british film academy journal winter 1956-57

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THE JOURNAL of the BRITISH FILM ACADEMY

EDITORIAL BOARD

Edgar Anstey (Chairman of Council)

John Bryan, Mary Field, O.B.E., Anthony Havelock-Allan, Vivienne Knight,

Roger Manvel], Paul Rotha, Mrs. P. J. steele

Executive Editor: Roger Manvell Associate Editor: Mrs. P. J. Steele

Th e Editorial Board is very grate/ul to John Halas to r undertaking the Editorship of this special issue

of the Academy JOURNAL, alld . to the many companies and individuals who have supplied stills.

CONTENTSEditorial

The International Animated Film

Great Britain

U.S.A.

France

. U.s.S.R.

Canada

Poland

Czechoslovakia

Book Review

JOHN HALAS

JOHN HUNTLEY

PHILIP STAPP

JEAN IMAGE

I. IVANOY:YANO,"

GUY L. COTE

WLODZIMIERZ HAUPE

JAROSLAY BROZ

ADRIAN JEAKINS

Opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily represent those of the Academy.

The copyright of articles and other material published in the JOURNAL remains with the Academy.

We will be grateful. therefore. if anyone wishing to enquire about the right to reprint any items

would write to the Director of the British Film Academy.

The Academy Council gratefully acknowledge the generosity of Kodak, Ltd. for placing funds

at their disposal to cover the costs of this issue of the British Film Academy JOURNAL.

Published by

THE BRITISH FILM ACADEMY. 60 QUEEN ANNE STREET. LONDON. W.I

fIDNJED IN GREAT BRITAIN



ED!TCIlIAL

THE MAIN PART of this JOURNAL is entirely devoted to the animated

film in all its many forms and purposes-cartoon and puppet, entertainment

and instruction , propaganda and advertising. In several countries for different

purposes the animated film has been developed in recent years on a scale that

makes it an important, if separate, branch of production- with its own prob

lems of artistry, technique and studio organisation. The Editorial Board of the

JOURNAL is grateful to John Halas for undertaking the editorship of this

issue, which we hope will serve as a useful introduction to the International

Festival of Animated Films which he is organising early in 1957 in London at

the National Film Theatre in association with the British Film Institute.

THE INTERNATIONAL ANIMATED FILMJOHN HALAS

THE significant factor about the film industry

durin g the past few years is the sudden

revolution in cinema prese nt a tion . Whilst

great bat tles raged over the sha pes of cinema

scree ns, from Cinerama and Cinemascope

to Cinemiracle, another revolution ha s taken

pl ace . But this has pa ssed practically

unnoticed . No headlines, no posters to

publicise this event. It is the incredible

expansion of the animation film industry all

over the world .

Th e g rowth of animation output on a worldwide bas is is, indeed, spectacular. In Western

Europe a nd in North America, production

has increased several times over the 1950

output , whilst, east of Germany , new centres

of production have emerged , particularly in

Poland , Rumania and even as fa r afield as

China. In England, too , output has risen

threefold in the last few years, with an increase

of p ersonnel from 150 to over 400 artists.

This expansion is comparable to the sudden

growth of live-action production during the

period of 1922 to 1926. An interesting factor

about this expansion is that it has ta ken

place a t a time when the world output of

live-action has gradually decreased. It must ,

however, be realised that , even with th e

present expansion , animation forms only a

small part in the total structure of the film

industry , although creatively a vital one.

The reason for the increased demand is no t

entirely the new opportunities Television hascreated for this medium. Television has

helped only cartoonists in the We ste rn

countries; in the East other influences a re

apparent. Fo r insta nce, in Czechoslovakia,

Poland and China animated cartoons a nd

puppet film s are fostered as national arts and ,

as a result , such productions enjoy direct state

sponsorship in the same way as our Old Vic

Theatre . Simila rly , animation in Russia is



distribution . The first internatio na l a nimated

film festival in Brita in which will take place

at the National Film Th eatre during February

an d March 1957 will try to show how wide the

production of animated film s has sp read

throughout the world .

Th e process of making cartoon films is

closely co nfined over an a nim at ion desk, and

therefore it is not a habit am o ng ca rtoonists

to wo rk over each other's sho uld ers. There

is thus littl e chance of personally inter

cha ng in g ideas and methods, in spi te of the

fact that the final result s are so interna tional.

It is hoped that our fe stiva l will bring to gether

for the first time in England a number of

interesti ng minds to set off a few spa rk s.

Th e screenin g of so me 150 films , including

12 o ut of the 31 features ever prod uced ,

shou ld pro ve the great flexibility of which

a nim at io n is capable and the very wide var iety

of sty les. But ou r purpose has a lso a n im-

mediate practical in tenti on. At this moment ,

the newsreel an d specialised cinemas are

sho rt of good, new animated films . There

need not be a shortage. European animation

deve loped some time ago to stand ards at

least eq ual to those ach ieved by the Un i ed

Sta tes in the theatrica l fi eld . Th e best of the

Co ntinenta l film s are gradu a lly bein g show n

in loca l c in emas. I t is hi gh time that E uro

pea n cartoons recei ved similar treatment. I t

is ho ped that cinema exhibitors , as well as our

film-maker colleagues and the public, will

find the contents of the festival interesting ,

entertai nin g and beneficia l.

Rep rese nta tives from th e seven major

producing cou ntries will cont ribute short

ar ticles to this issue, giv in g a background of

the opera tions and future expectations of

a nim a ti on activities in th eir respective

countries, in the hope that their information

will widen the knowledge of our individual

operations to our mutua l benefi t.

3

The H ;.sto,·y 0/ th e Ci nema (Great Brita in)



great c!l3ritain

ANIMATION IN SrtITAINJOHN HUNTLEY

IN America , most a nimat io n work is linked with the

major st udios. Tom a nd Jerry come from the M .G.M.

st udios, Popeye from Para mount , Tweety Pie fro mWarners ; even the U .P.A. unit works under the genera lumbrella of Co lumbia, whilst Di sney's is a lm ost a separatemajo r studio in itself.

In Britain, anim at io n is a family bus in ess, ope rat ing inthe style of the medieval craftsmen 's guilds. The Units

tend to stay together in sma ll communities, usua lly inconverted ho uses or tiny offices. Perso nnel grow up withtheir product ion co mpani es, often entering the bu sinessdirect from Un iversity or Art School. Tra ining is done byexperience, as the young lea rn from the old in the day-to-daywork at the an imatio n tab les. There is a struggle to mainta incontinuity of production . Leadership is based on thepersonality of one or two people who often ma nage thewhole operation as a kind of family concern , impos in g theirsty le to a degree whi ch they themselves would scarce ly admit,for many st rive to encourage as much indi vidu al experiment

as po ssible a mongst those who work for them.

The Units are di vided into four mai n categories. First,there are the groups who produce sponso red films but,because they have been in existence for a long time and haveestablished so me meas ure of independence, are ab le to

conduct occasional ex periments that lead to theatricaldist ribution, or even to produce films specifica lly for the

entertai nment ma rket. Ha las a nd Batchelor Productions are

a Unit of this kind.

John Halas ca me to this co un try befo re the War, havingworked in Hun gary with George Pal; Jo y Batchelor first

met him in London a nd sha red in the making of a nimat ionfilms, both here an d in Budapest. They married a nd now

operate the company under joint contro l. Like mo st BritishUnits, they depend on sponsorship of various form s for their

existence) This comes from three main so urces:

I. Offic ial Bodies, Government Departments or In ter-

national Authorities. Examples of film s made recently inthis category include To Your Health , for the World He a lthOrga ni sat ion : Basic F/eerwork, for the Admiralty; The Sea,for the For d Foundation ; a nd The Candlemaker, for theU nited Lutheran Church in America .

2. Sponsorship through Industry. Recent films includePower to Fly , for the British Petroleum Compa ny, a ndInvisible Exchange for Shell.

3. Direct Advertisments, made now mainly for Com-merica l Telev ision. Halas a nd Batchelor made the famous

Murraymints se ries, as well as a special series forDunlop.

