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bibliophileiz · 3 months

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I just finished a book called The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt, about women animators at the Walt Disney Studio. I cannot believe the shit I found out.

(Hopefully I got this all correct, I was listening to an audiobook instead of reading a hard copy, so I can't consult it for name spellings and the like. I'm relying on Google, and well, we know how that goes sometimes.)

Some things I learned from this book. -Walt Disney became a personal champion of women in the animation department, arguing not just that they were as talented as men but that they could bring something to storytelling that men could not. After his death, the number of women in the animation and story departments plummeted, along with the animation department itself. -But he also paid women way less. (Except Mary Blair.)

Not just women, but many animators had a hard time getting on-screen credit for their work. This was one of the issues that led to a massive strike in 1941 that tore the department in two, temporarily shut down the studio, and resulted in a lot of people, both union and non-union, losing their jobs when it finally reopened.

On the rare occasion women did get credit, they were sometimes ignored by reviewers.

The second woman to be hired to the animation department, Grace Huntington, was a pilot who held multiple speed and altitude records. She eventually quit the studio with the hopes of getting a full time aviation job, but died young of TB before her career could take off.

Traditional animation is apparently a terrible way to make money. Only a handful of the early animated feature-length films made more at the box office than it took to make them.

Women animators were drawing things for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast as early as the 1930s.

Men thought drawing fairies was unmanly, so the fairy sequence set to Nutcracker music in Fantasia was drawn and directed entirely by women.

While the women animators were doing that, the men drew super gross racist and sexist centaurs to Beethoven music, and the reviewers all hated it. (Essentially they were like HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO BEETHOVEN.) - Generally, male animators tended to like slapstick comedy in their cartoons, while women tended to be more about storytelling and character development.

Obviously there were exceptions to that rule, like Walt Disney and Mark Davis.

Disney hired an LSU professor to write Song of the South. When everyone pointed out to him this was a terrible idea, he hired a Communist Jew from New York as co-writer for "balance."

This went about as well as you'd expect.

When the LSU professor demanded his co-writer get taken off the script, Disney replaced him with another "progressive" white guy.

Apparently he never considered hiring an African-American writer.

Literally everyone, including the studio's legal team, told him not to make this movie, much less hire a white guy from Baton Rouge to write it.

The lead actor James Baskett, who won an Honorary Academy Award for the role, couldn't go to the premiere because it was held in Atlanta.

Meanwhile, the Communist got put on Cinderella. He interpreted the story as a worker rising up against her oppressors.

This is also known as the correct way to interpret Cinderella.

Apparently the writer (so sorry, I'm forgetting his name) included a "violent" scene in which Cinderella goes after her stepmother and stepsisters.

I have no more details than that, but apparently the other animators made him take it out.

I'm now just picturing Cinderella stalking around her house with a raised butcher knife in her hand like in "Psycho."

Artist Mary Blair was art director for many of the classic Disney movies, including Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland. Disney loved her work so much that when she had to move to Long Island for her husband's job, Disney let her work remotely and fly back and forth from New York to Los Angeles.

She was responsible for the rich colors and design choices in the princess movies. She resigned part way through "Sleeping Beauty" but the art director after her used her designs for Maleficent.

Her husband, Lee Blair, was also an animator for the studio before he left to fight in World War II. He was apparently extremely jealous of Mary's artistic talent, and when he returned from Europe, he moved the family to Long Island, became an alcoholic, and started abusing her and later their children. Mary didn't feel she could go to Walt, or any of her other friends at the studio like Retta Scott and Mark and Alice Davis, because domestic violence and divorce were so taboo back then.

Even after the move, Disney let her work remotely, and she spent a lot of time flying between New York and Los Angeles. She eventually resigned hoping to work on her marriage (this didn't really work, though her husband did eventually start going to AA meetings after spending a year in jail for drunk driving) but was later rehired to help design the It's A Small World ride.

Everyone who worked on that ride hated the song btw.

The men apparently got over the idea of drawing fairies making their balls fall off or something by the time they were making Peter Pan, but one of them still asked why Tinker Bell "had to be so naughty".

101 Dalmations was the first animated film to be made using Xerox technology, which decimated the studio's female-dominated ink and paint department (their job was to trace over the animators' work). The Xerox machines could only make black and white at first, which is why so much of that movie is so colorless compared to the earlier Disney films Mary Blair worked on.

The silver lining was everyone got to play with puppies while they were making it because Disney ordered a whole bunch of them to just be there in the studio for the animators to draw.

Speaking of cute animals, the Burbank lot was home to a bunch of stray cats. Disney liked them being there because they hunted mice, so he didn't like when employees fed them.

Disney hated 101 Dalmations, because of the Xerox machines, but it made more of a profit than any of his previous films, because of the Xerox machines.

Julie Andrews originally turned down the role of Mary Poppins because she was pregnant, and Disney promised to wait on her. (Joss Whedon, take notes.)

After Walt died of lung cancer, the animation department was nearly killed and pretty much stopped hiring women. Mary Blair, who had been almost as influential to Disney's art as Walt, was edged out and by the time new animators started working on the Disney Renaissance films, they didn't even know who she was.

Many of the women who left the studio went on to work for Little Golden Books and other children's book publishing companies.

One of the few women animators at the company at this time, Heidi Guedel, who drew Tigger, left with Don Bluth when he departed to form his own company in 1979.

When The Little Mermaid was in production, there was only one woman animator--she may have been the only woman in the entire story department, I don't remember.

Disney then began hiring more women animators at the directive of then-Disney CEO Mike Eisner and head of animation Jeffrey Katzenberg.

One of the women screenwriters working on Beauty and the Beast (I think Linda Woolverton, but it may have been Brenda Chapman) wrote a scene in which Belle puts pins on a map showing where all she hopes to travel.

The animators changed the scene in the storyboards so that Belle is in the kitchen making a cake instead. When the screenwriter saw it, she apparently raged BELLE DOES NOT MAKE CAKES!

Pixar at this time had no women in its animation department.

Brenda Chapman became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film for Brave. During her acceptance speech, she talked about her daughter Emma.

When making Frozen, Disney held a "sister summit" of women discussing their relationships with their sisters and other women. Men at the summit were not allowed to speak.

btw Brenda Chapman also worked on The Prince of Egypt. (I did not learn this from the book, I learned it just now while looking her up on imdb.)

If I have had a very bad day, and am very tired, then the mere mention of Howard Ashman's name will make me break down in tears.

#disney #animation #hollywood history #the queens of animation #long post #sorry not sorry #everyone needs to know about the violent communist revolution that the screenwriter tried to get in cinderella #walt disney #mary blair #howard ashman #brenda chapman #a bunch of other disney related people

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bennyswhims · 7 months

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Funny Little Bunnies (Wilfred Jackson, Walt Disney Pictures, 1934)

For some general context: as we approach current day, a trend will show, this being that the existing industry of the time will begin to resemble current day film incrementally over time. Of course, this wasn't a smooth one-to-two process, there were many phases through which the industry went through over several decades, but this is a good thought to keep as a rule of thumb going forward.

The time we're going to talk about today was no different. In fact, the 1930s mark a stark contrast to what came before in this regard. Production studios began to make waves and become increasingly relevant, and they, along with general public conceptions of what film was and could be, shaped what was once thought as a silly gimmick into one of the most prosperous industries in the world, and one of the main go-to standout cultural advancements of the century.

Having set the stage, where to go from here. We have a film industry now, and animation is growing along with it. Disney has formed into a proper production house, almost entirely animation-based, and has made quite the name for itself, winning several Academy Awards (oh yeah, those exist now too) and turning into a household name. How have they done so? Well, by pushing out as many Silly Symphonies as they could. A good example of this, and what I'll be taking a look at today, Funny Little Bunnies!

This might be just about the most standard Silly Symphony one could think of. As usual, not much for story, the short is about Easter Bunnies preparing painted eggs for Easter Egg Hunting. That's about it. However, this little ditty is just exactly that, and takes that simple premise in stride. Calling the difference in visuals a leap from those of just a few years ago would be an understatement, as the fully Technicolor wonder (not the first, but quite the vibrant early example of the early two-tone version of the tech) just chews its own scenery, and makes it look easy. This short might be on the sillier end of the Silly Symphonies, but it's honestly outstanding how well the animation holds up for one of Disney's first full color productions. Not really trying as hard to be comedic as it's contemporaries, it's just whimsical and bizarre watching this extended musical sequence, and it's one I have quite the personal history with, having grown up watching it.

Shot in cels with an early multiplane camera, it runs pretty much just as well as any Disney feature would through the rest of the century, and audiences loved it. While not as renowned as its Piggy/Hare/Hen contemporaries, the short was still a general success with audiences, though its exact numbers go went unreported, and showcases a good general view of what kind of movies the Disney company would make a name for itself with. It also stands to mention that this was one of the first times the industry attempted a seasonally themed release, following the steps of its hallowed older siblings, though with less scares.

