Animation Is a Real Thing
With all of the various techniques jockeying for center stage these days, many users of visual media may have forgotten the strength and appeal that animation has for most audiences. In a society that relies heavily on the casual reproduction of everything from printed matter to video copies of classic films, it is with great difficulty that we can recall the glow of the original object.
There are certain things in our world that are obviously the real thing, while others are not. The Statue of Liberty is certainly a real thing while the little three inch figurines that are carried home by tourists are far from the real thing. Marilyn Monroe was a reality but the pin-up photos of her that remain are only a fantasy.
A print of a painting that appears in a magazine is not the real thing, nor is a movie or a videotape of the painting the real thing. The painting hanging in the museum, that's the real thing.
Stage Is Real
The actor that struts across the film or video screen, is merely a shadow, an interpretation of reality. The stage performer is the real thing, although there are those that are cynical enough to say that the player you bump into at the drugstore wearing jeans and a two day growth of beard is really and truly the real thing. Animation is the real thing because for it to exist at ail it must be recorded in some manner, and then played back. This goes for all of the earlier forms of animation such as the zoetrope and flipbook and other 19th century scientific toys. Those are most assuredly the real thing, but their brevity keeps them in too primitive a state to be greatly effective.
There is a great deal of animation that is less than the real thing, though. Saturday morning television, unfortunately, is more like radio than something intended to be viewed. So much do the stories depend on recorded dialogue, and sound effects while the animation limps along with stilted use of stereotyped characters that the child viewer is short changed. Any animation that does not offer the possibility of all the magic it can bestow on children is certainly less than the real thing. Popeye and Bluto wrestling, Mickey Mouse being overwhelmed by water in the Sorcerer's Apprentice or Gerald McBoing-Boing walking to school are the real thing. These examples are certainly not live action or computer generated. Live filming and computer animation are real things in themselves. Each is a separate medium that requires individual design approaches. Misusing them only leads to watered down productions that are unsatisfying because they lack the substance of the real thing.
Animation Offers Control
Tracing live motion pictures (rotoscoping) to create animation is not real animation, just as simulating a computer look using traditional animation is not real computer animation. Animation as a medium offers a control of elements that cannot be obtained any other way. Dressing an actor in a costume and heavy makeup to look like Popeye or Mickey Mouse is certainly missing the point of what animation is about. The real Popeye is not Robin Williams but the cartoon versions of the comic strip character done by Max Fleischer's Studio in the 30's are the true Popeyes. The Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck impersonators at Disney World are skillful impersonators of characters that have only existed in animation. No matter how good the actors, we still know that the real thing is the animated original.
It's okay to put Christopher Reeve in a Superman suit and say that he is the Man of Steel, because in this case the characters are imitating real life to a great degree, but the real Orphan Annie is neither a character that can be reproduced live or animated for best effect. The real Annie is the one in the comic strip with the blank eyes, the never changing red dress and the wisdom of a college professor.
Animation in its purest state relates to the world of imagination. Why is it that television commercials use so little fantasy in their treatments? Fantasy is not only images moving against a star field, as might be expected from the constant graphics appearing at every twist of the tv dial. It is also clever use of imagery that can only come from artists' brains. Years ago it was natural for agencies to approach production houses for designs and storyboards for animated spots. It's been a long time since animators have been asked to create selling ideas on a regular basis, and a return to such a practice could well uncork commercials that would find appeal among viewers who are surfeit with repetitive live and animated images.
Once it becomes a habit again to think of animation as a medium of substance, a medium that can be molded and shaped in any form that the mind can devise, then the excitement of the form will be appreciated. Several years ago the master animator Grim Natwick, responsible for the creation of Betty Boop and for most of the animation of the Snow White character in the landmark Disney feature, was asked what he thought of animation. Natwick whose expertise had also embellished many short subjects as well as prominent television commercials responded with, "Animation is animation." A simple reply, yet a whole lot to ponder upon.
Mighty Mouse Sculpture
An exhibit of original art, photos and memorabilia, related to the Terry-Toon Studio, will be displayed at the New Rochelle Public Library, starting November 13. The library on Lawton Street is not far from the center of town where Paul Terry's cartoon studio flourished for over 30 years. The exhibit commemorating the association of the studio with the city of New Rochelle had originally been displayed earlier this year, and is once more being placed on view for the public.
This time around there will be added a sculptured work depicting Mighty Mouse in full flight as a lasting remembrance to the fact that the popular character was created in New Rochelle. The sculptor Michael Lantz, a native and resident of the town and also the younger brother of Hollywood cartoon producer, Walter Lantz, fashioned the work from Terry-Toon model sheets and additional information from sketches by former Terry-Tooner, Eli Bauer. The sculpture will be on permanent display in the children's section of the library.
The exhibit encompasses the history of the cartoon studio from the time it was formed in New York city up to its demise as a production company in the 1960's. The studio moved to New Rochelle around 1933 and occupied two sites at various times The last building that housed the studio is now used by a film company that produces television commercials. The exhibit includes many photographs and cartoon drawings that were made during the Terry-Toon Studio's more than 50 years of operation. The public is invited to view the exhibit without charge.
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