Sound in “Steamboat” Willie” is used to emphasize the exaggeratedness of its animation style and the context/assets of certain scenes. For example, in the scene where Mickey is in the room of pots/pans and some animals, sound designers take advantage of the scene’s context as Mickey treats the animals like musical instruments through sound association and syncing up the sound effects of the animals with the actual synchronized music. Another thing to note is that throughout the film, every character you see only makes noise/sounds but no dialog. However, at the very end of the short, we get to hear Mickey laugh for the first time, a laugh that we the viewers think as human, a human connection, and it is this laugh that would shape the character’s appeal for the next Mickey Mouse short, 1929’s “The Karnival Kid”, where Mickey’s audio now has spoken words for the first time.
Juan Velazquez
6 posts
I want to discuss Absolute film and how it would’ve impacted people if it was more mainstream.
I chose Absolute Film because its content lacks a narrative, yet it triggers feelings of satisfaction, like the satisfaction of something moving—it’s eye candy, per se.
I would use the films “Opus I” “Rhythmus 21” or “Composition in Blue” to discuss how they trigger the imagination of the human mind with just moving shapes, color, and music, and how media of its likeness still exists mostly through modern-day television.
Winsor McCay’s “Gertie the Dinosaur” and Emile Cohl’s “Fantasmagorie” are both innovative breakthroughs in the history of animation in their unique ways. most modern animations made today are created with a linear pipeline like “make thing move!”, “make thing keep form!”, while that is widely accepted, it can easily be repetitive. Mr McCay and Cohl do something quite different.
Before any sort of video game was invented, Winsor McCay created a hand-drawn animation that would give us a first look into how we’d interact with a stylized environment in real-time. Well.. to some extent. “Gertie the Dinosaur” is the name of this hand-drawn animated film, where we’re taken to a world of pre-historic times to meet a tall friend of Winsor McCay, Gertie. When the film originally premiered Mr McCay would be on a stage next to the film for the whole film, why? Because McCay would be interacting with Gertie, asking Gertie to make gestures and obey his animator. It feels surreal and legit but the way this was done was innovative. The animation of Gertie and the animation’s environment would be choreographed well to the point where Mr. McCay’s actions can seamlessly be synced up with the timing of the animation. The animation’s environment/background had to be redrawn each frame, this was before the invention of cell animation where you can keep a consistent background.
Emile Cohl’s “Fantasmagorie” also is an early hand-drawn animated film, similar to “Gertie the Dinosaur” where you’re immersed in an other-worldly environment, you’re taken too.. various things. Unlike “Gertie the Dinosaur”, there’s not really a clear narrative or story going on, it is just a bunch of actions and morphs happening all at once, and fast. There doesn’t seem to be a background present in the film at all because of said morphs (it could’ve been really hard to do). But I guess a common trope between “Fantasmagorie” and “Gertie the Dinosaur” gives you a vision of things that aren’t possible in the real world.
Examples of the 19th Century’s “Magic Lantern” and the “Optic Cinema” both use a light source on top of an image reflected from a mirror/glass onto a wall. The “Magic Lantern” displayed a single frame of artwork, while the “Optic Cinema” displayed a series of rotating frames to further tell a story. Furthermore, other than cave paintings, a tool that almost every technique of early animation used (including the “Magic Lantern” and the “Optic Cinema”) is some form of light manipulation. For example, projecting images based on their color brightness values or based on shadows.
I guess an animated film I like is “The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh” (1977). Based on the books by A. A. Milne, the film was animated at Walt Disney Animation Studios. What I like about this film is its calm nature, its storybook-like style, and the film’s hand-drawn animation. Interestingly the film itself is a combination of shorter “Winnie The Pooh” animations that were released earlier on.
I’m Juan. I picked this course because not only that I’m interested in animation, but I also make my own animations on occasion. I like both 2d and 3d animation mainly because when I try to make my own animations in 3D software, I try to apply principles that would be used in 2d animation for a stylized look. My major is in Animation & Motion Graphics and hopefully I can make a living out of being a 3D artist. Yes, I’m a 3D artist. I make 3D renders out of characters, and sometimes when I have the right amount of motivation I would make little animations with those models. My work is done in a 3D software called “Blender”.
