Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- Recently, I’ve tried to put a bit of focus on some International world leaders in animated film and give some attention to the heroes of the past. Naturally, Zagreb Film would be a source of many important names. This was a Yugoslavian studio that had limited resources and budget and they did the most with what they had. When their film, Ersatz, won the Oscar in 1961, it put this small studio on the map. Dusan Vukotic, the director of that film, led the studio.

Here’s a couple of small excerpts from a book, Z is for Zagreb by Ronald Holloway, that gives a good overall view of the start of the studio and a bit about Vukotic’ biography.

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In the early Fifties, the Yugoslav economy was getting off the ground and business advertisements began to appear in the newspapers. The possibility arose again of producing publicity films, as the Maar Brothers had done successfully before the war. Besides, a staff of trained Duga personnel was becoming bored with comic strips and illustrations for books and magazines, and itched to get back into animation. When an English book store opened in Zagreb and news poured across Kostelac’s desk of UPA and Bob Cannon’s Gerald McBoing Boing, the itch became a torture. How were these beautifully designed cartoons made? There were no clues, but everyone was sure it was something for them.

Another break came in the least expected fashion. American films were being bought for Yugoslav consumption, and among those screened for selection was Irving Reis’s The Four Poster (1952). The film itself was not so important, but the animation bridges between sequences were. A sparking, tongue-in-cheek design by John and Faith Hubley graced the antics of Rex Harrison and Lili Palmer in the two-role film: it was the first UPA “cartoon” to enter the country. The film was screened by an excited small audience over and over, and then sent back to the source from which it came—unbought! Harrison and Palmer were never to know how important they were to the growth of Zagreb animation.

With these innovations in mind a veteran group of cartoonists gathered around Kostelac and Vukotic to make advertising films on their own. Production manager was Kostelac, script and direction flowed from Vukotic, Marks (already an acknowledged graphic artist) did the designs, Jutrisa and Kostanjsek animated, and Bourek and Kolar painted the backgrounds. The money came out of their own pockets, but they were able to secure from Zagreb Film production and distribution help. Vukotic and Kostelac toured the country, and with the help of a fellow Montenegran Vukotic secured the necessary commissions from factories and business concerns. Then he and Kostelac retired to a hotel room with typewriter and drawing board to come up with a suitable idea. Thirteen advertising films, ranging in length from thirty seconds to one minute, were produced in the period 1954—55, eleven of them in colour.

Since material resources and particularly the availability of cels (transparent celluloids containing the drawings to be photographed) were limited, the process of “reduced animation” was discovered. Some films took an unbelievable eight cels to make, without losing any of the expressive movement a large number of eels usually required. Drawings were reduced to the barest minimum, and in many cases the visual effect was stronger than with twice the number of drawings. Marks and Bourek went out of their way to round up a number of artist friends to help solve complicated problems. Writers, architects, sculptors lent a creative hand whenever needed. The cartoons took on a daring, avant-garde surface, a strange character for a business enterprise. But not one of their commercial customers complained or rejected a film.

The freed drawings brought about by “reduced animation” cannot be underestimated. These were the forerunners of modern experimental television commercials, and although they appear commonplace today they were highly revolutionary in the Fifties. For the young Zagreb cartoonists the process provided a school of freedom, originality and invention. Every phase of the cartoon was broken down to its basic parts and tested and retested: script, design, background, musical accompaniment, editing, factors of rhythm and timing. By limiting the drawings the characters were freed from realistic movement and given a characteristic life of their own, thereby increasing the film’s tempo and enriching scenes with new forms of expression. Shades of meaning entered into the cartoon’s movements, details began to determine the action, and the preciseness of an expression drew its force from duration of time minutely calculated. A cartoon done at Duga Film normally required 12,000 to 15,000 drawings; reduced, it came down to 4,000 to 5,000 drawings. Further experiments uncovered new ways to compose a scene, paint a background, add a sound effect, construct a bold graphic, build a proper atmosphere, and finally edit tensions into the action to reach a satisfying whole. The only phase left untouched from the Duga days was the general direction of movement; everything else had somehow changed. And, most important of all, the character was no longer an anthropomorphic imitation.

When they appeared in the cinemas, the fantastic, dynamic feeling inside these cartoons charmed the public. Former staff members couldn’t match the finished product with the number of cels used. More commissions began to roll in, and Zagreb Film took another look at the young innovators within the company. As the way opened for new production standards in 1956 (due to a new law separating Zagreb Film from its film distribution branch), it was decided to give story animation another try. The resourceful Kostelac pulled out of a sleeve a card file of former Duga employees, and rounded them up with a taxi and a knock on the door. Enough responded to begin work immediately on a story cartoon for the Pula Festival (another scheme of Fadil Hadzic to promote the growth of Yugoslav cinema), and they worked day and night on The Playful Robot. Script was by Andre Lusicic, direction by Vukotic, design by Marks and Kolar, animation by Jutrisa and Kostanjsek, backgrounds by Bourek—and mistakes by all. There was something basically Disneyish about this effort, and it was admittedly inferior to the high-powered antics of the characters in the ad films.

Nevertheless, Vukotic won a prize at Pula for pioneering Yugoslav animation, and Zagreb Film found itself with an animation studio.

Dusan Vukotic
(Born 1927 in Bileca).

The most important name in Yugoslav animation. It was through his drive and determination that the cartoon won respectability at home and recognition abroad. He has won over fifty prizes and citations for his sixteen major cartoons. He studied architecture and worked as cartoonist on Fadil Hadzic’s Kerempuh, moving up to head of his own unit under Hadzic at Duga Film in 1951—52. As director, designer and animator he created the national figure of Kico, a little government official on inspection tours about the country. How Kico was Born (1951) and The Haunted Castle at Dudinci (1952) represent the best work done at Duga Film, and drew their inspiration from Trnka’s Czech cartoons instead of Disney. After the collapse of Duga Film, Vukotic and Kostelac produced on their own homemade advertising films, and with Marks, Kolar and Bourek he discovered the principles of “reduced animation” (sharply limiting the number of drawings for a short cartoon). He made eleven advertising films as scriptwriter and director, distributed through Zagreb Film, and one publicity film. The Magic Catalogue (1956), for Dragutin Vunak at Interpublic. When Zagreb Film turned to the feature cartoon, Vukotic created The Playful Robot (1956) with the combined talents of Marks, Kolar, Kostanjsek, Jutrisa and Bourek, and was given the Golden Arena at the Pula Festival for pioneering animation in Yugoslavia. He fostered the satire in animation, aiming Cowboy Jimmie (1957), Concerto for Sub-Machine Gun (1958) and The Great Fear (1958) at the American Western, the gangster film, and the horror film. In the beginning he preferred to work with another designer, employing Marks on The Playful Robot, Cowboy Jimmie, and Magic Sounds (1957), and Kolar on Abra Kadabra (1957). The Great Fear, Revenger (1958), Concerto for Sub-Machine Gun, and My Tail is My Ticket (1959), and Grgic on Cow on the Moon (1959). He was the first in the studio to direct, design and animate independently, winning a number of awards for Piccolo (1959) and establishing his characteristic theme of feuding neighbours. His next two independent cartoons were also highly awarded: Ersatz (1961), winning the first Academy Award for animation outside the United States, and Play (1962), voted the best short film of the year at Mannheim. Turning to the feature film, his The Seventh Continent for children in 1966 was not successful but it encouraged him in the cartoon to continue the mixture of live action and animation begun in Play. Stain on the Conscience (1968) employed animation drawing on documentary footage and proved him capable of directing actors ; in a psychological atmosphere. Opera Cordis (1968) restored his eminent position in animation with a salty commentary on Dr. Barnard’s heart transplants, and Ars Gratia Art/s (1 969) more than effectively spoofed the amateur who will do anything for the sake of art and applause. He also wrote the scripts for Vrbanic’s All the Drawings of the Town (1959) (with Vrbanic), Gospodnetic’s The Lion Tamer (1961), Dovnikovic’s The Doll (1961), Grgic’s A Visit from Space (1961), and Blazekovic’s Gorilla’s Dance (1968), and had a hand in supervising most of these films as well as Grgic’s The Devil’s Work (1965). His gifts as a leader are evident every step of the way, but particularly in the first phase of Zagreb Film (1956— 62) when his unit competed for honours with Mimica’s and Kristl’s. He is best in the cool domains of satire and caricature.

Images:
1. The Four Poster – from Amid Amidi‘s Cartoon Modern
2. Cowboy Jimmie
3. Dusan Vukotic
4. Ersatz

Here’s an interview with another International Independent master of animation. Again, many of you may not have heard of him, but let me assure you that his work bordered on genius. His film, Pojar, kept me inspired for years after I saw it in Annecy in 1976. Just check out the body of work done prior to 1980; by 2007 he’d done about 60 short films. He was prolific and smart. If you can find his films, watch them.
This interview comes from Animafilm #5, March 1980.

To Start from Material
Marcin Gizycki talks with
Witold Giersz

MARCIN GIZYCKI: How many films have you made?

WITOLD GIERSZ: I have never compiled statistic, but they said once at the Studio of Film Miniatures that there were about forty.

M.G.: The fruit of the twenty odd years of your activity.

W.G.: I started to work with the film illustry as early as 1950, at the Cooperative of Animated Cartoons in Bielsko.

M.G.: You were among the pioneers of the animated film in Poland.

W.G.: That was long ago.

M.G.: You made your debut in 1956 when you did “The Mystery of the Old Castle”. But the turning point in your career was “The Neon Trifle” and “The Little Western”.

W.G.: Indeed. “The Neon Trifle” was my first, very timid, attempt to abandon conventional drawing, i.e. contours filled with colour. I did my drawings with a brush, which created the impression that the characters were made of neon tubes. In “The Little Western” I made use only of patches of colour which 1 put with a brush straight onto the celluloid.

