Heroic's Aniblog
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The History of Animation Pt. 2: Experimentation Period (1920-1936)
by Brian Kuhn
Welcome, friends! This month, we continue our journey through the history of animation, as we blast off into the Roarin' 20s! This time period saw the evolution of animation from a newly discovered, artistic invention that was mildly entertaining, to a burgeoning commercial industry and higher art form that dazzled and mesmerized audiences worldwide. Many consider the Golden Age of animation to begin in 1928, when Walt Disney successfully synchronized sound into his animation Steamboat Willie. I would strongly argue that it did not truly begin until 1937, as there was still significant experimentation happening in animation up until that point, and the world would not see the art of animation truly elevated and refined until the release of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. In this month's Aniblog we discuss the successes and follies of the 1920s & 30s and take a closer look at which artists, studios, and movements had the most influence over the direction animated films would take all over the world during that time.
The Early 1920s
In the year 1920, cartoonists Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks (fig. 1) meet in Kansas City, forming a small company called Iwerks Disney Commercial Artists. Lacking funds, they began working at Kansas City Film Ad Company, where they both learned the basic techniques of animation.
Walt soon left, producing his own Laugh-O-Grams, and he hired his friend Ub Iwerks as an animator. Disney faced financial difficulties, filing for bankruptcy and planning to quit animation altogether. However, after his short, Alice in Cartoonland (fig. 2), was picked up by a distributor, Disney's belief in his ideas, his willingness to take risks, and his inspiring persona enabled him to persevere, eventually rising to the level of world influencer.
In Germany 1921, Walther Ruttmann released the extremely influential Lichtspiel Opus I (fig. 3), which featured an abstract experimental modernist painting that moves and changes through time. This film was followed by several more of the same style, and influenced many animated films for years to come.
The Mid-1920s saw many significant developments in animated filmmaking:
In 1924 Max and Dave Fleischer develop the "bouncing ball" (fig. 4), which moves along above song lyrics on the screen as a guide for audiences to sing along (still used in karaoke today), which they used in their series of films called Song Car-Tunes.
Also in 1924, Fernand Léger, a dadaist painter in France, releases his Ballet Mécanique (fig. 5), a classic of abstract animation. A massively influential piece, it is one of the most famous and widely-distributed works of avante-garde film of its time. Léger's film features a mixture of animation styles and techniques, such as painting directly onto film, and stop motion (aka stop frame), plus live-action sequences.
A Swede named Viking Eggeling spent several years traveling Europe; he spent time in Milan at Brera Academy of Fine Arts; some time in Zurich, where he befriended dadaist artists and filmmakers, before moving to Berlin with fellow animator Hans Richter. Eggeling's film Symphonie Diagonale (1924) (fig. 6) is a minor classic of abstract film. This calculated, meticulous piece depicts stark, futurist designs which grow, fade, and increase in complexity throughout the 7-minute film. Eggeling believed art should encompass political, ethical, and scientific ideologies, and that abstract art was the purest and freest way to demonstrate these beliefs. He spent his life as a sort of animation 'monk,' devoted to developing his ideas in solitude, expressing himself through his few animated films.
And still within the year 1924, George Studdy, a British pioneer in commercialized animation and a forerunner for establishing the British animation industry, created Bonzo the Dog (the male dog in fig. 7), who became the UK's answer to Felix the Cat's success.
In 1925, American Willis O'Brien takes stop motion animation to a new level with his animated dinosaurs in Harry Hoyt's film The Lost World (fig. 8). This was the first feature-length film to include stop motion animation, using the animated dinos alongside live actors, much to audiences' fascination. This laid the groundwork for the unprecedented global success of the film King Kong several years later, as well as many other monster movies.
Lotte Reiniger' s Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed) (1926)
One of the most significant animated films of the 1920s was Lotte Reiniger's Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed) (figs. 9 & 10), released in 1926. Reiniger was a German woman who used her distinct and delicate style of cutout animation (similar to traditional Chinese shadow puppetry) to make the film, which is the earliest surviving animated feature film. It was revolutionary for animated filmmakers of the time due to her use of new techniques.
Cutout animation is one of the simplest and quickest techniques for animation; the drawings/characters are cut into sections that can be moved frame by frame. This can be done using physical cutouts or making them in a computer animation program. Reiniger was also the first to use a multiplane camera, 10 years before Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in the US. This technique gave animations the illusion of depth by layering different pieces of art in the scene, and filming them at various speeds and distances.
