Animate being

“ The immense gulf, popularly made between the animate and the inanimate, thus turns out to be an unfounded illusion; and the whole universe reveals itself as an unfathomable series, or congeries, of living personalities, united by the presence of the omnipresent ether which fills universal space. ”

“ The various forms of animated life present to him whose heart is at peace with God through the blood of his Son an indescribable charm. He sees in the calm beauties of nature such abundant provision for the welfare of humanity and animate existence. ”

“ Every savage observes not only that he casts a shadow, but that shadows attend all inanimate objects that stand so as to intercept the light, and as shadows move as do objects that gives rise to the idea of animation. Hence we have genii, dryads, naiads, ghosts, angels, demons, etc. To fortify this belief we have echoes, which give voice to animate and inanimate objects. Movement and voice are the universal accompaniment of animation. ”

“ Of the poems themselves, which we have heard, we can say but little, both because the pleasure and charm of the moment prevent the memory from retaining much; and because our constant occupations in business destroy many such recollections.
"In olden times, all nature must have been more animate and spiritual than now. Operations, which now animals scarcely seem to notice, and which men alone in reality feel and enjoy, then put animate bodies into motion; and it was thus possible for men of art to perform wonders and produce appearances, which now seem wholly incredible and fabulous. ”

“ To this sense of an intimate union between man and the rest of the animate creation have the writers of fables in all ages appealed, while imparting their lessons of prudence and virtue under the guise of transactions between birds and beasts and trees of the forest. ”

“ Acting on this property of matching one body into another, so as to all appearance to absorb it into itself, many curious dramatic effects may be produced, whether the subjects be animate or inanimate. And this mode of procedure is always in demand where the phantom is required to touch, handle, and repeat the actions of an ordinary actor. ”

“ Since he had already attributed human characteristics to matter, he naturally now observed no distinction between the animate and the inanimate, the material and the spiritual. A wooden image might be used to affect the fate of a human being, or the utterance of alluring and terrifying sounds to produce change in unfeeling and unresponsive matter. ”

“ Animism in the narrower sense is the theory of psychic concepts, and in the wider sense, of spiritual beings in general. Animatism, the animation theory of seemingly inanimate nature, is a further subdivision which also includes animatism and animism. ”

“ The beaming WEST invites me on, with smiles of vermil hue, And clouds of promise fill the sky, and deck its heavenly blue, There is no breeze—there is no sign, in ocean, earth or sky, That does not swell my breast with hope, or animate my eye. ”

“ They gratify a proper human longing and they strike a responsive chord in the consciousness. Now there is another kind of appeal, in the matter of satisfying a human need, to which animated screen drawings can be put. ”

“ He replied with a little annoyance.
"Words, nothing but smoke screens to conceal a bankruptcy of the thought process. How on earth do you propose I make love to every woman alive, explore every crevice of this earth? Surely, you aren't serious with this mumble about animating characters. I propose to let the characters speak of real ingredients through the force of actual events."
"Animation is for cartoons, not serious playwrights. I'm surprised at you," he went on. "What you are advocating is a bilateral pool of shared traits. ”

“ THAT beneath all great art there has been a definite animating purpose, a single and profound desire to reach a specific goal, has been but vaguely sensed by the general public and by the great majority of critics. And there are, I believe, but very few persons not directly and seriously concerned with the production of pictures, who realise that this animating purpose has for its aim the solution of the profoundest problems of the creative will, that it is rooted deeply in the æsthetic consciousness, and that its evolution marks one of the most complex phases of human psychology. ”

“ Some of the heaviest heads began to nod in time, and a degree of animation looked from some of the palest eyes. Humanly speaking, it is a more important matter to play the fiddle, even badly, than to write huge works upon recondite subjects. ”

“ As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first animated feature-length film, we can be grateful for the art of film animation , which brings to the screen such magic and lasting vitality. We can also be grateful for the contribution that animation has made to producing so many family films during the last half-century-films embodying the fundamental values of good over evil, courage, and decency that Americans so cherish. Through animation, we have witnessed the wonders of nature, ancient fables, tales of American heroes, and stories of youthful adventure. ”

“ When the first animated cartoons were produced and an effect with balloons was intended, the artist thought that he was doing well enough if he showed the lettering and merely had the person supposed to be speaking standing motionless. But now an artist who cares enough for his craft to put as much business into the scenes as possible will show the lips moving and the arms gesticulating at the same time that the lettering appears. ”

“ Yet when those arts, that skill, of which even the success teaches not the principle, even the process discovers not the secret resources, draw back, by means intelligible and visible, but through causes indefinable, the fleeting breath to its corporeal habitation; animation instantly returns, and the soul, with all its powers, revives! ”

“ nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter. ”

“ ON MOVEMENT IN THE HUMAN FIGURE Having now chronicled in a brief way the development of the cinematographic art, particularly in its relation to animated screen drawings, and having tried to give some notion of the fundamentals in their making with an account of their exhibition on the screen, it is in order now that we consider the matter of movement and its depiction by drawings that will give the visional synthesis of life. ”

“ This idea of a cumulative chain of actions, increasing in force and resultant misfortune, is peculiarly adapted to animated drawings.
The animator, if he is a good draftsman, can manage his little picture people much easier than the theatrical manager does the members of his company. A great danger, nevertheless, is that the animator, with this facility of doing whatever he pleases with his characters, may overdo the matter. He must be careful that he does not create too much business for his actors, and so retard the sequence of those episodes proper to the plot. ”

“ If these have no effect, let him listen, with mute attention, to the occasional symphonies, which burst from a thousand strings, and accompany, and give life and animation to the Comic scene—and then, if sunk below the brute creation, let him be fortified against the impressions of sensibility. ”

