animationstoriestochill

[animationstoriestochill]

Flow, an animation masterpiece

So the other day I was reading an article about how the animators of Arcane got a slap in the wrist for being too gay I saw an article by Amid Amidi titled:

"‘Flow’ Ranks Only Behind ‘Wicked’ In Per-Theater Average At The Box Office"

and if you don't understand just how massive this news is then sit down cause today we are talking about Flow and just how this single movie could potentially change animation for ever.

First a summary of the article or well the article isn't very long but it's still important to highlight two things. The first was that in the USA made a total of $50,811 us dollars, being just behind Wicked in the weekend that it debute and if that wasn't enough the movie was only shown AT TWO THEATERS. TWO. WHAT

The movie was just shown in two theaters in the USA: The AMC Burbank 16 and the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan so the fact that it made so much money in such a short amount of time is crazy and this lead to a distributer to decide "you know what maybe we should release this movie national and maybe even internationally" so they plan on screening trailers of the movie when Moana 2 releases and on the 6th of December be released nationally across the USA.

and this was my actual reaction of me reading the article

So why is this important?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! A non disney, animated, fully non verbal, completely indie movie to make that much money in such a short period of time, for reference Wish made 255million in total, Flow just earn one fifth of what a DISNEY MOVIE EARNED DURING IT'S ENTIRE SCREENING DURATION.

Many people, including me, are really disappointed in the current state of animation. Most movies by big companies feel now souls with the rare exception here and there, the way executives don't care about artists and give the bare minimum to them and AI bros now trying to get into the industry to "prove that we don't need artists" this, this movie single handedly can be the catalyst for everyone to remember why animation is important, why this medium is so special.

And yes there is a sadly high chance that it will not make as much money as it should once it's nationally released in the USA let alone see if it's internationaly released there is hope.

"It would be a shame to see Flow follow the path of Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail"

And I totally agree, because I have seen this movie, I have already watched flow and I have told people to watch it but sadly, just like Memoir of a Snail, if it's not promoted, if it's not suggested and most importantly if it's not distributed things like Moana 2 or Wish will still keep happening.

If you have not watched the film and there is a chance for you to see it, please do so. It is genuinely a beautiful film and I wish people talked more about this article cause we now have incredibly solid proof of how you don't need a big budget and high res models and lightning and textures and blablabla. Spider-verse made a massive change in the animation industry but if Flow is given the chance I can almost guarantee that it will impact the industry more than what Miles Morales did.

The movie is already a strong contender to be nominated for the Oscars so let's just hope the small black cat and his crew get to go home with the award.

(if you are watching the movie there is a post credit scene that makes the end of the film 100 times better, don't be stupid and miss it)

The original article:

[animationstoriestochill]

The addams family (1973 TV series)

The goths have entered the ring!

It was the decade of the 70's and war was ensuring and propagating through the TV, blood was shed, lives were lost and wait wait no pause I am not talking about the Vietnam War (though it was in fact the first war to be broadcasted in tv and had a mayor impact in many things....) I am talking about the TV Cartoon war!

So through the 70's TV was a boom, everyone had a TV. You wanted to hang out with the family? Watch TV, Wanna unwind after work? Watch TV, Want to ignore all the terrible things happening in the world and have a good form of escapism to keep your sanity alive?..... Watch TV! And like any good capitalistic corporation everyone wanted to make TV shows and what better way to earn money than by making animations!

"BUT WAIT this is TV we can't just use money and make things with quality animation, even UPA could go cheaper.... aha why not make as little movement as we can to release quantity over quality!" mhm and that my friends is how the TV animated war started and that lead to well this story

This is the story of The Addams Family and it's cheaply animated TV show

Quite the eccentric family

Every story has a beginning but where did the Addams even come from? If you're like me then probably your first thought is the 1964 show in black and white (this is how I personally meet the family as a child) which I mean makes sense, an old tv show in black and white about an unconventional family does seem like something that would be created during that decade. Either that or you watched Wednesday on Netflix anyways the reality is the origin of this oddballs goes way far back in time.

Created by cartoonist Charles Addams in 1938, the Addams family made their debut as a one strip panel comic in the New Yorker (an american magazine) which became a success and would end up having up to 58 cartoons featuring the family until the death of the author in 1988. Before his death however The Addams ended up having a bunch of adaptations which is where the animated cartoon of 1973 comes into play. But before we talk about the cartoon we have to talk about another important player in this story that being:

Hanna-Barbera, the monarch of tv

Hanna-Barbera was an animated company created by well William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, two buddies who met in the 30's as animators and would latter go on to create Tom and Jerry. When MGM closed it's cartoon quarters in 1957, the two men would go on to create their own studio which ended up being dubbed "The General Motors of animation", why? Because when it came to animated television they were genius.

