History: The Animator Newsletter 1946

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 info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.


Today's post is for animation history buffs. Fans of the amazing artwork that usually fills this page will have to sit tight until the next post...

Here's a fascinating document- an animation union newsletter from 1946. There are a lot of interesting things in these pages... Page two has plans for an animation award, an idea which finally came to pass when June Foray created the Annie Awards in 1972. On the same page is an item about Ronald Reagan warning cartoonist veterans about the imminent threat of an atomic World War III! Pages four and five feature chatty updates on all of the doings at the local cartoon factories. Page six has a review of Nat Falk's How To Make Animated Cartoons, which we have posted in its entirety here on the site in the past. (Part One: The History of Animation, Two: The Cartoon Studios, Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Four: How To Draw Cartoons and Five: How To Animate)








You may not realize how remarkable it is to be able to see documents like this. When I first started studying the history of animation back in the late 1970s, I never imagined that information like this existed. Back then, the only way for a cartoon fan to learn about the subject was from books and newsletters written by other fans. These usually consisted of detailed descriptions of cartoons interspersed with the author's personal opinions about which ones were good and which ones weren't. We read it all carefully, because many of the cartoons being discussed weren't available to us, and second hand descriptions were the only way to learn about them. Trivia dealing with the subject matter of the gags and evolution of the characters were discussed endlessly, but there wasn't a lot of solid information about how the films were made or stylistic analysis of individual artists, because most of the writers weren't animators or cartoonists themselves.


Photo of the Lantz Studio staff recently posted
to Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi's Cartoon Brew
Until I was in college, I had never seen an MGM Tex Avery cartoon, nor had I seen Snow White or Pinocchio. That may sound surprising to you, but things were quite different back then. Features were only screened theatrically in a 7 to 10 year rotation. Each television market had its own syndication package of cartoons that aired in morning and afternoon time slots. One city might have Tom & Jerry and Mighty Mouse, but no Woody Woodpecker or Tex Avery cartoons. Another city might have an entirely different lineup. The cartoons shown on TV were film chained live from beat up 16mm prints, and were almost always edited to fit four cartoons into a half hour slot instead of three. The same couple of dozen titles were aired over and over again. If you were interested in the filmography of a particular studio, you were limited to viewing just the titles in circulation at your local TV station. The only way to view other cartoons was to purchase, rent or borrow 16mm prints. This was beyond the means of all but the most serious collectors.


Drawing lesson based on "Heckling Hare"
by John Kricfalusi from All Kinds Of Stuff
There were a few excellent sources of information that stood out and offered a real glimpse of what it was like working in the golden age of animation... Funnyworld presented interviews with animators telling about their careers in their own words. Leonard Maltin's landmark book Of Mice And Magic was like a bible to me, as was Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston's Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life. A little later, John Canemaker's Felix: The Twisted Tale of the World's Most Famous Cat opened my eyes to the fact that things behind the scenes weren't always the way they appeared on the surface. Bendazzi's Cartoons blew my mind with information on animation from around the world. (I'm still searching for copies of films to view that I've only read about in that book!) All of these sources were invaluable, and still are. But first hand information like this union newsletter was as scarce as hen's teeth back in the early 80s.

Today, technology has changed everything. Thousands of cartoons are readily available on home video, cable TV and the internet. Primary source research turns up all the time on blogs like Cartoon Brew, Mayerson on Animation, A Film LA, and right here on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog. Animation professionals like John Kricfalusi, Will Finn, Michael Sporn, Mark Kausler and Peter Emsley generously share their vast collective experience in their blogs, raising the level of discourse dramatically.

If you're anything like me, you're excited about what you see happening around you. We don't have to take another cartoon fan's word about the relative merits of a particular cartoon or depend on a written synopsis any more... we can view the cartoons and consider the analysis of professional animators before making up our own mind. The true context and history of the films becomes more and more apparent with every piece of first hand evidence that is digitized and entered into the search engines. We're living in a golden age of animation scholarship; and hopefully, this access to knowledge that wasn't available before will lead to a flowering of the art of animation.

This is a great time to be interested in the history of animation!

If you found this interesting, you'll want to check out... Dispatch From Disney's Part One and Part Two, The Building Of The Disney Studios, Clair Weeks Goodbye Book, the 1938 Disney Artists Tryout Book, Clair Weeks: Pioneer of Indian Animation and Clair Week's Animal Studies.

