Animation Salon: Acting For Animation Feb 21st

Woodbury University has graciously invited ASIFA-Hollywood to host events at their newly opened Fletcher Jones Foundation Auditorium. For the next several months, the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive will be hosting Animation Salons on the third Saturday evening of every month. These events are free and open to the animation community.

AN ANIMATION SALON


Jean Francois de Troy, "Reading from Moliere" 1728
On Saturday, February 21st at 8pm, we will be holding an Animation Salon on the subject of...

Acting For Animation
What is "acting"? What constitutes a well acted performance?



What are the differences between acting for animation and acting in live action?



Are there things that can be done in live action that can't be done effectively in animation?



Are there are other ways to convey mood, emotion and personality besides acting?



What sort of inspiration did golden age animators look to for creating an animated performance? What do these models of pantomime acting have to inform modern animation?

Who was the greatest actor of all time? Was it John Barrymore who received acclaim for his performances in Hamlet and Richard III?



...Or was it the "wascaly wabbit", Bugs Bunny?






Acting For Animation
John Barrymore "Twentieth Century (1934)
Bugs Bunny in "Tortoise Wins By A Hare" (1943)
(Quicktime 7 / 6.7 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.

We'll be discussing and screening examples related to these and many more topics at Woodbury University on February 21st. I hope you can join us.

SPECIAL GUEST: EDDIE FITZGERALD


Joining us for this Animation Salon will be cartoonist Eddie Fitzgerald, the creator of Uncle Eddie's Theory Corner and story artist on Ren & Stimpy. Eddie will be screening one of his favorite films and sharing his theories on acting and building a characterful performance.

Don't miss it!

Animation Salon: Acting For Animation
Saturday, February 21st, 2009 8pm
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
.

Stumble It!

Theory: Objectively Breaking Down Reference

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see previous posts on Theory For Animated Filmmakers.


In yesterday's post on music, I told you about our Assistant Archivist, JoJo Baptista and his epiphany regarding the difference between the quality of popular culture today compared to popular culture of the past. That post was written nearly two years ago, and now JoJo is in his final year at Woodbury University working on his senior film project. In his film, JoJo will be animating a rhythmic walk for a child character. He asked me if I had any suggestions for reference to study. I immediately thought of Shirley Temple.

In the comments to yesterday's post, a few people misunderstood what I was referring to when I said that music, movies, dance, illustration and writing were all better in the first half of the 20th century than they are today. I wasn't talking about "personal taste". Today's post will prove that without a doubt. I'm going to give you a peek at the discussions that went on at the Archive today regarding this film... Captain January.


When Shirley Temple made this film in 1936, she was in the first grade. If you take a moment to view the clip below, I think you'll agree that even at that young age, she was already a talented and skilled performer. She acts, sings, and especially dances on a level that rivals or surpasses the skills of most current pop divas, even ones with a couple of decades of experience under their belts. If you tried to think of a current seven year old who compares to her, you would have to think pretty hard.


That said, I have to admit that I don't personally care for Shirley Temple movies. They follow a rigid formula- a lonely curmudgeon adopts an adorable orphan who melts his heart. The moppet and the old fart are separated, which creates oceans of tears, only to be joyfully reunited at the end... Although they are cute, her films really have very little to say about anything real. Perhaps some people might enjoy them as an escape, but they aren't to my taste.


There is another aspect to these films that makes me uncomfortable. Graham Greene, writing in the magazine Night and Day wrote of Shirley Temple, "Her admirers - middle-aged men and clergymen - respond to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with enormous vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire." I don't think I need to add anything to that quote.


Maybe I'm a crusty old curmudgeon myself, but these films just don't do it for me... Have I made it clear that I don't care for this particular movie yet? All right.

JoJo and I sat down with this DVD today to analyze Temple's performance to see if there are characteristics that he can use in his film. We chose a clip where Shirley dances and sings "At The Codfish Ball" with Buddy Ebsen. Here is a video clip of the sequence...


"At The Codfish Ball" from Captain January
Shirley Temple and Buddy Ebsen (Fox/1936)
(Quicktime 7 / 9.7 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.

It's important to be able to still frame to analyze this clip. I made a non-streaming full motion version (MP4 / 32.5 megs) that you can download and play from your hard drive if you wish. Here is the storyboard of the scene cuts for your reference...








Watch the video a couple of times and refer to the scenes as you read our notes below...

OBSERVATIONS

STAGING: Ebsen and Temple are surrounded in the sequence by incidental characters. Temple begins her song in a close up that isolates her from the group. As the sequence progresses, the incidental characters recede into the background, placing the focus on the dance routine. The crowd is dressed in dark colors, while Temple wears white, making her stand out. Ebsen wears a dark shirt with light pants, directing the attention to his legs, which makes sense since he is dancing. One scene at 4:02 uses Ebson's legs to frame Temple as they dance on the wooden cask.

CUTTING: The four minute sequence is broken into 11 cuts, many of which are quite long. Temple is able to sustain long takes with high energy and accuracy in her performance. The sequence is bookended by an entrance and exit through a doorway. The first half of the sequence moves from left to right. After a 180 degree jump cut at 2:16 (which works perfectly in this context) the action moves from right to left. The cuts are dictated by the staging of the dance routine, never to cut around errors in performance. Only one scene at 4:02 seems to have been performed out of continuity and inserted. The reason for this is to allow Temple to push her performance over the top for the big finish.

ACTING: Temple's ability to put across the lyrics to the song through her movements and expressions is remarkable. The scene that begins at 0:19 is packed with contrasting expressions reflecting her attitude clearly. Her gestures are always specific to the meaning of the lyrics ("from the herring to the whale") and her facial expressions never seem to be "pose to pose". If you still frame through them, they evolve through dozens of different attitudes in the space of a few short seconds.

Temple's pantomime is clear and expressive. At 2:33, she throws the lead to Ebsen, studies his dance steps skeptically, does a small take of disgust and petulantly cheats by scraping her foot on the shingled wall behind her. She is always aware of the camera, and keeps her face in view, even when she is walking away from the camera (2:08) or being whisked around and around (3:41). Temple's hair is a perfect of example of "secondary action" and her dancing exhibits other principles like "follow through" and "overlapping action" as well.

There are a couple of portions of the routine where Temple's guard falls for a few frames, or we can see her preparing for a difficult move. At 2:08 she misses her lipsync as she navigates dancing down stairs. At 3:17, she scowls and looks down to Ebsen's feet to coordinate with him as he scoops her up and trots her up the gangplank. At 3:36, she takes a beat to recover and gain her footing after a few spins. But on the next main beat, she is right back in the groove again with a glowing smile. She never falters more than an instant. Most audiences would never even notice it.

DANCING: The rhythm and synchronization between Temple and Ebsen is amazing. At 0:42, Temple struts back and forth setting her heel down on the main beat, and her toes on the back beat. She performs several different types of dance steps, including a cakewalk, a shuffle, a can-can and a truck.

Right before the scene cut at 1:29, Ebsen hitches his pants up in the background, anticipating his entrance. Even though the two dance in perfect sync, their steps are subtly different. At 1:43, Ebsen dances only below the knee. Since Temple's legs were so much shorter than his, he had to govern his movement precisely to maintain a consistent distance between them.

Ebsen's gestures throughout the routine are very original and funny, particularly in spots like "to the bottom of the sea" where they flash their fingers and mimic a dive (1:42) and as they exit the scene at 4:12, where his arms flail like rubber. Ebsen is probably one of the most remarkable and under-appreciated dancers of his time. Today, most people think of him as Jed Clampett, and don't even realize the spectacular talent he posessed.

SUMMATION

JoJo found a lot to think about and study in this film. It exhibits a level of skill and craftsmanship that today's movies just can't touch. Do I say that because of my personal taste? No. I don't even like this movie. I say that because I took the time to define the criteria I judge films by and sat down and analyzed what I was looking at.

If you read my previous post about music and thought I was just talking about what I like, go back and look again at those example videos I posted. Study them the way JoJo and I studied this Shirley Temple sequence. See if you can figure out why I chose those particular clips, and try to think of current performances that compare to them.

There are two ways to look at a movie or cartoon... one can look at it as a member of the audience... or as a filmmaker. One of the sacrifices one makes when one chooses a career as an artist is to lose the ability to passively "experience" art. Once your mindset shifts to the analytical way a filmmaker thinks about his medium, you can never go back to the innocence of just sitting in the dark and "experiencing" a film the way ordinary people do.

Oscar Wilde once wrote, "Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those he has selected."

The moral to this story is... The worst thing you can do is to tell old fashioned, hackneyed stories using the reduced skill levels and slack techniques of today. It's much better to use the powerful techniques of the past to recapture a classic level of skill, and use that skill to tell honest stories that are relevant to modern audiences.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

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
.

Stumble It!

Advice: Bakshi On Surviving Tough Times

At this year's San Diego Comic-Con, I had the honor of hosting an interview with Ralph Bakshi. He had some important things to say to the animators in the crowd. Watch Ralph take my question and hit it out of the park...



Many thanks to the Bakshi family for their helpfulness and generosity, and to our fantastic videographer, JD Mata.

Feel free to embed the YouTube on your own website. Spread the word! Educators may download a higher resolution copy of this video to burn to DVD for viewing in their classroom.

Read the comments about this video at YouTube, Cartoon Brew, CGI Society Part One, CGI Society Part Two, Animation Nation and Weirdo's blog on Newgrounds.

UPDATE: I just spoke to Ralph on the phone. He says that he regularly checks the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive site, and was surprised to see his clip posted. He's reading your comments and he's happy that you find his message inspiring. He's promised to do more interviews with me for the Archive soon. Thanks, Ralph!

