tuesday from 3.30-6.20, in a frigid lecture hall in a building that used to be a church, i am taught 'the history and techniques of character animation'. my professor is tom bertino. he's a spritely, schnauzer of man who sparkles with joy and delight in animation. he's great. there are maybe 35 students in the class and about 20 of them are from korea.
in the first class, we watched the very first animated films, the first from 1904. these early animators were newspaper 'cartoonists' though their work can hardly be compared with what we see today. the draftsmanship was of the highest quality and their cartoons were meant to be savored and pored over. poured over? poored over. anyway. yes. let's see if i can find some examples...this is from an artist named Jehan Testevuide, and though he's french, i think it's pretty much the same this as what was happening in new york at the time (the center of all art and theatre, etc).
artists like testevuide frequently had 'sketch acts' on the vaudeville stage. they'd draw really fast, draw with one pencil in each hand, draw behind their backs, etc. with the art of film in its infancy, people were making 'trick' films using very simple film tricks to make illusions. well, one of these newspaper artists/vaudeville performers decided to make a kind of 'trick' film. his name was j. stewart blackton and he made what we know as the first animated film. it's from 1906 and called 'humorous phases of funny faces'. two years later, 'fantasmagorie' turned up in france. WAY better. by emile cohl.
then windsor mccay came along and blew everyone out of the water. in 1911, he rocked it using characters from his famous (at the time) comic strip 'little nemo in slumberland'. HIS film is just called 'little nemo'.
they're all NUTS and it's hard to believe how awesome they are, especially mccay when there was little or no precedent.
the last film i'll share, that was the first widely seen animated film and thus thought to be the first animated film at all is 'gertie the dinosaur'. mccay used this film as part of his stage act and would interact with gertie from the stage. people would flip their shit, greatest thing they'd ever seen.
so. that was cool.
wednesday i have lab time in the animation lab for when we know what the heck we're doing.
thursday i have 'acting for animators' at noon.
usually the class has close to 20 people. our class has 7. 7 people. the first day was weird and uncomfortable and the term 'instrument' was used and i cringed and we laughed and it was strange. so, we'll see. my skepticism about that class hasn't been lessened in anyway. yet.
today, friday, i had 'traditional animation 1' at noon.
i took a picture of our class room, but my camera chord is at home, so...later.
our professor worked on 'where the wild things are' and is currently working on 'prince of persia' which he says 'no one will see'. there's a lot of computer work to be done, which makes me nervous. our instructor makes me nervous a little, because he's nervous, but a nice enough guy who seems very happy, which is good. there are 18 students in that class. i am one of only 4 girls. but i know some of my classmates already, which is nice.
one thing free of my semester so far: my arch nemesis 'laughing girl'! she's in none of my classes and i haven't seen, or more importantly HEARD her at all! hooray!
the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment