Solid Ivory - Axe Sequence

Here's a sequence from one of my favorite Lantz cartoons: Solid Ivory.
It shows a perfect combination of good direction and animation happening at the same time. You don't always find these two skills in the same film. When they are working together its cartoon magic.
The director (Dick Lundy) did the overall timing and cutting. It looks like it's mostly on a 10x beat - a "march beat". Same beat I used for the "Happy Happy Joy Joy" song. 10x beats evoke a feeling of nervous energy. Don't ask me why.
Within that beat, it has a good variety of contrasts in the timing. Some things happen fast, and other things are slower or more evenly timed. It all adds up to visual melody.
The animation is very cartoony and elastic. It's full of principles but they are all subservient to the gags. You're not thinking to yourself "My, what wonderful squash and stretch", or "How beautiful is that overlapping action?" as you might in "Lady and The Tramp" or "Cats Don't Dance" where you can admire the motion on a technical level, but it all seems just too conscious of following all the animation rules and tricks for their own sake.
These Lantz cartoons are aimed mainly at kids (or grown up cartoon freaks like me). They aren't as funny, witty or layered as WB cartoons were, but that's fine. It gives the kids and purists what they want - crazy but controlled action and gags, slapstick, violence and loads of life. LIFE! - which seems to be missing from cartoons today. Modern cartoons don't seem to be "alive" anymore no matter how much money is spent on them. They look "manufactured" instead. Like committees of zombies get together and read all the rules to each other then put the cartoon together with tape one rule at a time.
Woody doesn't have a boatload of personality, but he has a huge reservoir of motivation and energy - like most kids - before the world of serious dull adults wears it out of them.
This is pure fun for fun sake - made with love, instinct and lots of superhuman skill.



http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/lantz/47SolidIvory/woodyAxe24xsmall.mov

Even the camera moves had life in the old cartoons! They are organic (as if the viewer is actually following the action with his human head and eyeballs) - unlike today's inhuman mathematical camera moves calculated on dead uncaring computers. Look at the great camera shakes in the scenes where Woody slams into the wooden shack.

I'm going to put up shorter clips from this to illustrate some of the principles and concepts I've talked about in previous posts.

Wanna know the best way to learn animation? Study frame by frame the animation in classic 30s and 40s cartoons. Like these Woody Woodpeckers:



Or any of the cartoons I organized for you here:


CLASSIC CARTOON SHORTS FROM THE GOLDEN AGE

GET YER BASICS WITH RUBBER HOSE CARTOONS

DISNEY CLASSIC FEATURES

What Cartoons Can Do

Cartoons can do things that no other medium can do. They used to do it all the time.These are from Dick Lundy's "Banquet Busters" 1948.




You can float when you smell something heavenly.You can change into abstract shapes to convey your mood.

You can propell yourself through the air by stretching and squashing.
You can penetrate the smallest crevice.

You can have perfectly composed beautiful poses.You can smash people with anything handy.

You can zip out of scenes.

Cartoons can easily do all these magic things that live action can't. Of course it's not easy to draw and animate them this beautifully. You have to be really good to do it.

Watch it in motion.

WACKY WOODY

But why does so much animation not take advantage of its natural gifts?

Instead we have whole schools of animation that try to compete with live action on its own level, which is impossible. We get badly formulaic animation acting, contrived stories filled with pathos, horrible puns, lots of realistic hairs and pores and no visual magic or pure fun.



BTW, look how great this print looks! I don't think you will ever see these cartoons look as good as the Columbia House releases, so if you can find those anywhere, snap them up.

The last versions I saw of these cartoons were digitally "remastered" and destroyed, full of DVNR line-erased all kinds of sick digital compression. I think that all cartoons from now on are going to be tampered with.


DVNR AND REMASTERING RUINS CARTOONS




MORE REMASTERING TORTURE ON LOONEY TUNES DVDS



The Columbia House cartoons look just like the films they were made on. Probably because they were a low budget release, so they couldn't afford to spend any extra money ruining them.