4

M ,·. F in l ey ' s F eel ings , Ea ,·th · s a Batt lef ield ,

B ,.i t v .;c Co>n>ne,.ci al , T he Gas T u,.b in e (G r ea t B r i ta in )



Using the resources gained over yearsof work in the "bread-and-butter" business,Halas and Batchelor have been ab le to am usethemselves (and very large cinema aud iences)with such pictures as their delightful Historyoj' the Cinema, which was chosen for theRoyal Film Performance in 1956. Of a more

serious character was the feature lengthAnimal Farm, a rare example of an attempt

to use the cartoon film for the interpretation

of a co mplicated political sat ire. The Un itthat made these films is now ninety stro ng ;it is run personally by John Halas and Joy

Batchelor, both of whom are active at everystage in the making of the films as well ashandling the complicated business problems

that ar ise in sustaining the flow of the spon

sorsh ip so essential to iliei c conti. .l.ued.-existence .) The shapin gof sp ira lling movements

around little twirls of Matyas Seiber's clever

wood-wind orchestrations in well-known tunesis characteristic of their work , as well as alove of perky, bouncing little men who tackleeverythi ng from Income Tax forms to oi l-we ll

drilling with a gay, impertinent but pleasingco nfidence.

,Halas and Batchelor produced the first

feature-length cartoon in this country (An imalFarm) , the first ste reoscopic experiment in animation (The Owl and the Pussycat) , a nd the firstmajor puppet-animation production (Figure-

\

head). Ever since their formation in 1940, theyhave remained completely independ en t of any

"'-.nna ncial links with other organisations.The second type of Unit in Britain is that

devoted entirely to sponsored work , bu t

taking fu ll advantage of the chances offeredthem by en lightened business concern s to

experiment. Th e William Larkins Studio ,operated by Geoffrey Sumner and Theodore

Thumwood , was started in 1942 under the

name of Analysis Films. It became part of

the Film Producer's Guild in 1947 and , asLarkins Studio, ha s s ince produced abo ut 820short an im ated films. There are seventypeople in the Unit, which turn s out about

30,000 feet of final-cut material a ye a r.Personnel tends to remain static, and the

Unit 's tradition in training ca n be gathered

from the fact that , on a recent prize-winning

film , the average age of the production teamwas 23.

An ·ma l F aTm (Gr eat B ri ta in )



M un 'aY1n'in t s CO?n?ne?'cia l , Th e Ow l an d th e Pussyca t (Gr ea t B r i ta in )

Rl.05.m.ANIMATED FILMS IN THE U.S.A.PHILIP STAPP, New York

AT TH E Cannes Film Festival in the spring of

1956 I overheard a ticket taker remark to apuzzled tourist who evidently had tried unsuccessfully to get into the premiere of one ofthe full length feature presentations, "I I y aaussi des petites dessins-animes." Judging

from the tone in which he spoke , half

condescending, half affectionate, his wordsseemed to imply " tough luck, but as aconsolation there are some little cartoons to

be seen if you care to have a look." He wasreferring to the International Festival of

Animated Films which was taking place at thesame time in another part of the cinemaPalais. H is attitude was similar to that of thegeneral run of movie-goer everywhere. The

cartoon is usually considered a pleasinglittle hors d'oeuvre to be enjoyed a long withmore substantial fare. That this hors d'oeuvre

is welcome is apparent in the little murmurs

of anticipated delight which still run through

most audiences when the faces of Pluto,Mickey Mouse or Mr. Magoo come on to the

screen. Jt is as though the a udience realizesthat for a few minutes they will be spared thesensational horrors which so often appear

in the newsreel, or the tired cliches of a thirdrate travelogue. With the cartoon theaudience can enter into a realm of purefantasy, in which the laws of gravity are nonexistent, where pain is not pain and wherecharacters become symbols or stereotypes,no t to be taken very seriously.

The audience which strayed in to see theanimated films at Cannes (the tickets were

7

free) bore little resemblance to the selfconscious, publicity hungry international

set which attended the gala openings of thelonger features. The cartoons were attended

by the producers themselves, a motley crewfrom every corner of the ea rth , and casualspectators from the streets, curious and

unprejudiced . I t was interesting to watch

the reaction of this audience to films whichranged all the way from animated folk tales of

Texas to heavy political propaganda fromboth sides of the iron curtain. The actor whodrew the most spontaneous outburst of

laughter was that ageless veteran whosecareer has rema ined unchanged throughout

the years, Mr. Donald Duck . His frustration

in the fi lm which so delighted the audiencewas caused by his ineffectual efforts to fallasleep in spite of a relentless neon light wh ichkept flashing off and on , and the insistent

sound of dripping water from a tap wh ichgradually increased in his imagination untileach drop seemed a bomb visibly shaking the

whole earth with rhythmic concussions.Donald's frustration seemed on that afternoon in Cannes to touch a note of understanding which reached across the barriers of

language and nationality. This particular filmwas, as always with Disney, elaborately

animated, 110 economy tricks emp loyed, nocorners cut. The sound track with itsmetamorphosis of dripping water to worldshaking "booms" was imaginative and appropriate to the medium. Also, like most

of Disney 's films, it was a sa mple of the usual



over-cute style with background drawings

similar to the easiest kind of commercial

advertising.

I t is impossible to consider the animated

film in the United States without thinking

first of Disney. After 30 years his name is

still synonymous with the short cartoon in the

minds of most of the American movieaudience. Sometimes during the long period

since his first exciting Silly Symphonies

appeared , the work from his large organisa

tion in California seemed to have sunk into

the doldrums. Formula replaced invention.

The medium lost its initial public appeal.

Disney's excursions into the field of "live

action" have been sometimes rewarding,

sometimes disappointing. Some of the wildlife films have recaptured the excitement of hisearly cartoons, while the romantic historic

costume pieces have often seemed banal.

Always a clever showman, he has recentlybuilt a large fun fair, or amusement park inCalifornia which serves also as a setting fortelevision programme material. When , from

time to time, a new feature length cartoon

appears, such as Lady and The Tramp, inwhich the chief characters are dogs, one isamazed at the technical slickness of the

animation and annoyed by the weak story line,which seems to be influenced by the wishto include every sure-fire box-office trick .This approach does not lead to any freshexperiments within the medium.

I t was the short film Gerald McBoing-Boing which first brought a radical change of

style to the attention of the public in America

an d soon after to the cinema-goers in Europe.

This highly original short film , produced byU.P.A. Pictures , with finely integrated music

by Gail Kubik and with sophisticated visualelements , seemed to satisfy a public at that

time weary of the Disney formula. Th e

talented minds which produced " Gerald"

had made previous cartoons in which visualwit and economical animation had replaced

the elaborately evolved techniques established

by the larger studios, but these films had neverbeen seen in the theatres. Some of the U .P.A.

men had worked previously in the Disney

Studios. The organisation under the leader

ship of Stephen Busustow has now expanded

into the field of television. Robert Cannon ,one of the most brilliant U.P.A. directors ,brings a fertile imagination and fresh ap

proach to each new film he creates. Another

director, Pete Burness, who has been with

the U.P.A. since its early days, has created a

8

now popular cartoon character, Mr. Magoo ,whose blithe innocence and near-sightedness

leads him unscathed and unconcerned through

the violence of the modern world. Mr.Magoo, like Donald Duck , has become abeloved international personality.

The U.P.A. style, according to their own

spokesmen , derives from " modern" art. 1tis

uncluttered , flat and often linear. The

characters do not seem bound by any natural

physical laws of movement. Perhaps on e of

the greatest contributions of the U.P.A. is

that they have shown the public that the lessrealistic a movement is , the more creditable

it becomes optically. Disney sometimes

bases the movement of his characters on liveaction models, as with Alice in Alice in

Wonderland. The greater the effort to

imitate realistic movement , the more ap t

one is to be aware of the stroboscopic

nature of the medium, the more jittery theresult. I f legs are used to express the symbolof walking, rather than the imitation of

walking, the illusion of movement is more

acceptable , a paradox which indicates thevalidity of the " modern" ar t approach. Likean y device this simplification can be carried

too far. I f the human figure becomes too

abstract it ma y lose all its expressive power.Usually the U .P.A. figures, moving flatly on aflat screen are consistent, humorous an d

convincing.

Less effective have been certa in of the

U.P.A. attempts to animate the drawings of"big name" illustrators, such as Thurber and

Bemelmans. The Unicorn in the Garden and

Madeline are examples. Since the quality of

both Thurber's and Bemelmans ' drawings

depends on a subtlety and unevenness of linewhich is impossible to use in the animation

technique, where every celleloid must have an

almost mechanical similarity, the flavour of

the original is lost an d the result is far lesssuccessful than the work of lesser known

artists , whose training within the film medium

has taught them its restrictions.

Nevertheless, the U .P .A. has been a healthy

influence in the United States . The proof

that a new style has had its effect on Disney

and his imitators is seen in their efforts to

modernise their own productions. Disney

has released a short history of music calledWhistlc, Toot, Plunk and Boom, which seemedto imply that if his studios wished, they too

could work in the " modern" style . The

popular M.G.M . films, with incredibly fastpacing and surrealist gags, seem also to have



been influenced by the general trend toward

simplification and more abstract charac

terisation.

