TEST PREPARATION

SLIDES TO FOCUS ON
 Parlour Toys and the Illusion of Movement
The praxinoscope (1877), zoetrope (1834), and the “Persistence of Vision”

The rst devices that reconstituted the illusion of continuous movement from a series of still images, were with toys in the mid-1800s. This video playing is a device called
a praxinoscope. These devices rely on a phenomenon called the “persistent of vision”. When several still images are played back in succession at a certain rate, our
brains connect the sequence of frames, such that the illusion of movement is created. It works because an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one twenty-
fth of a second on the retina of the eye.
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 Pre-cinematic theatrical special effects
Emile Reynaud’s Théatre Optique - 1888

These parlour toys were handheld, but magic lantern shows were popular in large theatres, and Emile Reynaud had the idea to combine both technologies—the
praxinoscope and the magic lantern—to share animation in a theatrical context. The device used a band of hand-painted images on a exible, clear base, similar to the
rst lm stock. However, these were illustrated images, not photographed.
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 Animation on the vaudeville stage
J. Stuart Blackton: “Lighting sketch” artist
“The Enchanted Drawing” (1900) and “The Humorous Phases of Funny Faces” (1906)

This is also the context out of which drawn animation arises - the lightning sketch was initially a live stage trick - essentially a very fast drawing. Here, they combine the
lightning sketch with cinematic tricks such as the kind of temporal ellipsis that Méliès was using.

The Enchanted Drawing is not quite frame-by-frame animation yet. You see the performer, or the artist interacting with the drawing, which is a theme that continues for
quite a while in early animation. In “The Humorous Phases of Funny Faces”, made 6 years later, he took it a step further and stopped the camera one frame at a time
during the drawing process, and also incorporated stop-motion cut-out elements. That’s de nitely animation!
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 The birth of character animation
Winsor McCay’s “Gertie the Dinosaur”,1914

Winsor McCay’s work is instrumental in introducing the cartoon style and characters with expressive personalities to animation. He was a newspaper cartoonist and
illustrator who performed “lightning sketches” as a live stage act in the vaudeville circuit. Like J. Stuart Blackton, and many others, he incorporated cinema into his stage
acts.

“Gertie the Dinosaur” was originally an animated lm played in conjunction with a live performance, were Winsor McCay appeared onstage in front of the screen while the
lm was projected. His actions are rehearsed and timed to synchronize with the image. At one point, he walks behind the screen and then has an animated version of
himself appear with Gertie in the world of the lm. The version we are going to watch has a live action framing narrative added to it. This enabled the lm to travel and be
shown without McCay himself present to perform with it.

This lm is an early indication of the developing trend toward expressive, hand-drawn characters in animation.
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 Ladislaw Starevich, The Cameraman’s Revenge, 1912
(Excerpt)

Eastern Europe also has a long history of animation. This is one of the earliest instances of something like puppet animation at a miniature scale. Starevich used real
insects for this. He actually embedded wire armatures inside dead bugs, built small sets, and animated this elaborate 13 minute narrative about in delity. We’ll just watch
a clip.

Synopsis: The dragon y is cheating on the grasshopper with the beetle and the grasshopper is going to lm them and publicly expose their a air out of jealousy.
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 Cel animation (Cel
short for “celluloid”)
Patented by Randolph Bray
and Earl Hurd, 1915

An even better system was the cel animation system, which became used for decades after. You can still use it today (see Kate Renshaw-Lewis’s Belly Talkers (2022)
https://www.katerl.info/bellytalkers. )

Clear plastic sheets, painted with the foreground action, are photographed over static backgrounds. This was rst patented by Randolph Bray and Earl Hurd. Bray owned
the studio. Hurd would go on to work for Disney.

The Bray Studio was a high-volume producing commercial studio in NYC that eventually absorbed some of the rights to the content of IFS when IFS folded. Bray
employed Max and Dave Fleischer, who we will devote an entire week to. He also employed Pat Sullivan and Paul Terry, the next two people we will talk about.

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 The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Lotte Reiniger, 1926)
This Wednesday’s Screening: The earliest surviving feature-length animation

LOTTE REINIGER emerges out of the Weimar Republic period of Germany, which had some brief years of ourishing in the late 20s. She was socially if not artistically
aligned with the avant-garde Berlin scene, which was progressive in terms of perceptions of gender and sexuality.

She made lms using intricate paper cut-outs, which was a craft tradition associated with feminine domestic crafts. Her short lms screened to great acclaim and her
feature lm, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, screened at the prestigious Cannes lm festival. It is the earliest surviving feature animated lm. (There was apparently a
feature made in 1917 in Argentina, but no copies survive.)

