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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PDF E-BOOK:
Willard Mullin Dailies Volume 3
New York Daily World-Telegram / 1941-1946
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Willard Mullin wasn’t just the greatest sports cartoonists of his day, he is one of the greatest cartoonists of all time. For RefPack058 Animation Resources has dug deep into its collection of newspaper cartoons to assemble a fantastic e-book packed with incredible images that haven’t been seen in over half a century.
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.
The volunteers of Animation Resources have taken great pains to restore these crumbling scraps of newsprint to their original condition. You won’t find this material anywhere else.
SD VIDEO:
The Milton The Monster Show
Episode 1 / Four Stuffy Durma Shorts 1965
Hal Seeger’s Milton The Monster Show is pretty typical of mid-1960s TV cartoons- nothing much to set it apart from the other shows crowding the Saturday Morning airwaves. But sprinkled in to a few episodes are some real gems. Seeger jobbed out the animation of the Stuffy Durma shorts to the legendary Terry-Toons animator, Jim Tyer. From the look of them, Tyer animated them all by himself. It’s very simple television animation, but it’s full of delightful Tyer touches that raise it up above the other segments in the show.
It’s easy with limited to animation to get carried away with the mechanics of breaking off limbs and mouths and eyes and forget the joy of movement. This is especially true of library based Flash cartoons. With Stuffy Durma, Tyer reminds us of the value of special poses, even ones that only appear on the screen for two frames in fast action. If you are trying to create quick, inexpensive internet cartoons, there isn’t a better group of shorts to study than this.
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SD VIDEO:
Mr. Rossi At Camping
Bruno Bozzetto / Italy / 1970
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Bruno Bozzetto is an Italian animator known for his parody of Fantasia titled Allegro Non Troppo. His other feature films include a superhero parody called VIP My Brother Superman and a spaghetti western parody titled West And Soda. Bozzetto’s work is often satirical and political in nature, championing the common man and lampooning government inefficiency and oppression.
Bozzetto’s most famous character is Signor Rossi, an everyman figure he featured in many animated shorts and three feature films, Mr. Rossi Looks For Happiness, Mr. Rossi’s Dreams, and Mr. Rossi’s Vacation. In the short film we are sharing today, Mr. Rossi takes a camping trip and ends up dangling from a mountain crag.
Bozzetto’s work is not as well known in the United States as it should be, but it is recognized and appreciated across Europe. We think you’ll find a lot to inspire you in Bozzetto’s work.
SD VIDEO:
Two Czech Theatrical Commercials
Adi The Raccoon 1931 / Hannibal In Virgin Forest 1932
Animation Resources’ digital archive recently received a batch of early Czechoslovakian animated films. Among them were these two animated commercials. We tend to think of commercials as being primarily from the television era, but in the 1930s, a great deal of advertising animation was produced for theaters. These two shorts are interesting examples, and they illustrate how influential Disney and Fleischer cartoons were, even in Europe.
The history of animation in Czechoslovakia goes back to the 1920s. I believe the two films we are sharing with you here are by Karel Dodal, who not only produced advertisements (some featuring Felix the Cat), but also puppet and experimental films. The first advertisement, "Adi The Raccoon" looks very much like a contemporary American Mickey Mouse ripoff. The second one, "Hannibal In Virgin Forest" shows the influence of the Fleischer Betty Boop and Bouncing Ball cartoons. The notes that came with these films were sparse and all in the Czech language, so we don’t know much about them. If you have information you can share with us, please drop us a line.
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SD VIDEO:
The Scayrecrow
Ashley Thorpe / UK / 2008
Not too long ago we shared Ashley Thorpe’s feature film, Borley Rectory. Today we share one of the experimental shorts he made leading up to his feature, "The Scayrecrow".
Although on the surface this film sometimes feels like a live action film, it is actually animation, composed and visualized from the ground up. As you watch it, you have to keep reminding yourself that none of this exists in reality. It’s convincing without being overly realistic. Visually, the film is gorgeous with artfully composed shots and effective cinematics. It’s efficient too, with cascading images to make up for low frame rates and animation and live action used for the things they each do best. The collage technique creates an effective mood to put the story across. "The Scayrecrow" is a brilliant example of "thinking outside the box" and if the art of animation is to progress, it needs to push the boundaries of what an animated film can be.
SD VIDEO:
Chingo Muchabei Ep. 18 & 21
Daikichiro Kusube / TMS – A Production / Japan / 1971
Chingo Muchabei is a slapstick comedy series based in 17th century Japan. The titular character is a freelance samurai who peddles umbrellas to support himself. The heir to the lordship of the province, Bokemaru is believed to be dead, but in fact he lives and Chingo Muchabei serves him. Lord Toyotomi discovers that the true heir to his province is alive and sends a bumbling ninja named Kaburezukin to kill him. But Chingo Muchabei foils him at every turn, using his umbrellas as weapons.
The two episodes we are presenting this time involve Sumo Wrestling and a haunted house full of Yokai Monsters, which are themes that always seem to make for good subjects for cartoons. The historical time period isn’t adhered to completely. You’ll see modern ideas thrown in for the sake of gags, and the tone of the show is pretty goofy with lots of fun expressions.
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SD VIDEO:
Play Safe
Monty Banks / 1927
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From a 21st century perspective, we tend to focus on the parts of the past that we know about and assume that is all that there ever was. When it comes to slapstick comedy from the silent era, we think of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, but there were more slapstick clowns worth studying. One of these was Monty Banks.
