Archive for the ‘refpack’ Category

Friday, June 9th, 2023

RefPack052: A Peek At The Featured Downloads

People who aren’t members of Animation Resources don’t understand how comprehensive our Reference Packs are. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be posting what each section of our current RefPack looks like, starting today with the Featured section. If you are a member of Animation Resources, click on this post to go to the Members Only page. If you aren’t a member yet, today is the perfect time to join! Our current Reference Pack is one of our best yet, and General and Student Members get access to a special Bonus Archive with even more material from past Reference Packs.

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Reference Pack

Every other month, Animation Resources shares a new Reference Pack with its members. They consist of an e-book packed with high resolution scans and video downloads set up for still frame study. Make sure you download the Reference Pack before it’s updated. When it’s gone, it’s gone!


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REFPACK052: June / July 2023

PDF E-BOOK
Willard Mullin

Willard Mullin Dailies 1941-1946
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New York Daily World-Telegram
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Utagawa HiroshigeTell A FriendBefore the era of live TV broadcasts with instant replay to capture every nuance of the action, low light photography for night games, and long telephoto lenses to capture the plays close up from a long distance, sports fans depended on the newspaper for their daily sports fix. Sports columnists rattled off play by play of the previous day’s games in great detail, and put the scores in context with complex statistics. But those were just words… the fella responsible for putting a face to the facts and figures was the sports cartoonist.

Today, only a tiny handful of sports cartoonists remain working, but in the post-war era, every paper had a great artist who filled the sports pages with caricatures, likenesses of famous figures in the news, and funny gags involving the team mascots. A few years ago, Richard Sandimir wrote in the New York Times…

They blended the skills of a caricaturist and the mind-set of a columnist. They were entertainers and ink-stained jokesters. They were newsroom denizens and deadline artists who churned out five or six cartoons a week that received prominent display. If they possessed power, it was that they drew players, owners and managers in ways that reporters could not with their words. Sports cartoons were usually more amusing and informative than critical, which reflected the times when the sports section was the fun-and-games department.

Willard Mullin

One sports cartoonist stood out above all the rest… Willard Mullin. In his twenties, Mullin worked for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, but in 1934 he joined the staff of the New York World-Telegram where his work was syndicated across the country by the Scripps Howard News Services. He worked there until 1966 when he began drawing cartoons freelance for magazines and ads. He was widely published throughout his half century long career, with cartoons appearing in many publications, such as Colliers, Life magazine and Time, as well as numerous team programs and advertisements.

Mullin produced six cartoons a week, and they were printed large across a full page in the sports section. They usually were centered around the likeness of a famous athelete or a humorous depiction of a team mascot. Mullin was called upon to draw every form of animal as a team mascot, except perhaps elephants and donkeys, which were relegated to the editorial pages. He was famous for creating the character known as the Brooklyn Bum. Sporting a tattered and patched suit of clothes, a stub of a cigar and a big belly, the Bum perfectly represented the rough and tumble Brooklyn Dodgers.

Willard Mullin

Mullin was a genius at depicting the human form in motion. His characters seemed to spring off the page with life and vitality. Mullin’s characters ran the gamut from heroes to everyman characters. His influence extended far beyond the newspaper world to cartoonists like Jack Davis and the Disney animator John Sibley. For animators, Mullin’s sketches are a revelation because they appear to be already in motion. His knowledge of anatomy merged perfectly with the spirit of the action to create gesture drawings of the highest order. Best of all, his drawings are steeped in fun. They encapsulate the spirit of casual camradery shared by all of the sports fans in the bleachers on a sunny afternoon.

Willard Mullin

Between 1947 and 1952, Mullin created a comic book for Spalding which was given away to customers of sporting goods stores. We featured that in an earlier e-book. This time we are presenting daily comics from the 1940s, the absolute peak of Mullin’s career. These fragile scraps of newsprint were crumbling as we scanned them. Parts of the edges on some had chipped away. You’ll notice missing bits, but plenty of wonderful drawings remain intact. If you would like to see more of these, let us know.