During the 60's and 70's TV shows were a total boom and the tradition of "Saturday morning cartoons" was born due to many companies wanted to take the chance to increase their view rate specially in children and what better time that the day of the week when children didn't have school (Saturday) and at the time they are most active (Morning). So if time is money and cartoons need money, the best way to save money to spend less time and there for gain more money was to make the animations as simple as possible.

And so the fight began

Hanna Barbera found a good loophole in order to save money, if you look at any animation made by this studio you will notice that most characters have a collar or some sort of clothing around the neck this way they could animate the head separately from the body allowing them to keep the moment as still as possible. This also means that backgrounds were simple loops and the shots of the camera were never complex. This was the case of the Addams show.

The show was simple, The Addams Family goes on a roadtrip around the United States while the family face weird shenanigans which can I just say, this is the most american plot ever like come on you already had a show with the family, why didn't you do it in their house they would even save more money. Also another complain of mine is why are the families using vibrant colors??? Like at least lower the saturation on the pink grandma.

Anyways as for the show's success I can't really tell. Remember how I said they saved as much money as possible? Were quality over quantity lead to many shows being forgotten and some sticking around, like Scooby Doo (which fun fact had a colab with the Addams Family) . I tried finding online if people talked about it on forums but most of them talk about the animated show in the 90's which was also produced by Hanna Barbera (how ironic).

I can say however that the Addams family are still thriving, known today a cult classic even and with the release of the Netflix show Wednesday, the popularity of this family exploded back again in media which honestly I am happy about it, I grew up watching VHS of the original 1960's sitcom so seeing that the name is not fading anytime soon is grate, let's just hope that they don't have to go through another animated adaptation made with the plan of making a quick buck.

OH COME ON (the movie is not that bad btw I just had to make the joke)

Anywho until death do us part

[animationstoriestochill]

The Pink Phink (1964)

From a cameo to a star

I don’t know if this is just me but when growing up my father had a lot and I do mean a lot of DVDs and Cassettes so that meant he had anything and everything from the titanic to Dora the explorer. And one thing common during the DVDs era was to release DvDs that was just a compilation of cartoons and I can’t lie I thought through most of my childhood that those films were of my era not older (I’m looking at you Santa’s workshop and Lonesome Ghosts) why is that important? Because that brings me to this diva.

I LOVED Pink Panther as a kid, I would watch this cartoons a lot, way too much in fact to the point that the theme song is stuck in my head and me remembering how I would watch the Christmas special every single year.

So everyone sit down and be quiet cause today we’re talking about him.

This is the story of The Pink Phink, the beginning of a cultural icon.

The origin

Okey so if I asked someone “Have you watched The Pink Panthern” most of them would immediately think of the cartoon, not the movie

Wait there’s a movie?

That’s right, your favorite diva from the golden age of animation was not a character but quite literally the opening of a movie.

In 1963, the movie “The Pink Panther” was released to the public. This was a comedic mystery film where a Princess has the infamous gem called “The Pink Panther” and there’s a lot of people who want this gem. The government of her country of birth (yes I know that’s weird but I ain’t explaining the whole story) and a thief called “The phantom” also wants to steal it. Jeez why is everything starting with the, might as well bring out The Phantom Thieves at least they could’ve gotten the gem.

Anyways what’s important is that the movie had a unique intro and that intro was the origin of the Pink Panther. Confused? Good cause things will get even more confusing down the line.

For the sake of simplicity I will say Pink Panther when referring to the character and Pink gem for the movie

So after the movie was released it became a success but not for the reasons you think. You see many people would go back and buy tickets just to see Pink Panther aka the intro and then just leave, people loved the pink panther, they loved the intro, they loved the charisma and sass the pink panther had. What a shame that it isn’t a carto-

The Pink Phink

“Ask and you shall receive” said Friz Frleng the director of the short when starting its production(probably)

And so on December 6, 1963 the short film was released in the United States alongside the movie “Kiss me, Stupid”. So let’s see what kind of shenanigans goes down on this film.

This 6 minute film can be summarised in one sentence: this is basically you're average Splatoon match

but for those you do not play Splatoon, first of all how dare you, but secondly in this short film a guy names "Little Man" is trying to paint a house with the color blue while Pink Panthern is trying to paint it pink obviously.

From a story standpoint it's very funny but in terms of technical standpoint it's even funnier just how much the team got away with things.

Remember our good pals UPA? Well because UPA made it posible to shorts to focus more on the animation than background, The Pink Phink quite literally said f**k the background, no really there was only one artist that worked on the background (Tom O'Loughlin). Look at the entire film again and you will see that most of it is just a white/blue/pink background and the house at then end of the scene? It's simple in terms of design and it only shows up fora couple of seconds not even a minute.