In the past, we shared Harold Lloyd’s classic thrill comedy Safety Last. Monty Banks worked in the same genre of film making, and Play Safe is a great example. The film follows the basic cinematic structure set by Keaton and Lloyd- establishing a solid story premise up front and gradually building gags up to a big climax involving elaborate stunts. Banks was equally adept at the scenes involving the personality of the character and the big slam-bang finishes. Like Keaton and Lloyd, Banks did most of his own stunts, and at times they were quite dangerous. He became seriously injured when he was dragged over a cliff by a car. There are several sequences in the train chase where a miscalculation could have easily resulted in instant death.
Take some time and analyze the shots and angles and see if you can apply the techniques to your own work… without the risk of death!
HD VIDEO:
More Pickups
Curated By David Eisman
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Animation Resources Board Member David Eisman presents a continuation of the "pickups" theme introduced in Reference Pack 056. There is always more to say about any given topic, and there is an ad-infinitum of possible breakdowns to choose from. While each respective article endeavored to explain the basic structures of important animation concepts, these “pickup” articles will, instead, add addendums that can be used to enhance the reader’s understanding of the formal and informal principles of animation. While it is not necessary to have read the articles from previous reference packs, the context provided will certainly be helpful in understanding the lessons from this article. Nevertheless, basic context and explanations of the concepts will be provided as pretext before analysis of the individual breakdowns. The concepts and principles discussed in this particular article are motion frames, resistance, pans, hand articulation, head turns, and impact.
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As a special thank you to our annual General and Student members, we have created a special page where we will archive past Reference Packs. There will be a new rerun of a complete RefPack between the new ones.
Available to Student and General Members
DVD QUALITY VIDEO:
Momotaro’s Sacred Sailors
Seo Mitsuyo / 1945
In 1939, due to the outbreak of WWII, Japan banned all foreign movies. This provided a boon for the Japanese film business, which stepped into the gap and ramped up production of domestic wartime training films and propaganda. The Japanese Navy contracted with Director Seo Mitsuyo to create a feature length animated film to promote the draft, and give support and encouragement to children whose fathers had been taken up into military service.
However, Momotaro’s Sacred Sailors failed to accomplish its goals. By the time it was completed most Japanese men of age to serve had already been drafted. The movie was finally released immediately following a series of allied bombings that had effectively destroyed movie exhibition in Tokyo. Within a few months, almost nothing remained from the making of the film. Allied bombers had destroyed both the studio building where the film was produced, and the home of the director where thousands of production sketches were being stored. In September, the Japanese surrendered, and a purge was undertaken to destroy all traces of propaganda before the US occupying force arrived. The prints of this film, and many others were shredded and burned. The film was effectively wiped out of existence.
In the years one solitary print of the film lay hidden in the warehouse, while animation in Japan flourished and grew and became an important part of Japanese culture. When the dusty film cans were discovered in the back of a warehouse in 1984, they were restored and exhibited. But this time, instead of being dubbed a creative and commercial failure, Momotaro’s Sacred Sailors was recognized as the first of a long line of Japanese animated features, and as the film that established the animation business in Japan.
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HD QUALITY VIDEO:
“Rhapsody Of Steel”
John Sutherland / 1959
John Sutherland’s studio was very influential in the mid-1950s, employing some of the best designers in the business. This film is no exception. Legendary stylists Eyvind Earle (Sleeping Beauty, Pigs is Pigs) and Maurice Noble (Duck Dodgers, How The Grinch Stole Christmas) collaborated on Rhapsody of Steel, and you can see evidence of both of their hands everywhere in this film. (Earle in the landscapes and textures, Noble in the bold primary and secondary colors…)
Time Magazine said of this film…
Rhapsody of Steel, a 23-minute animated cartoon that cost $300,000, is one of those rare industrial films with enough specific quality and general interest to play the commercial circuits. In the next few months it will be shown as an added attraction in several thousand U.S. movie houses. Made by former Disney Staffer John Sutherland, Rhapsody sets out to tell a sort of child’s history of steel from the first meteor that ever hit the earth to the first manned rocket that leaves it, and most of the time Moviemaker Sutherland proves a slick entertainer and a painless pedagogue. Unhappily, the music of Oscar-Winning Dmitri Tiomkin, who is probably the world’s loudest composer, bangs away on the sound track like a trip hammer. But the picture’s pace is brisk, its tricks of animation are better than cute, and the plug, when the sponsor slips it in on the final frame, is modestly understated: “A presentation of U.S. Steel.”
As always, many thanks to Steve Stanchfield for sharing his treasures with us. If you haven’t already, check out the videos at his Thunderbean Animation Store at Amazon.
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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…
membership@animationresources.org
…and we will credit your membership with the additional time. These bonus downloads expire after June 1st, 2024.
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Whew! That is an amazing collection of treasures! 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.
THIS IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG!
Animation Resources has been sharing treasures from the Animation Archive with its members for over a decade. Every other month, our members get access to a downloadable Reference Pack, full of information, inspiration and animation. The RefPacks consist of e-books jam packed with high resolution scans of great art, still framable animated films from around the world, documentaries, podcasts, seminars and MORE! The best part is that all of this material has been selected and curated by our Board of professionals to aid you in your self study. Our goal is to help you be a greater artist. Why wouldn’t you want to be a member of a group like that?
Membership comes in three levels. General Members get access to a bi-monthly Reference Pack as well as a Bonus RefPack from past offerings in the in-between months. We offer a discounted Student Membership for full time students and educators. And if you want to try out being a member, there is a Quarterly Membership that runs for three months.
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