REFPACK052: Willard Mullin Vol. 2
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Adobe PDF File / 124 Pages / 692 MB Download


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HD VIDEO:
Allegro Non Troppo

Two Visions Of Prehistoric Times
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Rite Of Spring From Fantasia (Disney/1940) / Bolero From Allegro Non Troppo (1976)

In this Reference Pack we’re sharing two video clips dealing with the same subject from two quite different feature films.

Igor Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” was a bold choice for Walt Disney’s “concert feature” Fantasia. When the work premiered as a ballet in 1913, audience members yelled for the music to stop. The discordant harmonies and primitive rhythms were shocking at the time. But conductor Leopold Stokowski championed the work having conducted its American premiere in 1922, and suggested it to Disney as a good choice for an animated segment. Disney listened to a recording of the piece and immediately thought of prehistoric animals. Stokowski worried that the piece might be too long, but Disney was sure that audiences would remain engaged with the primeval imagery his animation crew would come up with for it. The order of the segments were juggled around, angering Stravinsky, but now it’s hard to think of the music without picturing dinosaurs in your head.

Rite Of Spring

Disney’s sound men and directors performed miracles with Stokowski’s colorful interpretation, breaking down each accent and rhythm and noting them on the timing sheets. When you watch "The Dance of the Adolescents" with its volcanic imagery, notice how precise the music synchronizes to the action. The animators throughout the opening sequences find action to precisely match the smallest details in the music.

With a musical flourish a cloud wipes the screen and we’re underwater with single cell animals darting around. In Snow White, the animators knew that they needed to keep the action of the forest animals relatable to audiences who may never have seen a deer or turtle in person. So when Snow White pets a deer, it raises its head up to her hand to be petted just like a cat. The single cell animals sniff each other and run around in circles just like puppies.

Rite Of Spring

Evolution is half-heartedly referred to with an animal evolving legs, but that isn’t the focus of this version of events. Perhaps it was safer to deal with each age separately, ignoring how they got from one to another to avoid complaints from creationists. But science is still on full display here. From beginning to end the environments and animals look real, not at all like an animated cartoon. Disney’s artists worked with paleontologists and were clearly influenced by the work of Charles Knight, a wildlife artist who worked with the American Museum of Natural History in the early decades of the 20th century to reconstruct the way the prehistoric animal skeletons on display may have looked when they were alive. His murals for Chicago’s Field Museum are extraordinary. If you aren’t familiar with King’s work, you should make a point to look him up online.

Rite Of Spring

The meat of the segment comes in the middle with the dinosaurs. The long necked brontosauruses and swooping pterodactyls set the stage for a dramatic battle between a tyrannosaur and a stegosaurus. Woolie Reitherman animated a great deal of this, and at the time he was a specialist in conveying weight and large scale, having animated the dramatic finale with Monstro the Whale in Pinocchio. He uses live action reference from models in several spots. It’s most obvious when the tail of the stegosaurus drops and each blades droops in perfect perspective one by one. Color and effects of rain and lightning do their part to heighten the drama. The overall impression is overwhelming.

But the end of the sequence seems not as well thought out as the rest. The dinosaurs die in a drought like African gazelles and lions at a dried up water hole. This isn’t at all correct according to science. An ice age put an end to the dinosaurs, not a heat wave. The segment ends with the Earth as a hot barren world devoid of life, and the viewer is left thinking “What about me? What about people?” But the Disney artists concocted their own apocalyptic holocaust to end on a somber note that fits the music, even if it isn’t historically accurate.

Allegro Non Troppo

Three and a half decades after Fantasia was released, Italian animator Bruno Bozetto undertook a feature length parody titled Allegro Non Troppo. The title translates to “Happy, But Not Too Happy” and the film faithfully follows that spirit. Consisting of six animated segments set to classical music, the mood of the film runs the full range of emotions, from light comedy, nostalgia and tragedy to pointed social and religious satire. Bozetto didn’t just illustrate the music the way Disney did, he used it to make a point.

Like Stravinsky’s "Rite Of Spring", Ravel’s "Bolero" was a controversial work at first. Conceived as a short ballet, Ravel pictured it as taking place in front of a factory with powerful machines pounding away in an even tempo. The piece starts quietly with just a flute and strings and repeats the same musical phrases over and over adding a little more of the orchestra with each round, culminating in the whole orchestra roaring out the same melody in the finale. Ravel wanted to see if he could create a work that consisted of the same melody repeated with gradually increasing dynamics. The piece has an unpleasant effect on some people. There’s a famous story about the premiere… After the performance, a woman shouted out that Ravel was mad. Ravel commented that she clearly understood the piece.

