Actual good prints
Uncropped!
No DVNR
No Line Thinning
No Grain Removal
Just the films as they were meant to be seen
Showing posts with label 1944. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1944. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Look What's Coming
Actual good prints
Uncropped!
No DVNR
No Line Thinning
No Grain Removal
Just the films as they were meant to be seen
Monday, January 12, 2009
Why Cartoon Animation Steered Off Course
It happened in the late 40s.
ANIMATION GREW FASTER THAN ANY ART FORM IN HISTORY
From the 20s and through the 30s animation exploded as an art form. From simple stick figures to a whole new discipline that took advantage of a visual element that was never possible before - movement.
A few animation "principles" were developed and refined within less than a decade!
IT WAS THE MOST APPEALING OF ALL VISUAL ARTS
Animation, born of the also recent invention of cartoon art and comics was a whole new way of looking at the world.
ITS WHOLE POINT WAS TO DISTILL THE FUN - LEAVE OUT THE BORING PARTS
It took all the boring parts out of life and just left the fun parts. It was fun to look at and fun to watch move. It told funny, ridiculous stories. It was the ice cream of the arts and because of it became the most popular of all the visual arts. Most people like fun - except executives who prefer market research.
To me the first half of the 20th century could be known as "The Cartoon Age" just as well as "The Jazz Age" or "The Age Of Progress".
IT WAS NOT CONSIDERED ART- IT WAS MERE "ENTERTAINMENT"
Astoundingly, this unbelievable new creative medium didn't get much respect - surely because it was so inventive and obviously directly enjoyable by so many people.
Some comic strips artists were respected (and made tons of money) but animators - who were doing a much more sophisticated form of cartoon got paid less and no respect. Most animators, excluding Walt Disney, were practically anonymous - unlike their comic strip counterparts who were rich and famous.
ANIMATION ARTISTS CAN'T DRAW AS WELL AS ILLUSTRATORS AND GET LESS RESPECT
Even the best draftsmen of animation's Golden Age couldn't draw as well as the average illustrators from the same period and I think many suffered an inferiority complex because of it.
This was probably mostly Walt Disney's fault. His own inferiority complex was contagious and poisoned much of the rest of the business.
He diverted almost everyone away from their natural cartooning instincts and made them all want to create "quality" rather than fun. Quality meant animating things that other mediums could do better and much more easily, like:
More detail
Human proportions
Elaborate special effects
Spectacle
Crying
Tribes of Naked Babies
None of these things lend themselves naturally to animation. They just make the work harder and eat away precious time that could be better spent being imaginative and doing what only cartoons and animation can do.
But creative cartoons and impossible magical animation don't get respect, remember. They just generate tons of money for the studios that release them - who in turn crap on the artists who made all the money for them.
ANIMATION ARTISTS TOOK MOVEMENT FOR GRANTED BECAUSE THEY WERE SO GOOD AT IT
Animators too busy comparing themselves unfavorably to illustrators, comic strip artists, live action movies and other related forms of art didn't realize how wonderful and unique their own skills were. The things you could only do in cartoons and the crazy amount of skill the animators developed in performing them came so natural to them that they didn't think much of them.
ANIMATION FIGURED OUT ITS BASICS BY 1940 - then stopped
What we think of today as "animation principles" were pretty much figured out by 1940 and nobody invented any new ones after that. For a few more years, they developed and refined this handful of techniques and produced the best animation in history.
ANIMATION LEADERS AIMED MORE AT THE DRAWINGS THAN THE MOVEMENT BY THE MID 40S
While most animation leaders stopped developing new techniques in movement itself, they instead started thinking about "improvement" coming only from the drawings themselves. Different studios and leaders approached this in different ways, but all of them slowed down or reversed the tools that made animation its own unique art form.
DISNEY - MORE COMPLICATED DESIGNS - SAME MOTION PRINCIPLES AND FORMULAS
Disney kept designing more and more complicated or "realistic" characters. They didn't change the way they moved them so much, just made it harder to move them.
Taller proportions-long legs. Much harder to move convincingly.
More detail - the more details on a character, the slower and more difficult it becomes to animate the character. More effort is expended on just not making jerky mistakes than on making the characters fun and entertaining. For 25 years, Disney's characters became harder and harder to draw, but the animation hardly varied at all. The characters moved the same way the simpler characters did - according to old Disney formulae.