M.G.: You were the first film-maker in Poland and, if I am not mistaken, in the world, to use this technique, namely, painting on the celluloid without a whole staff of assistants.

W.G.: I tought so, too, but, to my surprise, when I showed “The Little Western” at the Festival in Annecy, George Dunning presented his “Flying Man”, made in a very similar way. We arrived at similar results independently and it does not really matter who was the first. Let’s be quite clear about it: both films used the traditional celluloid technique; the only innovatory thing was the form of drawings: contours were by patches of colour.

M.G.: It seems that you have tried all possible forms of animation, you gave even made a puppet film, “Expectation”. However, your name evokes associations primarily with “dynamic painting”, i.e. the gradual transformation, through the addition and erasure of painted elements, of a single picture done in a thick layer of wet paint. Do you agree that this is the most characteristic undercurrent in your art?

W.G.: People call it the most characteristic because, apart from Piotr Szpakowicz, no one uses this technique in Poland. Naturally, our methods are somewhat different. Szpakowicz deals, on the main, with static painted surfaces that evolve as a result of interpenetration. When he introduces animation, it is less complex than with me. But to be quite frank, I have used this method in three films only: “The Horse”, “The intellectualist” and “The Fire”. Nevertheless the story goes that this is my technique. Generally, I have worked quite traditionally. I am especially fond of animation on the celluloid if it is in “The Little Western”.

M.G.: What I particularly appreciate in your films such as “The Little Western” or “The Red and the Black” is the wit based on purely visual efffects. For instance, a clash of two figures, yellow and blue, which leads to the emergence of single huge green figure. This gag could only be born as a result of thinking in terms of pictures, and only in an animated film.

W.G.: This sort of ideas came to me when I was already working on the film and that is why they could not be the starting point for the script. I regret that they did not occur to me earlier, then I could have subordinated the entire plot to them. I think that the starting point should lie in the material. I tried to follow this path in “Expectation”. There, from the very beginning I kept thinking about a plot in which to involve the figures made of tissue paper made by Ludwik Perski. What drama, what tragedy can be designed for a tissue ballerina? Crumpling, tearing or, in the worst case, burning? What can her sensations be? Light, banal, for she is only a paper dancer. This gave rise to the whole plot.

M.G.: You have once said: “I made myself all my films that I find fairly satisfactory (…) all those made in collaboration have turned out mediocre. How do you explain it?

W.G.: Group work hinders one’s approach in the visual sphere. If Lenica had had to work with a group, he would have never made “New Janko the Musician” or the “Labyrinth”. If we work with a dozen, however talented designers, and we do not want to come up with a conglomerate of a dozen, however good, diverse works, we must restrain ourselves and fall into line. One’s own individuality must be given up in favour of a homogeneous final effect. One’s individual mark may be imprinted only in the way we develop the plot, on the dramatic quality, but visually, there is no room for shining out.

M.G.: And yet, you have made films in collaboration with others.

W.G.: Let me explain. In Bielsko. I went through a good traditional school of classical animated cartoons, cultivated there until today. I thought that I had become quite skilful at this technique and originally I planned no other methods. However, as time went by, I ceased to be satisfied, I came to the conclusion that all I knew about workmanship did not mean much, that what really counted in animation and was pleasing to the eye was novelty. After a good deal of research, I finally arrived at something that gave me some satisfaction. I mean the series of films from “The Little Western” to “The Fire”. But from time to time I go back to traditional cartoons, which I regard as my duty towards the company. Certain films are commissioned and I have to carry them into effect. However, I have not made a film with a group of animators for a very long time now. “Please, Elephant” is no exception, as this full-length film uses the material shot for a serial eleven years ago, with only junctions and some other little things done now. I did all the alternationas practically myself, assisted by one animator.

M.G.: Animated film lies on the borderline of two disciplines: the visual art and feature film. Do you agree that an animated film d’auteur has more of the former, whereas an animated film produced by a team is more like the latter?

W.G.: There are films that can obviously pass as works of the visual arts, like for instance, all Szpakowicz has done. Nevertheless, I think that animation has worked out means of expression original enough to be distinguished as an autonomous discipline. Anyway, it is so unique among the multifarious film genres that a maker of animated films finds it easier to communicate with a representative of the fine arts who does not make films than with someone who makes feature films or documentaries. For that reason it may be better to opt for the term “animated visual art”, i.e. produced not solely by means of a brush and canvas but also a cine-camera, a projector, and a screen.

M.G.: You have designed settings for all your films. Does it make you feel an artist?

W.G.: Quite a blunt question. All my artistic experience is subordinated to the film. I do not practice art in any other form. Hence I feel at once an artist and a film maker, one inseparable from the other. I would have no time for painting, graphic art or drawing. Film making is very timeconsuming. Maybe I am not very well organized, but it takes all my time.

Illustrations:
1. The Old Cowboy
2. Footprints

WITOLD GIERSZ: FILMOGRAPHY
1956: TAJEMNICA STAREGO ZAMKU (The Mystery of the Old Castle),
1957: W DZUNGLI (In the Jungle),
1958: PRZYGODY MARYNARZA (A Sailor’s Adventures),
1959: WIOSENNE PRZYGODY KRASNALA (A Dwarf’s Spring Adventures), NEONOWA FRASZKA (The Neon Trifle),
1960: MALY WESTERN (The Little Western-prizes: Turin, Leipzig, Cracow; honorary mentions: Cork, Necochea; diplomas: San Francisco, Melbourne, Oberhausen),
1961: SKARB CZARNEGO JACKA (Black Jack’s Treasure,
1962: OCZEKIWANIE (Expectation — prizes: Cannes, Moscow; diploma: Edinburgh), PODARTA KSIA.ZKA (A Torn Book), DI-NOZA UR Y (Dinosaurs – prizes: Cracow, Alexandria),
1963: W PIASKACH PUSTYN1 (In the Sands of the Desert), CZERWONE I CZARNE (The Red and the Black – prizes: Oberhausen, Cracow, Cannes, Bratislava, Santa Barbara; honorary mention: Montevideo; diplomas: London, Turin, Edinburgh, Cork, Melbourne, Oberhausen; the prize of the “Film” weekly), MADAME SOPRANI,
1964: KLOPOTY Z CIEPLEM (Troubles with Heat – prizes: Lodz, Cracow), LADIES AND GENTLEMEN (an honorary mention La Felguera),
1965: KORZEN (The Root),
1966: KARTOTEKA (The Card-Index),
1967: KON (The Horse -prizes: Cracow, Mamaia, Adelaide, Honolulu; diplomas: Melbourne, Edinburgh),
1968: ADMIRAL (The Admiral), WYCIECZKA ZA MIASTO (The Journey out of the City – prize: Poznah), PRZE-PROWADZKA DOMINIKA (The Removal of Dominik),
1969: INTELEKTUALISTA (The Intcllc-ctualist – prize: Paris, diploma: Venice), ROZBIT-KOWIE (The Castaways), OTO ZYCIE (That is Life -both films done in Yugoslavia with Milan Ljubic),
1970: WSPANIAtY MARS7 (The Maenificent March – prize: foznanj, iy/i: (The Perfect Driver), 1972: KASKADER (The Stunt-man – diploma: Cracow),
1973: RODZINA IN-DONEZYJSKA (An Indonesian Family – commissioned in Norway), STARY KOWBOJ (The Old Cowboy – prizes: Poznan, Cork),
1974: SLADY (Footprints),
1975: POZAR (The Fire – prizes: Cork, Poznan, Teheran; honorary mention: Jelenia Gora; diploma: Oberhausen; the special prize of the President of the Board of Culture),
1976: WIELKIE KOTY (The Big Cats – commissioned in the USA),
1978: SKANSEN (Ethnographical Museum), PROSZE SLONIA (Please, Elephant; full-length – prizes: Poznan, Varna; the Zenon Wasilewski prize).

- Last week, I posted a piece from Animafilm #1 by Raoul Servais. Of course, I’m sure that many of those reading this today do not know who Mr. Servais was. Consequently, I’ve decided to follow that post with this bio of the Master animator of the 70′s.

If you’re at all interested, here’s a bio from that same Animafilm issue.

Raoul Servais was born in Qstend on 1st May 1928. In 1950 he graduated from the applied arts department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent.

Already in 1946, with the aid of his professor and a few friends, he produced a short cartoon entitled “Een spookhistorie” (Une histoire de fantome, A History of a Ghost). This film has been shot with a camera made of a cigarbox and parts of a “Small Mechanic” toy kit for kids… Having made some experimental films on a 8 mm reel, he decided to thoroughly study the applications of an animated cartoon. Step by step, owing to his perseverance and obstinacy, he became a master. Servais is an example of a self-tought man with iron-firm determination. Armed with the technical learning, he set about making animated films. His brilliant career in this field, however, should not make us forget the fact, that he had been a very active painter and graphic artist — winning awards at many painting and graphic art competitions – and had also participated with Rene Magritte in the making of the monumental “Domaine Enchante” (Spell-bound Manor). Film has nevertheless remained his main objective. In 1960, as mentioned in his filmography, he completed his first animated cartoon – “Havenlichten” (Lumieres du port, Lights of the Harbour). From then on his films never fail to appear regularly, winning numerous awards and important distinctions all the world over. His awarded films are enumerated in the alphabetical order in the appendix. Member of the Academic Royale des Sciences, Lettres et Beaux-Arts de Belgjque (Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences, Literature and Fine Arts), Raoul Servais has been a professor of Academic Royale des Beaux-Arts (Royal Academy of Fine Arts) in Ghent since 1960. There, with a lot of verve, he has been supervising the animated cartoon department. Mention must also be made of the fact, that for a couple of years now he has been a lecturer in Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Architecture et des Arts Visuels (National Higher School of Architecture and Visual Arts) in Brussels (La Cambre).
Raoul Servais’ career means putting himself constantly to test, perpetually overcoming his own self – as far as both his creative works and his techniques are concerned. It is worth stressing, that each of his films renovates graphic expression’. Full of contempt for repetitions, Servais in his films confronts the spectator with the multiple aspects of his artistic activity.

