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…

Animation: The Physical Laws
The behaviour of every object in the natural world is controlled by elementary physical laws. Its movement depends on how it is affected by the forces of gravity and of friction. The behaviour of living bodies is similarly affected by these forces, but in their case there is the additional factor that living matter has a will of its own. Living bodies may therefore put up a fight against these basic forces, or in some other way modify their behaviour in relation to them.
In addition to the basic forces of gravity and friction, other natural powers can affect the behaviour of both objects and living bodies. The winds and tempests, the waves and tides, heat and cold all produce conditions which affect physical behaviour. The weight and the size of objects and living bodies are additional factors that govern their behaviour.
Before the animator begins the task of designing drawings that are to move, he must recognize the fundamental forces which create the laws of movement.
He must recognize that the laws of gravity and friction are absolute; they cannot be modified, they must always be accounted for.
The forces of nature (winds, waves, tides, temperatures) can to some extent be resisted; they are less than absolute.
As to weight and size, further checks and controls can be exercised by the long-suffering objects and living bodies existing in the natural world.
In live action these forces and their relative powers are taken for granted on the basis of experience. If a man steps over the edge of a cliff you know that he must fall to the ground below. If an aeroplane rises from the ground, you know that it has been designed to achieve flight with full allowance for the force of gravity, and not as a result of the suspension of that force.
The animator, however, creates a new world of his own on paper, and he has to decide the exact relationship of the creatures of his imagination to all the forces that govern behaviour in the world of nature. As soon as he draws a figure on paper and considers its potential movement, he cannot escape these other considerations, for his audience will anticipate that the figure will conform to whatever forces would affect it were it to exist in actuality. It may be part of his design to exploit this anticipation and give his figure a certain licence for in the world of cartoon elephants fly and men walk up walls to wipe their feet on the ceiling.
But in order to exploit those natural forces effectively and with validity it is first of all necessary to understand them, and this the animator is obliged to do. Let us therefore examine these forces in greater detail.
First, there are the three principles or laws of motion established by Newton.
(i) A body which is still, tends to remain still. In the same way, a body which is in motion tends to remain in motion.
(ii) The states of stillness and movement of a body can only be changed by the action of an outside force. The body will move in the direct line in which the force is applied, until another force acts to change its direction.
(iii) Every action causes an equal reaction in the opposite direction.These three laws, which seem the simplest and the most obvious, are in fact the most important in animation. They give the cue to the animator’s art, to the exaggerations and distortions which he must introduce but which in fact derive from natural behaviour.
For instance, a large soft ball rests quietly on the ground. A boy comes along and gives it a mighty kick. You can see the toe of his boot overcome the ball’s inert tendency to remain quiet and still. The toe sinks into the ball and it immediately loses its roundness as the result of its initial resistance to any alteration in its position. Then, after the force of the kick has been transferred to all its parts, it regains its proper shape, although this may now be slightly affected by the forces of gravity and the friction of the air. Suddenly it collides with a brick wall. At once it loses its roundness; the part of its surface first receiving the impact squashes flat, because a ball in motion needs to retain its motion.
The cartoonist can take his cue from this real ball. He turns its round outline into a face, peaceful, static, contented. A toe violently intrudes; the face is squashed in almost flat. The expression assumes the maximum in alarm and despondency before it soars up into the air and resumes its rounded shape and its look of contentment in the fulfilment of motion. Then comes the impact against the brick wall. The face is once again violently squashed into dismay before drop-ping disconsolately to the ground and bouncing feebly to a stand-still. The ball may be sorry for itself, but it has fulfilled Newton’s first principle of motion.

The essence of fluid animation is understanding the behaviour of any object to which the animator must give life and character. The physical laws of expansion and con-traction and the effect of gravity on objects must be taken into account and exploited as a part of an animator’s sense of action. While it is essential to understand such basic principles In just the same way as a figure artist must understand anatomy, the real craft of animation begins at this very point, hie must know when to develop the normal position of an object (as In I above) into the abnormal (as in 2, 3 and 4 above) in order to emphasize the forces at work upon It—impetus, friction, gravity and impact.

All the actions of ball-sport—bat-on-ball, racket-on-ball, club-on-ball, foot-on-ball—provide the grounds for such a cartoon exaggeration of the truth as this, for every ball which is hit loses its spherical shape at the moment of impact.
Consider next the time factor. In reality, it needs a high-speed camera shooting at, say, 120 frames minimum per second, to register the flattening of a golf ball at the moment of impact with the swinging club. The normal time unit of the animator is one twenty-fourth or one twenty-fifth part of a second. If he wants to show the reaction of the ball to the club in an animated film and he permits only one frame for the moment of distortion of the ball’s shape, he will be greatly exaggerating the time-factor of the distortion in terms of actuality. But exaggeration is part of his craft; he will tend therefore to exaggerate the “squash” of the ball in both time and amount. This will give him the comic pathos he seeks through a sharply dramatic emphasis of the truth.