The lm is loosely based on stories from the Arabian Nights, which is a vast and diverse collection of very old Middle-Eastern folktales. This collection was translated for
European audiences during the Victorian Era. (The 1992 Disney lm Aladdin is also based on one of these stories.) It is not a direct interpretation of any of the speci c
stories from Arabian Nights, it’s her own construction based on elements and characters from the tales. Reiniger was drawn to interpreting the narratives of fairy tales,
folk tales, and operas, and her artwork was ornate and detailed.
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 Disney in the 1930s
Hollywood is dominated by the “Big Five” (MGM, Paramount, Warner
Bros., Fox, and RKO) and “Little Three” (Universal, Columbia, and
United Artists) production companies.

Hays Production Code is instituted in 1930 and runs to 1968. This set of
policies censors depictions of “immoral” behaviour was a response to
conservative criticism of the lm industry. It restricts what can be shown
on screen and impacts representations of gender and sexuality.

Great Depression follows the stock market crash but doesn’t e ect
Disney Studios because they didn’t have any investments. (They re-
invested all pro t into their studio.)

Disney’s fame and success rose signi cantly throughout the 30’s largely due to the popularity of the Mickey Mouse shorts series and the Silly Symphonies shorts.

At the time, Hollywood was dominated by the “Big Five” and “Little Three” production companies. Some of these companies contracted animation studios to produce
shorts to precede their features. Disney would be contracted by United Artists and RKO, and he would ultimately become motivated to create a feature in order to access
the nancial gains that were more possible with features than shorts.

It is important to note that the Hays production code post 1930 begins to impact the content of all of the lms in general distribution. We can see decisions around
propriety in the animation of the period too. Cartoons were not exempt from the conservative moral standards.

Disney, in some ways, actually bene ted from the great depression, because some of the economic initiatives to address unemployment included arts training, and
produced a lot of new animators looking for work. His studio grew in size to about 200 animators in the early 30s.
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 “Disney-style” animation
1. Squash and stretch, or exaggerating a character’s 7. Arcs, or the visual path of motion from one
body movements while still acknowledging extreme pose to another
volume and weight

2. Anticipation, or staging a character’s movement 8. Secondary action, a less prominent action

to suggest what it’s going to do next that emphasizes the primary one

3. Staging, in order to present an idea so that 9. Timing, or the speed of movements

it is readily understood
10. Exaggeration, going beyond the limits of reality
4. Straight ahead action and pose to pose, as two
approaches to creating movement for emphasis and/or humor

5. Follow through and overlapping action, two 11. Solid drawing, respecting the weight, volume,
embellishments on the main action and illusion of three-dimensional space
6. Slow in and slow out, acknowledging the effects 12. Appeal, developing charismatic characters.
of gravity and momentum on a movement

The 12 principles of animation came into practice during this time. They revolve around a kind of naturalistic, believable character animation. These are still taught to this
day in animation training. A sense of real-world gravity and a higher degree of illusionism results from the use of these principles. It’s not a mimicry of reality: live action
lm can do that. It’s more an enhancement of reality.

In "rubber hose" animation, when the shape of a gure or an object changed, so would its volume, as if it were made of rubber. There was no consideration of gravity or
weight. This bothered Walt. He felt that the lack of realism compromised the psychological and emotional reality of the characters and snapped the emotional bond to the
viewer.” As Walt began to bear down a little bit on making his characters believable," Jackson said, "all this [rubber hose] had
to go." Now gravity entered the cartoon world for the rst time, and so did "secondary actions," or the response of things like hair and clothes and leaves to gravity. Prior
to Disney, Dick Huemer recalled, "[n]o one thought of clothing following through, sweeping out, and dropping a few frames later, which is what it does naturally." At the
Disney studio, everyone began to think of these things, and the force of gravity became an obsession. Among the many signs that hung on the animators' walls was one
that read: "Does your drawing have weight, depth and balance? (Gabler)
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Silly Symphonies
Flowers and Trees (1932)

First animation in Technicolor.

Disney had a contract with
Technicolor for a year so that
no one else could compete
by using it. It was a far
superior colour process.

Won an Academy Award.

 Silly Symphonies
The Three Little Pigs (1933)

The pig characters have more distinct

personalities than had been seen before.

The song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad

Wolf” became very popular.

Seen as a parable of su ering and

triumph in relation to the Great
Depression.