Overall, I think this is a very solid short, especially for younger (as in, YOUNG) audiences, that has a lot of charm. I think it's important to take looks at the features that didn't push, but set the boundaries, as it can be difficult to grasp the impact of the former when the latter goes unacknowledged, and I think this is a great example of that. Not every short can be a 10/10, and I don't think it should! Sometimes simple and clean viewings are necessary palate cleansers to really enjoy other, more mindblowing experiences.

Sources:

How was animation done at Disney in the 1930s?, Forbes.

Funny Little Bunnies, IMDB.

10 best silly Symphonies from Disney's Golden Era, Collider

Funny Little Bunnies; Silly Symphony, Wikipedia

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danielpoussart · 2 years

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Interesting Facts About the Walt Disney Company

Walt Disney, usually abbreviated as Disney, is a well-known brand name for the international media corporation based in Burbank, California. The corporation is famous for its films and television series, as well as it is animation and theme parks. Many individuals are inspired by Walt Disney, Pixar, and their work. The Walt Disney Company is the subject of the following facts. Visit the Walt Disney Company's official website for further information.

The Walt Disney Company, or Disney, is a worldwide media company headquartered in Burbank, California. Since 1923, the firm has been a significant producer of entertainment, expanding globally in production and distribution. Here are some popular movies, TV series, and other media. For years, the brand has been a favorite of youngsters, and the popularity of its goods continues to rise.

During Walt Disney's lifetime, the business produced over 100 feature films. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs received eight Academy Awards and made $1.499 million during the Great Depression. This accomplishment enabled Walt Disney to concentrate on developing full-length animated pictures over the next five years. After the Great Depression, Disney's productions returned to full-length animated movies, such as the Cinderella series and The Snow White cartoons. Disney continued to work on these movies in the mid-1940s, and his last production, Mary Poppins, debuted in December 1961.

The Walt Disney Company is a worldwide media company based in the United States. Its headquarters are located inside the Walt Disney Studios property in Burbank, California. The corporation was started in 1928, and millions of people across the globe have enjoyed its films and theme parks. Walt Disney World is its primary product. However, it has a considerably longer history. The Walt Disney Company was founded in Burbank, California, and its influence extends beyond Hollywood. Here are a few interesting facts about the company:

"Alice in Wonderland," Disney's first animated picture, was released in the early 1930s. It was a massive success in the United States. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The company also created short cartoons, wildlife documentaries, and live-action/animation movies. "Flowers & Trees," the company's first three-color Technicolor cartoon, was also made. Other famous pictures of the period were Alice in Wonderland (1952) and the original Cinderella (1952).

Walt Disney's early years in animation were less successful than many expected. Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists, the firm he co-founded, failed to attract consumers, and Disney was laid off. He subsequently went to work for A.V. Cauger's Kansas City Film Ad Company. He made animated ads for this firm utilizing a technique known as cutout animation.

Walt Disney returned to the United States and enrolled in seminars at the Chicago Art Institute, where he learned how to create stop-action animation. He also worked as an apprentice artist at the Pesman-Rubin Commercial Art Studio, drawing advertising and commercials for local theaters. He met cartoonist Ub Iwerks in 1921 and joined the company's advertising department. They collaborated on the first animated short film, Alice's Wonderland, which is still well known today.

The connection between Pixar and Walt Disney is typically described as a love affair, while some detractors dispute the partnership's long-term viability. The reality is that Pixar is perhaps Disney's most excellent animation studio, and it was the first to use computer graphics to create three-dimensional figures. Pixar is one of the essential businesses in animation history. The company's success has set a precedent for other animation companies and received accolades from both reviewers and fans.

In the end, the two firms' relationship will be virtually unaltered. Catmull's election as president of the united Pixar Studios by the Disney Board of Directors would result in the merger. As the company's President and CEO, Lasseter would report to Iger. Disney also chose to split Catmull's responsibilities at Pixar: president of the merged firm and CEO of Pixar Animation Studios. Both firms would continue to report to Alan Horn, the parent company's CEO.

Corporate social responsibility is an essential component of any marketing strategy. Disney devotes time, attention, and resources to corporate responsibility. This aspect of the company's corporate culture encourages workers to volunteer in the community. Employees participate in corporate citizenship initiatives and activities that promote business ethics, sustainability, and community-based solutions to challenges affecting the organization and its stakeholders. Furthermore, these activities promote the spread of corporate citizenship opportunities and business ethics.

The Disney Cares charitable organization and the Make-A-Wish foundation are two of the company's numerous social responsibility efforts. The organization runs activities at both local and national children's hospitals. Community involvement and fundraising are two more initiatives. These initiatives benefit both customers and staff. Disney's social responsibility advantages reach well beyond the areas in which they operate. The company's environmental initiatives have had a beneficial influence on individuals and communities.

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everydisneymovie · 4 years

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Review #53: 101 Dalmatians

Post #58

9/1/2020

Next up is 1961′s 101 Dalmatians

Enjoyment : [6]

This is a very cute movie. It feels like an evolution of Lady and The Tramp both in style and tone. The dogs are cute, the humans are generally likable and the slapstick antics with the bumbling villains are satisfying on their own. The tone and comedy really carry this movie, especially when the characters do not. The humans don’t get enough screen time, and the dogs mostly just act the way you’d expect dogs to act. While I think as a whole this is a stronger movie than Lady and the Tramp, at least Lady and Tramp have some character beyond just ‘dog.’ One really strong point is how this movie builds tension. We know in no uncertain terms what will happen if the puppies get caught. We see what is stopping them from escaping, and then we see them formulate a plan to bypass the roadblock. That is exactly how you build good tension and manages to get you invested a fair amount.

Quality : [7]

This is a very nice looking movie and it takes some interesting departures from previous animated films. Thanks to new copying techniques this movie is a lot more fluid in its animation, and it has a very scratchy almost charcoal sketch style to it’s art direction. It is very clear that this is a movie was made in the 60′s as it draws from pop art and modern art for it’s character designs and backgrounds. It abandons the previous painterly style of the 40′s and 50′s for something closer to rough ink work. This is appropriate for the subject, considering we mostly see Dalmatians on screen. I also noticed that there is a great deal of effort put into the vehicles. Thanks to very subtle rotoscoping, it almost tricked my eye into believing the cars were 3D animated somehow. With 101 characters to individually animate, it makes sense that they relied on looping and duplicated animations, but they do a very good job offsetting it with unique animations to distract the eye. For example, they will draw 1 basic running animation and loop it three times, to create three puppies all running at staggered intervals, then animate a unique cycle for a puppy climbing over an obstacle and that helps you accept the repetition. It is a very smartly made film, which was exactly what Disney needed after the financial loss they took with Sleeping Beauty. It was cheaply made but it never feels cheap which deserves recognition.

Hold up : [4]

Luckily there is nothing grossly offensive about this movie. No overt racism from what I saw, but again that can be attributed to ‘everyone on screen was white’ rather than any actual diversity. On the other hand, this movie writes it’s female characters very lazily. Anita is just a love interest, with no given back story or motivation. We learn nothing about her and she is simply there to be Rogers wife. She is also drawn very conservatively compared to the more stylized way Roger is drawn which always sucks to see. Pongo and Perdita are also an issue, since Pongo displays more personality throughout the movie, while Perdita is confined to ‘concerned mother’ and little else. Nanny is a somewhat interesting female character but she doesn’t get enough screen-time or nuance in my opinion. Cruella is interesting villain, since she is very clearly evil for evils sake, and genuinely frightening at times. However I feel like she is given no backstory or motivation beyond being selfish. She is not the worst Disney villain so far but also not the best.

Risk : [6]

I think this movie lands in the perfect middle ground between ‘cheaply made’ and ‘well made’ There is a real efficiency to the writing, animation and framing. Although I worry that this might set a bad precedent for future movies. This movie works with its rougher edges because the tone is. jazzy, almost free form. I feel like this style is going to be slapped onto future projects without the stylish behind it. Still I really have to applaud the effort put into making this movie look and feel good. For what it is, it is harmless and fun. I will always take harmless and fun over hurtful or boring.

Extra Credit : [3]

I like the sound design and art direction of this movie. It reminds me of the art of Saul Bass and even french pop art. It is fun to see a Disney movie branch out in terms of its aesthetics. I also really liked the subtle touches like some of the facial animations, the background details and the frenetic way they animated Cruella driving her car.

Final thoughts:

This is the first Disney animated movie where I generally could not find anything ‘bad’ about it. It has a series of minor flaws but none of them really kill this movie. If they fleshed out Roger and Anita, this could have been a really great film. I also think if they had a bigger budget they could have really made this movie pop with some shading animations. It was noticeable that characters passed through light and dark environments with no visual change to their color and that bugged me a tiny bit. It was also interesting to search for any reused animations. Anita is basically just Aurora or Wendy, and Nanny is just Flora. Also, they included a bunch of the dogs from Lady and the Tramp meaning we now have an extended animated universe. Also weird note, the cartoon the dogs are watching after they get captured was from the Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons. This means it is tied for the record of [3] but I feel like future cameos in animated movies are going to be a real contender moving forward. This movie manages to hold up a good amount and I fully recommend it. It is not terrible.