If you found this article interesting, see... Bakshi's Phone Doodles, Bakshi Speaks To CGI Animators Part One and Part Two, Louise Zingarelli's Cool World Storyboards, Bakshi Meltdown Comics Party Pictures

See also... Imitation vs. Inspiration: Chaplin's Shadow, The Application Of Inspiration, How To Properly Use Reference, Incorporating Natural Forms, (Visual) Literacy, Why Do We Need An Animation Archive?, Parody: Whack! Comics

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.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Story: Writing Cartoons Part Four- The Rough Board

This post is the third in a series on Cartoon Writing. For the first two installments, see... Writing Cartoons: Part One- The Gag Session, Part Two- A Continuity Emerges and Part Three- Structure


Woolie Reitherman, Bill Peet, Ken Andersen and
Ham Luske tussle during a story meeting for
"101 Dalmatians" (via Michael Sporn's Splog.)
When we left off last time in our series on cartoon writing, the gag sessions had led to the establishment of an overall structure and continuity. The random threads of ideas had meshed into the framework of a story with a beginning, middle and end. Today, we are going to look at how that bare skeleton outline was fleshed out for the first time in rough storyboard form. But first, a little bit about the relationship between the story men and the rest of the animation staff...

In the photo above, you see story man Bill Peet rough-housing with designer Ken Anderson and directors Woolie Reitherman and Ham Luske. Unlike today, when a cartoon scriptwriter rarely if ever ventures into the artists' domain, golden age cartoon writers interfaced with a large chunk of the animation staff on a daily basis. As we discussed in the first couple of articles in this series, animators were on hand at all story meetings to suggest sequences of action that would lend themselves to funny animation. But at Disney, the influence of the animation staff on the story went even further than that...

INSPIRATIONAL ART

Disney employed a special crew of artists whose sole duty was to visualize the ideas being tossed out for consideration during the story meetings. They established the key setups in the film. The drawing above is a very early inspiration sketch from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was drawn by one of Disney's greatest concept artists, Albert Hurter. (See our previous post on Hurter.) At the time this sketch was created, the character designs hadn't yet been finalized, however Hurter was called upon to determine the best way to stage the scene. If you compare this sketch to the scene as it appears in the film, you'll see how closely Hurter's background details were followed by the layout department.


Concept artists would also experiment with the overall design approach. In the "Dance of the Hours" sequence from Fantasia, it was decided to contrast different design motifs for each of the various times of day... the morning section consisted of static horizontal and vertical lines, the afternoon was made up of ellipses, the evening was represented by S curves, and in the example above by James Bodrero from the night sequence, zig zags predominated.


As the story progressed, the cast of characters would come into focus. Artists would be assigned to establish and refine the way each of the characters looked. This example is a design by Grim Natwick for an unmade Silly Symphony based on the Aesop's Fable, "The Three Musicians of Bremen".

All of the designs from the conceptual artists would filter back to the story department, where they were pinned up on the boards and incorporated into the story sketches as the project progressed. I'll have more on that in the next article in this series.

THE ROUGH STORYBOARD
The technique of drawing out stories in sketches goes back to the earliest days of animation. It probably evolved out of newspaper comics. Here we have a thumbnail storyboard from around 1927 by Grim Natwick from Bill Nolan's Krazy Kat studio. Unlike most storyboards, this one reads top to bottom instead of left to right.




The basic story of this board is as follows...

Krazy Kat is spending a quiet evening at home with his wife, who is listening to the radio. Krazy sneaks away to call his girlfriend and crawls into the phone and through the wires to meet her at the "Flaming Youth" nightclub. They dance to the music of the hot jazz band, and as the tempo speeds up, the whole room joins in a wild dancing frenzy. Krazy begins swinging his girlfriend around the dance floor. It is revealed that the music is being broadcast on the radio and Krazy's wife is listening in. The station announcer mentions that Krazy Kat is on the dance floor, and the wife stomps down to the nightclub to confront him. Just as the song reaches its climax, the wife enters and bops Krazy over the head with a bass fiddle.

Grim told me that the earliest form of storyboard he ever saw was at Hearst's International Film Service studio. The director, Gregory LaCava would doodle out the story in rough thumbnail form straight ahead as a comic strip. Then he would mark the scene cuts, assign an approximate length to each scene, and take a pair of scissors and cut the panels up into sequences to hand out to the animators. This technique probably had its origins even earlier at the Raoul Barre studio, where LaCava trained to animate. The interesting thing about the Krazy Kat storyboard pictured above is that by 1927, the technique was well enough established that stock storyboard paper was printed up with the boxes ready to be filled in.


In the early 30s at Disney, the technique was perfected by Webb Smith, who suggested drawing the panels on individual sheets of paper and pinning them up on cork boards. This made it simple to add or delete panels, and allowed the storyboard artist to see the visual flow of an entire sequence at once.

At Disney, the boards evolved as the sequences developed, but at Warner Bros, there were two iterations of storyboards for each cartoon- the first draft thumbnail board and the final director's board. The thumbnail board was the storyboard artist's first pass at the story. He was free to work out the basic gags, staging and cutting, without having to deal with drawing the poses "on model" or putting a lot of detail into the backgrounds. At this stage, dialogue was just a general suggestion- it wasn't locked down until the director had input on the board. That way the dialogue would be a natural outgrowth of the action, instead of the action being driven by the dialogue.

Here is an example of a thumbnail board by John Dunn from the Bugs Bunny Show (1960)...





There are a couple of interesting things we can deduce from this board. It appears that the panels with the glue stains were boarded first. They probably represent Dunn's first thoughts on gags for the story. He then went back and expanded the introductions to the sequences and the transitions in and out of the commercials. Dialogue for some sections is indicated by placeholders. (ie: "Foghorn introduces commercial.", "Foghorn cons hawk.") These lines would be written once the action of the cartoon was all approved. At this stage, only the dialogue needed to sell the gag was necessary, and even that could change as the board developed. The end of this board is quite choppy. It's likely that more development was done on the final gags before the board was ready to go into production. At this early stage, the scene numbering for production tracking had not yet been established. Scene cuts might still be moved or eliminated as the board evolved. So the numbering on the panels is simply a page number to keep the drawings in order.

Sometime in the early 1960s, the technique of storyboarding took a huge step backwards. Instead of using Webb Smith's more flexible cork board and push pin system, story artists went back to drawing out the action on stock printed paper with six or more boxes printed on it. This made it difficult to insert or delete panels. Here is an example of a thumbnail board from Format Films' The Alvin Show... It was most likely drawn by veteran Disney and UPA story man, Leo Salkin. Notice how he juggles different sorts of shots to create a visual rhythm. The animation on this show was extremely limited, so contrasts in design were needed to make up for it...










It appears that page five required some revision, but the pre-printed paper made it difficult to juggle the order and number of panels. Salkin was forced to completely redraw every panel on the page, wasting time and losing some of the spark of life in his thumbnails in the process. Also note the pasteover at the bottom of page seven and the numerous erasures throughout the board. Why did they abandon a system that worked well for one that didn't?


This particular board has an interesting last page. Salkin planned out the shots very carefully to allow background paintings to be reused in multiple shots. This saved money and allowed the background painters more time to paint the establishing shots. Very clever!

Here is the finished Chipmunk cartoon to compare with the thumbnail board...



The next article in this series will deal with the pitch...

For more on cartoon writing see... Writing Cartoons: Part One- The Gag Session, Part Two- A Continuity Emerges and Part Three- Structure

See also... The Greatest Cartoon Writer of All Time, Alvin Show Pilot Board, Alvin Show: The Whistler Storyboard, Clair Weeks' Banyan Deer Storyboard, Louise Zingarelli's Cool World Board, Ren & Stimpy Big House Blues Board Part One, Part Two and Part Three, Stimpy's Invention Board Part One and Part Two.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Story: Writing Cartoons Pt 3- Structure

This post is the third in a series on Cartoon Writing. For the first two installments, see... Writing Cartoons: Part One- The Gag Session and Part Two- A Continuity Emerges


When we left off in our series of posts on cartoon writing last time, the initial "No No Session" had generated a pile of unrelated thumbnail gags on a basic premise which were starting to lead to the beginnings of a rudimentary plotline. Today, we'll explore how the cartoon writers brought structure to the story and began to flesh out the continuity in preparation for the storyboard artist to begin work.

In the mid-1930s, the notes from Disney story sessions were widely distributed among the staff. All of the employees, from the directors all the way down to the janitors, were invited to submit gags to the cartoon being developed. The only stipulation was that the gags had to be drawn- not written down. Walt and the story men sifted through the doodles and stick figure drawings to find inspiration for little bits of business that they might not have thought of themselves. If the gag was usable, the employee was given a dollar bonus. If the gag led to a sequence of gags, they were paid five dollars. Here's a typical "dollar gag" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs...


In an interview many years later, Ward Kimball recalled that he would supplement his income by generating "dollar gags" in his spare time... His ideas were almost always used, but he soon discovered that he could get five times as much by simply attaching a "butt joke" to the end as a payoff. Inevitably, the "fanny gag" would appeal to Walt's unique sense of humor, and he would choose Kimball's gag as one that might lead to a sequence of gags- Bam! Five bucks!

Kimball wasn't the only artist who knew Walt's preferences when it came to gag ideas... Here is a short sequence of story doodles by Les Clark. This "butt joke" was created for a sequence that was eventually cut from Mickey's Grand Opera (1936)...


Clark is beginning to see an individual gag as a series of actions that relate to each other. His thumbnail sketches suggest enough for a storyboard artist to begin to tighten up his poses, focus the action and define the staging.

THE OUTLINE
As soon as the gags started to come into focus as a basic plotline, the story supervisor would begin arranging them into a logical progression, formatting the embryonic scenario as a written document in outline form. The outline was the equivalent of the "first draft script" for an animated film. But it didn't include dialogue and descriptions of actions the way live action scripts do. Instead, it defined the structure, continuity and intent of the action.

STRUCTURE

In preparing the notes for the storyboard artist to work from, the story supervisor began by establishing a structure to the gags. It was important to clearly define how the story broke down into sequences and how each sequence broke down into individual gags, because the storyboard artist most likely would not be boarding it in chronological order. The artist often drew up the payoffs to the storyline first- it was easier to create a strong setup when he knew where he was going to end up. The outline helped determine the breaks in the story, so the artist could work in an order that made sense for him.

Here we have an outline from Altruists prepared by Ren & Stimpy story man, Richard Pursel. John Kricfalusi's director's notes and doodles for the main setups appear in the margins...


Notice that the document begins with the statement of the premise, and is broken into sections defining the beginning, middle and end, as well as the sequences which fall within those sections. The structural detail goes all the way down to individual gags.


