⤷ Animation Skillz ୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ
- freyamanning0
- Nov 17
- 16 min read
WEEK 8 -
objectives:
- research into Jan Svankmajer
- do research into the animation principle secondary action
JAN SVANKMAJER (*￣▽￣)b
Jan Svankmajer is an animator I thought I didn't know but I actually do know who he is. When I was in college doing an animation extended diploma I had to look into his films and write an essay about a specific film that my teacher chose. I will not be referring to that essay because,
1. I can't access my college school account anymore and
2. I did that three years ago so it isn't the best writing as I was still learning what kind of work I should produce for college as I did it in my first few months once I moved from secondary.
Svankmajer is a Czech retired film maker (he is still alive!! when I am writing this as he celebrated his 90th birthday last year) and he is classed as a surrealist film maker using mainly puppetry, stop potion and film making to create his short films, I thought his work was unsettling in college and honestly I still do now I just find sometimes surrealism can be really freaky in a odd way and I don't think its a bad thing it just isn't something that I would personally make. I do love his usage of stop motion though, I love stopmotion it is in my eyes the coolest type of animation that exists out there and I think that it should be used more as it just has such a homemade but impressive feeling. (I do understand that it is very time consuming and difficult to do and I do understand why it isn't used all the time) .
Even though Svankmajer is classed as an animator because of all of the techniques he used his work was actually embedded into live filming so he is technically a film maker and he himself has said that he doesn't use animation to create a fictional unrealistic world like many animations are but to bring life to ordinary and normal objects to show the hidden beauty and feeling behind things. I would say personally his animations (especially his most famous) feels pretty fictional but I understand I guess that it is meant to show feeling and inner understanding as there aren't many animations of his that don't include people. People sculpt with clay that expresses a certain feeling. As well as everything he does use, isn't very cartoony or stylized even if it is slightly fictional the puppets of animals he uses are taxidermy so they are still real life objects.
According to the Harvard film archive, 2012 Svankmajer's surrealism isn't just surrealism it is philosophy to him showing an approach to the world that rejects tyranny or rationalism to totalitarianism. I don't mean this horribly but I kind of hate when huge words are being used to describe work because it just makes it seem pretentious to me but it isn't I just don't understand words very well, but he wants to make his animations different to how people in authority have control over people that people have their own feelings and their own way of doing things. In his film making life he encountered a lot of issues as when making his work in the 1930's it was already a pretty political time and from 1934-1972 he was popular with going against government censorship in Czech which lead to him getting a seven year ban from making films/producing animations and releasing them to the public because it went against what people in power wanted. He returned to film making in 1980 still encountered drawbacks with the government but he made an international reputation for himself and people supported him with the work he produced that combatted governments and totalitarianism.
Even when he was banned from working for several years he still worked with others collaborating and adding his own spin onto their artwork to get his views across. Researching into him I found out that he has an instagram account and a website so I looked into his work and about him from his own point of view and the people who work with him and his work is very imaginative and definitely not the conventional art that you would see in the normal art world. In his website it describes his work as a strength from black (which i found out just means dark) humor and working with the Czechoslovak Surrealist group and his playful viewpoint on how he views the world and how his feelings invoke different forms of artwork through showing the connection in people and I agree that his work definitely shows the connection of people but I still find it all uncomfortable especially his films and movies, they make me feel kinda sick because all of the animals and skulls are all real and things just feel weirdly horror like and personally I just don't like it very much. I do like his artwork that he makes though I think that's cool , it reminds of the book called "Flanimals by Ricky Gervais" because the drawings are very grotesque but also kind of cool to look at. To me his physical artworks just remind me of that book but more tailored for animals and not kids.
Like I usually do with all of these animators I have been researching I look into their animations, I have in the past so I will write about one of them from past experiences as I really didn't like watching it before hand because it made me super uncomfortable but I will pick three more animations to look at to make up for it.