Total Score: 26/50

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#one hundred and one dalmatians #101 dalmatians #Disney #every disney movie #I watched Every Disney Movie #reviewing every Disney movie #late stage disney #Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons #lady and the tramp #movie review #Movie Reviews #animated movie #movie theory #Movie Ranking #Film Theory #Rey Rapids #late stage capitalism #capitalism

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coppercookie · 4 years

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Top 5 animated movies pre 1940

Number 5. Gulliver's travels 1939

If you're a fan of the fleischer brothers or the gulliver's travels tale you may like this, but I think that their shorts are better than this movie.

Number 4. The tale of the fox 1930

This is a pretty interesting film you can see how this helped pioneer stop motion and inspire Fantastic Mr. Fox. If you want to see the first stop motion film give it a try.

Number 3. Academy award review of Walt Disney cartoons 1937

This isn't technically a film but a collection of some of the best silly symphonies. It's lovely to see Disney's early work that they used as a testing ground for snow White.

Number 2. The adventures of Prince Achmed 1926

Who knew that the earliest surviving amimated film would be this good? The silhouette animation is strikingly outstanding. It has such an import role in the history of animation, you should watch it if you have the time.

Number 1. Snow White and the seven dwarfs 1937

This isn't a surprise to anyone, I mean the movie had such an impact on the film industry and holds up pretty decently of you haven't seen it yet I'd recommend that you should.

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The list

#animated movies #animation #every animated movie #animation history #gulliver's travels #movies #The adventures of Prince Achmed #disney #Academy award review of Walt Disney cartoons #The tale of the fox #snow white #snow white and the seven dwarfs #silly symphonies

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marunalu · 4 years

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Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons

Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons from 1937.

Uff, that wasn’t a particularly good start for my Disney Marathon.

I watched all of the 9 short cartoons and I have to say, apart from two, they were REALLY bad! The only two that I personally enjoyed watching were The Old Mill and The Ugly Duckling.

Enjoyment:

As already mentioned, I didn't enjoy any of these cartoons except for The Old Mill and The Ugly Duckling. The Old Mill had hands down the best animation and music of all and The Ugly Duckling was a cute and quite heartwarming little story. The rest were simply boring, or shockingly racist and offensive.

Animation:

Honestly, there is not much to say. The animation is fairly ordinary and the drawing style is roughly comparable to the Tom & Jerry cartoon. Most of the time it’s just bland looking and there is no part that really stands out. The Old Mill definitely has the best animation of all and I had the feeling that it was the only piece, where the animators actually seem to have put in some effort in they work.

Music:

Similar to the animation, there is nothing special about the music. Again, The Old Mill stands out as the one with the best music, that actually fits the mood of the told story. The rest of the music segments are so dull that you forget them the moment you heard them.

Funny:

I have to admit there were a few moments when I actually had to chuckle. There is this one scene in The Ugly Duckling, where the father duck suspects his wife cheated on him (with a swan) and although both only make duck noises, you somehow understand what both are saying to each other. At one point he probably calls her a cheating bitch and she slaps him in the face. Or the somewhat dark joke in The Three Little Pigs. In one of the houses you can see two pictures hanging on the wall. One labeled with mother and the other with father. However, only a sausage is shown in the picture of the father (later it’s a ham). I almost spat out my drink when I saw that.

Characters:

None of the characters presented undermines a real character development, because the cartoons are simply too short for that. But most of the characters are portrayed as very unsympathetic in my opinion. Even sweet Pluto is portrayed as a selfish bastard here, who doesn't mind killing a little kitten out of jealousy, two of the three little pigs are extremely annoying, the bad wolf is just stupid, Mickey is barely in it, the rabbit in the Turtle vs. Rabbit is an arrogant and self-loving idiot and the duck parents and chicks treat the little baby swan like garbage. I think the only character I can really say that I liked is the ugly duckling. And probably only because it's so damn cute. I mean, it's soooo cute and just longs to be loved and to have a family. In it’s despair and loneliness, it even seeks love and security from a hunting duck decoy, thinking it’s his mother. When it starts crying out of sheer grief I just wanted to hug it. I even had a few tears in my eyes. But except for the baby swan, every other character was just unappealing and unlikeable to me.

Inequality & diversity :

HOLY SHIT, a couple of these cartoons are racist as hell!!! While I watched Three Little Orphan Kittens, my jaw actually dropped. The black maid is portrayed in such an embarrassing stereotypical manner that I was completly stunned for a very long moment, simply because I hadn't expected it. I found the doll in the nursery just as shocking and offensive, turning from a pretty, white girl into an ugly black one. Like .... WHAT THE ACTUALL FUCK DISNEY?!?!?! Also the Toreros in Ferdinand the Bull are nothing more then stereoytypical caricatures too. There is also a somewhat sexist scene in the Turtle vs. Rabbit, where the rabbit poses for a couple of pretty bunny girls and shows how great he is and they are just gushing over him like stupid giggling school girls. It was just so unnecessary and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes!

My conclusion:

Skip it! It’s not worth your time and some of them are fucking offensive and racist as hell! Just watch The Old Mill and maybe The Ugly Duckling because its cute and heartwarming. Just for this two I give it 1,5 from 10 stars.

#Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons #disney #disney movies #reviewing disney movie #ranking disney movie #list #racism #english is not my first language

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thegreatdisneymovieride · 3 years

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Yeah, I was surprised Snow White wasn’t first, too.

#disney #disney movies #silly symphonies #disney review #disney blog #academy award review of walt disney cartoons #animation #package films

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tcm · 4 years

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Early African-American Actors and the Oscars By Susan King

Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American performer to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for GONE WITH THE WIND (’39). Dorothy Dandridge was the first African-American woman to receive a Best Actress nomination for CARMEN JONES (’54). And Sidney Poitier was the first to receive a lead actor nomination for THE DEFIANT ONES (’58) and to win for 1963’s LILIES OF THE FIELD.

But there were other pioneering African-American performers who earned Oscar nominations. And, in the case of one actor, actually received an honorary award before Poitier’s historic win.

James Baskett

Sidney Poitier was the first African-American to earn a competitive actor Oscar, but Baskett was the first to receive an Academy Award. In 1948, he received an honorary Oscar for his “able and heartwarming characterization of Uncle Remus in SONG OF THE SOUTH (’46), friend and storyteller to the children of the world.” Since Disney shelved the box-office hit that combined live action and animation in 1986 because of racial insensitivities (bootleg copies are available on eBay), the only bit of Baskett’s performance that one can see is the clip of him performing the Oscar-winning tune “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.”

Based on Joel Chandler Harris’ “Uncle Remus” stories featuring the adventures of Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear and set in a plantation post-Civil War, the film received mixed reviews at the time of its release. The NAACP and other African-American groups expressed outrage at the film with several picket lines set up in major cities, including Los Angeles where the National Negro Congress handed out pamphlets stating that the picture “contains dangerous stereotyping that creates an impression of Negros in the minds of their fellow Americans which make them appear to be second class citizens.”

SONG OF THE SOUTH was Baskett’s most high-profile role. He had appeared on Broadway in the legendary 1929 black musical revue Hot Chocolates. After moving to Los Angeles, he had appeared in such films as 1943’s REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES and 1944’s THE HEAVENLY BODY. From 1944-48, he appeared as Gabby Gibson in the radio show Amos n Andy.

He had initially auditioned for the voice of Br’er Fox, but Walt Disney was so impressed that he hired him to play the cartoon character as well as Remus. Baskett never got to see if the award would have changed his career. Just four months after winning the Oscar, Baskett, who had suffered from diabetes, died of heart failure at the age of 44.

Ethel Waters

After World War II, Hollywood studios started making films examining serious topics. In 1947, 20th Century-Fox released GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT, which explored anti-Semitism. The film, directed by Elia Kazan, won three Oscars including Best Film and Director. Two years later, Fox took on racism with PINKY (’49), also directed by Kazan. Based on the novel Quality by Cid Ricketts Sumner, PINKY revolved around Patricia “Pinky,” a light-skinned Black woman (Jeanne Crain) who passes for white—she even has a white fiancée (William Lundigan)—in the North before returning home to the South to visit her beloved grandmother, Dicey (Waters).

Waters, the legendary singer who made her film debut in the 1929 musical ON WITH THE SHOW!, earned an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actress for her warm performance as Dicey. She then went on to star opposite Julie Harris on in THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING (’52), first on Broadway then in the film adaption. She also starred in the TV sitcom Beulah from 1950-52. Her final film was 1959’s THE SOUND AND THE FURY and she guest starred in several TV series before dying in 1977 at the age of 80.

Juanita Moore

The singer/dancer/actress, who began her career in the chorus of the Cotton Club, was the third African-American actress to receive a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the 1959 melodrama IMITATION OF LIFE. Directed by Douglas Sirk and produced by Ross Hunter, the hit adaptation of Fannie Hurst’s 1933 novel starred Lana Turner as an ambitious actress and single mother to a teenager daughter (Sandra Dee.) Moore is her loving maid Annie who discovers her light-skinned daughter (Oscar-nominated Susan Kohner) is attempting to pass as white.