The line breaks make it easy for the storyboard artist to cut up the outline with scissors and pin the individual story beats up on his cork board as a placeholder for action he hadn't boarded yet.

John K recently shared this outline for Stimpy's Invention on his blog, All Kinds Of Stuff...




Read John K's detailed explanation of this outline.
CONTINUITY

The second element that the outline defined was the continuity- the basic flow and logical order of the action. The storyboard artist would receive the doodles from the "No No Session" to work from, so there was no need for detailed descriptions of action. As the old saying goes... "A picture is worth a thousand words" and nowhere was that adage any truer than in cartoon writing. Story artists were accustomed to working from thumbnail sketches, and they could extrapolate the essense of a gag better from a quick sketch than a whole script full of fancy prose.

Here we have an outline for The Return Of Duck Dodgers In The 24 1/2 Century by Mike Maltese, one of the greatest cartoon writers who ever lived. Although this document is from very late in Maltese's career, it clearly shows his creative process. This particular draft is a transitional document. Maltese had already begun boarding when this document was drafted. The first eight sequences and sequences 18, 19 and 20 appear to include dialogue transcribed from the board. The middle section, however is in raw outline form, with very basic descriptions only intended to remind him of which thumbnail gag drawing went where in the continuity. As the storyboard developed, these notes would be updated with dialogue, transforming the outline from being a structural document to being a dialogue script, ready for the voice actors to perform.





If one looked at notes like these out of context, without the knowledge of the visual devolopment that preceded it and the purpose this document serves to the steps that follow, one might mistakenly assume that the story is being written in words. But nothing could be further from the truth. The words merely serve to organize the drawings. The storytelling is all being devised visually.

INTENT

The third, and perhaps most important thing that a storyboard artist required from the notes prepared by the story supervisor was the intent of the action. The cartoon had a purpose, which was stated in the premise. The beginning, middle and end of the story all had purposes as well. If an event in the beginning set up a payoff later in the story, the storyboard artist would need to be made aware of that.

The stories for cartoon short subjects generally broke down into a beginning, (which first established the characters and then the situation they found themselves in) variations on the theme of the premise in the middle of the cartoon, (referred to at Warner Bros as "blackouts") and the "topper gag" and resolution to the situation which formed the end. Every individual gag had to serve the purposes of the sequence it was a part of- all of the parts worked together to tell the story.

In our next installment on cartoon writing, the stage has been set for the storyboard artist to begin blocking out the action and establishing the cinematics...


You won't want to miss the amazing examples of thumbnail boards that I've unearthed in the collection of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive!

A SIDE NOTE: I've recommended it before, but if you haven't seen the DVD of The Unknown Chaplin, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy. The process of writing for animated cartoons grew out of the way slapstick comedy shorts were written. In fact, several animators and cartoonists served as gag writers for famous comedians in their younger days. This DVD breaks down Chaplin's creative process and shows you exactly how his films were written. The program that deals with Chaplin's masterpiece, City Lights should be required viewing for storyboard students at every animation school.

For more on cartoon writing see... Writing Cartoons: Part One- The Gag Session and Part Two- A Continuity Emerges

See also... The Greatest Cartoon Writer of All Time, Alvin Show Pilot Board, Alvin Show: The Whistler Storyboard, Clair Weeks' Banyan Deer Storyboard, Louise Zingarelli's Cool World Board, Ren & Stimpy Big House Blues Board Part One, Part Two and Part Three, Stimpy's Invention Board Part One and Part Two.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Story: Writing Cartoons Pt 2- A Continuity Emerges

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


When I was beginning to draft this series of articles, I remembered a folder of thumbnails that Grim Natwick's family gave me. The folder was labelled "Valiant Tailor Gags". I thumbed through the drawings several times over the years, but I only looked at the drawings individually- I didn't look at them as a group. I pulled the folder out this week and upon closer examination, I discovered that the drawings formed a clear record of a gag session from 1934. This set of sketches is particularly important because it shows how the gags were created, how they evolved and grew as the artists discussed them at the story meeting, and how they found their way into the continuity of a finished cartoon.


The basic premise of this sequence is... The King is being chased by bees. He dives into a lake to escape them. The Giant arrives and harasses the King. The Tailor defeats the Giant and saves the King. Grim Natwick directed this cartoon, and his notes appear on the drawings in red. A check mark indicates that the gag is approved for the film. A question mark indicates that he isn't sure where to use it yet.

Here are some of the gags that the staff of the Iwerks Studio came up with for this premise. At the end is a Quicktime movie of the complete cartoon, so you can see how these plans were realized in the finished film.


William Hamner suggests a gag where the King is swallowed by a whale and is shot out his blow hole. (Since the character design hadn't been established yet, Hamner draws the character as Otto Soglow's Little King!)


An artist named Hudson elaborates on Hamner's basic idea, adding a tail flip to the end.


This gag suggests that the King be underwater, hiding from the Giant. The Giant tries to catch him like a fish with a gold watch as bait.


Underwater, the King uses a looking glass as a teeter totter.


The Giant blows on the water and a passing octopus offers him Listerine.


Ed Friedman suggests a gag where the Giant breaks a limb off a tree and uses it as a boomerang.


Another variant on the broken tree branch- The Giant uses it as a straw to drink the lake dry.


Several unrelated gags: The King runs out of the lake with streams of water from his crown. / The King is poked in the butt by a sword fish. / The Giant gets honey poured on his head. / The King is stung by bees on the patch on his butt.


The Giant runs from a swarm of bees and stumbles over some wagons.


Grim suggests a gag where the Giant takes a header into the dirt, plowing the ground in a furrow.


He attempts a topper gag with a farmer using the Giant to plow his field.

Now comes the really interesting part! Here are Grim Natwick's thumbnails showing how he takes the random gags and works them into a rough continuity. The drawings are very rough. You might want to print them out so you can compare them to the finished film.


(32) The King enters scene and does a trout dive into the lake to escape the bees. We pan with the soldiers as the pursue the Tailor and chase him up a tree.
(33) The King bobs up and down in the water as the bees circle in a repeating cycle above him.
(34) A thunderous laugh is heard in the distance. The Giant steps over the crest of the hill and takes a few steps over them.
(35) The Giant scares the soldiers away. He looks at the King and laughs. The King ducks.
(36) The Giant blows on the water and throws a stone at the King.
(37) The King reaches up into the tree and grabs a branch. The Tailor jumps to another branch.


(39) The Giant uses the branch like a gaffing hook, reaching to catch the King with it.
(40) The hook at the end of the branch catches in the patch on the King's butt.
(41) The Tailor sees what is happening and ducks into a hole in the tree. The camera pans down the outside of the tree to its base, where the Tailor crawls out of another hole.
(42) The Tailor sneaks past the Giant and runs off screen
(43) Dissolve to: Interior tailor shop. The Tailor grabs a jar of honey.


(44) Exterior Tailor Shop: The Tailor runs down the street with the jar.
(45) Dissolve to: The Tailor diving back into the hole in the tree trunk.
(46) The Tailor, standing on a high limb of the tree, drops the honey jar.
(47) The pot of honey dumps all over the Giant's head.
(48) The King comes to the surface of the water as the bees go after the Giant.
(49) The Giant runs from the bees. He shoves his head in the dirt to escape them. He runs through a barn and a church over the hill and into the distance.

The sequence went from here to the storyboard stage, where the action was defined better and the gags were plussed. Watch the film and see how it came out...


The Valiant Tailor (Iwerks/1934)
(Quicktime 7 / 7 minutes / 18.5 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.

The next article in this series will show how the structure of cartoons became more sophisticated in the mid-1930s, and the development of organizational tools that made that possible.

For more on the Iwerks Studio, see... Grim Natwick's Scrapbook: The Golden Age, Berny Wolf: Iwerks Model Sheets, and Grim Natwick's Job Offer From Disney

For more on cartoon writing see... The Greatest Cartoon Writer of All Time, Alvin Show Pilot Board, Alvin Show: The Whistler Storyboard, Clair Weeks' Banyan Deer Storyboard, Louise Zingarelli's Cool World Board, Ren & Stimpy Big House Blues Board Part One, Part Two and Part Three, Stimpy's Invention Board Part One and Part Two.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Story: Writing Cartoons Pt 1- The Gag Session

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


Disney Studios
If you're anything like me, you've probably daydreamed about going back in time to be a "fly on the wall" at a golden age cartoon studio. Imagine getting the chance to witness how your favorite cartoons were written and see the twists and turns they took from initial idea to finished story. Unfortunately, that isn't likely to happen. But we can find out an awful lot about the process used to write classic cartoons by looking at the scraps of paper left behind by the great artists who wrote them. I'm going to do just that in a series of posts over the next few weeks.

The specifics of the process of writing cartoons in the classic era varied a bit from studio to studio and from time period to time period. Like every other part of the production line, there was an evolution as experimentation led to the development of more effective techniques. But the general outline of the progress of a story from raw idea to boards ready to put into production didn't vary all that much. I'm going to show you some specific examples that illustrate these general concepts in the hopes that you might come away with a better understanding of how cartoons were created.


Warner Bros.
THE GAG SESSION
The idea for a cartoon would start with a simple premise- a few sentences that described the general theme of the cartoon. For example... "Porky is a bullfighter." or "Mickey, Donald and Goofy are ghost exterminators." In the premise there would be no real attempt at describing details of the plot, just a simple statement of a situation or series of situations that might offer entertaining possibilities.


Premise for a 1930s Barney Google/Snuffy Smith cartoon.
Once the premise was chosen, a group of artists would be called together for an initial gag session to come up with ideas. At Warner Bros, this meeting was referred to as a "No No Session", which meant that no one was allowed to say "no" to an idea- any suggestion was fair game. At this stage, the gags were generally isolated variations on the basic theme of the premise, with no attempt to put them into any sort of continuity or plot. The goal was to come up with funny situations that could be expanded upon and reworked into something more specific further down the line.


Terry-Toons
The artists would sit with pads and pencils or lap boards, jotting down notes and doodling up thumbnail sketches of what the ideas might look like. The sketches might be pinned up on a cork board so the other artists could work gags off if it. One person would be responsible for taking notes for the group, so after the meeting was over, the story man could go back and refresh his memory of a specific gag. As the doodles and notes piled up, certain themes would form, gags would lead to follow up gags and build to "topper gags". A continuity would begin to take shape.

