Cartoons
on the Bay 2003
International Festival and Conference on Television Animation
7th edition Positano (Italy) April 9-13 2003
TV Specials for All Seasons ||Animation For an Adult Audience ||The New Initiative for Minor Rights ||Notes on showcase ||Studios of the Year: The Animation Band and Green Light Media AG ||Pitch me Italia/ Italian Competition ||Special Guests: Making Cartoons, Meeting with Lastrego and Testa
An Animation Lesson: Animation between
Art and Industry/ Jules Engel
 |
“Animation is not a question of drawing, it’s a question of timing” Jules Engel |
Presented by Cindy Keeler (from iotacenter.org)
 |
Engel worked in UPA. Did a lot of experimentation and he was the mentor of many renowned animators today. He worked on Gerald McBoingboing, Mr. Magoo and Madeline, and worked with Oscar Fishinger and other masters of animation. He worked with Disney on the problem of the mushroom dance, and the Russian dance, in Fantasia (1939). He did storyboards for Bambi, again with Disney in 1940. Then he joined the United Production of America (1949) who worked on intelligent non-exploitive narratives. |
Art was UPA's main aim in their union. They used devices of modern art
and of design, (graphic design for instance, and their page layout). UPA
were 150 artists all “artistically integrated”. No one had
a specialization, like a background artist, or a revisionist, but rather
worked in “integration”. At that point, animations in the
United States were divided in tow poles: Disney and UPA.
Engel made documentaries for certain artists, as well as being a lithograph,
and a painter. Since 1969, he has been teaching in Cal Art, California,
where he developed the Experimental Animation program there.
Presented by Jane Endel
Engel's influence was mostly grounded in design sensitivities of an industrial
nature. Such examples of those influences are the Dada movement, (modernists
1920’s). The Dada redefined the non-utilitarian realm of art [Man
Ray]. Engel was very much influenced by their non-linear thinking and
their automatic drawing. Man Ray said “the fine art of time is rhythm
and light”.
Engel was also influenced by the Flux movement (from decorative to abstraction)
and by ballet, and body performances. He said, in relation to dance, “some
of us came ready-made”.
So as to conclude, the UPA studio was more interested in the visual. Modernist
such as Matisse and Picasso inspired it. It strived to integrate animation
and the visual gag, rather then the literature and the gag.
//lena merhej, 2003