Books &Comic Art &Norshtein 12 Dec 2009 08:50 am
Norshtein Comics – 4
- Back to the book. Here’s the next chapter in Tanya Usvayskaya‘s wonderful book. She kept a drawn diary while working for Yuri Norshtein at his studio. This book compiles the drawings of the small family within the studio and Norshtein’s environs during that period.
A copy of this book was a gift from Richard O’connor, whose Asterisk Productions does wonderful animation of their own. What a treasure!
Note that the translation by the Japanese publisher isn’t always the best, but it does capture the gist of the original Russian. I’m transcribing the book without alterations.
The first three parts of the book can be found here:
Norshtein Comics – 1
Norshtein Comics – 2
Norshtein Comics – 3
This chapter, Norshtein and Tanya, is one of the shortest.
4-1“Norstein and Tanya”
.
4-2“Don’t Hesitate to use them.”
Norshtein, leaving to give lectures, gave us a
certain amount of money for the management of the studio.
.
4-3“Pirat, please buy one covered with chocolate.”
While someone is “living luxuriously” on overseas master classes,
Tanya and Pirat “economized” on every kopeck.
.
4-4“Now – you calculate quickly!
20 watermelon stones plus 3 bits? and . . .”
Because we bookkeepers failed to report to the master,
he recommended to us that we learn mathematics.
.
4-5“Have this hat for just a moment.”
Work in the animation film studio provides us all
with a variety of returns.
.
4-6“Ladies, please buy my flowers.”
As a result of squandering by Tanya and Pirat,
Yuri has become a flower seller on the street.
.
4-7“Please pay for potatoes, sour cream and sugar!”
Tanya screams in front of a mountain of food to pay.
.
4-8“Well, we all are ready to go to sleep.”
In the studio, taking of scene for “Good Night, Children!”
went all night. Tanya, Natasha and Pirat left this note.
________________________
Here’s the video of the title scene mentioned in the last cartoon, “Good Night, Children!”. Thanks to Niffiwan for adding it to YouTube.
on 12 Dec 2009 at 6:37 pm 1.Oswald Iten said …
Thanks once again for blogging about so many different topics. Checking your blog has become a daily habit for quite a long time now and I’ve never been disappointed.
This week I’ve had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Yuri Norstein who came to Switzerland for a convention about dramaturgy in animation. He came across as a charismatic and well organized person (even though we were wholly dependent on simultaneous translation). He gave a lecture about the making of The Hedgehog in the Fog and even brought along some of the original cut-out figures.
on 13 Dec 2009 at 12:50 am 2.Michael said …
Lucky you, Oswald. I saw him a couple years back, and he talked a bit about hedgehog – particularly the fog scenes.