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Cowboy Bebop (1998)

Hello everyone! Let’s talk about Cowboy Bebop! Lately, 3 or 4 people have told me that this show is a very interesting one, and considering that I am pretty new in the anime world (I have watched like 10 different animes only), I think it was important to watch it. So, for today’s blog, I will talk about only the first chapter.

To begin with, Cowboy Bebop is a 2D animated anime from 1998. It was made by the Japanese animation studio called Sunrise, known also for making InuYasha (2000) and its sequel Hanyou no Yashahime (2020). Cowboy Bebop was directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and is has 26 episodes, available on Netflix. The manga was created by Cain Kuga, in 1997 with 2 volumes.

It tells the story of Spike Spiegel, a young man who was born on Mars. The story starts in 2071 when humanity is already able to visit and live on other planets. Spike is a bounty hunter that doesn’t have a lot of money, but that doesn’t seem to worry him. In this episode, he and his friend Jet Black are looking for a guy that is selling some kind of drugs that are sprayed in the eye. While they are investigating, Spike meets the criminal’s girlfriend: a beautiful young lady that is pregnant. During the episode, Spike demonstrates his ability to steal things while the other person is distracted and that is how he steals some of the drugs from the criminal and destroys it. The police suddenly arrive and start to shoot the criminal and his girlfriend. The woman's belly is shot, however, they reveal to us that she was not pregnant and what she had were drugs hidden under her dress. In the end, both criminals try to escape. The man uses more drugs to escape from the police, but his girlfriend realizes there is no way they could escape, so she kills her boyfriend with a gun and looks at Spike one last time and says ‘Adios Cowboy’ (Bye Cowboy). The police shoots the spaceship where she was going, ending her life. Spike seemed to be a carefree character, but when he saw that she was dead, he was shocked. For the rest of the episode, he keeps training to be better with a sad look on his face.

After I finished this episode, I watched a video from a YouTuber called ‘Me Dicen Dai’ (They call me Dai) where he analyzes only the first episode and there he says that something that we can understand by Spike’s attitude when he saw the woman die, is that he truly cares about life and it is sure he has a heavy past that justifies everything. I am going to add this video at the end but unfortunately, it is only in Spanish. The colors of the episode are mainly blues and grays, and when we see through the criminal’s eyes when he uses the drugs, it is all red. The music in the opening is good and you can mainly focus on it while you are looking at the opening and ending of the anime. I will definitely keep watching it to know more about Spike and, because it only has a few episodes, I will try to finish it this holydays. Finally, I would just like to mention that there is blood in the episode, so it is not for children probably.

Thank you for reading and happy holidays!

Me Dicen Dai - Cowboy: La CALIDAD del PRIMER CAPITULO de Cowboy Bebop (Cowboy: The QUALITY of the FIRST CHAPTER of Cowboy Bebop) https://youtu.be/VCFXbMCYnvc

Cowboy Bebop – Opening Theme – Tank! https://youtu.be/EL-D9LrFJd4

Cowboy Bebop – Ending Theme – The Real Folk Blues https://youtu.be/Ru_H5PiyfSA

[marianahermosilloblog]

The 1980's: Luxo Jr.

Hello everyone! Today we will talk about a very special short film. One that started something very big in the 3D Animation industry: Luxo Jr. This short was made in 1986 by Pixar, many years before joining Disney Animation Studios. As we can see at the credits, the story, design, models, and animation was made by John Lasseter. It has a duration of 2:05 minutes.

Normally, I make these posts about short films or TV shows that I have never seen before. However, for today’s blog, I chose one that was part of my childhood and it has been years since I watched it, so there were some things I did not remember. Moreover, now that I have a bachelor degree in Animation, Digital Art and Multimedia and I had some classes about 3D, I can't imagine how complex and hard it must have been for John and his team!

The short is about a Luxo lamp that is playing with a ball (if you have watched Toy Story, you should know that ball was first in this short film). Suddenly, a smaller and younger lamp appears, playing with the ball too when, unfortunately, the ball deflates. The biggest lamp moves its ‘head’ with disapproval and the smallest leaves the scenario with sadness. The short ends with the smallest lamp bringing a big ball, playing with joy. The biggest lamp just moves its head again.

