BDM127, BDM124, Animation Reviews, 31 July

"Technological Threat" animation short 1988 Academy Award nominee

Overworked dog watches as his fellow workers are fired by the boss and replaced by robots.  In turn, he gets rid of the now robot boss and his competitor.  Great character design for the robot who is a series of geometric shapes that bounces in on a ball.  The characters have black outlines and solid colours.  They separate easily from the background which is full of ornate lines and brushy pastel colours. 

Jay Ward's "Crusader Rabbit" (1949)

 This is one of the first animated series for tv.  Interestingly, it's a series of filmed stills with some minimal movement.  It reminded me of the animatics we made for storyboarding last semester.  If I never get the hang of animating, I can always stick with moving the camera around on my drawings, right?  On a side note, Texas' general paranoia about being under threat of invasion is not unfounded when Crusader Rabbit goes to fight the state over their unfair treatment of his kin the jack rabbits.  The narrator says Crusader isn't afraid of the men "because they just sing a lot, but (he is) worried about their horses."

"Humorous Phases Of Funny Faces" (1906)

 Stop motion animation of faces on a chalkboard.  A succession of drawings are photographed and then strung together to create movement.  I greatly admired the drawing of the tophat; it's sharp.