EXAMPLES
The notes taken at early story meetings were usually for the artists' own reference, so the sketches were loose and the notes were scribbled down quickly. This makes them quite difficult for the layman to read. A certain amount of deciphering is required. At the bottom of each example, I summarize the contents of the notes. You might want to print them out. It's easier to study them in a hard copy than on the computer screen.

Here are story notes from an unmade Fleischer Screen Song cartoon from the late 1920s. Based on the song, "Mysterious Mose", this premise was shelved and revived a couple of years later as a Betty Boop cartoon.


It appears that a little bit of development had occurred by the time this document was created, but not much. The lyrics are typed out with lots of space for drawing out the action between each line. The character of the piano player is to be in live action, while the moon and the cat are animated. The first page refers to the location of the beginning of the song on the bar sheet and indicates that a scene of the moon on the second page should be moved forward to this page, to allow the cat to be the focus of the shot the second time up.


The notes say that the second shot on this page should be focused on the cat, and he should jump from this scene cut to the next scene for the bouncing ball sequence.


Here we have all the lyrics of the song, and a quick outline of the sorts of gags the artists should come up with for the bouncing ball section of the film. By the end of the meeting, the director would have a stack of gag drawings to choose from. In the early days of animation, the story process was very informal, and the individual animator was often expected to flesh out the specifics of the action in his scenes on his own, co-ordinating with the animator of the preceding and following sequence on the hookup between sequences. Dave Fleischer was known to add gags all the way up to the animation stage.

There aren't a lot of doodles on this next document, which dates back to the Charles Mintz Studio around 1934. Some gags are indicated by just a few terse words. This probably means that these notes were accompanied a pile of drawings, which the story man was trying to order into a basic continuity. The action has been divided into seven segments, each one representing approximately a minute of screen time.


The First Segment shows a circus parade arriving in town. A drum major disappears into his oversized hat; a french horn player pops out of a tuba to take a solo; a team of horses pans through pulling a street sweeper behind, a lion cage is propelled by the lion's own legs- no wheels; and a polar bear drowns in an ice wagon full of melted ice.


In the Second Section the parade continues. A clown in a horse costume sticks his head out the tail and gives the crowd a razzberry; a clown jumps through a paper hoop- but it's actually a Chinese gong; a parade of elephants- each one smaller than the one before- ends with an elephant so tiny, a clown has to use a magnifying glass to see it.

The Third Section includes a giraffe whose neck extends to eat the fake fruit off the hat of a lady in the crowd; a fat lady riding a hippopotamus wagon, and a gorilla who plays the harp on his cage bars, then escapes and kidnaps a girl. He snatches her up to the house tops.


Part Four: The circus performers attempt to rescue the girl. A tightrope walker walks on telegraph lines to reach the ape; a man is shot out of a cannon and the ape socks him in the nose; the ape perches on the top of a building and bees buzz around him like the airplanes buzzing King Kong.

In Part Five, an elephant shoots peanuts at the ape like a machine gun as an organ grinder's monkey dances on the rooftops.


Part Six: The ape scares a flagpole sitter away from his perch and replaces him on the top of the pole. The organ grinder monkey cuts down the pole, gives the ape a big kick in the ass and marches him away.

Part Seven: The ape sees his reflection in a mirror and makes faces. The reflection swats him. The ape, who we expect to act like a he-man, acts like a pansy instead. The parade marches off into the distance as the ape rubs his sore ass from where the monkey kicked him.


In the next installment of this series on Cartoon Writing, I will show you a batch of sketches that document a story session at the Iwerks Studio in 1934. Read it now: Story: Writing Cartoons Pt 2- A Continuity Emerges

If you found this article to be interesting, see also... The Greatest Cartoon Writer of All Time, Alvin Show Pilot Board, Alvin Show: The Whistler Storyboard, Clair Weeks' Banyan Deer Storyboard, Louise Zingarelli's Cool World Board, Ren & Stimpy Big House Blues Board Part One, Part Two and Part Three, Stimpy's Invention Board Part One and Part Two.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Cartooning: How To Draw Funny Pictures

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 cartoonists.


Last week, I discussed Zim's Cartoons and Caricatures. Here are some more examples of the genius of Zim from another vintage "how to" book... How To Draw Funny Pictures by E.C. Matthews. This chapter deals with a topic that is widely discussed today, racial stereotyping.

Ethnic humor was Zim's stock-in-trade. He once joked that he and his fellow cartoonists at Puck magazine treated the various races and creeds that made up America with gloves... the kind boxers wear. Perhaps this is why he is virtually unknown today. But it's unfair to sit like an armchair quarterback a century later judging an entirely different time by our own standards. Zim approached every person as a peer. He made fun of all of them equally.

Stereotypes are still part and parcel of caricature and cartooning. Pirates have eye patches and parrots on their shoulders. Surfer dudes wear baggy shorts and have long blonde hair. These are the generally understood symbols that represent specific types of people. How does a cartoonist utilize these common perceptions to communicate clearly while still remaining honest? Here is an important first-hand document of how Zim himself explained the purpose and limits of ethnic caricature in the "melting pot" of the early 1920s.















Take note of this advice from the conclusion of this chapter...

Greatness makes one tolerant. Great men are not ashamed to stop on the street and talk to the man in overalls. They recognize the bond of friendship between the common people and themselves. The social sheik who feels above talking to a mere laborer is fooling only himself.

Take this little sermon to heart and treat every man as your equal; it will help you get ahead. How truly the Bible says, "The greatest among you shall be the servant of all."

If you found this post to be interesting, see the... W. L. Evans Cartooning and Caricature Course Brochure, Lesson One and Lesson Two, Preston Blair and John K's $100K Animation Drawing Course, Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part One: The Men Behind The Newspaper Comics, Part Two: How To Get Ideas / Studies of Comic Strips, Part Three: Single Panel and Sports Cartoonists, Part Four: Editorial Cartoons & Comic Books, Part Five: Sketching, Part Six: Magazine Cartooning and Part Seven: Magazine Cartooning (continued); Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons" Part One: The History of Animation, Part Two: The Cartoon Studios, Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Part Four: How To Draw Cartoons and Part Five: How To Animate, Willard Mullin on Animals.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Theory: Chuck Jones on the Art of Animation

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


Assistant Archivist, JoJo Baptista brought in some magazines for the archive donated by his teacher, and long-time ASIFA supporter, Dave Brain. Among them was an AFI publication with this great article by Chuck Jones...

ANIMATION IS A GIFT WORD
By Chuck Jones
A young man was once sent fresh from Columbia University with a mutual friend's introduction to Robert Frost. Frost scanned the young man's writings, then looking quizzically up through his craggy white brows he asked, "What do you do, son?" The young man drew himself up proudly; he was, after all, one with the great Frost. "I am a poet," he said. Frost gently answered, "The term 'poet' is a gift word, son; you cannot give it to yourself."

The term "artist" or "animator" are gift words too, and yet they are employed as self-description by an astonishing number of our colleagues.


The Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy, Harold Lloyd, W.C. Fields, as well as Chaplin, are now considered to be artists, but I grew up in Hollywood when they were in the height of their power and I know that the term would have staggered and surprised them. They were honestly and simply trying to make funny pictures and were about as aware of dramatic and comedic theory as a bunch of otters. They were a joyous, funny, often drunken, usually wild and impetuous group and all I wanted in the whole world when I grew up was to be one of them. This horrified my mother, who felt that the mayhem and violence of the Keystone Cops, Larry Semon and even Chaplin when, for instance, he gassed or blew people up, was hideous fare for my budding libido.


She was right. When I did kind of grow up my hideously budded libido found that the one-reel comedy was no longer around, but I managed to stumble into another company of comedians who would have been just as unaware as their great live-action predecessors to find themselves characterized as "artists": the animators. Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Ham Hamilton, Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising, Hanna and Barbera (when they directed the marvellous Tom & Jerrys), Grim Natwick, Bob Cannon, Ted Sears, the Fleischers, Walt Lantz, Paul Terry, Shamus Culhane, Bill Littlejohn, Ken Harris, Pete Burness, Emery Hawkins- to mention only a few who were doing animated short subjects- were all working in a field which was a logical extension not only of the motion picture itself, but of the old one-reel live action comedy.

If as a child you drew stick figures on the edge of a tablet or a school book, then flipped the pages to get a spastic and funny little dance, you were animating. Anything beyond that is only sophistication and embellishment. For even today those dancing sticks are absolute in the art of animation, just as the unique essence of the art of painting is the application of pigment to a reasonably flat surface, and the essential isolating quality of sculpturing is a three dimensional representation in some solid material. These are the disciplines that isolate these methods of creativity. Therefore, animation can be created without any embellishment whatsoever, for an audience of one and without a camera. Anything that squiggles, wiggles, waggles, will likely excite in us a feeling of stimulation, an emotional reaction, even a revulsion. We all know that such reactions cannot, or should not be aroused by inanimate things. We should not be angered by a rake when stepped on in the dark since it has no quality of life. Breaking a golf club or throwing a tennis racquet is a natural reaction against seemingly human qualities in an inanimate object. Inanimate objects are diabolically funny indeed in animation. Remember Disney's piano in Moving Day or the clock in Clock Cleaners or Norman McLaren's A Chairy Tale?


McLaren's delightful laughing squiggles and strokes brought universal and deserved praise. Each of us drew our own conclusions as to what the films meant, but very near the surface was an area of response that had very little to do with rationality, and depending upon our area of interest all of us react to other forms of life in quite different ways: a tumor may be beautiful to a pathologist; herpetologists have small, sinewy, evil snakes where other people carry watches; an entymologist may stroke a tarantula with more thoughtfulness and understanding than a parent spends on his own child.

Animation's potential and scope is literally boundless. In many parts of the world today great experiments in the field are taking pace- new thoughts, ideas, wild flights of fancy, much of it in surface techniques. Color; graphic breakthrough; startling, sometimes shocking in cruel subject matter; animation is being used as political commentary, abstract expressionism, pop and op art experiments, stop live action, painted stones, self-cannibalism, the black experience, textural adventures and sex. Many of these animated films are shown only in garages. But in many countries, notably the United States, most studios have been captured by an avalanche of network demands for low cost Saturday morning television.