If we realize such obvious facts like the abuse of all film genres, unevenness-whatever this might imply – warranting his dedication, Raoul Servais is then a totally committed artist, deeply concerned with honesty with which we should face life and the rules life imposes. In this state of mind commitment is inevitable. Servais – a contestator certainly not without reason, is no opportunist. He is human in the broadest sense.

Brutal accents are rarely found in his films. It is refinement and poetry that make his message universal. Raoul Servais was a member of the jury of the international festivals in Cracow, Oberhausen, Teheran and New York.

N. Vander Vorst.
Image from his last film, “Harpy”

RAOUL SERVAIS FILMOGRAPHY
1959 – “HA VENLICHTEN” (Lumieres du port, Lights of the Harbour), 1st prize for an animated cartoon at the National Belgian Film Festival, Antwerp,
1960.1964~”DE VALSE NOOT” (La fausse note, False Note). Grand Prix for an animated cartoon.at the National Belgian Film Festival, Antwerp, 1964; 1st prize for an animated cartoon at the Benelux Festival, Mortsel, 1965.
1966 “CHROMOPHOBIA ” (Chromophobia). St Marc’s Lion -Grand Prix for an animated cartoon at the International Festival of Short and Documentary Films, Venice, 1966; Silver Miqueldi at the International Festival of Short Films, Bilbao, 1967; 1st prize for an animated cartoon at the International Youth Films Festival, Hyeres, 1969; 1st prize for an animated cartoon, film critics’ award, Minister of Culture award at the International Festival of Films for Children and Youth, Teheran, 1967; special prizes of the jury at Moscow and Leipzig Festivals, 1967; Grand Prix for an animated cartoon at the National Belgian Film Festival, Antwerp, 1966; 1st prize for an animated cartoon at the Benelux Festival, s’Hertogenbosch, 1966; CIDALCprize; label and prize for the quality, France, 1966; Pradikat, GFR, 1966; 1st prize for an animated cartoon at the International Film Festival, Ramat’gan,
1971. – “SIRENE” (Sirene). Golden Statuette – Grand Prix for an animated cartoon at the International Festival of Films for Children and Youth, Teheran, 1968, film critics’award at the same festival; Silver Hugo – the International Film Festival award, Chicago, 1969; Silver Pelican – the International Animated Cartoons Festival award, Mama/a, 1968; Silver Boomerang-International Film Festival award, Melbourne, 1969; 1st prize for an animated cartoon at the International Film Festival, Philadelphia, 1970; Grand Prix for an animated cartoon at the National Belgian Film Festival, Antwerp, 1968; Prize for the best colour film, 1968; Label – for quality, Italy; 1969 – “GOLDFRAME”, Grand Prix for an animated cartoon at the National Belgian Film Festival, Antwerp, 1968; TV/BRTaward at the same festival; distinction at the International Film Festival, Sydney, 1969; selected for the International Film Festival, Cannes, 1969; put up for Academy Award, Chicago, 1970; Label – for quality, France.
1970-”TOSPEAK OR NOT TO SPEAK”, Grand Prix of the public at the International Festival of Short Films, Oberhausen, 1971; ASIFA award and prizes of GFR Film Clubs at the same festival; special mention at the International Animated Cartoons Festival, Annecy, 1971; Grand Prix for an animated cartoon at the National Belgian Film Festival, Knokke-Le-Zoute, 1971.
1972 – “OPERATION X-70″, Special award of the jury at the International Film Festival, Cannes, 1972; 1st prize at the International Animated Cartoons Festival, Zagreb, 1972; Grand Prix for an animated cartoon at the National Belgian Film Festival, Knokke-le-Zoute, 1971.
1973 – “PEGASUS”, Grand Prix of the public at the International Film Festival, Antwerp, 1973; selected for the International Film Festival in Berlin.
1976 – “LE CHANT DE HALEWYN”(Halewyn’s Chant) – one part of a TV series: ,,Legends of Europe”).
1978 -”HARPY” (Harpy), Special prize of the jury at the International Film Festival, Odensee, 1978, with regard to Raoul Servais total film output.

Following Masereel and L. P. Boon, the VAN ACKER reward was granted to Raoul Servais in 1976.

The following is an article by the animation artist Raoul Servais. He was a major force in the international scene when this article was published in Animafilm #1 back in 1979.

The Artist and His Profession
by Raoul Servais .
I have been asked to present my opinions on questions which determine the relationship between the author of an animated film and his profession, and the ensuing interdependences: I will,confine myself to outlining an opinion which is perhaps applicable only to artists working in more or less similar conditions. The relationship between the author of an animated film and his work differs so greatly in various countries, depending on socio-economic conditions, the organizational structure of production and, of course, individual talent, that it would be risky to proclaim a universal opinion applicable to all cases.

The first problem that was suggested to me as a subject for reflection is the relationship between the author of a film and the techniques used in that discipline of art. The “picture-by-picture” art is undoubtedly an artistic profession that pays an extremely high tribute to technology. After all, cinematography is, by its very nature, a phenomenon produced by mechanical optical instruments. But the scientific aspect of this assertion about an art discipline is not confined to mechanics and optics; it also includes electricity, chemistry, physics and electro-acoustics. Cinematography, which is going through a process of technological changes, now makes use of new means of expression offered by modern audio-visual techniques that have arisen as a result of the vigorous development of electronics.

Emphasis has been placed on two manifestations of man’s genius which at first glance seem to be poles apart and concern different interests. On the one hand we have artistic work with everything that can be provided by imagination, poetry, lyricism, spontaneity, subtlety and improvisation; on the etching needle, that is, people whose scientific knowledge is confined to Chinese white or cobalt blue, seems to be incompatible with what we expect of a film maker: profound knowledge of the technical possibilities of his profession. In spite of this, the overwhelming majority of animated film authors are students of the brush, the chisel or the etching needle, that is, people whose scientific knowledge is confined to Chinese white or cobalt blue.

I am of course exaggerating for like everybody else I do not deny that some outstanding animated film masters are brilliant scientists; besides, it is a known fact that extremes meet; mathematics is said to end in poetry, a phenomenon I have not experienced myself so far. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the authors of animated films are mainly former painters, engravers, graphic artists, book illustrators or sculptors who have very little, if any, knowledge of technology. I know many animators who though
known for a long time have remained completely ignorant of technology, either because they do not take any interest in the subject or because they do not want to fritter away their energy. These artists do however turn to technology for help when they find this necessary or when this is indispensable for the implementation of their ambitious plans or useful in commercial production. I cannot, however, help thinking that they lack a certain dimension, for knowledge of one’s instrument can also be a source of creative inspiration. It is indispensable if one wants to experiment in the field of visual arts.

I do not think however that scientific talent is an absolute necessity to master technology. I may serve as an example to many artists in this respect. This allows me to speak of myself with less restraint and fewer scruples.

It is my firm conviction that youthful interest in technology is due to two different reasons. The first is pure scientific curiosity which forces us to master our tool by learning its anatomy and the way it works. A child that dismantles an alarm clock part by part in order to get acquainted with its mechanism could serve as an example here. The other reason – and this was my case – is the surprise an artist feels when he realizes the complexity of the instrument which allows him to put his artistic ambitions into effect. I was still a little boy (I was 5, if I remember correctly) when I fell under the spell of cinematography. I had been making drawings for a number of days and my grafitti combined to make a tale. I also liked to tell stories. One day my father, who had a Pathe-Baby projector, showed me the animated cartoon Felix the Cat. The film aroused my admiration and became a spark which helped me to realize my mission. Without my father’s knowledge I would unwind and analyse films in order to understand the mystery of motion, but I never took the trouble to see what a projector looked like inside. This instrument – and it was a holy thing for me – was like Pandora’s box which you could not open without running the risk of seeing the charm disappear. I still have a similar approach to the instrument which has produced the fruit of my reflections. I simply worshipped the old Debrie camera with which I made five or six films and I am still full of admiration for this sophisticated instrument. I have always been my own cameraman and I know the possibilities and limitations of the cameras I use; the invisible wave-like murmur of their mechanism tells me when a breakdown will occur. But once the camera goes out of order and the defect is of a mechanical or electric nature, I am completely at a loss and cannot understand what has happened.

This personal story is to show to what extent and in what respect an artist may acquaint himself with a rather complicated instrument without being technically-minded. It is also meant as an introduction to the essence of my subject, an introduction that will allow me to pass on to what worries many animators; I have in mind their adaptation to new technical possiblities. Many film makers fear a confrontation with such sophisticated instruments as a computer or a video synthetizer. I am no exception here, having come across these fantastic machines on several occasions. I must have been impressed by their complexity or by the learned appearance of the programmers, for I cannot help thinking that my unscientific mind would not be able to exercise sufficient control over a computer. I might be able to overcome my fear if I could play with it for several weeks and had a book with basic information on how it works. I must admit that it would give me great pleasure to be able to shorten the production process of an animated film by the use of a computer. I think, however, that as things stand now the computer has very limited stylistic possibilities. Like John Halas I believe that computerized animated film will develop alongside the old kind without replacing it. It occurred to me when I was recently making a film combining actual photography with animated cartoons that the video-technique would considerably shorten the time of production. But here again I felt that I would not be able to exercise sufficient control over the picture. I am used to the solitary effort of a cottage worker. Production of a film in a laboratory with technicians paid by the hour would probably fail to spur my creative spirit. I may have been “spoiled” by years of work in conditions of uncertainty, which I experienced at the beginning of my drive to creative work.

And so I come to the next point in my reflections: the animated film as an independent art.