The U.P.A. quite justly boasts that itsbackground painters are serious modern

artists, some of whom exhibit in we ll known

ga lleries and have work in ar t museums.

But the real problem of any single individualin the United States who wants to use the

animated film as a creative medium is quite

different from the problem of the easelpainter. Film-making has become, although

not necessarily , a collective undertaking. An

individual artist , in making a film , must

face the fact that the essence of animation is

the creation of an illusion of movement

synchronised to a composed sound track .This requires a certain knowledge of music

and of choreography of line, form and colour.

Even if the artist masters these elements, he is

then confronted with the inescapable factthat to produce even a short film involves acostliness out of proportion to the creation of

the other arts. Few individuals ar e free to

cope with this dilemma . Norman McLaren,

in Canada, is the outstanding exception.McLaren , since he began , has worked a lone ,or with the single collaboration of a com

poser. His experiments are the direct impact

of his own ideas on to fi lm . No assembly lineof animators , tracers and painters stands

between him and his finished product. ButMcLaren is subsidised by the Canadian Film

Board which , in the face of some opposition,

has had the courage to defend the position

that McLaren's contribution has brought

them large di vidends in prest ige. Surely it is

accurate to say that the most forward looking

groups offilm -makers owe much to McLaren's

researches.

In the United States a few colleges withcourses of study in film techniques provide

the st udent with equipment a nd the oppor

tunity to experiment. It is too soon for theseislands of isolated effort to show any tangible

results on the professional field. Certainfoundations in the United States have, in the

past, gra nted stipends to individuals for"creative work in film-making". These

generous gra nts made it possible for an

individual to plan a film, bu t it is outside of

their sco pe to provide the vastly greater sum

of money necessary for production. Fewof these projects have been realised . Sponsors

who do provide enough money for even a onereeler quite understandably want the film to

sell their product , no matter whether it be soap,

9

To You,' H ealth (G r ea t Brita in -U.S.A.)

T and J err y , Balant 'ine C o n ~ ? n e T c i a l ) TV C01l1me,'ci n / fa " a R es t lluTant (U.S .A.)



cancer research or democracy. Which doesnot mean that good films cannot be made onthese themes. But there is li ttle chance for theindividual to produce a genuinely experimental fi lm on his own subject.

I t is difficult to say what the future of thismedium in the U.S. will be. At presenta nimation is st ill popular in the entertainment

fields and in commercial television. Some of

the mo st imaginative uses of an imation at

present are in one-minute TV commercials.A nimation is in demand in those sponsoredindustrial films where a mechanical concept

can be shown more clearly than it can in liveaction. Animation is also useful in industrial

films which try to express abstract ideas or

fantasy.Donald Duck , in his better movements,

still co mmunicates to an international

audi ence. I t would be interesting to speculate,however, as to what animation might have

10

Th e Lady an d th e Tmmp (U.S.A.)

been if Disney had not had hi s enormousinfluence. In the first place, animat ionmight not necessarily have been only cartoon.

The simplest visual element, a dot, or a line,can become a dancin g symbol and convey anidea, an association. These ideas co uld bedeveloped with other means than by conve ntiona l story telling. Th e film need not

always be based on a literary concept. I t

could be , for the spectator, an expenencelike seeing dancing, or hearing music. Within

the medium not only new forms, bu t newways of expression could be evolved. The

animated film need not always be a pastische,a sequence of gags or a fairy tale. I t couldbe a powerful medium . I t is condensed andpotent. L ike most potent things, it is better insma ll doses. But in a br ief time it can pac k aterrific punch. In the end its possibilities arelimited only by the imagination of the filmmaker.



Yranee

Mr. M agoo Beats the H eat> Madeline (U.S.A .)

What Future is there tor the Animated Film?JEAN IMAGE, Paris

BETWEEN 1942 and 1953 , our production of

entertainment short and feature-length cartoons was relatively flourishing ; advertisingcartoons had not yet attained their presentday importance.

After producing three feature-length films:La Berge,, ; et Ie Ramoneur (Paul GrimauItand Andre Sarrut) , Jeannot l'Intrepide and

Bonjour Paris (Jean Image) and a certainnumber of shorts such as Le Petit Soldat, LeVoleur de Paratonnerres (Paul Grimault),Le Troubadour de la Joie (Orner Bocquey), LesActualites Romaines (Jacques Remise) , Kapok(Arcady), Les Aventures du Capitaine Sabord(Andre Rigal), Les Fables de la Fontaine (JeanImage), French cartoon films obtained worldwide success and rewards at Film Festivals.

It should be stressed that the greater part

of these productions were made under primitive working conditions, and their distribution was never assured. Towards 1953 , inspite of every effort, nearly all production of

non-advertising animated films was stopped;alone Henri Gruel and Jean Image contin uedtheir efforts to maintain French production inthis field . .

Here are the films produced between 1955and 1956: Le Voyage de Badabou, La Rose et Ie

Radis No ir (Henri Gruel), Le Loup et ['Agneau,Monsieur Victor or La Machine aretrouver IeTemps (Jean Image).

The constant progress made by advertisinganimated films during the last ten years isindisputable. As well as the two largestproduction companies, La Comete and Les

11

Cineastes Associes, many producers aredevoting themselves exclusively to this formof the cartoon fi lm. Strong influences of" modernism" and "stylisation" are noticeable in the latest productions, and it isundeniable that on this level the Frenchanimated cartoon is amongst the best in theworld, the proof being that our studios worknot only for France but also steadily for theUnited States, Great Britain, Belgium, andother countries.

It should be noted that outside the technique of animated cartoon, France has beenfor some time among the leading countriesdeveloping three-dimensional puppets,through the work of Raik and Alexeiff.

Parallel to the advertising film, productionis also carried out in France on instructionalfilms and animated-diagrams; Jean Image'sstudios produced in 1955 the first lO-minuteinstructional film in cartoon form in colourfor the French Mining Industry called:

Un Grainde

Bon Sens.Such is the present position. As for thefuture, I believe that world television offerscountless openings for animation. Already avery large number of advertising films arebeing made for television. It is true that forthe moment television in France does not useadvertis in g, but nearby stations such asLuxembourg and Monte Carlo will be needingmore and more short advertising films.

The big opportunity offered to us iscolour television, which is making such abrilliant start in America. Short subjects of



,.......

from 7 to 13 minu tes wil l be req uired for thisform of entertainment, which will soo n beintroduced to Europea n station s.

We are we ll awa re of the great successwhich the wo rk of Wa lt Disney and U.P.A.

has obt a in ed on American telev ision , and webe lieve that we ha ve before us immense

poss ibilities for new forms of arti stic expressio n su itable to this new kind of entertain

ment.I n front of the sma ll television screen, with

its family a udience, a k ind of intimacy is

grow in g up between th e ar t ist film-maker and

th e spectator. The new factor is th a t whilewe a re in fact add ress in g millions of spectators at o ne tim e, ea ch o ne of them must beaddressed individua lly: in fact " intimate"films mu st be created for " milli ons of people".

I n fact, a t the mo ment , French animated

film producers want nothin g more than to

exploi t to the full their inter na tion a l successin ad verti sin g film s. According to the latestreports given at the Cannes Festiva l on the

subj ect of adverti s in g film s, 27 animated filmswere shown by forei gn organisations, which

proves th at the animated film (such aspuppet -films by Alexeiff a nd Ra ik , and car

toons by two or three bi g specialised organisa

tions) has reached its greatest leve l of

prosperity since its conception in France.

The principal preoccupa tion of designersa nd producers of these films is novelty of

ex press io n, novelty not onl

yin

subjectmatte r but also on the dr awi ng-board.Tak in g into account a ll th at is being done, one

wo nd ers what will be the future of this kindof development a nd whether the adverti serswho are at prese nt interested in thi s type of

publicity will maintain th eir preference for

thi s kind of film. It is a fact , however, that itis through cartoons a nd puppet film s that

advertisin g can be most effect ive in the short

est possible tim e. This affects a lso Interlude

transmissions for telev ision as much as adver-

tlSlllg films . Agreat challenge

is offered to

a r t i s t s a nd

animated film

producers to

find something

"new".The non-

ad verti si ng andnon - sponsoredfilm can ra relysurvive outside

the frame-work

of a state-subsidised organi

sa t ion ; the interesting and prospering

Canadian ex periment (National Film Board

of Canada) shows that a result ca n be obtained

on thi s level within a democracy.