“Squash” becomes, indeed, a technical term in animation, and indicates the high degree of resilience under duress of the figures he draws. In fact, he often designs them so that their shape should suggest this resilience. They look either fastastically immovable or fantastically mobile, and act accordingly.
In the accentuation of squash apparent weight as well as time is involved. For light objects squash may be reduced to a single frame, that is one twenty-fourth or one twenty-fifth part of a second; even so, as we have seen, this is in point of time a high degree of exaggeration. But given an object of great apparent or actual weight (a whale or an elephant, for example), the squash given to their movements may be exaggerated further, say up to five or more frames, that is approximately one fifth of a second or more. This makes the elephant “galumph” in his movements, and the whale “roll” like a wave.
The cartoon figures thus have their own elasticity which caricatures their motion without loss of character—in fact, with the cartoon there is always an emphasis of character. Very solid objects, like buildings, may be permitted a fully visible sway in the wind—no doubt to their obvious dismay, though real buildings like sky-scrapers and towers do in fact sway considerably and are constructed to do so.
But if such solid objects as buildings are permitted the licence of visible motion when attacked by some force like the wind, then static objects such as trees or ships must be given a proportionate licence to wave and toss. Their design on paper must suggest this potential elasticity, and, like elastic, they must be prepared to distort themselves unevenly to give the right effect.
An even distortion implies a greater visible resilience at the point of impact than elsewhere. Let us go back to our dismayed ball. Where the toe impacts, the distortion obviously needs to be greatest. If a tree tickles because a woodpecker irritates it, it is at the point where the woodpecker is at work on the bark that it will react most sharply. If a whale turns in the water like a speedboat, then the dis-tortion must flow through its frame in response to the fully realized action of its turning. If an elephant starts to slip while skating on an ice-rink, then the legs will distort first before the disaster is appre-hended throughout the rest of its body.
It might be claimed that Salvador Dali’s soft watches are cartoon watches tired out. They wrap themselves limply round the furniture like rubber mats. So when solid objects come in contact with some more masterful surface than themselves they wrap themselves round it in obsequious obedience to Newton’s Laws of Motion. A speeding train collides with some unexpected buffers and bulges over them with squash. A grand piano falls from the upper floor of a sky-scraper and spreads itself flat on the sidewalk before hastily re-assembling in proper form to play a funeral march. A car meets a lamp-post, goes soft with squash, and then winds itself round the obstruction like a drunken muffler.
Similarly, the motion of bodies may inter-react. A dog may charge a closed gate and by his efforts swing it open. But the gate has a spring on it. So it swings back on to the dog and hurls him into space. The gate will suffer exaggerated squash from the impact with the dog; and then the dog will suffer an equal degree of squash from the impact with the gate. This in animation terms is a “concertina movement”; it is the transmission of squash from one object to another, or from one part of an object to another part.
We have dealt so far primarily with objects which are static or moving in one direction only. Newton’s second Law of Motion comes into force at this point. The static object is subjected to a force, overcomes its resistance to movement, moves in the direction of the force which impelled it, meets another force operating from another direction, and is thus deflected from its original path. In animation, all these changes must be reflected by appropriate emphases through distortion, attended by a “flow” originating from the point of impact with the force through to the remaining limbs or parts of the object.
The third of Newton’s Laws of Motion—every action causes an equal reaction in the opposite direction—has like the first and second Laws its reflection in the process of animation.
Every movement can be reinforced where it is valuable to do so, by means of a secondary and opposite movement that derives from it. A car starts off at speed—the impetus of the fast movement can be emphasized by the outlines of a puff of dust starting from the ground in the opposite direction. The movement back of the dust emphasizes the movement forward of the car.
Thus it is wise in animation to give every movement its full visual value. Every action should have its preceding and succeeding phase.
The cartoon car about to start pulls back like an elastic catapult preparatory to launching itself forward. When it comes to a stop it halts slithering on its distorted wheels. Animation demands this fuller realization of the physical laws of gravity and friction, this
visual symbolizing of the natural forces and the results of weigh and mass.

Even If the animated drawings are stylized in appearance the basic laws of motion must be observed. Three major factors have to be taken into account—the preparatory movement, the action and the reaction—in addition to these basic laws. In certain cases the reaction, because it is the pay-off of the animation, may well be the most important point. The art of animation depends on the inter-action of these various factors.

