Such animated colors you have

December 17, 2012 2:44 PM

Oswald Iten has a keen eye for the color design of animated films. You probably shouldn't be suprised by the fact that Hayao Miyazaki's animated features have extremely well thought-out color design. But did you know that the colors of Dumbo's 70th anniversary home video release are very different from from the earlier one? And have you ever thought about how animation background paintings would look like on their own? Also: puppet animation is included, too.
posted by dst (12 comments total)

And have you ever thought about how animation background paintings would look like on their own?

I can safely say I have. The two that stick with me even today are Sleeping Beauty and Bugs Bunny in Wackiki Wabbit.
posted by 2bucksplus at 3:04 PM on December 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

I have too. I once did a design project inspired by classic Warner Brothers animation. It's amazing stuff, with so much thought and artistry. Nice to see other people appreciate this stuff.
posted by Mcable at 3:15 PM on December 17, 2012

Subscribered. I love he has HUE SATURATION VALUE in the sidebar, just in case.

This blog sometimes posts stitched-together backgrounds from HB cartoons.
posted by RobotHero at 3:55 PM on December 17, 2012

I once did a design project inspired by classic Warner Brothers animation. It's amazing stuff, with so much thought and artistry.

I remember going on a bender with some of Chuck Jones' cartoons, particularly focusing on the incredible design and background work by Maurice Noble.

Behold.
posted by louche mustachio at 3:59 PM on December 17, 2012

Oh, this is great. When I was younger, I wanted to be a director, and one Christmas my grandmother gave me a book on shot composition, The Visual Story. It analyzed Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Apartment in the way Iten analyzes Laputa, and Iten has the benefit of color screenshots.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:01 PM on December 17, 2012

> the colors of Dumbo's 70th anniversary home video release

I do not at all remember that the background trees and bushes and so on of the Pastoral Symphony segment of the original Fantasia (which I saw in a theatrical release, though not the first theatrical release) were tarted up with Colors Not Found In Nature like a bag of Jolly Ranchers. I would have sworn with my dying breath that they were tree-green, grass-green, etc. But I was apparently dreaming because I cannot now find any evidence of any version of Fantasia of which that is true. If I saw it in some alternate time stream, how did I get here from there? More to the point, WTF was I thinking when I switched over?
posted by jfuller at 4:10 PM on December 17, 2012

2bucksplus, I think that Sleeping Beauty example is concept art, rather than from the actual movie, although a lot of that angularity remains in the final backgrounds. See this great resource of animation backgrounds. (As is often the case, I like the concept art better!)
posted by Kabanos at 4:17 PM on December 17, 2012

Love, love, love this. IIRC, the Pastoral section of Fantasia was tarted up with boysenberry jam (straight out of the jar) in places, because the color was right.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 4:57 PM on December 17, 2012

Ugh, the colors on ALL the DVDs have been shot to hell, and it just enrages me because these digital copies are going to be kicking around for ages.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 6:05 PM on December 17, 2012

Great post, thanks.
posted by smoke at 6:42 PM on December 17, 2012

"Stones Glowing in the Darkness" came up on my playlist just as I was reading the part about Uncle Pom underground. Kinda magical.
posted by jiawen at 9:39 PM on December 17, 2012

I'm terrible with colors ("I say these pants are green!"), so stuff like this is invaluable to me. And I love the kind of writing about film that helps you see them in a new way.

My only complaint is he hasn't done a series on Totoro.
posted by dst at 11:44 PM on December 17, 2012