The UPA Formula From Direct Influences to Concurrent Examples of Modernism in Animation
During the 1950s and 1960s, worldwide animation turned toward more streamlined characters and backgrounds, limited animation, non-objective designs and an expressionistic use of colors and sound effects. This major stylistic trend defined Modern animation. UPA played a relevant role in this process,...
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Published in | Redesigning Animation Vol. 1; pp. 171 - 214 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Book Chapter |
Language | English |
Published |
Taylor & Francis Group
2018
Routledge |
Edition | 1 |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | During the 1950s and 1960s, worldwide animation turned toward more streamlined characters and backgrounds, limited animation, non-objective designs and an expressionistic use of colors and sound effects. This major stylistic trend defined Modern animation. UPA played a relevant role in this process, since its films anticipated that synthesis of minimalism and reductionism typical of the 20th century by incorporating Modern painting, graphic design and poster advertising into its films. This chapter focuses on UPA worldwide influence, being it either direct, such as in the U.S. or in Canada, or indirect, such as in Western Europe. In the countries belonging to the Eastern European Bloc, as well as in the Soviet Union and in Japan, a new simplified audiovisual language was developed independently, but possibly referring to UPA innovative styles. Here, are presented a selection of international animated cartoons as illustrative examples of Modern animations, in order to determine if there had been an aesthetic influence from UPA and, by contrast, to define Modern animation. These selected films are by John and Faith Hubley, Ernest Pintoff, Tex Avery, Bruno Bozzetto, Dušan Vukotić, Jiří Brdečka, Fyodor Khitruk, John Halas and Joy Batchelor, George Dunning, Osamu Tezuka and Yōji Kuri, among others.
This chapter focuses on United Productions of America (UPA) worldwide influence, being it either direct, such as in the US or in Canada, or indirect, such as in Western Europe. In sum, the breadth of the considered geographic areas and the historical transitional periods, the assorted directors and the differences in their simplified audiovisual styles need to be taken into consideration when evaluating UPA direct and indirect influences on Modern animations. During the 1950s, TV advertising exploded not only in the US but also in Western Europe and especially in England. Mutual influences from UPA and the National Film Board in Canada started as early as 1950, when Norman McLaren visited the UPA studio in Burbank. Characters and backgrounds are two-dimensionally designed, and different from classic Disney cartoons, black lines do not encircle the figures. Many of the TV programs were imported from the US, and the middle-class American way of life influenced Japanese people. |
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Bibliography: | Bloomsbury Design Library |
ISBN: | 9781351209595 1351209590 9780815381792 0815381786 9780815381785 0815381794 |
DOI: | 10.1201/9781351209595-5 |