I think that two main aspects can be distinguished here: the aesthetic and the economic aspect of the problem. Let us have a look at the aesthetic aspect first of all. We must agree that it is extremely difficult to determine a priori the degree to which one art depends on another, especially in film art where such disciplines as music, comedy, photography, etc. are primary elements. In the case of animated films we must add other factors relating to visual arts (painting, sculpture, drawing, etc.). I do not think anybody has any doubts about the authenticity of film art. Other artistic disciplines which may become part of a film only play the role of ingredients and bear no responsibility for the nature of cinematographic art itself.

Similar is the case of the animated film. The elements of painting or drawing which go to make an animated film are not a value in themselves but elements meant to achieve a different form of artistic expression which lasts for a fixed period of time. But if this is so, you may ask, what is the place of kinetic painting? Is this also an art independent of painting as such since it also brings movement into the film? To such questions I would reply that enumeration of fine arts is an obsolete way of summing up man’s artistic abilities, for different kinds of art have more and more a tendency to penetrate one another or can be reduced to primary factors and become new disciplines. The definition of art less and less frequently allows us to strictly determine where art begins and where it ends. Consequently, how can we fix the borderlines between various disciplines of act and say to what extent one discipline of art depends on another?

To dispute about the authenticity of animated films compared to other film genres is just as senseless as discussing the sex of angels. Some people will say that a film with actual photography perpetuates real action in order to present it in the desired context while an animated film is wholly a product of the imagination and a direct synthesis of this imagination. This is true, but on the other hand ths viewer, especially if he is an outsider, will experience the same physiological and psychological impressions when seeing both genres. In short, animation is only a different form of film art, a form that is subject to various influences or changes as a result of technological process, i.e., video-graphy, computers, holography and whatever may come. As far as the economic aspect is concerned, I think we can on the whole assume that the animated film is subject to the same laws as all the other film genres. If animated films are rather a marginal production, this is undoubtedly due to the fact that feature-length animated films capable of exercising an influence on the film industry are relatively few. I think however that it is just ar risky for a producer to produce a short animated film made by an artist as it is to make a short film with real-life photography. In any case it is obvious that it is becoming increasingly rare to see a short film in commercial cinemas. The fact that television can be a wonderful market for mass consumption but is a poor solution for films designed by individual artists has been known for a long time.

The third sector, known as the non-commercial sector, has at its disposal a large distributive potential and could make good the deficiencies of the other two distributive channels, especially with respect to animated films made by individual authors. But it is still bound by too many restrictions to be able to guarantee profitable production.

Since animated films are distributed by many companies, there is no planned policy of popularizing this medium in a better way. (This defect could of course be made good by ASIFA, which should not however replace distributors but supply information to distributors and all interested persons). But the market in question is insignificant at the moment, except for the United States, where in view of the large size of the country (especially as on the whole Canada is also part of that market) distribution can be conducted on a large scale. ‘This is not the case in Europe, where no country is large enough to make use of this sector. Moreover, customs regulations do not favour a free flow of films. Let us add that in North America institutions of great cultural utility (museums, libraries) have for long regarded the animated film as an artistic medium of no less importance than painting or literature.

Our European conservatives fully deserve to be called conservatives. The animated film is barred from their temples and most probably they do not realize that the animated film can have different forms, not only that of a cartoon shown on television. ASIFA is an organization which could organize a large-scale informative campaign to wake up academic circles from their sleep.

To conclude these reflections I would like to express my deep conviction that the animated film is undoubtedly one of the best means of fully expressing human emotions and that it will find more and more adherents as science succeeds in reducing, if not eliminating, the boring and cumbersome aspects of this discipline and as man feels himself more and more free in the full sense of the word.

Raoul Servais
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Illustrations:
1. Raoul Servais
2. False Note 1964
3. Sirene 1968
4. Chromophobia 1966
5. Goldframe 1968
6. To Speak or Not To Speak 1970
7. Pegasus 1973
8. Halewyn’s Chant 1976
9. Harpy 1978

- I’m a bit late in reporting this, but I just found Emily Hubley‘s excellent feature, The Toe Tactic, on the Sundance Channel. I’ve reviewed the film in that past and have shared some of my thoughts. Here’s my review of the DVD.

Written and directed by Emily Hubley.
Voices of: David Cross, Andrea Martin,
Eli Wallach, Marian Seldes, Don Byron
Animation by Jeremiah Dickey and Emily Hubley.

The show can be seen on these dates and times in April. Record it if you can’t watch it live.

April 21 4:10am
April 25 10:00pm
April 26 3:55am
April 26 11:45am

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- One of the more amazing posts I’ve seen on line in recent weeks (maybe I should say months) is Cartoon Brew TV’s >Howdy Doody and His Magic Hat. This UPA film by Gene Deitch seemed to be lost until Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi were able to discover a good quality print that they’ve put on line.

The piece has to be seen as an edxcellent bit of historical discovery. Deitch’s direction is first rate given the obviously meagre budget. Cliff Roberts’ color design is first rate (given the slight color deterioration of the print) and offers a rich original bit of life. Duane Crowther‘s animation is limited to the point where it might be called more of an animatic than an animation, but even that is done in a spirited sense of fun.

The real find for me was the brilliant score by Serge Hovey. I don’t know his work, but I’m certainly going to be searching to find out more about this composer. The score threads it all together and the playful way that Crowther animated off the score indicates that it was probably prerecorded.

I’m pleased to see this film has been found (thanks, apparently to the work of Dave Gibson for finding the film at the Library of Congress, and to OndÅ™ej MuÅ¡ka for the restoration work on the print.) This is not the greatest film ever made, nor even one of the best UPA shorts. However, it was a missing artifact in the career of a key director in animation’s history. It’s also an absolutely original looking piece that stands above many of the average films of today.

This film is just the tip of the iceburg from the guys at Cartoon Brew. When they’re on it, they’re on it. They share information before anyone else gets the news; they share historical films (such as Howdy Doody and another post of Flebus from Ernie Pintoff while at Terrytoons – posted to memorialize the passing of Allan Swift, the NY mega voice artist), and they present new works we might otherwise miss.

But at this point, everyone in animation knows that this is the first site to visit when sparking up the computer.

- Here’s a walk cycle Tissa David animated for R.O.Blechman‘s hour program, A Soldier’s Tale. This is a tiny scene in the show. The camera is moving in on her, so I tried to adjust her a bit to be able to view this as a cycle.

For a slightly overhead view, wth her walking in 3/4 profile, it’s pretty complex animation. The woman carries a lot of weight in her body, and I think Tissa did a great job with her.

1 2

3 4

5 6

7 8

910

1112

1314

The following QT represents the drawings above exposed on two’s.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

I just caught up with Cartoon Brew‘s posting of the Gene Deitch directed UPA short, Howdy Doody and His Magic Hat. I’ll have a lot to write about this film soon, however I wanted to add this piece by Mr. Deitch.

Gene Deitch wrote the following article which initially appeared in The HORN BOOK, in 1978; then was reprinted in Animafilm #5, 1980. I post it again for your benefit.

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The Picture Book Animated
by Gene Deitch

Living in Prague, an ancient town so full of its own stories, I am surrounded by an instructive ambience for my kind of work: making films from books. Building Prague took a long time; every period of European architecture is represented in the city. Each era adopted the building style which conformed to the artistic expression of that particular time – Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, baroque, rococco, art nouveau, cubist, prefab. Just seeing all this every day helps me to take the long view and to take my time. Right outside my window, a Gothic tower stands in the courtyard. In the sixteenth century an alchemist worked there trying to change lead into gold. Now I’m here trying to avoid doing the opposite, for I start with gold. Morton Schindel of Weston Woods always sends me the very best books he can get his hands on. My job is to shine them onto a movie screen, trying to keep the image bright and the focus sharp.

My films exist only in their relationship to the books from which they have been adapted. The goal of these films is to reinforce the child’s interest in the original book. I share Mort Schindel ‘s belief that books are still the best medium for storytelling and for the preservation of literature — a medium which is always at hand. Our aim is to illuminate each book so that a child will find his way back to it. Among my attempts to transmute gold into more gold, or at least into quicksilver, are film adaptations of “The Happy Owls” (Atheneum), “Rossie’s Walk” (Macmillan), “The Three Robbers” (Atheneum), “The Swineherd”, and “Strega Nona” (Prentice).

Like the successive architects of Prague, I resort to a medium of expression of my own time – the motion picture. Ed and Barbara Emberley’s “Drummer Hoff” (Prentice) is an example of what I mean. Hidden among the bright colours of the outwardly lighthearted book are some interesting clues to its real depth. As the grandly uniformed soldiers strut along, intent on assembling their technological triumph – an elaborate cannon – they don’t seem to notice the flowers underfoot or their tiny observers, the birds, and the soldiers actually stepping on the flowers and shooing away the birds and thus to emphasize the meaning of the last page of the book – and of the final shot in the film – nature winning out over man and his destructive machines. Now, I don’t expect that children will absorb all of these ideas and details as such, but I do expect that when they pick up the book again (maybe because the film has now made it special for them), they will notice some things they might not have been aware of before. My hope is that they will love the book more for having seen the film.

Tomi Ungerer’s almost-over-the-edge book, “The Best of Monsieur Racine” (Farrar), is also loaded with lurking symbols, which might unnerve a children’s librarian. Tomi believes in there is much more to the book, and I tried to bring out something loving and charming that I found amidst the crazy tangle of startling images. What caught me was Monsieur Racine’s perfect serenity in his world of chaos. I felt he had just the kind of insulation which children have – carrying on and doing his own thing, immune to all of the crudity going on all around him. He has retained a childlike purity of concentration. His relationship with the beast, even when it was revealed to have been based on a gross deception, survives and continues, merely revised and adjusted to the new circumstances. This is marvellous, and I hope that the film will enrich the child’s comprehension of the book.