The animation that I watched when I was in college is his version of ALice in Wonderland just called Alice(1988), I did look at it briefly to be able to take screenshots of what I am talking about but the reason I find it such an uncomfortable watch is because it is just so unsettling, it's quiet most of the time and the narration is done by Alice herself ever so often. Though even if I find it unsettling, the techniques used are incredible. I didn't really understand in my research what he meant by he calls himself more as a film maker but remembering that he made Alice I completely agree. He makes films that are accompanied by his other imaginative animated parts. Never done 2d or drawn, always using real things to give it that real feeling. I just don't like how he uses taxidermy animals thats my main problem but even if I don't like it I will say the stop motion used for it, is very smooth especially for the white rabbit as he has human looking hands (I suppose to give it that fictional aspect even if Svankmajer claims he doesn't focus in fictional things Alice and Wonderland is a fictional tale and rabbits who dress like humans and changing sizes is pretty fictional).
My favourite part about this film is when Alice turns into a doll. I think it is a really good way to show that she has gotten smaller without having to animate it. I may not like the film but the way he uses stop motion and any objects that he has (i mean the caterpillar is a sock with teeth and eyes) is really inspiring. Even though I myself don't like surrealism that much, I think in my own work I should take how he makes things with real life objects and try to focus on that. Sort of difficult to explain but when I create a world mostly I make it really fantasy-like but possibly I should try and make it feel like the normal world simultaneously with the otherworldly aspects I want to include within my work.
Now because I am using my main knowledge for the Alice animation for my head and past experiences I looked into trailers and smaller films that he made because most of his filmography consists of really long films and I would watch them all but I can't only focus on this work I do have other work that I need to do. But I think watching trailers is really important because from a trailer you should be able to understand what kind of film is being shown whether horror or fantasy and it should be able to showcase the skills used especially if it involves animation I feel like that should always be shown in a trailer because it's time consuming, it's adding more elements to an already hard to make film because film making doesn't seem like the easiest thing to do.
So I watched four different trailers. I watched the trailer for his films "Insects (2018), "Faust (1994)", "Lunacy (2005) " and "Surviving life (2010)". Now usually when watching trailers of course it isn't meant to give away the whole story it's sort of like a brief overview without spoiling it for the viewer so they want to watch the rest. But watching these three trailers instead of having an understanding I have sort of no understanding at all on what each film is about, I mean I get that it's about the title of the film but that's pretty much about it. Every trailer I watched seemed to all have one thing in common: they all included tongues. Mainly toughs touching each other or moving around as their own entity. The only thing that I could gather from the fact that there are tongues used is that people's mouths are like a mind of their own doing what they want whether it is what the main body wants.
The reason I came to that conclusion is because I decided the best thing to do would be to watch an interview of Jan Svankmajer (done by Stopmotia on Youtube, in July 2019) explaining his own work because I feel like I am just not fully understanding what he creates. I mean I respect what he makes because there is so much going on in each trailer so the movies must have so so so many different elements to it.
Faust the trailer that I watched used a lot of puppetry and each of the film trailers I watched they are all very different to each other I find that usually when someone does work it usually all links but I suppose his is surrealism so what ever feels right for that film I guess. This one feels very religious compared the rest with the whole contract with the devil in blood.
This film he made with alot of glue college and over lapping film with image I think this is the coolest trailer that I saw out of all of the trailers he made, this is what I imagine surriuslm is, I really don't like the tougnues use dbut I mean the rest of it is wuite cool and this trailer seems to be focusing on some sort of relastionship and secrets around it?? I am not entirely sure I just think it looks really cool visually!!
