The Gamer's Quarter

Ashura · . Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 109

The TinTin Movie thread over on SB inspired this, and I've wanted to have a thread about animation with a sense of wonderment to it even since. I wanted to title this Baroque Animation, but I don't know if that works. It's about animation that sets a certain kind of mood, really.

Mentioned were TinTin, Castle of Cagliostro / Miyazaki's Lupin, other Ghibli stuff, Little Nemo, and such. Also of note is stuff like The Thief and the Cobbler and Felix the Cat the Movie. I think maybe the Great Mouse Detective might fit, too?

One thing I want to talk about is the unsung stuff Miyazaki did for Lupin. Miyazaki started on Lupin in the first green coat series back in the 60s, and after he directed Cagliostro in the late 70's her did two more episodes of the red coat series Lupin before saying goodbye to TV animation forever in 1981. They were Albatross: Wings of Death and Farewell, my Beloved Lupin, the second the final episode of that series. These two episodes were brought out in the '90s by Streamline along with Cagliostro, and I'm pretty sure they are mixed up in odd legal wrangling right now. I don't forsee them coming out on DVD here, especially with these voices, for a long long time.

Here are some clips from Albatross: Wings of Death with the English voices in place:

http://www.wordpainter.net/movies/lupin/lupintest01.avi
http://www.wordpainter.net/movies/lupin/lupintest02.avi

Richard Williams' Thief and the Cobbler, Recobbled Cut rebuilt by a fan:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2263043366719734101

Richard Williams did all of the animation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The Thief and the Cobbler is amazing in that it took over 20 years to produce and near the end of its life it was ripped out of the creator's hands and handed over to another guy to finish it up using bad korean animation studios. The version here is rebuilt from the workprint that leaked out. Check out the war machine animation near the end.

Little Nemo 1984 Pilot, directed by Ghibli's Yoshifumi Kondo:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3342755205038857742

1910(11?) Windsor McKay Little Nemo animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seOGEwx0NfQ

About it:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2912364239062232708

More to come, I guess!

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

Oh hell, I still haven't watched those things you sent. I shall do so!
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aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

The vizier dude reminds me a lot of the blue meanies in Yellow Submarine.
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Ashura · . Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 109

One of the coolest things about that character is if you look at his hands, he has, I believe, an extra finger and extra knuckle on each hand, so his fingers fold once more than a human's.

The card trick animation is really cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeOq3O1MrzQ

dark steve · . Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110

What name did streamline put those lupin episodes out under/what would be a good way to track those down in any sort of form?
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Ashura · . Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 109

Lupin the Third - The Greatest Capers or Tales of the Wolf - The Greatest Capers. They're only available on VHS.

Here's where I bought it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/6303359906/ref=dp_olp_1/105-1512519-8085256?ie=UTF8&qid=1193094755&sr=8-1

The above video is a capture of the VHS audio overlayed onto outstanding R2 Japanese video.

Also, I've always wondered if the design for Lonebach inspired Dr. Eggman.

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:53 am Post subject:

i absolutely love the thief and the cobbler.

i also love the dot and the line and the bear that wasn't.
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sawtooth · . Joined: 02 Nov 2005 Posts: 419

The Thief and the Cobbler is amazing. I remember seeing one version of it when I was 8 or 9 and it really astounded me. I need to track down a hi-quality torrent of the recobbled version—watching clips on youtube or google video is frustrating.

All of that detailed animation and those backgrounds with depth and motion remind me of the beginning of Weather Beaten Melody, which is a pretty odd film given its original context . It's actually a pretty odd film, regardless. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dKQLUqgB-0

I'm really trying to stay along the 'wonder' theme, just because it's something that animation can do so well. I'm a sucker for anything that's stuffy and unsettling or anything just bursting to the seams with odd energy (The Thief and the Cobbler is a great example).

