pure beauty 3

© walt disney enterprises, inc
© john hubley storyboard © WB
© columbia

pure beauty 1

the beauty of traditional painted backgrounds in traditional animation of the past – a lost art!

most of these pan backgrounds have been recreated, I used DVD’s and BlueRay’s. in many cases the originals are lost.

© walt disney enterprises, inc
© columbia/UPA © john hubley storyboard prod.
© MGM © WB

style 9.6

style 9.5

artists have always been inspired by other artists. otherwise impressionism or cubism had never developed and been explored by so many different artists. in animation disney first used children book illustrators like tenggren and nielsen as inspiration for the style of the first feature films. UPA was smaller and could afford to experiment with new looks, using modern art like dufy and modigliany, but as well upcoming cartoon and caricature stars like steinberg, searle and kurtzman for inspiration. later john hubley went even further with his shorts and a complete abstract look influenced by picasso, shahn and prestopino. I could continue this until today, where modern filmmakers get excited by art they accidentally find on the internet. it is so much easier today to look for reference or inspiration, everybody has a vast collection of art from museums, books, auctions or collectors at home available on the world wide web.
I was always interested to find out how looks were developed in the past. it was like a guideline for my own work, to find ways for developing new styles. now I am trying to teach those secrets to new generations. difficult, because you have to first learn about all the existing art in the world, figurative and landscape or environmental art, get enough knowledge about films of the past – and, experience by analysis how the look of the most interesting films was developed. the real challenge starts when you try to develop your own style for a project. one piece is already tough, but then the problem is to create a whole series of environments in the same style.

tender game

JOHN and FAITH HUBLEY’S – THE TENDER GAME – was produced in 1958. when I saw this animated masterpiece in the early 70s in an animation exhibit in zurich, the abstract style of the animation and backgrounds inspired my own work for all my years in artschool. all the background artwork is by JOHN HUBLEY, the animation by BOBE CANNON, EMERY HAWKINS, ED SMITH and JACK SCHNERK, ELLA FITZGERALD sings the beautiful song ‘TENDERLY’, together with THE OSCAR PETERSON TRIO. I am sure, all the artwork still exists, but I never had a chance to see the originals. below are some of the pan-bg’s, recreated from a very good quality print I found recently.

© john and faith hubley

style analysis 3

we talked about all the different things around us that influence our visual understanding. that is different with younger children who are still able to see the world pure without all the interpretations and often wrong visions that corrupt our brain more and more the older we get and the more we download into our internal harddrive. a lot of famous artists, like PICASSO, MATISSE and MIRO, used children drawings for inspiration because they are not following some artistic influence yet. the only difference between drawings of different children is the way they grow up, happy, free, without pressure – or not. that’s why children drawings all over the world and independent from their culture look similar. following are some beautiful examples of children – ‘art’ I found on different websites, and art of the masters that shows clearly the influence. further images from the JOHN & FAITH HUBLEY animated shorts MOONBIRD and ADVENTURES OF AN *, where you will notice the reference to PICASSO and to children art. that is as well the case in a lot of shorts from ZAGREB FILM, I show only a few examples here.

© picasso / miro / john & faith hubley / zagreb film / unknown children

children of the sun

‘for the first time in history, nations are united to rid the world of hunger – The United Nations, through UNICEF, is dedicated to the children of the sun. the future of the earth depends on them.’ these are the concluding words of a short JOHN and FAITH HUBLEY produced in 1960 for UNICEF. the story of a healthy child who has enough to eat is juxtaposed with the story of an undernourished child representing three quarters of the world’s children. the animation is by BOBE CANNON and GARY MOONEY, music by PABLO CASALS and the budapest string quartet. below a few screen captures.

© john and faith hubley, storyboardfilms

I wish everybody who celebrates this event of the year a MERRY CHRISTMAS.

a while ago

a few years ago, as maybe some of you might remember, I had a number of blogs with another server – very unpleasant affair. anyway, I got very upset in the end and deleted everything on the published blogs after I saved all the posted articles and images in my personal files. now I thought about publishing some of the stuff again, there are so many new frequent visitors…

let’s start with my all time favorite filmmaker – JOHN HUBLEY, and – MOONBIRD, 1959, voices of mark and ray hubley, animated by BOBE CANNON and ED SMITH, the first of three Oscar-winning and seven Oscar-nominated shorts from the hubleys. best short animated subject, 1959. here is the official info from the KEYFRAME website – john and faith hubley recorded the random conversation of their children and then constructed an Oscar-winning cartoon around it. the story concerns two boys who have a nocturnal adventure outside their house, making a trap to catch the mysterious ‘moonbird’.

john hubley formed storyboard studios after he was blacklisted by the HOUSE UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE, and fired from UPA, for refusing to ‘name names’ or apologise for his previous work. ironically he had helped form UPA after being involved in the Disney animator’s strike.

ADVENTURES OF AN *, 1957, the first film john and faith hubley produced together commissioned by the guggenheim museum. I never forget when I saw this jewel for the first time in an animation exhibition in zurich in 1971. at that time I was studying design in my 2.year. from then on I wanted to create films like adventures of an * and moonbird. the sugar sweet disney films were forgotten and I concentrated on the NEW animation, like the ZAGREB FILM shorts, LEN LYE and NORMAN McLAREN, LENICA and even the new french and english animation.

© john + faith hubley