One team in Hollywood which once turned out eight to ten seven minute shorts a year now turns out four half-hours a week during the production year, an increase from one hour a year to at least 130 hours, or a 13,000 per cent increase.

A few animators are getting wealthy- which is a happy novelty indeed.

Some of the best work being done in animation, both in the United States and throughout the world, is in the field of animated commercials. Some are brilliant, nearly all are exquisitely timed and cut. This field may be the best training ground available for animators, directors, writers and designers. The disciplines are implicit in the United States: the film is one minute or less, it must tell a story, display a product, make a sales point, have a beginning, middle and an end, be unique yet comprehensible and bear constant repetition.

It is a pity that the experimentalists and the commercial animators could not exchange personnel occasionally, because the disciplines of commercial production would serve the laboratory animator well. Art and experimental and even student films usually run three times too long. The commercial animator would benefit from a little soul-waching and freedom from the very disciplines his opposite needs. The average commercial director would feel grossly sinful if he had an extra 14 seconds to play with.


I believe that every studio that makes a substantial income off this market, or the so-called "kid-vid" market, owes a serious obligation to the future to pour part of it back- five to ten per cent- into training programs, internships, but above all to pure research. The trade unions support the idea; it is just common sense, not altruism.

There is a tendency in the history of any art form when a preoccupation with new instruments or unusual techniques preoccupies the time of the practitioners of that art form, and we get quaint and cacaphonous sounds and sights in our galleries and halls. This is a natural occurance, to be expected and enjoyed, but the tools of the artist have remained very much the same for hundreds of years and I cannot remember when the last valid musical instrument was introduced into an orchestra, perhaps because my father could not remember either.

It is well, I think, to learn from an Edward Steichen, I believe it was, who undertook a photographic assignment from Life magazine limiting him to a 30-year-old Brownie box camera. The result should have surprised no one: a series of exquisite, striking Steichen pictures, because Steichen does not confuse a convenience with a necessity. Steichen and Lincoln's Matthew Brady are the same cut of man, and each would have flourished in the other's time.


Occasionally, an artist should look at his tools and ask himself what he cannot do without -the essentials- what he must have to pursue his form of expression in animation. In animation as different from other art forms, he must have only three things: a pencil, a number of sheets of paper and a light source. With these things he can animate, without them he cannot.

All other additions are conveniences and embellishments which shade his art form toward others. He does not even need a motion picture camera. The first valid animation, indeed the first motion pictures, were without such cameras. Do you remember the photographic flipping machines at penny arcades?

One of the odd misunderstandings about animation even by those who work in the field is the supposition that an individual drawing in animation has the same importance as doing an illustration.

In animation, drawing is indeed important and great draftsmen as well as great animators are required for such episodes as Bill Tytla's Night on Bald Mountain or Art Babbitt's Mushroom Dance. But a single drawing to an animator represents a time interval of 1/24th of a second.

Animation is a chorus of drawings working in tandem, each contributing a part to the whole of a time/space idea. If a single drawing, as a drawing, dominates the action, it is probably bad animation, even though it may be good drawing.


So many of the greatest animators were and are men who became masters of their craft without once having to resort to cleaning up a single drawing. They simply didn't think that way. Norm Ferguson, the great "Fergie" of Pluto fame who worked in a kind of fluid shorthand, catching the elements of motion in dazzling simplicity, was probably the outstanding example of the animator in his purest form. But Ham Hamilton, Ben Clopton, Ken Harris and many, many others could not draw and found no need to draw, in the conventional sense, which in no way diminishes their artistry; it simply identifies the form.

Different kinds of animation are suitable and correct for the needs of different products. John Halas has been quoted as saying that animation can now get along with four drawings a foot where it once required 24. Actually, animation can get along with no drawings a foot if the subject requirements are such- but it should not be denied 100 drawings per foot if they are needed. The Four Poster required only two actors, but staging Julius Caesar with such restrictions might prove difficult. The point is, if you can only afford two actors, don't do Julius Caesar.


Animation
The simple question we must ask ourselves about limited animation is this: would we use better animation if we could do so? I contend that the average director on Saturday morning television or in his experimental or laboratory film would rather- far rather- employ the finest animators available and have them deliver not 200 feet but 20 feet a week. And everywhere I have gone in Europe and the Orient the hunger has been for animators, animators in the grand tradition, because a great animator can do anything from a dancing dot to a dinosaur- and every director dreams of working only with great actors, or great animators, as well as great graphics, set designs, lighting and cameramen.

All of us must eventually do what the matador does: go out and face not only the bull, but the crowd. It does the matador little good, provides him little satisfaction to make beautiful passes alone in a moonlit pasture.

If in animation we are to advance our craft we must each eventually face the terror of creativity and each of us must some day do it before the great crowd, for animation is not only an art form, it is also a method of entertainment and a method of communication.


MODERN Animation
We are fortunate, all of us, that animation is so appealing in its verstility. All over the world the most extraordinary things are happening. From Yugoslavia to Japan, South America to, I suppose, Lapland, young men and women are trying new ideas of the most imaginative sort. The medium is springing into life on a thousand fronts with a million facets.

But if we ignore our heritage, if we forget or allow to lapse one of the most important factors, the art of pure animation- a drop of water, a dinosaur, a paramecium, a McLaren dancing line, a blob a silver wind, a silver flute, a beautifully animated, delightfully floating mass of our own introspection- if we forget that these wonders cannot be accomplished by simple means, if we use limited animation only because we can get away with it, then we are overlooking the very essence of our craft and callously destroying history itself.

Chuck Jones
AFI Report (Vol 5, No 2)
Summer 1974

Many thanks to Dave Brain for this great article, and thanks to the Van Eaton Galleries for allowing us to digitize these wonderful Chuck Jones drawings for our database.

If you found this article to be interesting, see also... Chuck Jones on Modern Animation, The Animator Newsletter 1946, Bakshi Speaks To CGI Animators Part One and Part Two, Bob Clampett in Schlesinger's Exposure Sheet, Early 50s UPA Model Sheets, Herb Klynn The Shrimp, Grim Natwick's Post UPA Commercials, Alvin Show: The Whistler Storyboard and Jules Engel's Color Keys.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

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

Stumble It!

Pantomime: Churchill and Chaplin

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.


Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill may have both shared the same country of birth, but they aren't people you would normally associate together in your mind...


Today I was scanning Colliers magazines that Mike Fontanelli has on loan to us, and I ran across this article authored by Winston Churchill from October of 1935. Titled "Everybody's Language", it is both a film fan's homage to Charlie Chaplin and a history of pantomime in Western culture. I hope you'll take the time to read it, because it has some important things to say to animators...

"Twenty five years ago, when the young actor crossed the Atlantic, life in the States was more fluid than in England- more fluid perhaps than it is today. Its forms had not set. Personalities were more important than conventions. Democracy was not only a political institution, but a social fact. Class distinction mattered comparitively little when the hired hand of today was so often the employer of tomorrow, and the majority of professional men had paid for their university training with the work of their hands."

"Every cinemagoer is familiar with the Chaplin tramps, but I wonder how many of them have reflected how characteristically American are these homeless wanderers..."

"No mere clown, however brilliant, could ever have captured so completely the affections of the great public. He owes his unrivaled position as a star to the fact that he is a great actor, who can tug at our heartstrings as surely as he compels laughter... I believe that, had it not been for the coming of the talkies, we would already have seen this great star in a serious role. He is the one figure of the old silent screen to whom the triumph of the spoken word has meant neither speech nor extinction. He relies, as of old, upon a pantomime that is more expressive than talk."

"Pantomime, of which he is a master, is capable of expressing every emotion, of communicating the subtlest shades of meaning. A man who can act with his whole body has no need of mere words, whatever part he plays."

"I should like to see films without voices being made once more, but this time by producers who are alive to the potentialities of pantomime. Such pictures would be worth making, if only for this reason, that the audience for a talkie is necessarily limited by the factor of language, while the silent film can tell its story to the whole of the human race. Pantomime is the true universal tongue."

"It is a favorite cliche of film critics in discussing pictures to say that we cannot go back. In effect, they suggest that, because technical progress has given us sound, all films must be talkies and will continue to be so forever. Such statements reveal a radical misconception of the nature of progress and the nature of art. To explore the possibilities of the non-talking film, to make of it a new and individual art form, would not be a retrograde step, but an advance."

Churchill was mistaken about the return of silent filmmaking. Talkies were, and still are here to stay. But "a new and individual art form" based on the ancient foundation of pantomime was just beginning to make its mark when this article was written. I'll give you three guesses as to which art form that was!

Charlie Chaplin wasn't the last gifted pantomimist. Many others followed him... Jackie Gleason, John Cleese, Rowen Atkinson... and these two giants from the early days of television, Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. Here is a brilliant bit from the mid-1950s from the The Sid Caesar Buried Treasures DVD


Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca:
The Cocktail Party (1954)
(Quicktime 7 / 17 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 Mike Fontanelli for the loan of this magazine and Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans for the wonderful Chaplin images that illustrate this post.

If you found this article interesting, see... Chaplin's Shadow: Inspiration vs Ripoffs, The Application Of Inspiration / How To Properly Use Reference / Incorporating Natural Forms / (Visual) Literacy / Why Do We Need An Animation Archive?

If you want an incredible insight into the mind of a brilliant filmmaker, you will want to get the DVD of Unknown Chaplin. Using never before seen outtakes, these three programs reconstruct Chaplin's creative process from the ground up. This is one of the greatest documentaries ever made. Check it out!

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

Design: Grammar of Ornament 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 art instruction posts.


We had a request for more from Owen Jones' landmark design study, The Grammar of Ornament. This is the fourth entry on this topic. If you missed the earlier ones, see... Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

A lot of my posts here are very specific, and are aimed directly at learning about animation. But sometimes it's a good idea to take a step back and get a broader perspective. Although this book may not specifically teach you how to draw Donald Duck or inbetween a scene, it does apply to your creative process as an artist. Along with expressing emotion, the creation of pleasing patterns is at the root of all forms of art; not just animation, but music, architecture, and dance as well. Recognizing the links between different creative disciplines can help you become a stronger artist.