A Hedgehog in Fog (Yuri Norstein)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkdklcGbojc
(higher quality, not english subbed though) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5044473731798797287

When the Day Breaks (Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwTBJVaBcmI
(Tilby's best, I think)

The Mermaid (Aleksandr Petrov)
pt 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MagmX8H77w
pt 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_vmk-Lkf9k

Jumping (Osamu Tezuka)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x300k6_osamutezuka-jumping_shortfilms

Bimbo's Initiation and Snow White (and basically anything by Max & Dave Fleischer around this time because holy shit)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFrBG4xyaF8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbn0Z_ecsyQ

When I get back to my room I'll probably upload a few more to youtube
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

I'm going to watch all of those when I get a break later. I love that black and white Fleischer stuff. Something about it seems incredibly modern. There's a lot of crazy techniques they do in those cartoons that didn't survive the leap to colour- really experimental, weird stuff. And because of TV's phobia of black and white, a lot of that stuff hasn't been repeated in years and years - maybe that's why it seems so fresh today.

Oh, and Zig-Zag had two shoulders for each arm, too. Also, Williams produced way more animation than he needed for the film- apparently there were 5 hours of pencil tests! There's a clip somewhere on the internet of one of the dancers from One Eye's throne room dancing with a ribbon, her boobs and butt flopping about the place. It goes on for about 30 seconds. It's in the film for maybe less than a second. True.

Apparently Garret Gilchrist's managed to source some higher quality prints of The Thief since he did that restored version, so there should be a re-recobbled cut coming soon.

daphaknee · Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:13 pm Post subject:

i just want to show my appreciation for this thread, i have a lot of classic comics (like little nemo and stuff) and i love seeing stuff like this!

yay

is this an appropriate place to ask what cartoon this still is from?

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

A cartoon Stan Laurel and a dragon costume? Maybe an old Silly Symphony?
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

From the drawing style I'd say it looks like some cheapo 1930's thing that was recoloured later on, but the print is all faded which suggests it was originally made in technicolour. So I couldn't tell you.

Jerry Beck at Cartoon Brew will be able to tell you, jerry@cartoonbrew.com. Since about 1999 when I first started studying animation, any time I've ever had a question about classic cartoons Jerry has been able to answer it, so it's worth a shot.

Little Nemo is amazing. You should look at 'Dream of A Rarebit Fiend', Windsor McCay's earlier strip. It's exactly the same except the character is different every week. It even has the same punchline, 'Oh! Oh! I'll never eat welsh rarebit again. Oh! Um.'

What other classic comics are you into? Have you read Krazy Kat?

Ashura · . Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 109

So someone posted Felix the Cat the Movie up on Youtube:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3TQvMwpZ8
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNcDzguNoJg
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCv5IyGahLo
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L80CZ0cRK5A
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q59IDNZGbmQ
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8p76aAGyrw
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aftbU1-OMXg
8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofppvxEz6x8

While I think nostalgia goggles sort-of clouded my memories of the animation, the whole thing is still completely trippy.

Meanwhile, the BEST PART of The Brave Little Toaster:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UfsEj7AOGI

That movie is full of wonderment. As a kid, this part of the film scared me though.

dessgeega · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 4:40 pm Post subject:

the felix the cat movie is just amazing in how it drops this obnoxious cartoon cat and his penny ante villian into a nightmarish world of insane headhunting monsters and faceless robot overlords.

i posted links to grinch night in the other thread. it's so much more subtle and sinister than most children's halloween cartoons, and max's haunting song of regret is the emotional high point.

the brave little toaster is such a brave little toaster. the television is the real star of that scene, though.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

That Felix the cat film is not dissimilar to the crappy Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon series, down to the character designs. Also the bit at the start with the human characters reminds me of the Legend of Zelda - the Wand of Gamelon.

Ashura · . Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 109

Dess: The dot and the line. Man, I remember that when it was on Nickelodeon all the time. I think as a kid I couldn't appreciate it at all.

It's very strange how nostalgia can cloud one's perception of things, when looking at Felix the Cat. I don't know if I could actually watch the whole thing again.

Meanwhile, while this is a student film, I really loved how it played out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6kNxf6axY4

If I'm mentioning student films, I should probably mention pretty much anything Persona's ever done in this thread, but I think pretty much everyone here has watched all his stuff already. Still, Happiest monster and all of that. Smile

Also, here's another short from a french school which also fits in this thread:

http://www.pyrats.net/watch-movie.html

The Pyrats animation brings up a trend, though. You mainly see really elaborate animation like this only out of final school projects and such anymore. There are very few animation groups which do animation because they love it anymore. If you look the story behind Richard Williams' studio, though, you might be able to see why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGU9UTO2IQs

I think he animated on twos (purportedly ones), and you can really see it here. Can you imagine just animating that flag alone back before computers?

