Animation

With all the present-day ugliness continuing far too long, here's something to remind us of the beauty that can be created.

From 1981, here is Roman Kachanov's beautifully animated children's story, The Mystery of the Third Planet, in its original form. With subtitles, yet!

Based on one of the Alisa Selezneva series of children's books by screenplay writer Kir Bulychev, Kachanov's film is beautfully animated using traditional cel animation techniques. No made-for-TV 4-frames-per-second job is this, the animation is technically spectacular. While parts are most likely rotoscoped, most of the film is not, demonstrating the grasp Kachanov and crew had on the art of movement.

Natalya Orlova's art direction and character design is a wonderful mix of Heinz Edelmann and eastern european design of the time (being mid-to late 1970s when production started). In my less-than-humble opinion, it is always refreshing seeing a style that isn't merely a Disney or Anime retread.

And dig that crazy sov-synth soundtrack by composer Aleksandr Zatsepin, (from the Wikipedia article) often described as a milestone in Soviet electronic music.

Alternate Google-free Link: https://iv.melmac.space/watch?v=DBOVmZgLsxk&t=206&iv_load_policy=1

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/2259501

An animated film by French caricaturist, cartoonist and animator Émile Cohl. It is one of the earliest examples of hand-drawn animation, and considered by many film historians to be the very first animated cartoon. Despite appearances the animation is not created on a blackboard but rather on paper, the blackboard effect achieved by shooting each of the 700 drawings onto negative film. The title is a reference to the “fantasmograph”, a mid-19th century variant of the magic lantern that projected ghostly images on to surrounding walls.

(The Public Domain Review)

Thanks to @antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com!

Today's kind of a sad day here at c/animation@lemmy.film.

"I Hate Pink Floyd." That was the phrase famously scrawled on Johnny Rotten's t-shirt when he first "auditioned" for The Sex Pistols way back in 1975. And it was also true for me as a kid, cemented (much) later by Roger Waters' masturbatory epic "cry for the rich kid" The Wall. I also hate Pink Floyd. But I digress.

Ian Emes, experimental animator most famous for the work done for Pink Floyd (and many others in the music business) had died, as best as I can nail it down, July 23 of this year. And that is very sad.

When I was a MovieSnob in training, I saw (EDIT 16:00:32, CEST) Emes' French Windows on the big screen, the opening short of an all-animation festival (including Will Vinton's Closed Mondays and the Fleischers' Superman, The Mechanical Monsters!). And Kid MovieSnob was impressed. So, regardless of being considered the de facto Pink Floyd animator, thanks from the bottom of my icy heart, Mr. Emes. You at least showed me what animation could be.

Bonus-Because-I-Love-You Link: Emes' French Windows in HD, instead of CB's 360px linked video.

!moviesnob@lemmy.film

Since I'm on the same page as director/storyboard artist Elaine Bogan regarding all things Pee-Wee, I'll forgive her for liking dragons and trolls a lot…I mean, a lot. Bordering on unhealthy "a lot."

R.I.P. Paul Reubens.

Waaaaaaay back in pre-Russian War in Ukraine, pre-COVID-19 2017, The Blender Foundation released their annual proof-of-concept short, Agent 327: Operation Barbershop, based on Dutch comic strip artist Martin Lodewijk's secret agent, Agent 327.

It was wonderful!

Unlike, many of the other proof-of-concept short the Blender groups present, this one had none of that…smell, that new features showreel smell where the 3D took center stage and precedence over the actual writing or plot. Agent 327: Operation Barbershop was almost four minutes of solid entertainment and certainly deserving of further exploration.

The project died there. No feature-length nor featurette ever came of it like it was discussed at the time of its release. Too bad. Who knows what could have come of it?

Anyway, enjoy Agent 327: Operation Barbershop.

Have a peek. It's only (just over) two minutes of your time. Better than, say, Zack Snyder's Justice League. And who isn't a sucker for timelapse photography?

@King Mongoose
!moviesnob@lemmy.film

I can't believe nobody posted anything in regards here anywhere at https://lemmy.film! 5000 posts drooling over Barbie and Oppenheimer* but not a word about Kuri's passing. And I don't even like anime, generally!

From the linked article…

The Yoshida brothers’ impact on the Japanese animation industry is hard to overstate. The work done by Kuri and his siblings and Tatsunoko has stood the test of time and helped define several generations of the art form.

…emphasis mine.

From the linked article…

This is one of the most exciting independent animated features set to come out in 2023 and feels like it could be a serious contender come awards season. In 2022 the film got an Annecy work-in-progress presentation and this year it played in the festival’s main competition.

With the voices of Stephen Fry, Daisy Ridley, Marion Cotillard, Gauthier Battoue, and Matt Berry.

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/874980

The fight to get animation writers included among the ranks of the Writers Guild of America is moving forward - at least on the east coast.

I saw this essay on Cohost and found it an interesting read. I've been rewatching Steven Universe recently, and have been getting back into the really meaty part of the show, where the idolized image of Steven's mother starts to unravel. For a show for kids/teens, Steven Universe goes pretty hard.

Leave the emotional blackmail to Spielberg and Disney. Some movies don't need to resort to incinerating toys or deer, or hunting down dying, friendly aliens to elicit an emotional reaction less lizard-brain than a jump scare from an audience.

It was truly touching in its subtlety, Ma vie de Courgette (2016), a French-Swiss co-production released as My Life as a Courgette (UK) or My Life as a Zucchini (North America), a stop-motion animated featurette by Swiss director Claude Barras, based on the novel, Autobiographie d'une Courgette by Gilles Paris.