Won an Academy Award

“Wrung out by the Depression and bolstered by the new president, the nation seemed to convert the cartoon of two carefree but shortsighted pigs and their hard-
working, far-sighted brother into a parable of su ering (the wolf as economic adversity) and triumph (the industrious little pig as the embodiment of President Roosevelt's
New Deal that promised the country relief)…” (Gabler)

On how pervasive the “Big Bad Wolf” song was at the time:
“It bursts out at you in almost every lm theater; the radio hurls it in your direction; try to escape from it by adjourning to a
speakeasy and some unfortunate alcoholic will begin to sing it at you; you pick up a paper for relief and you will nd it shrieking out at you in a cartoon on the editorial
page. At teas, otherwise harmless men and women will suddenly burst, either coyly or determinedly, into its unceasing strains or its coy lyrics. Go to the theater and you
will nd it played by the orchestra in the intermission, while the handsomely clad men and women about town in the audience join merrily in humming it, just to show you
that they are dashing sophisticates.” (Gabler)
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Silly Symphonies
The Old Mill (1937)

Introduced the use of the

multiplane camera to
create a sense of depth
within the cel animation.
Backgrounds will appear to
have more dimension now.
 Silly Symphonies
Skeleton Dance (1929)

Example of the rubber-hose style,

and the work of Ub Iwerks who
played a big role at the studio for
the rst few years.

Demonstrates the way music was

more customized to the animation.
Disney hired composers and had
scores written for the pictures
rather than licensing music.

Silly Symphonies were being produced at the same time and were a space for technical innovations.

I’m going to brie y introduce each of the Silly Symphonies that we are going to watch today and mention a few things about each one that are important.

The rst thing other than animation that the Disney studio merchandized was sheet music.
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 The Multiplane Camera

In this clip, you’ll see Walt Disney himself, learn how the multiplane camera works, and see what cel animation looks like. They use The Old Mill as an example.
 Disney’s first feature film
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937)

Disney had his eyes set on making a feature because other American animation studios weren’t doing it, and he was going to do it in colour, which was still very rare and
expensive. Most lms were still black and white at that time. The use of the multiplane camera also added depth to the scenes. You will see the Disney style of hyper-
realism, exaggerated naturalistic movement. For this lm, a real actress was hired to create lm references for Snow White, so that animators would be able to animate
her motion in a more consistent way, and a more believable way. It’s not rotoscoping, but they are doing frame-by-frame analysis of her motion. It’s the rst time they
hired someone to create custom reference footage this way and its a practice that continued for decades.

This is also the start of a long string of Disney princesses which establish a set of gender roles that remain in Disney lms for decades to come. A pure, innocent, fairly
passive or oppressed princess gure awaits a brave prince to rescue her. It’s an archetype. Contrasting this archetype is that of the threatening middle-aged woman,
usually attractive and powerful but mean, a step-mother gure, queen, etc. And of course, the hag or the witch.

“Interestingly, in each of these lms there is also an independent and powerful woman character; she is the villain. She is cunning and older than the heroine, usually in
her 40s” (Perea)

“the caricature and melodramatics of the femme fatale are iconic and congruous cinematic codes that inscribe middle age as a time of treachery, consumption, and
danger in the feminine life cycle.” (Perea)

Hays code moral conservatism a ected the style: While they used reference footage of a real actress for snow white and the prince, the dwarves are far more caricatured
humans. An unmarried woman alone in a house with seven men may not have made it past the censorship board, so they had to make them desexualized and more
creature-like.
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 Rotoscoping
Max Fleischer, rst used in 1915

• Image Left: Rotoscope patent; Image Right: First rotoscope of Koko the Clown

The Fleischer Studio is known for having patented rotoscoping, a process by which the animator traces live-action footage to get more realistic movement. On the right
you see Dave Fleischer in a clown suit, which was the rst experiment Max Fleischer conducted using rotoscoping.
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 Representation of African American Performances
This week’s reading: Christopher P. Lehmen, “African American
Representation through the Combination of Live Action and
Animation”

• Image: Jazz musician Cab Calloway, rotoscoped subject in the Fleischer films Minnie the Moocher and Snow-White

The book chapter we are reading this week notes that male-female romances or sexualized interactions of any kind across racial divides were socially taboo, due to the
culture of racial segregation at the time. The author makes the case that the Fleischer studio used the cartoon versions of the African American characters they were
depicting to irt with this boundary, and that with the stricter enforcement of the hays code after 1933, these kinds of depictions ended.

The author notes that during a time when jazz performances and the music of African American artists was a popular subject for animated lms, the Fleischer was the
only studio to include live-action imagery of the performers in the cartoon, often at the beginning of the sequence. They famously rotoscoped Cab Calloway’s distinctive
danced movements in two of their shorts which we will watch: Snow-White and Minnie the Moocher.
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 Rotoscoping
Cab Calloway’s performance

• Image Left: Rotoscoped Koko the Clown in Betty Boop Snow White (1933); Right: Source performance by Cab Calloway

Here is Koko playing Cab Calloway. In Minnie the Moocher they show him performing his unique dance moves at the beginning of the lm so that we recognize it in the
cartoon. But the cartoon world and the live-action world don’t overlap in this one—the live-action action is a prelude to the animation.