Also, see... Chuck Jones on Modern Animation, Walt Disney Goes To War, John Canemaker on Bill Tytla and Musical Timing Rediscovered.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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2007 Review: 4 Advice For CGI Animators

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 link to read more on this topic.


In 1914, Max Fleischer invented the rotoscope as a time and labor saving way of producing animation. He soon came to realize that although the device was a great aid in effects and technical animation, it was a poor substitute for character animation.



In 1986, engineer Ernie Blood developed motion capture techniques as a time and labor saving way of producing animation. A decade and several mocap features later, many CGI animators are coming to the same realization that Max Fleischer and his staff had more than a half century ago.

NUMBER 4: ADVICE FOR CG ANIMATORS

One of the principle purposes of this website is to provide the link between animation of the past and animation of the future. The principles that brought Pinocchio and Bugs Bunny to life are the same principles that should be used to create current computer animated characters. This is not a website devoted to promoting hand drawn animation. This is a website devoted to promoting animation.


Bakshi Phone Doodle
Ralph Bakshi is a monumental force in the world of animation. I convinced him to come out of retirement to speak directly to the CGI guys in the trenches and share his viewpoint on the current state of animation. Ralph has an uncanny knack for kicking your ass in a way that makes you want to say "thank you!" afterwards. These two articles are Bakshi at his best.

There are no sides here, only techniques. The important thing is to do something more than just sell dolls and hamburgers, or get the best table at some bullshit restaurant. Stop crying. Go out and do something. Starve to death if you have to. It's honorable. -Ralph Bakshi

Bakshi Speaks To CGI Animators August 13th, 2007

Bakshi On 2D vs. 3D August 31st, 2007

A few weeks ago, I stuck my own head on the chopping block with a post titled, CGI Animators Should THINK Like Artists. I received some flak from an industry pro who said, "You take an all-or-nothing approach, where everything ever done in CG animation is crap, and everyone making these films are dopes." Well, that isn't what I'm actually saying... Crappy animation is crappy animation, no matter what technique is used to create it. And a lot of great artists are working on crappy CG films. The problem isn't that CG animation sucks and the people making it are dopes... It's that the current crop of CG features don't come close to scratching the surface of what's possible using the medium.


In the late teens and early 20's, hand drawn animation was in the same place CG is today. Everyone was focused on developing technical processes and filing patents on techniques. The drawings were realistic and stiff, the stories were simplistic, and they recycled cliched formulas and stock animation without a great deal of variety. Audiences didn't mind, because they were amused by the novelty of drawings that moved. But the novelty eventually wore off.

The medium had to advance itself creatively to survive, and animators like Otto Messmer and Bill Nolan stepped up to the bat to pioneer personality animation, the Fleischers developed musical timing, and Walt Disney codified the fundamental principles of animation like overlapping action, follow through and squash and stretch. We can learn a lot from the past. Motion libraries and rotoscoping were a dead end in 1925 and they're a dead end now. Earl Hurd's patent for the cel system didn't make cartoons any more entertaining, and neither do new techniques for rendering fur or water in CG. The thing that makes cartoons better is to utilize the unique aspects of the medium to tell new and original stories in an expressive and creative way.


In this article, I use an illustrated book from a century ago to attempt to show how the reference on this website is relevant to artists working in the field of computer animation...

CGI Animators Should THINK Like Artists
November 28th, 2007

I ask every animator who walks through the doors of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive for the same favor... Use the resources I'm sharing with you to make animation that people like me who love animation would want to watch. That goes the same for animators who use a computer as it does those who use a pencil. Take Ralph's advice to tell fresh and original stories, and my advice to think like an artist, and you can't go wrong.

Go To Number 3 on the list of Top Ten Subjects of 2007

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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History: Clair Weeks- Pioneer of Indian Animation

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 info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.