Musically, the piece is the exact opposite of Stravinsky’s "Rite". There really aren’t any details of rhythm or orchestration for animators to grab onto, just a lumbering, repetitive beat. But Bozetto grabs onto this beat with both hands and it becomes the heartbeat of the entire piece. Every action, accent and footstep falls on that beat. It propels the entire piece forward as an inevitable progression, which interestingly enough represents evolution much better than Disney’s "Rite" did.

Allegro Non Troppo

Starting out with a satirical gag- life on Earth starts with littering in outer space- the music starts and life emerges from the primeval ooze… or at least from high fructose corn syrup! Bozetto doesn’t just stick to the animals seen in museums, he creates his own creatures. They develop an edge that allows them to flourish for a time, only to be replaced by an animal that develops and even better edge on survival. As the music gradually swells in scale, so do the animals, until a parade of huge dinosaurs march across the landscape. It’s worth noting that the entire segment plays out from left to right. It looks as if Disney’s version might have been planned that way too, shifting to right to left with the entrance of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. But a single insert of the running dinos in the jungle breaks that pattern for some reason.

As the music starts to get frenetic, the parade is struck by a snowstorm, more accurately indicating what killed off the dinosaurs. The work builds in intensity to a climax, revealing the malefactor who is responsible for the destruction of nature. I’m not going to spoil the cartoon by telling you the ending here, but rest assured, it’s a much more meaningful and satisfying ending that Disney’s barren, sun-drenched ball in space ending.

Allegro Non Troppo

There’s no point comparing them to decide which one is “better”. They approach the subject in totally different ways. Disney’s version is more experiential, a lot like a theme park ride. Bozetto’s version has meaning and satirical comment that leaves the audience thinking. Both are great. Take a look at the two films, analyze their techniques, and see what you can find in them.

REFPACK052: Rite Of Spring 1940
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MP4 Video File / HD / 23:19 / 812 MB Download

REFPACK052: Bolero 1976
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MP4 Video File / HD / 16:09 / 1.33 GB Download


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Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month!

Sample RefPack

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Animation Resources is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization dedicated to providing self study material to the worldwide animation community. Every month, we sponsor a program of interest to artists, and every other month, we share a book and up to an hour of rare animation with our members. If you are a creative person interested in the fields of animation, cartooning or illustration, you should be a member of Animation Resources!

It’s easy to join Animation Resources. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…


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Wednesday, June 7th, 2023

RefPack052: Sports, Slapstick, Dinosaurs, Cartoony Music And More!

Reference Pack

Every other month, Animation Resources shares a new Reference Pack with its members. They consist of e-books packed with high resolution scans video downloads of rare animated films set up for still frame study, as well as podcasts and documentaries— all designed to help you become a better artist. Make sure you download this Reference Pack before it’s updated. When it’s gone, it’s gone!


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The latest Animation Resources Reference Pack has been uploaded to the server. Here’s a quick overview of what you’ll find when you log in to the members only page…

PDF E-BOOK
Willard Mullin

Willard Mullin Dailies 1941-1946
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New York Daily World-Telegram
Download this article

Willard Mullin was a genius at depicting the human form in motion. His characters seemed to spring off the page with life and vitality. Mullin’s characters ran the gamut from heroes to everyman characters. His influence extended far beyond the newspaper world to cartoonists like Jack Davis and the Disney animator John Sibley. For animators, Mullin’s sketches are a revelation because they appear to be already in motion. His knowledge of anatomy merged perfectly with the spirit of the action to create gesture drawings of the highest order. Best of all, his drawings are steeped in fun. They encapsulate the spirit of casual camradery shared by all of the sports fans in the bleachers on a sunny afternoon.