The greater the book, the greater our responsibility – and hazard. It may impress or dismay you that we worked on Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” (Harper) “on and off and in and out” for five years before we had a film. “Wild Things” is the Mount Everest of picture books, and we had to film it simply because it was there. Once undertaken, there was no hedging. A film version would have to make specific what might be imagined in many different ways. This, incidentally, is the major risk a film-maker faces in adapting a work from another medium. There is never any one right way, but it is still necessary to have a conception and to follow it through. Maurice himself knew there was no point in making a film adaptation at all unless we could use the motion picture medium to extend some of the subtle implications of the book. He came to see me in Prague in 1969, and we had some long walks through old and dark corners of the town. We both wanted a magical film, and he left me some fascinating hints to work with: “In this story everything is Max… As for the music, think of “Deep Purple”.

Well, the old song “Deep Purple” stirred memories for me, too. Like Maurice, I was a child of the thirties. I began to see the roots of musical and sound devices which might suggest the distance between Max and his parents, who ware probably also children of the thirties. After all, why is Max “making mischief of his parents”. But where are they? Unseen in the book, I imagined they were probably in the next room having a party or (in today’s terms) watching TV. Anyway, they were not with Max. So I came to the notion of using that muffled, bland music of the 1930s, the sound of applause, the snatch of a TV comic’s joke (which just happens to be cogent), and so on. The music itself expressed the distance between Max and his parents, and with progressive distortion it could also express Max’s growing rage and journey into fantasy.

I wanted all of the sounds to be within Max’s home experience. So to create the “Wild Things” dance rhythm, I restricted myself to domestic sounds, specifically those which might express Max’s feeling of isolation: a gas oven lighting (Mother too busy for Max); a door slam (he was shut in or out); a car starting (Father going off to work); a baby crying (competition). All of these sounds repeated over and over on a tape loop, were used to heat up the music, which I made weird simply by spinning the record with my finger and letting the sound reverberate in my tape recorders.

Viewing any of our films should also indicate that we strive always fot the result of “the picture book projected”. We go to such great lengths to capture the graphic look of each book that viewers might assume they are seeing the actual book on the screen. In fact, though, we have never used any of the book illustrations. The technical processes of our medium require that we re-create every drawing and painting in terms of motion and film-frame composition, and a film’s wider scope often calls for scenes or additional artwork not found in the book at all. We must actually absorb the artists’ own styles in redeveloping the drawings and paintings specifically for film. In an effort to achieve absolute fidelity, we even asked Quentin Blake to send us the actual colored crayons he used for his illustrations for “Patrick” (Walck), and we used what was left of the same crayons to do our film backgrounds.

Some books are almost scenarios for films and need virtually no adaptation; Crockett Johnson’s “Harold” series (Harper) is the perfect example. The books are so masterfully constructed that one might easily dismiss their perfection as mere simplicity. As I undertook “A Picture for Harold’s Room” and “Harold’s Fairy Tale”, Johnson warned me, “Don’t be fool by the seemingly simple!” He was right. These films were devilishly difficult to make. “Harold’s Room”, for instance, is a fascinating lesson in size relationships and perspective. To make it work on the screen, Harold had to be exactly the same size in relation to the film frame as he was to the pages of the book. Consequently, we could allow ourselves no close-up cuts nor camera moves in or out. In effect, the entire film must appear to be one continuous scene – all from the same camera position and all on a plain, smooth background tone, where no mistakes could be hidden. Any mistake at all meant that we had to start shooting all over again “from the top”.

If you would take apart a copy of “A Picture for Harold’s Room” and paste the pages together, you would see that it is based on one large drawing, which Crockett Johnson obviously worked out in advance. Of course, we had to do exactly the same thing. We made a huge drawing of Harold’s landscape and manoeuvered it under our animation camera. For the pencil layout of this we had already prepared seventy-five hundred inked and painted drawings of Harold himself following the lines of the overall landscape. As we placed these drawings over the landscape one by in reverse order, we wiped away our background painting to match each position in his room and working our way relentlessly back to the little town. Thus, beneath our camera Harold undrew his scenery. When we finished shooting, the big drawing had been completely wiped out; and only when the film was projected forward did it reappear.

Most people realize that it takes hundreds, even thousands, of drawings, representing carefully calculated phases of each action, to give the effect of animation in even the shortest film. A glance at the illustrations of “Where the Wild Things Are” indicates the formidable task. As a matter of fact, “Wild Things” required a totally new of rendering characters onto our animation cels* and a totally new way of making them move. When Maurice Sendak said of the story, “Everything is Max”, he has hoping I could find a way to show that the Wild Things were actually a fantasy expression of Max’s own mind, a projection if his anger. Maurice further envisioned them as having “slow, heavy, dream-like movements” and as being “clumsy, dumb, sluggish, heacingcreatures… not horrible”.

To produce this effect on film, and to do it in a way that would make clear the “Wild Things” status as evanescent fragments of Max’s imagination, I devised a way of photographing the phased drawings in an interweaving series of dissolves. This device, in combination with the slowed-down, wavering music and special effects, was part of our attempt to fulfill Maurice’s extravagant wish for us to “go beyond the book”. (I was later thrilled with his equally extravagant praise of the sound track.) Going “beyond the book” refers simply to the nature of the film medium and not to extending the book’s content or meaning. We endeavour only to bring out what is there or what we feel is there. “The Horn Book” review of the film concisely stated what we attempt: “recasting of one aesthetic form into another.”

This is the problematic task with every book we film. Each book has set me off in a new direction, prodding me to find a new way, a specific solution to the problem of adapting that particular book to the motion picture medium. I have no formulas. My private conceit is that without my name on them, no one could tell that all these films came from the same director. For me, my Oscar-winning cartoon “Munro” was a success when people asked if it was made by Jules Feiffer himself.

I used the word problematic. Is our work valid? The question haunts me. Why should we try to make films of picture books? Why shouldn’t the books be left to communicate in their own way? Why don’t we concentrate on developing original film stories? we do this, too, of course. I made “The Giants”, my own films, a child sees that books do have life, that they have movement and sound. We try always to leave room for the child to participate with his own imagination.

For instance, the ending of “Leopold the See-Through Crumbpicker” leads directly to the idea that the children can draw and paint their own variations for decorating the invisible cookie-eater. In “Changes, Changes” I added a box of building blocks, not actually shown in the book, thus inciting children to carry one the story, stacking up their own changes. The film “Patrick” ends just as the colourful procession heads back toward the drab village seen at the start of the film. By this time the children know what will happen there when Patrick and his full-colour fiddle arrive; but they don’t see it, so they are allowed to imagine the ensuing scene for themselves.

Patrick’s fiddle, incidentally, plays virtuoso variations on Dvorak. In “A Picture for Harold’s Room” the purple crayon draws to the music of a classical string quartet. Unadulterated Janecek, in all its Slavic richness, precedes the musical frame for “Zlateh the Goat”. Our version of Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling” introduces children to Carl Maria von Weber. For our original scores we have gone to many lengths to provide just the right music. We needed authentic Central African music for “A Story”. My Czech wife Zdenka, who is also the production manager for our films, found antique instruments in a half-hidden ethnographic museum here as well as a curator-musician who could instruct us. A curious interplay of cultures resulted in our recording ses-ion: genuine African instruments played by Czechs, along with a recording by an African story-teller reading from a book by an American woman – for a movie for Western children being made in an eastern European studio.
The existence of our film versions, I am told, have often helped a book stay in print and increase in sales. Films are powerful but transitory, seen and suddenly gone. The book can always be read and will be even more after a child has seen it on the screen. The permanence of the printed word, however, is now being challenged. Movies, audiovisual media, and especially TV are very powerful forces. But must they destroy book reading, or can they complement it? The flood cannot be dammed, but it might be directed. We are trying to provide a channel which flows toward books rather than away from them.

*In animation production, moving figures are usually rendered onto transparent “cels”, sheets of acetate film, so that the stationary background painting can be photographed simultaneously on each film frame.

GENE DEITCH – American director living and making films (in his own studio) in Prague. During thirty four years he has directed more than thousand films and commercials and received numerous awards including the Oscar for “MUNRO” in 1959. Specializing in the adaptation of children books.

1. Gene Deitch with his Wife
2. Strega Nona
3. Smile for Auntie

- Dipping back in the well of the Closeup Magazine from 1976. Edited by David Prestone, this magazine featured articles – mostly interviews – with 3D stop-motion animators. The focus of this particlar issue was Michael Myerberg‘s Hansel and Gretel, an animated puppet feature done in 1954.

An interview with Animator
Teddy Shepard

Born in New York, Ms. Shepard became a drama major in college, and appeared in several summer stock and off-Broadway productions. It was while making the rounds of theatrical agencies in search of work that she became aware of the interviews Michael Myerberg Productions was conducting for animators. After working on HANSEL AND GRETEL, she spent some time with the Suzari marionettes, graduating to the HOWDY DOODY television show (where she originated the character of Dilly-Dally, and was a stand-in for some time as the title puppet’s manipulator), and has, lastly, been associated with the Pickwick Puppet Theater for the past several years. It was as a member of this company that she confronted the world of rock and roll music eye-to-eye, when she appeared on Broadway at the Uris Theater with the British group. Mott the Hoople. (She manipulated a Sancho Panza puppet in the song “Marionette.”)

____________________

TS; Yes, I was elected to appear witn the one big head that had been built, on a couple of television shows (TV was all live at the time) shortly after the movie had opened. I was to demonstrate how the film had been made using the heads, but we had the fake computer setup there also, to give the impression that the head was electrically operated—when it was really worked manually. We still had to keep that a big secret!

CU: Being a novice to the stop-motion process, with only a three-week training period behind you didn’t you find this form of animation slow and tedious?