Bambi II?
Today I am presenting an interesting bit of history from the collection of Disney animator, Clair Weeks. Weeks was born in India, the son of a Methodist missionary. He spent 16 years as a Disney animator, working on Snow White, Bambi and Peter Pan. In 1956, Weeks travelled to Bombay, India on the invitation of Information Films of India to set up and train the country's first animation studio as part of the American Technical Co-Operation Mission. What started as a one year project expanded into almost a decade of service abroad working for the US Agency for International Development. Weeks toured Southeast Asia and headed up a communitactions office in Katmandu, Nepal. He made films and audio-visual programs that aided in the social development and economic growth of third world countries.

I know very little about Weeks' work in India, but a scrapbook donated to the archive by his family provides some tantilizing clues. I contacted the chapter of ASIFA in India asking if they had any information on Weeks, and the Vice President of ASIFA-India, Prasad responded...

The studio Weeks helped to train some animators for was the Films Division of India (FDI). The stint of Clair's there apparently lasted for about 18 months, during which they made a film called The Banyan Deer. I spoke to Rammohan, who was one of the students in 1956, and is generally acknowledged as one of the father figures of Indian animation to get these details. Clair apparently also taught in the late sixties or early seventies at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. One of the students at that point, Nina Sabnani heads the Animation Department there now.

Here are some scans from Weeks' Indian scrapbook. If anyone has any information on the film or the people in the photos, let me know in the comments below and I will add it to this post.

THE BANYAN DEER (1957) STORYBOARD






TREND MAGAZINE ARTICLE




PRODUCTION PHOTOS

19 April, 1958: Sitting: S.L. Badami (Deputy Chief Producer), Ezra Mir (Chief Producer), Clair Weeks (Key Animator Instructor), Dr. B.V. Keskar (Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting), D.L. Kothari (Controller of Administration). Standing behind: G.K. Maharesh (Production Manager), G.K. Gokhale (Animator), S.M. Junnarkar (Editor), G.H. Saraiya (in dark pants, Director)





19 April, 1958: D.L. Kothari, Clair Weeks, Dr. B.V. Keskar, Ezra Mir. Behind: H.R. Doraiswamy (Camera Assistant), S.S. Varma (Animation Cameraman)





Many thanks to the family of Clair Weeks for sharing this important material with us.

If you found this interesting, you'll want to check out our previous posts about material from the collection of Clair Weeks... Dispatch From Disney's Part One and Part Two, The Building Of The Disney Studios, Clair Weeks Goodbye Book, the 1938 Disney Artists Tryout Book and Clair Week's Animal Studies. Also, see... Walt Disney Goes To War, John Canemaker on Bill Tytla and Musical Timing Rediscovered.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Opinion: Bakshi Speaks To CGI Animators

In 1914, Max Fleischer invented the rotoscope as a time and labor saving way of producing animation. He soon came to realize that although the device was a great aid in effects and technical animation, it was a poor substitute for character animation.

In 1986, engineer Ernie Blood developed motion capture techniques as a time and labor saving way of producing animation. A decade and several mocap features later, many CGI animators are coming to the same realization that Max Fleischer and his staff had more than a half century ago.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive documents the golden age of hand drawn animation, but it isn't intended as a resource exclusively for 2D animators. I encourage CGI artists to think of themselves as animators and build upon animation's rich history instead of reinventing it bit by bit. Animation is animation. Pencils and computers are only tools.

No one today has as much experience with hand drawn animation and rotoscoping than the legendary director, Ralph Bakshi (See related article Bakshi Phone Doodles). I've asked him to speak "animator to animator" to CGI artists and pass along his observations about the things that really count when it comes to animation. -Stephen Worth

BAKSHI SPEAKS TO CGI ANIMATORS

Frame to frame animation eventually came to a grinding end. I'm not sure which generation of young animators were at Disney redoing and relearning the tradition of making boring films and recreating cliched motion when it expired. Except for Jim Tyer, "Modern Animation" and Ralph Bakshi, animation was dying- while doing the same old thing. Big money and animators never really followed Bakshi, "Modern Animation" or Jim Tyer. They just rehashed its past.


(Read Chuck Jones' article on the failure of "Modern Animation")
UPA failed because it was nothing more than elitist designers trying to animate on museum walls. Content was unimportant to them, really. Matisse or Picasso were more important. Bakshi was hounded out of the business by controversy. And you'd be surprised how many animation directors at Terrytoons disliked Jim Tyer's work because it didn't look like Disney- or anything else for that matter. Terry kept him on because his weekly footage output was so large.