Something interesting in this short is that the characters, props, and backgrounds are simple, but that doesn't matter because their storytelling is powerful, full of emotions and based on a good script. At the end of this post you can find a Making of video where John and other people from Pixar tell how they came up with the ideas and how the public received it. They said that everyone was in shock when they saw that some 3D models moved and had emotions and it is something that I can't imagine because, as I said, when I was born all that already existed.

John also mentions that he came up with the idea of this character because he saw one of these lamps when he was trying to have an idea for the short film. About the smallest lamp, when he saw the baby of one of the team's members, he said ‘let's make a second character!’

Thank you as always for reading this. I hope this posts brings you good memories as it did to me :D

Luxo Jr. Short Film: https://youtu.be/6G3O60o5U7w

Luxo Jr. Wireframe test: https://youtu.be/33juuHzqMPc

CGI Making of: https://youtu.be/MJQRVKtwr70

[marianahermosilloblog]

Working with Walt (Book by Don Peri) - 2/2

Hi everyone! It is time to finish the second part of the posts dedicated to the book called ‘Working with Walt’ written by Don Peri. As last time, I chose the 3 first chapters from the book to do this post. However, this time it is not focused on the 3 animators (Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston and Marc Davis): it is going to be about their relationship with the unique Walt Disney.

Let’s start with Frank Thomas’ perspective. About the first impression he only said that he was more impressed with Walt’s product than he was with him as a person and they didn’t have a lot of contact at first. Walk trusted Frank’s talent and didn’t give him any kind of pressure. For Frank, Walt was like a teacher from college, and his animations were the assignments he had to deliver on time. Also Frank mentioned how impressed he was with Walt’s organization and passion for searching for new ideas; but it was hard to sell him a new idea.

Now Ollie Johnston: curiously, he and Walt shared a love for trains that allowed several conversations about it. Of course this didn’t mean that Ollie was Walt’s favorite. For Ollie, Walt was his boss, not his friend. Ollie remembered him as a relaxed person that was enthusiastic and critical with new discoveries. However, the Disney animators’ strike came with the war in 1941 and it meant the stop of discoveries. I’ll be sharing a YouTube video about it at the end that describes this period of time, so you can learn more about it later. Ollie remembers how scary were these years and that it ruined a lot of families. He mentioned that Walt tried to take care of everybody but the animators were not patient enough. Finally, Ollie added that there was a time where Walt’s interests were divided in Disneyland, the Animated movies and the TV Shows.

Finally, Marc Davis said that he never had much contact with Walt. He was his boss and Marc was even afraid of Walt. But for me this was the most interesting interview about Walt: he starts saying that everyone thought that Walt was insane because of all the things he wanted to do. “He was a gambler, but he also believed in himself and he believed in what he wanted to do”, Marc said. And even though Marc assured that it was impossible to fully understand Walt, he noticed that his boss liked his artwork. “There is nobody there who could make me feel as good as by saying ‘I like that’ as Walt”, Marc added. The animator also tells the time when he spent from 9:30 to 6:00 at Disneyland with him, but Walt didn’t want to be recognized in the streets by fans. Lastly, Marc pointed out that Walt was not used to saying ‘goodbye’ to anyone, but there was this one time that Walt said goodbye to Marc. Walt suddenly arrived at Marc's office, they talked for a while about nothing in particular. When he started to feel tired, he standed up and said goodbye to Marc. This is the last time they saw each other: Walt died two weeks later because of lung cancer.

I didn’t know any of these stories before I read the book and even though I am a Disney fan, I didn’t have any specific opinion about Walt Disney. I liked that I had the opportunity to read this book and know a little bit more about him. Maybe he was not perfect but he was a brilliant mind always looking for new ideas. And as Walt said, "All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them."