TS: No, I found the more involved I got and the more intricate the movements got, that it was anything but tedious. Some time after the film was completed I worked on a few commercials for cosmetics—Hazel Bishop lipstick, and I think Myerberg was involved with these, as we filmed them in the five-story building on East Second Street he had bought. I believe we utilized the GRETEL puppet in them . . .

Speaking of that three-week training period, I remember I was petrified when it was over—I didn’t think I was ready to go immediately to work on the film, but they said, “Go onl You’re ready!” I and another person being trained acted out little scenes with some of the puppets. Animating them walking, and doing various movements of the hands . . . The scenes would be filmed and then played back for us so we could spot our mistakes. Since money was low they only filmed a few tests for each person.

CU: How did the tests turn out?

TS: Believe it or not, they came out very well! Surprisingly so! The idea was not to be jerky, but to have smooth action, moving the puppets in small increments. When doing the actual animation for the film, we would all act out the various scenes first, in front of a mirror.

CU; Were any animators assigned to do a certain character and that character only, or did you all take turns with the various figures?

TS: Since we had two crews working, when you came in to work your next shift you would carry on from where the previous people left off, no matter which figures were in the scene. It turned out that generally I stayed with GRETEL, or the mother—I did her a great deal of the time, and I did the witch one day too. You know, we had these awful stereotypes in those days … the women puppeteers would animate the female figures and the men did the males, which is ridiculous!

CU: That’s sort of a “too many cooks spoiling the broth” situation, though. Each character should really have its own “personality ” – a way of walking and moving that is that one figure’s alone, and is given to that character by one animator alone. If you recall the feature YELLOW SUBMARINE, there’s a scene where the four eel-animated Beatles are walking down a long flight of stairs, and each Beatlo has been given a very distinctive walk that’s carried throughout the entire film. You can tell which Beatle is in a scene without seeing his face!

TS: Yes. As a matter of fact, HANSEL had a definite little personality, and he would have to be done by someone who was more familiar with that kind of boyish movement, i recall, having worked with GRETEL so much, that after a while she started getting “tacky” looking and they had to have another figure of her made. They were having difficulty making her look the same as the previous model.

One strange piece of animation I and a few others worked on was a “burst of light” effect we were trying to achieve. We had 6,000 jewels on the ground on a piece of black velvet, and each jewel had to be moved separately for an effect that lasted only a few seconds on the screen. We’d be down on our hands and knees moving the gems, and people would walk by and burst out laughing!

Animating the descent of the agels from their fairy kingdom.
Pictured are (clockwise) Danny Diamond, Kermit Love, Joe Horstman,
Sky Highchief, Teddy Shepard, and outside of circle (arms
crossed) Roger Caras.

CU: What’s your opinion of the final film? Do you think it would have turned out better if you had been given more time?

TS: Certainly. There was such a rush on towards the end, money was running out and we were working so hard to finish … we were all really learning the process, too. When I first saw the finished movie back in 1954, I was initially disappointed, but I think it’s held up quite well with the passage of time. And those figures were so beautiful . . . you could get so many intricate moves with them, more so than any other stop-motion models I’ve ever seen!

Other animated commercials produced by Michael Myerberg Productions during the early 1950′s (commercials whose profits were immediately used to forward production of the HANSEL AND GRETEL feature) were several for Ivory Soap Flakes (for which a mother and baby were constructed) and Ehler’s Coffee (a butler). Sometimes finished figures were built specifically to interest potential new customers. (A Kool Cigarette Penguin, and a Lil Abner model were examples of this policy.) When all plans for future stop-motion animation projects were finally abandoned, Myerberg returned to the role of theater producer for the Broadway stage.

Michael Myerberg utilized the KINEMINS technique on television commercials
as well as feature films. ABOVE AND BELOW: A GREEN GIANT figure
sculpted by James Summers, circa 1953. A Speedy Alka-Seltzer model
was also sculpted, but never used. Monetary problems continually plagued
Myeiberg, forcing many of his innovative ideas to remain on the drawing board.

ARE ANY OF THE ORIGINAL KINEMINS STILL IN EXISTENCE?
Tragically, no! In late 1955, vandals broke into the East Second Street studio and wrecked havoc among the stop-motion models and scenery which were in storage there. Most of the figurines were smashed beyond repair, but, hoping that one or two models might have been carried away intact, Myerberg notified the local police station, telling them that the KINEMINS skin was highly toxic to human beings. Unfortunately, this story brought no results.

- After posting some stills from Ray Harryhausen’s Golden Voyage of Sinbad, I decided to look back and see if there were any other material I could post about 3D model animation.
I came upon this interview with Don Sahlin in Closeup Magazine, no. 2. published in 1976 by David Prestone.

Don Sahlin
(Bio) .
Born in Stratford, Connecticut, Don Sahlin (say—lien) was introduced to the world of marionettes at age eleven, when he saw a production of HANS BRINKER AND THE SILVER SKATES by the New York Marionette Guild.
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Joining the PUPPETEERS OF AMERICA organization, he was soon inundating many of that group’s members with letters of inquiry as to the correct method of constructing and performing marionette shows. This correspondence brought Don an offer from Rufus Rose (who, several years later, was to create all of the figures for the HOWDY DOODY televison show) to spend several weekends with Rose and his wife as an apprentice.
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In 1946, Don started another apprenticeship of many years standing when he began working with Martin and August Stevens, who performed sophisticated marionette dramas of subjects like Macbeth, Joan of Arc, and Cleopatra.
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A stint of Summer Stock in Rhode Island followed, when Don felt he would try his hand at the acting profession, but he soon became disenchanted with this form of theater work. In 1949, Don traveled to Hollywood, where he worked with puppeteerist Bob Baker, doing party shows for many of the movie stars there.
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Don then returned home to perform a show of his own designing, SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON, which played around the Connecticut area. Later jobs involved working with very large puppets accompanied by a symphonic orchestra, Chinese shadow plays, and, in 1950, a marionette version of the LAND OF OZ stories that Burr Tilstrom was preparing as a television pilot. Working for a year on this project, Don was then drafted into the army. __________________ .
CLOSEUP: How did you first get involved with stop-motion animation?
.
DON SAHLIN: When I got out of the Army in 1953, I had heard that Michael Myerberg was looking for puppeteers to work on HANSEL & GRET-EL. For some reason, he thought that puppeteers would make better animators than (stop-motion) animators! I was interviewed and got the job. I had to then go through a three-week training period with Myerberg in order to better acclimate myself with stop-motion. It was a very bizarre setup.
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CU: Do you recall who sculpted the puppets?
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DS: A man by the name of Jim Summers did the sculpturing. As I recall, they had a special machine shop where all the armatures were constructed. I’d give anything to own one of those armatures now. They were pieces of art.
James Summers applies makeup to an almost finished Gretel.
Inset: Clay heads by Summers.
Below: Evil Witch Rosina Rubylips views herself
as portrayed in a preproduction sketch.
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CU: Were they all ball-socket in construction?

DS: They were, but you’d press levers, which was really interesting. If you wanted to move the thigh, for instance, you’d press a little lever near the thigh area which would release it for a tiny movement. Removing pressure from the lever would freeze the puppet in position. As you may know, they were all held on the stage with electromagnets.

CU: Could you elaborate on how that was done? It’s interesting that Myerberg used that method of support as opposed to the tie-downs used by today’s animators. . .

DS: The base of the stage was all metal, and they had these strong electromagnets underneath. The puppets really clomped down on them. Of course, we’d have to break the electromagnetic field in order to move the legs to their next position. One night, as I remember, we were working on a very hard scene. Myerberg had a twenty-four-hour shift there, and the animation varied so greatly because people would come in and start animating where the day-shift had left off! We went out to dinner, and somehow, somebody had hooked the electromagnets into the main power source. Naturally, we killed all the lights as we went out. As we pulled the switch, we heard a series of plops. All the puppets had fallen over! We had to start the whole thing all over again! I quit twice on that film … I never got screen credit, because I quit before it ended.

CU: Here’s a quote from the book Puppet Animation in the Cinema: “The Kinemins used in HANSEL & GRETEL . . . were controlled by the use of electrical solenoids, and electromagnets in the feet. . . a system which is a closely-guarded trade secret…”

DS: (Laugh) That’s a lot of bunk, you know. The only thing “electronic” was the electromagnetic setup that held the puppets on the stage. Myerberg had a big panel upstairs where he’d use close-up heads that were wired to this big, blinking board. You’d turn knobs, but there was nothing electronic involved. There was simply a wire inside the mouth, and with a twist of a certain knob, the mouth would go “that way,” and so on. But it was all manual. Anything else that was said was a big put-on.

CU: A similar incident occurred with the publicity on Ray Harryhausen’s 7TH VOYAGE OF SIN-BAD, where the reporters of the media were quot-iny the producer on how the skeleton fight was “electronically” controlled . . .

DS: Nothing but press stuff, I would imagine. I’m glad you mentioned Harryhausen. God, I love his work. The one I saw recently again that I just adore was JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. His work was absolutely superb. Classical mythology is such a wonderful area to explore. Why don’t they do more things like that?

CU: We’ve been asking ourselves the same question !

DS: Those skeletons were frightening! You know, I’ve learned to enjoy animation more now because I’ve been away from it for so long. But it’s a curious thing. Do you remember Trnka’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM? I saw it again and fell asleep through most of the whole thing! I was just so aware of how long it took to do each scene that it fatigued me … But it was a beautiful film.

CU: Getting back to HANSEL & GRETEL. Who actually did the camerawork on it?

DS: That was a very strange thing. Myerberg hired Martin Munkasci to photograph the animation. He was one of the great still photographers and had done a lot of things with Garbo and so on. Oddly enough, Myerberg felt that since stop-motion was nothing but a series of still frames, a capable still photographer would be more appropriate to do the camerawork. It was a very strange rationale on his part. Martin knew virtually nothing about motion pictures. Fortunately, a very fine Acme camera was used which was simple to operate, and he would just line up the shots and photograph. Anyhow, we went nuts, going up and down opening and closing those trapdoors all night long, sitting under that stage! And those sets were gigantic. Many of the backdrops were paintings, but a lot of it was also dimensional.

