FORMAL ANALYSIS – Week –10 - Present. Obst 2 & intro Obst 3 02 November 2020
1. "What do you see?"
Terry Gilliam Monty Python animation (2014)
Terry Gilliam explains the secrets of the Monty Python short animation videos.
The Miracle of Flight (A cutout animation by Terry Gilliam) (1975)
One of Terry Gilliam first cutout animations he did. Very funny.
Rabbit | Future Shorts (2008)
This is an experimental animation film. An animated children’s book with a difference. The film uses cutout to show the cruelty of little boys and girls. This video has the original depressing style of the original Brothers Grimm fairy tales.
Et Cetera (1966) - Jan Svankmajer
A small, animated figure learns how to use a whip, a pair of wings and a house.
2. "How did the artist do it?"
In the video, “Terry Gilliam Monty Python animations”, he explains his animation process and he explain the step-by-step how to animate with cut outs.
a. Story Board your animated
b. Take two photographs of story characters
c. Cut out the body of the photograph character
d. Blacken the edges of all your cutout
e. Add Sky and background to your story
f. Put each of your cutout characters in their own envelope
g. Have two strong lights over your cutouts
h. Padding under your cut out foundation
i. Have a transparent timeline and have a clear marked sequence of your animation, so you can carefully move your characters.
j. Large clear plexiglass over the top of your photographs and move your characters small space at a time.
k. Take your photographs
In the video, “The Miracle of Flight (A cutout animation by Terry Gilliam)”, he animates a series of individual failures of people who are trying to fly like the birds. The king tries to help to get the smartest minds in the kingdom to invent human flight. This also ends in total failure. Using his “silly” humor, he animates character inventing auxiliary stuff that does not help a human to fly, like the “airplane ticket”. Finally, a man tries to board a flight and he falls to his death, because mankind still has not invented the airplane. Excellent use of his cut out animation.
In the video, “Rabbit | Future Shorts (2008)” the animator uses excellent cut out animation to show the misadventure of a mischievous little boy, little girl, and a golden idol.
The story is about greed and how greed can destroy oneself. The golden idol makes jewels out of dead things. The little boy and girl are not satisfied with the short-term riches, locks the idol up and want to have the idol produce more jewels. They try to get more jam to entice the idol to produce more jewels. However, the idol tricks the children with his magic, and they ended up destroying themselves. The moral of the story is excessive greed will destroy you and everything you love.
In the video “Et Cetera (1966) – Jan Svankmajer” the animator uses shadow puppets to tell a humorous story. The shadow puppet has three unique adventures. First adventure is with the shadow puppet trying on different types of wings. Second adventure is with the shadow puppet finding a whip and taming a wild beast. Third adventure is drawing a line house and getting trapped inside the house. All three of these adventures tells a unique and interesting story.
3. "Why did the artist create it and what does it mean”
All three of these animators used simple cut outs to tell a short and detailed story.
Mr. Terry Gilliam uses his art to tell humorous and quirky tales. These stories are short and very humorous.
Run Wrake uses classic children fairy tales to animate a dark tale of greed. The little children learned a harsh lesson that all of mankind needs to learn that excessive greed can destroy oneself.
Jan Švankmajer is a world-famous animator and his works have had a major influence on many animators who have followed him creating art. This is a quirky short film, and it shows that Svankmajer had an interesting and visual imagination. Several things continue happening in this video. This short video has a very strong visual style. A human whip a dog, and slowly turns into a dog while the dog turns human; a man has all sorts of trouble drawing a house; and an animated figure has a weird experience with some wings.
4. Is it a good artwork? Yes, this is good artwork because each video uses imagery to tell its story. Using very simple photographs, cut outs from magazines, and drawings, these filmmakers brings movement and life to those objects in their films. Each of these artists are a master at their craft and all have produced excellent animation. Their videos are short, but full of imagination and visual style. These videos will be studied for a long time and young artist can learn much from their animation craftmanship.
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