About Disney animators’ strike (subtitles available on english): https://youtu.be/llDQVvILR4g

Shirley Temple presents Walt Disney a special Oscar: https://youtu.be/F-xJx7KJI2c

[marianahermosilloblog]

The 1960's: Spider-Man

Hello! Let’s talk about 1960’s animated show Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko! For today’s blog I want analyze what happens in episode 19 from season 1, from 1967. This episode starts with our hero chasing a couple of guys that robbed a bank. While they are trying to scape, they throw some kind of gas sprinkler, that leaves Spider-Man unconscious. The thieves escape and people start to approximate Spider-Man’s body. All of them want to take off his mask, however the police stop them and take Spider-Man to prison, still unconscious. Captain Stacy stays out of Spider-Man’s room and a group of prisoners scape from their jail cells and threat the Captain. Spider-Man finally wakes up and one by one defeats the prisoners, pretending that he is one of them.

Curiously, this morning I also watched an episode from The Spectacular Spider-Man from 2008 and the difference between both shows is enormous. In the 1960’s version, they have a very basic animation: they recycle some scenes, the design of the characters (specially from Captain Stacy) is not consistent from one scene to other, and they avoid adding the cobweb design to the middle of Spider-Man’s suit, so they don’t have to animate it. To achieve that sense of comic feeling they also add onomatopoeias and sounds of the time (for example, each time that the hero throws a cobweb, you can listen a specific sound). Also, I found interesting that Peter’s voice is from an adult and not from a teenager as it should be. Finally, I just want to add that in this specific episode Spider-Man is not as strong as he usually is in the recent movies and series. He needs to defeat one prisoner at a time, and they are just simple humans. As a conclusion, this old version is very different from today’s and is the first time that I watch one of the 1960’s episodes. I liked it but it feels slower compared to 2008’s version. In my opinion is very nice to see how animation is having a wonderful evolution with each technique, specially with such a beloved character as your friendly neighborhood, Spider-Man.

Here are some reference from the show and the YouTube video where you can watch it!

More info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061301/

Episode 19: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBzotaBgoRo&list=PLZs0gQed9tMQUFbV_t5GqueRUcrmsrfbJ&index=3&ab_channel=ThomasFitzgerald

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The 1950's: The Star of Bethlehem

For today’s blog we are going to talk about the talented Lotte Reiniger! She was a german animator that was born in 1899 and died in 1981. She became famous because of her beautiful stop motion creations made with paper. Lotte’s technique consisted in beautiful silhouettes that she animated frame by frame.

The short film that I chose to share with you is called “The Star of Bethlehem” from 1956. It is a lovely animation that tells the story of the birth of Jesus, starting with his parents, Mary and Joseph, searching for a place to rest and ending with the visit of the shepherds and the kings. It has a length of 11:25 minutes and the whole short is narrated by a woman in a calm way. It contains beautiful backgrounds with colors like blue, yellow and purple that help to contrast the characters made with black silhouettes. Also the music fits perfectly to the story that is telling, with the company of some angelic voices. At the end of this post I will provide a YouTube link where you can watch it.

Now I may admit that this is the first time I watch Lotte’s animations and I really enjoyed her original storytelling just by the silhouettes! A year ago I had a stop motion class where we made some puppets made with paper as the ones that Lotte uses and I know for sure it is hard to animate with them. Also we must consider that Lotte is having several characters in the same scene so she needs to pay attention to all of them. Jesus’ birth has a lot of different representations and Lotte is putting her style in the way she is telling it. I admire all the little details she put in the puppets.

Thank you as always for reading!

To know more about this short film:

https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/lotte-reiniger-star-bethlehem

To watch this and other short films from Lotte, check this list from YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSS_K7cKq6k&list=PLPs7RbeRHUJTyqYJbwwa66c_9eXXI-7Us&index=3&ab_channel=MariaAnonymidou

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1940's: The Wacky Wabbit

Hello! Now let's talk about the 1940’s with one of the most famous animated characters of all times: Bugs Bunny. Today I want to share with you one of the many episodes from the Looney Tunes: ‘The Wacky Wabbit’ from 1942. It was directed by Bob Clampett, who was famous for always disagreeing with Chuck Jones (a famous director from the Looney Tunes).

The episode starts with Elmer Fudd singing ‘Oh! Susanna’ while he is trying to find gold in the desert. Something interesting is that this is one of the many versions that Elmer went through in order to find the character design that we all know nowadays. When I was watching the episode I was not sure if it was him but when he started saying ‘wabbit’ as Elmer always does to refer to Bugs, I understood it was him. When Bugs sees Elmer, he starts to bother him during the entire episode. At the end, Bugs reveals that he had the gold Elmer was looking for in his tooth. They start to fight each other and Elmer thinks he won the battle because he gets one golden tooth. Of course it was his tooth and not Bugs’.