All original copies of The Adventures of Prince Achmed were destroyed during the bombing of Berlin in WWII, but fortunately a print was found in the British Film Institute's archive in 1954. This led to the eventual restoration of the film to its original quality in 1970, and it was remastered further in 1998.
The Late 1920's
In Japan, animator Noburo Ofuji worked with one of the Fathers of Anime, Junichi Kouchi, for a few years before making his own films. Ofuji rightfully saw animation as a serious art form and wanted to make films geared more towards adult audiences. Like Lotte Reiniger, he used the cutout technique, using semi-transparent Japanese paper called chigoyami. The cutout figures could be manipulated and filmed on different levels of glass plates, similar to Reiniger's multiplane camera technique. Ofuji's film Kujira (The Whale) in 1927 (fig. 11) was one of the first Japanese animated films to be distributed globally, and it received worldwide acclaim for its artistry.
1928: The beginning of the Golden Age? ...Not quite
In 1928, Walt Disney put out his first major universal success, Steamboat Willie. This short introduced and featured the most popular cartoon character of all time, Mickey Mouse, who replaced the Fleischer Bros' Felix the Cat as the biggest cartoon star. This was also the first time that sound synchronization had been used to such convincing effect, and it fit perfectly with the animations. Needless to say, audiences were hooked. After achieving such success with synchronized sound, Disney Studio released all its animations with soundtracks from this point on.
Some believe this to be the start of animation's famous Golden Age, however I firmly believe this was still in the middle of what I have been calling the Experimentation Period, as the success of synchronized sound was not the only technique needed to elevate the art of animation to its full potential. Animators were still lacking in the ability to produce realism within the art form, and would not develop the proper techniques to achieve it for almost another decade.
The Silly Symphonies and The First Disney Music
Following the success of Steamboat Willie and synchronized sound in animations, Disney released The Skeleton Dance in 1929, which was the first of the Silly Symphonies. It stands the test of time as a classic animated short, and was likely the first animation that was constructed to fit around a composed piece of music, which was quite unusual at the time. Disney Studio had begun using their own composer, which eventually led to their affinity for a quality soundtrack.
Ub Iwerks
Ub Iwerks, the aforementioned animator who had teamed up with Walt Disney at the start of commercialized animation and co-created Mickey Mouse, was later poached from Disney by a producer at MGM named Pat Powers. Iwerks built up his team there, also poaching Disney's composer Carl Stalling, along with Fleischer Studio's star animators, Grim Natwick and Shamus Culhane. During this time he created Flip the Frog (fig. 14).
Unfortunately, Iwerks did not possess the vision and magical talents of Walt Disney, and by 1936 he made what must have been a tough return to Disney, although neither of the two ever spoke publicly about any of it. Iwerks spent the rest of his incredibly influential career at Disney as a Technical Supervisor, winning TWO Academy Awards for Technical Achievement. He was also instrumental in developing the theme park that would become Disneyland.
1930-1936: A Prelude to the Golden Age of Animation
In 1930 Max Fleischer and Grim Natwick's Dizzy Dishes introduces the character that becomes Betty Boop (fig. 15). While Disney's short films concerned themselves with more childlike situations, Fleischer cartoons such as Betty Boop and Popeye were based more in the adult world. However, due to perceived lapses in morality in the movies of that time period, content control was implemented by the Production Code. This led to more toned-down Betty Boop cartoons, which lasted until 1939. Despite this, Betty Boop remains one of the most recognizable and beloved cartoon characters in US television history, and has since seen brief revivals in recent decades.
Also in 1930, the Father of Stop Motion animation, Ladislas Starevich, produced a film that was 10 years in the making, Le Roman de Renard (The Tale of The Fox). The incredible quality of animation in this film was much higher than the even more celebrated King Kong, released three years later. The sense of humor and animation stand the test of time, making this a true classic animated film.
1932- Fleischer Studios releases Minnie the Moocher (fig. 17), one of their finest shorts. It is set to Cab Calloway's jazz song of the same name.
1933- Disney's Three Little Pigs (fig. 18), the most successful of their Silly Symphonies, exhibited new levels of brilliant character animation, the success of which heavily influenced Walt's direction for the future
1933- Fleischer Studios creates Popeye the Sailor (fig. 19), using the character who had originally been in the Betty Boop series. Popeye took over as Fleischers' number one cartoon star, even beating Mickey in popularity polls in 1935. Around this same time, Fleischer Studios promoted Lillian Friedman to the position of animator, making her the first American woman to animate professionally.