CU: We know that Myerberg isn’t with us anymore. What became of his organization after HANSEL & GRETEL?

Above: The beginnings of the KINEMINS . . .
incomplete sculptures of Hansel and his father .
Below: Several puppet figures and a set (which predate all work
on HANSEL AND GRETEL) from ALADDIN AND THE WONDERFUL LAMP.
All sets and puppets for this project were put aside
once work began on the Humperdink musical.
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DS: Myerberg had all sorts of aspirations to do other things, but they never materialized. I think his sons own the film now.

CU: Where did you go from there?

DS: After I left Myerberg, I was in association with Kermit Love, who had also worked on the film. We were going to do a full-length motion picture Of Beatrix Potter’s TAILOR OF GLOUCESTER. It’s a charming story about a tailor and a Whole community of mice. We were going to animate all of the mice. We had the whole thing set up in London . . . Robert Donat was signed to play the lead role and Margaret Rutherford was also cast for the film. We began building the mice and we had some funding, although we hadn’t gotten to the point where we were able to build them all. Suddenly, we had a bad partnership and the whole project collapsed.

CU: Would the animated mice have been combined with live actors in the same scene?

DS: No, they would have been separate. I don’t really like it when they combine things, although Ray Harryhausen is a master at it. I wouldn’t want to do it in that way, but I respect what he does very much. Anyhow, I returned to the States when our TAILOR OF GLOUCESTER failed, and then got 3 call to go out and do work on TOM THUMB. That film, I think, was the most enjoyable thing I worked on during this period, because it was my first big job in Hollywood.

CU: How did you get involved with George Pal?

DS: At the time, 1 had been out in California working with a puppeteer friend of mine named Bob Baker. When TOM THUMB began, I was asked to build a little six-inch stop-motion marionette of Tom that they were going to use in the long shots. It was a funny thing. They said that he had to wear a fig leaf, so I carved this puppet with ball and socket joints, and he really looked naked. George was in England shooting in 1957, and decided that he wanted the puppet for a particular scene. But all my work was in vain, because the fig leaf that Tom wore covered almost his entire body. I had thought that the fig leaf would be in scale with his body, but that’s not the way it turned out. I think Wah Chang has the little Tom Thumb figure now, but I would love to own it. It was really an exquisite little puppet. It was all carved out of walnut, and I filled the legs with lead to make them heavy. It was never used in the closer shots, just distance stuff.

Two photos illustrating the replacement method of animation, utilized on TOM THUMB.
Instead of achieving changes of expression through manipulation of a stop-motion model’s
facial features, a series of heads are prodced, each head having a slightly different
expression on it. Changes are made by simply substituting one head for another.
Above: Don Sahlin placing a head on Con-fu-shun, and
Below: Numbered heads created for The Yawning Man animated by Gene Warren.
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CU: How did you get to be a part of Project Unlimited?

DS: After I had carved the little stop-motion marionette, they started filming all of the animation sequences, but 1 had to go back to New York. Then Bob Baker called me from California and told me that they needed an animator. I talked to Wah Chang, I think it was, and he said, “Come on out and work for us!” 1 worked out at Project until about 1962. They wanted me to stay on, but Burr Tillstrom of Kukla, Fran and Ollie fame wanted me to come back to New York to work with him on a Broadway show. And it’s funny how fate is. I didn’t want to go; I really loved working at the studio, especially after THE TIME MACHINE. Anyhow, I did go to work for Burr on this small, cabaret-type show at the old Astor Hotel, but it soon folded. And like I say, 1 regretted leaving Hollywood, but I also met Jim Henson of the Muppets here in Mew York, and it led to probably my most successful period.

CU: Could you tell us just what you animated on TOM THUMB?

DS: I animated Con-fu-shun, a lot of the little guys that just popped up, and the Jack-in-the-Box. Gene Warren and I did all of the animation, just the two of us. Gene is a marvelous animator; he did the Yawning Man sequence. I spoke to Gene a little over a year ago, and I was so happy to find out that he does my favorite commercials—Chuck-wagon! To me, the most charming commercials ever done!

CU: What were some of the techniques used in animating Con-fu-shun?

DS: I remember Con-fu-shun was a very simple puppet. The armature was bolted to the stage and he just rocked. Occasionally, I think he got off for a couple of drop shots. The facial expressions were accomplished by replacing just the faces, which were made out of wax. We had a whole tray of all his faces. We’d just put on “E1″ or “E2,” or “Smile 1,” “Smile 2.” I know his eyes were not connected to the face; they were always independent. The faces just slipped on in perfect registration. I remember the little eye-pick I used for animating his eyes; it looked like a little hypodermic needle.

The TOM THUMB marionette created by Don Sahlin and used only in long shots. .

CU: Did you have anything to do with constructing the large prop furniture, or giant hands and horse’s ears, that Russ Tamblyn was to interact with?

DS: No, that was all done at MGM, in England. Project Unlimited was a kind of neat little studio by itself, completely independent. Pal would do all of his stuff at MGM, but I wasn’t involved in the work done there, even on THE TIME MACHINE.

CU: You did some work on DINOSAURUS. Could you talk a bit about it? We know that,the models were built by Marcel Delgado, but little is known about who actually did what as far as the animation goes . . .

DS: I animated the Tyrannosaurus and the fight scenes that were involved with it. The rest of the animation was done by myself and Tom Holland; he got to do most of the Brontosaurus, the less ferocious of the creatures. I remember the night we finished the scene where the Brontosaurus died in the quicksand. The material used for quicksand was Fuller’s earth; I guess it’s used because it looks in scale. We had a kind of screw-jack that the puppet got on, and we kept pulling it down slowly in stop-motion, beneath the surface of the quicksand. When we finished the scene, we were exhausted. Then we asked ourselves, “Should we leave him in or take him out,” this great piece of sponge rubber? So we pulled him out again and we were hosing him off and cleaning him up. It was funny!

I also remember the night the big dinosaur fight took place. They were playing Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in the background and boy, it really inspired us to animate! We got through that fast, where they were tearing and ripping at each other.

CU: Is Tom Holland still animating in Hollywood?

DS: I don’t know what Tom is doing now. It’s interesting; Tom wasn’t really an animator. He was an actor, primarily, and he somehow got involved in animation. We did all of those scenes together. I recall another amusing incident on DINOSAURUS. Do you remember those close-up shots of the manually-operated dinosaurs that we intercut? We once spent a whole day boiling ochra and straining it to make it look like saliva was really dripping from their mouths. It was just hideous!

CU: DINOSAURUS is an interesting thing to look at as an animation film, but technically, it did seem to be somewhat under par in comparison with some of the others. . .

DS: It was a very cheap film. A lot of the rear projection work was just awful, especially the scene at the beginning when the guy came running out of the shack and the dinosaur came to life. Those shots were far from pleasing.

Project Unlimited technicians working on the large
manually-operated dinosaurs created for DINOSAURUS.
Left: Marcel Delgado applies the finishing touches to the Brontosaurus mockup.
Middle: Tom Holland and the Tyrannosaurs Rex “skeleton”. .

CU: How big were the models in DINOSAURUS?

DS: Most of them were relatively small, except for the Brontosaurus, which was awfully big. You probably remember that we had a little doll of a boy riding on its back. I have a theory that large figures are hard to animate. Something happens, some strange phenomenon, which I can’t understand, takes place. I guess I’m not that kind of a perfect animator; I sort of do it loosely. I did TOM THUMB because that was all very contained. I got a lot out of the character as far as hand movements and so on. But the stuff that Jim Danforth did for BROTHERS GRIMM was just so superb that I would go insane doing that. I’m really into marionettes; I think that there’s a lot of potential in them for fantasy films in certain instances. I remember telling Gene Warren about some of those long shots where they were Trudging through the jungle in DINOSAURUS: “You know, I could do that better with marionettes.” I really think that one can augment the two.

CU: Project Unlimited also did some work on SPARTACUS…

DS: Yes, our little studio was always doing unusual props and effects for films, in between our animation jobs. Kirk Douglas was producing and starring in a monumental production of SPARTACUS, and Project Unlimited was called in to make about ‘ two or three hundred dead bodies, in various f scales, for some of the battle scenes. The largest * were about one-third life-size … We used molds to make them, and then we’d dress them in armor and sort of strew them all over the battlefields. I then i had to slash and “gore them up” with fake blood! We also made a bunch of horses out of polyure-thane foam. They weren’t very detailed, though-we just had to make sure they’d be recognizable from a distance, but none of them were shown in closeups.

CU: What did you do on THE TIME MACHINE?

DS: I worked on virtually all of the special effects.
There really wasn’t much animation, other than the decaying Morlock. That was done by Tom Holland. You know, I was in that film! I made my “screen debut.” Remember the guy in the window changing the clothes on the mannequin? That was me! I didn’t want the job because there was an actor there who worked with us, Dave Worrick. I asked them to give the job to Dave because I had no real desire to be in films. But they said, “No, we want you to do it.” So they got me a costume and animated me for the scenes.

CU: You mean you were actually pixillated as opposed to just speeding up the camera?

DS: Yes. I literally went in and they animated me per frame. The really neat thing about changing all of those costumes dealt with the fact that they were brought in from MGM. Somehow, in my subconscious mind, I recognized them. I remember saying to myself, “I’ll bet that’s a Lucille Ball dress.” Sure enough, it was, as their names are all sewn in them. But I loved the Morlock scenes. Some of the things I wish I had taken were a pair of Morlock feet and a Morlock head. They were great works of art; really spooky to look at! 1 animated the airplanes and dirigibles in the World War II scenes, but I never thought they were very realistic.