These lms are characteristic of the Fleischer style of the time, involving essentially music promotion, or a kind of proto-music video, in each one. Narrative continuity is
not important at all, and the lm becomes an illustration to accompany a song.
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Minnie the Moocher, 1932, starring Cab Calloway.

Note that her parents are immigrants with accents in this narrative (German?).
Snow-White, 1933, also featuring the music of Cab Calloway.
 This week’s reading: Christopher P. Lehmen, “African American
Representation through the Combination of Live Action and
Animation”

“Several of their gags poked fun at African Americans, which meant that
African American representation in animated form had little to do with the
ethnic group’s experiences and more to do with how European Americans
responded to them.”

To be sure, the medium of animation has a foundation of caricature

For a clearer explanation of what caricature is and why it is harmful:

“African American caricature, especially blackface, was a necessity to the early commercial cartoon studio. A studio contracted to animate a cartoon on a weekly basis
had to simplify character designs as much as possible in order for artists to draw multiple pictures of gures and their “movements.” As a result, many animators drew
their characters with jet- black bodies, large eyeballs to more easily animate expression, and large mouths to more easily animate dialogue. To be sure, the medium of
animation has a foundation of caricature.” (Lehmen)

Because these studios were not hiring African American animators, the representation was coming from an outside perspective that was alienating.

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 “Political Animation and Propaganda” by Eric Herhuth
• Caricature breaks with the norms of representation through exaggeration, dissolves
the sanctity of the image, rendering it more vulnerable to critique

• Propaganda has a connotation of being irrational, and perpetuating confusion and

myth

• Animation was used as a tool for political propaganda during World War II and many
government-commissioned animations of the period used caricature to influence public
opinion of nations in conflict

• The US War Department under President Franklin D. Roosevelt commissioned Warner

Brothers and Disney to produce propaganda films that influenced public options
against the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan)

• The Japanese Naval Ministry commissioned the first feature-length cel animation to
influence children to support Japanese imperialism under Emperor Showa (Hirohito)

In this period of history, the 1940s, animation was used as a vehicle for political propaganda. It was a time of great global con ict, with the second world war.
Governments established departments speci cally to fund the production of short animations that whose purpose was to shape ideology in a way that would support the
interests of the country. Nations who were members of the Axis Powers as well as the Allies both did this. Nazi Germany focused more on live-action propaganda but
Japan used cel animation as a tool. On the other side of the con ict, the US War Department commissioned Warner Brothers and Disney to produce propaganda lms,
which we will watch. In fact, Disney fell on hard times nancially int the 1940s and these government commissions enabled the studio to survive. England also had
animation produced by their Ministry of Information set up during the war, and Canada established the National Film Board, which would become a renowned production
studio for experimental and independent animation after the war, with its heyday stretching from the 1950s-1970s.

The reading on animated propaganda by Eric Hurhuth puts forward some possibilities for why and how animation is a particularly interesting vehicle for political
propaganda. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, caricature has its roots in political cartoons and is a means of othering the subject of representation. Herhuth observes that
caricature breaks with the norms of representation through exaggeration, dissolves the sanctity of the image, rendering it more vulnerable to critique. Sometimes this is
used to critique the powerful, but other times, as in racist caricature, it exacerbates the vulnerability of those already oppressed (Herhuth).

Secondly, propaganda has a connotation of being irrational, and perpetuating confusion and myth, rather than being an objective or multifaceted argument. As we
discussed when we rst started exploring the medium, animation can be understood as the realm of the irrational.
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 World War II Propaganda - US
Walt Disney Studios, Der Fuehrer’s Face, 1943

This Oscar-winning Disney production from 1943 depicts the beloved character Donald Duck, born of the Mickey Mouse series, having a bad dream where he is
subjected to totalitarianism under the Nazis. The lm caricatures hitler and Nazis, but provides no real information on the horrors of that regime.

Keep in mind as you are watching this that 10 million people are being systematically murdered—for their religious and ethnic backgrounds and their sexual orientations.
Jews, Romani people, and homosexuals were targets of this violence. In some ways this lm could be seen as trivializing the situation.

The aim of the lm is not to educate: it is simply meant to garner support for the war e ort, which was hard on the US population. It meant war rations and more
demanding labour conditions, and animation was a tool used to generate popular support by creating a sense of “us versus them”, not by providing real information.
While this is a historical lm from a perspective that opposes the Nazis, I would not call it a substantive political critique. It shows us what makes a lm propaganda and
not political argument, and that propaganda can exist for any political perspective.
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 Styles of cel animation

• Rubber-hose
• “Disney-style”, “hyper-realism”, or “Disney formalism”
• “Limited” animation

These all refer to the moving parts of the scene, mostly character animation that is in motion, hand-drawn or painted on cels.