HD VIDEO:
Rite Of Spring

Two Visions Of Prehistoric Times
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Rite Of Spring From Fantasia (Disney/1940) / Bolero From Allegro Non Troppo (1976)

From beginning to end the environments and animals in "Rite Of Spring" look real, not at all like an animated cartoon. Disney’s artists worked with paleontologists and were clearly influenced by the work of Charles Knight, a wildlife artist who worked with the American Museum of Natural History in the early decades of the 20th century to reconstruct the way the prehistoric animal skeletons on display may have looked when they were alive. Disney’s animated depiction of this ancient world is experiential, a lot like a theme park ride.

Allegro Non Troppo

Bozetto’s telling of the story of the dinosaurs has meaning and satirical comment that leaves the audience thinking. Starting out with a satirical gag- life on Earth starts with littering in outer space- the music starts and life emerges from the primeval ooze… or at least from high fructose corn syrup! Bozetto doesn’t just stick to the animals seen in museums, he creates his own creatures. They develop an edge that allows them to flourish for a time, only to be replaced by an animal that develops and even better edge on survival. The music propels the entire piece forward as an inevitable progression, which interestingly enough represents evolution much better than Disney’s "Rite" did.


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SD VIDEO:
A Quiet Glade

A Quiet Glade
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Boris Dyozhkin / Soyuzmultfilm, Russia / 1946
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"A Quiet Glade" starts off as a typical three bears cartoon. They look for a quiet place to hang their hammocks and nap, but noisy woodland creatures prevent that. It seems as if Dyozhkin discovered this story was too thin to sustain a whole cartoon, so halfway through, he introduces a soccer game with rabbits. The fast action perfectly suits Dyozhkin’s style of snappy timing, and this sequence established the format for many of his films to follow. Make sure to still frame through this film to break down the timing of the action.

SD VIDEO:
Lotte Reiniger

Silhouetten Opernhaus: Carmen
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Lotte Reiniger / Germany / 1933

Lotte Reiniger is one of the most important figures in the history of animation. She made the oldest surviving animated feature film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, she pioneered the merging of animation and music, and developed a multi-plane camera stand over a decade before anyone in Hollywood built one. This film is a fantastic example of the way Reiniger merged motion and music seamlessly. Her puppets never feel flat or stiff, and their movements never feel limited. In fact, the characters are able to dance, run, jump and act as well as any animated character in any technique of animation.


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SD VIDEO:
The International

Revolt Of The Toys
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Hermina Tyrlova / Czechoslovakia / 1947

Hermina Tyrlova isn’t mentioned often when people refer to female animators, but her impact on the art form in Czechoslovakia was significant. "Revolt Of The Toys" is unique among her work because it combines live action and animation. It’s also unique because of its use of violence. Tyrlova said that she didn’t care for the American style of animation, with its slapstick pratfalls. She preferred to animate characters as objects existing in their own worlds outside of our awareness of them. Her films aren’t overtly political like those of her contemporaries. Instead, they are targeted to children and exhibit a sense of discovery and wonder, rather than gags and action. Even though this film is different from her other work in many ways, it is still an excellent example of her simple, appealing design style and clever stop motion techniques.

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Pies Kot I

Dog, Cat And… Ep 5
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Alina Maliszewska / Studio Miniatur Filmowych, Poland / 1972

In this Reference Pack, we are sharing another short cartoon from a series produced by Studio Miniatur Filmowych, Pies, Kot I… which translates to Dog, Cat And… The episode is titled "Tape Recorder". These cartoons are almost devoid of dialogue with the focus on loose, funny animation. In fact, the drawings are often hilarious on their own, even removed from their context within the gag sequence. The facial expressions are well observed, and the poses employ clear silhouettes that form funny graphic shapes.

SD VIDEO:
Hustle Punch

Hustle Punch
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Curated by JoJo Baptista
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Eps. 1 & 3 / Toei, Yasuji Mori (1965)
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Hustle Punch is a funny animal TV series created by Yasuji Mori, who directed The Little Prince And The Three Headed Dragon, (which we featured in a previous Reference Pack) as well as illustrating children’s books. He was a senior artist at Toei and mentored many animators who went on to do great work, including Hayao Miyazaki (who worked on this series), Isao Takahata, Yasuo Otsuka and Yoichi Kotabe. Mori was responsible for the cute animal designs in several Toei features and Hustle Punch was clearly influenced by the early television cartoons from Hanna-Barbera.