(See the gallery of images from Lord of the Rings on RalphBakshi.com)
Lord of the Rings was done in rotoscope animation because rotoscope made it physically possible to do it. You couldn't do Lord of the Rings in less than 25 years using traditional animation. Thirty years later- Wow! Along comes the computer... "We can do Disney story animation with another look and sell it back to audiences." Of course, I would have used computers and motion capture if they had been around during my day. But I turned to Tolkien to try to change the kinds of stories animation told. My city films were being thrown out of theaters.

So, what's the argument here? Unless hand-drawn animation finds new creative story approaches and new creative drawn motion exaggerations, it will look as it always looked at the end- faded and drawn. There'll be no great interest for it either. Computer animation has the exact same problem. Computer animation will eventually grow old, just like hand-drawn animation, unless something new happens. It will fall into manneristic boredom if it continues to endlessly redo what's already been done before. The success and the money will always follow the creative artists who take either of these two mediums and do something different with it.

A lot of people remember and love Jim Tyer's animation today because he really did something different with hand-drawn animation. He didn't follow the crowd.


(See Jim Tyer's work: Terrytoons: Barnyard Actor / Funny Animal Comics Part One and Part Two

Ralph Bakshi 2007

UNFILTERED: The Complete Ralph Bakshi isn't one of those "art books" with postage stamp sized pictures floating in oceans of tasteful white space and huge text blocks of scholarly blather that crowds out the images. It's just pictures, pictures and more pictures... along with just enough text to put them in context. The book is organized to show Ralph's career from his earliest days at Terry-Toons, to his groundbreaking features, to his revolutionary TV work, to his most recent fine art paintings. Even if you think you know all there is to know about Bakshi, this book will grab you by the lapels and shake you and show you things you've never seen the likes of before. Click through the link to pick up the Bakshi book at Amazon.
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History: Dispatch From Disney's 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 info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.



Here is the last part of a pamphlet that was part of the Clair Weeks collection. Titled "Dispatch From Disney's", this 1943 publication was distributed to Disney employees who were serving in the war effort. This half contains an article from Oliver Wallace describing how he was inspired to write "Der Fuhrer's Face", some doodles by Roy Williams on life as an Air Raid Warden, a feature on the Disney Studio exercise coach Carl Johnson, news on the South American tour, and detailed information on the Disney wartime training films. If you missed it, check out part one of Dispatch From Disney's.


























Many thanks to the family of Clair Weeks for sharing this important material with us.

Make sure to check out the first part of this booklet... Dispatch From Disney's Part One

If you found this interesting, you'll want to check out our previous posts about material from the collection of Clair Weeks... The Building Of The Disney Studios, Clair Weeks Goodbye Book, the 1938 Disney Artists Tryout Book and Clair Week's Animal Studies. Also, see... Walt Disney Goes To War, John Canemaker on Bill Tytla and Musical Timing Rediscovered.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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History: Dispatch From Disney's 1943

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 info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.



Here is the first in a series of posts on a pamphlet that was part of the Clair Weeks collection. Titled "Dispatch From Disney's", this 1943 publication was distributed to Disney employees who were serving in the war effort. The first section includes an introduction by Walt, an article on the power of animation to educate by Major Alexander P. de Seversky (author of Victory Through Air Power), a cartoon feature by Roy Williams, and newsy info on Disney artists T. Hee, Freddie Moore, Frank Thomas and Woolie Reitherman. I'll post more from this fascinating booklet soon.















Many thanks to the family of Clair Weeks for sharing this important material with us.

If you found this interesting, you'll want to check out our previous posts about material from the collection of Clair Weeks... The Building Of The Disney Studios, Clair Weeks Goodbye Book, the 1938 Disney Artists Tryout Book and Clair Week's Animal Studies. Also, see... Walt Disney Goes To War, John Canemaker on Bill Tytla and Musical Timing Rediscovered.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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History: Terrytoons Studio Tour 1939

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 info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.


For more on the Terry Studios' production process, see our earlier post, How Animated Cartoons Are Made
Recently, the family of the legendary animator, Carlo Vinci lent us two 8mm films to transfer for the archive. I'll post about the other one soon, but today I have a special treat for you... a color film outlining the animation production process from Terrytoons in 1939!

