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
Willy Pogany’s Mother Goose
1928
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Willy Pogany is best known for his work on illustrated book adaptations of Richard Wagner’s operas, Lohengrin, Parsifal and Tannhauser, as well as a book of Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In 1929, Pogany designed a book of Mother Goose rhymes for children. Heavily influenced by Art Deco, this edition is unique in several ways. Pogany didn’t utilize standard text blocks. All of the rhymes are hand lettered and laid out on the page in imaginative ways that accent the rhythms and illustrations.
Two Early Van Beuren Cartoons
Summer Time 1929 / The Office Boy 1930
Van Beuren cartoons are among the most misunderstood animated shorts from the golden age of animation. Armchair animation historians tend to have a certain set of criteria they judge by— either the polish and production values of Disney, or the carefully constructed gags of Tex Avery at Warner Bros and MGM. If you judge like that, Van Beuren cartoons fall far short, but that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to learn from these films. The secret to their success is the fun and freedom the artists had making them.
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Twelve Months
Ivan Petrovich Ivanov-Vano / Soyuzmultfilm, Russia / 1956
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This time Animation Resources shares another rare Russian animated feature, The Twelve Months. The quality of the animation in this film is every bit as good as what Disney was producing at the time. The animators at Soyuzmultfilm were masters at blending rotoscope footage and animation techniques to create realistic and nuanced acting and action. You won’t want to miss this one!
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Snowy Roads
Boris Dyozhkin / Soyuzmultfilm, Russia / 1963
In previous Reference Packs, we’ve featured the work of Boris Dyozhkin, and this time we are sharing one of his most brilliant films, "Snowy Roads." This film is a masterpiece of musical timing. Notice how the movement perfectly mirrors the rhythms in the music. Dyozhkin really gets the most out of the simple character designs by focusing on strong line of action, clear silhouettes and big contrasts. It’s a very appealing style of animation that seems much more modern than its six decade age.
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Two Czech Commercials
Johnnie Loves It Clean 1932 / The Unforgettable Poster 1937
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 examples are interesting examples, and the illustrate how influential Disney and Fleischer cartoons were, even in Europe. 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.
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Professor Balthazar in "Lighthouse Keeping"
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.
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Golden Bat
Curated by JoJo Baptista
Ep.16 / Ep.39 (1967)
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The character of Golden Bat goes as far back as 1930, and is, by some, considered to be the first superhero. He was created by Suzuki Ichiro and Takeo Nagamatsu, who named the character after a popular cigarette brand of the time. The character first appeared in "paper theater", a form of entertainment similar to a Punch and Judy show, but in 1967, it made the transition to television animation. There isn’t a lot of filler in this series. It’s wall to wall action most of the time. Golden Bat’s maniacal laughter is infectious. This series delivers exactly what kids in the 1960s wanted… giant monsters, superheroes, robots, evil villains and tons of stuff exploding into bits. Enjoy!
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HD VIDEO:
Decasia
Bill Morrison 2002
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In this RefPack, we introduce a new section, Sidetracks. Inspiration for animated films doesn’t just come from other animated films. A lot can be gained from exposing yourself to music, dance, live action cinema and fine art. Even architecture can be a useful area to study. This time we are sharing a film that uses the decay of film as its subject matter, Decasia by Bill Morrison. This film is a collage of bits of silent films that show the ravages of time on nitrate film stock. As such, it acts as a symbol of our own all too human mortality. In the past we’ve shared experimental films by Len Lye and Norman McLaren that were created by adding abstract shapes to the surface of a strip of film. These rotting fragments accomplish much the same thing naturally without human intervention.
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More Morphs
Curated By David Eisman
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Animation Resources Board Member, David Eisman elaborates further on a subject he explored in a previous RefPack, morphs. Morphs are a broad and varied technique that houses multiple distinct subcategories. Nevertheless, it is necessary for the animator to understand each of these subcategories, if not be able to replicate the techniques in original work. Moreover, in order to successfully implement morphs, it is imperative to fully comprehend Line Efficiency and how the informal principle informs the difficulty and feasibility of the techniques in question.
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BONUS DOWNLOADS:
Annual Member Bonus Archive
Available to Student and General Members
ANIMATION RESOURCES ANNUAL MEMBERS: Reference Pack 017 is now being rerun and is now available for download. It includes a PDF e-book of rare sports cartoons by Willard Mullin, two Cinemascope cartoons in their original aspect ratio (and high definition!) and a half hour of rare paper puppet films by Lotte Reiniger. These downloads will be available until December and after that, they will be deleted from the server. So download them now!
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Annual Member Bonus Archive
Downloads expire after January 2022
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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.
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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!
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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. 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!
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by 
Clair Weeks was born in India, the son of a Methodist missionary- a source of humor for his co-workers at Disney. (See caricature, right.) He spent 16 years at the Disney Studios, working on Snow White, Bambi and Peter Pan. In 1956, Weeks travelled to Bombay, India on the invitation of Information Films of India to set up and train the country’s first animation studio as part of the American Technical Co-Operation Mission. What started as a one year project expanded into almost a decade of service abroad working for the US Agency for International Development. Weeks toured Southeast Asia and headed up a communitactions office in Katmandu, Nepal. He made films and audio-visual programs that aided in the social development and economic growth of third world countries.
