Tim Burton (1980) Vincent

Tim Burton (1980) Vincent

Watch it at http://tinyurl.com/TBurtonVincent [ Link last active 30/1/09]

Tim Burton was born in Burbank California in late August 1958. He grew up in a typical suburban street with a traditional nuclear family, but he always broke these convetions.
Burton would obsessively study old horror movies any chance he got and was always trying to re-create these, -and a few of his own creation.
When he left school he enrolled at California School of Arts and studied a course of part illustation, part animation. Unfortunately he failed to shine and lost his Scholarship; this prompted him to work round-the clock to make his first animation "Stalk Of The Cellary" this created such a stir amongst his peers and mentors that he was taken back on, and even noticed by Disney. He left Cal Arts with a top class degree and was swallowed up, as promised, by Disney.
In the Disney labs the animators sat on brightly coloured bean-bags at communal desks drawing typical Disney characters.

Initially Burton have been brought in to work on The Fox and the Hound.
Soon the head animator recognised Burton, once again, didn't fit in with these people. He was "too weird"
Burton was hauled into the manager's office and presented with the following statement:
"Tim, I don't want you sitting with these people, they're going to change you"
So with that he was placed in a cupboard with a light box and some paper and became a character artist. In here he was to contribute to his first big film The Black Cauldron; but again his work didn't fit in and it wasn't used.

Instead Burton was set loose on his own projects, here he produced the initial art-work and poems that later became The Nightmare Before Christmas, his first live action short Frankenweenie, and Disney commissioned him to make his pies du resistance for his short stay with them. Vincent.

[Here I must mention, that despite popular belief, Burton is forever indebted to Disney as the company who gave him his big break, he still often collaborates with them, and the merchandising rites to most of his major releases are given to Disney].

*WARNING THIS TEXT CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Vincent is the story of a little boy with a big imagination. It has often been described by its creator as an autobiographical work.
Burton himself, as an avid horror movie fan was completely enthralled by Vincent Price; and he felt that if he met him, the pair would click completely; so imagine his delight when Disney employed Price himself to narrate the piece!

"Vincent Malloy is seven years old, he's always polite and does what he's told. For a boy his age he's considerate and nice.... But he wants to be just like Vincent Price"

Our protagonist Vincent Malloy is a tortured soul [or so he believes], supposedly autobiographical the protagonist lives in his imagination. He likes to adapt his situation to fit his imaginings.

The pace of the narrative is very fast, the scene is set within the first few seconds with some very clever narration. We simply see that Vincent Malloy is a nice boy, but he longs to be like Vincent Price. This is confirmed by a visual transformation from Malloy to Price. Simple, neat and highly effective story telling. This paves the way for the rest of the piece to be as strange as Burton liked without blurring the narrative.

The majority of the narrative revolves around Burton's strange fantasy world, where the protagonist imagines a situation and the visuals transform to see it acted out. For example,

"Vincent is nice when his aunt comes to see him, But imagines dipping her in wax for his wax museum."

The film's binary opposition of Vincent's normal childhood and Vincent's darker obsessions proceed as the first sentence is read:
We see Vincent Malloy's aunt (in Tom & Jerry style, only visible from waste down -also emphasizing the size and age of Vincent) come to visit.
In the same shot as the second sentence finishes the screen cross-disolves to show Vinvent "Price" ghoulishly dipping his auntie in a bubbling cauldron filled with wax.

Alone in his "tower of doom," Vincent's romanticized hallucinations become more kinetic and distorted.
Mother bursts into his room and tries to get him to see reality and "get outside and have some real fun."

As Vincent's "horrid insanity" peaks melodramatically, lightning flashes and his visions begin to swirl around him.
As the checkerboard walls sway and bend, Burton animates a series of relief sculptures of skeleton hands, his "dead wife" and his dog Abacrombie in limbo light and superimposes them over a sweying Vincent, a montage of spatial representation systems which interact on a number of levels.