CU: In the earlier part of the film, there was a split-screen shot where boiling lava came oozing down the street. . .

DS: That was a great big fiasco, you know, because it didn’t really work. They had built these two bins full of colored oatmeal for the lava. One day, they decided to do a take. They covered all of the set with polyethylene. Now, they had prepared the oatmeal the night before, and nobody got up to look at it. Then they pulled the traps, with all these high-speed cameras going, and all the oatmeal had fermented and became watery. And the sight of all that! If I could have had a picture of the faces on those people! This foul-smelling, fermented mess came rushing down over all the cameras. I just went home. When they did the take again, they had put too much stuff together and it was too thick. I believe that’s how it appeared in the film. We were busy throwing burning cork and silvery material into the oatmeal, but it really didn’t work too well. It was fun, though.

Don Sahlin on THE TIME MACHINE set.
Down this street will come the colored oatmeal “lava” flow. .

CU: There was some inconsistency with the shot of you changing the mannequin. If the sun had been rising and setting at the speed depicted in the film, you shouldn’t have been able to see a man change a mannequin at all…

DS: Right. There are a lot of inconsistencies in that picture, but they’re very minor. It’s such a charming thing to watch. I never get tired of seeing it; it has such a haunting quality to it.

CU: Even the music and the actors seemed perfect.

DS: It did have a good score. Rod Taylor certainly seemed to be suited for the role. I had never been much of an Alan Young fan, but he played that triple role beautifully. And Yvette Mimieux was just out of high school at the time. The sound effects were great. I especially loved the off-camera sounds of the kettles underneath the ground.

CU: Did you work on the explosion scene towards the end?

DS: We had an incredible effect for that. We built a huge miniature set, about the size of a good-sized living room. It was all done on different levels of tables. We had legs underneath; and it was like a big puzzle. The legs were pulled at different times so the set would collapse. Then there would be explosions and flash-pots going off. It was really effective. There were many other scenes in THE TIME MACHINE that I worked on. There was the opening scene of the candles melting, and the ones of the flowers blooming. I remember we animated a snail; I also animated the Sphinx. You might recall the raising and lowering of those siren towers …

CU: Were they cardboard cutouts or was it a full miniature?

DS: It was dimensional. But there was very little animation involved in that. There was another scene, a blue-backing shot, where layers of lava were made to appear rising behind Rod Taylor in his Time Machine. That was all painted. They had a guy in another room, Bill Brace, an artist, and he was doing all those matte paintings where the trees were blooming and the apples were growing. And he painted the future scenes, too, where you saw the topography of the land changing, and the Eloi temple being built. The whole dome of that was a painting matted in, and the stairway leading up to it was part of MGM’s old QUO VADIS set.

Do you know what I loved about working on TIME MACHINE? We literally did the sets ourselves. I loved doing the sets and dressing them. We were all very involved in the whole project instead of just one aspect of it. I remember working on that huge hole that Rod Taylor climbed into to get to the Morlock world. I loved getting down there, touching it up with a spray can and adding little details to it. I really feel proud to say that I worked on THE TIME MACHINE; I think it was a classic. I never received screen credit due to the politics of the organization, but it never bothered me. We were working on a very small budget. I think I remember Gene telling me that we did the effects for under $60,000, which was really a smal sum, yet it reaped an Academy Award. Have yot ever met George Pal?

CU: We’ve never had the pleasure.

DS: When you think about him, he was such an unusual producer when you realize the courage he had to have to do the kind of offbeat things he did.

CU: The last film you worked on for him was THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM. Could we talk about what you did on that one?

DS: I did a lot of the animation, especially the scenes involving the elves. The opening scene of the elves took me a whole week to do. Dave Pal and George’s other son, Peter, worked with me. We got along famously. I had to leave before the picture was over, so Dave carried on from where I left off.

CU: Did you work with Jim Danforth on the film?

DS: Not directly. I was in one corner of the stage, and Jim was working in the other corner. It was so tedious because of the Cinerama camera. Each frame had to be photographed three times. You had to be careful not to make any mistakes. We couldn’t talk at all. Peter would work the camera and we made it a point never to talk to each other because it was so easy to make an error. I was animating five elves, and he had to work that complicated turret camera.

CU: Didn’t you have to brace some of the elves? Some of them had to leap off the stage. . .

DS: Yes. We had a lot of wire stuff on the film. The wires were very thin and they were coated with iodine. You really couldn’t see them. Each time we’d reposition the puppet, the wires would be in a different part of the frame. So they really cancelled themselves out.

CU: Did anything unusual happen on the animation set?

DS: I do remember one funny thing that happened on BROTHERS GRIMM. There was a scene where an elf walked across the set with a shoe. The peg holes, by the way, were covered with clay and painted to match the set each time the elf took another step. Anyway, one of my little mice from the aborted TAILOR OF GLOUCESTER project got into a frame while the elf was being animated. Just for one frame. It was a terrible thing, but Pal never saw it!

CU: Did you do anything outside of the elf sequences?

DS: Wah Chang set up all of the shots and lit them. While he was doing that, I loaded the camera, which to this day frightens me because I don’t consider myself that technically inclined. I also did all of the calibrations and animated the camera for trucking shots. All the fades and the simpler opti-cals were done in the camera.

CU: Did you actually plot out all of the animation before it was photographed?

DS: We had to on some of the things. When there are faces involved as there were in TOM THUMB, and you have to do all the vowels and so on, you have to plot them out beforehand. But I like to animate sort of “free;” I don’t like to be restricted too much. You mentioned Jim Danforth before. I believe I met him while I was doing TOM THUMB. He was very young at the time and was very wide-eyed at what was going on. He seemed so impressed with our setup. Then I saw his reel that he had done in his garage. He did incredible stuff, op-ticals and everything. He’s a genius; he really is an incredible animator. He’s so much better than I am because I haven’t the patience to do the detail that he does. I remember him animating the dragon in BROTHERS GRIMM. He did that whole thing, and he spent days with all sorts of pointers. He’s a perfectionist.

CU: Now that you’re no longer involved in stop-motion, could you tell us about your work with the Muppets?

DS: I build and co-design Jim Henson’s puppets. He starts out with a little thumbnail sketch; I would say that he really creates the essence with his sketch. Then I start building it. Jim comes in and looks at it and we play with them to see how well they’ll work. But it’s really a joint effort, although I don’t do any of the puppeteering. I built many of the most famous of the Muppets. Kermit the frog, Bert and Ernie, the Cookie Monster, and most of the others.

CU: You did two “counting films” for Sesame Street. . . were these very recent?

DS: Not really. They were done around 1970, right here in our Muppets, Inc. offices. Jim Henson supervised the filming, but he gave me all the freedom in the world to do what I wanted. THE QUEEN OF SIX was filmed on a rug, to simulate grass, and the backgrounds were all painted cardboard. The Queen figure was about 13 inches tall and I wanted her to have a very baroque, dresden sort of look. Her hoop skirt was a big lampshade that I put brocade on. She had a beautiful Marie Antoinette wig that I made out of silver thread, and I used one of those plastic Easter eggs you can buy for her head.

CU: I recall the other “counting film” you did, THE KING OF EIGHT, with the rhyme-speaking king, and his eight daughters opening and closing the windows of his castle. Both of these films were fairly short, weren’t they?

DS: Yes, none of those films done for Sesame Street are over a minute in length.

The King of Eights.

CU: Are you satisfied with the work you’re doing now?

DS: Certainly. It’s very creative and enjoyable. I remember that when I was a kid, my sister wanted me to take regular college courses. I told her I wanted to take art courses. She would say, “What can you do with art? You’ll never make a living do ing puppets.” And it was only recently that we reminisced about that and, not trying to sound egotistical, I said to her: “Do you know that my puppets are all around the world?” Now that Sesame Street has been distributed in Europe, I have great satisfaction in knowing that my creations are
being seen and enjoyed internationally.

Don, as he appears today, with some of his more
“gruesome” creations for the Henson MUPPETS.

– I’ve made no bones of the fact that The Fantastic Mr. Fox is my favorite animated feature of the last year. (Though I probably put it in a tie with Ponyo – the forgotten feature.)

The film includes a lot of violent scenes, though that violence is never felt by the on-screen action. Fox’s tail is shot off, but we only know this when we see Farmer Bean pick it up from the ground, and we feel it internally when we see Mrs. Fox trying to attend to her husband’s wound.

The actual violent scenes on-screen are few, indeed.

One of my favorite animated bits in the film is probably the most actively violent. After being foiled by Mr. Fox several times, Bean sits boiling for a second, then wordlessly gets up and tears up the decor of the camper.

I’ve seen the film four times now (three in a theater and once on DVD). It hasn’t lost any of its lustre, for me, and this scene was one I had to go back and view frame-by-frame. I thought it a good one to look at in frame grabs, and I post them here. The scene doesn’t last more than a few seconds.

After seething for a moment, farmer Bean gets up
and quietly, wordlessly decimates the camper interior.

He throws everything atop the table off of it.

Then he reaches down and overturns the table, and
he moves back in perspective into the camper.

I love the way this film plays with the perspective as the
characters constantly move from foreground to background
to foreground to middle ground. It’s expertly handled.

To the left is my favorite frame of the sequence.
It’s only one frame as he rips down this curtain, but
it noticeably stands out within the animated scene.
Excellent job extending the length of the curtain here.

Then he rips off the other curtain.

He throws down shelving on the back wall . . .

. . . and he clears the table in the back of the room.

He throws the chair to the ground.

Then he moves forward . . .

. . . and stands still, breathing heavily.

Reaction shot.

He moves forward . . .

. . . making sure we see the
fox tail hung around his neck as a tie.

He walks through and past the other farmers.

He rips apart everything on the back wall.

The other farmers just stand in shock . . .

. . . as he wildly rips down the wall.

Then without a word he opens the camper door and looks out.

End of the short sequence.

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