Speaking of the colors that is also a funny cheap way to save money, having a limited pallet makes it not only easier to paint (remember how technicolor works and how artists had to paint frame by frame?) but also you can just save time because you don't worry to have the same shade of green you used for 3 seconds, it's actually genius.

The cherry on top? The music of course. It's just a loop of the theme Henry Mancini composed for the intro for the movie which ironically became known as the theme song for the Pink Panthern.

and so the rest is history as many would say. The Pink Phink became a massive success and it won an Academy Award for best animated film and Pink Panthern became a cultural icon both for the animation community and the queer community.

And that is the story of our diva the Pink panthern

Until Next time

and Remember Another day another slayyyyyy

[animationstoriestochill]

The tell-tale Heart (1953)

X marks the spot…wait

Anyone here remember that weird era in middle school where teachers used a lot of classic literature during English class? No, just me? Dunno but at least for me, a non English native, would often have to read a bunch of literature and for some reason it was always dark as hell books. We had the classics, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Oedipus Rex, Heart of Darkness and-

Edgar Allan Poe

But what’s scarier than an Edgy poet? Why it’s an even edgier animation of course

This is the story of the Tell-Tale Heart, an animated gem for it’s time

So this story is a tad bit different from others, why? Because we are dealing with an animated short by UPA. Remember them?

UPA summary (again)

Okey so quick summary of UPA. United Productions of America of UPA was an animation company during the 50’s which had the main goal of separating animation from realistic animation like Disney and focus more on the artistic, the abstract, the non conventional way to showcase animation, most of the people working at UPA however was in secret due to Disney’s personal vendetta against anything he didn’t want. Of course UPA’s story is a lot more complex than that but the important thing to highlight is: not a lot of info is available on the internet.

Now with that said, let’s talk about the short film shall we.

The story follows our protagonist who slowly loses his sanity over an old man who lives next to him due to his eye however when trying to get rid of his eye, things turn darker. In the end our narrator ends up killing the own man and confesses to the crime after being haunted by the heartbeat of the old man.

Now for a UPA film the backgrounds are surprisingly more detailed than usual, this is because unlike other UPA films that focuses more on the absurdity and the braking of the animation, the films focuses more on the ambiance of the story rather than the character, which makes sense given that usually in horror you first have to set the right tone before telling the story. Another reason is because UPA often had a tight budget so in order to balance things out things like backgrounds or dynamic camera shot were almost none, this allowed the studio to focus more on the animation but like I said The Tell Tale heart didn’t focus on this aspect.

Added to this the Narrator of the short was non other than James Mason, a popular British actor during the 50’s.

One thing to note is that apparently this film was supposed to be released in 3-D, no not 3D in the sense of models being sculptured, rigged ,and then animated but rather the 3-D you experience when using those funky red and blue glasses and things in the screen look 3-D.

Now I say apparently because there is no theatrical trade or leads in the original print that indicate that the film was supposed to be be in 3-D

What we do know however is that the film made a mark, just not in the usual way. This film was actually the first animated short to be rated X by the British Film Board which I personally find it funny considering that I read the original story when I was what, thirteen? So who knows why it was rated that way, dunno maybe the voice acting was just too good.

But that’s the short and quite mysterious story of The Tell Tale Heart

And remember, always double check the locks in your house, you never know what’s outside

Until next time

[animationstoriestochill]

Working with Disney, a look behind the curtain

Featuring: Xavier (X) Atencio and Marc Davis

Here is a fun tale of mine, as a child I would go from time to time to the Disney Parks during Halloween season. My parents always planed it the same way. A week and a half of vacation, one day dedicated to one park and always on the same order: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood studios, Universal Studios, Island of Adventure and finally an extra slot to just chill at the hotel.

Now you may be wondering "okey well what the hell does this have to do with today's story?" Well you see my dear reader, all of these parks had one thing in common in my small child brain: they had pirates.

I loved pirates as a kid (and still do to this day) and growing up I would watch anything related to pirates so combine that with the Disney Parks and you probably see where this is going. Pirates of the Caribbean, my favorite attraction of all the parks and also technically later a movie saga (though as a kid I never watched the movies and the one I did glitched in the cinema.... anyways). Pirates of the Caribbean shined as one of the things I would look up the most on these trips so imagine my reaction when thirteen years later Disney released a small documentary of the story behind it and that later on the stars aligned with me having to read this book.

So today's story is not about the pirates (though I will talk about them someway) Today's story is about the lives of the two master minds who created them and their stories when they worked with Walt Disney himself.