An experiment is being made in Fra nce a tth e moment which aims to band together th efew remaining independ ent animated filmproducers- or those wishing to acquire

independ ence- to pool , as it were, their work

in a nimation . This organisation would a imto make experimental film s a nd carry o utresearch with the object of finding freshnessof style an d a lso of technique.

At the time of writing, nothin g definitecan be said yet about this new scheme, except

the fact tha t the idea was first proposed a t the

Animated Film Festival at Cannes where, a t

last, after years of competition and iso lation ,ou r producers were able to meet, excha ngeid eas, exp la in th eir difficulties, a nd expresstheir desi re for a so lution to their pro blems.It was realised that there is sti ll a future forthi s work in France , where th e animated filmwas invented ju st over 50 yea rs ago, a nd that

following th e fin e work produced durin g theyea rs 1945-50 there is a lso hope for theanimated film for both cinema a nd television.

La. B e1'f)e1'e et l e, Ra.1noneu1' . Un G1w i:n (le Bon

Ombnl le et P(!"(!plwi.e (France )



Rl,oS,oS,§(,

CAnTOON FILMS IN SOVIET UN'ONI. IVANOV-VANO, Moscow

GREAT importance for the development of

cartoon films in the Soviet U nion attaches tothe Government's decision in 1936 to set upin Moscow a special cartoon studioSoyuzmultfilm, This studio brought togethera number of the main groups working on

cartoons in Moscow under the directio n of

veterans of Soviet cartoon-making,

During the first stage of Soyuzmultfilm's

development it included groups workingunder the fo llowing ar tists: A. V. Ivanov and

P . P. Sazonov; 0 . P . Khodatayeva and thesister s Valentina and Zinaida Brumberg ;I. Ivanov-Vano ; D . N . Babichenko; L. A.Amalrik ; V. 1. Polkovnikov ; V. G . Suteyev;B. P . Dezhkin. Later these were joined byartists from Leningrad, M . M . Tsekhanovsky

a nd M. S. Pashchenko, an d by a representative from Armenia, L. K . Atamanov. Thesefilm-makers remain to this day the ba sicartistic nucleus of the Soyuzmultfilm studio.

The unification of small, scattered cartoon

studios into one large studio of ali-Unionimportance did no t dep rive directors and

artIsts of their individuality; on the contrary

it made possible the development of more

advanced undertakings fro m the point of

view both of a rtistry and production , and

set cartoon-making in our country on a newpath .

The Soyuzmultfilm studio is today th ebiggest studio for the production of cartoon

films in E urope, not merely in the SovietUnion. It is equipped with the la test in

modern apparatus for new technical p rocesses,and has on its staff a la rge number of a rtistsspecIalising in various branches of cartoon

production.

The lines along which Soviet cartoon

making is developing are extremely varied .Political and social sati re, film "pamphlets" ,

cartoon posters, scientific a nd educational

cartoons, fables , fairy-tales (both traditional

a nd modern) , fa ntasy, mu sical comedythese are only a few of the genres in whichSoviet cartoon-makers are working. But inspite of this variety, there is one lin e of

13

deve lopment which can be sa id to be the ma inone in Soviet cartoons, a nd that is the filmingof fai ry-tales, the world of fantasy andcaricature. The main audiences for which weare working are children of all age-group s.The main task the Soyuzmultfilm studio wasgiven at its inception was the provision of filmsfor children and young people. During thethirty yea rs of its existence it has coped

creditably with this task, a nd in th e course of

recent years can claim successes of some

importance.Children's cartoon films from the Soviet

Union are well known beyond the boundsof our country. Films such as The LittleHump-Backed Horse directed by 1. Ivanov

Vanoand Grey Neck di rected by L. Amalrik

and V. Polkovnikov have been shown withgreat success in America as well as in

Europe. Director Mstislav Pa shch enko'sfilms Forest Travellers, When the ChristmasTrees Are Li t, The Disobedient Kitten and

The Unusual Match have appeared on thescreens of many countries.EquaJJy well known is the work of th e

directors Leonid Amalrik and Vladimir

Polkovnikov- The High Hill, The Magic Shop,The Arrow Flies Into Fairyland and SnowballPostman ;and the work of Mikhail Tsekhanovsky , who in recent years has directed The Taleof the Fisherman and the Fish, Kashtanka and

The Frog Princess. The talented director LevAtamanov also has some interes tin g works to

hi s credit-The Yellow Stork, The CrimsonFlower and , particula rl y, his Go/den Antelope;

the sa me can be said of Alexander Iva nov andhis Rab and Bit, The Painted Fox, Deep Inthe Forest, The Pipe and the Bea r, etc. Anumber of Soviet cartoons- Song of Joy,The Fox and the Blackbird, The Little HumpBacked Horse, The Seven-fold Flower, GreyNeck, The Disobedient Kitten, The PaintedFox, The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish,The Un usual Match, The Magic Shop, Sarmiko ,The Gallant Heart, Deep in the Forest, Fire inYaranga etc.- have received first prizesand diplomas of honour at international filmfestivals .



At the present time large numbers of

Soviet cartoons are being dubbed into thelanguages of Europe, Asia and of a number ofAfrican countries; they are, in fact, beingshown today in fifty-nine different countries.

The central cartoon film studio Soyuzmuit

film has sixteen full-scale production groupsengaged on regular planned work. Eachproduction group possesses its own character,and works in its own particular style.

Alongside the "old masters" of our ar tthere is growing up a new and talentedgeneration of cartoon directors and artists;for instance, the young director Ivan Aksenchuk, to whom belongs the excellent production The Hazel Wand, based on the Rumanianfolk-tale of the same name ; Yevgeni Raikovsky and Vladimir Degtyarev, who have madean interesting film from a Korean folk-talePak the Brave; also the talented artistYevgeni Migunov, and others; in the nearfuture they will carryon with honour thework of the older generation of Sovietcartoonists. The ranks of those working in

cartoon films are reinforced by a plannedintake of new recruits ; in the All-Union

State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK)special training is provided for artists who willlater work in cartoons. All those studentswho have successfully completed these coursesin the Institute are now working satisfactorily

at the Soyuzmultfilm and other cartoonstudios within the' Soviet Union. The namesof former students of the Institute who arenow talented cartoon artists are well-knownin the Soviet Union. Apart from this sourceof new workers, the Soyuzmultfilm studioitself trains cartoon artists at courses itorganises independently, and which areattended by thirty young artists who passed acompetitive entrance examination.

In recent years the masters of cartoonmaking have come to turn more and moreoften to the best examples of folk ar t and of

classical literature for their subjects, and havestriven to re-create on the screen not only theidea and content of such works, but the fullflavour of their particular artistic form.Directors have begun to approach a script,regarding it not as ao opportunity for theproduction of a spectacle full of tricks and

transformations, but as the basis for thegeneral sense of the film and for its artisticcharacter. For this reason a whole series of

well-known children's authors and scriptwriters have been drawn into work on

cartoons, and Soviet cartoons have them to14

thank for the ideas behind many of the bestworks produced in the post-war years.

Tn Moscow there are a number of specialchildren's cinemas which show nothing butcartoons . In their repertoire of Sovietcartoons for children there are fables,

Russian fo lk-tales and folk-ta les of otherpeoples of the USSR, the classical fairystories of Pushkin, stories and little tales in

verse for very small children, films aboutsport, musical films and adventure stories.At the present time the Soyuzmultfilm studiois preparing for release fairy-tales of manynations . Hans Andersen's Ugly Duckling, in acartoon version produced by a young director,Vladimir Degtyarev, is already being shown.So is a full-length film, The Enchanted Boy,based on the fantasy by the Swedish authoressSelma Lager/of. This film has a script by

M. Volpin ; the directors are VladimirPolkovnikov and Alexandra SnezhkoBlotskaya; artists-Lev Milchin and GrazhinaBrashishkite. Production of another fulllength film is now completed-The Twe lveMonths, based on the fairy-tale play byMarshak , directed and produced by I.Ivanov-Vano. The Brumberg sisters, thoseveterans of cartoon direction, recentlycompleted production of an Albanian folktale, The Helpful Stick. The young directorIvan Aksenchuk has made a film from an

Uzbek tale, The Stork. Vladimir Polkovnikovis finishing a screen version of an Tndian folktale, The Young Jackal and the Camel.Mikhail Tsekhanovsky is at present workingon another Indian tale, The Little Girl and theTiger. This film will be ready by the end of

this year.

