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,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inRedesigning Animation Vol. 1; pp. 171 - 214
Main Author Bottini, Cinzia
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published Taylor & Francis Group 2018
Routledge
Edition1
Subjects
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

Loading…
More Information
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.
Bibliography:Bloomsbury Design Library
ISBN:9781351209595
1351209590
9780815381792
0815381786
9780815381785
0815381794
DOI:10.1201/9781351209595-5