Yet natural motion should be avoided in animation. The laws governing such motion should be observed and understood as they affect the real-life counterparts of the drawn image, but then developed by the artist for his own ends, which are not the ends of nature. The art of animation starts when the artist interprets natural movement creatively without directly copying it.
The artist in animation starts, therefore, with the knowledge of how objects and living beings work, just as Leonardo da Vinci sought constantly to understand the bones and muscles within the structure of human or animal bodies. Leonardo, were he the instructor of the animator to-day, would be unlikely to permit him to develop the symbolization of movement in the form of mobile cartoon until he had understood how it worked in the practice of nature. Imagination follows on scientific analysis, taking its cues from what is real.
But the mere reproduction of nature is the denial of the artist’s function. The artist is under an obligation to create something which goes beyond the careful manufacture of a carbon copy of natural forms and movements—the province of the live-action camera. The value of the artistic exercise starts when the artist puts pencil to paper and begins the fabrication of a graphic world which he alone creates.

It’s hard to choose a good excerpt from one of my favorite books, so I have decided to quote a part where Lotte Reiniger talks about the way she works.

Playing

When you are going to play with your figure seriously, make sure that you are seated comfortably. The shooting will take up a long time and you will have to keep yourself as alert as possible. Don’t wear any bulgy sleeves; they might touch your figure unexpectedly and disturb its position. If possible arrange to place an iron or wooden bar 5 in. above the set along your field of action and let your arms rest on it, so that you touch your figure only with the finger-tips, or with your scissors.
Never lift the figure from the ground, but push it along, lying flat. If it is constructed correctly it will respond to the slightest touch, so push its limbs gently and carefully.
The most cautiously executed movements must be the slow ones, where you have to alter the position only the fraction of an inch. A steady, slow walk is one of the most tricky movements to execute. Here the most frequent mistake at the beginning is to let the body lag behind the legs, so that they seem to be running away from under the body. If you touch the centre of the body first and move it forward, holding the legs in the initial position, you will notice that they fall into the next position almost by themselves.

Tall, lean figures are more prone to these errors than round, short ones, which roll along easily, whilst the balance of ihc long ones is more difficult to establish.
It might prove to be a help, if you have reached the farthest extent of your step, to fix the toe of the forward foot onto the ground with a piece of Sellotape (Scotch tape), and move the body over it until the next extension is reached. But don’t forget to remove it well out of the way then, or it will impede another movement.
If two figures are crossing each other, it is wise to cover the lower figure with a piece of thin cellophane, so that the crossing figure will not be caught by its hinges.
Also, when a figure has to pass over an elaborately cut piece of scenery, it is best to cover it up in the same way during the passing movement. But it is essential after use to move all these aids out of the action field and away from the table, for they might reappear on unwanted places, or pieces of cellophane which are hardly visible, and so disturb another figure. When there are several figures on your scene which have to move simultaneously, marching in a procession or dancing in a row, make it a rule to move them always in the same succession from left to right, or right to left, according to the direction in which they are going. Otherwise you may forget one, as you will become absorbed with the creation of your movements. When you have trained yourself always to follow the same sequence of handling this danger is less great.
If you want to have a staccato movement, which can be very impressive, you have the figure on for say six movements and then let it stand static for six frames, or whatever rhythm you want it to follow.
If a figure is to turn round it had best do so in a quick motion. If you want the movement slower you might partly hide it in a convenient piece of the setting. But if the movement is to he seen openly, as for instance in a dance, you bring it into position (illustration 82), then lay round the outstanding point some of your tools, heavy and for preference pointed ones, like scissors or pliers, and mark the position of the feet on the ‘ground’.

Then you can replace the profile head by a frontal one and turn round one of the legs, slightly lifted towards the direction it is going to move into, then take away the tools and make a shot, move the head slightly, lift the leg and make another shot, make another move and make a third shot. Then replace your marking tools and take away the frontal head and replace the silhouetted head in the other direction. Take away the tools and make your shot. Now the figure can safely move in the other direction. To camouflage the turning operation a movement of the arms plus a change of hands can be very helpful.

For transformation or vanishing effects, it helps to add bits and pieces sticking out from the figure until it resembles the figure into which it is going to change. For vanishing effects you may cut out an effigy of the final position, cover the figure with it, take the figure away and cut the effigy shot by shot at whatever speed you like until it has vanished. A further refinement would be to cut the effigy out of various layers of transparent paper and take them away, shot after shot, until it has disappeared (about 15 to 20 lavers would be sufficient).
Lotte Reiniger.