2007 Review: 1 Carlo Vinci

As the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive completes its second year in operation, it's time to review the accomplishments of the past year. Here's a countdown of the ten most important subjects we've covered in 2007. See if your list matches mine. (View the complete list.) Click on the links to read more on this topic.


From Carlo Vinci: The Training of a Golden Age Animator
August 28th, 2007
NUMBER 1: CARLO VINCI

The history of animation is populated by scores of remarkably talented animators. But Carlo Vinci was much more than just an animator. "Legend" is a word that has been overused in recent times, but when applied to Vinci, it's perfectly apt.

Carlo Vinci was born in New York City in 1906, the only son of Italian immigrants. He showed artistic talent from a very early age, and after graduating from high school, he was awarded a scholarship at the prestigious National Academy of Design. Here he received a full classical arts education. We recently posted the syllabus of his curriculum at the National Academy.


From How To Pick An Animation School December 18th, 2007

The Academy believes firmly in the development of individuality but denies that such development is helped by the ignoring of the universal heritage, the heritage of the graphic manifestations of Man's temperament and impressions. It therefore approves careful consideration of the Art of the past and its correlation with the Art of the present. It encourages progressive experiment admitting the vitality of real Art under and form and condemning only ignorance, insincerity and the contempt which is born of them. -Edwin H. Blashfield, Chair of the National Academy of Design

Around 1933, Vinci joined the staff of Terry-Toons. His classical art training enabled him to advanced to the position of animator in less than a year. In the height of the depression, Vinci was earning $75 a week, a very good salary for the time. His family allowed us to digitize a book that describes the production process at Terry-Toons in the mid 1930s... Nat Falk's How To Make Animated Cartoons.


From Nat Falk's "How Animated Cartoons Are Made"
January 4th, 2007
The next chapter of this fascinating book explains how to animate, with lots of examples of Vinci's amazing animation.


From Nat Falk's "How To Animate" February 3rd, 2007
We also posted a batch of Terry model sheets from Vinci's collection...


...and a cartoon titled "The Temperamental Lion", which features some great Vinci scenes.


From "The Temperamental Lion" January 6th, 2007
John Kricfalusi and I visited Carlo's widow, Margaret Vinci last June. While we were there, she shared a bundle of notes that Carlo had sent her when they were courting. Since they lived on opposite sides of the city, they could only be together one day a week. Between visits, he sent her a note every day in the mail, and on each one was a cartoon commenting on the happenings of the day...


From Carlo Vinci Notes June 5th, 2007
Back in September, a 19 year old aspiring cartoonist named Bruce Watkinson wrote in to say...

The post that blew my mind the most was Carlo Vinci: The Training of a Golden Age Animator, especially the following quote: "Vinci's job was to animate, but his occupation was ARTIST. The same was true of most of the other great talents in animation- Marc Davis, Milt Kahl, Grim Natwick... The reason they were great animators was because they were great artists." Now I’m doing my damn best to be the best, to best the best, and maybe one day to teach what I know to anyone who is interested.

From Carlo Vinci: Training of a Golden Age Animator June 5th, 2007
I agree with Bruce. The most important post of this past year was Carlo Vinci: Training of a Golden Age Animator. Carlo Vinci left behind a lot more than just classic cartoons. He left behind a legacy that will inspire and enlighten artists for generations to come.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

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Theory: How To Pick An Animation School

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about art instruction.


Today, I read a post on Cartoon Brew titled When Angry Animation Students Attack. Apparently, an animation student became frustrated by the poor quality of instruction at his school, so he crapped out his final film and ended it with a credit for his professor that read, "Thanks for nothing."

This particular post resonated with me, because the most common question I'm asked by young artists is, "How should I pick an animation school?" They always expect me to recommend a specific school, but my answer usually surprises them. Before I tell you the advice I give them, take a look at this past post...