This is the story of Xavier Atencio and Marc Davis

Xavier Atencio

I am starting with Xavier for two reasons. One: because his interview is more focused on one thing making it easier for me (and you) to understand how interesting his story is. And two: He has less info online sadly.

X... no not that name Elon choose for the twitter bird, Francis Xavier Atencio (X for short and his nickname in the studio) was an animator and imagineer that was born in Walsenburg, Colorado, 1919. He then studied at an Art School in order to crate a portafolio for Mintz studio but after the school's suggestion he send it to Disney and he got accepted.

Side note

Because Colorado used to be part of Mexico before 1845 plus a wave of immigrants during the early 1900's I am 90% sure his last name used to be Artencio and somewhere down the family line they took the r out cause english speakers can't pronounce a heavy r. Just a random thought.

Xavier is interesting, he worked on the short "Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom" as an animator, worked on some scenes in Dumbo and Fantasia as an assistant for Woolie Reitherman (one of the nine old men) and later became an imagineer. (and yes he wrote the song for the pirates of the Caribbean ride and voiced the talking skeleton before the fall that's why I chose him)

But the most fascinating thing, for me at least, is the story of Disney during and after the strike.

In 1941 workers at Disney went on strike, why? Cause Disney did not know how to run a company. People who were his pals got a raise and promotion while most people just stayed as inbetweeners while also the credits just said "Walt Disney" that's it, no other name mentioned so the workers went on strike in order to get better treatment, one of them being X. X in the interview narrated how he joined the strike (ironically not knowing what the strike was for) and it lasting all summer. After the strike ended instead of returning to work he would go join the US Army due to the war as a photo interpreter, returning later in 1945. Here's the thing because he went to the army right after the strike and returned after the war no one remembered that he participated on the strike, meaning he maintained not only Walt's trust but also his job in general.

Walt was resentful for the people who joined the strike and there for blacklisted and fired almost anyone who participated in it even going as far as claiming the people on the strike were Communists but Xavier didn't see anything of the aftermath, as stated in the interview:

"DP: Did you find there was any stigma attached to having been out on strike? XA: No. As I say, by the time I came back, everything had calmed down. As I understood from some of the other fellows, there were some awful bad feelings. But I never felt that I was deprived of any advancements or anything by the mere fact that I had been out on strike. Some of the guys who’d been out—for instance, Ken Peterson, who was one of the active people in the strike, he had a position of importance. So I think it was just a few individuals that bore a grudge."

What's worse is that the strike combined with the War lead to a heavy financial cut leaving people getting fired in massive waves usually on Christmas and if you did manage to stay chances are, if Disney didn't know you you were never getting a promotion "Some of those people that were in the business when I came and are still there are just professional inbetweeners or professional assistants who never had the ability to really go any further than that, and they’re still doing the same thing". So what happened to the people who left Disney and/or wanted to work on other industries outside of the company. Enter UPA, the manifestation of karma.

United Productions of America or UPA for short was an animation studio characterized by their simple style and detachment from reality compared to Disney, this is because people at UPA wanted to experiment with their artistic vision leading to a new era in animation where the impossible became possible all thanks to animation and Disney HATED them. Time and time again Disney would lose to UPA in any way shape and form so when "Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom", an animation which Xavier worked on and by the way, was his first short film where he was credited, they had to mimic to a certain extend the style of UPA. Remember how Disney never credited their animators and just said "it's a Walt Disney's production" well according to Xavier "He never really claimed it as his picture.He said, “That’s Kimball’s picture.”" Talk about a resentful guy.

Marc Davis

I knew that Marc Davis worked on Pirates of the Caribbean but holy I did not know just how insane this guy is. One of the Nine old men of Disney, Marc Davis carried singlehandedly half of the company and I'm not even exaggerating.

Born on March 30, 1913, in Bakersfield, California. Marc had been in 23 different high schools by the time he graduated and studies in Kansas City Art Institute, the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. He had a fascination for drawing animals, he would often visit the local zoo just to sketch the animals and the staff would eventually let him in early at the zoo just so he could make life drawings of the animals.

His stories in Disney are just crazy even the way he got hired sound like something straight out of a book. When Marc moved to Los Angeles he decided to send a letter to Disney and then.

"I don’t know how they made the mistake, but it began, “Dear Miss Davis, Sorry, at the present time we are not hiring women artists.” I wish I’d kept the letter! I was sore and I dumped it in the trash and forgot all about Disney."

And you know what he did next? A couple of months later he got convinced by a coworker to apply again so he went to the Disney offices, sat down for an interview with the same person who rejected him via the letter and immediately got hired right there. Remember kids this was the 1920's women had 0 to no rights.

