SETTING the SCENE - The Art and Evolution of Animation Layout

By Fraser MacLean

Foreword by Pete Docter

Published by Chronicle Books

Price $60.00, £40 ($37.80 on Amazon)

260 Pages,   Hardcover

At first glance Fraser MacLean’s Setting the Scene: The Art and Evolution of Animation Layout looks like a lovely coffee table sized picture book, but the minute you begin to read it you realize that it is a major work, full of information on the important but often overlooked art of layout.

Fraser knows who and what he is talking about because he worked on Touchstone’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Space Jam at Warner Bros., and Tarzan at Walt Disney along with several other Disney Productions. This book takes the reader behind the scenes in this under-appreciated segment of the animation world, from the early days of Winsor McCay, the Fleischer Brothers, and 1930’s Walt Disney right up to the latest 3-D and video game technology.

The critical relationship between the character animator and the camera is emphasized along with the process that layout artists and scene planners use to plot scenes.  Detailed analysis and illustrations of the background and layout of such classics as the opening scene of sequence 2 in Pinocchio where the camera begins to move down across the tiled rooftops, through the trees and houses, to Geppetto’s workshop makes you understand why this one Disney multiplane scene is considered by many historians to have never been bettered.

Fraser had access to the Walt Disney Animation Research Library, Chuck Jones Center for Creativity, MGM and the University of Southern California archives where much of the old Warner Bros. material is archived.  He also includes art work and photographs from Tex Avery work to the lavish photographs, layout design, and art work of Pixar and Dreamworks.

This is not intended to be a technical book that gives you techniques on creating your own layouts, but it will give you deep insights into the world of the back ground artist.    After reading the in depth analysis of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and One Hundred And One Dalmatians, I re-watched both classics with a totally different eye, noticing many details that I had obviously seen before but had never consciously noticed.  As the author says “the better they (background layout artists) are, the more their work will go unnoticed by the audience”.

The 260 page book ends with a lengthy interview of Ray Aragon given in 2009, just before his death at 83 years of age.  As I read his thoughts on the art of drawing and animation lay out I was captivated by his lifelong enthusiasm for drawing and joy of life.  His advice to his students at Cal Arts, where he taught after his work at Disney Studio, “If you’re drawing from a photograph, you can’t see around!  So you copy what you see and it’s flat.  But when you draw something that is real, you can see around it!  Draw what’s around you . . .” is sage advice indeed.

The conversation is illustrated with drawings from Ray’s numerous sketchbooks and art work from the films that he worked on.  Even if you are not immediately familiar with Aragon’s name, everyone knows his beautiful art work on Sleeping Beauty, Mary Poppins and Yellow Submarine.

The book includes a 10 page glossary of animation terms which are worth keeping at your fingertips for easy reference.  The comprehensive bibliography, broken into headings such as “Early Animation History”, “Biographies”, and “Practical Techniques”, makes it easy to research additional sources.

The forward by Pete Docter, long time Pixar filmmaker and Academy Award winning director of Up and Monsters, Inc, is a jovial introduction to a book that will be a delightful and informative addition to everyone’s library.  Every animation school should have a copy of Setting the Scene: The Art and Evolution of Animation Layout on their reference bookshelf and encourage their students to read it and learn from some of the great names in the animation world.  Whether you work in the industry or are an animation fan this is a book you will thoroughly enjoy reading.

Setting the Scene:  The Art and Evolution of Animation Layout can be found on the shelves of many book stores.

OR

You can order the book on Amazon at: www.amazon.com/Setting-Scene-Evolution-Animation-Layout/dp/0811869873/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335485244&sr=1-1

The Rauch Brothers, Tim and Mike, have won the prestigeous 71st Annual George Foster Peabody Award for their StoryCorps animated shorts commemorating the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. They share the honor with StoryCorps, POV, the 9/11 Memorial and Musuem, NPR’s Morning Edition, and YouTube. My congratulations The Rauch Brothers  and the teams who worked on StoryCorps’ 9/11 radio broadcasts and mobile app, which was also named as part of the award. The StoryCorps 9/11 animated short series was also recently announced as an Official Honoree of the 16th Annual Webby Awards for Documentary Series. In a press release Tim and Mike Rauch said “Thanks to our partners—StoryCorps and POV—for helping us share these important remembrances, and to commemorate the 10th anniversary last September. We especially thank the courageous families that so generously shared their stories with us. We must always remember the people who lost their lives that day.”

If you have not heard StoryCorps on Morning Edition or seen it on POV be sure to check out the Rauch Brothers web site: rauchbrothers.com

Tricky Women

WOMEN IN ANIMATION

12 Essays on Women in animation and one DVD

Edited by:  Brigitt Wagner/Waltraud Gruber (Hg.)

Published By:  Schuren Verlag  (Marburg, 2011)

Price  : €24,89 (approximately $33.00 USD)

You can order the book on line at the Tricky Women Animation Festival Store (www.trickywomen.at/en/shop/

or from the publishers.