The plot revolves around a child nicknamed Courgette, how he ends up in an orphanage, his adjustment to his new life and to the other children living there. This isn't Annie or Oliver!: although it's an animated film, these ugly-cute characters are rarely cartoonish. After Courgette's arrival at the orphanage, the film then goes into the other orphan's stories. While their stories are obviously never pleasant, some are downright tragic with accompanying emotional scarring.

Director Barras never goes for shock or melodrama during Courgette. It's his restraint that gives the film its strength. The film is airy, but not lightweight. The characters and their personal tragedies are presented as matter of fact, enough to give them depth but not to horrify or titillate. Despite the character design they are all presented as realistic, from the children to the policeman that handles Courgette's case to the administrators of the orphanage. Despite the subject matter, the children and the staff bring plenty of genuine smiles and occasional laughs to the table throughout the film. There are two especially touching moments—one, Rosy, the orphanage worker, kisses the children good night on the cheek; the other when Courgette and Camille hold hands on the schoolbus—that could have been merely maudlin tropes but instead illustrate how loving physical contact is as necessary as eating and breathing.

The only "cartoon" character is the aunt of Camille, a newly arrived orphan, and her storyline was the only discordant note of the film, veering out into cliché territory, but under Barras' direction, not too far out.

Ma vie de Courgette was nominated for the 2017 Academy Awards' Best Animated Feature Film and won Best Animated Film at France's 42^nd^ Cesár Awards, but who cares? If you didn't catch it the first time around or if you're looking for a poignant film that won't insult your intelligence, I strongly suggest you see Courgette.

~Image~ ~courtesy~ ~of~ ~Wikimedia~ ~Commons,~ ~fair~ ~use~

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.film/post/231568

I have a confession to make that may disturb many of you. I've tried to combat this aversion but have failed, so now I have to live with it. Let me don my Kevlar™ vest. Take a deep breath and…

I generally don't like anime. I find it mostly boring and repetitive. If you've seen one giant robot…

You must have heard this one knock knock joke regarding a banana before. You must have. Oh, well…

  Knock knock
  Who's there?
  Banana
  Banana who?
  Knock knock
  Who's there?
  Banana
  Banana who??
  Knock knock
  Who's there?
  Banana
  Banana who???
  Knock knock
  Who's there?
  Banana
  Banana who?!?

…this charming exercise goes on ad nauseum until the racconteur decides to finish with…

  Knock knock
  Who's there?
  Orange
  Orange who?
  Orange ya glad I didn't say Banana?!

…and that, mes ami, is how I perceive most anime.

Why did I call you all here today? To talk about Paprika (2006) by Satoshi Kon, produced by Madhouse animation studio. It's a wild, wobbly, surreal ride into the world of dreams. I'm not going to say it's anime cliché-free: just as American or Indian cinema have their own formulaic bromides—stylistic or cultural—Nipponic cinema, especially anime, also has its own. There's no escaping your roots.

The plot is a science-fiction police procedural: Tokita—a cartoonish, morbidly obese, bumbling engineering genius—invents a headset device dubbed the DC Mini for an unnamed firm headed by The Chairman, who—get this—is literally confined to a wheelchair. So far, so anime. The DC Mini headset allows dream co-habitation between two or more wearers (theoretically, doctor and patient); the psychiatrist (headset wearer no. 1) may enter and influence a (headset wearer no. 2) patient's REM dream state to better study the patient's psyche. The DC Mini is still in prototype stage, all its security precautions haven't yet been worked out, and of course multiple headsets have been stolen. Someone is trying to control everybody's dreams. It's up to the other protagonists, mainly Detective Konakawa, Dr. Chiba and her dream alter ego, Paprika, to solve the mystery.

While the idea is high-concept science-fiction, the story itself isn't much deeper than your typical manga[^1]—the film is based on 1993 novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui—nor is the style anything you haven't seen before in anime. For the given subject matter, the art direction is quite linear and not at all abstract nor dreamlike. But it's Kon's presentation that gives it its depth. The dream sequences that unexpectedly weave in and out of the film's reality are intriguing enough; the opening titles are a wonderful example as is the hilarious shot of a line of salarymen, in tribute to Esther Williams, that take a nosedive off of an office building! But the main event is "The Festival", a fever-dream mad parade that extends to the horizon of marching refrigerators, medical simulation mannequins, waving neko cats, golden Buddhas, dolls dolls and more dolls and just about every other absurdity in a never-ending parade. Everything ebbs and flows like made of soft putty.

It is impossible not to make the connection between this film and Nolan's later Inception (2010). Paprika had to be an inspiration to Nolan (and apparently your King presumes correctly).

For such a surreal premise, it's paradoxically grounded and straightforward; it's closer in spirit to Vanilla Sky than Mulholland Drive. The film's broadstroke characters, its resolution and the ending were all a bit…anime…for my tastes (there's no escaping kaiju or mecha in Japanimation, I suppose). But forgiving all that, Paprika is still entertaining and definitely worth seeing at very least for its spectacular eye candy. So, for now you can keep your Akiras, your Evangelions and your Cowboy Bebops. But I am all about Paprika!

[^1]: Relax, I know saying your typical manga means nothing as there are hundreds of different genres. Nevertheless, admit it, you're not normally going to find Sartre-, Hemingway- or Dostoevsky-level literature in your average comic book/manga/fumetto/whatever. No matter how much incest or revenge you want to infuse, it still ain't Shakespeare.

As a member of the guild who's big on WFH and the potential to not have to live in LA, this is great news! 💪