Over all this is a beautifully well thought-out and original short film.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

(Own Knowlege)

Book:

Author: Tim Burton
Title: Burton on Burton
Date: (1998)
Publisher: Author's Own

INTERNET:

Author: Arran Mcdermott
Date: 2005
Date Link was last proved Active: 01/02/09
URL: http://www.timburtoncollective.com/earlymovies.html

Suzie templeton (2001) Dog

Suzie Templeton (2001) - Dog

Watch it at: http://tinyurl.com/STempletonDog [Last checked activity 30/1/09]


*WARNING THIS TEXT CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Suzie Templeton manages do the impossible and keeps her private life very separate from her working career so very little is know about her before she achieved her biggest successes with works the likes of Dog, Stanley, and most recently, Peter and the Wolf. However, with a big thanks to Sylvie Bringas I have been presented with the following mini biography.

"Suzie was a student of mine when she was studying animation at Farnham in the 1990s. She was already very committed to making serious statements with the medium of animation. Stanley was her graduation film, quite an achievement already, very good storytelling sense. In 1997 I was making a film, Silence, and employed her as an assistant animator and cel painter. She was very good at that too, but obviously cel painting wasn't much of a calling for such a creative animator. She went on to study at the Royal College of Art where she made the Bafta winning Dog. Then she struggled for a few years developing Peter and the Wolf, until funding was gathered, made the film and won the Oscar last year. She now lives in Holland and is developping a new puppet animation film." -Sylvie Bringas


Dog is a beautiful example of how subtlety can convey so much:


"Dad... Dad..."

Dog is a stop-motion animated five minute long short animation by Suzie Templeton. The puppets are flawless and boreder realism in not only asthetics but movement also.
Templeton is known for her life-like models and particularly today, for her very realistic animation of animals.
Technically the animation in Dog is not to the standard of Templeton's latest work, but the narriative is by far the most gripping and in-depth to date.


The short begins with a dark, gloomy room; we hear the sound of rain hitting the window and laboured snores, the camera pans accross the bed to reveal an old dog sleeping on a young boy's lap.
At first it appears the young boy is reading a book before bedtime, but we pan still more to reveal he is turned to stare at an ominous stain on his bedroom wall. The young boy brushes the stain tenderly as his father [a weathered downtrodden old man] appears at the door.

Instantly the audience are aware something is wrong. Without stating so we know mum is dead when dad tries to re-assure his son her death was painless.
It is painful to watch a grieving father unable to comfort his pained son; even if one has not experienced the stiuation first hand Templeton assures the catharsis in the short is so great that we instantly feel for both parties.

The cry, quoted above is read so well by the vocal artist, that it becomes a chilling statement. The tiny cry of a grieving child extremely emotive, and will resonate in the audience's mind forever.

Later we see the boy come home from school to find his beloved pet is in agony on the floor outside the house, and again crying out for dad, we see dad is unable to leave the house; the plot thickening, and suspicion arrousing, we still hope that perhaps he has become agrophobic since his partner's death.

That night we see the child embrase the stain on his wall and utter "mum" before we cut to downstairs where the dog is dieing. The father tries to call for help but a mobile vetinarian is unable to come to him and he assures the audience he is unable to leave the house. He turns to the dog and smothers him, laying still with the corpse in desperation after. We pan up to see the child standing, unnoticed in the doorway.

Daylight breaks and the action fades up to see the child combing his hair for school in the mirror, dad is reflected behind him at the sink. "It was painless" says dad.

...."Like mum?"

The short finishes.

The unanswered questions posed at the closing of this film, like
'Did he kill her too?'
'Can he not leave the house because he killed his wife?'
'Was the mother's death a mercy killing too?'
Can be answered with the closing statement. Templeton has used such subtle yet graphic nattiative to imply that indeed, that is how mother died.

On the other hand, there are many suppositions surrounding this area, some people think that perhaps the stain in the little boy's room is merely black mould, while others believe it was blood-spatter from mother shooting herself. Either way by arrousing controversy Templeton has delivered a highly successful narriative and left the audience beyeing for more!
One can only assume that Templeton is the only person who known for sure what happened and "who dunnit".