The marvelous young guys there were from all over the country, and a lot of them were from all over the world. It was a terribly exciting time...just didn’t really know what this thing was about; but the excitement was that every day, somebody did something that hadn’t been done before...Once you learned how to do something very well, you were never asked to do that again

Marc joined when Snow White was in production and worked as an assistant but when Bambi came around, that's where he got the chance to shine. Remember the drawings he would do of animals. Well at the time no one really knew how to properly give animals expressions less how to animate them but Marc's drawings were basically the groundwork for the entire film, being the character designer for almost all the animals as well as animating some scenes in Bambi and yet they forgot to put his name on the credits (how nice) but this lead to Marc being one of Walt's most trusted animators

"I began to know him. Walt had a lot of respect for me as an artist and for being knowledgeable about art, so I had some rapport in that area. As years went on, I had great contact with him in many, many areas. In later years, I had very close contact."

But that's not the only reason why Marc was a legend. He would then go on to crate the most iconic Disney villain, Maleficent. Even though Marc didn't like working on The Sleeping Beauty that much he did design a lot of the characters, mainly Aurora and Maleficent, but he had such clear vision for the way Aurora would move with her clothing that he even hired a costume designer in order to crate an exact replica of Aurora's outfit so that the actor for the rotoscope wore it making it easier to translate animated, that costume designer would later on become his wife, Alice Davis.

And of course I have to talk about Cruela, how could I not talk about her. Marc single handedly animated every single scene she was in. Like I said before Marc didn't really like Maleficent that much because "She was just an evil character and had little or no personality, because all she did was make speeches." So when the time came to draw Cruela he went all out.

"I think she was a combination of things, an attempt to do a villainess that would be fun rather than a villainess that would just be terrifying."

And that is just the tip of the iceberg regarding what Marc did, he would go on to crate Tinkerbell, he worked in Victory Through the Air, he then became an imagineer and designed The Tiki Room, he designed Jungle Cruise, It's a small world, Pirates of the Caribbean, he also worked on Alice in wonderland. This guys is in my opinon, more important and impressive than Walt Disney. Unfortunately due to how long this post is and how I lacked time to make it more detailed (midterms) today's story ends here but if I could believe me I could easily make a 30 minute long video essay just talking about this guys but that will be for another day.

Until next time

Happy Halloween!!

[animationstoriestochill]

Princess Iron Fan (1941)

The first asian animated movie

So here's a funny story of mine: during the pandemic two of my friends became obsessed over the show "Lego Monkie Kid" and because it became a hyper fixation to them they, naturally, got me into the show as well and god was I hooked as well and became a fixation for me too.

It's a gorgeous show, one that I heavily recommend but this story is not about that show because while I did know the entire show was based on the book "Journey to the West" I didn't know until looking at a list of released films during the 40's, is that a certain character of the show had not only an animated film but even held the crown for being one of the most important animated films in history.

This is the story of the animated movie of Princess Iron Fan

A dream among the war

In 1937 China was in complete caos. The Japanese started to conquer parts of China in an attempt to get more territory, this lead to the Shanghai War (August 13, 1937 to November 26, 1937). This war lead to many casualties, from civilians to buildings, people were quickly displaced in order to evade the war. Four of these people were the Wan Brothers: Guchan, Laiming, Chaochen and Dihuan.

Now the brothers were interested in animation and were mainly inspired by American cartoons and have even made some animated shorts like "Uproar in the Studio" (1924) and "The Camel's Dance (1935) which was the first animation with sound in China. So they had more than enough skills to create a full length film and when "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" came out in 1937 they were determined to create if it wasn't for the fact that, well, China was in war. When the war broke out 3 of the brothers left Shanghai and fled to Wuhan while the youngest of the four, Dihuan, stayed in Shanghai to help family. During their time in Wuhan, the three brothers started working for the China Motion Pictures Studio to make anti Japanese propaganda but when things became less stable in Wuhan and some film company were back in business the brothers decided to return so they could finally make a film. And then Chaochen decided to stay in Wuhan.... So now the two brothers, Guchan and Laiming returned to Shanghai to make their film and oh wait they are still in war. Originally the brothers wanted to make a fully colored animated film of "Uproar in Heaven" but the price for film became incredibly expensive so that idea was scrapped and that resulted in:

Princess Iron Fan's production

With over 300 workers on the film and a total of 20,000 drawings in the end you would think that production went smooth sailing right?

