Journal Article
Week 7
As a professional musician, Treg Brown’s approach to developing sound effects forcartoonssuch as Tom and Jerry is utterly exhilarating. The various sound effects are calming, while at the same time edgy. His ability to switch between multiple tempos and intensities allows me as the audience to relate to each scene. Rather than adopting the typical boring and monotonous tunes used for contemporarycarton, Brown’s orchestra approach gives me the rare experience of opera music in a way that increases my interest in the cartoon film. I would mostly find myself tuning to these shows, not to enjoy the plot, but to experience these exhilarating pieces of classical music. On the other hand, Merrie Melodies follows the same approach by Brown in being innovative, given its use of the symphonic orchestra. The creative idea behind these tunes is the preparation and thoughts that went into the composition. Merrie Melodies was written, composed, directed and conducted by Carl Sterling in a way that resonates with not only the audience, but also the scenes and the plot twist. Each note and each pitch followed the careful writing of the soundtrack to amplify the message of each scene in the cartoon. All of these compositions used the comic as a platform to show their prowess and creativity in terms of innovating unique soundtracks.
Week 8
The evolution of the Canadian animation was closely influenced by the fact that it borders America, hence the competitiveness and cross-border co-operation. The industry’s animation took a turn for the better between the 1910s and 50s when in 1912., the Canadian born cartoonist Raoul Barre invented the use of standard perforations. These perforations in the drawing papers held bars in place through pegging them to eliminate jerkiness. This illumination was essential in creating better effects when switching from one scene to another. One year later, Barres introduced the systematic method of producing cartons in an assembly linefashion, whichchanged the creation of commercial animations to date. The National Film Board of Canada was established in 1939 to provide strong government support for the creation of Canadian animations, and to develop its independence from theater chains. The chains had hitherto discouraged animation production to limit the competition to the parent company’s product. However, creators like Jack Norling strived to defy this oppressive institution, producing the first Canadian animation in 1919 called The Man Who Woke Up, a short animation primarily for educational purposes.
Week 9
The history of Japanese animation traces back to 1917, which was still the age of silent films. Based on animated shorts from America and France, the Japanese animation culture used a trial and error drawing and cut-out animation techniques. However, the culture faced an uphill battle of producing cost-effective yet high-quality anime films. Despite these challenges, the industry persisted in its production of manga films until 1923 when public institutions adopted anime production as a publicrelations and publicitycampaign strategy. 1929 saw the introduction of the first talkies while 1932brought along the use of color film. Using this advancement to produce better anime films, Ofuji Noburo created the Thief of BagudaCastle animation, which won international acclaim, which became the first to make its presence felt outside Japan. The anime film was produced by cutting and pasting a Japanese colored paper called Chiyogami. Following the end of the war, the GeneralHeadquarters of the Allied Occupation formed a union of 100 anime artists out in the ruins of Tokyo to form the New Japan Animation Company, Shin Nihon Dogasha, whose aim was to spread occupation policies. Determined to use animation to preach and promote democracy, the company facilitated better and high-quality productions through the able leadership of Okawa Hiroshi, who later founded Toei Doga studio in 1956.
Week 10
The Asian animation started in the 1920s in China, inspired by French, German, and American productions. Although these producers had initially worked on anime products inspired by the Chinese culture, such as the first Zoetrope invented in 180 AD by Ting Huan, and Out of The Inkwell by the USA, these productions did not land in China until well after 1918. These shortcomings created a gap and the need to establish an Asian animation culture, and in 1922, Wan Laiming produced the first Chinese animation for a cartoon advertisement. On the otherhand, the Australiananimationindustry was well developed at an earlier age, with the pioneer years of the industry being between 1900 and 1930. However, before this period, there was scattered evidence of the animation culture, with Harry Julius (1835-1938) producing the first animated film in Australia in 1912. Although the animationculture began with print materials, such as Julius’ bestselling illustration book, Theatrical Caricatures in 1912. The industry quickly picked on films, first through the live-action screening of Pathe’s Animated Gazettes in 1912 by Pathe Films.