King Kong (1933)
Willis O'Brien had seen great success with stop motion animation in his film The Lost World, but in 1933 he took the world by storm, this time teaming up with filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Shoedshack to create the Hollywood classic, King Kong. O'Brien used a series of 18-inch-high models made of foam, rubber, and animal skins over metal skeletons. The figures were placed within miniature sets with backdrops, although a few scenes with closeups of human actors required the use of giant models of the gorilla's head, hand, and foot.
The truly amazing achievement in O'Brien's animation and Cooper/Shoedshack's directing lies in the emotional connection made with the audience; this is what makes a classic film. The empathy that is built for the "monster" and his tragic love for the heroine played by Fay Wray, are why the original Kong film holds its own place in history as a piece of true Hollywood classic cinema, despite several remakes with more "realistic" effects. The original King Kong proves that the key to successful animation in filmmaking is telling a compelling story with characters that the audience can connect with emotionally, not making a perfectly "realistic" production.
1933- It is worth mentioning that around this time, Russian-born French filmmaker Alexander Alexeieff and his 1st wife Alexandra (a self-taught engraver) invented a device that was used to create a new kind of animation. The device was a type of pinboard with a screen/grid that allowed for manipulation of the pins into different shapes, creating a relief shadow when lit from the side.
Together with American animator living in Paris (and his later 2nd wife), Claire Parker, they used this technique to make Une Nuit sur le mont chauve (Night on Bald Mountain) (fig. 21) using the musical composition of the same name. The film is worth a mention, as they achieved stunning artistry with their unique style.
1934- In Paris, the art-deco style and freeform rebellious tone that later became typical of European animations, can be seen early on in La Joie de Vivre (fig. 22), a fully animated film made by Anthony Gross and Hector Hoppin. Despite its lack of "gags" which featured in most animations of that time, the film had a feeling of a French ballet version of Disney's Silly Symphonies.
That year in the US, Clarence Nash is discovered by Disney during a chance meeting, when Walt recognized Nash's voice from a radio show. Nash became the man who voiced Donald Duck so uniquely and memorably, which would define the character for decades to come. This is likely the first instance of voice acting talent being highly sought after and valued by an animation studio.
1935- In Russia, Aleksander Ptushko had built a reputation as a great filmmaker with his adaptations of fairy tales, which led some to call him the "Soviet Disney." That year, he assembled a team of animators and puppet makers for the first Russian animated feature film, Novvy Gulliver (The New Gulliver) (fig. 23), based on Gulliver's Travels. This film was an incredible achievement in animation, and received worldwide acclaim due to its use of 3,000 puppets (far more than Lost World or King Kong) and also due to its high quality animation and lip-sync.
1935- Len Lye, a New Zealand artist in the modernist movement was making animated films in the UK. With his first film flopping, he lost all of his funding. Unable to afford a camera or equipment, he began drawing, scratching, and painting directly onto discarded film stock he found at Ealing Studios. He convinced the head of GPO Film Unit to back his film, and they subsequently paid for a soundtrack to be added. A Colour Box (fig. 24) was the first film painted/scratched onto direct film to be shown to general audiences. Len Lye received great acclaim for his innovations and unique style, for which he became known over his long and storied film career.
In the year 1936, we reach our final film of this month's Aniblog, Disney's The Old Mill (fig. 25). Walt used this film to test out new techniques to introduce realism into animation, which is why I believe the Golden Age of animation did not begin until the following year. He wanted his studio to be a leader in the industry and was preparing for his first feature film.
The Old Mill is a short film featuring animals sheltering from a storm. The film extensively used the multiplane camera for depth and concentrated on rotating objects to show three-dimensionality in the animation. He also wanted to achieve realistic animals and nature, including effects such as rain and a storm. This was a defining moment in animation that led to a massive movement into realism.
The Experimentation Period of the 1920s & 30s was an increasingly exciting time for animators; with new techniques and innovations constantly developing all over the globe, it's hard to keep track of who did what first, and which methods and productions fell flat and out of the picture (pun intended). However, next month, The Aniblog will be covering the pinnacle of all animation eras, THE GOLDEN AGE of animation *angelic choir sings*. The achievements of this period are easier to track, and much more consistent. What defines the Golden Age? Well, I find it easier to track when you start with the film that kicked it all off; the first movie-length animated feature film; Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. "Heigh Ho," bitches!
Thanks for reading, friends! See you next month!