MORESQUE ORNAMENT


The designs in this section all come from the Alhambra in Spain. The Moors believed in decorating construction, not constructing decoration, so even though the graphic designs in this section are elaborate and awe inspiring, they always serve the overall form of the structure. Their religion forbade literal depictions, so the focus is on geometric patterns, along with written inscriptions reminding the viewer that regardless of the great accomplishments of its builders, "there is no greater creator than God."










PERSIAN ORNAMENT

Persian ornament is a mixed style, with elements of both Arabian and Turkish design. Unlike the Moors, the Persians were free to depict human, animal and floral subjects, and their illuminated manuscripts were well known throughout the Mohammedan world. In Persian rugs, you can see floral ornamentation that was particularly influential to the development of art in India.








INDIAN ORNAMENT

Indian art is simultaneously elaborate and completely balanced. In both architecture and textiles, there is a remarkable ability to create a heirarchy of detail that holds together from a distance, yet reveals new details as you look closer and closer at the design. Even though the colors are vivid and varied, there's always an overall harmony. The depiction of plant life is elegantly stylized and well observed. Some of the flowers look like you could pick them right off the page.









THE IMPORTANCE OF DESIGN
When The Grammar of Ornament was originally published in the mid-19th century, Victorian designers pilfered it shamelessly for fabric and wallpaper patterns. Jones was horrified to learn that designs that had served specific purposes to the ancient artists who created them were being mixed and matched randomly across cultures and centuries for purely decorative reasons.

This book is a lot more than just pretty "wallpaper samples"- it's an historical encyclopedia of pattern, shape and color. The history of mankind is revealed in its attempts at graphically depicting perfection. While there are marked differences between cultures, there's also a certain unity of aesthetic. Whether this is a result of "nature or nuture", I'm not sure. No culture ever existed in a vacuum. But I lean towards thinking that there are certain patterns and shapes that appeal to us on some sort of primal level.

Nowhere is this more evident in recent times than in folk and ethnic art...




If there's a "magic" to creativity... an element that is just there, defying all attempts to analyze or quantify it... The Grammar of Ornament contains it. There are certain combinations of pleasing colors, shapes and sounds that are common to us all. I think of these patterns and designs as being the visual equivalent of music. It doesn't matter what language you speak or what culture you come from, music speaks on a basic level that all humans comprehend from birth.

MUSICAL DIGRESSION
Last week, I got a DVD that illustrated the commonality of different musical cultures very clearly... Pete Seeger's PBS music program, Rainbow Quest. In this series, Seeger attempted to show the link between all types of folk music- blues, bluegrass, old time country, sea chanteys, Irish folk songs, etc... In this clip, Seeger brings together Roscoe Holcombe (the Kentucky mountain musician for whom the term "high lonesome sound" was coined) and Scottish folk singer Jean Redpath. Even though Holcombe and Redpath come from opposite universes, check out how Seeger gently leads the musicmaking towards the core elements that they share in common...


Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest" with Roscoe Holcombe & Jean Redpath (PBS/ca.1965)
(Quicktime 7 / 18.6 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.

I've always found that the more you know about different creative subjects, the more you understand each individual one. This is the secret to the magic and power of creativity. I realize that this is a pretty vague and nebulous point to try and make, but I hope the examples I give you here express it better than my feeble words.

If you find these useful, check out our first two posts from this beautiful book... Part One, Part Two and Part Three

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

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
.

Stumble It!

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
.

Stumble It!

2007 Review: 5 Originality vs. Ripoffs

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.


NUMBER 5: ORIGINALITY vs RIPOFFS

Ethics may not be the first subject that comes to mind when you think of the challenges facing cartoonists, but it's an important issue. I addressed the students who read this site and gave them some useful advice on thinking for themselves in an article titled...

Originality vs. Ripoffs: Chaplin's Shadow
April 25th, 2007

This may just be the most important single article we've ever posted here.

Go To Number 4 on the list of Top Ten Subjects of 2007

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

2007 Review: 9 Cultural Literacy

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 see more on this topic.



NUMBER 9: CULTURAL LITERACY

One of the most important posts of the last year was one that didn't even deal specifically with animation... It was titled, "Live The Fabulous Lifestyle Of A Hollywood Cartoonist", and it spoke about the importance of cultural literacy.


You probably know every sordid detail of the lives of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. It's hard to avoid filling up your brain with useless trivia about talentless celebrities. Every few years, the old ones are relegated to the rank of "has been" and there's a whole new bunch to learn about. But as an artist, you need to dig below the surface drek and expose yourself to vivid personalities and talented performers that can inspire you in your work. The history of popular culture of the past century is packed with amazing artists. Why waste your time with crap?


Zutty Singleton, Cootie Williams, Zoot Sims, Bubber Miley, Papa Jo Jones and Dizzy Gillespie weren't just guys with funny first names... they were some of the most creative individuals who ever walked the earth, working in the greatest new artform from the past 100 years... Jazz. And they weren't the only ones worth studying. The 20th century sparked an explosion of creative expression in the fields of filmmaking, music, the performing arts and dance. All of these have a direct relation to your work as an animator.


If all you know is movies released since Star Wars and music since The Beatles, you don't know the first thing about the culture your art is based upon.


I'm constantly running into students of animation who are well aware of the history of animation, but are woefully ignorant of the broader artistic culture that animation fits into. This is an area I plan to work on in the coming year. I'll be announcing a new screening program soon that will feature the best of 20th century drama, music, dance and comedy, featuring the performers that inspired the animators of the "golden age" of animation.


How many of the geniuses pictured in this post can you name? Are you familiar with their work?

"Live The Fabulous Lifestyle Of A Hollywood Cartoonist" March 30th, 2007

Several of the images in this post are from Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans. If you don't know about this site, you should... It's a wonderful place where you can get lost for hours viewing all the amazing images... just like the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive!

Go To Number 8 on the list of Top Ten Subjects of 2007

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

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 any 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
.

Stumble It!

Theory: CGI Animators Should THINK Like Artists

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 6 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about golden age illustration.


You probably have never heard of William Lee Hankey, but he was a pioneer in the field of illustrated books at the turn of the century. Perhaps I'll tell you more about him in a follow up post. But as I was scanning this book, something came up that I need to address. I hope you'll bear with me as I take a little time out to do some sorely needed ass-kicking.

LISTEN UP!

This is NOT a site strictly for 2D animators. CGI animators can learn as much from this stuff as the guys with the pencils.

I happened across a thread in an internet forum on the subject of CGI animation. The thread was titled, "Why aren't animators artists?" I was surprised to find people debating a question that to me is self-evident. I take it for granted that people realize that animation is an artform with close ties to the traditional arts of drawing, painting and sculpture. It's always a shock to find that there are people working in the field who don't see the link.

I started to wonder whether the readers of this blog understand the intent behind the material that we post here. We're not just presenting "pretty pictures" to inspire in some sort of vague manner. We intend for this material to be used and applied to everyday work. We don't get a lot of feedback from this website. Other animation blogs get hundreds of comments on each post, but we rarely get any comments at all. I don't know why that is. I suspect it's because people are taking a passive attitude to the resources all of us at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive are working so hard to provide to them. Normally, I let the artwork create its own context, but today, I specifically want to address CGI animators to show them how art like this can inform and improve their own work.

WHAT CAN AN ILLUSTRATED BOOK THAT IS NEARLY A CENTURY OLD TEACH SOMEONE WORKING IN COMPUTER ANIMATION?


I'm going to break down illustrations from W. Lee Hankey's 1909 edition of The Deserted Village and show you how you should be thinking about and analyzing the information we provide here on this site. It's time to THINK like an artist!

AVOID EXCESSIVE DETAIL

Too often, artists and animators mistake detail for quality. Rendering out every leaf on every tree, every pore on every inch of skin, every single blade of grass or shock of fur may be an entertaining exercise for retentive types, but all that detail is nothing more than gilding the lilly- distracting from the main point of the design. Notice how Hankey focuses your attention on the important parts of the composition by rendering those out, while leaving unimportant background information very loose. The choice of colors clearly defines light and shadow, and the carefully balanced values hold the background together as a frame for the subject of the image. Click on these to see them larger and you'll be surprised to see just how loose the rendering is on the girl's dress and the background foliage.





COMPOSE SHOTS ON A HUMAN SCALE

Too many CGI features are set in environments that are completely out of scale to the characters. Rooms are the size of convention halls and gardens are as big as football fields. Everything is wide open, with very little variety to the depth or contrasting perspectives of the structures. Camera angles on wide shots are staged from 20 feet in the air, much higher than a real human perspective. This makes everything look like model railroad sets instead of like real environments. The way to lay out a background is through skillful composition and a range of different sizes of forms. Look at how Hankey creates a zig-zag perspective on the first image, layers of contrasting shapes and textures on the second, and divides the last example to frame three separate simultaneous actions beautifully.





LEARN TO COMPOSE GROUPS OF PEOPLE

Check out these amazingly expressive tableaux by Hankey. Each one defines the personality and situation of each individual character in relation to all the other characters, while directing the eye cleverly through the image from one main focal point to the next. Just try to find a grouping like this in current animation! Characters are almost always staged obliquely, lined up like a chorus line or in perfect half circles in front of the camera- sitcom style. If you search through the films of great directors like Chaplin, Hitchcock or Welles, you'll never find these sorts of flat setups. The dynamics of group relationships are never revealed in what the characters say- it's always in how they are arranged visually.





CREATE MOOD THROUGH UNIQUE COMBINATIONS OF COLORS

John Kricfalusi recently discussed how important unique color harmonies are to animation in his blog, All Kinds Of Stuff. He makes the point that colors "straight out of the tube"- lime green, purple, orange, etc.- are not nearly effective as hues with non-mathematical mixes of colors... colors that don't have names. For instance, what color would you call the street in this first example? Pure colors are best used in small areas to create interest, like with the sea green door on the house in the second one. Sometimes the best color harmonies involve muted colors to create a mood, as in the third example here. The colors tell you exactly what is going on in the scene. In fact, each of the three characters is surrounded by an unique set of colors that reflects his or her attitude.