BIBLIOGRAPHY:


INTERNET

Author: Unknown
Date: Unknown
Date Link was last proved active: 30/1/09
URL: http://www.imdb.com search criteria: Suzie Templeton -Dog

Author: Arthur Bell
Date: 2001
Date Link was last proved active: 30/1/09
URL:http://www.suzietempleton.com/

Combination Skin (1996) Anthony Hodgson

Anthony Hodgson: Combination skin (1996)
Watch it at: http://tinyurl.com/bsoq47 [Last checked activity 30/01/09]

Anthony Hodgson was born in York, England, where he lived for the first 20 years of his life.
After completing his education in York, Hodgson made a permanent move to London where he scored a place at Harrow Campus University Of Westminster (!!!!!) to complete a BA Hons in Animation (AGAIN...!!!!!)
He then went on to achieve a Master's Degree at Royal College of Art, where he made his first big-hit film, Hillary.
Hodgson worked as resident animator at the Museum of The Moving Image before being commissioned by Channel 4 to make Combination Skin.
Today Hodgson lives in America, with [as he was at pains ot note on his website] his wife and four cats, where he works as character animator for films as big as Antz, Shrek, and Shrek II.

*WARNING: THIS TEXT CONTAINS SPOILERS*

"How's school? Are you still being bullied? I hated School... -except English with Mr.Banks"

'Combination Skin' is a five minute short stop-motion animation commissioned by Channel 4

Set in a grim reptile house, [in what one can only assume is part of a desolate badly kept zoo somewhere in England], we watch a mother and estranged son fail to converse.

The pace and tension are set by placing just two characters in a deserted vivarium compound, pre-empted by an awkward silence. This is visualised by a character point of view watching a mucus domestica (housefly) try to escape the confinements of a terrarium in vane.
-Perhaps this is supposed the be the child's P.O.V and symbolic of his desperation to escape the oncoming conversation with his estranged mother; -this could be backed up by the chameleon eating the fly just as the mother begins to speak.
This immediately suggests the awkwardness of the situation and an air of boredom because our character is staring at an obscure placing within the confines of the shot.


As one tends to do, one immediately relates the title of the piece to the action as we realize it is set in a reptile house; however as the piece climaxes we realize it was not an autobiographical title.

As with many of Hodgson's films, Combination Skin begins in a semi-melodic broken silence [watching the fly] which is heavily interrupted after the first few moments with a constant and rambling narration there-in-after.

Watching the Mother converse instantly creates an air of awkwardness, suggesting that conversely she is a week-end mother and is not overly well in-touch with her son.

We witness a painful rambling dialogue, which is seemingly dis-jointed and a desperate struggle to make any form of conversation; until she stirs up a painful memory:
The dialogue culminates in the mother expressing a very personal feeling of guilt and horror at her own actions -which are placed a long time in the past.
This also pulls together the whole story she tells and makes the structure of the narrative apparent, we can trace back every memory-jog and turning point of her one-sided conversation making sense of the whole speech.

The estranged son occasionally replies with a nod, or monosyllabic retort, and at one point we see the camera act for him:

As the mother continues to ramble we see the Son's P.O.V shot with the camera moving as if he shaking his head; this is an impressive move on the director's part because it engages the audience in the dialogue -we don't know what she's talking about either.

The ending is rather touching: after the mother has revealed a deep grief she falls silent. The son appears to recognise this and replies "It smells in here" in an almost beautiful child-like way of protecting his mother by changing the subject. She then ties the narrative up by stating she would like to "go to the toilet now" most likely for a cigarette!