Director Dmitri Babichenko, who recentlymade an interesting three-reel film which waswell reviewed in the press, A Million in theBag, is now working on a film to be calledLittle Shego, which is based on themes fromAfghan folk-tales. This production is to be

completed in November of this year. Oneof the studio's oldest directors, AlexanderIvanov, has completed a "comic tale with amoral for children"-Trouble in the Wood,which relates how the bear ate too much honey'and then got toothache. (Moral-look afteryour teeth and don't be afraid of the dentist.)Two young directors, Yevgeni Raikovsky and

Boris Stepantsev, have made a film calledMurzilka's Adventures which is to be thefirst of a series showing the same cartooncharacters.

Director Leonid Amalrikis

working on a



film for small children to be called The LittleShip; scr ipt is by Vladimir Suteyev. Director

Pyotr Nosov is completing a film based on aUkrainian folk-tale, Th e Pie. DirectorMsti slav Pashchenko , in collaboration withar tist Boris Dezhkin , has fini shed OldAcquaintances- this is a comedy of sport,in which the audience once aga in meets thesame heroes as in The Unusual Match.Besides the films already ment io ned , there areothers now in production in the studio basedon Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, French,

Italian, Ru ss ian, Chinese and Egyptian folktales. Also in production is a full-lengthscreen version of Andersen's Th e Snow Queen,directed by Lev Atamanov. The Brumbergsisters a re star ting work on a film to be calledWishes Come True or Z erbinoteau the Solitary.This film is based on the French tale by

E. Labou le about the happy wood-cutterZerbinot. Mstislav Pashchenko will beginwork on a four-reel film , Cipollino- a screenversion of the story by the well-known Italian

writer Gianni Rodari , about the adventuresof the " onion-boy" Cipollino, a tireless fi ghterfor justice who is a favourite with children.Director Ivan Aksenchuk is to start work on

Cicco of Naples in the Magic Forest, the scriptfor which is written on themes from a playby Gianni Roda ri and M . Sarate lli called TheWishing Plant and from Rodari 's poems. The

general theme of the script is peace, friendship

and happiness for children over a ll our planet.T. Ivanov-Vano is thinking of work on a filmbased on a Ru ss ian folk-tale - At the Pike'sBidding -a bout the poor bu t cheerful Yemel,who is amply rewarded for his wit, kindnessand hard work. After directing The Little ShipLeonid Amalrik will be working on Pussycat 'sHouse. The script is based on the fairy-taleplay of the same name by Marshak. The

young and ta lented artist Yevgeni Migunov isstarting work , in collaboration with Arkadi

Raikin , a well-known variety actor, onproduction of a film-feuilleton to be ca lled A

Fairy tale for Grown-Ups, which will criticisesome less worthy aspects of our daily life.

After the famous productions by AlexanderPtushko The New Gulliver and The Golden Key,three-dimensional puppet cartoons havereceived a new lease of life ; new, young

artists have taken up work in this genre, ashas a lso a famous master of the art, SergeiObraztsov , Artistic Director of the StatePuppet Theatre ; he has just finished production in the Soyuzmultfilm studio of a bigfilm called A Heavenly Cr eature.

Director Vladimir Degtyarev is just finishing work on a puppet film based on the wellknown Ru ssian folk-ta le Jac k Frost. At

present in production is a puppet cartoon

called Safe in Port . This is a musical comedyfilm with a contemporary theme; in it areridiculed people who hide inner poverty

beneath a glossy surface. This film is directedby A. Karanovich . Two more satirical filmsare a lso in production- Three-Course Dinner,directed by G . Lomidze, and Th e Bogy WhoCouldn't Scare Anyone, directed by Roman

Davydov. The output of cartoon and puppet

film s in the Soviet Union is increasing greatlyfrom year to year. Apart from the Soyuzmultfilm studio cartoon production has beenstarted once again at the Tbilisi Film Studio .Production of scientific and educationalcartoons is widely developed in the SovietUnion; this form of cartoon-making is

mainly concentrated in the popular sciencefilm studios of Moscow, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk, Kiev and other cities. Cartoon

technique is widely employed in documentaryand news-reel st udios too , particularly at theCentral News-reel Studio in Moscow.

A whole series of higher educationalinstitutions of the Soviet Union-Moscow

University, the Moscow Aviation lnstitute

etc. - a lso various scientific research centres,have their own cartoon studios and labora

tories producing scientific and teachingcartoon films.

The Unusua l Match , The Vain B ear (U.S .S .R.)



ANIMATION FILMS IN CANADAGUY L. COTE, Montrea l

TH E sto ry of the a nimated film in Ca nadalargely centres a round the work accomplishedat the National Film Board, the officialgovernment film age ncy established in 1940by Jo hn Gr ierso n to " interp ret Ca nada to

Ca nadia ns a nd to ot her na tions" . U nder th edirect ion first of N orman McLaren, then of

Jim M ackay a nd now of Co lin Low , thea nim a tion depa rtment of the N .F. B. hasgrown fro m a tin y nucleus of wo rkers in 1941to a thri ving un it of some fo urteen an imationar ti sts. Du ring that time, over 75 sho rt film shave been produ ced, not includin g specia l

a nim a tio n sequ ences made fo r the Boa rd 'sdocumenta ry produc tions.

D iversity has been one of the charac teri sticsof the depa rtment's wo rk , bo th in th e multi-

tude of purposes for which its films have beenexecuted as well as in the va ri ety of anim ationtechniques tha t have been employed, fro mpa per cut-o uts to three-dimensional puppets ,

from simple drawings on tra nslucent paper tocompl ex ce ll fi lms. Th e depar tment works insma ll un its, whose members are engaged inone o r two pa rticul ar projects over longperiods of time, each drawin g th eir ow n sto ryboa rd , designing the backgrounds, work in go ut the anim ation, editing the picture a ndsuperv isin g the so und recording- in fact , t hea rti sts have the opportuni ty of fo llow ing th ecreatio n of their fi lm thro ugh a ll its stages.Th us, each member of Ca nada' s an im at iondepar tment has ex perimented with most of

the sta ndard methods now empl oyed in the

industry a nd each in his ow n way has evo l-ved fresh app roaches to the technica l andar t ist ic pro blems of film p rodu ctio n.

Ea rl y in the Boa rd 's hi sto ry, it was decidedto produ ce a series of anim ated film s illustrating Ca nad ian fo lksongs ofF rench a nd Englishorigin . Of these, the Chants Popu/aires are perhaps t he most familiar to E uropea n a udiences .

Th e R om ance 0/ TTa1lsj)01· ta tio n (Canada)



abundantly display. McLaren 's work hasgained a succes d'estime which the commercial exhibitors-had they somewhat more

initiative and daring- could readily transform

into a larger public acclaim. What is possiblynot so readily appreciated , however, is thevery great contribution which McLaren has

made to the aesthetics of the cinema, andmore particularly of the animation film . For,

in his own way, he has once again restatedthe importance of the cinema's very funda

mentals: motion and picture. Tn the early940 s, at a time when the naturalistic

cartoon was in its heyday, McLaren wasalready instinctively asserting by his work

that the future of the animated film did not

reside in clever imitations of a sentimentalisedreality. Stripping the film to its bared , transparent celluloid, McLaren dahl€ reinvestigate the powers of cinematic movement,

of visual and aural counterpoint , of intermittent animation, of impressionistic clusters, of

overlapping dissolves, inventing his ownsounds, destroying the rectangular visual frameitself by the very act of drawing a single brush

stroke across a succession of time-images.

" Animation is no t the art of drawingsthat-move, but t h ~ rt of movements -that-aredrawn" h - McLaren . " What

happens between each frame is much more

important than what exists on each frame.Animation is therefore the ar t of manipulat

ing the invisible interstices that lie between

frames." Tau .- ' q . u ~ G&.d-e-a-teEl- filma r . t ~ s - t : - e - X ' p ' l a i n s - w h a t e ( ' ) ns-ta fI tly re min ds --usof in his O"fr , -ffOTI'lth; chaTmmg- C' estL'a.viroa - to the therea m o v e m e n t s

.........,t.V-" ...... i - - a - l T d - t : f ' i e-5TilTiant.sImpIicilTo'1£e-n o The road in which he is engagedis a narrow one- few, if any, had they a pen , arazor blade, a chalk pencil or a pair of

scissors , could hope to follow him or buildon hi s inventions . But McLaren's message is

clear and universal: through the most

abstract of his doodles, the most well-timedof his movements , the most riotous of his

colour fantasies, McLaren tells us that theworld of the animated film is far from fullyexplored a-Ild-t-hat- t-l:l-es i-R-vi-sit>le--in-tef . es

bet-ween frames still have many sec ·e.t-s

H>clo e. - / ~ )

IS ANIMATED FILM ATnUE AnT?

