What characterizes Canadian animation?

More than sixty years ago, Norman McLellan launched animation at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). An active artist and a brilliant film experimenter, McLellan gave a place to the diverse, artistic and passionate animation that would become the cornerstone of the NFB's mission decades later. Since then, the development of animation at NFB has always included room for experimentation, including the use of different artistic media such as paint, sand, or computers, and has challenged the structure and boundaries of the animation form, both with and without narration. Whether it is the cultivation of emerging potentials, the reflection of different cultures, a moving story or an artistic vision, there is always room for them. This tradition embraces animation that challenges social issues, as well as films that delight and make us smile. It is essentially a way of honoring the central role of the creator/director (auteur). Reflecting the eclectic national identity of the Canadian land, these animated films are like little cultural ambassadors that easily cross borders around the world.

After America's cartoon ****talk gained world renown, European animators were unable and unwilling to copy their style. They rarely criticized human failures, social conditions, or psychological entanglements, and left the big picture of the world to politicians and writers. These movies followed popular trends, the situation and content did not need to be too complex, and the morality of the movie was simple: goodness would triumph over evil. Before World War II, American cartoon studios also spread this set of values around the world.

Many of the talented cartoonist community burst into war propaganda films, such as Bob Cratchit, Tex Avery and the young Fritz Freleng. And Disney Studios, after staff cutbacks, poured all its efforts into producing propaganda films and Navy profiles for the government, and with limited funding, it was no easy task to complete short films that combined war messages and ideology. But even under these circumstances, Disney Studios released the feature-length cartoon animation "Air Force Victory," which successfully promoted America's moral consciousness.

World War II destroyed the commercial distribution and production channels for animated cartoons, but the disaggregation of the world market did mean something else, as different regions of the country began to have the opportunity to develop their own forms of animation.

The war created a great deal of market demand for state propaganda, especially in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and Japan. Animation production centers were established in many countries, a situation that lasted until the 1950s. At the end of the war, tokusatsu became a worldwide medium of expression.

In Europe, Tung Wah took its first steps in the United Kingdom, where the Volkswagen Post Office, founded in 1930, trained a group of talented young animators. A new animation company, Haras and Bachelard, was recruited by the Intelligence Bureau to make a series of short cartoons in support of the war effort, such as Warehouse Parade (1941), which was about saving sheet metal for the manufacture of guns; Farming for Victory (1941), which was about planting vegetables; and Abu's Harvest (1943), which was about prosecuting spies. They made more than 70 cartoon shorts during the war and showed them in theaters across the country. At the end of the war, in order to inform the masses of the changes and reforms in the social structure, the propaganda was still carried out through the medium of animation. These films were designed according to popular common sense, taking an adult point of view, and replacing sensual humor with rational debate to achieve acceptance and understanding. The format was later adopted by the film industry, and as a result, the meaning and appeal of animation expanded and reached new goals. The medium of animation was then used in public relations, corporate advertising, and education, rather than being limited to fun, dynamic storytelling. In other countries of Western Europe, another new style of animation design was later developed.

In 1941, Disney's cartoon industry took a big hit. The animators affiliated with Disney wanted to organize a union to rebel against Disney's long-term exploitation, while Disney strong elegant. Therefore, the two sides of the long and fierce battle, resulting in a lose-lose situation, as a result, including John Hubley, a group of animation left Disney, in 1943 set up the "United Productions of America" (referred to as UPA), their ideal is to reform the animation of the established style. UPA a very small amount of money to start a business, the majority of the artistic value of the very little pay or even no pay for his public office. The UPA was initially organized as a partnership between Disney's Jen Cherry Schnee, David Silberman, and Steve Bauchast. Their first film together, "Lien Fever," a campaign film made by City Councilman Franklin D. Roosevelt, was paid for by the UPA and directed by Chuck Jones.

Tenth's work was more focused on three-dimensional representations and realistic routes, while UPA favored plain, stylized, current linework, replacing the good old romantic fairy tales of Disney films with socio-political critiques, as exemplified by "Brotherhood" and "The Hangman". With very little funding, they couldn't afford Disney's flashy costs, so they had to create "limited animation," using fewer books and enhancing key actions to drive the plot with strong storytelling and powerful sound design.

UPA changed the way people used to think about animation. After winning awards, UPA soon had its own spokespersons. Such as "Mr. Magoo" (1949) and "Boeing Boeing" (1951). John Hubley's bright, clean style captured hearts and minds and influenced Disney's work, and the 1950s saw the demise of the Hollywood cartoon short, as few shorts were able to recoup their costs from theatrical runs due to the high cost of cartoon production. Although the big blockbuster studios in response to the introduction of "buy flower film", that is, to buy a strong film to the theater, at the same time require the other party to buy some of the other drama and a cartoon or newsreel, temporarily save the cartoon shorts out of the way, but later this sales tactic was banned by the High Court. As a result, the animation departments of the big companies were disbanded.