Here are frame grabs of most of the people appearing in this short. If you can identify anyone, please let us know in the comments below.


Animator Carlo Vinci



Story Man Larry Silverman



Music Director Phil Scheib and Director Connie Rasinski


Animator Carlo Vinci and his assitant





Makin' Em Move (Terry/1939)
(Quicktime 7 / 30.7 megs)

Here is the cartoon we see the artists working on in this film...






Harvest Time (Terry/1940)
(Quicktime 7 / 13.8 megs)

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.

Many thanks to the Vinci family for sharing this with us! And thanks to Jerry Beck too for arranging the video transfer of this delicate original film.

For more information on Carlo Vinci, see our Carlo Vinci Cartoon Hall of Fame entry. Also see... Carlo Vinci Notes / Terrytoons Model Sheets and The Temperamental Lion / John K on Flintstones Animators / Nat Falk's How To Draw Animated Cartoons Part One: History Of Animation / Part Two: The Cartoon Studios / Nat Falk's How To Draw Animated Cartoons Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Part Four: How To Draw Animated Cartoons and Part Five: How To Animate

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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History: The Building Of The Disney Studio

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 info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.



Normally, I only do three articles a week, but a posting at Hans Perk's AFilm LA spurred me to digitize a magazine I've been meaning to scan for a while. Here it is, along with links to Hans' postings on the subject.

Among the collection of Clair Weeks was a publication from 1939 dealing with the construction of Disney's studio in Burbank. It's a fascinating look at the way the Disney operation was structured at the peak of its success. The end of the article is taken up with a detailed description of the production process at Disney. (Note: There's an error in the order of the steps in the section on story- the script was transcribed from the storyboard, not the other way around. And they discuss voice recording out of sequence as well.)






Now that you've read the article, click on these images to see Hans Perk's images of the Burbank lot...


Aerial view of Burbank before Disney's studio is built.


Aerial view of the Disney studio.


Helen Jordan's photos of the studio under construction.


The newly completed animation building in 1939.
If you found this interesting, you'll want to check out our previous posts about material from the collection of Clair Weeks... Clair Weeks Goodbye Book, the 1938 Disney Artists Tryout Book and Clair Week's Animal Studies. Also, see... Walt Disney Goes To War, John Canemaker on Bill Tytla and Musical Timing Rediscovered.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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History: Nat Falk's How To Make Animated Cartoons Part Five

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 info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.

Here is the conclusion of Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons". This section contains lessons on how to animate. There are some great examples here taken directly from cartoons by Terry, Lantz, Fleischer and Mintz. If you missed the first chapter of this rare book and would like to start from the beginning, see... Nat Falk's History of Animation. The rest of the chapters are linked at the bottom of this post.

HOW TO ANIMATE













For more from this rare book, see Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons" Part One: History of Animation, Part Two: The Cartoon Studios, Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made and Part Four: Drawing For Animation.

For more drawing lessons, see The $100,000 Cartoon Drawing Course, Bill Nolan's Cartooning Self Taught and Willard Mullin On How To Draw Animals.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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History: Nat Falk's How To Make Animated Cartoons Part Four

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 info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.



Here is the first half of the last chapter in Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons". This section contains a brief article by Walter Lantz dealing with the creation of Andy Panda, and lessons on how to draw animated cartoons. If you missed the first chapter of this rare book and would like to start from the beginning, see... Nat Falk's History of Animation. The rest of the chapters are linked at the bottom of this post.

Thanks to the family of the legendary animator, Carlo Vinci for sharing this great book with us!

HOW I CREATED ANDY PANDA
By Walter Lantz





HOW TO DRAW ANIMATED CARTOONS











For more from this rare book, see Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons" Part One: History of Animation, Part Two: The Cartoon Studios Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made and Part Five: How To Animate.

For more drawing lessons, see The $100,000 Cartoon Drawing Course, Bill Nolan's Cartooning Self Taught and Willard Mullin On How To Draw Animals.

Next week will be a busy one! We will be posting the concluding chapter of this book; the Annie Awards are next Sunday, February 11th; and I have two amazing books loaned to us by the family of Clair Weeks to digitize. If anyone is available to volunteer Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday, please email me and let me know when you would like to come help out.

Thanks!
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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