Other animators see how technically well animated these elaborate Disney features are and know the incredible effort that went into them and are impressed. This doesn't automatically impress laymen or the audience though.
CHUCK JONES - LESS ANIMATION, MORE CLEVER AND STYLISH POSES
Chuck Jones developed his own unique drawing style and humor and year by year, toned down the animators' input or directed it to point to Chuck's poses and expressions. By 1948 he was making his funniest cartoons, but the animation was less inventive and fun for its own sake than just a couple years earlier.
By the late 50s the animation had become completely stiff and Jones' drawing style tastelessly out of control.
UPA - MORE LIKE RESPECTABLE MAGAZINE CARTOONS - STYLIZED - LESS ANIMATION
Magazine cartoonists drawing for Punch or The New Yorker got a lot more intellectual respect that cartoons from the "funny papers" or animation. Don't ask me why. The UPA artists drifted towards these graphic styles and abandoned creative movement - and definitely funny drawing almost altogether.
IN GENERAL - MORE TALK, LESS WALK
By the late 50s most non-Disney cartoons were left without clever and fun motion. Instead they traced back layout poses to make evenly timed inbetweens. The characters talked a lot more than they moved.
Disney continued doing elaborate movement because they could afford to and they believed still that that was what animation should do - it should move. At least!
But it was mostly movements you had already seen before in previous features.
The exception would be the imitation UPA cartoons they did - the ones you see imitated in all the "Art of Pixar" books.
These flattened Disney cartoons look to me like a misunderstanding of the UPA philosophy. Disney made harsh looking cold designs, but animated them very fluidly as if they were still animating Mickey and Donald. It's definitely clever (the first time!) but not very entertaining - except to Cal Arts alumni.
CLAMPETT LEFT WARNER BROS. IN 1946
All growing art forms need bold charismatic talented leaders. Clampett was the biggest most influential leader in funny cartoons for the first half of the 40s and everyone imitated him - even Disney was obviously influenced.
His cartoons were constantly inventive and he wasn't a total slave to the "Disney principles". He more than anyone, kept expanding the medium of impossible movement (animation) and dragged the rest of the business along with him while constantly creating and developing characters.
Then at the peak of his inventiveness and the peak of the Golden Age - he up and left!
Some say he was fired, he says he quit. But I think this single event in animation history was the most catastrophic thing we've ever endured. His momentum carried Warner Bros. for a few more years even as they gradually slowed down, but it created a hole in the art form that has never been filled.
TEX AVERY LAST LEADER TO KEEP UP CARTOONY ANIMATION
Tex Avery was the last leader to continue doing cartoony inventive animation, but he had less influence than Clampett because he didn't create characters. He made gag cartoons based on funny ideas rather than stories about funny personalities.
History has decided to award him the creation of Bugs Bunny, somewhat arbitrarily in my opinion - but how could it be that someone who created the greatest animated cartoon character in history could never again create even 1 character that the public really wanted to follow?
TEX DIDN'T CREATE CHARACTERS AND THE PUBLIC WOULD RATHER STICK WITH LESS FUNNY CHARACTERS THAN MORE FUNNY CONCEPT CARTOONS
Tex still made some of the funniest cartoons ever, but we remember Chuck Jones, Hanna Barbera and Disney more. - because we associate them with casts of characters. Most humans would rather watch continuing adventures with characters they are familiar with than a series of brilliant one-shot cartoons. Of course we love star characters the best, but we'll even take less charismatic continuing characters if there aren't any stars around.
It's a natural impulse for us to bond with friends. We bowl with our neighbors and party with them - even if they are not the most interesting folks in the city. Today's networks have come to realize this. They will leave a boring series on the air long past the period where they aren't getting ratings - because the audience will soon get used to the characters and accept them and even believe they are entertaining. Especially since there is no competition.
THE END
Tex was the last guy to uphold cartoon animation's roots, but he wasn't enough of an influence by the 50s to halt the ever more decadent trends that the rest of his colleagues were following.
Progress died and even worse - cartoons as a unique form of entertainment and art died.