Okey so there were a lot of problems the brothers faced

Problem number 1: The crew

Here's the thing about being the first in something, it means no one else knows how to do that thing. While the people working in the studio knew something about art non of them knew how to animate, so while the brothers were doing stunning shots for the movie, the trainees fell short this lead to two things

Guchan had to supervise the animators and even provide training so that the production could reach Disney standard

They had to make models so that animators could use as reference by placing the figures inside a replica of the set which means buying more things = using more money

Problem number 2: War

Yeah it's pretty obvious that the war was the mayor roadblock of the brother's career. War made not only film expensive but the materials to make it expensive, this crucial because in order to complete the movie they needed two things: A rotoscope, which allowed animators to trace the movements of prerecorded live action film to make the movement in humans look more natural and smooth. And a Multiplane camera, so that they could move not only the background accordingly to the story but also create more dynamic scenes with the background like being able to zoom in or out on the environment.

Problem number 3: Who is even going to watch it?

Shanghai was deserted compared to how it usually was (for obvious reasons) leading to the fear that the film was going to fail to the point that even their investor, Zhang Shangen, wanted to leave the project completely.

And yet against all odds on November 19th, 1942 the movie was premiere in the Metropol and Astor Theatre cinemas in Shanghai. And it became a success.

The story is very simple compared to the beast that is the novel of Journey to the West. Basically the monkey king, Sun WuKong, and some villagers went to Princess Iron Fan asking to borrow her fan to put out a fire that was spreading. Iron Fan refuses leading to WuKong fighting her and making things even more complicated when the Bull King, Iron Fan's husband, get involved. In the end WuKong gets the fan and saves the village.

Not all stories have a happy ending....

Unfortunately though, the brothers would never be able to make another breakthrough in the animated industry again. While they did make eventually "Uproar in Heaven" in the 1960's and Disney offering them an invite to his studio. The majority of the films the brothers wanted to produce and even started were either destroyed by the war or did not have the budget for it. They also refused Disney's invitation to join him in the USA leading to now the brothers being not very known by people in the West. While I truly don't doubt that they are probably very well known in China, it's honestly a shame that they didn't get the recognition they deserved considering everything they went through to make it but well that's just how the story of the first asian animated movie "Princess Iron Fan" ends. Until next time (watch lego monkey kid btw)

References

https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1014051 https://www.jiemian.com/article/656867.html https://www.filmsfatale.com/blog/2023/1/18/the-world-of-movies-princess-iron-fan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan_Laiming#Achievements

[animationstoriestochill]

More than just a bull

You've probably heard the name of Ferdinand before, this charismatic bull has two animated films, one in 1938 and another in 2017, that quickly made people fall in love with him. But this charming story of a bull who preferred to smell flowers over fighting became much more than what it originally started as, from a children's book, to a banned story, to a tradition in Sweden. This is the story of Ferdinand, the Bull that changed the world.

The book of Ferdinand the bull (1936)

In 1936 the book "The story of Ferdinand" was released to the public. Written by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson, the story of Ferdinand was a fun short story of a bull who enjoyed smelling flowers over fighting who one day got confused to be an aggressive bull because of him getting sting by a bee, but when taken to the arena for a bullfight in Madrid, he just sat and smelled flowers and eventually returned home.

This book became very popular World wide specially in the United States because of the simple message it gave to kids about being yourself , an important message that will be important to the story (so put a pin on it while you read). The book ended up being a grate success, so naturally, Wald Disney jumped into the bag wagon and created their version of the story.

Ferdinand (1938)

On November 25th 1938, Disney would premier to the world the animated short of Ferdinand and to say it was a game changer is an understatement.

For starters we first hace to understand the way animation worked in the past. During the 30's the way animation worked was by drawing every frame by hand by the animators, each frame would be then recorded by a strip of film and checked to see the results in a machine called Moviola. Once Disney gave his approval the inking department would then draw every single frame again in a transparent celluloid sheet as well as being colored while the backgrounds is painted in water color, the frames are then shot one by one with a technicolor, a machine that would ran 3 strips of color film (red blue and yellow) at a time allowing them to combine into and create a fully colored film.

And what about the parts where the background is zoomed in or out? That's the job of the Multi plane camera. Have you ever seen how a pop up book has different cutouts at different heights depending on the scene? That's the same premise the multi camera used, by dividing backgrounds into different layers the camera could then shot the planes moving at different speeds creating the ilusion of depth. You can see this in the short in shots like Ferdinand at the end at the hill or when the arena is shown for the first time. All of this things combined resulted in this fabulous short that actually won Disney an award that same year, but Ferdinand's story is far from being over.