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

wourme · . Joined: 01 Jul 2005 Posts: 362 Location: Maridia

The Flying House is a 1921 animated short by Winsor McCay based on his Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend comic.

I was about to mention Jumping, too, but then I noticed Sawtooth already did.

And how about this old Sesame Street segment? And this one?

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

That's brilliant, but the fact that it's a lower-case n seems kind of arbitrary. They could have made that segment about anything just by swapping out the 'n' and changing one line of the lyrics.

That Windsor McCay thing is top. That background painting that starts out at the treetops and keeps panning up until you're in the clouds has got to be the biggest one I've ever seen. I also loved the sheer nerve of stopping the picture to display a placard that reads 'To Teachers and students- Special attention is called to the remarkable piece of animation which follows, The Earth and Moon revolving on their orbits in the firmament, drawn true to astrological calculations, with the beautiful constellation of 'Orion' in the background - Management'. Then you watch the piece and the proportions are crazy, the earth from the moon is smaller that the moon is from the earth, and all the continents on the earth are really terribly drawn except the Americas.

I only discovered this recently, but I love the animation in this segment from 'Free To Be You And Me', a right-on movie for children from the 70's. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TS_P2YKZVwc. The colours are ace, and I love the little inventive bits of animation like the way the kid opens the door at 00:40.

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Can I mention the Thief series cutscenes here?
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Ashura · . Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 109

Sure can, especially if you linkt hem so we know what the heck you're speaking of. Smile

I was going to mention Team Fortress 2 in Wonderful Animaton in video games, actually. Though if I'm saying that, I might as well mention Pixar.

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Okay, sure. Luckily, this guy seems to have them all up. Spoilers, of course.

Here's the intro, for starters, to give you an idea. And what I recall as being the first cutscene.

Then there's Æon Flux, which I've mentioned before.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Ashura · . Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 109

So, Tintin.

Tintin is a fleeting memory to me. I remember sort-of liking it as a kid, but not being able to appreciate it at all. I'm curious where I should begin, and what direction to go in. Has there been a DVD set? How has it been released? What set of stories should I watch first?

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

I think last I checked, it was only available in the UK. Or there was something wrong with the R1 set. I downloaded a few episodes, and though the animation itself is pretty well-done, the direction and voice acting strip out most of the charm and pacing of the comics in favor of plot -- which was only sort of ever a vague motivation. Things in the comics generally happen more by chance than anything, showing that it's not what happens that matters but how precisely it affects everyone.

Still, it looks like the comic was just put into motion. And the episodes vary greatly in length, according to the demands of the source material. And every single serial was adapted, save the first two "phantom" ones -- the Russia and Congo adventures. So they certainly put in the effort and care. They just didn't put in enough wit, it seems to me...

Whoa, when was Amazon redesigned? Looks like the problem is they're out of print. Nice enough box sets, though.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

But in answer to your question you should read the comics and don't bother with the animated versions.

The Secret Of The Unicorn, Red Rackham's Treasure, The Red Sea Sharks, Destination Moon, and Tintin in Tibet are all good places to start, but to be honest you can't really go wrong with any of them.

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

I used to be so entranced by The Old Mill whenever it turned up on The Disney Channel in the '80s.
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Ashura · . Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 109

Thanks for the heads up on Tintin, guys.

On the front of wonderful animation: All Dogs go to Heaven. For such a surreal subject matter, dark tone, setting (1939ish New Orleans?), and just the whole water sequence at the end with the clock.

Not to mention the cruel irony played out on the child actress who played the little girl:

http://www.judithbarsi.com/biojb.html

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

Jesus.

By the way, this guy you pointed out has been making the rounds. This is the third place I've seen him turn up with these things.
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Ashura · . Joined: 02 Dec 2006 Posts: 109

Yeah, he's a bit eccentric.

