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During the 60's studios appeared from nowhere with very rare experiments
of Limited animation The realtime Cut Out of BBC
The Xerography with graphic material of Grantray-Lawrence Animation.
The Syncro Box of Cambria Studios and of course, Filmation.
Filmation system did work well. This was a modest producer
that used Hanna Barbera's techniques, but working with semi-realistic
dessigns
they found budget complications which they had to solve.
They got more juice reusing scenes, each character
had between 3 and 8 moves predesigned,
to animate they only had to trace these movements over and over again,
Sometimes they directly photocopied them, and often they
edited scenes from produced footage,
and to avoid raccord mistakes their shots did not last longer than
2 seconds, so the viewererhat no time to see something that shouldn't
be there.
They also developed narrative technique as panoramic views
being static saved animated footage
the result was quite debatable but as being based on successful franchises
as the Justice League, Archies or Star Trek,
they worked well
and Filmation became the rival of
Hanna Barbera, Hanna Barbera continued their profitable techniques, but also pointed to
produce semi-realistic character's series to compete with Filmation
Let's save us from Kricfalusian opinion's about that studio,
Filmation also tried to compensate its limitations in some way.
Although most of his screenplays consisted of repeating the same scheme
again and again
they tried to do some quality scripts, they hired writers for Star Trek
in his latest series they also used creative special effects such as backlit,
Moiré's patterns
or rotoscoping
they also invented a 3D animation system to animate travelling shots with vehicles
that consisted shotting a black model, with white lines in high-lighted contrast
they got the negative printed it cel by cel
and colored it
Perhaps Filmation's problem came from basis, it was too ambitious to animate
semi-relistic characters with Limited animation techniques
whitch had consisted in making distance from Disney
but it wasn't impossible
it was a need to get a good system to compensate the limitations
and were Toei Animation and Mushi Productions
who gave with the formula.
Let's talk about limited animation anime?
Actually... anime is a style of limited animation.
Japanese in the 50s had their own styles for traditional animation
and stop motion, all adapted to the poor budgets they hat.
But anime style was born when Toei began adapting manga designs
to animation, this comic style was born imitating Disney
Animation logically also would have to do this.
By knowing methods to save budget Disney was possible the anime for features.
But it was still too expensive for television
- The TV anime was invented by Mushi - Mushi? It was the studio of Osamu Tezuka?
- Exact
Tezuka was based on Toei and adapted some techniques
from UPA
and from Hanna Barbera,
the number of pictures per frame was greatly affected, they used
partial animation with static characters
cyclic animation
Obviated action scenes, reused scenes and they added
blurred or abstract backgrounds
moving cyclically to simulate motion or to emphasize a scene.
- This doesn't seems the best way to imitate Disney...
- No. .. but it was the system that TV productions could afford.
Also, when the "TV crisis"
that had swept the American animation films in the 50s, arrived to
Japan at the early 70
the system of imitating Disney stopped of being profitable
Mushi broke
and Toei should focus on the television market
adapted to the short budgets
But until that time came, there was a strong competition between Toei
and Mushi
Where what was decisive was not to lower their budgets for
animation it was to make the animation
seem less limited than it actually was.
Toei and Mushi competed to improve their systems
like Hanna Barbera they gave vital importance to the most inexpensive
production aspects
scripts and dialogues, the character design ,
backgrounds
and the sound aspects
they also gave importance to color palettes,
lightnings and special effects
Toei's director Yoshinori Kanada
invented a technique that was to let each animator expres
his own style, this saved time and gave
a more artistic look to the product.
And certainly don't forget the usual
investation in a more advanced visual language.
- Advanced visual language? isn't it expensive?
- They used many zooms,
travellings
panoramic views
and details shots to enrich visually
scenes, without the viewer realised they were just static drawings
saving footage.
But the most revolutionary system
was Yatsuo Otsuka's. - Is he an anime director?
- Actually he never directed anything... he was a self-taught animator from Toei in the 60
who worked as a mentor of Hayao Miyazaki
and Isao Takahata
on f Hols: Prince of the Sun.
It is said that he had opportunities to work as a director, but after
known how directed Isao Takahata,
he refused to work on something that a genius like Takahata
could do much better .
- Wait...
He worked closely with Miyazaki,
and what impressed him to make him rethink about his career
was the work of Takahata??? - Good...
They Hadn't yet founded Ghibli neither had premiered Lupin III...
- Wait, wait, then Miyazaki and Takahata's Mentor
considered the future Ghibli's genius was Takahata???
- They were beginning, Miyazaki had yet to develop his ideas whose would
highlight and...
- Wait, wait,
Then ¿ Takahata is better than Mi... - Do not go there, do it!?
Yatsuo Otsuka developed a technique called
"Money Shot"
while most of the
animation is done with a Low Frame-Rate
they increase it at important scenes
or scenes they will often reuse,
as these are the scenes with most visual impact, the viewer
get the feeling of having seen Full Animation
eventually all these techniques to hide a cheap animation
ultimately became a super-animation style itself.
And when they used this super-style with Full Animation...
The result was amazing.
Could you value any Otsuka Yatsuo film?
... Maybe the film in which he became more involved was The Castle of Cagliostro,
where he worked as director of animation
and character designer
But The Castle of Cagliostro is Full Animation in fact considered
it's considered the first blockbuster anime.
We could talk about Future Boy Conan series where Otsuka worked as
character designer
-... I don't know that series.
Is it any series I should know?
This is the first animation series fully led
by Miyazaki
in 1978
for Nippon Animation
and it was an adaptation of the novel "The Incredible Tide" by Alexander Key,
a post-apocalyptic drama about Conan
A child living in a world covered by the seas, who knows Leena, a girl
who possesses the secret for the last remaining civilization
Industria, to reborn as an empire thanks to the power of solar energy.
It's a story with many moral ambiguities where villains actually
have good intentions for the humanity and the environment
but where there really is doubtful if the intention of saving the world justifies
any action as there is no struggle of good versus evil,
but wisdom against ignorance. - Is not it complicated for a children's series?
- It is, but amazingly it's carried in a wonderful way.
Realization: 5 ninja stars, both the script and the direction.
As for art visual...
It's very ambitious, the animation was too cheap
for what Miyazaki wanted to do,
there are Money Shot scenes that are very nice, yes,
and it holds up well, but maybe they should be more modest.
I give it 3 ninja stars to animation.
4 to character design ti's very good, but not much innovate
on Nippon's line
and 5 to backgrounds
added to the choice of shots becomes amazing.
4 ninja stars to visual art.
And finally
soundtrack
it's pretty cheesy
but not bad, it sounds nice as a melancholic touch
I give it 4 ninja stars. Final Rating: 5 stars.
- 5 Stars?
Are not you doing the fanboy?
- No. it's a cult series that has aged very well,
and its plot pioneered Nausicaa ,
The Castle in the Sky
and princess mononoke
it's not a lost treasure
it's well known to Miyazaki's fans, but for some reason I do not understand that with time
has not kept the popularity of other works of the period of this team,
as Heidi or Lupin III
except in the Arab world
there is popular even today.
The Limited animation
unpopular and despised animation techniques by many
unless they are used with artistic reasons it never give good results
but these techniques saved the American animation during
the 50's, they opened the television market and provided the basis for the
minimalist style, UPA
Hanna Barbera, and Anime
and these techniques were only beginning
because as merging these techniques themselves with anime
adding digital edition
or replacing with Flash animation, HERE,
the possibilities for cheap animations have
became almost infinite
See you soon!