Category Archives: Animation

Beauty and the Beast: Russian Animation

by Cimaxion

20140330-095433.jpg

This is a 1952 Soviet film adaptation of a variation on the Beauty and the Beast story called 'The Scarlet Flower', written by Sergey Aksakov in 1858. This story focuses much more on the bargain made between the unseen beast and the girl's father when he touches the scarlet flower on the magical island that is the beast's home than in the versions most American audiences are familiar with..

The animation technique in use here is called rotoscoping. Actors were filmed in costume doing their character movements, then traced frame-by-frame to create what was supposed to be a more realistic animation. In fact, rotoscoping often produces a curiously lifeless movement in conflict with the more fantastic backgrounds.

 

The Meeting: 1984 Science Fiction Animation from Ukraine

by Cimaxion

TheMeeting

This is an extraordinary 1984 science fiction animation from the Soviet era Ukrainian film studio known as Kievnauchfilm. Aliens visit the earth to investigate whether humans have any knowledge of the reality behind UFOs.

Here’s a link to another animation from this studio. Stephen King’s ‘Battleground’ short story.

 

Stephen King’s ‘Battleground’ Short Story Animated in Soviet Era Ukraine

by Cimaxion

Battleground

This is a 1986 adaptation of a Stephen King short story called ‘Battleground.’ It was produced by the Soviet Ukrainian Kievnauchfilm studio, which was primarily a documentary outfit during the Soviet era. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the studio became the National Cinematheque of Ukraine.

The story concerns a seemingly innocuous package that turns out to contain an invading force of toy soldiers. One man wages a battle for survival against what he assumes is an inferior opponent.

 

 

The Magnificent and Mysterious Animations of Myrrha Jamil

by Cimaxion

Jamil1

The beautiful animations of Myrrha Jamil evoke dreamscapes of ever-shifting fairytale realities in which people and animals come from the earth, briefly drift, and return to nature like wisps. The drawings are done with chalk, watercolor and oil paints. She sometimes photographs her films with a vertical frame, making her little magical world seem barely glimpsed through a keyhole. There’s a mystical quality to these films. They are like messages from the fairy world.

This is work in the creative realm of filmmakers like Yuri Norstein, where the vague impressions and delicate renderings of nature and the subconscious are paramount. Myrrha Jamil is a profoundly talented and obviously brilliant filmmaker.

The Little Ones Who Grow in the Rain from Myrrha Jamil on Vimeo.

A Lullaby from Myrrha Jamil on Vimeo.

Egretta from Myrrha Jamil on Vimeo.

Chalk Boat from Myrrha Jamil on Vimeo.

Jamil2

Our Lady of the Sphere: 1969 Experimental Collage Film by Lawrence Jordan

by Cimaxion

LadyOfSphere

Lawrence Jordan began his filmmaking career by learning from and working with the great artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell. This is a 1972 film that is a mysterious trip through a subconscious world of imagery that suggests hidden communications and magic behind observable reality. His technique is mainly focused on using cutout illustration collages. I like his work because it leaves things unsaid, unexplained and it does not work too hard at being funny.

You can watch a lot of Jordan’s films at Mubi and read more about his life and work.

Paperman: Disney’s Oscar-Nominated Short

by Cimaxion

Paperman is Disney's Oscar-nominated short animation for this year. Apparently animated with 3D software mimicking the hand-drawn look, it tells the story of an office worker trying to catch the attention of a woman by tossing paper airplanes from one New York skyscraper to another. The film is an example of that way Disney has always had of lending extreme curvature to all form and motion. Disney never moves things across a screen. They sweep them across. I enjoy hand-drawn styles even when they are not hand-drawn at all! Somehow it defeats the plastic look of so much computer animation. The story here is simple and sweet.

This film reminds me of a game I played near the top of a Wall Street building once back in the nineties. We opened a window and tried to hit a building one block away with various paper airplanes. There was a wind current making it possible to get very close to the other building, but invariably the little planes would veer off and go around the building without ever making the expected contact. So I sympathize with this cartoon character's seemingly useless efforts.

 

There Will Come Soft Rains: Ray Bradbury Machinima Film

by Cimaxion

Ray Diaz made this machinima version of Ray Bradbury's 1952 short story about an automated house continuing on with its comfort duties for a nuclear family even after war has stripped the earth of all life. It's a simple and eerie little film. The soundtrack is provided by an NBC radio broadcast dramatization of the story.


There will come soft rains from Ray Diaz on Vimeo.

 

A Country Doctor: Film by Koji Yamamura

by Cimaxion

Japanese animator Koji Yamamura made this 2007 animated version of Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor. The hallucinatory tale involves a doctor who is apparently deceived into traveling through a winter night to treat a seriously ill young man. Nightmare distortion and time warping comes into play as the film seems almost to place us inside the head of this befuddled doctor who may himself be the diseased party in all of this. Beautiful hand-drawn art and a deep, mysterious soundtrack make this a brilliant Kafka film.

 

Via Open Culture

 

A Year in Full Colour – Moleskine Planners

by Cimaxion

Graphic motion designer Rogier Wieland made this clever stop-motion film with 382 Moleskine notebooks. In a time when crinkly, tearable, erasable, cuttable, burnable paper is becoming an object of desire, a film like this makes me want to ditch my iPad and head out into the world taking notes.
 
 

Grand Central: Animation by Fred Aujas

by Cimaxion

Okay, I have no idea what this is but it was submitted to my Vimeo short films group and I like it. It has a goofy look and it just makes me laugh even though it’s in French. It actually appears to be the work of a graphic designer named Fred Aujas. Here is how his web site describes this little film:

Outrageously Ferocious and vulgar !
A trashy animated series worthy of the great grindhouse films of the 70s.

I mean seriously this thing should just go straight through to a full-blown TV series. Right now.

The artist has a very cool web site.

Toc Toc… Toc: 1965 Animation by Luis Bras

by Cimaxion

Here is an interesting character from Argentina who was a graphic arts professor and advertising agency designer. After getting hold of a 16mm film camera, he began teaching himself to animate by watching Disney movies. In the early sixties he met pioneering experimental animator Norman McLaren and upon seeing his work began his serious experimental career with direct painting and scratching on film emulsion.
 
Toc Toc… Toc features scratching and painting on film timed to a soundtrack consisting of a pencil hitting a tabletop.
 
Here are some of the Argentine television commercials that Bras worked on.