I liked the episode but I think it was not one of the best short films of Bugs. This famous rabbit was part of my childhood but I had not specifically seen this episode before or at least I do not remember it. About the animation I found some scenes interesting and I went frame by frame through YouTube to see what they did to solve those actions. For example, in the scene where Bugs screams and Elmer gets scared so he starts to climb a cactus, they turned Bug’s head only to the left and center, not right. However, the animation goes so fast and it is not necessary to do the right side. Another scene that I noticed is when Elmer shows Bugs his golden tooth. For some reason, they only animated Bugs’ silhouette and from what I remember it is not common in their short films. And the last thing I noticed is when Elmer is inside the hole and says ‘Here I am!’. When he closes his eyes, we can see some white lines that appear and disappear. I assume that was the plastic acetate that animators used to paint the frames.

In my opinion, the backgrounds that we can see at the short film are very pretty and with the unique style of the Looney Tunes. Also the music helps a lot to exaggerate or express the characters’ emotions. The episode has a duration of 7:32 minutes and can be found on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4xOFGVD4yNI

Thank you for reading as always!

[marianahermosilloblog]

Working with Walt (Book by Don Peri) - 1/2

Hello everyone! Today I bring to you an interesting topic that I am happy to share: the life of 3 of the greatest animators from Walt Disney Animation Studio. But before I introduce them, I would like to explain a couple of things. All this information can be found in a book called “Working with Walt”, written by Don Peri. In it there are 15 interviews with animators that worked with Walt Disney in the beginning of the studio. The truth is that I didn’t know any of them, that is why I chose the first 3 in the book for doing this post. They are: Frank Thomas (1913-2004), Ollie Johnston (1912-2008), and Marc Davis (1913-2000): all born in California, EUA.

The 3 of them are part of the famous Disney's Nine Old Men, which means they were the best of the studio. Something interesting is that Frank and Ollie were best friends. When Frank entered the studio, Ollie followed him. Both started working since Snow White and this movie had a special place in their hearts. Of course, they kept working in at least 15 more 2D animated movies, reaching 45 years of experience. They also wrote together 4 amazing books like “Disney Animation: the illusion of life”. But Marc is not left behind: he participated in the studio since Snow White as an apprentice animator. Besides the movies, he contributed in Disney’s short films and in the design of several Dinseyland’s games. However, his most admirable creations are the character designs from Tinker Bell, Maleficent and Cruella de Vil.

Now I want to share what I felt reading these interesting interviews. First, I became inspired by them: after reading these chapters, I watched Snow White and The 3 Caballeros again. As you may know, I am studying 2D Animation. With the interviews, I realized some things that I saw in the movies this last time that I didn't notice before. All the details take time and have a reason. Also I was amazed by the job they did at Snow White, considering it was the first time they made a project as ambitious as this one. Another thing I would like to mention is that all three were very humble people. I think they were animators you could approach for advice and they knew how difficult it is to get the skills necessary to animate in 2D. Moreover, they were so beloved in their time that even Frank and Ollie have a cameo in The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. I consider that it’s important to know some history in the animation field if you want to be part of the industry and it is something that we sometimes don’t do. I highly recommend this book and my next thing to do is watch the movie “Frank and Ollie”, available on Disney Plus.

Don’t miss next month the second part of this post, where I will talk about the relationship these three had with Walt Disney. Thank you as always for reading this!

The Illusion of Life - Disney Animation Art Book Review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-4O914tOVo&ab_channel=StayfDraws

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The 1930's: Ub Iwerks and Flip the Frog

Hi! Today we will talk about a character that is not very famous but his creator was essential for the development of Walt Disney Animation Studios. That man was Ub Iwerks, an american animator that was partially responsible for Mickey Mouse’s design and other characters from Disney. However, in 1930 he and Walt got into a disagreement and that's why Ub left Disney and he created his own studio. Flip the frog became the main character of Ub’s animations and Fiddlesticks turned into the first animated short film in full color, gaining a certain reputation for it. With the time (because of the budget they had), Flip returns to be a black and white cartoon and several years later Ub goes back to Disney to help in The 3 Caballeros and other projects. He also participated in a couple of episodes from the Looney Tunes.

