“Aesthetics in Animation: Sound in Motion in the Animated Film”

Matt Jones

Post Eight

“Aesthetics in Animation: Sound in Motion in the Animated Film”

Animation is torn between two aesthetic approaches, full and limited and each provide an opportunity for expression.

A)           The readings this week focused on the two distinct aesthetic approaches in animation, full and limited.  Full animation is focused on movement, with a minimum of recycled animation, whereas, limited animation reuses animations and is more reliant on sound and dialogue.  The reuse of animation is known as “cycling”, this process can be exhibited in animation produced for television, such as those from Hanna-Barbara.  As two characters chase after one another, their movements are looped and shown against a backdrop that is scrolling behind them on another loop. Full animation emphasizes the movements of the characters, going to great lengths to create a unique and original animation for every movement.  Characters move through the axes of the frame, gaining an almost three-dimensional quality to them.  Limited animation also makes use of camera movement which can mask the lack of movement exhibited by the characters.  Limited animation is reliant on sound as evidenced in Gerald McBoing-Boing (UPA, 1950), and dialogue as evidenced in The Simpsons.  However, the term “limited” is perhaps misused in this situation according to Furniss, as it denotes that something is missing or of a lesser degree of quality.  This is simply not the case; it simply has a reliance on different aspect than does full animation. 

The reading goes on to describe the formation of the UPA, formed by artists who left Disney following the strike.  As the studio was formed by unionized animators many films produced by UPA had a strong liberal lean to the.  As another differentiation between the UPA and Disney was the UPA’s focus on developing films that featured Human characters as opposed to anthropomorphized animal characters.  Although focused on theatrical releases at the inception, UPA turned its attention to animation made for television.  Television animation exploded with cartoons produced by the Hanna-Barbara studios, creating characters such as The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, etc.  One result of this cost-effective production was the movement of certain animation tasks to low-cost laborers in other countries. 

In the other reading, the animated show Ren and Stimpy is discussed.  The creator, John Kricfalusi was an admitted Animatophile or someone with a fondness and appreciation of animation.  The show was hailed by genius by some and derided as juvenile, gross-out humor by others. Despite frequent run-ins with Nickelodeon, the show became immensely popular and successful.  In my opinion, as well as that of the author, Kricfalusi was a master at deconstructing American society using the tropes found in the animated films that came before, whether it is the hosts of children’s programming or the superhero archetype featured in the Superman cartoons of the 1940s.

B.)          Given the reading for this week I decided to examine Gerald McBoing-Boing’s symphony (UPA, 1953)

This short features the eponymous Gerald McBoing-Boing, a child incapable of speech other than sound effects played for humor.  The film definitely falls under the category of limited animation.  Backgrounds are reused as are character’s movements.  Gerald is hired to perform sound effects for a radio program and much of the humor is derived from the sound featured in the film coming from Gerald. Eventually he is asked to perform a symphony from his vocal articulations.  The film is reliant not on the movement or physical interaction of characters, but is instead derived from the soundtrack and voice work.  The movement is not realistic, nor are the drawings, however as previously stated, this is not the purpose of the film. 

C)            I have begun the actual writing of the paper after compiling my notes.