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Harold Lloyd

For Heaven’s Sake
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Sam Taylor / 1926
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In past Reference Packs, we’ve featured Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, but there is another slapstick comedian who deserves mention alongside them… Harold Lloyd. I’m happy to introduce him to you with one of his most action-packed features, "For Heaven’s Sake". You will want to take note of the staging of the scenes. Every one is crystal clear and puts across its point lightning fast. The exposition doesn’t drag because it is full of gags that reveal both the personalities of the characters and their relationships to each other. The comedy builds as the film progresses, culminating in one of the most suspenseful thrill sequences ever put on film. Watch it through once, and then go back through it, analyzing the nuts and bolts that make it work. There’s a lot of great techniques in here for animators willing to take the time to mine it for ideas.

HD VIDEO:
Breakdowns

Impact
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Curated By David Eisman
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Animation Resources Board Member, David Eisman discusses a subject that occurs all the time in animated cartoons… impacts. Impact is the result of an accelerated force coming into contact with a stable form– be it character or object– and then transferring that force to generate some form of reaction. It can be divided into five stages – anticipation, action, point-of-contact, follow-through, and settle. Moreover, impacts can be linked together, wherein the point-of-contact of the initial impact becomes the anticipation of the secondary impact.

AUDIO PODCAST:
Animated Discussions Podcast

Cartoony Music With Skip Heller
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Animated Discussions 011 / Hosted by Davey Jarrell with Stephen Worth and Skip Heller
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Back in 2007 when the Animation Archive was still under the umbrella of ASIFA-Hollywood, Stephen Worth sat down several times with musician Skip Heller to talk about cartoony music for the A-HAA Podcast. Each time, they chose a musician and explained how their music related to cartoons, playing a representative bit of their music. There were five segments altogether and they were a lot of fun. We’ve combined them all into one podcast for Animation Resources members.

Skip Heller is a remarkably versatile musician. He’s performed in every style imaginable. He’s composed for symphony orchestras, played country music and blues in honky tonks, performed in jazz trios and punk bands and did music for both Dexter’s Lab and Flintstones On The Rocks. A true renaissance man with deep roots in the history of his medium, no one knows more about this kind of music than Skip.


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ANNUAL MEMBER BONUS ARCHIVE
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Available to Student and General Members

  • E-BOOK: All The Funny Folks
  • VIDEO: Two Films By Charlie Bowers: "He Done His Best" and "Wild Roomer"
  • VIDEO: Popeye in "Puppet Love"
All The Funny Folks

ANIMATION RESOURCES ANNUAL MEMBERS: Reference Pack 020 is now being rerun and is now available for download. It includes a PDF e-book of high resolution scans of a newspaper all-star jam, two imaginative short films by comedian/animator Charlie Bowers, and a great Popeye cartoon in HD! These downloads will be available until July 1st and after that, they will be deleted from the server. So download them now!

Charlie Bowers

If you are currently on a quarterly membership plan, consider upgrading to an annual membership to get access to our bonus page with even more downloads. If you still have time on you quarterly membership when you upgrade to an annual membership, email us at…

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membership@animationresources.org

…and we will credit your membership with the additional time.

Popeye Puppet Love
Click to access the…

Annual Member Bonus Archive
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Downloads expire after May 1st, 2023


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Whew! That is an amazing collection of treasures! At Animation Resources, our Advisory Board includes great artists and animators like Ralph Bakshi, Will Finn, J.J. Sedelmaier and Sherm Cohen. They’ve let us know the things that they use in their own self study so we can share them with you. That’s experience you just can’t find anywhere else. The most important information isn’t what you already know… It’s the information you should know about, but don’t know yet. We bring that to you every other month.

Haven’t Joined Yet?

Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month!

Sample RefPack

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD A Sample RefPack!

Animation Resources is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization dedicated to providing self study material to the worldwide animation community. If you are a creative person working in animation, cartooning or illustration, you owe it to yourself to be a member of Animation Resources.


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Animation Resources is one of the best kept secrets in the world of cartooning. Every month, we sponsor a program of interest to artists, and every other month, we share a book and up to an hour of rare animation with our members. If you are a creative person interested in the fields of animation, cartooning or illustration, you should be a member of Animation Resources!

It’s easy to join Animation Resources. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…


JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

PayPalAnimationAnimation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.


