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Cartoon Roots: The Bray Studios - Animation Pioneers (Blu-ray) |
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Cartoon Roots: The Bray Studios - Animation Pioneers (Blu-ray)
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| Other // Unrated // August 1, 2016 // Region A |
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List Price: $18.95 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
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Review by John Sinnott |
posted September 18, 2016 |
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The Cartoons:
When it comes to early animation, The Bray Studios are the most
influential and innovative production company that you've never
heard of. Not only did the studio create ways of streamlining the
animation process that cut costs drastically, but it also was the
home, if only temporarily, to such animation luminaries as Max
Fleischer (Betty Boop, Popeye, and Superman (1940s)), Paul Terry
(Mighty Mouse, Heckle & Jeckle), and Walter Lantz (Woody
Woodpecker). Cartoons on Film has now released a magnificent
collection of this studio's output on Blu-ray and DVD. Entitled Cartoon
Roots: The Bray Studios this set of films is a wonderful
introduction to the studio and their films.
J.R. Bray was a cartoonist who started drawing one-panel gags and
strips for magazines and newspapers in New York in the early 1900's.
He had a hit with his strip Little Johnny and His Teddy Bears, and
the income from that allowed him to pursue his other passion:
animation. Winsor McCay created a sensation with his animated film Gertie
the Dinosaur (1914) but his process was very time consuming
and labor intensive: he drew each an entire image for each frame of
film by hand. Gertie took him 10,000 drawings and nearly a year to
create, even with the help of an assistant. McCay would use rice
paper for his drawings, which made it easy to trace the backgrounds
so that they would match up. Even so, they jiggled a bit since the
tracing wasn't perfect and the lines would be off very slightly.
This is where Bray (who is reported to have visited McCay at his
studio where the master cartoonist showed the younger Bray how he
created his famous film) was able to streamline the process. Instead
of tracing the backgrounds, he duplicated them onto the paper with a
zinc etching process. This not only removed the jittery lines, but
saved an enormous amount of time. Bray was issued a patent for this
innovation.
With his time-saving technique he created his first cartoon, The
Artist's Dream. A mixture of live action and animation, it
tells the simple story of an artist whose drawing comes to life
while he's out of the room. Bray took the completed film to Pathe,
and they not only bought it, but contracted Bray for six more
cartoons.
With contract in hand, Bray hired a group of artists to create the
films which he decided would be a series of shorts following the
misadventures of a newly created character (a first for animated
films), Colonel Heeza Liar. (The second Liar film is included in
this collection.) While Bray worked on the business side of things,
he also had a great eye for talent and hired an impressive lineup of
animators including Max Fleischer, Paul Terry, and Walter Lantz.
Unfortunately, animation lost its appeal in the 1920's and the Bray
Studios focused more on the more profitable industrial and
educational films. The studio survived much longer than most of its
contemporaries though, churning out product in one form or another
until it eventually closed in 1983.
As for the content in this collection, it is great. A nice overview
of the studio's output, there are some wonderfully bizarre shorts as
well as some standard gag pieces. There is a very early Out of
the Inkwell - Koko the Clown cartoon created by Max and Dave
Fleischer. This mixture of live-action and rotoscoped animation
(where an actor, in this case Dave, is filmed acting out the scenes
and then the cartoon character is animated using the live-action as
a template. This leads to very realistic and fluid movement) has the
famous clown being pestered by a fly. Another live-action/animation
mashup is The Lunch Hound featuring Walter Lantz. In this
slightly surreal adventure, Lantz discovers that his house lady has
quit, which means that he and the animation project he's working on,
a Pete the Pup cartoon, have to find their own dinner. While Pete
explores his animated world, Walter goes into the strange world of
his kitchen. Here bacon crawls out of the pan (so he uses
clothespins to secure it) and eggs fight over who is to be the first
to be fried. Like the other Lantz live-action/animated short The
Pied Piper, this film is so much fun because of Lantz'
over-the-top acting. They are both a riot.
Another film of note that's included in this collection is 1915's Diplodocus.
It shouldn't surprise me that this film exists, after all, many
popular shorts were refilmed by other companies in the early days of
cinema, but this is basically a rip-off of Gertie the Dinosaur.
Without intertitles, this was obviously intended to be shown with a
narrator on stage instructing the dinosaur on what to do, like Gertie
was originally presented. It's smoother than the original, and
interesting in its own right, but still a direct copy of the more
famous work.
There's a lot of discover in this collection: A wacky comedy about
two men who want to buy a corset for one of their wives, but are
embarrassed to be seen going into the store so they dress in drag; a
semi-comic look at how cartoons are created from 1919; an
experimental movie that films liquids mixing and creates art out of
the images; and a Krazy Kat cartoon where Ingatz the mouse bets
against himself in a boxing match since he's intending to take a
fall, but Krazy is determined to make him win. It's an entertaining
collection that is long overdue.
The Blu-ray:
This combo pack includes 15 cartoons on both DVD and Blu-ray.
There's an informative 12-page booklet with notes on each film
enclosed.
Video:
The image quality is generally excellent. While it should be
remembered that most of these films are over 100 years old, they are
all clear and easy on the eyes. The lines are tight as a rule and
the contrast is very good overall. While a couple are a little on
the light side and there is a bit of nitrate deterioration on one of
two, these look much better than I was expecting they would.
Audio:
All of these films have musical accompaniment by the likes of Robert
Israel and Charlie Judkins. There were a couple of shorts where
prerecorded music from the time period was used along with sound
effects, instead of newly composed scores. While to purist in me was
prepared to hate those tracks, I have to admit that I really enjoyed
them. The sound effects really added a lot to the viewing experience
and I enjoyed the old music too.
Extras:
This collection is just filled with extras. There's really a lot of
great stuff here. There is a short from the 1950's where J. R. Bray
is awarded a citation by the US Army for the role he played in
training troops during WWI (he invented the training film!). There
are a few audio conversations with J.R. Bray recorded in 1973 that
are used as commentary tracks, and some comments by his grandson
too. There are the reminiscences of a man who worked at the studio
in the 50's, along with a featurette discussing how the Bray Studio
transferred many of the old films they made to 16mm for the home
market.
There are also a couple of galleries filled with vintage publicity
and reviews along with unused drawings and production documents.
It's all great stuff.
Final Thoughts:
This set is an impressive and important overview of an undeservedly
forgotten animation studio. Filled with some creative and funny
films along with copious extras and informative liner notes, no fan
of animation should miss this collection. It's one of the best discs
I've seen this year and gets the DVD Talk Collector Series
Rating.
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