Rubberhose was the characteristic style in the 20s and 30s, exempli ed by work from the Fleischer Studio and the early Disney shorts animated by Ub Iwerks.

Disney style/ hyperrealism

The Mihailova reading on Realism this week quotes Paul Wells describing the Disney style and why it might be considered realism: ’it approximates live-action lm's
representation of reality’, obeys the laws of the physical world and features sound that ‘corresponds directly to the context from which it emerges'. Chris Pallant says, in
the same text, that this style ‘prioritized artistic sophistication, “realism" in characters and contexts, and, above all, believability'.

The reading contrasts this early cel animation with various conceptions of realism, including how realism as it pertains to animation is considered in di erent parts of the
world, particularly Eastern Europe and Asia. The reading also bridges this era of cel animation to the present, comparing it with contemporary stop-motion and 3D digital
animation.

Limited animation:
Today we will talk about cel animation in the 1940s and 50s, and how more expressionistic art forms came to in uence studio animation, particularly how abstract
modern art forms and expressionistic painting in uence the background design at the major studios. This is also the period when limited animation became popular. That
topic is actually on your reading list from the Furniss textbook for next class, but we will get introduced to it now.
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 Abstract Expressionism
• Loose, intuitive,
spontaneous, abstract,
gestural

• Ideologically associated
with “American” sense of
freedom

Image: Elaine de Kooning, Juarez, 1958

The “action paintings” of Jackson Pollock (not pictured here), featuring chaotic splashes of colour, were among the most well-known works of this movement.
 Mid-Century Modernism

• Clean, simple lines, bio-morphic forms

• Ideologically associated with the open
space of the 1950s suburbs, and a sense
of control and order in post-war USA

• Influenced by Bauhaus school

Bauhaus was a dogmatic art school in Germany in the 20’s that emphasized craft, combining artistry with mass produced items, and simplicity or lack of ornamentation
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 Background Art at Warner Brothers

Images: Stills from Artistocat (Dir. Chuck Jones, background and layout by John
McGrew, 1943)

These two things In uenced the illustration of the 50s. John McGrew was a Layout and Background designer at Warner Brothers under studio head Leon Schlesinger,
under Director Chuck Jones. He got blacklisted during the McCarthy era (accused of communism by the House Committee on Un-American activities and barred from
work) and moved to France to be an artist. (McCarthy era spanned late 40’s through 50’s)

Known for his abstract style, bold, graphic patterns and angular compositions.
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 Concept Art and Art Direction at Disney

Image: Concept art for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty by Eyvind Earle, 1959

From concept art to nal product—let us see if we can trace how the concept art informs the nal lm, and how the hand of the concept artist is traceable. In the context
of the large studio production environment, where hundreds of artists work on a single project, it is rare that one person’s style or visual ideas have a great deal of
in uence. But we will look at a two instances where that was the case.
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 Bambi, Walt Disney Studios, 1942
The Art Direction of Tyrus Wong

Concept art for this week’s screening, Bambi, which is a high watermark for American animation in general. Marks the end of the Golden Age for Disney.
The Art Director for this lm, who created this image, is Tyrus Wong, a Chinese-American immigrant.
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 Tyrus Wong, 1910-2016
Painter, ceramist, calligrapher, illustrator

Tyrus Wong came to the US at age 9, during the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from becoming citizens, during a period of anti-Chinese racism
in the US. There was a loophole for entry into the country whereby a Chinese-American citizen could claim to be a relative on paper, and this was how Wong and his
father entered the country. After the act was repealed, decades later, Wong became a citizen. He was an important member of the LA art community and a proli c artist,
with a career that spanned 80 years.

He worked for Disney in the late 30’s and early 40’s, with his most signi cant contribution being the design of Bambi. The backgrounds and layouts are inspired by
Chinese landscape painting of the Song dynasty. He was red during the strikes of 1941, one of the many fallouts of those labour disputes, and went to work for Warner
Brothers. In total he spent 30 years working in the lm industry.