Moore, who made her film debut in the late 1930s, had played bits, uncredited parts and supporting roles in films until she was cast as Annie Johnson. The gracious actress told me in a 2009 Los Angeles Times interview that many actresses wanted the role, including Pearl Bailey. Universal didn’t want [Moore]. “They wanted everybody but me,” she confessed to me. “Only the director and [producer] Ross Hunter [wanted me].” Despite the Oscar nomination, Moore didn’t work for an entire year after. She told the L.A. Times in 1967 that the nomination was a mixed blessing.

“The Oscar prestige was fine, but I worked more before I was nominated. Casting directors think an Oscar nominee is suddenly in another category. They couldn’t possibly ask you to do one or two-days’ work. You wouldn’t accept it. And I’m sure I would.” She was 99 when she died in 2014.

Rupert Crosse

Fifty years ago, Crosse became the first African-American to receive a Best Supporting Actor nomination for the picaresque comedy-drama THE REIVERS (‘69), based on William Faulkner’s final novel. Set in the South in 1912, the film revolves around a trip in a fancy Winton Flyer car organized by a wealthy family’s hired hand (Steve McQueen). Joining him is the patriarch’s 12-year-old grandson (Mitch Vogel) and the family’s mixed race second cousin (Crosse).

Crosse, who was a life member of the Actors Studio, appeared in two of John Cassavetes’ films, 1958’s SHADOWS and 1961’s TOO LATE BLUES. However, THE REIVERS wasn’t a box-office hit and Crosse’s career did not get a boost from the Oscar nomination. He continued to work primarily in television. His last role was in the 1971-72 NBC comedy series The Partners, in which he and Don Adams played bumbling detectives. Crosse had been cast to star opposite his good friend Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid in Hal Ashby’s 1973 classic The Last Detail but had to pull out of the project when he learned he had terminal cancer. He was just 45 when he died in 1973.

#Black actors #African American actors #Oscars #Academy Awards #Ethel Waters #Juanita Moore #James Baskett #Rupert Crosse #TCM #Turner Classic Movies #Susan King

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disneyat34 · 4 years

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Fantasia at 34

A review by Adam D. Jaspering

By 1940, Disney proved he was as large a titan in the world of feature films as he was in animated shorts. But as the saying goes, a man's reach should exceed his grasp. His third feature, Fantasia, would be an audacious experiment.

Disney had been synchronizing animated cartoons to classical music since 1928. His trademarked Silly Symphony shorts earned him seven Academy Awards. They were a foundational element of the Disney empire, but they were outmoded by 1939. Audiences were preferring plot-driven shorts.

Coincidentally, another Disney creation was also in decline in this era. It’s hard to fathom, but Mickey Mouse’s popularity with audiences peaked in 1935. By 1939, he was eclipsed by both Donald Duck and Goofy. More frequently, Mickey appeared alongside the two than appearing in his own independent shorts.

Disney had plans to bring both musical shorts and Mickey Mouse back into the limelight. Disney employed the assistance of The Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Leopold Stokowsky. The Sorcerer's Apprentice was completed in 1938, pairing Mickey Mouse with the music of Paul Dukas in a nine-minute cinematic epic.

However, Walt Disney’s brother Roy, accountant for the company, crunched the numbers. The $125,000 budget made the short a logistical nightmare. To make a profit, the short needed to be released as a feature film. And to be a feature film, it needed to be feature length.

The Concert Feature, as it was initially called, grew in size and scale. The budget grew to $2.8 million. The crew ballooned to over one thousand artists and animators. After much effort and many headaches, Fantasia was finally released in November, 1940.

The film starts with a heavily stylized depiction of the orchestra and their instruments. The background is blue and vibrant, but every musician is ensconced in shadow. Lights from the music stands illuminate a negligible part or their personage. We can see the musicians, but only just.

From the onset, the film accomplishes two goals: First, it wants you to understand you are seeing live-action people. Mickey Mouse is on all the posters. Disney’s name is attached to the film. But these are real, non-animated people. Quite possibly the first live-action people filmed by Walt Disney since his Alice shorts.

Second, Fantasia wants you to realize you are seeing real people, but they are not the focus. The attention is not on them, but their instruments. This is a film not about people, but sound and music.

This is furthered as the sounds of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor begins. The silhouettes of the musicians are projected onto the backdrop, scaled larger than their sources. The musicians become literal giants. The shadows create a form of puppetry, becoming indistinguishable from animation. Fantasy and reality, sound and imagery have become intertwined. It’s difficult to determine when the cameras stop rolling, and the ink and paints take over.

We are informed from the outset that Fantasia’s visuals are not those of trained musicians or scholars. These images are the thoughts and feelings of animators and artists. We are privy to new interpretations of classic works (well, new to 1940), beginning with Toccata and Fugue.

Defined as “Absolute Music,” Toccata and Fugue is an instantly recognizable piece of classical music. It is the go-to stock music whenever a movie, TV show or cartoon wants to quickly and unmistakably associate a scene with a sense of foreboding doom. But Fantasia undoes this eternally mired association; the booming bass offers no semblance of the intimidating or macabre.

Emcee Deems Taylor warns outright we’ll be experiencing non-representative form and abstract imagery. If the impressionist movement coexisted with film, it would probably resemble something like this. In a way, it’s almost a warning for impatient and fickle audiences. Doubly so, as it leads the procession of animated shorts. It’s a fair warning: This is experimental film. Your mileage may vary.

The abstraction gives way to the first representative piece. Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite; perhaps the most widely known ballet in modern society. We get a great demonstration about the longevity and shifting legacy of classical works as Taylor informs us “nobody performs it nowadays.” Art does not belong to an era, it belongs to the ages. I’m 34, and I’ve never known a Christmas where The Nutcracker wasn’t being performed somewhere in the city.

The Nutcracker Suite depicts the various flora and fauna of an enchanted forest, all engaged in a unique and stylized dance suited to their physique. What’s more, each movement is indicative to a nation and culture. We see Russian flowers, Arabian fish, French blossoms, and Chinese mushrooms (questionably stylized Chinese mushrooms. Thank you, 1940s).

As problematic as the mushrooms are, I’m more perplexed by the Arabian fish. Obviously the sequence is an allusion to the eroticized stereotype of middle eastern women, particularly the Dance of Seven Veils and other subsequent belly dance numbers.

It’s a very g-rated version of the burlesque staple, but one has to wonder why it exists at all. At some point in the late 1930s/early 1940s, someone designed a fish to look and act like a belly dancer. Those eyes exist only for the purpose of portraying a sense of eroticism. Not to kinkshame somebody on Tumblr, but it’s very clear somebody on Disney’s staff was working through some things.

Each of these dances feature plants and animals evocative in style and movement of their corresponding dance’s nationality. This implies the animators were indeed versed on the background of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite and his original intent. This breaks the promise from the start of the film: interpretations of artists, not of scholars.

It’s not an invalidating breach, and not total (surely Tchaikovsky never intended Clara and the prince to meet an amorous fish). But if Fantasia deliberately specified itself to not utilize scholarly interpretations. They waffled on this promise, and it should be noted.

Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is an interesting specimen. Not only has Mickey Mouse’s cautionary tale of a proper work ethic completely eclipsed its musical source in popular culture, but the short has eclipsed the entirety of Fantasia.

When one hears the word “Fantasia,” one’s mind immediately leaps to Mickey Mouse in a bathrobe. They think of the blue hat, festooned with stars. They think of an army of brooms, brought to life, obediently and endlessly carrying buckets of water. They think of the bassoons secondarily. Most are unaware the music existed before the movie.

That said, there is no better representation of Fantasia’s central tenet: a marriage of animation as an artistic medium and classical music as an eternal font of inspiration. In The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, not a word of dialogue is spoken and not a single intertitle is used. An idea is formed, expressed and delivered by the movement onscreen, buoyed by the themes and mood of the orchestral score. What results is a tale beloved for generations.

Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring offers a brief history of prehistoric life. We see the cosmos create planet Earth. Tectonic plates shift and form land. Life is formed, evolving from single celled organisms, progressing up the evolutionary ladder. But this truncated history of eons and eons comprises only half the segment. The remainder is a grandiose depiction of life in the nadir of the Mesozoic Era. Dinosaurs in all their titanic glory.

Every few years, an animation company attempts to create a dinosaur-centered film. Either through lack of confidence or executive meddling, these dinosaurs aren’t allowed to simply be dinosaurs. We don’t see the glory of the creatures or the power struggle between herbivore and carnivore. Instead, these dinosaurs speak. They learn lessons and have character arcs. They’re often used as a parable of teamwork and community, or an allegorical tale of standing up to one’s oppressors.

Disney themselves fell into that trap in the year 2000, but we’ll address that soon enough. Dinosaurs are mesmerizing in their own right, as the animals they were. They require no personification. They need no story and no character. A musical short may be the closest we’ll ever get to such a film. For now, we can still enjoy the sight of a tyrannosaur fighting a stegosaurus to the death.

An interesting element of Fantasia, a remnant of a bygone era, is the intermission. When Taylor announced the film would break for a 15 minute intermission, I was concerned as the orchestra began slowly shuffling out of the amphitheater. Was the movie really going to stop? Fantasia is already fighting an uphill battle, trying to keep audiences with temperamental patience captivated. Stopping all inertia for fifteen minutes is suicidal.