Overall this is one of those films that have stuck in my head for years, and a sick example of real social stayre.
The deeply personal narrative and display of emotion is stomach wrenching, and we can only hope the little boy is not symbolic of the artist.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

INTERNET

Author: Anthony Hodgson
Additional Information: Artist's Official Website
Date: UNKNOWN
Date Link was lats proved active: 30/1/09
URL: http://www.mothkettle.com/


Author: Theo Robertson
Date: UNKNOWN
Date Link was last proved active: 30/1/09
URL: http://www.imdb.com/ (Search Criteria -Anthony Hodgston)

"Amazing" blogs and webbies what other people 'av done

http://www.mothkettle.com/anthony/index.html
- All About Anthony Hodgson, in fact this is his official website, which features a biography, information about up-coming events, and a fascinating intimate glimpse inside the artist's sketch book. The website is a little low on media, because he heavily copyrites his films, but overall it is an useful and effective use of web-space.


http://www.animationblogspot.com/
- Other students and animation enthusiasts from around the World's views on film and animation, it cannot be used as an elixir of information because the majority of posts are un-informed and purely oppinion.
It is a great place to first witness rumours and whispers about new projects from some of the industry's most prolific film-makers, brought to the sight personally by some of the industry's biggest stalker-geeks.


http://www.fat-pie.com/
-This really needs no introduction... but it is the highly controversial web-space of animator David Firth; many of whom's animations have amassed a staggering cult following.
Unfortunately his website, although having become a great money-spinner; has not won him much air-time on television. He has, however, made it onto animation programmes and CC-Labs a few times with his eerily familiar 'Salad Fingers'.
At time Firth's work does over-step moral/ethical barriers, and can cause great offense to sensitive audiences, so I would not suggest clicking the link if you are easily offended.


http://getsomeblackcape.blogspot.com/
- David Lupton (often works with Corin Hardy)'s personal Blog. Lupton once penned 500 drawings for Hardy's Butterfly in just one week -so this website has GOT to be impressive. Lupton regularly uploads his own images and updates his blog weekly, it is a great place to see his work before it hits the commercial websites, and although he has a ghost-writer to blog for him now, it is still possible to contact the artist directly through his blog; and is a fascinating insite into a successful animator/illustrator's life.



http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1444637107417806305-
- The Yellow Submarine Movie, this is my all time favourite drawn animation. Although controversially not voiced by the Beatles themselves, it is still by far the most out-standing use of drawn animation i have ever seen.
Very stylized to the late 60s (when it was made) the film shows no regard for traditional to the filmic convention of trying to keep work timeless. It almost makes one wonder if the director knew the 60s images would be forever timeless.


http://www.themovieblog.com/2007/12/tim-burton-talks-frankenweenie
- This is a very good site in general, but this section is of particular interest to me personally.
themovieblog.com is a highly useful space where new events and potential movie projects can be discussed before hitting more official sites such as imdb.com.
This sight does not only deal with up-coming move events but boasts an impressive repertoire of interviews with some movie greats. This page is dedicated to one of my idols, Burton. He talks about a project very dear to him and a film that will deal with a very personal and life-long issue to the director; the loss of his dog. Frankenweenie.

http://www.bitterfilms.com/
- Don Hertzfeld's website, I Particularly love his short Billy's Balloon. Most of Hertzfeld's animations on here are works from his stay at animation school, and they are certainly very different to most. Although a little slow and heavy on setting the scene, his work is none-the-less mesmerizing and more than a little strange, I would recommend anyone who is interested in simple hand-drawn animation, or anyone interested in the absurd should click this link. In 'Billy's Balloon' we see a really obvious but previously un-thought of role reversal, Billy's balloon (and subsequently lots of Billy's friend's balloons) turns on him and all balloon kind finally take revenge on their tethering child-owners.


http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/
- I know this was on the brief but it doesn't make it any less of one of my top-ten websites! I can't say why i really like this website, the images are badly drawn, and rarely laugh-out-loud funny, but they are one of the most addictive Internet cartoons in existence none-the-less. They could be described as David and Golliath's nerdy cousin, occasionally brutally cruel, and sometimes roll-on-the floor funny. They are an acquired taste, but the title says it all. Toothpaste for dinner indeed!

