Major Post 01- Trick Films

Posted on by Jiawen Tan

In class, we learned about trick films and watched many example movies. At the beginning, I thought trick films were just a silent comedy. But with a deeper understanding, I found that trick films emphasized surprising ideas and incredible plots more than jokes or dramatic plots. The absurd sense of humour is my new evaluation of this type of film.

With interest, I found more trick films for Georges Melies after class. Among them, I was most impressed by Le Cauchemar (A Nightmare) 1896. I am embarrassed to admit that this film makes me feel a little scared. This feeling overturned my previous experience. I felt very uncomfortable when I saw the moon suddenly enlarged in the background and a strange face like a human being, just as I was startled by a sudden change in my daily life when I had nightmares. That huge, weird moon really surprised me. However, this kind of surprising weird element makes trick films full of special sense of humor and attraction.

Major Post 7: Limited Animation

Posted on by LeAnn Schmitt

At one point, animation was an even more time consuming and tedious job than it appears to be now. Early animations required each frame to be painted and drawn by hand individually and for new backgrounds to painstakingly made with hyper realistic details and lighting. This mean that animations required a lot of time and money to be produced. As a result of increasing budget cuts and even greater time constraints this old way was abandoned and replaced with a new method, limited animation. Limited animation implements techniques like animation cycles, mirrored-images, symmetrical drawings, and still characters.

Many early commercials utilized these techniques. The earliest shows to implement them were Warner Brother cartoons. Specifically, Dover Boys and Merrier Melodies.

Due to the financial benefit of limited animations, many shows have used it over the years. One famous studio famous for it would be Hanna-Barbera Productions. Linked below is a clip from Scooby Doo, one of the studios most famous shows, and in it you can see the use of cycled running, reused backgrounds, and sparse character actions.

LeAnn Schmitt

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A1evHuK7xUI

 

Major Post 5: Reason and Emotion

Posted on by Sammy Liu

In our earlier classes, we started to look at animation’s use beyond entertainment.

Donald duck, the fuhrer’s face
The animation was made to express anger or mocking, and many other emotions. It reminded me of HK’s current situation, where some artists also expressed their feelings, reasoning and information through animation.

Reason and emotion – Bill Roberts
I loved this animation as it was unexpectedly educational. Serious and rather psychological information was presented in a way where it was light-hearted and comedic – easier for people to swallow or accept. Its ultimate goal is to educate people to be able to choose how they act.

We see in the present that business and companies carry on using animation as a source to explain information. The development in this area is that there are now many different illustrative styles to choose from to convey different emotions and levels of seriousness.

Class notes:
“Iwerke-Disney Commercial Artist” (1920)
With Ub Iwerks
Started 19, young, failed.
Friendship, same goal, support.
Disney Bros Studio = Roy Disney in Hollywood
Experimental animation
Alice in wonderland
Disney studio: 6 to 100 to ~1600 employees

Sammy Liu

Major Post 6: Ub Iwerk

Posted on by LeAnn Schmitt

 

When you think of the creator of Mickey Mouse I bet your brain doesn’t jump to the name, Ub Iwerks.

Ub Iwerks was born in Kansas City Missouri and shorten his full name, Ubbe Eert Iwwerks, for ease. He was known for his fast ability to draw and his quirky sense of humor. He was Walt Disney’s partner and helped create the face of Disney itself, Mickey Mouse. He also was the lead animators in many of Disney’s early films such as the Skeleton Dance and Steam Boat Willie. But early on into the creation of the Disney empire Ub split off to start his own animation company, Iwerks Studios. This studio brought forth its own line of characters, such as, Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper. The studio didn’t last long and eventually tanked.

However, Iwerks legacy didn’t end there for he snatched up two Oscars for his work. As well as got to work on many other classics like the Looney Tunes and The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock.

LeAnn Schmitt

Below I have linked one of my personal favorite cartons produced by his studio

 

 

 

 

Major Post 4 – Paper cutouts

Posted on by Julia Reymundo

We were able to learn about animating with cutouts for this class. Quirino Christiani was believed to have made the first feature-length animated feature. However, this was a lost film called El Apostol (1917) and Peludopolis (1983), which made use of cutouts. This was another fascinating way to animate and create films back then. It made use of different kinds of camera effects and it really helped create the atmosphere for the story.

One of the more interesting films we watched in class was, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) by Lotte Reiniger. The art style of the cutouts really intrigued me. Despite using the same color for each character, you can still tell them apart because of each character’s unique silhouette. While watching the film, I did get reminded of the style from a Japanese animated TV show. Here are some of the stills from the anime, Yuri!!! On Ice (2016), which tells the story of the main character’s interpretation of a song. This is animated in a similar fashion since there are limited movements. Not only does it makes use of color and detail, it also shows a clear difference in the silhouette that helps tell the two characters apart.

Julia Reymundo

Major Post 3 – Early Character Animation & Cab Calloway

Posted on by Julia Reymundo

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.

Julia Reymundo

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 – The Haunted Hotel

Posted on by Julia Reymundo

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.

Julia Reymundo

Major Post 4: Visual Music

Posted on by Sammy Liu

Music is not limited to the world of sound. There exists a music of the visual world. — Oskar Fischinger,1951

https://www.google.com/logos/2017/fischinger/fischinger17.html (When searching for Fischinger, his google link has this fun, interactive game that allows you to make your own visual music composition!)

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

Sammy Liu

Major Post 3: Lotte Reiniger

Posted on by Sammy Liu

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.

Sammy Liu