CREATE CHARACTERS BY OBSERVING LIFE

The most obvious power of animation to entertain is its ability to caricature life, yet amazingly, observation is exactly what is lacking in character design in current CGI movies. Every day, a million great personalities are all around you who have never been seen in animation- just go to your local coffee shop or shopping mall with your sketchbook. You won't be able to get all the great characters down on paper fast enough. So why do we get the same old stereotypical cool dude, smartass sidekick, goofy fat kid, and "independent minded pretty girl who doesn't know how pretty she really is" in every doggone movie? I keep hearing people say that story is the most important thing in animation. Well, that's a lie. Personality is at the core of all great animation. OPEN YOUR EYES AND OBSERVE! SHOW THE AUDIENCE SOMETHING REAL!





POSE CHARACTERS EXPRESSIVELY

This is CGI animation's cardinal sin. Gestures and body positions NEVER reflect a character's unique personality. Every character scrunches their mouth to one side and looks upwards when they think- they all lower their eyebrows and narrow their eyes the exact same way when they're angry- they all throw their hip to one side and lean their head when they're petulant... This is "formula acting". If we were talking about the performance of a human actor instead of a grizzly bear or raccoon, it would be called "BAD acting". Formulas don't tell you anything about the character, yet entire movies are performed by rote. Don't believe me? Take any of the recent CGI movies, whether they involve animals invading backyards or escaping zoos, rodents in European restaurants, superhero terrapins or prehistoric sloths- and count the number of times the characters deliver dialogue with that meaningless, stock- hands out to the side, palms up, up and down movement on every accent- sort of gesture. What the heck does that gesture mean? It's just water treading because the animator is too lazy to think of a gesture that actually expresses something. Now look at the last image in this post- the one with the fella sitting next to the girl. Even his feet tell you what he's thinking! Every pose in an animated film should be that expressive. There's no excuse for stock poses or actions.




An animator isn't just moving a complex polygon through space- an animator creates a performance from a succession of still poses. That's the job of an artist and anyone doing that sort of work needs to THINK like an artist. As you browse through this site, if you just "look at the pretty pictures" without thinking about what makes them work, you might as well be off shopping or playing video games. This website is a tremendous resource, but it won't help you if you expect it to work passively by osmosis.

Print this stuff out. Put it in binders. Make notes. Talk about your ideas with your fellow artists. Apply these concepts to your work.

If this post didn't make you angry, you'll probably also want to see... 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

Also see... Monks By Eduard von Grutzner, 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

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

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

Stumble It!

Theory: Propaganda Part Two

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for more jaw dropping examples of classic illustration.


Here is a continuation of my previous post on Propaganda Theories.

When the nations of the world entered into World War I, the methods and techniques of propaganda were naiive and innocent. But by the end of the First World War, the techniques of waging war in the hearts and minds of the public had entered the modern era. Propaganda had become much more sophisticated and powerful. By WWII, leaders realized that battles could be fought and won on the homefront. Propaganda became an important part of motivating the population to work together toward the common goal of defeating the axis powers. Compare the WWI posters in this and the previous post to the examples from WWII presented here. Notice how the design and layout enhance the emotional impact of the concepts. Many of these posters still pack a wallop.














For more on this subject, see Alfred and Elizabeth Briant Lee's book The Fine Art of Propaganda: A Study of Father Coughlin's Speeches 1938.

If you enjoyed this post, check out... Propaganda Theories Part One

Also see... Walt Disney Goes To War, Dispatch From Disney's Part One and Part Two, Arthur Szyk's The New Order and Artzybasheff's Neurotica, Machinalia and Diablerie.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

Theory: Propaganda

Back when I was in college, I was wandering through a junk shop and found a file folder that was stamped "Return To Louis Van Den Ecker, Technical Director". I peeked inside and found a pile of interesting clippings. It was a reference file dealing with propaganda posters from the First and Second World Wars. I bought the folder and brought it home and did some research on Louis Van Den Ecker. He turned out to have been an expert employed by the studios to insure that their depiction of particular times and places were accurate. He worked on the 1939 version of Hunchback of Notre Dame, Beau Geste, Adventures of Robin Hood, The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo among many other films. I assembled his clippings into a logical order and mounted them into a scrapbook. Today, we scanned this book for the Archive.


The concept of propaganda is widely misunderstood. Many people automatically assume that it's a negative thing. But propaganda is just a tool that can be used for either good or bad. Propaganda involves bypassing the intellect and appealing directly to emotion to motivate a group of people to action. During the World Wars, time was of the essence and masses of people needed to work together for the common goal of defending the nation. It would have been too slow to talk each and every move out with the whole population, so governments used powerful imagery to bring everyone together in the war effort.


I'm not sure if it's just the bias of this particular collection, or if it was actually the case during WWI, but looking at these examples, one can see how inept the Germans were at using propaganda. The German posters in this collection seem to appeal to abstract concepts like national pride, flags and mythology; while the Allied propaganda goes straight for the heart with concepts like motherhood, security, and moral outrage. Look at the example above. The figure in the foreground represents the outrage of the nation at the sight of a sinking ocean liner and a sailor's hand rising from the surf begging for help. Even after nearly a century, the powerful imagery still makes its point.


Contrast that impact with the poster above... Abstract concepts are stacked up on top of each other... It's not a baby... it's a statue of a baby. And it isn't even a statue of a baby, it's a statue of a cherub. There is no eye contact, just empty eye sockets. The emotional impact of the bullet hole in the helmet is totally negated by its similarity to the baby's belly button! It's hard to imagine this image motivating anyone to give money to the cause.


Early examples, like the one above, were created by renowned artists, and the subjects required close inspection, reflection and thought to grasp.

As time went by, the images became more graphic and direct...



Sketches of children orphaned by the war were potent images...




National and religious symbols seem to be much less effective, even when they are more interesting from an artistic standpoint...





These last two are interesting because they show how the two sides saw themselves. The German soldier is idealized in a kitsch way, while the French soldier seems more real and down to earth...



Which side would you rather be on?


When the nations of the world entered into World War I, the methods and techniques of propaganda were naiive and innocent. But by the end of the First World War, the techniques of waging war in the hearts and minds of the public had entered the modern era. Propaganda had become much more sophisticated and powerful. By WWII, leaders realized that battles could be fought and won on the homefront. Propaganda became an important part of motivating the population to work together toward the common goal of defeating the axis powers. Compare the WWI posters in this and the previous post to the examples from WWII presented here. Notice how the design and layout enhance the emotional impact of the concepts. Many of these posters still pack a wallop.














For more on this subject, see Alfred and Elizabeth Briant Lee's book The Fine Art of Propaganda: A Study of Father Coughlin's Speeches 1938.

Now you may be asking yourself, what does propaganda have to do with animation? Well... Think for a moment about the definition of propaganda, "bypassing the intellect and motivating an audience through a direct appeal to emotion" and then think about this image from an animated film I'm sure you're familiar with...


Can you think of any other plot devices used in animated features that operate on this primitive level?

If you enjoyed this post, check out... Walt Disney Goes To War, Dispatch From Disney's Part One and Part Two, Arthur Szyk's The New Order and Artzybasheff's Neurotica, Machinalia and Diablerie.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Theory: Chaplin's Shadow

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.


The Legendary Charlie Chaplin
Recently, controversy has erupted in the blogosphere over artists who directly copy other artists' work (See the articles on Cartoonist Todd Goldman, Family Guy and Jerry Mouse and The Great Ripping Friends Rip-Off.) The issue of exactly where the dividing line lies between "homage" and "ripoff" is open for debate among fans, but today I want to speak to the artists out there... and in particular, aspiring animators. For you, this subject is more than just idle chatter.

Every day, an artist makes thousands of decisions. These decisions affect not just the piece he is working on at the time, but his entire creative output. It's important to understand why you're making the decisions you make, and to strive to work your problems out for yourself; not just apply someone else's decisions as a substitute for your own. Truly great artists refuse to even copy themselves... Take Terry-Toons animator Jim Tyer for instance. He never approached the same situation with the same animation twice in his entire career.

There are consequences to the decisions we make as artists. Sometimes in the heat of creativity, right and wrong can become blurred by practicality and commercial demands. It's up to you to balance those competing pressures, but as the old saying goes, "Virtue is its own reward."

It's hard to not react with bias to current examples of imitation, but time can lend clarity. I'm going to tell you about two performers who were popular nearly a century ago. One of them you know. The other you don't. The reason for that is in the decisions those two artists made. -Stephen Worth


Edgar Kennedy and Charlie Chaplin
CHAPLIN'S SHADOW
In 1916, Charlie Chaplin signed a contract with Mutual to produce 12 comedy shorts over a year and half's time. He was paid the unheard of amount of $670,000 for the shorts, and was given unprecidented creative freedom. We now know that the end result of this deal was a package of slapstick shorts that represent the most influential comedy films in the entire history of cinema. But back in 1916, it was just a LOT of money being paid to a relatively untested artist.

Here is an anthology that pulled together articles from Judge magazine during this seminal period in movie history...


In the pages of this anthology is this article on Chaplin's deal with Mutual. Although the form of the prose is quite different from what we read today in entertainment magazines and blogs, the apologies for appealing to the unrefined masses, complaints about big budgets, and stories about movie-star ego trips are the same sorts of sniping we read in reviews today. What this writer didn't know was that Chaplin was on the cusp of breaking through as the single most important filmmaker of his time.


Now that the stage is set, I want to introduce you to "The Shadow"...

Billy Ritchie worked alongside Chaplin on the English Music Hall stage, performing as the drunk in the classic sketch, "Mumming Birds", just as Chaplin did in his vaudeville days. Chaplin's biographer, David Robinson described this sketch like this...

The setting for "Mumming Birds" represents the stage of a small music hall, with two boxes at either side. The sketch opens with fortissimo music as a girl shows an elderly gentleman and his nephew- an objectionable boy, armed with peashooter, tin trumpet, and picnic hamper- into the lower O.P. box.