ANIMATION GREW FASTER THAN ANY ART FORM IN HISTORY
From the 20s and through the 30s animation exploded as an art form. From simple stick figures to a whole new discipline that took advantage of a visual element that was never possible before - movement.
A few animation "principles" were developed and refined within less than a decade!
IT WAS THE MOST APPEALING OF ALL VISUAL ARTS
Animation, born of the also recent invention of cartoon art and comics was a whole new way of looking at the world.
ITS WHOLE POINT WAS TO DISTILL THE FUN - LEAVE OUT THE BORING PARTS
It took all the boring parts out of life and just left the fun parts. It was fun to look at and fun to watch move. It told funny, ridiculous stories. It was the ice cream of the arts and because of it became the most popular of all the visual arts. Most people like fun - except executives who prefer market research.
To me the first half of the 20th century could be known as "The Cartoon Age" just as well as "The Jazz Age" or "The Age Of Progress".
IT WAS NOT CONSIDERED ART- IT WAS MERE "ENTERTAINMENT"
Astoundingly, this unbelievable new creative medium didn't get much respect - surely because it was so inventive and obviously directly enjoyable by so many people.
Some comic strips artists were respected (and made tons of money) but animators - who were doing a much more sophisticated form of cartoon got paid less and no respect. Most animators, excluding Walt Disney, were practically anonymous - unlike their comic strip counterparts who were rich and famous.
ANIMATION ARTISTS CAN'T DRAW AS WELL AS ILLUSTRATORS AND GET LESS RESPECT
Even the best draftsmen of animation's Golden Age couldn't draw as well as the average illustrators from the same period and I think many suffered an inferiority complex because of it.
This was probably mostly Walt Disney's fault. His own inferiority complex was contagious and poisoned much of the rest of the business.
He diverted almost everyone away from their natural cartooning instincts and made them all want to create "quality" rather than fun. Quality meant animating things that other mediums could do better and much more easily, like:
More detail
Human proportions
Elaborate special effects
Spectacle
Crying
Tribes of Naked Babies
None of these things lend themselves naturally to animation. They just make the work harder and eat away precious time that could be better spent being imaginative and doing what only cartoons and animation can do.
But creative cartoons and impossible magical animation don't get respect, remember. They just generate tons of money for the studios that release them - who in turn crap on the artists who made all the money for them.
ANIMATION ARTISTS TOOK MOVEMENT FOR GRANTED BECAUSE THEY WERE SO GOOD AT IT
Animators too busy comparing themselves unfavorably to illustrators, comic strip artists, live action movies and other related forms of art didn't realize how wonderful and unique their own skills were. The things you could only do in cartoons and the crazy amount of skill the animators developed in performing them came so natural to them that they didn't think much of them.
ANIMATION FIGURED OUT ITS BASICS BY 1940 - then stopped
What we think of today as "animation principles" were pretty much figured out by 1940 and nobody invented any new ones after that. For a few more years, they developed and refined this handful of techniques and produced the best animation in history.
ANIMATION LEADERS AIMED MORE AT THE DRAWINGS THAN THE MOVEMENT BY THE MID 40S
While most animation leaders stopped developing new techniques in movement itself, they instead started thinking about "improvement" coming only from the drawings themselves. Different studios and leaders approached this in different ways, but all of them slowed down or reversed the tools that made animation its own unique art form.
DISNEY - MORE COMPLICATED DESIGNS - SAME MOTION PRINCIPLES AND FORMULAS
Disney kept designing more and more complicated or "realistic" characters. They didn't change the way they moved them so much, just made it harder to move them.
Taller proportions-long legs. Much harder to move convincingly.
More detail - the more details on a character, the slower and more difficult it becomes to animate the character. More effort is expended on just not making jerky mistakes than on making the characters fun and entertaining. For 25 years, Disney's characters became harder and harder to draw, but the animation hardly varied at all. The characters moved the same way the simpler characters did - according to old Disney formulae.
Other animators see how technically well animated these elaborate Disney features are and know the incredible effort that went into them and are impressed. This doesn't automatically impress laymen or the audience though.
CHUCK JONES - LESS ANIMATION, MORE CLEVER AND STYLISH POSES
Chuck Jones developed his own unique drawing style and humor and year by year, toned down the animators' input or directed it to point to Chuck's poses and expressions. By 1948 he was making his funniest cartoons, but the animation was less inventive and fun for its own sake than just a couple years earlier.
