Duck Amuck

Duck Amuck, Warner Brothers, 1951 truly pushes the envelope of animation. It is hardly a story, rather it relies completely upon the animation techniques to entertain the viewer. The blank canvas can be filled by anything, at any time; animation does not have the limitations of live action. In this there is no real story line, and only one character, yet it is entertaining clean fun for near 7 minutes.
Daffy Duck is cute as hell, with his crazy little outfits and elaborate settings. This could have only been done by a great team of animators. This is a dramatization of what it actually takes to make a frame by frame cartoon...all that goes into it. They even have one instance in which we see seperate screen shots on the film strip demonstrating just how sequenced each movement is. It is hard to even fathom the amount of work that went into this.
It is also obvious that the animators, by this point, have a clear grasp of bipedal movements; legs and arms move as if Daffy Duck were human. The complexity of this cannot be understated, for many years the form of animation was much more free flowing and unrealistic (like the films we watched last week).
There was also much more dialogue, I am all the more interested.
On a side note: I would really like to watch some Fractured Fairy Tales if we get a chance!

Animated Shorts

So, it has occurred to me that animated shorts are among the best background visuals in a social setting. Let's face it, nobody likes watching episodes of Family Guy or The Simpson's when your trying to interact socially; rather, music is much more appropriate. Visuals are still an important part of the atmosphere, this is where older (and some newer) animated shorts are really fun to have as "background visuals".
A good example of this is Warner Brothers short children cartoons, Looney Tunes; a program dedicated to visual appeal. Some of the older sketches are particularly amusing for analysis sake--from very blatant racist imagery to depictions of wartime battles. The visuals tell so much of the story, audio becomes secondary. Here is an example of the imagery which can spark such conversation: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v99/tim_archer/loony-toons/sunday6.jpg. This image needs little explanation.
Animated shorts also have the tremendous ability to make us laugh. At a recent friendly gathering we stumbled upon a presentation by a cable network, ABC Family, which showed every short film the Pixar Corporation has ever done. Not only did they make everybody laugh, but it was also a time for waxing nostalgic. We are of the age group which saw the advent of computer animation; this program showed how much the medium has progressed, and how much we loved the animations from our childhood. It was visually stunning to have on at the party and everybody laughed and was merry. My favorite is a short called, "For the Birds", Pixar, 2000. It is very simple and funny, here is the Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i861adrvBZ4. It's everything that is right with animation.