with everything feeling “dotted” or “linear.”
This style was popularized by the rise of video games from the 80s. The earliest video games would be pixelated due to the processor only being able to output a limited number of colors at once. Nowadays we are now able to process a lot of colors due to the advancement in technology. Which allows current pixellated video games and animations like the music video above to be created.
It was great to see the small beginnings of stop-motion animation using puppets. Earliest forms of it realeased around 1899 and it continued to developed even further as time passed. Not only was it used purely for animation, this technique would also be featured in live action films as well. Most notable films that made use of this was The Lost World (1925) and King Kong (1933). Nowadays, there are companies who specialize in this type of animation production. Two of the more popular studios are Aardman Animations and Laika Animation Studios.
Aardman Animations was founded in 1972 and is most well-known for their animated shorts featuring the adventures of Wallace and Gromit. Some of their most notable films are Chicken Run (2000), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and Flushed Away (2006). They are also known for the children’s cartoon series Shaun the Sheep (2007). During their earlier years they formed a partnership with Dreamworks Animation. They helped them create the films listed above, however, after the box-office reception of Flushed Away Dreamwork’s decided to end their partnership. This was despite the film receiving a nomination for the BAFTA award for Best Animated Film.
Laika Studios was founded back in 2005 and they specialize in feature films, commercial content for all media, music videos, and short films. Their most notable films include Coraline (2009), Paranorman (2012), The Boxtrolls (2014), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), and Missing Link (2019). Their films have received nominations and awards from different ceremonies. They’re known to show their meticulous process to the public. Seeing their process and then the final outcome must be very fulfilling for them.
It’s great to see the development of this technique throughout the years and I hope that it continues on and evolves even further.
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.
This class we continued to learn about the history of Japanese animation and the origins of some of the common tropes of the genre. One man I wanted to focus on is Tezuka Osamu, who is often referred to as the Father, God, and Emperor of both manga and anime. Outside of his groundbreaking works such as Tetsuwan ATOM (Astro Boy) Hi no Tori (Phoenix), and my personal favorite Black Jack. I will link the Black Jack movie below since it is a very interesting premise with very unique characters.
However, outside of the fact his work literally leads to the creation of the world of anime we know today he was a very fascinating man. He decided to purse a medical degree after almost losing both of his arms to an infection as a teenager. He was admitted to the medical school of Osaka University at the age of 17 due to the shortage of doctors in Japan at the time. Despite being qualified to practice medicine and successfully defended his doctoral thesis in 1961, Tezuka was more inclined to the art work.
We shifted from looking at using single lines to using objects, and more 3D/manual based forms of animation (stop-motion). The class screened various influential animators who demonstrated foundational techniques fo future artists to build on.
Artists include: Arthur Melbourne-Cooper – Matches Appeal (1899)
Ladislaw Starewicz – Soviet animator Starewicz had a scientific background, and his work stemmed from wanting to document two stag beetles in battle. His contribution in stop-motion techniques has been inspiring many to continue to develop the possibilities with stop-motion.
Willis O’Brien O’Brien started the merge of live-action and stop-motion; basically the beginning of VFX. Very impressively, one of his first works was a adaptation of King Kong, called “Mighty Joe Young” (1949). He named his style of work Dynamation, which kick started off the possibility of all future science-fiction anomalies, greek mythical tales, and superhero action.
George Pal – A Hungarian animator and filmmaker (1939). He started Puppetoons – which the technique that replaces facial expressions on a puppet. The technique is continued by LAIKA in Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls. We watched his work, “Jasper And The Haunted House” (1942) which demonstrated a lot of cinematography. He was very aware of lighting, colour, perspective and composition – a step up to quality entertainment.
Professor also mentioned NFB again, a company that sponsored many of these artists. Channel4 in UK is a similar platform that carries on supporting contemporary artist creativity, especially in the commercial/T.V. world.
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.
We watched Norman McClaren’s Documentary and it brought up a lot of noteworthy, inspiring nuggets and food for thought. He is an experimental filmmaker who was largely inspired by Scottish weather in its gentle changes in lighting, and nature, which he said was made by the ‘Original Creator’ – a statement which I found touching and intimate.
Like many artists, McClaren was a deep, soul-digging person who believed that Abstract Film frees you from constrictions of logic. He described animation as something which “rejoiced that it was drawn by just a line and that it could move”, and that abstract films were like watching thoughts. He says he wouldn’t know what was gonna happen in 10 mins from now
“Subconscious plays a very important role.” His thoughts included ideas such as how our Subconscious probably has the whole thing [scene] already, but it’s Consciousness’s job to put it into the real world yet, it could be contaminated by conscious’s logic, doubts or worries. McClaren’s thoughts reminded me of how animators, or humans in general live in a space where they have the ability to control and yet, have so many other aspects that are out-of-control too. It seems like animation is a format where we can play around with those aspects.
A few days ago, we learned about a few more very “hands on” techniques of animation. The one that caught my attention the most was the glass pane animations done by the legend, Frederick Back. His work is famously dubbed “paintings in motion”. He was able to flawlessly render very detailed and lively worlds in a very time consuming and difficult medium.
Inspired by his animation, I looked up more animators who used this technique and I came across Aleksandr Petrov. He is a Russian animator and director that uses oil paints on glass sheets. Characteristics of his work include his Romantic Realism painting style as well as incorporating imagery to show his characters inner thoughts and dreams. Two instances of these metaphor scenes include the fisherman and the marlin swimming together through the sky and sea from his Academy Award Winning short, The Old Man and The Sea and the illusion to illness in his other short My Love, is shown by the main character being buried under snow on a dark night. I have linked a video that shows some excerpts from the animations previously mentioned.
ANIM223 - HISTORY OF ANIMATION - FALL 2019 