http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/ - If you don't know what this is, then you haven't LIVED - Also it is quite interesting that Matt Parker and Trey stone have emulated the mouth movements for their take on Canadians in South park -But I don't expect anyone to agree with me; nobody ever does!
weebl and Bob are two friends, who constantly find themselves in bizaare situations, Bob is certainly the brains of the oufit but is chouted down by Weebl constantly. This is an almost satyrical portrayal of the general mentality of the human race. It is inoffensive and rarely breaches the explissit. Weebl and Bob have made it onto television numerous times and have appeared promoting various cheeses and spreadable butter-substitutes.


http://www.peewee.com/ - Why not? It was probably on Pee Wee's Playhouse that I got my first taste of stopmotion when I was slightly shorter than I am now. Rueben's 10 dimensional character Pee Wee was an incredibly outgoing and wacky chap who lived in a talking house with lots of children; perhaps by today's limits this is strange, but to Ruebens (who created Pee Wee on stage early in his career whilst touring the pup-comedy circuit) this was the most normal thing in the world. He incorporates a strange mixture of live action, stop-motion and hand drawn animation as well as a few puppets and anamatronics, it is indeed the work of a visionary and more than likely fuelled by drugs.

Francis Bacon 1902-1992 Triptych May-June (1973)

Triptych May-June 1973



Background Information:

Born in Dublin, Ireland on the 28th October 1902, Francis Bacon was the second of five children born to Winifred and Edward Anthony Mortimer Bacon.
Edward Bacon often claimed to be a collateral descendant of ‘Sir Francis Bacon,’ the Elizabethan philosopher, a statement with which his son often contested. -In fact, after his death, Bacon remembered his father as:

“ A highly strung, intolerant, dictatorial and censorious character - much given to moralising and disposed toward arguments that end in lasting discord. ”
-Francis Bacon

Noticeably the pair did not enjoy an amicable relationship. Bacon’s father was fiercely apposed to his son’s flagrant displays of his homosexuality, -though one must contextualize before passing judgement:

During the most-part of Bacon’s lifetime same-sex relationships were frowned upon -and in some places, punishable by death.

Bacon’s life has often been described figuratively as the epitome of a paradox:
-His work was conventional, but iconoclastic (it challenged tradition): He worked on canvas, but favoured the rough and un-treated back-side to the smooth painter-friendly front.
-His life was tragic, yet romantic: He saw a succession of soul-mates; muses and lovers; all but one culminating in explosive annulment, from this he grimly took solace in the inspired work he could produce both during, and post-relationship.

During his life time Bacon enjoyed the privilege of a very shrouded private life. His work was so famous and highly regarded that he took on an un-touchable public image; his ‘people’ were somehow able to insure no controversial or scathing reviews of his work ever surfaced. It is only post 1992 (Bacon’s death) that any negative readings of his work have emerged.
The most interesting, and perhaps the source of my fascination for the piece I will be reviewing was fuelled by a very tragic story, and by perhaps, the only true love Bacon ever experienced; That with George Dyer:

George Dyer [Pictured Left as Bacon saw him]

The story of Bacon’s greatest muse and the main cause of his utmost bitterness and guilt for the greater part of his life always begins with his stumbling upon the knowledge of his lover, George Dyer’s suicide.

He was found sitting on the lavatory with blood coming from his nose and mouth, having swallowed fistfuls of sleeping pills in a Paris hotel room in 1971.

Perhaps a macabre manner in which to begin a story, but in my opinion it is important that the ending of the relationship plays on the reader’s mind whilst contemplating the beginning.

Dyer was a small-time criminal when he met Bacon, and the artist delighted in telling the story of their first meeting. As he told it, Dyer was at work, breaking into Bacon’s studio not realizing the artist was in residence and asleep.
Bacon claims that upon hearing a small thud, he woke up, saw the burglar and immediately said:

“Take off all your clothes and get into bed with me. Then you can have all you want.”
-Bacon

Less imaginatively, and perhaps boasting a greater degree of truth, Bacon also said they met when he was drinking in a Soho pub where Dyer came over saying:

“You look like you’re having a good time. Can I buy you a drink?"
- Dyer

In reality Dyer was a drifter with a speech impediment, he was withdrawn and often sullen; terribly unsure of himself and before he actually killed himself, he had attempted suicide at least twice before.
Despite this he was the subject of some of Bacon’s greatest work. Bacon could not get enough of Dyer onto canvas; though this lead the relationship between master and muse to become a destructive one. The pair suffered a Love/Hate relationship fuelled by Bacon’s obsession with capturing “the element of Dyer”.
Bacon tried to distance himself from the relationship to heal their bond by buying Dyer a cottage in Kent to keep the two apart.