Many films from the first half of film history, especially those longer than three hours, survive in their current forms with an intermission built in. Their home release is presented exactly as their theatrical release. The score’s overture plays over a meticulously designed title card, encouraging theater-goers to stretch their legs and visit the lobby. These intermissions have been preserved for posterity, but are wholly inconsequential with fast forward buttons and chapter select options.

I was concerned such would be the case for Fantasia, which barely crests the two-hour mark. It’s the longest of all Disney’s animated features, but surely that record is not because of a deliberate 15-minute time out? If persnickety audience of the 1940s needed a break, what of children in the digital age? They would minimize the window and never return.

Fantasia’s title card is present, but immediately returns back to the film, all for the better. It’s a pointless detour maintained for an illusion of legacy and integrity. Fantasia’s musical numbers are all well and good in their own right, but the live-action segments with the orchestra is full of questionable moments like these.

For example, at one point, a percussionist interrupts Deems Taylor by knocking over his bells. There’s no build up to this, no explanation, and no commentary. It happens, and is promptly forgotten. If it’s a joke, it makes no sense. If it’s a mistake, why was it left in?

Perhaps Disney had no idea how to carry these live segments. He was afraid to let the segments speak for themselves, feeling obligated to inject them with more than a curated introduction. He needed to pepper in little moments that would either change the dynamic or mandate attention.

These moments rob the gravitas delivered by the orchestra, interrupt the flow of the picture, and make the audience wait impatiently for the next segment. Disney Studios would experiment with live-action film over the next decade, but these missteps display exactly why Disney Studios was not ready for a fully live-action film until the 1950s.

Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony is not the strangest segment of the film, but it becomes more surreal the more it’s examined. Early on, after a brief dance with satyrs, unicorns, and pegasi, we’re greeted with a number of topless, bathing centaurettes. One wouldn’t think Disney would brazenly depict frontal nudity, but there we are. Fully nude cherubs further the dissonance.

Greek and Roman mythology contains stories of heroes, legends, monsters, and adventure. It’s also rife with depictions of incest, rape, violence, and general malfeasance. Adapting any tale concerning the Olympians requires great skill, lest it be so thematically vulgar, it’s outright rejected by modern sensibilities. Even moreso when the tale is to be presented in a G-rated setting. As obvious a statement this may seem, it’s odd for Fantasia to have an entire segment dedicated to the Roman deity Bacchus and his trademark love of wine.

To say the wine flows is an understatement. A golden chalice overflows with some of the most tantalizing violet liquid ever depicted on film.I don’t even like wine, but I would take up a glass if it was offered.

Bacchus merrily sways back and forth in a drunken stupor for his entire appearance. Caught in a mixture of revelry and lightheadedness, the inebriated god is the central figure of a literal bacchanal. Fantasia was released the same year as Pinocchio, which depicted drunkards in such a negative light, they were turned into donkeys. Bacchus rides a unicorn-donkey who enjoys the taste of wine as much as his master. Behold: The duality of Disney.

Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours is perhaps the second most famous segment to come from Fantasia. The premise behind the segment is simple. Ballerinas are renowned for their lithe bodies and graceful elegance. What if, instead of traditional ballerinas, they were depicted by animals? Animals renowned for their girth, gangling physique, or stumpy limbs? It’s the contrast that provides comedy. Whatever age, whatever era, it will always be funny watching a hippopotamus do ballet.

As such, Fantasia gives us the sight of ostriches, elephants, alligators, and hippopotamuses, dressed in traditional tutus and slippers, dancing to the best of their ability. To the animator’s credit, the disparate physiques of the animals are hardly an issue. The absurd sizes and shapes of the animals bend and flex in a comical, but equally elegant manner.

The final segment is a combination of Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain and Schubert’s Ave Maria. Here, the devil presides over Walpurgis Night, welcoming ghouls, ghosts, and witches alike from the realm of the damned into the world of the living. They are then conquered, banished back from whence they came, by the choir of a mere church processional.

For the longest time, I’ve heard the central figure of this piece referred to as “Chernobog,” a central figure of Russian and Balkan folklore. Much like Honest John in Pinocchio, this naming must be supplemental or subsequently; he is never referred to as Chernobog in the film. He is simply referred to by Taylor as “Satan.”

So far in Fantasia, we’ve been exposed to murder, alcoholism, nudity, and sexy fish. Having the Prince of Darkness make an appearance is the final taboo that Walt Disney could break. Perhaps this is why the name Chernobog was attached retroactively. Pious Americans couldn’t abide a depiction of the devil in an animated feature.

All in all, I prefer the idea of the horned figure being a literal depiction of Satan over Chernobog. Primarily, it makes much more sense thematically. Why would a Russian myth be toppled by a Christian hymn? He wouldn’t, unless it was some misguided attempt at an analogy of Christianity versus Paganism. But why make an analogy when the literal interpretation is exactly appropriate?

Possibly, western righteousness defeating a Russian emblem could be interpreted as a Cold War fable. This is rather unlikely, as the Cold War didn’t start in earnest until years after Fantasia’s release.

Second, if we interpret the character as the devil, it further serves the story Disney’s animators were trying to tell: one of good versus evil. Darkness versus light. Chaos versus order. The sacred versus the profane. Dramatic conflict in both imagery, mood, and music. The wild, unbridled chaos of Walpurgis Night, contrasted against the elegant calmness of a serene morning in May. If the demon was indeed Chernobog, it shows either a complete misunderstanding of the mythic figure, or a complete noncommittal to the story.

The Night on Bald Mountain portion is impressive and magnificent. The terrifying monstrosities are a cornucopia of Halloweenish delights, and they move with such intensity and power. Fire is used as a uniting theme throughout this segment, and the heat and intensity can be felt through the animation.

I cannot find any sources confirming this, but it feels like the spiritual successor to 1922′s Häxan. Disney animators evoked the sensation of German Expressionism (particularly the works of Robert Weine) in certain moments of Snow White. I wouldn’t be surprised if Häxan served as a primary influence here.

Satan is depicted in an imposing, terrifying form. It’s a laundry list of every evil hallmark. He has glowing eyes, fangs, horns, bat wings, a muscular physique, sharp claws at the end of each finger, the ability to manipulate shadows, and more identifiers plucked from the nightmares of children everywhere.

Ave Maria sits in an odd position in popular culture. It’s been completely co-opted by the Christmas season. So much so, hearing the music detached from a holiday setting strikes up feelings of confusion. Moreso is hearing a quiet, choral interpretation backed by strings, and not a tenor vocalist belting out the opening at full force. It’s beauty is in its restraint. As the beatitude goes, blessed are the meek.

What’s more, after the thundering bravado of A Night on Bald Mountain, the hushed woodwinds and strings seem almost ashamed to make noise. Throughout, I was wondering when the piece would truly begin. Then, before I received my expected answer, the film ended. Ave Maria truly is the counterpart; quiet, dignified, and penitent.

Sitting in the darkness, watching a black screen, I’m met with nothing but a void. There’s no farewell from Stokowsky or Taylor. No final bow from the orchestra. No coda. We the viewer are simply left with a vacuum of sound and imagery. A moment, at last, to fully reflect on what we had seen. Music had provided us images and stories for two hours. In the aftermath, silence and darkness were just as powerful.

Unsurprisingly, Fantasia was a commercial failure upon release. The avant-garde presentation simply didn’t meld with audiences expectations. The film earned back roughly $325,000 of its $2.8 million budget.

But, as I previously mentioned, art does not belong to an era, but to the ages. Critical and audience approval of the film has grown in subsequent years, and Fantasia is considered one of Disney’s masterpieces. It even turned a profit in 1969 after a series of re-releases.

Sometimes a grand experiment begins with a meager idea, like marketing a corporate mascot. Sometimes that idea can blossom into a grand work. And sometimes a showpiece needs to age like wine before it’s appreciated properly. We’ll never know our true legacy, but a truly good idea, like good music, will be appreciated through the ages.

Fantasia Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Pinocchio

#Fantasia #Disney #walt disney #Walt Disney Animation Studios #Film Criticism #film analysis #Review #Disney Canon

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olliewood232 · 4 years

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The History of Animation

Animation dates back all the way to 3000 B.C.in which they engraved pictures onto pottery which gave the indication of animals leaping. along with this in 1500 A.D. Leonardo da Vinci Virtruvian Man was drawn at different angles which alos shows the idea of movement.

As time moved on and the industrial revolution began and so experimentation with machines started to roll out.The first of which was the Magic Lantern in 1603.This contraption consisted of an image projector which projected images from small sheets of glass. this was considered early animation because some of the sheets had moving parts.

In 1824, came the thaumatrope. the Thaumatrope was a simple rotating disk which had strings attached to each side. it was said to work on the idea persistence of vision. The disk would spin and the pictures would seem to fuse together.