Carlo Vinci: The Training Of A Golden Age Animator

Carlo Vinci was one of the most talented animators who ever lived. When he passed away in 1993, he left behind a remarkable legacy. But of particular interest to students of animation was his collection of student work. Tucked away in a closet was a portfolio full of studies that chart his education. Vinci's family is generously allowing the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive to document this material with the intent of reconstructing his education as a model for current students of animation.

Today, I'd like to share a brochure with you... This is the course outline for National Academy of Design, the art school that Carlo Vinci attended... I hope you take the time to read over this material carefully, especially if you are a student looking to pursue a career in animation. It will help you know what to look for in an animation school.


The Academy believes firmly in the development of individuality but denies that such development is helped by the ignoring of the universal heritage, the heritage of the graphic manifestations of Man's temperament and impressions. It therefore approves careful consideration of the Art of the past and its correlation with the Art of the present. It encourages progressive experiment admitting the vitality of real Art under and form and condemning only ignorance, insincerity and the contempt which is born of them.





The students have at all time free access to the Academy's large and valuable collection of standard and rare books on every branch of the fine arts... Of especial advantage to the student is the easy accessibility of the great collections in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Historical Society, New York Public Library, Brooklyn Museum, the City Hall, the Hispanic Society, and the galleries of innumerable private collectors and art dealers in the city, where the best American works and art treasures from foreign countries may be studied to better advantage than anywhere else in America.

REQUIREMENTS



SCHEDULE OF CLASSES

The class schedule runs six days a week from 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. First year studios in drawing from sculpture, life drawing, portrait painting, still life painting, and composition run from two to three hours apiece. Second year courses consist of life drawing, sculpture from life, portrait painting, etching, composition, and mural decoration. And three hour night courses are offered in sculpture, life drawing, drawing from sculpture and composition.

First year students receive lectures in anatomy, perspective and art history. Second year students attend lecture classes in color theory, various printing techniques, stained glass, mosaic and the history of art and architecture.

COURSE OF STUDY


Note that students first draw from still life and sculpture, and only when they have proved their abilities, are they allowed to advance to drawing from life.






INSTRUCTORS




HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL



PAST GRADUATES






HOW DO I PICK AN ANIMATION SCHOOL?
Here's the surprising answer... You don't! Schools that specialize in animation as a trade do a lousy job of preparing you for a career in animation. While you're a student, you should focus on your core art skills- drawing, design, composition and color. Look for a school that can give you a solid classical art background. Avoid ones that just teach computer programs. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars to learn Maya!

Carlo Vinci was one of the greatest animators who ever lived, but he never took a class in animation. Instead, he spent three years of intense study to learn to be an artist. With the experience he gained at the National Academy of Design, he was able to learn animation and advance quickly on the job. It was the same for great animators like Marc Davis, Chuck Jones and Frank Thomas who studied at Chouinard on the West coast.

IT'S A LOT EASIER TO LEARN ANIMATION THROUGH SELF STUDY ONCE YOU'VE BEEN TAUGHT THE CLASSICAL ARTS THAN IT IS TO DO IT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Start with the general skills and work your way towards the specific ones.


Students at the National Academy of Design
around the time Vinci attended.
You have an advantage that the Golden Age animators didn't have. Personal computers and inexpensive animation software make it easy to experiment and learn animation on your own. You have amazing resources on the web, like the $100,000 Animation Drawing Course, Mark Kennedy's Seven Golden Camels and John Kricfalusi's invaluable blog, All Kinds Of Stuff. You have no excuse for not learning to animate.

You can't buy an education, but you may be able to buy a degree. Students graduate without any marketable skills from good colleges every year. But that isn't the schools' fault. Your education is your own responsibility. It's not your professor's job to MAKE you learn. Learning is a life-long occupation. Apply yourself.

If you can't afford a university degree, you can still obtain a first class art education. Attend classes at your local community college and pick up copies of the Famous Artists painting, commercial art and cartooning sets on eBay. Self study is the key to becoming a great artist. Once you start to master the fundamental skills, THEN apply yourself to learning to animate.

