An Animation Salon: What Is An Animated Film?

Woodbury University has graciously invited ASIFA-Hollywood to host events at their newly opened Fletcher Jones Foundation Auditorium. Our first two presentations there are The ASIFA-Hollywood Student Animation Festival on Saturday, October 18th, and the Don Hahn Alchemy of Animation booksigning fundraiser on Monday, October 20th.

AN ANIMATION SALON


Jean Francois de Troy, "Reading from Moliere" 1728
I've been asked to present a series of screenings at Woodbury, the first of which will take place as part of the ASIFA-Hollywood Student Animation Festival. This series will be aimed at professionals and students of the medium, and will consist of informal discussions on topics related to animation filmmaking. We'll have guest speakers, rare films from the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, panel discussions, audience participation and networking sessions. The goal is to create an animation salon to bring together the creative spirit of the animation community and foster the interaction of the membership of ASIFA-Hollywood.

The first program, which will take place on October 18th at 10 am will address a fundamental question...

What is an animated film?
Many people view animation as a genre. Like "westerns" and "science fiction", animation has come to follow a few tightly defined sets of conventions...


Anime generally involves stylized human characters with large sparkling eyes, big spiky hair and long thin limbs. Characters produce large sweat drops when under stress and strike static poses against backdrops of effects animation in dramatic situations. These characters inhabit futuristic or magical worlds and do battle using otherworldly forces in violent, complicated stories that frequently span multiple films. The character designs are usually based on realistic proportions and the overall stylization is very detailed and complicated.


The Funny Animal style is the staple of American animated short subjects. Star characters perform along with a supporting cast of comic foils consisting of anthropomorphized animals and childlike humans. Storylines are very simple, constructed from a basic beginning and end bookending variations on a theme performed in slapstick pantomime. Designs are round and simplified and the setting of the action usually takes place in rural environments, exotic locations relating to the theme of the cartoon, or idealized suburbs.


Feature Animation style consists of fairy tale settings with princesses, princes and evil villains. Comic relief is provided by anthropomorphic animals who perform pantomime derived from the funny animal style. Stories usually involve an innocent lead character being threatened by a villain and befriending comic relief characters that help him or her overcome the foe. Designs for lead characters are generally very realistic, with cartoony side characters, and the settings derive from storybook illustration.

There have been exceptions to these generalizations over the years to be sure, but these are the characteristics that most people think of when they hear the word "animation". Is animation a genre? Do animated films have to adhere to these categories? How did these classifications come about? Let's take that last style, feature animation, and see where it got its start, and where it might have gone if animation had followed a different path...

THE GODDESS OF SPRING 1934

Here we have "ground zero" for the feature animation style. "The Goddess of Spring" was Walt Disney's experiment in constructing a prototype for his first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It consists of a fairy tale (Pluto and Persephone) set in a magical woodland populated by cute animals and helpful dwarfs.


The lead character is a realistically designed princess. Les Clark, who animated many of the scenes featuring the character of Persephone, was disappointed with the results. The acting in the film is primitive, much like the acting in melodramas, and it was difficult for the artists to control the realistic proportions of the lead characters.


The story was largely dictated by the overall themes of the original fable, but Disney's focus is on the beautiful girl dancing in a wood full of friendly animals, the threat by the devilish villain and the eventual happy ending that returns everything to normal again.


In key poses, the drawing of the lead character is quite good; but in motion, her features crawl all over her face, and her limbs resemble rubbery spaghetti, rather than flesh and blood arms and legs.


The villain, Pluto is the prototype for the Disney villain- thoroughly evil and melodramatic. He is as two dimensionally evil as Persephone is two dimensionally good. Similar characters can be found in Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians and The Little Mermaid, as well as the recent film Kung Fu Panda. The relationship of Persephone and the dwarfs is echoed by the relationship of Pluto and the demons in Hades, just like Briar Rose's animal friends and Maleficent's goons in Sleeping Beauty.


The scenes are laid out with the characters in profile, moving left to right and right to left, as if the characters are performing on a stage in front of a painted backdrop. There is very little indication of depth between the characters in the scenes of Pluto and Persephone and they maintain a "stage distance" from each other while delivering their lines. This makes the stilted acting and melodramatic poses look even more mannered.


The film ends with an abrupt "picture postcard" happy ending, just like most Disney films. The real focus of the film is on the wild musical number in Hades. The happy ending is just the period on the end of the sentence, not the point of the picture itself.

Goddess of Spring
(Disney/1934)
(Quicktime 7 / 21.5 MB)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

JOIE DE VIVRE 1934

Here is a French animated cartoon released the exact same year as "Goddess of Spring" which illustrates similar themes depicted in a totally different way. I was introduced to this film by cartoonist, Milton Knight, who pointed out its unique animation style to me. In 1930, Anthony Gross, a French printmaker and painter was inspired by Walt Disney's cartoons to create his own animated films along with Hector Hoppin. Like "Goddess of Spring", "Joei de Vivre" is a retelling of a traditional fable... in this case a sophisticated version of Perrault's Cinderella.


Instead of working from designs from children's illustrated books, this film incorporates elements from French art nouveau posters, the fine art of Matisse and visual ideas from the Post Impressionists and Italian Futurists. The choreography is very imaginative, and constantly plays with the movement of the two dimensional abstractions in three dimensional space. Like Disney's films, the effects animation is particularly impressive.


The dreamlike atmosphere of the film comes from the total integration between motion and music. Unlike Disney's film, "Joei de Vivre" does not require draftsmanship that exceeds the ability of the animators. The motion is stylized to suit the design, and vice versa. The film exhibits a strikingly unique conceptual unity.


This film starts and ends with dynamic images of modern power plants and trainyards, with a calm dreamlike center that takes place in a wooded glade. Structurally, it's like a mirror image of "Goddess of Spring" which begins and ends with pastoral scenes with dynamic scenes in Hades in the middle. Instead of abduction, "Joei de Vivre" deals with escape.


There is no stereotypical villain, melodramatic acting or stilted rhyming dialogue trying to put across plot points. Instead, it's a simple story of a boy struggling to pursue two girls on his bicycle, teaming up with them at the end to tame technology and escaping together into the clouds. The reactions of the boy to the girls is much more natural and believable than the mannered stage acting of Pluto. The situations all make perfect sense without having to be explained in words.


This film is more symbolic and less dependent on plot or traditional narrative than "Goddess of Spring". It's more of a visual poem than it is a literal visualization of a children's fairy tale. The music functions to set the mood in this film much more than in Disney's borderline kitsch pseudo-operetta.


What would animated features be like today if this was the model instead of "Goddess of Spring"? Why aren't there more films that tell stories in more visual and abstract ways? Would animation be better if films rethought aspects of style for the story being told instead of repeating elements from previous films? Is the animated film really a genre? Or are there other styles and stories suitable for the medium that just aren't being told?

Joei De Vivre
(Anthony Gross & Hector Hoppin/1934)
(Quicktime 7 / 19.9 MB)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

This is just one of the subjects we'll be covering at our first Animation Salon at Woodbury University. We'll be screening and discussing a program of animated films that illustrate the width and breadth of styles and techniques possible in animation. If you are interested in the art of animation, you won't want to miss it.


The ASIFA-Hollywood
Student Animation Festival
October 18th, 2008
Screening starts at 10am
Admission FREE to the animation community
Woodbury University
School of Business / Fletcher Jones Foundation Theater
7500 Glenoaks Bl
Burbank, CA 91510
(Click for printable map)

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

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