By the late 50s the animation had become completely stiff and Jones' drawing style tastelessly out of control.
UPA - MORE LIKE RESPECTABLE MAGAZINE CARTOONS - STYLIZED - LESS ANIMATION
Magazine cartoonists drawing for Punch or The New Yorker got a lot more intellectual respect that cartoons from the "funny papers" or animation. Don't ask me why. The UPA artists drifted towards these graphic styles and abandoned creative movement - and definitely funny drawing almost altogether.
IN GENERAL - MORE TALK, LESS WALK
By the late 50s most non-Disney cartoons were left without clever and fun motion. Instead they traced back layout poses to make evenly timed inbetweens. The characters talked a lot more than they moved.
Disney continued doing elaborate movement because they could afford to and they believed still that that was what animation should do - it should move. At least!
But it was mostly movements you had already seen before in previous features.
The exception would be the imitation UPA cartoons they did - the ones you see imitated in all the "Art of Pixar" books.
These flattened Disney cartoons look to me like a misunderstanding of the UPA philosophy. Disney made harsh looking cold designs, but animated them very fluidly as if they were still animating Mickey and Donald. It's definitely clever (the first time!) but not very entertaining - except to Cal Arts alumni.
CLAMPETT LEFT WARNER BROS. IN 1946
All growing art forms need bold charismatic talented leaders. Clampett was the biggest most influential leader in funny cartoons for the first half of the 40s and everyone imitated him - even Disney was obviously influenced.
His cartoons were constantly inventive and he wasn't a total slave to the "Disney principles". He more than anyone, kept expanding the medium of impossible movement (animation) and dragged the rest of the business along with him while constantly creating and developing characters.
Then at the peak of his inventiveness and the peak of the Golden Age - he up and left!
Some say he was fired, he says he quit. But I think this single event in animation history was the most catastrophic thing we've ever endured. His momentum carried Warner Bros. for a few more years even as they gradually slowed down, but it created a hole in the art form that has never been filled.
TEX AVERY LAST LEADER TO KEEP UP CARTOONY ANIMATION
Tex Avery was the last leader to continue doing cartoony inventive animation, but he had less influence than Clampett because he didn't create characters. He made gag cartoons based on funny ideas rather than stories about funny personalities.
History has decided to award him the creation of Bugs Bunny, somewhat arbitrarily in my opinion - but how could it be that someone who created the greatest animated cartoon character in history could never again create even 1 character that the public really wanted to follow?
TEX DIDN'T CREATE CHARACTERS AND THE PUBLIC WOULD RATHER STICK WITH LESS FUNNY CHARACTERS THAN MORE FUNNY CONCEPT CARTOONS
Tex still made some of the funniest cartoons ever, but we remember Chuck Jones, Hanna Barbera and Disney more. - because we associate them with casts of characters. Most humans would rather watch continuing adventures with characters they are familiar with than a series of brilliant one-shot cartoons. Of course we love star characters the best, but we'll even take less charismatic continuing characters if there aren't any stars around.
It's a natural impulse for us to bond with friends. We bowl with our neighbors and party with them - even if they are not the most interesting folks in the city. Today's networks have come to realize this. They will leave a boring series on the air long past the period where they aren't getting ratings - because the audience will soon get used to the characters and accept them and even believe they are entertaining. Especially since there is no competition.
THE END
Tex was the last guy to uphold cartoon animation's roots, but he wasn't enough of an influence by the 50s to halt the ever more decadent trends that the rest of his colleagues were following.
Progress died and even worse - cartoons as a unique form of entertainment and art died.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Scribner the Genius, the Sweet Guy
I personally think Rod Scribner was the most talented and versatile animator in our whole history. He worked in lots of different styles: He animated the wildest and best acted scenes of the 40s, then transitioned into the more stylized designy UPA world of the 50s. Many other classic animators tried to make the transition and never quite got it. A few excelled. Scribner jumped at the challenge and created a whole form of motion that matched the designs.
Here he is at what I think was the peak period of animation history-the mid 40s in Bob Clampett's super unit.