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Monday, May 29th, 2023

RefPack051: Last Call. Download Now!

Reference Pack

Every other month, Animation Resources shares a new Reference Pack with its members. They consist of e-books packed with high resolution scans video downloads of rare animated films set up for still frame study, as well as podcasts and documentaries— all designed to help you become a better artist. Make sure you download this Reference Pack before it’s updated. When it’s gone, it’s gone!


MEMBERS LOGIN To Download

JOIN TODAY To Access Members Only Content


The latest Animation Resources Reference Pack has been uploaded to the server. Here’s a quick overview of what you’ll find when you log in to the members only page…

PDF E-BOOK
Hiroshige Tokaido Road

53 Stations Of The Tokaido Road
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Utagawa Hiroshige
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Animation Resources is proud to be able to share an e-book featuring the complete collection of one of the masterpieces of Japanese art, Utagawa Hiroshige’s 53 Stations Of The Tokaido Road. Vincent Van Gogh collected prints from this set, and Frank Lloyd Wright described them as "the most valuable contributions ever made to the art of the world." These are not cartoons, designed to be flipped through quickly. The images look deceptively simple at first, but closer examination will reveal amazing details that make the pictures come to life. Each one is a world unto itself.

SD VIDEO:
John Sutherland

It’s Everybody’s Business
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Carl Urbano / John Sutherland Productions / 1954

John Sutherland was a producer of industrial films. His studio maintained high production values thanks to the top artists that worked under him. Carl Urbano directed the film we are sharing here, and Bill Scott and George Gordon were the story artists. The animators on this short include Emery Hawkins, Abe Levitow and Bill Melendez, and the production designer was Maurice Noble. The music is by Les Baxter and Eugene Poddany. That’s a staff that would be the envy of any major animation studio.


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SD VIDEO:
Khitruk Stompy

Stompy
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Fyodor Khitruk / Soyuzmultfilm, Russia / 1964
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In previous Reference Packs, we shared Fyodor Khitruk’s adaptation of A. A. Milne’s stories about Winnie the Pooh. This time, we are sharing one of Khitruk’s early films, "Stompy". Khitruk’s design in this film is brilliant, especially the use of flat areas of color surrounding lush textures. It makes you want to reach out and pet the characters.

SD VIDEO:
Karel Dodal

Mystery Of The MK204 Turning Point
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Karel Dodal / Prague, Czechoslovakia / 1934

In one of our previous Reference Packs, we included two commercials from Czechoslovakia. This time, we feature a very early animated commercial by Karel Dodal. The history of animation in Czechoslovakia goes back to the 1920s. Karel Dodal, not only produced advertisements like this one (some featuring Felix the Cat), but also puppet and experimental films.

SD VIDEO:
The Breakdown

The Breakdown
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Klaus Georgi & Lutz Stutzner / DEFA, East Germany / 1988

Lutz Stutzner was trained as a designer of posters. While attending school in Dresden, he met Otto Muller the head of the DEFA animation studios in East Germany, who encouraged him to apply as a trainee at the studio. He rose to the position of director and teamed with Klaus Georgi who had helped to establish the animation division at DEFA. Georgi directed over 80 animated films in a variety of techniques: cel animation, cut outs, silhouette and puppet animation. When the Berlin Wall fell, many of the state owned businesses were liquidated, including DEFA. Lutz Stutzner was instrumental in organizing efforts to rescue important artifacts and film elements from East German film studios from being dispersed.


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SD VIDEO:
Professor Balthazar

Professor Balthazar in "The Rise And Fall Of Horatio"
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Zlatko Grgic / Zagreb Films, Croatia / 1967

In a previous Reference Pack we featured several Maxi-Cat mini-cartoons by Zlatko Grgic, a Croatian animator who later emigrated to Canada to join the Canadian Film Board. Grgic is best known for his series of cartoons featuring the character Professor Balthazar, an old man who solves problems for his friends by creating inventions with a magical machine. Produced between 1967 and 1973, the series ran all over the world. Its silent pantomime with voice over narration made it easy to translate to other countries It aired everywhere from New Zealand to Romania to Zimbabwe. In the United States it was featured on Chuck Jones’ television program, Curiosity Shop.