At this point, another new medium, ---- television, eased the cartooning dilemma. The big studios sold the broadcasting rights of their balloons to TV stations and amassed a lot of money, and the ratings for these constant reruns of the cartoons for more than 30 years were quite impressive and contributed to making TV cartoons the new form of production.

But because of the time pressures on TV, production was often in short supply, so it had to be produced in limited animation, and the scripts had to be flexible. The first to get TV cartoons off the rails was William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who had won an Oscar for a short film with Tom and Jerry, and in 1957, their new company released Rolf and Riddick, the adventures of a dog and a cat, in a much more limited style than the limited animation of the UPA, but in color and eloquent drawings, which were very well received by viewers. Then Yogi Bear, Mo, and other primitives followed, and TV cartoons became the new entertainment tool.

The 1960s were a dark period for American animation, as its presentation was stereotyped as a "weekend morning television show" and a "children's program". As the cost of production increased, the quantity became less and less, and the quality deteriorated, television stations gradually filled the void with films ---- This trend continues to this day.

After World War II, Japanese animation was in full swing, from Osamu Tezuka's cartoons to the development of Japanese-style cartoon animation, to the rise of Hayao Miyazaki; from the establishment of an individual independent production line, to the establishment of the animation industry, the Japanese animation is not only popular in the country's market, but also in the whole world has formed a whirlwind.

While the cartoons of the Hollywood studios went into decline, independent productions, advertising animators, and small studios in the United States and Europe emerged and developed particular aesthetics, notably the Zagreb Studios in Yugoslavia and the National Film Board in Canada.

After World War II, many animation studios were established in Eastern Europe, and animators had more freedom of expression, often referred to as the Zagreb school in Yugoslavia.

The Zagreb studio was founded in the mid-1950s by a group of artists and animators inspired by the UPA films. They experimented fully with limited animation, developing interesting stories and distinctive lines. For example, the animated short film that stood out in the Oscar jury in 1961 was based on Kandinsky's lines, which were free-flowing. The Zagreb school of animation is characterized by m people and shock, in the 1960s on the development of world animation and artistic play a profound impact.

The animation division of the National Film Board of Canada (NFBC) was established in 1942, unfolding under the auspices of the creative animator Norman McLarend. Although the NFBC was founded with the aim of "illustrating Canadians to Canada and beyond." But by the late 1960s, the Film Board had become a front-runner in transnational freelance animation. He recruited renowned animators from around the world, replacing Zagreb in the late 1960s as the home of animators who aspired to individual creativity, a position it still holds today.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the National Film Board of Canada produced an impressive record of animation, winning seven Oscars, including 1977's "Sandcastles," 1978's "Strange Journey" and 1979's "Every Child.

The late 1960s saw a resurgence of winter flowers in America. In an atmosphere of nostalgia, people revisited the golden age of animation in the '30s and '40s, and realized that the beauty of the full animation of that era could not be compared to the later TV cartoons that were produced in the form of "limited animation". The heartbeat of the old movies is due to these two films: 1967's Yellow Submarine and 1972's Fritz the Cat. The former for the Canadian animator George Donning directed, with all the animation techniques of the time, gathered the then red designers, the American Peter Marks, German Hans Eidumann invited **** with the participation. The film's bold color style of the Beatles' music, has constituted a pre-emptive momentum.

The 1960s and 1980s were a period of great development: the rise of the "author" and internationalization.

The "author" is an important figure in the animation medium, and this period saw the emergence of many talented animators. It is widely recognized that Polozik (Once Upon a Time, Mr. Teddy, Dom) and Shan Lenica (Adam II, A) are two of the major lighthouses that created the so-called "absurd animation" genre.

Internationalization was most evident in the emigration of artists' resources, such as Gene Deitch, Jean Lenica, and Valerin Polozic, formerly of Prague, who moved to Western Europe to work in France. In addition, multinational joint animation companies such as the mushrooming of more and more, and the trend of high labor costs of the country (such as the United States) and the cheaper foreign companies contracted companies.

Another striking phenomenon of the 1960s and 1980s was the increase in feature films, which seemed to come out of every country, most notably "One Thousand and One Nights," supervised by Osamu Tezuka and Eio Yamamoto, "Cleopatra," and the X-rated animated film "Fritz the Cat".

In the early 1970s, the U.S. animation industry was facing a crisis of a shortage of talent, and they began to offer talent training courses at studios around the world and animation courses at colleges and universities to give young people the opportunity to create animated films.

In addition to regular television, weekend morning cartoon programs, at this turning point, animation also moved toward the stunts of sci-fi films such as 2001 A Space Odyssey, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. The portrayal of the future world in sci-fi movies further contributed to the development and use of computer animation in feature films, commercials, and telecommunications networks.

As live-action films became more expensive to produce, animation became more cost-effective, especially for television commercials and special programs. As a result, new studios around the world are combining computers and traditional animation equipment in the production of everything from commercials to feature films, making them even more exciting. (A bit of Doha ..... Copied from ... Don't mind if I do ...)