The Inebriated Swell is settled into the prompt side box, and instantly embarks upon some business of a very Chaplinesque character. He peels the glove from his right hand, tips the waiting attendant, and then, forgetting that he has already removed his glove, absently attempts to peel it off again. He tries to light his cigar from the electric light beside the box. The boy holds out a match for him, and in gracefully inclining to reach it, the Swell falls out of the box.

The show within the show consisted of a series of abysmal acts... The acts changed over the years, but some remained invariable: a ballad singer, a male voice quartet, and the Saucy Soubrette, delighting the Swell with her rendering of "You Naughty, Naughty Man!"

The finale was always "Marconi Ali, the Terrible Turk- the Greatest Wrestler Ever to Appear Before the British Public". The Terrible Turk was a poor, puny little man weighed down by an enormous mustache, who would leap so voraciously upon a bun thrown at him by the Boy that the Stage Manager had to cry out, "Back, Ali! Back!" The Turk's offer to fight any challenger for a purse of £100 provided the excuse for a general scrimmage to climax the act.

Ritchie came from the same basic background as Chaplin, so when Chaplin began to rise to fame, he was a natural choice to put out film comedy shorts to compete. Henry Lehrman, who was previously a director at Mack Sennett, hired Ritchie to star in a series under his "Lehrman Knock-Outs" banner. The comparisons with Chaplin were inevitable. Ritchie used the same costume that Chaplin wore in "Mumming Birds"... the bowler hat, bamboo cane and tattered suit that became famous as the Little Tramp costume.

Here is an interview with Ritchie made around 1916...



The author of this article makes it clear that Ritchie's career has one foot planted in his own shoes, and the other in Chaplin's. But it didn't last... When Chaplin's Mutual Shorts were released, they were a sensation. They blew Ritchie out of the water. Lehrman was forced to change distributors to Universal in 1917, and the quality of the films took a nose dive. Two years later, Ritchie was attacked on the set by an ostrich, and never recovered. He died from the injuries he sustained in 1921, leaving his wife without financial support.


Chaplin imitator, Billy West
Billy Ritchie wasn't the only Chaplin imitator... Billy West and Charles Amador also traded on the image of the Little Tramp; and a cartoon series produced by Gaumont in Europe exploited the character as well. Chaplin sued to protect his creation, but ultimately his own success and brilliant creativity plowed his imitators under better than any legal writ.

Ironically, Chaplin never sued his old comrade, Billy Ritchie. And after Ritchie's death, he took pity on his widow and gave her a job as his costumer. She prepared the Little Tramp costume for Chaplin's performances, just as she had for her late husband.

The history of film is full of stories like this. Here are Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo...


...remember them? No? Well, that's because they didn't last either. Petrillo was quoted as saying, "I hold the record for being the world's youngest has-been."

In time, surface similarities like the hat and cane cease to matter. Audiences didn't love Chaplin for his costume. It was the spark of genius in the creator that made the Little Tramp immortal. You can't steal genius. You may gain a short term benefit from ripping off another artist to further your own career, but you'll pay for it in the end.


The moral of this cautionary tale is to be true to yourself. The business has no shame. The audience won't sue you for ripping off someone else's idea. You need to develop a conscience for yourself. No one is going to do it for you. You owe it to your muse.

Here's an interesting post on a similar subject at John K's blog.

If you found this article interesting, see... The Application Of Inspiration / How To Properly Use Reference / Incorporating Natural Forms / (Visual) Literacy / Why Do We Need An Animation Archive?

If you want an incredible insight into the mind of a brilliant filmmaker, you will want to get the DVD of Unknown Chaplin. Using never before seen outtakes, these three programs reconstruct Chaplin's creative process from the ground up. This is one of the greatest documentaries ever made. Check it out!

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

3.24.09
.

Stumble It!

Tangent: Live The Fabulous Lifestyle Of A Hollywood Cartoonist

John Kricfalusi posted a blistering post this morning about popular culture and the upside down meaning of the words "liberal" and "conservative" today. If you haven't read it yet, check it out. Here is my own take on a similar theme...

LIVE THE FABULOUS LIFESTYLE OF A HOLLYWOOD CARTOONIST

The other day, a student at Woodbury volunteered to help build out our database. His name is Jo-Jo. He told me how much this blog, along with Eddie Fitzgerald's and John K's, has opened his eyes to how great cartoons were in the 30s, 40s and 50s. He had a sketchbook full of Preston Blair drawings and enthusiasm for Fleischer, MGM and Warner Bros cartoons. So I asked him what kinds of music he listens to...

"David Bowie mostly."

My jaw hit the floor. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I gave Jo-Jo the best tip he'll ever get...

Cartoons aren't the only things that were better back in the first half of the 20th century.

Mike Fontanelli stopped by later and pointed out that somebody should write a book titled "The Golden Age of Everything". Sure, there are things today that are incredibly great... computers, the internet, iPods, frost-free refrigerators, etc... but music, dance, illustration, writing, movies and cartoons were all better back then. Cartoonists should be aware of this, and they should absorb all of the greatness of the past. It will make them better cartoonists.

Today, I'm going to talk about music...



I know that someone out there is going to post a comment saying that there's still great music being made, it just isn't mainstream. I'm fully aware of the fact that there are talented musicians working today. But in the 30s through the 50s, incredible talent was a given. Performers, from the top of the heap to the bottom- from most popular to least- were all capable of making you do a double take and say "wow!".

When I ask kids what kinds of music they listen to, I usually get the response, "All kinds." But "all kinds" usually turns out to mean a million shades of the same color... current rock music. There are so many names today for the same kind of music. For the life of me, I can't tell the difference between rave, techno and electronica. In the past, there really were a million kinds of music... pop vocals, hot jazz, country western, big band swing, folk, rhythm & blues, bluegrass, mambo, dixieland, rock n' roll, sweet orchestral, be bop...

I could talk for hours about this subject, but the best proof is seeing what I'm talking about...

JAZZ
Lucky Millinder & Sister Rosetta Tharpe
"Four Or Five Times" (Soundie/1941)
(Quicktime 7 / 5.5 megs)

COUNTRY MUSIC
Larry Collins & Joe Maphis
"Under The Double Eagle" (Tex Ritter's Ranch Party/1959)
(Quicktime 7 / 5 megs)

THE BLUES
Leadbelly
"Gray Goose" "Pick A Bale Of Cotton"(1950s)
(Quicktime 7 / 10 megs)

POPULAR MUSIC
Les Paul & Mary Ford
"The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise" "Amuka Riki" (Grand Old Opry/1959)
(Quicktime 7 / 12 megs)

If you are a student planning to be a professional cartoonist, listen to music that relates to your work- read books that inspire cartoony ideas- watch movies to learn cinematic techniques that can be applied to cartooning- LIVE THE FABULOUS LIFESTYLE OF A FAMOUS HOLLYWOOD CARTOONIST!

By the way... Jo-Jo is a big Fats Waller fan now!

Let me know in the comments if you'd like more posts about other tangential subjects related to cartoons.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

1.27.09
.

Stumble It!

Media: Incorporating Natural Forms- Haeckel's Artforms in Nature

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 hope you'll bear with me as I get philosophical. (I promise not to get all "hippie college professor" on ya!) Think of this as one of Eddie Fitzgerald's theory posts at Uncle Eddie's Theory Corner.




We scanned an interesting and inspiring book today- Ernst Haeckel's Die Natur als Kunstlerin (Nature as Artist). This paperback book from 1913 is a popular adaptation of Haeckel's landmark book, Kunstformen von der Natur (Art Forms in Nature) originally published in 1904. Haeckel was a biologist and an artist, and he merged both disciplines into a study of natural forms, shapes, symmetries and patterns from every aspect of the natural world.




Natural history studies are beyond the scope of what we do here at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, but this one is an exception. Haeckel didn't just attempt to document lifeforms and their place in the environment... He documented the structures and shapes that are common to all plants and animals on this Earth. His drawings have no indication of scale or habitat of the various organisms he depicted. A jellyfish would appear right next to a single cell animal or the patterns of folds of skin on the face of a bat. The focus was on the form.




Biologists in Haeckel's time thought of man's place in nature much differently than we do today. Haeckel was a staunch Darwinist. He saw mankind as a part of evolution, and a vital part of nature. Today, when we turn on the TV to watch a nature show, we see jungles and tigers, or underwater coral reefs full of fish. There isn't a human being in sight. Many people today look upon humans as "contaminants" to the natural world. But in Haeckel's day, nature was seen in everything- Darwin's Theory applied to the evolution of fish or birds just as much as it applied to the evolution of people. social organizations, business practices or creative processes.




Haeckel saw no contradiction in his role as scientist/artist. In fact, he considered his work to be an expression of his own natural place in the world he was attempting to represent. Instead of approaching the subject from an objective viewpoint, he subjectively and selectively edited what he saw to reduce it to a form that appealed to him on a basic level as an artist. Thus, the scales of a fish become arabesques, and microscopic diatoms become beautiful sculptural forms. Haeckel was using nature's imagery to express his own inner nature.




At the turn of the century, when this book was published, Art Nouveau was popular. Natural forms were incorporated into everything from architecture and illustration to street signs and ornamental patterns on clothing or wallpaper. Today, we have nearly eliminated natural forms from our lives. We live in shoebox shaped houses and drive cars shaped like shoeboxes with rounded edges. We pave the landscape with geometric grids of asphalt and design characters for animation out of triangles, rectangles and circles. We have isolated ourselves from natural shapes; and in so doing, we have isolated ourselves from ourselves.

RECOMMENDED READING

I am going to recommend a few books here from Amazon.com. These three books comprise an encyclopedia of natural shapes for you to explore. Don't copy from them- incorporate them into the way you think...

Art Forms In Nature by Ernst Haeckel



Art Forms From The Ocean: The Radiolarian Atlas Of 1862 by Ernst Haeckel


Cabinet of Natural Curiosities: The Complete Plates in Colour, 1734-1765



I promise you, you won't be disappointed by these books. They may just change your life!



UPDATE

Pita, a reader of this blog sends along this link to a page with all 100 images from Haeckel's landmark book, as well as a downloadable PDF version.

Also, check out Pita's great image blog, Agence Eureka. It's at the top of my blogroll; and I bet once you see it, it'll be at the top of yours too.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

9.4.08
.

Stumble It!