Animation Reader

Visual Scripting by John Halas.

Ernest and Giselle Ansorge’s films The Ravens and Faniasmatic are recognised as masterpieces in their particular approach of graphic animation.

Mr. Ansorge maintains that since their films do not include commentary and are purely based on visual continuity, it is sufficient for them to start production from a carefully prepared storyboard.

­The timing and continuity therefore are arranged during the production of the storyboard and the process of the production takes careful guidance from this without losing spontaneity during production.

The actual shooting of the films is carried out manually by the two artists themselves. They use cut out figures which are manipulated frame by frame to a musical guide, and make adjustments to the characters as they go along. They feel that in this way they are able to adopt an individual attitude to the work as it progresses, as well as maintain sufficient inspiration and it is easy for them if they want to make some alterations. They do understand the risks involved and admit that such a procedure is only possible with an individual unit working on its own.

Scriptwriting For Animation

It is as hard to define a method for scriptwriting as it is to write a script. Besides, does any one method exist? There is none of absolute value, for if there were, it would be possible to mass produce works of art.

Perfect as it might be, no piece of work can do without that personal touch which reflects the sensibility of its author. The important thing to me, is just this little piece of individuality which is destined to be shared with the spectator. It is here that the artistic emotion passes into the work.

Trying not to generalise, I shall draw on my personal experience to make a few remarks about the production of an experimental film, which I would rather term “free inspiration film”.

This presupposes a complete freedom, with no restrictions other than those conerning finance for the film, which is of course a restriction.

My first definition would be: Use of the method which is appropriate to the subject of the film and to its nature: animation.

To create a work of art, one can use all materials in existence: wood, earth, metal, string, etc. but we must respect these materials and use them in the proper way. It would be wrong to make a mosaic by painting a pseudo-mosaic on marble, to smelt a statue in plastic to imitate bronze etc.

I think we can establish a parallel in the cinema; the animation cinema was invented for the creation of films which could not be made in live action, or to illustrate a story which must be suggested rather than told.

My definition of a good animated film is one which cannot be retold, cannot be summarized but has to be seen.

The frame-by-frame cinema has created its own specific language. I can do no better than to quote Andre Martin:

“In both recreating and seeking the self, animation, the cinema of total creation, offers us opportunities for infinite broadening of the formal setting of the animated image. It is absolutely necessary for the men of pictures in a happy era to dare to use, without reticence, a supple and a free visual language, capable of coping with the enormous diversity of visions, sensibilities and styles, lending itself equally well to the recreation of wonders of fantasy and of miracle as to the expression of the inimitable strangeness of the interior landscape.”

Once one has found the basic idea, that is, the main subject, it has to be developed, given depth, made to re-echo, to be framed in a graphic style suited to its function, given a rhythm and a progression, both on the formal and the intellectual plane, and its impact must be prolonged by means of a soundtrack which is firmly implanted in the subject matter..

Visual delirium

Because of its infinite possibilities the animated film opens up the lock-gates of the director’s imagination, and this brings the first danger: uncontrolled visual delirium.

We must not forget, right from the beginning, this neat little idea which is in your mind. It must not be dragged in all directions with a great fuss and commotion only to produce a superb firework.

The animation cinema is first and foremost the cinema of the mind. It passes through the creator’s brain before reaching the artist’s hand. It must not be reduced to a few brilliant pencil-strokes. It is above all a polemical and a reflective instrument, and it does not fear to look into the future.

For this reason, from among a welter of ideas, it is important to single out the one essential idea which will give the film its tone and its unity.

During the course of these considerations I do not exclude the gag film, which may be trenchant and educational. Just one good gag which is sustained and well developed seems to me to be superior to a succession of gags with no apparent link.

When the outline has been decided and the writer’s idea has been well considered by the director, we may now pass on to the choice of technical means.

There are no a priori rules governing this choice. I can only say that I personally prefer drawing directly on to the cell for a gag film, but cut or torn paper silhouettes for films of more naïve inspiration (films for children), dolls for folk-inspired films, the engraving style for certain subjects which requires more atmosphere. All these methods have been brilliantly illustrated by animators in different countries of the world.

I used texturised animation for many of my films (Les Corbeaux, Fantasmatic, Alunissons), because this process suits me, and represents the graphic form corresponding to what I would like to say. The same idea could be expressed on cells or by means of a different technique and using a different artist. Each has his own inclinations.

False Endings

In all films there is one essential sequence. It comes near the end and this certainly is the bete noire of film makers generally.

It might occur to the creator right at the begin-ning, at the same time as the choice of subject. But, unfortunately.not always. How frequently a film in effect, ends before its intended climax because the author was unable to provide the “star” sequence! If you have not found a real ending, false endings are multiplied, which tends to increase the audience’s boredom.

Do not launch into production without being certain of having a complete portfolio of the ideas or events of the film. You might, perhaps, even start with the end of the film, to be certain of not missing it!

Dose

So that a film should not degenerate into an imposition and become boring, it should be dosed with various elements. Sustaining the audience’s interest is a problem which preoccupies the minds of all film directors.

One might possibly object that animated films run little risk of this, on the grounds that they are in the category of the mini-shorts.

I think it is a mistake to believe this, and I think that a three minute film could seem to be too long if it were not well balanced.

We must not forget, either, that animated films are more tiring on the eyes and demanding of attention from an audience than normal films, since animation is a concentration of ideas and images which require a certain effort on their part and consequently are liable to create tension.

It is rare for a spectator (with the exception of the aficionados) to grasp immediately on the first showing, all the ideas contained in an animated film. (I am, of course, speaking mostly of films with some kind of philosophical pretension).

Laughter

If you make a film which is didactic in inspiration, you have to allow some moments of relaxation, and remember that laughter has a far more emphatic educational potential than a moralising atmosphere.

If the audience occasionally bursts into laughter at the most tragic moment in a particularly somber film, it is because the creator has forgotten to allow them the essential moment of relaxation after a period of great tension.

Poetry

The poetry which is indispensable to any work of art may be born of the picture itself (naive drawings, limited animation) or of the ideas.

It is perhaps one of the most difficult things to define. The poetic atmosphere of a film is not put together, but distilled gradually by the writer’s state of mind. Now, there are some writers who are not poets. Why do all of Trinka’s films bear the imprint of this poetry which transfigures simple dolls, while many other animators of puppets, in spite of a perfect technique, are not able to give them a soul?

The irrational

This, again, is a purely personal point of view, but I think that the animation cinema is gaining more and more on the live action cinema in the sphere of surrealism and irrationality.

In this field, it has the advantage in that it can invent anything. Trick photography in the live action cinema remains limited, and the imagination is conditioned by these limits. In animation, on the other hand, it is the imagination which has to gallop after the artist’s hand, for it can do practically anything. The writer is hardly able to take full advantage of it.

So it is becoming more and more obvious that the animation cinema can and must invent the future. It must become forward looking. That endeavor may be applied, in my opinion, in any production, whether a commercial, industrial or experimental film. The greatest difficulty is now, as it always has been, that of convincing the producer.

Satire

This, too, is indispensable in making the audience think. But on this point we can certainly not reproach animators who have, for years, been making liberal use of this element.

Children’s Films

Please allow me to put in brackets my comment on animated cartoons for children. I shall simply ask one question. Is it really necessary to conceive programmes as specially for children, considering that most children see animated films with so much more enthusiasm, receptivity, comprehension ar ci poetic feeling than most people who are termed adults?

Each time I have presented animated films, even difficult ones, to an audience of children, I have noticed that they penetrate the films with no…