Disney did not credit him properly for his work, and the company has since retroactively recognized his contribution. His work is an interesting example of the in uence of
international art styles on one of the most celebrated feature animations in US history.
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 -World War II impacts Disney’s business and working conditions
-Disney strikes of 1941
-40s and 50s saw the rise of television and the demise of shorts

Bambi was being produced from 1936-1942: a long period of time for an ambitious work. As Bambi was in production, several other features were released: Snow White
in 1937 (a huge success), Pinocchio and Fantasia in 1940 ( ops), and Dumbo went into production. In 1940, World War II destroyed the European market for American
lms, right as Disney started building a new studio, so the studio went into debt.
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 The 1941 Labour Disputes at Disney Studios

Image: Striking Disney animators with creative picket signs, 1941

Disney’s practice was to pay animators 20% of the pro t of lms as bonuses, but he stopped making good on that promise after Snow White. Prior to that, Disney
animators had considered themselves cream of the crop, since the studio was so respected and operated in a cult-like fashion. However, when the studio fell on hard
times nancially during the war, workers began to feel mistreated, overworked, and exploited.
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 The 1941 Labour Disputes at Disney Studios

Image: Striking Disney animators, 1941

Animators were upset about unexplained inequalities in their non-standardized and unclear pay scales and di erential treatment around o ce size and access to studio
facilities, their long hours (much more than 40 hrs a week), and their lack of on-screen credit for their work (note that Tyrus Wong was credited as one among many
background illustrators instead of Art Director on Bambi). Disney essentially told his workers in a famous speech to stop grumbling if they were unhappy with their
progress and work harder if they wanted rewards. This message was not well-received, and over 200 workers went on strike. The strike lasted 4 months. It was stopped
after federal intervention—President Roosevelt sent a mediator because it was a threat to the whole industry—and Disney made several accessions, nally signing the
agreement with the Screen Cartoonists’ Guild.

The Disney strike had a huge impact on labour practices in the animation industry, even though it wasn’t the rst studio to strike (Fleischer did in ’37) and it wasn’t the
rst to sign with the SCG (Leon Schlesinger at Warner had already signed).

One of the points of the agreement with the SCG was that Disney had to hire back workers who wanted to return. The fallout from the Disney strike was some workers
did not want to return even after the agreement was signed. (Tyrus Wong, for example, went to Warner Brothers.)
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 UPA Studios (United Productions of America)

• Made up of dissatisfied former Disney employees who wanted to do

things differently.
• Espoused and popularized a style known as “limited” animation
• Artwork style was modern and used abstract forms
• Socially progressive politics
• Some of their artists blacklisted during Cold War / McCarthy era

A group of other Disney deserters began working for the First Motion Picture Unit of the US Military. These three animators, Stephen Bosustow, Zack Schwartz, and
David Hilberman founded UPA, or United Productions of America.
 UPA Studios

“We have found that the medium of animation has become a new
language. It is no longer the vaudeville world of pigs and
bunnies. […] We have found that line, shape, color and symbols in
movement can represent the essence of an idea, can express it
humorously, with force, with clarity.”
—John Hubley

-John Hubley who had worked at Disney as a layout artist on Bambi also left after the strike and would join UPA
-Hubley was blacklisted in 1952 and had to leave UPA, which was unfortunate for them
 UPA Studios
The Brotherhood of Man (1945)

An educational lm commissioned by United Auto Workers union to dispel myths about race that lead to racism and systemic discrimination. Based on a pamphlet called
“The Races of Mankind” by anthropologists Ruth Benedict and Gene Welt sh created for the Public A airs Committee, which was formed to help Americans develop
better policies. The pamphlet was banned from use in the U.S. Army.
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 Television Animation from the 1950s onward

• Transition from animated theatrical shorts to television animation

• The beginning of marketing animation to children
• Network television: MTV, Nickelodeon, Fox, Cartoon Network and the return
of adult themes during “prime time” (evenings)

By the mid-1950s, the large Hollywood studios that had been the producers of most of the animated theatrical shorts began to close down their animation production
units, ending the “golden age” of American animation. This had to do with changes in feature lm distribution. Speci cally, it had to do with the end of block booking, due
to a Supreme Court ruling in 1948.

Block booking was a practice enacted by the Big Five studios: (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros., Paramount, Fox, and RKO) which sold not just one lm to a theatre,
but an entire package of lms, which meant theatres had to play lms they hadn’t seen and maybe didn’t want. In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled in a case against
Paramount that this practice violated laws intended to prevent corporate monopolies. This caused a decline in the Hollywood system. Those 7-minute animated
comedies that would get packaged with feature lms, which we have been watching in this class up until now, lost their distribution networks.

TV was becoming more common in homes in the 50’s, and became the dominant market for entertainment content. Of course, on television, the theatrical shorts that had
been produced for cinemas in the preceding years got a second life and were replayed. This is why many of us are familiar with the Looney Tunes series, for example.
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 Children as a new audience
Late ‘60s and ‘70s: ACT and Children’s Television Workshop study e ects
of television on children

Studies by child psychology experts and marketing experts had noted a few important things about children in relation to commercials: First, children do not di erentiate
as much between the main content of a show and the commercial break content. Very young children tend to prefer the shorter format of the commercial. Second, the
desires of children dictate a huge portion of a family’s spending habits around food and entertainment. This had been known since the 60s, and cartoons had been taking
advantage of it, blatantly advertising products to children.