The Tricky Women Animation Festival have published a 189 page book honoring  women in animation.  Birgitt Wagner and Waltraud Grausgruber (Hg.), directors of the Vienna based festival have edited the twelve essays written by scholars, animators, and educators.

The opening essay is Historical Milestones: Who Gets to Tell Whose Stories?, by Jayne Pilling,  Director of the British Academy Awards as well as a historian and curator. Jayne traces the careers of pioneers from Lotte Reiniger and Mary Ellen Bute, who were able to work on their own because they were either supported by parents, husband, or well off in their own right, down to present day women including  Signe Baueman, Ruth Lingford, and JoAnna Quinn who finance their own projects and often work alone.

I particularly enjoyed The Czech and Slovak New Female Wave of Animation essay by journalist/animation researcher Eliska Decks.  When most people think of contemporary Czech animation, Michaela Pavlatova immediately comes to mind.  Michaela’s insightful storytelling, often ironic and politically incorrect views of relationships, has brought short animation to the attention of adult audiences who heretofore have relegated it to children’s entertainment.  It has also earned her  numerous festival awards and an Academy Award nomination. Pavlatova’s work has blazed the trail for an entire new breed of young Czech and Slovenian women  who are creating their own unique heroines.

Ruth Lingford’s piece on the art of Vera Neubauer entitled Soft Toys, Rough Treatment was followed by Masa Ogrizek’s interview with Neubauer.  Vera is a pioneer in the art of transforming animation by women from “lovely little stories” into works dealing with female emotions.  Vera talks frankly about being cast as a feminist saying “I never considered myself as being political, but at the time I started making films the personal was political.”  Her point of view is shared by many of the next generation of female animators who are telling their own personal stories.

Four of the essays are in German while the remaining eight are only in English.  Unfortunately for me, the essay about Mary Ellen Bute is only in German. I am very interested in her work because she worked with what she called visual sound.  Unfortunately her work is barely known today as  good prints of her films are rarely shown and there is surprisingly little written about her.

I would also liked to be able to read the chapter on Russian women animators but it was also only in German.  Dina Goder, a critic writing about Russian film and animation, profiled three generations of Russian women animators.  Oxana Cherkasova began working in the mid ‘80’s, Svetlana Filippova began her career in the late ‘90’s representing the middle generation, and Yulia Aronova belongs to the new generation of women.

Women are not prominently represented in the digital design of the gaming industry.  Jennifer Jenson and Suzanne de Castell analyse the obstacles female game designers face in God Trick, Good Trick, Bad Trick, New Trick:  Reassembling the Production Line. 

Along with the essays, Women in Animation has two lovely surprises for readers.  Ten well known female animators were asked to name the three films by women they each considered to be Milestones in Animation.  The individual selections give an interesting insight into their own work.  It was intriguing to learn that such a diverse group as Sarah Cox, Gaelle Davis, Vera Naubauer, Joanna Priestly, and Marjut Rimminen all selected Caroline Leaf’s 1976 film The Street.  This was the only title to appear on multiple lists.

The second surprise is a five film DVD that is included in the book.  The DVD is worth the price of the book alone because most of these films are not seen very often.  The films are:

Le Chapeau/The Hat – Michele Cournoyer (Canada)

Flawed – Andrea Dorfman (Canada)

Blind Justice:  Some Protection – Marjut Rimminnen (Great Britain)

Pleasures of War – Ruth Lingford  (Great Britain)

Ostorozhno, Dveri Otkryvajutsia!/Caution, The Doors Are Opening (Mind the Gap) –Anastasia Zhuravleva (Russia)

All five films show life from distinctly different feminine perspectives.  I was especially pleased that Anastasia Zhuravleva’s delightful film was included in the collection.  Anastasia used buttons, pins, thimbles, and zippers, materials usually associated with women, to tell her story of rush hour on the Moscow underground.

Women In Animation is full of information on subjects ranging from the work of female pioneers in the animation industry to the gaming industry and museum installations.  The book is academically oriented and I wouldn’t recommend it for readers who just have a casual interest in animation, but for anyone wanting analytical analysis of women and their history and involvement it is an excellent reference work.  It is also a book that should be in art, animation and film schools.

This is a wonderful opportunity for anyone who teaches animation to young people, have a young animator in your home or are a JUNIOR animator. I am familiar with the festival’s work and can wholeheartedly recommend it.  — Nancy

It is a pleasure to inform you that we’re launching the

version of our festival, made FOR and BY children aged 6 to 12 years.
Following the same spirit that has earned us the title of “Most abstract festival in the World”, this edition will host the same kind of activities as the “adult” one (calls for entries, workshops, screenings, installations, exhibitions and live PyRformances) under the motto “No representation, only dots and lines”.

The CALLS FOR ENTRIES are currently open, and the selected works will compete for the Jury and Audience Awards.