This trailer was actually quite easy to understand I just didn't like that their was vomit included (I didn't screenshot it, it was gross) but it is about I guess people filming bugs and they also have normal lives like humans?? I am not sure if that is it but thats what it seems like, the thing I liked was the bugs that he illustrated that I liked a lot are in this film and are collaged as people I think that is so cool!! because collage is literally one of my most favoruite ways to work and it is cool to see it used in animation :D
This trailer really felt like some sort of horror film, the while thing was just unsettling especially the fact I couldn't find an english one so it was just scary people shouting at me in a different language, there definitely seems to be some sort of dream and hallucinating aspect to the film I just really didn't like this trailer at all it generally did scare me. Even though it scared me i really liked the use of stop motion. when these bandages where fixing a piece of meat (I think it was a heart I am not sure) it just was a good looking visual)
Looking at the interview it was interesting to hear him explain what he had to say about surrealism. He said that it isn't an art form, it is a unique way of seeing life. I thought that is what all art is but supposed that surrealism really is seeing the world from a different point of view. It's a bit disturbing and wacky but overall it is still pretty interesting. He talked about his usage of animation and why he works with tactile animation more than anything else. He claimed it to be the magical dimension of tactile working and in things like digital computers you lose that feeling and can no longer feel what is happening. Now I agree with that, I really love working conceptually and physically because I feel like I connect with my work much more because instead of there being shortcuts for the work I have to really think about what I am doing and the second I start there's no really going back.
Just hearing him talk about his own work is really fascinating because mainly all of the the things he was talking about I agreed with which I found pretty weird considering his work makes me feel unsettled, but he talked about how animators and artists look always for a reason for their work but what should be the reason is the enjoyment you get from making the work. He also said he had three main reasons for his work:
Childhood - as that is where obsessions starts
dreaming - it is the most authentic place of imagination
eroticism - it is how all life started pretty much
Its really cool to know her only had a few reason why he makes his work because so do I my reasons are always
inspiration - I want people to feel like what they want to create is possible
experience - I don't want people's experiences to go unnoticed if you want to show it to the world then do it
connection - I found that animation and art makes me feel more like a normal person and I can connect with others
Even though the way me and Svankmajer look at work is different I would say that we have many similarities and I thought that this research I wasn't going to enjoy at all I was actually reading it. But I haven't dreaded it actually. I have found it quite helpful for my own work and that new enjoyment of my work can be my reason why I create my work. In college I was always made to find that reason behind my work and hearing someone who made it in the animation world internationally just saying it's mainly for new enjoyment is just comforting.
I like how he describes surrealist artists, that they aren't artists, it's just how they view the world and every time I do work I am always told I have a very unique way of viewing things. I don't really know or understand Jan Svankmajer's work that much but I certainly have found that he could be a suitable role model for me because why and how he creates his work.
Because I found that interview super helpful in the interview he talked about his animation and that all of his films but one ar feature films with the help of animation. As this research I am doing is for Animation skills I feel like looking at the one animation that he classes as his only animation I should look into.
The one animation that he classes as his one and only animation is "Food (1992)" Watching I do agree he said that his love for animation came from when he was gifted a puppet set as a child because the Czech that is just what animation was not like in the west drawn not puppets and he used actors in "Food" as those puppets, they all move in stop motion and it is super cool they feel like clay people.
Now I say they feel like clay people in scenes where characters eat food. Sometimes they actually do turn into clay to look like they are able to manipulate their faces into very specific places or make them stretch to look unrealistic.
I actually really liked it. I think it kept the realistic way that the characters looked but it also managed to exaggerate his ideas of what "Food" is about. Now I have actually briefly seen clips of "Food" before just online and I thought (and still kind of do) think it's one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. But all of the research I have done into Jan Svankmajer's work and how he views his own work, has helped me understand a bit more and it isn't just a confusing mess to me anymore.
From what I gathered, "Food" is all about the difference between the working class and the upper class, how they get more and don't have to work as hard for what they want.
At the beginning it's breakfast showcasing these people swapping places as this sort of breakfast machine and they all look like they work or at least have to work. Then lunchtime comes around and that's where it's started to piece together for me. The whole sensation is just this posh man eating his clothes and everything around him with the poor coping with him but it just isn't as good and eventually the rich man eats the poorer guy. I think it's a pretty good visual metaphor on how the poor are always trying to watch the posh and rich status in any way they can, we copy and do as much as we can but just in the end they are above the poor and will take what they want to when they feel like it. I think it comes across as from the beginning in the morning people are only really focused on working so it is all sort of dream like and by lunch time it's a break you want everything you want to get before you have to go back to working and by dinner you have sacrificed a part of yourself everyday to get through the day.