A few years later, in 1831 the next stage of animation was the Phenakitoscope. This was a small spinning disks which reflected the images onto a mirror and this made the illusion of movement. 3 years later in 1834, this developed into the Zoetrope. it was simply a more developed idea. it was a hollow drum shape that could fit strips of paper that would spin and it made it look as if the images were moving.

the crazy thing is that it wasn’t until 1868 that the flip-book was actually created. it is a simple creation that only consists of paper and small drawings that change slightly to give the look of a small animation. It is said that the flip book was more inspiring than the actual machines created for the early animators.

Then in 1877, came the praxinoscope. this built on the zoetrope as instead of a simple wheel it used multiple to rotate images and it is said that this is where the first initial animated cartoon images.

Once the 20th century hit, cartoons were becoming more prominent. One of the many studios to open and thrive during this period was Bray studios in New York. Bray gave opportunity to many animators to help kick start there careers some of who created famous cartoons such as Mighty mouse, Betty Boop and Woody Woodpecker.

In 1906, the first ever full animated film was created using stop-motion animation. It was called Humorous phases of funny faces. the film was produced by James Stuart Blackton. the film was a cartoonist drawing faces on a chalkboard and he faces were coming to life. Then in 1908 Fantasmagorie was created. this was the first animated film using hand-drawn animation. it was produced by Emile Cohl who was a french producer. it was also a silent film like the film created in 1906.

Jumping forward a couple of years Felix the Cat was introduced in 1914. Felix was considered the first animated movie star. Felix was first depicted in Feline Follies. He was created by Pat sullivan and Otto Messmer.

After Felix in 1928, cam Walt Disney first actual credible piece of animation- Steamboat Willie. this animation was the first of its kind because it had sound printed onto the film. you may actually recognise this animation as it is sometimes shown as an opening credit at the beginning of some Disney films.

Walt Disney was a world renowned animator and was the creator of so many famous faces such as Mickey mouse, snow white and many more. Walt was actually the original voice for mickey mouse and during his lifetime won 7 Emmy awards and 22 Academy Awards for his work. he was also very initiative as he turned his animations into theme parks all around the world.

Soon after came The Golden Age of American Animation. these were the years that homed the rise of the famous Walt Disney, Warner Bros and many others.

In 1930 Disney started to air the Mickey mouse series which proved to be a massive hit compared to his original animated series, Silly Symphony. Mickey mouse had more memorable and likeable characters hat everyone enjoyed.

The Golden age was a very important time for animation as it was when the want for animation was lowering in popularity however, it began to turn itself around. In 1937 Snow White was released by Disney. this was the first full-length feature to include fully drawn animated images throughout. this kicked off Disney as the famous animation movie maker he was. After Snow White he went on to create Pinocchio which was considered an incredible achievement by many and cost twice the amount that Snow white had.

But as war broke out the studios had to move away fro there fun animations and instead were commissioned to start creating war propaganda to help with the war effort. the only film he was able to carry on with at the time was Bambi which released in 1942. However it bombed in the box office and had various reviews. It was later re-released where it did much better.

once the war ended, there wasn’t much money for studios to start back up previous pipeline projects. But soon after came the American animation TV age.

During this time many still popular shows were created. the industry began to shift from only animated films and started to created Cartoon shows and this was the start of many favourite channels such as Nickelodeon and The Disney channel.

the first show to be released was The Flintstones this was a popular cartoon show based around a family living in the stone age. It was fun for everyone and many people still like it to this day. It was released in 1960. A year later yogi bear was created and debuted on national TV. it was a spin off form a previous animated creation called Huckleberry Hound. the creator of this masterpiece was Hannah Barbara.

1964 was also a big year. during this year. Pink Panther won the best animated film and also the first ever adult cartoon was released. this was the first animated series to be aimed towards the entertainment of adults . the show was called Fritz the cat.

In 1980, the modern age of animation began. this was when CGI really kicked off. 3D modelling took over the original stop-motion done through drawing. and so computer aided animation began to kick off throughout the world.

The first full animated CGI film was released in 1984 it was called The adventures of Andre & Wally B. the creators of this short film were The Graphics Group. This company was what Pixar was originally know as. And in 1987 the Simpsons hit the worlds TVs. the Simpsons was created by Matt Groening for the Fox channel. The Simpsons is the longest running american sitcom. since its first showing it has had 30 seasons and people still love to this day. It sits currently with a 8.7 rating on IMDB. it also had a film release in 2007.

In 1995, the first fully computer animated film was released, Toy story this was Pixars first full-length feature film that was computerised animation. the films executive producer was Steve Jobs. the movie made worldwide amount of $362 million.

Once the 2000s hit animation began to fly even further with models becoming more realistic than ever. Studios began to release cartoon movies multiple times each year and pipeline projects that had been in the works for years began to be seen on the big screens.

As you can see animation has come a very long way. And it will continue to grow and flourish from what we know at the moment.

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dateddisneydishes · 2 years

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Raspberry Lemon Tea Cake

From The Country Cousin in An Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons

History

There's a lot of cake on the table in this short. So much so that I'm not going to try and make like three different cakes. So let's assume that they're all the same flavor cake.

Food

"But what flavor cake?" you may ask. Well, we see a lot of what looks like raspberries scattered about and that one slice there looks yellowish... So how about raspberry lemon?

Ingredients

For the Cake

1 ½ cup all-purpose flour

¾ cup sugar

½ cup melted butter

½ cup sour cream

2 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

Zest of 1 lemon

Juice of half a lemon

½ cup raspberries

For the Glaze

2 cups confectioners' sugar

1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) butter, melted

2 to 4 tablespoons warm milk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cookware

Mixing bowls

Whisk or Beaters

Cupcake pan

Cupcake liners

Directions

For the Cake

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Add butter to a medium size bowl then heat in 30 second increments until fully melted.

Add the sugar and lemon zest to the melted butter then whisk until well combined. Next, whisk in sour cream, eggs and lemon juice until well combined.

Toss raspberries into flour mixture to coat slightly. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients then gently fold in.

Using a medium scoop, scoop batter into each mold.

Bake for 18-20 minutes. After the cakes have baked, allow them to cool in the mold for 10 minutes, then gently remove them from the mold. Allow to finish cooling on a wire cooling rack.

For the Glaze

Sift the confectioners' sugar into a medium-sized bowl.

Add the melted butter, 2 tablespoons of milk or hot water, and the vanilla to the confectioners' sugar. Stir to blend.

Beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy, adding a little more milk or hot water if necessary to reach the desired consistency.

Drizzle the finished glaze over a cooled cake

Of course you'll want to serve tea cake with tea, so tune in next time for that.

#disney dishes #historical recipes #food history #disney history #disney #the country cousin #an academy award review of walt disney cartoons #raspberry lemon tea cake

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dweemeister · 4 years

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Best Animated Short Film Nominees for the 92nd Academy Awards (2020, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

Since 2013 on this blog, I have been reviewing the Oscar-nominated short films for the respective Academy Awards ceremony. This is one of my favorite traditions for the “31 Days of Oscar” marathon I hold yearly, and I recommend to all my North American followers to seek these shorts out (see this) – they have just released to theaters as of this review’s publication and the reach of each package’s distribution increases every year. As a one-off for the 92nd Academy Awards, the Oscars are being held on their earliest weekend ever, giving everyone less time to see the nominated shorts.

Without further ado, here are the Academy Award nominees for Best Animated Short Film. Three of the five are stop-motion animation. It’s a solid bunch and – despite the fact I have seen better nominee slates – all fully deserving of their nominations (it is rare I feel that way) in a tightly contested year. They are all, in some ways, featuring characters and showing how they connect to others.

Hair Love (2019)

Co-directed by Matthew A. Cherry (former executive at Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions); Everett Downing Jr. (a journeyman storyboard artist who has worked with Blue Sky, DreamWorks, Netflix, and Pixar); and Bruce W. Smith (creator of The Proud Family and former supervising animator with Walt Disney Animation Studios), Hair Love becomes what is most likely the second film in the history of the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film to have significant involvement from a former professional athlete (Cherry; the first is probably 2017′s Dear Basketball). Distributed by Sony Pictures Animation following a Kickstarter campaign, Hair Love played in front of 2019′s The Angry Birds Movie 2 – talk about a disparity in quality. The film follows a young girl as she refers to a YouTube channel (this film showcases modern technology but does not, like many other animated films, date itself in its technological depictions) to style, if not tame, her hair. Her father – who appears to have little experience with cutting or styling hair – is hesitant to help his daughter, but they struggle and learn together. The final moments of Hair Love reveal that their time learning from these online tutorials extends beyond their bonds as father and daughter.

Hair Love, riding on Hollywood goodwill from figures rarely associated with animation, has been lauded for its depiction of black fatherhood. In American popular culture, black fathers in black-centric narratives have often been portrayed as abusive or absent. So to see the opposite in hand-drawn animation is a welcome sight. The daughter’s hair almost has a life of its own and is normalized (black hairstyles have long been otherized in the West); an abstract sequence where the father is doing combat with the out-of-control hair represents the awkwardness of this scenario – with zero dialogue – perfectly. For an animation studio ridiculed for releases like The Emoji Movie (2017), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Hair Love serve as partial correctives.

My rating: 8.5/10

NOTE: Hair Love can be seen on YouTube as of this review’s publication.

