Animation is...

Tuesday's class focused on genre. Since the thrust of the class is on narrative concepts, the categorization of stories by similar traits or tropes particularly illuminating (I hope -it is for me anyway).

Let the Right One In, for instance, has more in common with Marty than it does with The Lost Boys. That similarity brings out a deeper meaning to both films.



In the past, I would bring up animation. "Animation" must be a genre, right. Like Westerns it gets its own tiny section in the video store. That's fair enough, as much as "Cinemascope", "3D", or "Odorama" can also be group together.

And that grouping hints at what animation "is" what distinguishes animation and sets it apart.

Tissa David tells of when she came to New York in 1957 (I've forgotten the exact year, it could have been '58, not earlier, not later). She had seen the animated sections of The Four Poster while living in Paris (after escaping Budapest on foot shortly before the Uprising). From these clips she decided that she would go to New York to animate for UPA.


Two issues with that plan: she didn't speak English, and women were not hired as animators in 1957.

She shows up at the 666 Fifth Avenue studio with her portfolio, and they're ready to usher her out when someone says "Grim Natwick just fired another kid, so he needs an assistant." They are introduced, and as Tissa said, Grim must have taken pity on her and said that he could speak a little German, and she could speak a little German so they could communicate that way (although neither knew more than 100 words) he'd give a shot on one condition.

Grim said she had to answer one question: "What is animation?". Stumbling in pidgeon English, Tissa replied, "Animation is, is animation."

He took a step back, laughed, and said "I've been asking people that question for the past 30 years and that's the best answer I've gotten yet".

An indisputably true answer, but a little vague for definition purpose. The "Animation" section is like a "Silent Film" section. The pictures are grouped by technical similarities.

Animation, like 3D or Cinemascope, is a process. That's what defines it -not happy-go-lucky mice or singing princesses or wacky buddy journeys. This definition comes even clearer when the other section of cartoons films in the video store is discovered -"Anime". These are films which, for the most part, share stylistic and narrative tendencies. Grouping these together, and in their subsets, gives a deeper understanding of the individual films.

More Humbug

We're contracting with a cable network to do some pieces about a certain publication.

So things like last night's talk at the Strand with Al Jaffee and Arnold Roth actually counts as "work" and not just entertainment.



They were promoting the Fantagraphics "Humbug" collection. They should go barnstorming with act.

In a conversation moderated by Gary Groth, Roth compared "Humbug" to "Punch" where he did work after the former magazine shut down.

"It was pretty much the same a 'Punch', except everyone there was drunk." He then recounted how the editor there had to spend the morning reiterating all the assignments given out at lunch the day before.



He also discussed a Kurtzman idea for an issue of "Humbug"- a parody of "The New Yorker". He assigned everyone the task of coming up with "unfunny cartoons, the least funny cartoons you can do."

The issue had to be scrapped because no one could come up with anything that wasn't funny.

Outta Here

My Mother's Aunt Betty was a season ticket holder. My understanding of gesture, of time, of drama was formed by her side during hundreds of ballgames in section 210 of Veterans' Stadium.

For away games, it was mostly the radio.

The radio is my favorite artform. It's the most intimate communication. Nothing but a voice, sounds waving through the air and the images that they form in distant minds.

The passing of Phillies color announcer Harry Kalas reminds me of the twin powers of baseball and broadcasting. The distinctive cadences of the game extend to other fields -especially animation. The distinctive cadences of a man, they are unrepeatable but as echoes in our hearts and mind.

*****************



"Casey at the Bat" from Disney's 1946 Make Mine Music.

These characters move in a weird way (very unbaseball-like). John Sibley's hand is clearly evident. The ball players have a snappy elastic movement. This style is interesting. It makes things move in fluid, yet unrealistic manner.

It's appropriate for cartoons, like Goofy. I'm not sure it was the right choice for "Casey at the Bat".


*****************



Baseball is about precise and orderly timing and placement.

And so it tragedy.

Non-Naked Campaign

We made this clip on Thursday last week for CBS Sunday Morning.
I'm not sure they ever intended on airing it.  They publish their schedule online the week before, and this segment was never in the line up.