He's the guy who restored the Thief and the Cobbler, and then got into contact with all the still living animators who worked on the movie, even Richard Williams' estranged(?) son. There's some video of it that he had to pull down I think.

As far as I can tell, he sort of works on his projects and keeps not having a job and keeps getting kicked out of places where he lives and like keeps finding other places to live so he can work on his projects and be broke. He's done a lot of well regarded stuff, though, so it might pay off.

He essentially took the Star Wars special edition DVDs and combined them with Laserdisk captures of the original trilogy and created pretty darn nice restorations of the Star Wars movies before Lucas put out the recent DVDs (that sucked anyway.) I'm not just talking cutting scenes together, either, he like, and I'm dead serious, in Jedi, they digitally removed Maskless Vader's eyebrows. So instead of just using the worse LD footage, he masked the eyebrows out from the LD footage and compisited it over the eyebrowless, better quality footage.

Whenever a cleaner but slightly tampered shot existed, he rebuilt it. He also did a documentary called 'Deleted Magic.' He was also kicked off the original trilogy boards for 'selling' his fan edits, but there's a big dispute about if it was true or if they just didn't like his attitude about some LD capture project they were doing.

Anyway, he's an interesting guy. The 50 page thread on Thief on Originaltrilogy.com is fascinating on its own. Because essentially he started this project and people kept coming out of the woodworks with more and more thief stuff. I mean, animators who worked on it sent him tapes of their own bootlegs. Boxes of hand drawing that he scanned in to recreate pencil tests. I think he has 10 DVDs full of stuff you can get from him from that movie. It's all pretty amazing.

It culminated when someone donated a print of the movie and they had it transfered to 1080p digital.... thought hey can't afford to transfer the audio or something.

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

Oh. I didn't add all the dots. So all of this is the same guy. Well, he, uh, sure has his niche going, doesn't he. One wonders what he'd be up to, were he given some funding.

Man, Lucas. Eyebrows...

Mind, I'm pretty damned fascinated by film and TV restoration myself. I wonder why no one's gotten his ass together and done a Metropolis on Nosferatu. Every DVD version seems to use a different, imperfect print -- some with more material than others; some with more picture area; some with a clearer picture; some with less damage -- processed in a different way, with different random music, with different intertitles.

Surely someone can take all the existing footage, weed out or reassemble all the best shots, clean it all up, dig up what the original score was supposed to be, get someone to record it, and apply the correct color filters according to the original intentions. It doesn't seem like it should be THAT hard, especially since the film is in the public domain. (Isn't it?)

Incidentally, a whole bunch of silent movies pretty much fit into this thread. Aside from the above to, there's Der Golem, Caligari... several other things that escape me...
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Garrett is great. I actually spoke to the man who was the producer at the Richard Williams studio in the 70's, while I was cold-calling studios for jobs earlier this year. He'd never seen the film despite having devoted a decade of his career to Richard's endeavours (he had some interesting stories as you can imagine) so I got him in touch with Garrett and Garrett sent him the full DVD package. Legend.

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

I don't suppose that gave you any brownie points at his studio?
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Did it fuck

I'm going to be trying for proper jobs again soon, I think I'm going to be applying for runner jobs at all the places I applied for animation jobs a solid year ago. That's not going to paint a nice picture of how I spent the last year.

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

After all this waiting, the Mysterious Cities of Gold set is lookin' pretty good. I hope they bring out the medallion here!
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

I'd buy that and be cold walking down the street rocking that medallion like a pimp.

Wow, it has the Philip Schofield Broom Cupboard Singalong. That's one of my earliest childhood memories right there.

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

I have no idea what that is. It sounds kinky.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

I'm glad this forum has finally turned into the seething hotbed of barely contained sexual energy it always threatened to become.

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fElraqFpV-o

I used to just adore the Halloween specials they showed on the Disney Channel in the mid-'80s.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

She was abused to death by her parents, basically as a result of her success. The more money she made them, the more violent her father became toward her.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Also her father was Snoop Doggy Dogg.

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

Mysterious Cities of Gold box set got its PAL release. No date slated for the U.S. There's a 22 gig torrent floating around, though.
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