Now let’s talk about a specific short film from Flip the Frog: Spooks, from 1931. In this episode, Flip and his mule are in the middle of a storm. When they finally find a house, Flip goes in. Suddenly, he realizes that the house is full of skeletons. At first he shares dinner and a dance with them, but while he is dancing one of the skeletons measures him because he wants to have Flip’s skeleton as decoration. When the villain finally captures Flip and is ready to end his life, the frog escapes and leaves the house. At the end, Flip and his mule are running far away from the house as fast as they can, but the mule by surprise becomes a skeleton too. So Flip goes down and runs away from the mule too. In my opinion, this episode is full of funny jokes and interesting details (my favorite character is the skeleton dog). I also admire the way Ub and his team animated the skeletons because of their complex structure! The chapter has sounds, music and a few words that the skeletons and Flip say. Moreover, it is colourless and has the style of the decade.

Thank you for reading! Here you can find the links from the episode and the web page you can learn more about Ub and Flip the Frog:

Flip the frog: Spooks https://youtu.be/v9dDmmBk6po

The Animatorium web page: http://the-animatorium.blogspot.com/2013/03/who-was-flip-frog-on-ub-iwerks.html

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1920s: Felix the cat

Hello again! Today’s post is related to one of the most famous animations of the 1920s: Felix the cat. According to their official website, Felix was created by Otto Messmer, a cartoonist from New Jersey. At first, Felix was only at the newspaper, however, Otto met Joe Oriolo: he brought with him years of experience as an animator, and thanks to him and his love for Felix, the cat became an animated character. During the 1920s and 1930s, over 100 episodes were watched at movie theaters all over the world!

Now I want to talk about a specific episode: The Smoke Scream, from 1928. An old man (maybe Felix’s owner) is smoking with his pipe and his wife doesn’t like that. She is mad the whole episode and throwing her husband’s pipe through the window. Felix is trying to help him by finding new pipes. An accident occurs when the sun starts a fire in the old man’s beard. The rest of the episode is full of chaotic scenes where the man is running and Felix tries to extinguish the fire. This black & white cartoon has a duration of 6:37 minutes and the style is simple. The backgrounds and characters lack shadows or details. The sounds are simple, common at the time, accompanied by a happy song. It can be found on YouTube and Pat Sullivan is presented as the creator/director of the short. Something interesting about Felix as a character is that he is always breaking the rules of the real world and using the elements of the episode the way that he likes, for example, he uses his tail as a hose. Also, I noticed that at the beginning of the episode, while the man is smoking, there is a large space on the right side that is wasted and I think it is one of the things that modern animators try to avoid. Finally, at the end of the episode, the old man is saved by Felix, but the cat catches the fire and starts to run to save his own life and that is how the chapter suddenly finishes.

Thank you for reading! Here you can find the links from the episode and the official Felix the Cat website:

British Pathé. (2014). Felix The Cat - The Smoke Scream (1920-1929) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/YtlHNgExnFo

Felix the Cat. (2012). Felix History. Retrieved from https://felixthecat.com/history.html

[marianahermosilloblog]

Hello everyone! My name is Mariana Hermosillo and today I want to share with you a little bit about myself. I have loved painting and drawing since I was a child. I started going to classes of this since I was 7 years old. Later on, I decided to study a Bachelor Degree in Animation, Digital Art and Multimedia. Now, I want to focus on 2D Animation and Illustration. My inspiration for this are my family, friends and stories! I have always enjoyed watching videos about the process that an animation requires. Furthermore, the feelings and inspiring scenes that characters live have motivated me to make an effort in my day to day. My three favorite animated projects are How to Train your Dragon ( that shows the importance of fighting for the ones we love and what is right), Naruto (where the main character managed to unify a whole country just by being himself and trying hard), and Tom and Jerry (which is a masterpiece that demonstrates the fluency of well-applied animation principles).