Most of the shows on TV, including animations, were more intended for adults, though children were watching them anyway. Some of them were quite violent. Very few
shows had educational value.

In the late ‘60s, Jane Cooney, an educator and documentary producer became interested in using television as a way to provide a source of pre-school education that
would be accessible to children from low-income families. Sesame Street, which aired on PBS starting in 1970, was constructed in close collaboration with experts on
early childhood development, and was based on the rst signi cant studies about how children perceive television in relation to how they learn basic literacy skills that
would prepare them for school. Her report, The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education, is pictured on the left. The Children’s Television Workshop was the
company that brought together experts and produced the show.

On the right is pictured another group, founded in the 70s, a grassroots lobbying group called ACT. They fought for regulations on advertising to children, and they
worked with psychologists to push through regulations on children’s programming with the well-being of children in mind. They wanted things like clear announcements
of commercial breaks (“after these messages, we’ll be right back”), fewer commercials during children’s programming, and more educational value in kids shows.
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 Children as a new audience
Policy changes in the 80’s to allow “Half-hour commercials”

“Cartoon shows of the deregulation era were too often

nothing more than soulless vehicles for product
promotion, brightly colored symbols of corporate
capitalism's ascendancy over children's entertainment.”

-Martin Goodman, “Dr. Toon: When Reagan met Optimus Prime”,

Animation World Network, 2010
https://www.awn.com/animationworld/dr-toon-when-reagan-met-optimus-
prime

In 1981, President Reagan appointed Mark Fowler as the head of the Federal Communications Commission and all regulations around advertising to children were lifted.
They did not think that the welfare of children should limit the market. Suddenly, educational shows like ABC’s Schoolhouse Rock were cut, and there were 3 times as
many shows with licensed characters meant to sell toys. This article from the magazine Animation World Network states that over 40 shows with syndicated characters
and related toys were running simultaneously. Sugary cereals with cartoon mascots marketed to kids during Saturday morning cartoons.

He-Man (Mattel) and Transformers and G.I. Joe (Hasbro) very successfully promoted toy lines with animated series. The toys came rst and the series were made to
promote them, and Mattel and Hasbro were very involved in the script approvals and changes and oversaw the content closely to maximize their marketing of toys.

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In response to the conditions of 80s television, which was widely regarded as rotting the minds of children, the Children’s Television Act of 1990 was implemented.

Long title: “An act to require the Federal Communications Commission to reinstate restrictions on advertising during children's television, to enforce the obligation of
broadcasters to meet the educational and informational needs of the child audience, and for other purposes.”
 “Prime-time” animation for adults
The Flintstones, pilot demo reel, 1959, Hanna-Barbera
Borrowing the format of the live-action Sitcom

Around the same time, in the late 1950’s early 1960’s, the type of comedy expanded with the beginning of “prime time” animation for adults, borrowing from the live-
action sitcom. The Flintstones was the rst one of this type, and it was based on a 1950s live-action sitcom called The Honeymooners, about 1950s working class
married life and gender dynamics.

The Jetsons was a similar show in this vein, taking place in a sci- future instead of the stone age. In both cases, th animated form makes possible elaborate
anachronisms that are a source of humour. In the 70s and 80’s, the anicom, or animated sitcom, would decline, and then resurface again with the Simpsons in 1989.

This is a demo reel used to sell the show, before the show was produced. It is interesting to watch because is intended to quickly establish the characters and the sense
of humour.
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 “Prime-time” animation for adults
The Simpsons, Fox, 1989-present, longest running animated series AND
longest running sitcom

“Prime time” animation for adults, borrowing from the live action sitcom, returned from its long lull with The Simpsons.

Aside from being a satire on American suburban life, there were elements of creativity with this show that demonstrate the expansion of contemporary television as a
space for artistic innovation.

The famous couch gags are a small opportunity for boundless creativity: at some points they have been commission by animators known for their independent work such
as Don Hertzfeldt and Bill Plympton.
 Style and genre in relation to Manga

Demographic genres:

Shonen - young boy

Shojo - young girl
Seinen - adult man
Josei - adult woman
Kodomomuke - young children

Sub-genres such as “magical girl” and “mecha”

Anime series and lms alike are in large part based on Manga. The marketing genres of Manga for 5 di erent demographics also have many sub-genres: such as
adventure for young boys.
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 Animation and genre
Astro Boy, (Atomu in Japan), Toei Animation, 1963
Character created by Osamu Tezuka for a manga series in 1951

Due to animation’s roots in vaudeville, comics, and slapstick comedy in America, animation is often associated with comedy or kid’s media. We will see how, with the
shift to television and the end of the golden age, there starts to be a more diverse range of content, genre-wise, in popular animated media.