However, no amount of physical distance could destroy their symbolic attachment.
After trying countless times to rectify their relationship Bacon took Dyer to Paris in 1971 for a huge retrospective, and a sorting out their relationship in the Grand Palais. Here bacon put on what was to become the most significant show to-date in his career as an artist.

Upon returning to the hotel that night after the show on the 24th October 1971 Bacon was greeted by a flood of police, ambulances and coroners.
Bacon was told of his lover’s suicide by the concierge (the doorman) and showed not emotion. He simply replied,

“Eh bien, and where’s the body?”

-Bacon

Triptych May-June 1973, Francis Bacon

[The word triptych arises from early Christian art, it is a Greek word simply meaning ‘Three’; however ‘Triptych’ has a far more particular translation in terms of art: traditionally a triptych is a painting or carving which extends across three panels joined together with hinges.]

Relating to the above, Bacon has already, (perhaps intentionally) set up a paradox by entitling his three-canvas set ‘Triptych‘, they are not hinged, nor do they bare any continual setting or scene, instead they depict an inverted representation of the tragic death of his only true lover, George Dyer.
-The paintings should be read from right to left, again challenging the tradition of triptychs.

These pieces, unlike every painting preceding them, are not direct observational studies; they were executed by Bacon two years after his lover, George Dyer’s suicide. They appear to show Bacon’s feelings towards the events and are the first sign of his emotions after the event. As we now know, Dyer committed suicide by overdose and was found sitting, dead, on a lavatory -in an hotel in Paris. The only evidence of death being the presence of blood having poured from his mouth and nose, as his body shut down from the overdose on sleeping pills.

In fact the images depict the facts of Dyer’s death in reverse chronological order (right to left), as the nude figure vomits into the bathroom sink, then crosses the room, and the dies on the toilet.

The first picture shows the arm held at an acute angle and the sinus of this are continued by the sink adding to the movement in the image, we can almost see the desperation in Dyer’s vomiting.
Then as he crosses the room we see the shadow continued out of the door in a shape that mimics the grim reaper, a representation symbolic of his imminent death.

Finally, in the last image the figure’s head and shoulders have fallen forward to in-between his knees, and there is evidence that Bacon has acknowledged the bleeding, with the red paint.

The images would have been painted in Oil Paints, and fine brush-strokes [unlike many of his pre-dating works] are used showing the sensitivity and care Bacon took whilst painting the Triptych.
These are very serious paintings that Bacon is using as an outlet for his grief.


BIBLIOGRAPHY:


(My Own Knowledge)


INTERNET:

Author: Launa Marsh
Date: 16/09/06
Date Link was last proved active: 26/01/09
URL: http://www.alexalienart.com/Bacon%20News%20&%20Links.htm


Author: Emmanuell Cooper
Date: UNKNOWN
Date Link was last proved active: 26/01/09
URL:http://www.queer-arts.org/bacon/bacon.html


Author: UNKNOWN
Date: UNKNOWN
Date Link was last proved active: 26/01/09
URL: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ba-Be/Bacon-Francis.html


BOOKS [Own Collection]:


Author: Rudy Chiapini
Title: Bacon
Date published: 09/08
Publisher: Powell's


Author: Luigi Ficacci
Title: Francis Bacon 1909-1992 (Taschen Basic Art)
Date Published: 11/03
Publisher: Taschen


Author: David Sylvester
Title: Interviews With Francis Bacon: The Bruitality of fact
Date Published: 02/88
Publisher: Thames and Hudson