An Icon over the years

After the release of both the book and the film both of them ended up banned from Europe, this is because many of the political leaders at the time saw the film as pacifist propaganda so places like Germany, Italy, and ironically even Spain banned the screening of the short, in the words of Francisco Franco Bahamonde “Ferdinand es una maniobra judeomasónica a favor del pacifismo y de la República” (Ferdinand is a Judeo-Masonic scheme in favor of the republic and pacifism). Another group that Ferdinand impacted was the queer community and movement. Remember how I mentioned the story had the message of "Be yourself", well Disney's short took it one step forward and depicted Ferdinand with stereotypes or actions that would allow queer people to recognize as an allegory to them (this is also called queercoding) which is incredibly clear if you're part of the community like me just how easily the short can be taken as an allegory to both the community and how pathetic toxic masculinity can be.

For the people like me who were born in 2000's Ferdinand is also known as critique on animal cruelty and animal rights. While this is true, the mayor influence for this is neither the book or the original film but instead the 2017 movie produced by BlueSky studios, which re told the story of Ferdinand while also expanding on the previously discussed topics that the character was already known for.

Interestedly enough, in Sweden the original short film is also a staple tradition to watch it due to a show called "From All of Us to All of You" that is screened every Christmas eve where it contains a compilation of Disney shorts including Ferdinand, the short is actually so popular that the one year where they didn't screen it, the show reached it's lowest amount of views, with people complaining to bring Ferdinand back.

Happily Ever After

If you have the time I heavily recommend you to watch the original film. Personally this is a film that I saw as a child on a DVD and every time I re watch it the story of Ferdinand feels closer to home. So now next time you see this bull around, remember the incredible history he has both in his and our world. Until next time

[animationstoriestochill]

The original Oswald short

If you've either played Epic Mickey or know a little about Disney's history then you're probably familiar with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

This fun little egotistical rabbit made his debut to the public in 1927 with the animated short "Trolley Troubles" after Charles Mintz asked Walt Disney to create a rabbit cartoon for Universal studios who was trying to get into the animation industry at the time. The original contract, that was signed by Margaret J. Winkler, involved a total of 26 shorts being crated for Oswald with eventually only 12 surviving after 97 years of being released and being now available as public domain. After the release of "Trolley Troubles" Oswald became a success and the rest is history, Disney would eventually lose the rights to Oswald, left universal and ended up creating the now even more successful and capitalist monopoly that is Mickey Mouse.... Or is it? Because while it is true that "Trolley Troubles" was the first Oswald short to be released to the public, it wasn't the first Oswald short to be created.

This is the story of "Poor Papa". The first Oswald short that was almost lost to time.

To understand this short's story we have to go a little back in time before the creation of Oswald. Before Oswald the way animation worked is by focusing on the gags that were being shown meaning that the characters lacked personality. When Disney decided to focus on a fully animated cartoon instead of a hybrid like his previous show, Alice comedies, so when creating Oswald both him and Universal wanted to focus on giving him traits instead of a blank personality leading to the creation of "Poor Papa".

In this short, Oswald is an old man who one day gets bombarded by a lot of babies send by storks with the babies soon destroying his house. As Oswald gets more desperate with the children he decides to stop the storks from sending him more babies first by trying to shoot them and then by trying to block his chimney entrance only for the storks to outsmart him instead, ending the short with Oswald passing out after the abundance of babies.

Why didn't it work?

Remember how I mentioned that they were trying to make Oswald his own character? Well while they did give him a personality, Universal did not like that he was an old man type character as well as the animation being considered sloppy, even though in this era all animation was done by hand with pen and paper other cartoons, even the Alice Comedies had better production quality. So Disney's team went back to make another cartoon and "Poor papa" was supposed to be locked in the basement forever....until June 11, 1928 when it was released to the public becoming the second to last short of Oswald to be released by Disney and then, like most Oswald shorts, was lost after Disney leaving Universal forever.

Unless

During 2000's three of the surviving copies of the short were found in the United Kingdom in an auction however not only were they incomplete but the Walt Disney Corporation wasn't able to buy any of them, it seemed that the fate of "Poor Papa" was going to be lost forever, and then it released to the public once again in a way no one was expecting, Disney found a 16mm silent print made in 1930's in an auction on 2015 and immediately tasked Lowry Digital to make a digital scan of the short.

And so for Oswald's 90th birthday the short was released in the Pinocchio Signature Collection Blu-ray release on January 31st 2017. Currently the scanned short is available on Youtube for everyone to watch (that's how I ended up watching it).

And that's the story of the almost lost original short of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. While it is a bummer that a lot of the information about this short is not available, it's still a miracle that this short was even found in the first place all because of a 16mm silent print. Oswald is truly a lucky rabbit. Until next time!