For example, in Japan, sci- and fantasy are the most common genres, in uenced by Manga, or Japanese serial graphic novels. The importation of Japanese animated
TV shows, dubbed for US audiences, helps to introduce new genres. Science ction animation, and later action animation, begins to gain popularity worldwide.

This was the rst cartoon to be distributed from Japan to the US, dubbed in English. It is an origin story of the character Astro Boy. We will watch the rst 8 minutes of
the rst episode. The full episode is around 26 minutes, which is still close to the typical time slot of broadcast TV show.
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 Style and genre in relation to Manga
Genres and sub-genres: Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988

This 1988 Japanese animated cyberpunk action lm directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, for example, has its origins in manga Seinen, for adult men, though of course enjoyed
by all of us.
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 Studio Ghibli (founded 1985)
First releases in 1988: simultaneously My Neighbour Totoro
(Miyazaki) and Grave of Fire ies (Takahata)

These two 2 important directors, both of whom had started their careers working for Toei Animation, founded Studio Ghibli in 1985 along with producer Toshio Suzuki.
Miyazaki and Takahata’s lifelong friendship only ended when Takahata passed away in 2018.

After the success of Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, they transferred the assets of the company Topcraft to form Ghibli and began creating feature lms. In
1988, both Miyazaki and Takahata released these two lms on the same date as a double feature.
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 Isao Takahata
Grave of the Fire ies (1988)

Grave of the Fire ies is a war drama based on a short story. It follows two orphans who’s village is rebombed in WWII, who try to fend for themselves and both starve to
death. This is not a spoiler because the lm begins with the older brother, 14, dying. He has his 4 year old sister’s ashes with him in a candy tin and the o cer who nds
his body tosses it out, and the ghosts are reunited at the beginning of the lm.

We will watch a 6 min scene from which the title is derived, about the child coping with loss and beginning to understand death.
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 Hayao Miyazaki (1941-)
• Joined Toei Animation in 1963
• Wrote and illustrated the manga Nausicaä of
the Valley of the Wind (1982–1994) and
directed the 1984 lm adaptation produced
by Topcraft.

• Co-founded Studio Ghibli in 1985

• Created some of Japan’s highest-grossing
lms and has won 2 academy awards (for
Spirited Away and The Boy and the Heron)
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 Hayao Miyazaki
My Neighbour Totoro (1988)

From Representation of Landscape and Ecological Vision in Miyazaki’s Filmography by Cristiana Bartolomei, Alfonso Ippolito and Davide Mezzino:

“The landscape becomes a place of exploration and adventure for the two sisters, as well as a refuge of tranquility and comfort during di cult times.”

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 Hayao Miyazaki
The Boy and the Heron (2023)

In this week’s screening, Miyazaki ties together his own memories of childhood with aspects of the 1937 novel How Do You Live? and The Book of Lost Things, set in
1939. The lm depicts how Mahito’s adventures in another world lead to discoveries concerning his relationship with his family and with the world….

From “Hayao Carries Viewers into a World of Stories” by Inagaki Takatoshi for nippon.com:

“What makes the lm so rewarding is that it is not as straightforward as it appears at rst glance. As it progresses, rather than its story or themes, it comes to focus on
the torrent of images owing from Miyazaki’s imagination.

As the ow of images takes over from the story as the main driver of the movie, it becomes impossible to establish a xed view of the other world. There is a nightmarish
period, like something from David Lynch, and as the world is not supported by a single story, it is natural that the lm becomes unstable and di cult to follow. This is like
how the guardian of the world, who appears to Mahito, keeps it balanced by piling up unstable stones.
The guardian has buried his life in a world made of nothing but stories, and by doing so has protected it, and them. Bearing these stories and acting as though he was
the world’s creator, he appears like Miyazaki himself. With his entry onto the scene, the story of The Boy and the Heron leaps toward its conclusion, as if it was his role to
bring it to an end—somewhat like a pile of stones collapsing in an instant.”
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 Discussion Questions (Small Groups)
The Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki, 2023

• This lm’s meaning is widely considered to be shrouded and/or open to a

range of interpretations. The Japanese title (How do You Live?) is also
very different from the English title. Do you think that each title might lead
to a different interpretation? How?

• Can you nd any quotations from Miyazaki online that help you
understand the meaning of the lm? If not, can you nd any other fan or
critic interpretations that resonate with your own understanding?

• What motifs within this lm do you see recurring throughout other lms
directed by Hayao Miyazaki?
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