SD VIDEO:
Big X

Big X
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Curated by JoJo Baptista
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Eps. 41 & 50 / TMS, Osamu Tezuka (1964)
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Big X was created by Osamu Tezuka, and it was the first television series produced by TMS (Tokyo Movie Shinsha). It debuted on August 3rd, 1964 and 59 episodes were made, of which 22 survive. This early series breaks a lot of rules, from wildly off model poses to crazy perspective in the backgrounds to strange exaggerated movement. The artists were experimenting and learning as they went. The results are pretty rough, but they manage to make a fun and entertaining show, even with all the mistakes.


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SD VIDEO:
Hans Richter

Four Films By Hans Richter
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Rhythmus 21 (1921) / Ghosts For Breakfast (1927)
Hans Richter
Inflation (1928) / Race Symphony (1928)

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Our Sidetracks section features a pioneer of abstract filmmaking this time. Although Hans Richter may not be as well known as Salvador Dali, Piet Mondrian or Marcel Duchamp, he occupies as important a role in the history of the Dadaist and abstract movements in art. Between WWI and WWII, he explored abstraction as well as film making. In fact, his experimental film, "Rhytmus 21" was one of the very first abstract animated films. We’re sharing several of his major films, along with an interview done with Richter in 1972. These films may look primitive and technically crude today, but at the time they were made, they were groundbreaking. There was no precedent for these techniques. Throughout his life, Richter was a catalyst, always on the forefront facilitating revolutionary changes in art.

HD VIDEO:
Trucks and Pans

Trucks & Pans
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Curated By David Eisman
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Animation Resources Board Member, David Eisman discusses a subject you might not have thought about seriously before… trucks and pans. The truck, in essence, is the movement of a camera inward or outward. The pan is the movement of a camera from side-to-side, either left to right or right to left. In live action these camera moves are pretty straightforward, but they are more complicated in hand drawn animated films.


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ANNUAL MEMBER BONUS ARCHIVE
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Available to Student and General Members
  • E-BOOK: Arthur Rackham – Rip Van Winkle & Grimm’s Fairy Tales
  • VIDEO: Three Early Betty Boop Cartoons – Dizzy Dishes / Barnacle Bill / The Bum Bandit
  • VIDEO: Five Films By Norman McLaren – Mail Early / Hen Hop / Fiddle De Dee / Begone Dull Care / Blinkety Blank
Arthur Rackham

ANIMATION RESOURCES ANNUAL MEMBERS: Reference Pack 019 is now being rerun and is now available for download. It includes a PDF e-book of high resolution scans of illustrations by Arthur Rackham, three of the earliest Betty Boop cartoons, and a handful of films by the revolutionary animator Norman McLaren! These downloads will be available until May 1st and after that, they will be deleted from the server. So download them now!

Early Betty Boop

If you are currently on a quarterly membership plan, consider upgrading to an annual membership to get access to our bonus page with even more downloads. If you still have time on you quarterly membership when you upgrade to an annual membership, email us at…

Download Page
membership@animationresources.org

…and we will credit your membership with the additional time.

Norman McLaren

Click to access the…

Annual Member Bonus Archive
Download Page
Downloads expire after May 1st, 2023


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Whew! That is an amazing collection of treasures! At Animation Resources, our Advisory Board includes great artists and animators like Ralph Bakshi, Will Finn, J.J. Sedelmaier and Sherm Cohen. They’ve let us know the things that they use in their own self study so we can share them with you. That’s experience you just can’t find anywhere else. The most important information isn’t what you already know… It’s the information you should know about, but don’t know yet. We bring that to you every other month.

Haven’t Joined Yet?

Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month!

Sample RefPack

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD A Sample RefPack!

Animation Resources is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization dedicated to providing self study material to the worldwide animation community. If you are a creative person working in animation, cartooning or illustration, you owe it to yourself to be a member of Animation Resources.


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Animation Resources is one of the best kept secrets in the world of cartooning. Every month, we sponsor a program of interest to artists, and every other month, we share a book and up to an hour of rare animation with our members. If you are a creative person interested in the fields of animation, cartooning or illustration, you should be a member of Animation Resources!

It’s easy to join Animation Resources. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…


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https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

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