It may not be as strong as our work for The New Yorker, but it has some merit.  The motion graphic "animation" Christina did is pretty good and the art, as always, is strong.
These are some note Brodner did before the shoot.

Easter Kittens

These guys work around the corner, in a flower shop on 6th Avenue between 27th and 28th Streets.

they like to sit in this box in the window

they won't let anything prevent them from sitting in the box

sign reads "WARNING! cats in box"

Times

1. Programming Alert.

A segment we did with Steve Brodner is scheduled to broadcast on CBS Sunday Morning tomorrow.

It's on 100 Days of Obama.

Madoff Mountain didn't make the cut (imagine how good everything else must be!)

*******************

Speaking of R. O. Blechman, Earlier this week The New York Times ran an Op Art he created .

He created a few dozen of these full page stories when we worked together.  Most were for The New York Times Sunday Book Review.  Those had spots of color which really tied them together visually.  Initially, that was applied in airbrush by Tom Hachtman.  Eventually we would do it in Photoshop.  The color work was fairly simple, so it was really about the masking -ultimately the reproductions in the newspaper would be terrible anyway.

One of his most interesting applications of color was in this limited edition screen print he did in conjunction with the publication of The Life of St. Nicholas.

Here the color is both descriptive (on Nicholas) and environmental.  It is practical and graphic.  Blechman is known for his line and his use of negative space -this is an example of his visual principles applied to color.

Stravinsky Rock

DATELINE: 1983.

Animators' greatest concern - Faustian bargains.

There's a promotional piece from the time of the film's release that credits Anne Marie Bardwell with the lion's share of "Angel's" animation. There's a softness to the character and Broadway feel that, in light of her credits with Don Bluth, suggest she handled the part in this sequence.

I suspect "Mok" was animated by another hand. He's snappier. Not just in his posing, but his linework is harder, more angular.

This is probably the strongest sequence from "Rock and Rule". The effects are pretty nice.

From right around the same time, R. O. Blechman's "L'Histoire du Soldat." Tissa David up until the silhouette which is Fred Mogubgub's work:

Butterflies.

Music.

Everything.

When I talk about "Broadway posing" this is what I mean:

she goes from here

to here ("Where'd he go!")

a cut, then here. ("OMG! There he is!")


which animates right into this

It's all very skillfully done, I just don't know what it means.  Then again, I don't know what her conflict is.  She's only being asked to give up her current rock band -including and egomaniacal lead singer who abuses her -for the one thing rockers want: stardom.  In effect, she's not losing anything but still gaining her ultimate desire.
The viewer knows this also means Mok will gain some super power, but she doesn't.  And really, their world is pretty grim as it is, so whatever this guy does to it can't be much worse.
Here are some parallel drawings from "L'Histoire du Soldat":

the devil is trying to buy his violin

The drawing reminds me of the point in "Waltz with Bashir" when I realized we would be watching uninspired animation.  In that film wild dogs run through the street.  They run past a woman holding her child.  She clutches the baby facing the dogs.  Tsk. Tsk.  How much more powerful, more real if she were to sacrifice her body to protect the child.

And look at what Vertov is doing here.  Cradling the violin, protecting it from the Devil.  

he considers the violin

looks at it.

That look!  Like a boy with his puppy.

to here.  "I don't want to sell it."

In this shot he goes from frightened and protective to defiant and proud.  The change goes through the "look" at the violin.  There you have.  Hegel in action -thesis: poses 1 & 2, antithesis: pose 4, synthesis (the relationship/catalyst of the two):  pose 3.
It's not just philosophy executed in animation- it's humanity.  Emotional realism.
If there's a modicum of interest in this post, I'll continue with a comparison of the Devil and Mok.  Both characters in "L'Histoire du Soldat" have near perfect voice acting.  The Devil performed by Max von Sydow.  The voice performances in "Rock and Rule" are fine, but really, starting with two strong voice records like the Soldier (Yugoslav director Dusan Makavejev, after surgery for throat cancer) and The Devil gives an animator a leg up.