Journal Entry – Week 9

In “Rooty Tooty Toot”, colors and patterns are used in order to portray characters and their silhouette and also the mood of the scene, such as in the bar during the flashback. It also uses these colors and lineless patterns to give the characters distinct personalities that fit with their actions and voice. I believe it is highly effective in this matter and makes for a truly unique animation. I like the choice of lines and how they interact with color to tell a story. I also enjoy the patterns as background elements because they are so complicated compared to the character that they are not your main focus because of the pattern’s lack of color. It reminds me of the opposite way to draw characters and backgrounds.

The coco cola is symbolized as perfect- undergoing stages similarly to what a butterfly is. As it goes along the animation, we see how its in the focus of the camera. Theres no dialogue but the sound is very peaceful and thrilling(??) like its exciting sorta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuQ6GRXPv3c

“Rooty Tooty Toot” is a 1952 short animated film made by United Productions of America (UPA). The film is about a little kid who learns the joy of music and the transformational influence it has on people around him. Color, patterns, sketching, and restricted movement are used to establish a distinct visual style and express the film’s message. Color is used in “Rooty Tooty Toot” in a bright and vibrant manner. The backdrops are frequently a single, brilliant hue, such as a deep blue night sky or the bright red of the boy’s trumpet. The characters are also drawn in bright colors, with basic forms and little features. Color is used throughout the film to generate a sense of energy and excitement, and it underscores the essential role that music plays in the tale.

The story of “Rooty Tooty Toot” is effectively told through these means. All of the color, pattern, drawing, and movement in the film combine to create an engaging and dynamic experience. It is more memorable and impactful with the limited animation style because the key actions and gestures stand out. Characters’ personalities and actions are also emphasized in the stylized drawing style of the film, which makes the characters more relatable.

UPA’s style of circles, squares, triangles, and other geometric shapes to form its characters and background environments gives just the right amount of visual information to portray expressive characters and spaces. In “Rooty Toot Toot” the film takes advantage of the use of color to represent different spaces or exaggerate the mood of a scene. Some characters aren’t colored in and only outlined and other characters are only a single color. The movement of the characters in the film is snappy similar to Looney Tunes except for a lot less detailed. The film manages to create an interesting and funny story with all of these abstract elements. My favorite aspect was the shifting colors between the different testimonies being told and the bright red that showed up right when she was found not guilty. It captured the absurdity of the celebration and helps seal the gag by the end.

“Rooty Tooty Toot” uses flat, graphic shapes to represent their characters. Various characters could be simplified into the shapes as the rest of the line art just allows characters further expressiveness. The bartender could easily be represented with a burgundy round, squat blob. Frankie is represented by her pink hat brim and dress. Nellie Bly can be reduced into an elongated blue dress with blue eye shadow and lipstick. Designating certain shapes to different characters allows the viewer to know at a glance what is going on. Shapes tend to have inherent characteristics that are associated with them. I think that distinguishing the characters like this is really effective because the inherent characteristics of certain shapes are bestowed on the characters, which allows the storyteller to have a shorthand for the audience to quickly understand.

It’s interesting to note that when a character is telling a highly biased story, the background color of the scenes changes colors to match the character telling the story. When Nellie Bly tells her story, the entire scene is depicted in blue. It appears to allow the storyteller to disappear into the scene. When the lawyer spins his tale, the majority of story appears in bright white. I think it provides a very distinctive way to differentiate stories from each other.

I thought it was particularly interesting that throughout the film, the background had a particular spongy pattern for some of the backgrounds. The appearance of the pattern is somewhat minimized in the courtroom and in Nelly Bly’s tale. In these locations, they seem to just provide texture to add interest in the scene. However, the pattern seems to be particularly prominent in the tales of the bartender and lawyer. In the bartender’s tale, the pattern is partially muted and just generally seems to suggest a sense of seediness. In the lawyer’s tale, when he talks about the part that concerns Nellie Bly, the pattern is extremely prominent since it is colored indigo in contrast to the white background. The sponge pattern somehow makes everything seem seedier and more disreputable. The contrasts in the sponge texture is an interesting way to emphasize dishonesty and give a subtle way to communicate grime and possibly disrepute.

 “Rooty Tooty Toot” short film uses simple patterns and drawings for the background and people, as well as specific colors to help distinguish certain characters and aid in the storytelling. The movements in the film are very dramatic, such as when she sits at the bar or when they show different scenarios where one person says she pulled the trigger and her lawyer says she didn’t, and she just found the gun. The characters’ movements also give them distinct personalities. The colors and patterns help to narrate the scenes, and despite the simplicity of the style, it presented enough information to understand the story and characters.

“Rooty Toot Toot” has simplistic drawings and an interesting style. The backgrounds are mainly abstract and with simple patterns that add visual interest. The popping colors and the distinct movement of each character made the animation a visually appealing experience for me as a viewer. 

I think that the story was effectively told using this simplistic and abstract style. UPA has been pioneers in their style of animation, and they created animations that were both easy to produce along with being able to concentrate on storytelling rather than using traditional animation techniques. By making these animations, they inspired many other animators that follow this style, as the minimal animation style and the flat and abstract backgrounds were captivating.

Roomy toothy toot background designs remind me of paper-mâché. Almost like the animators just pasted pictures in the background. And I feel like it works perfectly with the overall aesthetic of the animation. Everyone from the furniture to the character is very simplistic. Wait, a couple of characters look almost never drawn with one line with no breaks. Others look like they were just two shapes just combined with also helps with the color that is used lightly here and there, but also to match the mood or setting of each scene taking place.

In the film “Rooty Tooty Toot” the use of color is flat and the clothes color only shows in their clothes when they make a move but the patterns are also so shallow to they match the characters somehow making it enjoyable to watch. The movement of the character was not limited nor hard to watch because It was perfect for the story. The movement during this scene seems to be very important for the whole film because it is very accurate for the whole scene.

In the film “Rooty Tooty Toot” the use of color is flat and only really pops in their clothing, but the patterns are also dull and asymmetrical in some of the characters, which makes the film visually interesting. The movement of the characters are not limited, and this is effective for the story because during the trial, Frankie’s lawyer tells the jury a wild series of “true events”, which is that Johnny shot the gun and the bullets basically chased him back to his apartment where they pierced him as the same time Frankie was arriving. The movement during this scene seems to be very crucial for the whole film because it is very frantic movements which lead to the plot.