ONE of the pioneers of the puppet film was aPole- Wladyslaw Starewicz, who worked inFrance. Although animation was develop edto a minor ex tent in Poland itse(f before theWar by such film-makers as Franciszka andStefan Th emerson, it was th e post-war work ofPotecki and Wasilewski which establishedcontemporary Polish puppet and, later, cartoonfilms. In this article, Wlodzimierz Haupe, filmdirector and Chairman of the Artistic Councilof Animated Films in Poland, discusses theproblem oforganising special animation studiosand developing cartoon and puppet films asworks of art .

In Poland we now have two centresproducing anjmated films. They are: thePuppet Film Studio in Tuszyn nea r Lodz, and

the Cartoon Film Studio in Bielsko. A third

studio is being set up in Warsaw ; it willproduce both puppet and cartoon films. In

these studios many film-makers are working;the work of some of them is already known toaudiences at the Cannes, Venice, Edinburgh

18

and Karlovy Vary Festivals, bu t there are alsosome younger film-makers who are busydeveloping their technique. Of the seniorpuppet film-makers I should mention Zenon

Wasilewski (Th e Dragon of Cracow) , Wlodzimierz Ha upe and Halina Bielinska (Laurence'sOrchard,Circus Under the Stars and Th e Moon'sStory), and of the younger generationTeresa Badzian (The Uncommon Journey and

The New House) and Edward Sturlis (TheDirty Boy and Adventures of the Hoity-Toity

Knight) ; and for cartoon films: LechoslawMarszalek (Stubborn Little Goat and Mrs.Twardowska) , Wladyslaw Nehrebecki (TheWoodpecker Told the Owl and ProfessorFilutek in the Park) , and Waclaw Wajzer (Taleof Siskins and The Land ofKing Eel) .

I have only mentioned above the titles of

such Polish animated films that are, or could

be, known to European audiences. But to beexact I should add that the film-makers I havenamed have produced about fifty films,inclusive of those that are in preparation .



This is little enough, consideringit represents the results of a production period extending over tenyears. But one must take intoaccount that a great deal of timehas been needed during these

years in experiment..The

existinganimation studios have onlyrecently been organised in theirpresent form , and can producenow about JO animated films ayear. 1n the future, the output

should rise from 30 to about 60films annually. The makers of

animated .films have the working

conditions necessary for regularprod uction , and the chance todevelop individual artistry. They

have established their own Artistic

Council where they can freelyexchange their views. These discussions enable the more experienced to test their viewsagainst those of the others, and soconfirm that their artistic line isthe right one, and for the lessexperienced the discussions are of

help in the development of theirartistic individ uality.

Tn this work there are two main

rroblems : first, unit organisationand , second, the strictly creativeproblem . Unit organisation depends on the difficulty of main-

taining the artistic individualityof each creative film-maker, as all

. - "-of them have to use the same ~ a m of assistants. Between the q,dgj\'·

\ \ nating film-makers and tlieir\finished fI:!m stands a considerable

.number o:(peo ple. In the cartoon

film they are animators, inbetweeners, tracers, painters; in

the puppet film setting-designers,do l l -make r s , an ima to rs ,

costumers, assistants, and so on.This team of people, having endedwork under one director, have tobegi n to work with another, whosemethod of work and plastic styleare quite different. The difficultyis that the team is scarcely ableto change immediately from one

sty le to a nother and so developsa style of its own, derived fromthat of the individual directors .

[Catll1'ynka , P"o/esso" F i lu tek 'sKata,.ynka (P o lan d)



Thus the a rti stic indi viduality of each director

is lost. This is why, in stead of co ntinuingto use the same unit for a ll directors , a met hod

of sepa rate teams for each individual director

has been deve loped . This prese rves a rti sticindividuality, but on the other hand makes theorganisation of production more difficult.The directors claim now that it would bebetter to re tain individua l creative tea msconsisting of the director , camera man ,scenographer, animators a nd ass istant s, but

that the executi ve studio sho uld remain

common to them all. This shou ld offer aunified production-line common to the wholestudio . In the immediate future so me so lution

to this question mu st be found .

The matter I referred to as the " crea tiveproblem" concerns the direction in which the

animated film should deve lop . First of all[ should mention the adve rti sing film. In

Pola nd this kind of production does no t yetexist. Sometimes a n occas iona l adve rti singfilm ap pea rs, bu t these do not represent

any standard form of production . The veryfew foreign ad verti sing film s that we have seenwere on a low level , a nd thi s has had arestra ining influence on the development of

this branch of production at home.

So in principle, there exists in Poland on lythe arti stic animated film , unrelated to any

didac tic purpose . ] have a lready st ressed th at

up to now our puppet and cartoon films have

appeared only in a standa rd technical form .We lack any experimental search for so meother less de termined form of animatio n. Imea n such experiments as those of Norman

McLaren , Alexeiff a nd ot hers. This does

not mea n that we have done noth in g at all.We regard the animated film no t only as ame a ns of telling stories in recogni sa ble forms ,but also as a mean s of developing sha pes ,colours, so unds and a ll other a rti stic e lementswhich can aro use subtle a rti stic responses inthe audiences.

Nevertheless, we mu st not fo rget the peo pl eto whom our work is a ddressed . I t is difficultto offer complicated a rtistic forms to a naudience unprepared for them by a gradua lprocess of breaking in . Persona lly, 1 admit

that I am wo rking first for the a udience a ndthen for myse lf. I may be wrong, but I onlywant to exp la in why Polish a nim ation hasdeveloped primari ly in the direct io n of

20

enterta inm ent o nl y. But there ex ist ma nydifferent subj ec ts for films at the moment.Further, the lines of a rti st ic interest of the

individual creative directo rs are essenti a llyestab lished . Th ey do not sea rch for subj ectsblindly, a nd they do no t make finding a go odscrip t dependent o n chance. For exa mple, weca n find in o ur production fo lk ta les, sho rt

sto ries, adaptat ion of epi sodes from classicalliterat ure, sat irica l ca ricat ures and , fina lly,more exper im enta l attemp ts to depart from

the normal pattern of anim at io n in thedi rection of fo rm al conception.

One of the importa nt prob lems connected

with the further development of our production is the lack of professional fi lm cri tic ism o fa nim a ted film s. Film critics a re a lways a pt

to ho ld the op inion that the an imated

film is so met hin g st ill c ling ing to the fa irgro und. I a m not refe rring here merely to

Po land. Th e ta lks I had with the F renchcritic, Andre Martin , an ent husias t for thea nim ated film , pro ve that the a bsence of thi sbranch of film criticism is no t co nfined to

Pola nd. This is a n astonish in g fact. Our

international ac hievements in eve ry ki nd ofa nim at ion were demonstrated at the las t

Can nes Festiva l a nd were a proof of how

grea tly the a nim ated fi lm has developed inrecent yea rs its capacity to offer a ud ienceshi therto unknown art istic enjoyment a ndresponses. Bu t the absence of pro per criticisma nd a pp rec iat ion has a disin tegrat ing effect

o n th e crea to rs of a nim ated fil ms, a nd yo uoften hea!' that so me of them- eve n those withesta blished rep uta t ions- ab a ndon puppet or

cartoon fi lm-making to take up other kind s of

fi lm ar t . The pos ition in Po la nd is better inthi s respec t because animated fi lms a re verypopula r with o ur a udi ences, bu t in genera lth is problem exists and it is wrong not to fee lconc'erned a bou t the problems of co lleagueswith whom we fee l lin ked ve ry closely.

U nder such cond itions the qu estion whether

a nim ated fi lm s ca n be co unted se ri o usly as a rt

or have o nl y a fut ure in advert isin g (w hichdoes not exc l ude its ow n a rti stic va lues) is not

a fooli sh qu ery . The teething troub les of thea nim ated fi lm , whi ch even after fifty yea rs isstill the c in ema' s big child , can be cu red o nl yby the creative fi lm-make rs themselves.

I wo uld like to express my profound

belief that the animated film is rea lly a great

a rt form.



AnEVIEW or

THE PAST YEAnJAROSLA V BROZ, Prague

FOR the uninitiated observer from abroad,

the last year was a barren one for Czecho

slovak puppeteers and cartoonists. One

might perhaps even speak of a certain stag

nation in the creative work of the Czecho

slovak puppet and cartoon film-makers.