“ The cartoon, which, as usual in modern German art, is superior to the ultimate picture, was executed in the artist’s prime at the age of thirty. At this period, as here seen, the knowledge was little short of absolute; subtle is the sense of beauty; playful, delicate, firm the touch; the whole treatment artistic. ”

“ The most frequent application that an animated cartoon artist makes of a vignetter is making cross dissolves, or causing one picture to blend into another. Imagine now that the idea to be expressed, through the medium of one of these cross dissolves, is that of a character standing in an attitude of reflection and supposed to be thinking of how he would look in a complete suit of armor. There will be two drawings: one with the figure in ordinary dress, and the other with him clad in the armor. ”

“ We can readily imagine that it must cost the artist a great deal to sacrifice the eye in its simple aspect of animation. We have only to look a man in the eyes to discover a point of arrest, a centre that explains and is basic to his entire presentment, which we may grasp in its simplest terms from the unifying declaration of its bare look. The eye-glance is in fact that aspect which is most steeped in soul; it is the [Pg 149] concentration of the inward life and its subjective emotion. ”

“ When the positive is entirely finished, with main title and subtitles, it is ready for screen examination. Then only will the artist be able to see, as a finality, his skill as an animator, his expertness as a technical worker, his cleverness as a humorist, and the extent of his adroitness in plot construction. ”

“ The bending heavens arching so grandly over us, so studded with sparkling joy-lights, and animated with the eternal cotillion of the skies, invites to no such irreverent repining. Creation's wide field of animated existence inspires no such moodiness and fretfulness of spirit. ”

“ The animated cartoon artist, instead of using real people, objects, or views to take on his film, must make a number of related drawings, on every one of which there must be a change in a proper, [58] progressive, and graduated order. These drawings are placed under a camera and photographed in their sequence, the film developed and the resultant negative used to make a positive film. This is used, as we know, for screen projection. ”

“ If the spirit of animation was always necessarily penetrable, it could not influence or be influenced by the solidity of common matter; they would exist together, but could not detrude each other from the part of space, where they exist ”

“ Tenniel’s depictions, more than the ordinary qualifications of a screen draftsman.
As in the rough-and-tumble antics of the rustic clown little refinement is either prevalent or expected, so in the ordinary comic animated cartoon exquisiteness of drawing is neither found nor ordinarily looked for. But in a story with fineness of wit, and told artistically, it is obligatory that its interpretation be of a corresponding quality. It is necessary, in other words, that the artist be good at figure work and especially skilful in drawing difficult actions and perspective walks. ”

“ Perhaps one of the reasons why those crudely executed white on black animated cartoons—alluded to in a preceding chapter—are so laugh-provoking is that they represent the characters performing their antics more or less mechanically. A windmill effect, a twirling, a spinning, and a merry-go-round movement are of striking import in animated cartoons. ”

“ The modern pantomime, therefore, with its universal hash of fun and frolic, of fairies and fiends, deities and dragons, of ghosts, goblins, and giants, of burlesque and ballet, painting and punning, of music and mountebanking, responds most accurately to the classical etymon. ”

“ Animated nature and animated art make a stunning combination, especially when the combination is all in active operation, as it generally is about two o clock in the afternoon and eight o’clock in the evening. Then one can enjoy the howls of the animals, the rush and scurry of the arena, the rattlebang of the band, and the delight of ten thousand people, without stopping to discriminate. It is something for the veteran showman to say he has been able to stir the metropolis with his caravan as other and less indifferent villages are stirred by smaller shows. ”

“ So graphic and skilful is his method, so animated is his style, so vivid and real does he make the scenes, the surroundings, and the phenomena of his subject, that, while we might dispense wholly with the exercise of the imagination, we find that it has actually beguiled us into its most effective exercise by persuading us that we have seen and shared in many of the personages and incidents of the narrative. ”

“ But it doesn’t worry the skilled animator very much whether he makes three, five, or even more [181] drawings between the extreme positions of any gesture or action. Nevertheless, while the artist is making these arm movements he must put thought into the work. There is, for instance, a certain matter with respect to drawing the relative axes of the segments of a limb that requires reflective attention. ”

“ Magic, the technique of animism, clearly and unmistakably shows the tendency of forcing the laws of psychic life upon the reality of things, under conditions where spirits did not yet have to play any role, and could still be taken as objects of magic treatment. The assumptions of magic are therefore of older origin than the spirit theory, which forms the nucleus of animism. ”

“ Whether or not there is a generous motive at the root, a desire to share and impart, or whether the animation is purely that of insensate fervour and friction, the effect, while it lasts, certainly encourages those who are young, and those who are ignorant, to think the world one great bazaar, with banners fluttering and divans heaped with spoils from every quarter of the globe for their delight. ”

“ If, however, this aspect of deportment is carried forward by artistic means to a degree of expression, that it can dispense with speech, we have the art of pantomime, which resolves the rhythmical movement of poetry in a harmonious and picturesque motion of limbs, and in this, so to speak, plastic music of bodily position and movement gives animated life in the dance to the tranquil and cold figures of sculpture, that it may essentially unite by such means music and the plastic art. ”

“ These figures must be slowly passed along, one after the other, in the manner you wish the shadows to fall on the curtain. It is easy to make them advance, retreat, &c., while you hold conversation for them. Those who are skillful in the use of these shadows, can make them represent a battle, game, contra dance, &c. The figures of inanimate things must not be moved; birds can be suspended on the ends of strings, and swung about irregularly, from time to time. The effect is not unlike a magic lantern. When the actors have played long enough, they must change places with the spectators. ”