If you follow this advice, you'll never have to make excuses for your lack of skill as an animator, and you'll never need to blame anyone else for your lack of education. Best of all, your education will form the foundation for any creative endeavor you undertake.

If you found this post to be useful, see also... The Training Of A Golden Age Animator, John K's Advice Letter, Ward Kimball's Advice Letter, CGI Animators Should THINK Like Animators, Live The Fabulous Lifestyle of a Hollywood Cartoonist, The Application Of Inspiration, How To Properly Use Reference, Incorporating Natural Forms, (Visual) Literacy, Why Do We Need An Animation Archive?, Parody: Whack Comics Part One and Ripoff vs Inspiration: Chaplin's Shadow

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

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Illustration: Monks By Eduard von Grutzner

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for more jaw dropping images from classic illustrated books and magazines.


Here is another interesting item from the collection of Carlo Vinci. These photographs were among his most prized posessions. They are turn of the century reproductions of the paintings of Eduard von Grutzner. Grutzner was born in 1846 and received classical art training at the Munich Academie under the noted realist painter, Karl von Piloty. Grutzner specialized in genre paintings, which formed the basis for the style of many classic book illustrators who followed. He was famous for his paintings of jolly gatherings in alehouses, hunting scenes, and humorous images of monastic life, which these particular images represent. Grutzner was successful and popular in his day, and died in 1925.

The family isn't quite sure where Vinci obtained these photographs, but my guess is that they date back to his earliest years as a professional artist. After graduating from the National Academy of Design, Vinci was hired to do reproductions of classic paintings. It's entirely possible that these were used by him as reference for reproductions of one or more Grutzner paintings. It's easy to see why Vinci treasured these pictures. The compositions are classically perfect, the caricatures are well observed, the lighting is beautifully rendered, and a Falstaffian sense of humor makes the images a lot of fun.











If you enjoyed this article, you'll also want to check out our... Profile of Carlo Vinci, The Training Of A Golden Age Animator, Carlo Vinci Notes, The Temperamental Lion, John K on Flintstones Animators

Also see... N. C. Wyeth's Legends of Charlemagne, Maxfield Parrish's Arabian Nights, Frank Reynolds Paints Pickwick, John Bauer's Bland Tomtar Och Troll, Edmund Dulac's Tanglewood Tales and Gustaf Tenggren's Wonderbook

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

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Biography: The Training of a Golden Age Animator

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.


If you have been reading our blog for a while, you're familiar with Carlo Vinci. He was a brilliant animator whose work you've seen many times in Mighty Mouse cartoons...

...and on The Flintstones.

You might remember that John K and I visited his family a few months ago...

This weekend I returned with Archive volunteers Joseph "JoJo" Baptista, Chris Allison and Mike Nassar to photograph some of the incredible artwork that lines the walls of Mrs. Vinci's beautiful home. Carlo Vinci left behind an important legacy, and the family is now sharing it with you.

It's interesting how different aspects of one's life can come together to point in the same direction. Recently, I was participating in an internet discussion forum where we were discussing the best way to educate aspiring animators. Some people in the discussion felt that basic drawing skills are necessary. Others believed that drawing is unnecessary for students aiming at a career in computer animation. There was disagreement over just what sort of education is best for a student animator. This led me to ask a question... What sort of education did golden age animators have?

Carlo Vinci provides the answer...


Carlo Vinci attended The National Academy of Design in New York. This isn't just any art college. This is one of the most prestigious art schools in the world. It's the school that Winslow Homer, Thomas Nast, William Steig, Norman Rockwell and James McNeill Whistler attended. Students are accepted by invitation, free of tuition or cost. The instructors are major artists who serve without pay as a public service. At the end of his studies, Vinci didn't just receive a diploma. He was awarded a medal and was given the honor of being able to put N.A. after his name. (Much like the Royal Academy in the UK awards R.A. status.)