Even Jiri Trnka, the most talented of artists inthis special field was unproductive for a while

after finishing his not too successful film in

three parts, The Good Soldier Schll'eik ,

because he needed to become familiar with

the new technique- the use of the wide

screen. Those who love the Czechoslovak

puppet films remember longingly the time

when from Trnka's unit there issued one

weird and wonderfu l puppet film after

another!

Not even Trnka's co lleagues and com-

petitors, Hermina Tyrlova and Karel Zeman

of the puppet studio in Gottwaldov, made

any outstanding films this year. During the

making of the fairy tale puppet film Goldilocks,

Hermina Tyrl0va attempted a dramatic style

which was essentially foreign to her lyrical

talent. And Karel Zeman , after his out-

standing feature-length film Journey to

Primae va l Times (shown at the Ed inburgh

Festivalin

1955), only produced a light andamusing fragment Mr. Prokouk, a kind of

intermezzo in his work.

That perhaps is the right word- intermezzo.

The past year was an intermezzo in the work

of the Czechoslovak puppeteers and car

toonists . It was not a period of stagnation ,

but rather a temporary pause during which to

gather forces , a time of search for new

media and new malerials. But at the sa me

time during this period in which masters of

21

Goldi locks (Czecho s lov aki a )

the art or animation were discovering a new

path , a number of new talents appeared on the

scene. To start with , Bretislav Pojar, the

most talented of Trnka ' s pupils (his film

A Drop Too Much which received a mention

two years ago at Cannes introduced him to the

film public) has made a short and amusing

detective film called Spejbl on the Scent , the

heroes of which are the two well -kn own

puppets of the Josef Skupa theatre company.

Pojar is now working on two further shortfilm s The Lion and the Ditty and The Puppet

Review. His colleague, Stanislav Lata l; has

made use of two other well -known figures in

puppetry in a fairy ta le for children called

Kutasek and Kutilka at the Fair. He has

heightened the miming potentialities of the

puppets by making use of animation in stages

(stop-frame). Milos Makovec, a director of

feature films , has made his debut in puppet

films with The Lost Sentry shot on the basis



of a popular skit from past times. (It gained a

" mention" this yea r at Venice). Two of

Zeman's pupils, Zd enek Rozkopal , th e

a rtist, a nd Arnost Kupcik, the animator,

have made a popular science trick film called

Black Diamond which deals with the story of

the origin of coal in the earth.But let us return to the mas ters of puppetry.

They too have been ac tive during the past

year or so, although the results of this

activity mu st be judged in the future. Trnka

has definitely decided to adapt Shakespeare's

Midsummer Night's Dream into the medium

of the puppet film. For the present he ha s

produced a scr ipt complere with drawIngs

and ske tches, and he is a lso doing something

which makes him the envy of any feature

fi lm producer- he is creat in g the ac tors for

the puppet film . As to his plans, we ca n only

tell you th is much, that Midsummer Night's

Dream will be presented in puppet panto-

mime sty le.

Hermina Tyrlova is working on a fairy tale

about toys come to life, called The Fairy

Tale about a Naughty Ball, which lells how a

little ball that would not listen to Grand-

father 's warning was deceived by an evil kite.

Her next film will be Kalamajka, a puppet

dance suite based on Moravian national

so ngs.

Karel Zeman , after many experiments in

the mo st various subjects, has fo und the one

most suited to him in science fiction , and he is

prepar ing a film which is be ing awaited

eagerl y based on Jules Verne's The Discovery

of Des truct ion (Face a u Drapea u) . Zeman

in tends to produce this film as a composite

trick film (with puppets , animated cartoon

and live ac to rs) in the style of the originalillustrations to Jul es Verne's no ve l. His aim

is to reproduce as faithfully as possible the

atmosphere and colouring of Jul es Verne's

period , which is dear to young people.

Th e situation in cartoon films is similar

to that of the puppet film. Eduard Hofman ,

whose Doggie and Pussy (based on the fairy

story by Josef Capek, the painter a nd writer

the brother of Karel Capek, the author of

Th e C,.eation of th e World (Czec ho slovakia)

R.U.R.) SO delighted audiences of children ,

has found in France a new theme and ar ti stic

inspiration for his current film in the work

of the cartoonist Jean Eifel; he is making a

cartoon series in three parts of Eifel's The

Creation of the World. The first pa rt is a lm ost

fini shed, and the two further parts about thecreation of Adam and Adam 's union with

Eve are in prepa ration . I t is worth noting

that the commentary in verse and the dialogue

belongin g to a ll the characters will be spoken

by the comedian Ja n Werich, whom filmgoers

may remember from his dua l sta r role in the

film Th e Emperor's Baker.

Of the ot her cartoonists, who have recently

co ncentrated pernaps almost too much on the

production of advertising films, the only work

worthy of attention is the medium-length film

The Devil and Kat e, directed by Vaclav

Bedrich (who made Boil, Little Pot, which

gained a " mention" in Venice), in which

use has been made of a national fairy tale in

the traditional Czech sty le , the drawings of

which are the work of the artist, Jo sef Lada.

Fo r the sma ller children a short film called

Ho w the Mole Earned his Trousers will be

fini shed by the end of thi s year. This is a

modern fairy ta le which explains how fl axis cultivated, processed and used . By setting

the action in the a nimal world (which in itself

catches the attention of a youn g audience)

and by introducing humour and wit , Zdenek

Miler, the director, has avoided giving an

impress ion of giving instruct ion.

On the whole, we think the outlook for the

Czechoslovak cartoon and puppet film is a

sa tisfactory one.

_ \\ f I;--- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



Song of th e P,·wirie . SlJe.ib l on th e Scent (C7,f,ehos l o vak ia)

ANIMATED FILM FESTIVALLONDON, 1957

TH E first International Animated Film Festival in Great Britain is taking place at the National

Film Theatre, South Bank , London , from 23rd February to 8th M arch, 1957.

The aims of the Festival are to demonstrate the co ntribution of an imated films to thecinema dur ing the past sixty years and to present the international development of this medium.

Product ions from the following countries are being shown:

U.S.A . China

Canada Rumania

France Japan

U.S.S .R . Jtaly

Norway Holland

Germany Spain

Po land Denmark

Czechoslovakia Estonia

Mexico England

A wide range of techniques is being demonstrated , from fluid celluloid animation to stop

motion puppet animation, from si lhouette to stereoscopic films and from abstracts pai nteddirectly on to film to fi lms about paintings.

The entries fall into dist inct categories, accord ing to their content. Each day a different aspectof animation is featured, such as the comic, poetic, sa tirical, lyrical , dramatic and caricature

cartoon , as well as puppets.

The daily programmes comprise one feature and five or six short supporting cartoons'

Among the features is the French " La Bergere et Ie Ramoneur", the Russian "Go lden Ante lope",

the Italian " Rose of Bag hdad", "A nimal Farm" and at least three American full -length films·

Some of the latest short cartoons from Europe a nd the U .S.A. are being shown for the firsttime in this country, including the works of Henri Gruel and Tarcaly (France) and Imre Nemeth

(America).

An exhibition of original cellulo ids and backgrounds is to be arranged in the entrance hallof the Festival Cinema .

23



BOOK REVIEW

The Focal Encylopl£dia of Photography. Th e Focal

Press , £5.5.0d.

Fo r a review to do real justice to a magnum opus

co nstructed on the sca le that thi s one is, it should

really be wr itten by a team of experts; experts who

wo uld be the counterparts of the editoria l team of ten ,the fifty specialist consultants and the 197 authors

fr o m twenty-three countries who together wererespons ible for the two thousa nd articles which make

up this new photographic encyclopredia. I am

slightl y encouraged, however, by the thought of thereviewer who, singlehanded , tackled the EncyclopredlaBritannica.