Eddie has a great analysis of what makes cartoon animation so much different than any other medium. Here's the scene in motion below.
http://cartoonthrills.org/blog/Clampett/BucarooBugs/ScribnerBucarooRedsmall.mov
Watch it then go read Eddie's theories. Then come back to hear a little story about the human side of Scribner, the complete genius who animated this.
http://uncleeddiestheorycorner.blogspot.com/2008/02/cartooning-lessons-by-scribner-and.html
Watch you favorite stand up comic and study his pauses, his poses, the way he or she focuses your attention on certain points of the jokes and their acting/reacting. This is all a high amount of skill in storytelling.
Imagine having to learn those difficult skills and also the crazy amount of animation skill that goes into 40s cartoons. Egad!
Rod Scribner's granddaughter Julie has some really sweet stories about her funny Grandpa. It's great that she shares this with all his fans who barely know anything more about him besides the fact he was probably the most creative single animator in our whole history! It's really cool to see how such a talent was also a loving family man.
Maybe you could let her know in the comments how much you appreciate his talent and her generosity in sharing some stories about this cartoon hero!
Sweet “Papa” Scribner
Papa gave me my creativity, and I will never forget him, or the qualities that he possessed. He was a wonderful man, very funny, and so special to us all. I am attaching three photos: One of Papa and I when I was only about 3 or 4. I had a favorite doll named Drowsy, and he used to tease me about taking it from me. (you can see I had an old and a new one!).
Anyway, you can see what a stylish dresser he was. He did smoke cigarettes, and I don't remember him without one. The other two photos are of pictures that my husband had framed for me from Papa. He worked with Charles Shultz, and did the films like, "Snoopy Come Home".
Rod Scribner, my Papa, was a great grandfather, and used to bring my sisters and I pastel crayons, and drawing tablets. He would sit on the floor and show us how animation worked by drawing a character on 3 pieces of papers, and then flipping them quickly before our eyes.
The funniest story I have of Rod Scribner is when he told my sister and I to be creative, and after he left, we took all the pastel crayons he gave us and drew all over our bedroom walls until they were covered. We were so proud to show our Mom, but when she came in , she shrieked and made us scrub it off until the wee hours of the morning. When Papa heard of what we did, he held his stomach and laughed until he almost fell down. We weren't laughing because of course it took us hours to clean off the mess. Papa was always pulling pranks, and we loved him for that. You would always see a smile on his face, or his funny laugh, and it was contagious.
Eddie will be envious of Animation’s Greatest Salad Maker
The biggest secret I have about Rod Scribner, is that he invented a salad dressing that we have thought about patenting, and selling. If you enter our family, we joke about having to kill you if you ever find out the secret to "Papa's dressing". No one has died yet, but no one has yet to make it the way it's meant to be made (outside of the family that is!!) Some have tried, ALL HAVE FAILED!
That is it for now. I will have more later. I hope that I have given you some insight into Rod Scribner's life. He was a beautiful man, and one I am proud to call my PAPA.
Julie
Thanks a lot Julie! We sure love your Papa!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Buckaroo Bugs - RED HOT RYDER
Hmmm... the damn lawyers at Warner Bros. are taking down all the clips. I guess they don't want free publicity for their cartoons.
Here's some more great stuff from Buckaroo Bugs.
Note that before you see Red Hot Ryder you hear Yosemite Sam's voice and the whole gag is his stock routine you see later in a million cartoons, only it's done best here-the first time it was ever animated.
I think the character and routine comes from a Red Skelton radio character-anyone know the name of the character?
Look at the way everything is animated and timed. This is pure love of movement and funny movement.Why do we not have any full animation in these 200 million dollar features that come out 5 times a year now?
The whole damn thing is excitement. What a great way to start a cartoon!
Here, now look at a way toned down, mechanically timed limited animation version of the same routine and you can see how important good animation and direction is to the effectiveness of a gag.
Coming Soon- Chuck Jones
By the way, I'm going to start posting great animation from Chuck Jones cartoons soon. He's my second favorite director. A very strange career he had too. His best animation didn't coincide with his funniest cartoons. In the early 40s he used very imaginative full animation and gave his animators much leeway, but his timing and characterization and gags were not very sharp yet. By the time he let his writers give him funny story material and he learned to draw funny expressions and tightened his timing-in the mid to late 40s, he started sitting on his animators more.