Vinci's work at the National Academy included studying the work of classical painters. Here are two paintings he made after Boucher...



Yes. That's the work of the guy who animated The Flintstones!

Vinci had a life-long passion for learning. He studied sketching from life, painting in oils and watercolor, as well as sculpture and etching. He studied from early in the morning until late at night. Here is one of his student drawings- a self portrait.



His family told me that he was always working and studying. On weekends, he would paint in oils and watercolors. He painted portraits...



...and landscapes...


...and still lifes...


He was an accomplished illustrator...



...and he worked in a dozen totally different styles.

He even designed and painted murals and stained glass windows...


Carlo Vinci wasn't just an animator. He painted, sculpted, designed, illustrated... He worked in the fields of fine art, illustration and cartooning. He was a LOT more than just an animator.

Vinci's job was to animate, but his occupation was ARTIST. The same was true of most of the other great talents in animation- Marc Davis, Milt Kahl, Grim Natwick... The reason they were great animators was because they were great artists.

If you're an animation student, go back and read that last sentence again.

I'm not an animator. I studied graphic design at UCLA. I spent many months learning to spec type, do pasteup, calculate reductions on a Lucigraph and use a Rapidograph pen. A few years after I graduated, the Macintosh came out and all of those skills became obsolete. What I was left with when the dust cleared was my knowledge of composition, color and design.

If you're an animation student, focus on your core art skills, regardless if you plan to do hand drawn, CGI, cut out or puppet animation. Computer programs will come and go. You can always teach yourself Maya or Flash or whatever on your own time. Demand that your school provide you the same quality of education that Carlo Vinci had. Work hard. Study to become an ARTIST.

Read Illustrator Lainey Schallock's comments on this post in her blog, Miscellainy.

If you enjoyed this article, you'll also want to check out... How To Pick An Animation School, Profile of Carlo Vinci, Carlo Vinci Notes, The Temperamental Lion, John K on Flintstones Animators

Also see... An Interview With Playboy's Eldon Dedini, John Canemaker on Bill Tytla, Tytla At Terry: Mighty Mouse Meets Jekyll &' Hyde Cat 1940, The Pencil Test of Art Babbitt's Best Scene, and Remembering Berny Wolf

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Education: Fundamentals of Composition Part Two

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great art instruction posts.

Today, I'm back at the archive, and continuing lesson three from the Famous Artists Illustration Course. (For our previous postings from these great books, see Fundamentals of Composition Part One, Chad's Design for Television, and Willard Mullin on Animals.)

John Kricfalusi recently posted a series of great articles on composition on his blog. You'll want to check those out too...

Composition For Layout And Background Artists: Framing
Composition 2: Intersection
Composition 3: Clear Staging
Composition 4: Staging Groups of Characters
Composition 5: Negative vs Positive Space
Composition 6: Asymetricality
Composition 7: Poses Working Together
Composition 8: Form vs. Detail, Lettering, Reference
Composition 9: Study Other Artists
Composition 10: Contrasts
Composition 11: Organic Shapes
Composition 12: Contrasts in Texture and Spacing
Composition 13: Scale
Composition 14: Form Over Detail
Composition 15: Form in Clouds
Composition 16: Flair
Composition 17: Reference and Inspiration
Composition 18: Scene Planning For TV
Compostion 19: Scene Planning For TV Part Two
Compostion 20: More Inspiring BG Layouts

2.) DEPTH






3.) LINE






4.) VALUE





For the first half of this lesson, see Fundamentals of Composition Part One.

The Famous Artists Course was created in the mid-1950s by Norman Rockwell, Rube Goldberg and Albert Dorne, among others. The correspondence lessons and educational materials are still available at www.famous-artists-school.com. Books from the three courses: Painting, Illustration/Design and Cartooning turn up on eBay as well. I highly recommend these great resources to students.

For our previous postings from the Famous Artists Course, see Fundamentals of Composition Part One, Chad's Design for Television, and Willard Mullin on Animals.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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