Dcera (Daughter) (2019, Czech Republic)

The Czech Republic can lay claim to being the home of the late Jiří Trnka, arguably one of the greatest, most innovative stop-motion animators of all time. Carrying that legacy forward is Daria Kashcheeva, a graduate of the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU). Her graduation film, Dcera (“Daughter” in English), won a Student Academy Award and was deemed the best graduation film at the famed Annecy International Animated Film Festival (the most important all-animation film festival in the world). In Dcera, we find a young woman at the side of her father’s hospital bed, reminiscing about their relationship. Wordless and shot largely with a shaky camera and in close-up, we see several images from the woman’s childhood – how her father, barely scraping by with household duties, had little time to express his love to her. Dcera often breaks into literal flights of fancy and the daughter’s surrealistic imagination. And yet even when retreating into a world crafted so that she can escape, there is a longing to bring her father in.

Kashcheeva’s notes about Dcera elicit that she wished to accomplish an, “authentic immediacy and a para-documentary nature” to her film via the film’s constant close-up shots and low depth of field. She mostly succeeds; although the shaky camera is distracting and prevents the audience from forming an emotional connection with the characters onscreen. The stop-motion puppets appear to be made of papier-mâché and are intentionally rough –reflecting how difficult their lives have been and the innumerable imperfections of their personhood. The production design – when we are allowed to see it (the lack of production quality is not any fault of the film’s, considering that it is a graduation work) – resemble something from a lucid nightmare. Dcera is an outstanding feat of stop-motion stylization. In its final minutes, it seeks to understand and to forgive that which was never realized. Its emotional impact is imperfect, but its intentions nevertheless pack a wallop.

My rating: 7.5/10

Sister (2018)*

When the Chinese Communist Party brought an end to its one-child policy in 2015, it concluded a decades-long experiment that has left China in a demographic bind. Stemming from a decision made in 1979, the policy’s consequences include a skewed age disparity and sex ratio at birth that will affect the nation for more several decades. Siqi Song’s graduation film from CalArts, Sister, has the one-child policy in mind. The film, narrated by Bingyang Liu (no previous film credits) is a reflection by a man thinking about his life with his little sister. More than midway through Sister, the audience learns that the film is nothing more than speculation. In China even now, the one-child policy – since replaced by a two-child policy – has left its mark on numerous generations be they children, parents, grandparents. The film’s unique character design is wool-based, with its monochrome pallet recalling an older family photo album.

According to Song, the film’s story, “didn’t change from the very beginning. [She] always knew the film would be about a man imagining how his life might have been like had he had a little sister.” What did change while Song – a “little sister survivor” whose family made a tremendous effort to keep her a part of their family – made Sister were the stories of a brother and sister as the two grow up. The never-to-be siblings have their conflicts, as well as their moments of familial love. Not all of the ways this is depicted work, most notably the scene where the sister grows beyond her crib to become a giant looming over her brother (the metaphor here is too heavy-handed). Our narrator ponders whether he might have been a different person if his mother – pregnant with his younger sister, wanting very much to bear her – never had the policy-forced abortion. Given the trauma it inflicted on his mother, the narrator – even from an early age – will be left pondering this well into his adulthood. Is there regret in his narration? Guilt? I don’t have any answers, but I will leave it to those of Chinese descent to discern theirs.

My rating: 8/10

*Sister is entirely in Mandarin. For non-English language films, I usually list the film along with its country/countries of origin unless it was primarily an American production. Despite Sister being listed as an American/Chinese co-production by Song, I see no evidence of a Chinese studio backing the film. For record-keeping purposes, Sister will be deemed an American film.

Mémorable (2019, France)

Last year, Ireland’s famous Cartoon Saloon garnered acclaim for Louise Bagnall’s Late Afternoon. Late Afternoon, an expressionistic study in an elderly woman’s dementia, is a distant cousin to Bruno Collet’s Mémorable. Here, an artist named Louis (André Wilms) shifts between periods of remembrance and forgetfulness. His wife, Michelle (Dominique Reymond), tends to his needs and to his increasing disconnection to the things and people around him. If Louis has one fixture in his life, it is his painting – with brushes or, close to the end, with his fingers. Collet, noting the increase of short films – animated or otherwise – about dementia in recent years, indeed questioned the wisdom of yet another film about someone suffering from it. He then encountered the works of artist William Utermohlen. Utermohlen, like Louis, continued painting even as his dementia impaired his understanding of his surroundings, let alone his work. Collet, now convinced of the validity of his plans by learning of Utermohlen’s life, set straight to work on Mémorable.

Mémorable evolves as the film progresses. What seems like a straight stop-motion animated short film transforms itself as Louis’ dementia worsens. By the film’s end, Louis’ figure begins to melt into something like oil paints, making him a living Impressionist painting while others around become surreal on the terms of a Picasso or Dali. With Mémorable containing plenty of dialogue, none of this ever detracts from this short’s abstractions The film’s final moments – an uplifting dance scene between Louis and Michelle – is an extraordinary marriage of stop-motion animation and computerized animation. By then, Collet has depicted the progression of Louis’ dementia in as cinematic a way as possible using an array of styles that could not have been predicted within a twelve-minute animated short film. The technical daring of Mémorable and the strength of its artistic conceit is breathtaking to behold.

My rating: 9/10

Kitbull (2019)

If any animation studio has a history with animal, it is Disney. Released as one of Pixar’s “SparkShorts” – a program created in 2019 to foster the talents of Pixar’s younger animators to force them to make short films with limited resources – Rosana Sullivan’s Kitbull joins that esteemed company. Sullivan, a storyboard artist who worked on the likes of Monsters University (2013) and Incredibles 2 (2018), was previously training to be a veterinarian and had helped many pit bulls in clinics and shelters. She, “saw how sweet and gentle they could be, despite [her] initial fears.” Her work with unadopted black cats formed the other half of what would become Kitbull. In San Francisco’s Mission District, a scrawny kitten and a pit bull who is forced into dogfights (even the implication of dogfighting would render Kitbull ineligible for wide theatrical release by Disney executives, knowing their insistence on a sanitized brand) strike up a friendship.

The design of the kitten is not realistic, but it would not be believable if Kitbull was filmed as a stop-motion or CGI-animated film. The kitten’s unrealistic body proportions make it more appealing and the minimalism of the pit bull’s design (there is a minimum amount of lines used to trace its facial shape) is effective artistic economy. The pit bull is a type of dog in need of an image rehabilitation. Perceived the be among the most violent of dogs, pit bulls are anything but naturally violent and Kitbull plays into this misconception. Sullivan’s experience as a former veterinarian student are fused with themes of loneliness and trust-building. Cut down from an 18-minute-long storyboard to its nine-minute runtime, Kitbull is an efficiently told animated short film evoking the pathos of animal-centric Walt Disney Animation Studios’ feature- and short-length films of the 1930s and ‘40s.‡

My rating: 8/10

‡ Which, for younger readers that have not seen Disney films from those decades, should be taken as a high compliment.

NOTE: Kitbull can be seen on YouTube as of this review’s publication.

^ Based on my personal imdb ratings. Half-points are always rounded down.

From previous years: 85th Academy Awards (2013), 87th (2015), 88th (2016), 89th (2017), 90th (2018), and 91st (2019).

#Dcera #Hair Love #Kitbull #Memorable #Oscars #Sister #Daria Kashcheeva #Matthew A. Cherry #Everett Downing Jr.#Bruce W. Smith #Rosana Sullivan #Bruno Collet #Siqi Song #92nd Academy Awards #31 Days of Oscar #My Movie Odyssey

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whatsnewcartoons · 6 years

Text

What’s New In 2018: The Cartoons

Separated by network. All premiere dates are estimated until confirmed. Timings are in EST.

NICKELODEON:

- The Adventures of Kid Danger (January 2018): Based on the live-action Henry Danger, while the live-action hit focuses on Henry balancing the challenges of being a teenager with his adventures as a crime fighter, this new full-length animated series centers on his exploits as Kid Danger, as he embarks on brave new missions with Captain Man to battle monsters, aliens and more. The Adventures of Kid Danger and Captain Man is produced by Powerhouse Animation, which also produced the short-form series.

In the new animated series, brand-new areas of the superheroes’ headquarters will be seen by fans for the very first time, including the Man Cave tube system, which propels the crime fighters into adventure; and the Man Cave garage, filled with crime-fighting vehicles and gadgets used on missions. Along with appearances of fan-favorite characters from the live-action show, new friends and foes will also be introduced.

The 10-episode series was created and executive produced by veteran producer Dan Schneider (Henry Danger, Game Shakers, iCarly) and features the original Henry Danger live-action cast reprising their roles. The series is set to premiere in January 2018.

- Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Fall 2018): Nickelodeon will be rebooting its current CG “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” series as a 2D animated series with the title “Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, as announced at their upfront in March.

“Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” will follow Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo on all-new adventures as they seek to unlock the mystical secrets of New York City. From the tallest skyscraper to the dankest sewer drain, the Turtles will encounter absurd new mutants and battle bizarre creatures all while enjoying their favorite slice of pizza. Tapping into mystic, ninja powers they never knew existed, the four brothers must learn to work together and navigate the perils of the modern age and hidden realms in order to fulfill their destiny to become a team of heroes.