Week 11
The South and Central Americananimationindustry started between 1900 and 1920, intimately inspired by America’s evolution in the anime production industry. This industries’ expansion followed the Golden Age of American animation, whichbegan in 1928 with the popularization of sound cartoons and graduallyfaded away between the 1950s and 60s. This period saw the birth of many famous characters by Walt Disney productions, such as Mickey Mouse and Donald duck, as well as Warner Bros’ Bugs Bunny, among other popular cartoons. The use of sound effects made these productions very popular in central and southAmerica, due to the perceived mischief and hilarious personalities portrayed by the showrunners. Given the expansion of the Golden age era, anime producers started working on feature-length animations such as the Walt-era films by Disney, which span from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs produced in 1937. Central and South America animation quicklyfollowed in the footsteps of these signs of progress, with such countries as Chile establishing Cine Animadores film studio in 1989. The studio was established as a publicity company exclusively for Chilean television, creating hand-drawn animations for TV commercials.
Week 12
One cannot talk about the history and evolution of Western Europe’s animation industry without mentioning the iconic comic cartoonist Andre Rigel who made several animated films during the Nazi occupation of France in the early 1940s. Artists like Rigel used animation as a platform to decry the political and societal oppressions at the time, with his The Mysterious Island print comic calling out political dictators. As one of the pioneers of the Western Europe animation culture, Rigel heavily relied on print media in the early 1900s, although by 1930, westernEurope had adopted the production of animated films. Other pioneers of the industry included Widdicombe Faire animation film in 1947 by Larkin Studio, located in England. The production was the filmrendition of the Widdicombe Fair, a traditional English folksong that was accompanied by drawings. The Widdicombe Fair uses musicals in the background occasioned with frequent illustrations switching between scenes. The history of western Europe animation started long before the development of cinematography, which explains the lack of compelling filmic scenes and techniques. The Widdicombe Fair lacks the use of videos and insteadadopts the use of drawings, which fade out unevenly, switching between scenes. However, by 1960, the western Europe aminationindustry advanced to the first use of color films.
Week 13
The evolution of animation in easternEurope was largely impeded by World War II, although several countries like Hungary had become world leaders in amination by the 1960s. Filmmakers in this region of the world experimented with widely different techniques, such as the Eschewing animated line drawings. In Poland, Ladislaus Starevitch created a stop-motion animation with bugs and dolls. As an art student, Starevitch experimented with a wide variety of techniques that were completely out of the norm, even in America. Although such an approach was a huge gamble, and a risky venture, it paid off in putting easternEurope on the global animation production map in as early as 1912 when Starevitch produced a widely celebrated animation film called The Cameraman’s Revenge. The storyline of the film followed a camera-wielding grasshopper’s life using the tools of his trade to humiliate his cheating wife. This movie was among the first films to follow a carefully scripted storyline, which further increased its popularity. By 1930, the easternEuropeanimation film industry adopted the use of the pinscreen, which was a board perforated with half a million pins that could be raised or lowered to create patterns of light as well as shadows. Developed by Alexander Alexeieff, the pinscreen was designed to be used theaters to givethe effect of an animated steel engraving. This technique led to the creation of such iconic films as A Night in Bald Mountain in 1933 and Nikolay Gogol’s The Nose in 1963.
Week 14
Although the history of the American animation places much emphasis on the Golden Age, and the period between 1900 and 1921, George Melies had demonstrated in 1896 that it was possible to use the single-frame exposures to set objects in motions. The animated drawings, a direct result of this finding, were introduced to filmography one full decade late. Therefore, although by the late 1800s, such innovations had already been studied, it was not until around 1920 that these theories applied to the American animation industry. Some of the iconic artists and their exemplary works in the early 1900s included J. Stuart Blackton, whose 1906 chalk experiment led to the creation of Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. Advancements in this sector saw the production of animations with set storylines heavily borrowing from comic books. Some of these works included Harry Palmer’s Keeping Up with The Joneses created in 1915 based on the newspaper comic by Pop Momad. This production offered tow renditions, one male and the other females, which were both produced in the same year. The use of comic strips expounded on the animatedfilms of the era, providing a wide variety for the audience to chose from, as compared to the monotonous approach by other animation industries of the world at the time.