References

Carly. (2022, December 1). Exclusive: Newly restored version of Poor Papa a highlight of upcoming Pinocchio Blu-Ray Release. D23. https://d23.com/exclusive-newly-restored-version-poor-papa-highlight-upcoming-pinocchio-blu-ray-release/?share_token=3e0e31c8a8

Contributors to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Wiki. (n.d.). Poor papa. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Wiki. https://oswaldtheluckyrabbit.fandom.com/wiki/Poor_Papa

Extraordinary Peoples. (2023, August 12). A Needlessly Exhaustive History of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. YouTube. https://youtu.be/fiHnqQczkQY

Newsdesk, L. P. D. (2017, January 9). First Oswald cartoon to appear on Pinocchio Blu-ray. LaughingPlace.com. https://www.laughingplace.com/w/news/2017/01/09/first-oswald-cartoon-appear-pinocchio-blu-ray/

Poor papa (found “Oswald the lucky rabbit” walt disney animated short film; 1927). Poor Papa (found “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” Walt Disney animated short film; 1927) - The Lost Media Wiki. (n.d.). https://lostmediawiki.com/Poor_Papa_(found_%22Oswald_the_Lucky_Rabbit%22_Walt_Disney_animated_short_film;_1927)

Wiki, C. to D. (n.d.). Poor papa. Disney Wiki. https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Poor_Papa

[animationstoriestochill]

Introduction

Hello! Welcome to Stories of Animation! A place where you will learn stories that involve the animation industry whether it's historical or personal, this place is for any animation fan out there that's interested in a bit of history. I am your host for this blog, Teresa (they/them) and I'm a self certified artist that is currently studying animation. So chill back, relax and enjoy the vlog.

So... Why animation?

Why did I choose to study animation? A question probably non of you asked but I will tell you anyways ahem: So a long long time ago (not really it was 2007) I was a little child that spend way too much time watching a movie and that movie that I watched for way too long was 101 Dalmatians. I am pretty sure that it was the first animated movie I watched ever and to this day is my favorite movie of all time. I don't remember much of that time (cause I was a baby, quite literally) but I do remember that I loved that movie so much that I begged my mother for over a decade to get a Dalmatian, I would dress as Cruela for 3 years straight and got sad when that outfit didn't fit me anymore and would constantly draw the dogs of the movie. I would definitely consider this the earliest inspiration I had as a child, it's what inspired me to draw and it's a film that will always have a special place in my heart.

So flash forward to the year 2020, the year where people got locked inside their house and stopped seeing the sunlight for over two years. Like many people, one of the ways I spend most of my time in this era was watching TV shows, mostly animated shows because I am not a fan of reality tv, but of all the shows I watched there is one show that out stood from everything else, the owl house.

This show single handedly changed my life. I started watching this show in the hiatus between season 1 and season 2 because of a tweet that showed up on my timeline one day and ever since then the show took over me, it became a hyper fixation but it wasn't until the episode "Eda's Requiem" aired that the show became way more than it already was to me.

I would watch most show on owlclub.net when the episodes aired and after finishing the episode I froze, the scene where Eda and Rain play together, the animation in that part, the emotional moment for those two characters, the way the music and the voice acting made you feel the pain Eda was feeling. That moment made me stop and think "Wow, I wish I could do that" and then it hit me. I grew up watching a lot of cartoons and games, indulging in fantastical worlds because my childhood was not the best and always thanked the shows I watched because of how much it meant to me, so why couldn't I do the same. People have their own unique world in their lives, their own stories to tell, and those stories influence the people around us and can change the world for many. Bringing a story to life whether mine or not, could be the thing that changes a person's life just like how this shows changed mine.

And that brings me to the franchise that has the crown for being my biggest inspiration, Pokemon.

If I were to talk about how much Pokemon influenced me, I would probably take hours talking about it and honestly it would probably deserve it's own essay but in short Pokemon is to this day my special interest, every single thing the saga has inspired me to work on an artistic industry.

Yes, 101 Dalmatians is what inspired me to start drawing but Pokemon is what inspired me to create, it's whats always inspired me to write stories, design characters, think of scenarios whether canon or not. Pokemon single handedly made me realize just how much a story can affect and inspire others, how a community that's constantly growing and changing leads to more and more creative things that go beyond what they started as and non of it would be posible if it wasn't for the team in charge of bringing the Pokemon to life, the animation team.

From the battle of Ash against Arlan, the Pokemon generations shorts that gave different story points a new fresh air by bringing to life such important moments beyond the gameplay , the games themselves using detailed cutscenes during the most cardiac moments to truly make you feel the moment in the story, and even simple things like the Pokemon idles in Black and White or the animations of the Pokemon when you interact with them or when they interact with other things. All of those moments hold a special place within me and is the proof that anything can be bring to life, you just need your imagination and a paper to do so. Thank you for reading, until next time.