Which I think is shown through how at dinner in the short film each character is eating a section of their body, but it doesn't matter at that point what class they are, they are all eating a part of their body, there is some childish humor with the last man eating his own genitals but them being small and. him being embarrassed but there is a difference even then with the way that rich peoples tables look compared to that guy. His table was all dirty and cigarettes and alcohol everywhere, where the rich people had lots of things all over their table and their food was much more well prepared still showing that gap between classes.
I could be completely wrong with my understanding of what his work means but in the interview that Svankmajer did, that I watched, said his work is like poetry where it is how the person sees it and that's how he views the world and how i view the world is different but he work is really cool, you get a human feeling from it and it does feel really maybe that's why I find it so unsettling and confusing because it just feels wrong for real things to do what they do in his films.
SECONDARY ACTION (￣ε￣＠)
All of these 8 weeks I have been researching into the principles of animations. All of them I have a sort of vaugueI dea what the principle I am researching is but this week, genrally I don't really understand what secondary action is. I know that it is important just like the rest of the principles of animation are but I really don't know what this is at all.
In class we watched a video on what secondary action is but I am going to be honest usally I find these videos are easy to understand.
But like I swear secondary action is idenitcall to over lapping/follow through action like I don't really get why this is a seprate principle so I did some extra research to understand what it actually is. I am glad that I did further research into what secondary action is because I now like understand it pretty well - It is the action accompaineied by the main action which seems pretty similar tpo the overlapping action and follow through as they are actions that you put before or after the character would complete the main action to show the feeling and how maybe their clothes and hair would react to the action they complete. But the secondary action is there to emphasise what the character does, gives it all context and can envoke a feeling in the viewer as well as makes the viewer understand excatly how the character is feeling or what they may be doing easier.
The one thing about the secondary action is that sometimes the secondary action has the peroble mof going over the main action which is not what you want to do, you may have someone jumping and with in that jump their face might be happy indicating the joy they are going through and the arms might lift in the air to show how happy they are but if there is too much going on with the happy aspect so maybe there is loads of cool and fun colours that happen when they jump the jumping is no longer really the main action the secondary action of the feeling becomes the main one. Which is fine in some aspects maybe the feeling is what you want the viewer to realise is the main action but usually the feelings are the secondary thing you need to considering all of the mina actions are just how the character moves and how their clothes may interact or if there is drag on a tail/bag they may have.
To really understand what I am talking about I watched 2 more example videos to help me with this research into the principle as well as I am currently doing this secondary action thing in my illustration project.
But to really make sure I did understand this principle because this is an action that I didn't even think has a name because I do it and I think everyone sort of does it natural if a character is angry they might ball up a fist or be breathing heavily to really communicate to the viewer what the character is feeling. I drew my own version of a secondary action in my sketchbook.. Now my phone broke this weekend it just randonly stopped working so I am curently having issues with uplaoding and showing photos of what I have done work wise. But I have found a way its just to get someone else to take a picture of my work and send it too me via email or discord as I have that on my laptop. (I have been thinking of getting a camera from unis media services because if I do that then people don't have to help me all the time and I don't have to inconvenience people if they need to do their own work!)
HOMEWORK/CLASSWORK ᓚᘏᕐᐷ
This week for the animation I am working on I do actually have things to show for it. I made an animatic with the sounds that I have I am super proud of what I have created and I would go into great detail about what I made but I have explained that all in my animation section of my website all I am going to do here is give a brief synopsis on what my idea actually is!!
My idea is too showcase how even mice in their own world regardless of how different they look all make a lot of noise when in a social area but the humans are just that bit louder compared to the small mice and maybe the humans should be a bit more considerate of their loudness for the other life forms that exist in the world!!
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