The new 2D series is co-executive produced by Andy Suriano (character designer for the critically acclaimed Adult Swim series “Samurai Jack”) and Ant Ward (supervising producer, current “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”) at Nickelodeon in Burbank, California. Nickelodeon has ordered 26 episodes of the 2D reboot to air starting in fall 2018.

- Pinky Malinky (Early 2018): Co-created and co-executive produced by Chris Garbutt and Rikke Asbjoern (The Amazing World Of Gumball) and executive produced by Scott Kreamer (Kung Fu Panda: Legends Of Awesomeness), upcoming Nicktoon Pinky Malinky follows the everyday life of Pinky, an infectiously positive hotdog living in a human world who, along with his two best friends, navigates school and life with a unique perspective. Their humorous experiences also will be shared across social media and Nickelodeon’s digital platforms. It will be produced at Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank.

Using the tropes of a mockumentary and reality show format, Pinky and his friends will talk directly to the camera and the audience to share their absurd and silly take on real life. At times, all children feel like they don’t fit in, and Pinky’s undeniably unique point of view as a literal wiener amongst humans will allow kids to laugh at his familiar struggles and enjoy his unusual perspective on the challenges of being a school-age kid. By always reaching for the stars, Pinky pushes himself further than anyone could imagine and proves that being a “wiener” is only one letter away from being a “winner.”

Pinky Malinky previously was done as a short for Cartoon Network. It is set to premiere in early 2018 with 20 episodes.

- Glitch Techs (2018): Glitch Techs (working title) has been picked-up for 20-episodes set to debut in 2018. Glitch Techs is an CGI-animated adventure-comedy following two newly recruited kids as they battle video game monsters that come to life in the real world. The brand-new series comes from Eric Robles (Fanboy & Chum Chum) and Dan Milano (Greg the Bunny, Warren the Ape), both hailing from Nickelodeon’s Artist Collective, an internal artist-led development program. The series will be produced at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, Calif.

DISNEY CHANNEL / DISNEY XD:

- 101 Dalmatians Street (Autumn 2018): 101 Dalmatian Street is an original animated series based on the 1956 novel by Dodie Smith and the 1961 Walt Disney film One Hundred and One Dalmatians. It is a fresh take on the two classics and will follow 101 dogs living by themselves without a human owner. It takes place in 21st century London and features the eldest canine siblings Dylan, Dolly and their parents with the other 97 pups playing a supporting role.

The 48 x 11 minute series along with two x 22 minute specials are based on a pitch from Finland based Gigglebug Entertainment’s Anttu Harlin and Joonas Utti. It is being developed by Disney’s original animation team in London along with UK based Passion Animation Studios. The series will premiere worldwide in 2018 and is set to premiere on Disney Channel USA in fall 2018.

- Big City Greens (2018): The brand-new animated comedy is set to air on Disney XD in 2018. Previously titled Country Club, the show centers around a boy named Cricket Green who has moved with his family from the country to the big city. Cricket’s enthusiasm and curiosity inevitability results in him getting into wacky, fish-out-of-water adventures.

Emmy Award-winning director Rob Renzetti (Gravity Falls) serves as executive producer alongside brothers Shane and Chris Houghton.

Writers on Nicktoons’ Harvey Beaks, the Houghton brothers are perhaps best known in comics circles for their all-ages supernatural Western Reed Gunther, published by Image Comics. Shane Houghton has written stories for Peanuts, The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horrorand Casper’s Scare School, while Chris Houghton has contributed to The Simpsons, Adventure Time and Kung Fu Panda comics, as well as Disney’s Gravity Falls.

Big City Greens is scheduled to premiere in 2018 on Disney XD.

- Big Hero 6: The Series (early 2018): Recently premiering an hour-long movie in November 2017, the series picks up immediately following the events of the Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Academy Award-winning feature film and continues the adventures and friendship of Hiro, the fourteen-year-old orphaned tech genius and Baymax, his very special plus-sized inflatable healthcare companion. As the new kid at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, Hiro faces daunting academic challenges at the prestigious “nerd school” and the social trials of being the “little man on campus.” Luckily, Hiro has his brains, his ingenuity and his best friend bot to help him find his way. But it’s off campus where things get dangerous. Along with neat freak Wasabi, bubbly mad scientist Honey Lemon, fanboy Fred and no nonsense Go Go, the friends form an unlikely, but awesome super hero team – Big Hero 6. Together they face madness and mayhem as a colorful array of science-enhanced villains threaten San Fransokyo.

Originally inspired by the Marvel comic of the same name created by Man of Action, the Big Hero 6 series will see the return of Maya Rudolph as Aunt Cass; Jamie Chung as no-nonsense, speed genius Go Go; Scott Adsit as huggable robot Baymax; Alan Tudyk as tech guru Alistair Krei; Ryan Potter as tech genius Hiro; Genesis Rodriguez as quirky scientist Honey Lemon; David Shaughnessy as the butler Heathcliff; and Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee as Fred’s dad.

Emmy Award winners Mark McCorkle, Bob Schooley and Nick Filippi (the team behind the global hit Disney Channel series Kim Possible) serve as executive producers. Filippi also serves as supervising director. The series will premiere on Disney XD in early 2018, and has been renewed for a second season.

CARTOON NETWORK:

- Unikitty! (January 1st, 2018): The new series will follow the adventures of Unikitty as she rules her kingdom. Her daily responsibilities include making sure everybody is happy, promoting creativity and vanquishing any negativity. That all sounds sugary sweet, but Unikitty also has a bit of an edge when anyone gets in her way.

Joining Unikitty at the castle are her brother and best friend Puppycorn, her trusty bodyguard Hawkodile and the resident scientist Dr. Fox. "Unikitty!" will feature the voices of Tara Strong ("Teen Titans Go!," "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic"), Grey Griffin ("Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!," "The Loud House") Kate Micucci ("Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!," "Steven Universe"), Roger Craig Smith ("Regular Show"), Eric Bauza ("The Adventures of Puss in Boots") and H. Michael Croner ("Review").

"The Lego Batman Movie" and "The Lego Movie's" Dan Lin, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Roy Lee, Jill Wilfert and "Teen Titan Go!'s" Sam Register will serve as executive producers, with "Teen Titan Go!'s" Aaron Horvath as supervising producer. Edward Skudder ("Dick Figures") and Lynn Wang ("Star vs. the Forces of Evil") will serve as producers.

The series has been confirmed to premiere in a special event on January 1st, 2018 at 6.00AM on Cartoon Network USA, and will premiere new episodes on Fridays after the event.

- Craig of the Creek (2018): Previously announced at Cartoon Network’s 2017-2018 upfront, Craig of the Creek is an adventure series created by Matt Burnett and Ben Levin, formerly from Steven Universe. At the Creek, the rules of the outside world don’t apply in this kid utopia of untamed wilderness where Craig and his two best friends have ventured and tribes of children reign over tree forts and dirt bike ramps.

The series stars Phillip Solomon as Craig, Georgina Colovia as Kelsey and H. Michael Croner as JP. The pilot of the show has been released on the Cartoon Network website and application on December 1, 2017 and will premiere on Cartoon Network USA in 2018.

- Summer Camp Island (2018): Based on the original short created by Julia Pott (Adventure Time), the Summer Camp Island series will continue unfolding the mysteries that Oscar and his best friend Hedgehog encounter at a magical summer camp. It’s pilot short won the Best Animated Short award at the Provincetown Film Festival in 2017.

Oscar and his best friend Hedgehog have just been dropped off at their first summer camp. Away from their parents, the two friends must summon all their courage to navigate the mysteries and wonders of this camp where the counselors are witches, horses become unicorns and monsters live under the bed. Not all camps offer the opportunity to swim with a talking shark in the pool, crawl under the bed into a different universe or make friends with the moon, but on Summer Camp Island, anything can happen.

The series has been screened and won many awards at various film festivals in 2016 and 2017. The pilot episode has been released onto Cartoon Network’s website and application on December 2, 2017, and will premiere on Cartoon Network USA in 2018.

- Apple & Onion (2018): The series centers on two lovable buddies who are new and naive to the ways of the "big city of sophisticated food" as they go on adventures and make friends. The comedy was created by George Gendi (The Amazing World of Gumball), who also voices the character Apple in the show.

The short was selected to be screened alongside another Cartoon Network pilot, Welcome To My Life, at the Annecy Festival in 2015, before eventually being released online in May 2016. The short was picked up for a full series in March 2017, announced at Cartoon Network’s 2017-2018 upfront and will premiere on Cartoon Network USA in 2018.

So that’s the stuff to expect in 2018! Are you excited for what’s to come? Or are you disappointed that you didn’t find some stuff interesting?

With that said, the year for cartoons in 2017 is quickly coming to an end (Christmas isn’t a hot time for premieres). So, to celebrate the end of this wonderful year, I’ve created a poll on the best of cartoons and its networks in 2017! It’s a short one, hope you can fill it in! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tLY-yYXietlgbKq5tLj2N0ibP-AZSPV0vLJPRnCahF0

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