In The Early Days

In The Early Days

Post 3

The reading From Comic Strip and Blackboard to Screen focused on how comics related to animated film. Comics gave narrative and some had reoccurring characters. They were also easy to put on screen. The reading claimed that comics had great people working on them who made leaps in animation such as Blackton. I couldn’t agree with this more. Blackton was very amazing. The Enchanted Drawing and Humorous Phases of Funny Faces were both very imaginative.

This is what the reading referred to as Lightening Sketches or drawings that come to life. There was also the presence of the filmmaker. This made me think of experimental animation and Duck Amuck. This goes with McCay’s earlier work, Gertie the Dinosaur, and Alice’s Wonderland since the artists interact with animated characters. Gertie reminded me of a comic book character since she had personality.

I thought it was really amazing what some of these people were able to accomplish. I especially liked Melies’s Cook in Trouble. All of it was done in camera and it must have taken a lot of planning and work to get the right effect. The Cameraman’s Revenge must have been very tedious but the effect was great.

Reiniger’s work was wonderful. It’s hard to imagine the time she must have spent working on Prince Achemd. Paper is very thin and the characters moved very fluently. The whole thing was beautifully done especially the backgrounds. The reading Some Critical Perspectives on Lotte Reiniger looked as Reiniger’s life and how she got into animation. She dealt with some very complex issues in her work such as women’s rights and homosexuality. I agree that her ideas were thought provoking. Her work is classic and can be admired by all ages. I like how she used silhouettes and I agree with the reading that silhouettes can be very beautiful or very scary since they give a certain element of mystery.