The scope and a ims of the Encyclopredia of Photo

graphy a re ~ e t ou t at the begi nning in the publ isher 'spreface , " Th e subject of thi s encyclopredia, " it says," is the realm of photography- its technique, its ar t

and its business. Adjoining and related technologies.. . a re covered in ample detail. " And eve n the most

casual look through this hu ge book- it runs to overI ,300 pages of text-suggests that the editors and their

co llaborators ha ve achieved what they se t ou t to do

impressively, and in the style one has come to expect

of the Focal Press; i.e ., technica l subject matter dealtwith in straightforward jargon-fr"e English , and wellchosen and designed illustrat ions to illuminate the

text. Incidentally , it has been ten yea rs in the making

and has grown three-fold on the original design.Contributions have been sought from a ll over the

world ; the impress ive list of a uthors and consultants

from the Commonwealth, U.S.A, U.S.S.R. , China

a nd most of the European countries bea r testimony to

th is, and it is good to see the names of so many members of the British Film Academv in the li st. R oger

Manvell and Denis Forman , for example, have beenresponsible for the entries on th e B.F.A. and the B.F.r.respecti vely. 1. D. Wratten has ac ted as consultant on

C inematography, and R. J. Spottiswoode, W. Suschitsky , a nd Ho wa rd Cricks a re among the other

Academv members contributing.It is quite imp ossib le in the space at my disposal to

give any adequate id ea of the scope and range of the

entries. One ca n hin t at it by picking ou t at random afew names of internat iona l experts like RudolphArnheim , Charles Brown, Ha ro ld Edgerton, Max

F actor Jr ., Dr. G . B. H arriso n, who have contri buted

ar ticles on subjects lying in their sp heres. Probablythe best way to get a bird's-eye view of the vas t fieldcovered by the encyclopredia is to look a t the Synopsisof Subject Divisions where a ll the rela ted majorentries 'are brought toge ther under subject head in gs.This a lso makes it an indispensable a iel to anyonewishing to follow up a part icu lar line of st udy orresearch.

For instance, I decieled to make Cinematography my

research project and my sampling dip into the en cyclopredia. Under this head ing in the synopsis a ll the

entries dealing with the subject were gro uped under twosub-headings, General and Special Aspects in thefo llowing manner: Un der General: Cinema/ography-Cine Terms- Cine Films (sub-s/andard)-Pel/ora/ions- magazine-spool- cine film processing- Cine labora/ories- splicing-Projec /ion principles- Cine his/OiY.Under Special Aspects: High Speed Cinema/ ography-Elec/rc>plane camera - Eye camera- Time Lapse Ph% graphy- Sound Recording- Three Dimensional Projec/ion-·- Cinema S/il/s.

When assess ing this sec tion , I bore in mind firstthat, as far as this encyclopreelia was co ncerned, cinematography is "a n adjo ining and reia ted tec hnology"

24

and , secondly , again quoting the publishers, "any

encyclopredia is most ly used for track1r,g down

informat ion on subjects with which the reader is not

rarticularly familiar. No specialist is likely to seekinformat ion within his own field of work from agenera l reference book ." Within this frame ofreference I co nsider the subject has been thoroughly

covered.

Though I read through a ll the ar t icl es I ca n on lymake detailed references to a few of the main ones .Th e genera l article on Cinematography, thejoint effo rtof Julien Caunter and G. H. Sewell, succeeds more thanadequately in squeezing a hogshead in to a pi nt pot.I did feel though that both in the illustrations a nd inthe bibliography there seemed an undue emphasis on

sub-sta ndard practice. The glossary of Cine Termscomp iled by Tony Rose provides clea r and concisedefinitions of most of the technical expressions infrequent use. Cine History by Bria n Coe of the Ko dakResea rch Laboratories is in my op inion abso lute lyfirst clas s - though 1 wonder if 1 might dare tochallenge him on o ne small point and suggest,writing entirely from tnemory, that La Cucuracha and

not Flowers and Trees was the first three-co lollrTechnicolor picture to be shown?

You rea lise, reading this article, how long ago a llthese new gimmicks that have appeared In the lastfew years were first thought of . For instance,"C ineorama" a process using 10 projectors to throw

a 3600 picturd on the walls of a circular building waspatented in 1897. (Apparently the main reaso n whyit neve r came into use was the difficulty of coo ling asma ll projection room housing ten arc-projectors!)And in J900 Loui s Lumiere using 75 mm. fi lm wasshowing pictures on a 65 foot screen to audiences at anexhibition. A British patent of J898 outl ined theprinciples of stereo-cinematography by both anaglyph

a nd pola rising methods.

In conjunct io n with Brian Coe 's article one shoulda lso read the one on Chronophotography whichdescribes the in vest igations by Muybridge and Ma reyinto human and anima l motion.

Among the a rticles dealing with Special Aspects Ishou ld like to mention for their general excellenceHigh Speed Cinema/ography by G . T. Schwartz: TimeLapse Ph% graphy by R. McV.Weston, 3 D-ProJec/lOnby Howard Cricks- though there IS no mention In the

bibliograp hy attached to this article of the books bythe Spottiswoode brothers , Clyne, Dudley, etc.Projec/ion Principles by G. H. Cook o f Ta ylor,Tay lo r & Hobson, apart from its own meflts , IS asgood a n examp le as any of the very thorough crossreferencing wh ich runs al l through the encyciopredJa.

Returning to considerat ion of the work as a whole,a word must be sa id about the illustrations; the

diag ra ms, always a feature of Foca l Press books, are

exce llent and have been used generously to point the

examplations given in the text. In addition some

400 beautifully reproduced photographs " serve. atwofold purpose. In some cases . . . to clarifytechnical points . . . more often, howeve r, they a remeant to exemplify the range and var iety of expresSIOnof which the photographic medium is capab le. "

Finally, this is by no means a cheap book , but whenyou remember that it is a whole photogra phicreference library in one volume, it is good value for the

money.Everyone associated with the Encyclopredia of

Photography can be justifiably proud of a fineproject finely carried out.

A. E . JEAKINS .



THE SltITISH FILM ACADEMY

THE BRITISH FILM ACADEMY was founded in 1947,by a number of leading British

film-makers to advance the art and technique of film-making .by .discussioQ

and research and to encourage the exchange of ideas between creative film-

makers both at home and abroad. Its present membership numbers some 400

senior British film-makers. The present activities of the Academy include:

*the organisation of weekly discussion meetings and screenings

for its Members and Associates during a nine.,.month season each '

year;

* the presentation ofAnnual Awards, seven for the best films of the .

year, British and foreign, and five for acting performances;

* the preparation of books and other publications concerned with

the history and technique of film-making, and with the expression

of the British film-makers' point of view about the medium in

which they work;

* the development of contacts at home and abroad between British

and foreign film-makers, and the encouragement .of further

. interest in the beSo in British production through lectures and

broadcasts in Britain and overseas, and through the Academy'Sbooks and publications;

* the collection and preservation of film-scripts, documents and

other information relating to British films and film-makers.



PATRONS

..Arthur ' Rank' Organisation, Ltd. . Ealing Studios, Ltd. Associated

Bri"tish Picture' Corporation, Ltd: London Film ' P r o d u c t i o r t s , " L t d ~ .Teclinicolor;'Ltd; ' Kodak, Ltd. ,Monty Berman: Ltd:' B: 1. Simmons &

(1941) ;Ltd;' Anvil:Films, Ltd.' . Halas and Batchelor Cartoon' Films,

. M o l e , . ~ i c h a r q s o n (England) Ltd:

Other: S'upporters include:. . .

S h e l l " f . e l i o k ~ u m Company, Ltd. : . British L i o n F i l m s L t d . ' ~ a : t i o n a l Screen' Service, Ltd. Kinematograph Renters:Society, Ltd.

," . - . . ,

The British Petroleum Company,Ltd.. .", , .1. . -.

OFFICERS OF THE ACAD'EMY

'Chairman: 'EDGAR ·ANSTEY"'.

.... Vice-chairme"n.! JOHN ,BRYAN' IANDALRYMPLE

1 -

Hori> Anthony Asquith

Sir Michael:Balcon" . '

vincerii Korda

David"Lean,.C.B:E.

silMichaeIBalcon

Keh Cameron, O.B.E.

. Henry Cornelius ', , C h ~ r h ~ s C r i c h t p ~ .

COUNCIL OF FELLOWS:

Vivien Leigh Sir Carol Reed

Sir Laurence Olivier .,. .. , Paul 'Rotha

George P e a r s o ~ , a .B.E. . , :0: )\lb(fFt Smith

. . Michael Powell : ;Basil Wright

C O U ~ C I L OF MANAGEMENT 1 ! ) 5 6 ~ 5 7 : . , .. ' . , ._ . ... .. .• . I ,"

Mary Field, b:B.E. .. . . .. . J a I l 1 e s . L a ~ r i e George.Gunn

Guy Hamilton

Frank Launder:

' ; ,- - ~ ~ .

Director: Roger ManvelI, Ph.D.

. . . Muir 'Mathieson,Q.B.E

Peter Tanner

Michael Truman

Executive Secretary: M,rs. P.J. Steele-

Honorary pub{icityOfficers: Vivienne Knight and Theo Cowan

Watford Printers Ltd., Vicarage Road, Watford (Phone 'Z757 &3885)

british film academy journal winter 1956-57

Documents