Maybe I can find a couple cartoons where both things are happening at the same time as they did in Clampett's cartoons. To Duck Or Not To Duck comes to mind.
Here's some more great stuff from Buckaroo Bugs.
Note that before you see Red Hot Ryder you hear Yosemite Sam's voice and the whole gag is his stock routine you see later in a million cartoons, only it's done best here-the first time it was ever animated.
I think the character and routine comes from a Red Skelton radio character-anyone know the name of the character?
Look at the way everything is animated and timed. This is pure love of movement and funny movement.Why do we not have any full animation in these 200 million dollar features that come out 5 times a year now?
The whole damn thing is excitement. What a great way to start a cartoon!
Here, now look at a way toned down, mechanically timed limited animation version of the same routine and you can see how important good animation and direction is to the effectiveness of a gag.
Coming Soon- Chuck Jones
By the way, I'm going to start posting great animation from Chuck Jones cartoons soon. He's my second favorite director. A very strange career he had too. His best animation didn't coincide with his funniest cartoons. In the early 40s he used very imaginative full animation and gave his animators much leeway, but his timing and characterization and gags were not very sharp yet. By the time he let his writers give him funny story material and he learned to draw funny expressions and tightened his timing-in the mid to late 40s, he started sitting on his animators more.
Maybe I can find a couple cartoons where both things are happening at the same time as they did in Clampett's cartoons. To Duck Or Not To Duck comes to mind.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Buckaroo Bugs -
best horse in a cartoon ever
Here's Bob at his wildest.
The horse scrambling to get back on the cliff just kills me.
Now THIS is a cartoon!
I don't know who the animator is...any of our panel of experts know?
It's really solid and crazy at the same time. Manny Gould?
This is one of the funniest Bugs Bunny cartoons ever and ironically is one of the cartoons a couple "animation critics" point to as evidence that Clampett didn't understand Bugs Bunny.
Mike Fontanelli has a funny saying about animation critics.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Buckaroo Bugs - switch animators in the middle of a scene and flaccid pistols
Here's an odd thing Bob would do once in awhile. He would take a scene and give part of it to Rod Scribner and then the rest to Bob McKimson. I don't know whether he did that as a practical joke on the two opposite animators or whether he had some casting reason, like one animator was better suited than the other to certain actions.
In the beginning of the scene look at the way Red Hot Ryder's guns wobble like limp you know whats.
That's more of my favorite style of animation movement that I can't figure out why the world stopped doing it. Just a guess: because it's not "realistic"?
The animators change MID-WAY THROUGH CARROT CHEWING!
Scribner animation
And the very next frame is...
McKimson animation!
Note how Bugs' legs all of a sudden become thick. This is the beginning of Bob McKimson's "stubby period". Shortly after this cartoon, McKimson became a director on his own and started drawing all his characters with short stubby legs, pot bellies, small craniums and eyes, and big jaws and fat lower lips. Clampett told me that McKimson was his top animator, but that he would have to lean on him to draw the characters cuter with bigger eyes and more appealing design which wasn't natural to McKimson. Once he got his own unit, he was able to draw more in his own pure style.
In McKimson's own cartoons all the characters had the same basic personality; they were all assholes or "Loud-mouthed Schnooks" who shoved each other around looking pissed all the time-even the normally mild-mannered Porky became a bully-like character in McKimson's world.
I have a theory about why he treated the characters this way and I will tell it in some later posts about McKimson's hilarious cartoons...if you want to hear it.
In the beginning of the scene look at the way Red Hot Ryder's guns wobble like limp you know whats.
That's more of my favorite style of animation movement that I can't figure out why the world stopped doing it. Just a guess: because it's not "realistic"?
The animators change MID-WAY THROUGH CARROT CHEWING!
In McKimson's own cartoons all the characters had the same basic personality; they were all assholes or "Loud-mouthed Schnooks" who shoved each other around looking pissed all the time-even the normally mild-mannered Porky became a bully-like character in McKimson's world.
I have a theory about why he treated the characters this way and I will tell it in some later posts about McKimson's hilarious cartoons...if you want to hear it.
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