Characteristic features of modern animation. Children's animation in Russia and the USSR
Cartoons, both Russian and foreign, are loved by people of all ages, not just children. But we don’t think much about how the cartoon appeared, who invented it, what was the first cartoon created in Russia, and more. If you already want to choose an interesting animated story for you or your child, enjoy a fairy-tale storyline and just relax, then you can do this on the portal, where a huge selection of cartoons is presented.
The history of Russian animation is very rich, and it can be divided into several main periods. In any case, the largest period was during the Soviet era, when the creators were mainly Soyuzmultfilm and Ekran.
Alexander Shiryaev became the first animator in Russia, this happened in 1960. It is he who is the father of the first puppet cartoon, where the story talks about twelve dancing little figures, while the scenery of the picture remained unchanged and motionless. The unique first cartoon was shot on 15.5 millimeter film; the author spent three months to release it.
Graphic animation was born between 1924 and 1925. During this period of time, the Kultkino studio, together with a small staff, was able to show the country a huge range of animated films, which includes such works as “The Story of a Disappointment”, “Humoresques”, “An Incident in Tokyo”, “German Affairs and Deeds” and much more other. At this time, the first technologies appeared that help speed up the process of creating cartoons.
Back in 1934, the famous corporation from the United States of America, Walt Disney, sent a roll of film to the Moscow Film Festival. This tape contained everyone's favorite cartoon with Mickey Mouse. Fyodor Khitruk talks about the moment when he saw how quickly personnel was changing, it was amazing that such new opportunities were closed to Russians. Based on this interest, the famous Soyuzmultfilm studio appeared in 1935, whose employees carefully studied Western technologies and capabilities.
But it was only in 1952 that Soviet animators and directors were able to create a complete analogue of Disney's multi-plane camera. In 1953, the cartoon “Naughty Kitten”, Kashtanka, was released. All these cartoons carried both artistic and educational value. This period was marked by a large number of masterpieces, one of which is “The Snow Queen”.
If we talk about the seventies, then the adaptation of animated films was carried out by such studios as the Ekran studio, the Sverdlovsk film studio and many other regional studios. The most famous film at this time was “Polygon”, authored by Anatoly Petrov. In the eighties, the first film was released that was completely drawn - this is “The Secret of the Third Planet”.
Today in Russia there are three largest and most significant studios: Pilot, Melnitsa and the Master Film Film Company. In 2006, Soyuzmultfilm began to regain one of the leading positions.
Soviet animation is precisely that part of mass culture that the USSR could rightfully be proud of.
The history of domestic animation began in St. Petersburg, at the beginning of the 20th century, when in 1908 the first “experience” was obtained by the choreographer of the Mariinsky Theater, Mr. Shiryaev. His puppet cartoons are still a mystery to art critics; the figures against the background of motionless scenery not only move, but also jump.
The world-famous biologist Viktor Starevich has long been considered a pioneer of Russian animation. In 1912-1913, he made a series of puppet cartoons “featuring” insects. His most famous cartoon is “Beautiful Lyukanida, or the War of the Barbels with the Horned Horns.” After the revolution, Starevich left the country, and animation in the USSR found its use only in the early 20s in propaganda cartoon videos.
The first hand-drawn Soviet animation appeared in the mid-20s. And by the end of the 20s - early 30s, graphic artists at the Kultkino studio were producing the most memorable Soviet animated films of that period. The works of animators Ivanov-Vano “Rink” (1927) and Khodateev “Organchik” (1933) are the first serious sources of Soviet animation.
Of course, director Alexander Ptushko is considered a recognized master artist standing at the origins of Soviet animation. He gained worldwide fame in 1935 after filming the first full-length cartoon in the USSR, “The New Gulliver,” which successfully combined animation and feature films. Soon Ptushko headed the first Soviet animation studio, Soyuzdetmultfilm. Even when he devoted himself entirely to cinematography, he used animation in films for special effects.
In the 40s and 50s, during the heyday of socialist realism in the USSR, truly masterpieces of hand-drawn animation were produced at Soviet studios. All the cartoons were so realistic that little viewers perceived them as “children's movies.” Soviet animation of that time is not just beautiful, it is highly moral and carries enormous educational power. “Cat House”, “The Ugly Duckling”, “Kashtanka”, “Naughty Kitten”, “Moidodyr”, “The Scarlet Flower”, “The Snow Queen” - all new generations of children enjoy watching these cartoons, which are in no way inferior to the production of the film studio " Disney."
During the thaw period from the mid-50s, Soviet animators devoted themselves to experiments in full. There is a lot of avant-garde, symbolic secular animation coming out. The most famous cartoon made in a similar manner is “Cloud in Love” (1959), animators Karanovic and Kachanov.
At that time, hand-drawn animation was mixed with cut-out animation in combination with puppet animation. And I must say that this range of technology is somewhat difficult for children to perceive.
In the 60s, the famous Soviet cartoon “Mitten” by Roman Kachanov was released. A puppet cartoon in which a knitted mitten turns into a real puppy, thanks to the love of a little girl, could not leave either children or adults indifferent.
And in 1967, Kachanov made a puppet cartoon about Gena the Crocodile, which literally “exploded” with popularity among the Soviet children’s audience and continues its victorious march to this day. Children of our time love Crocodile Gena and Cheburashka just as much as they did almost 50 years ago.
Fyodor Khitruk is recognized as one of the most outstanding animators of the Soviet period. He worked in different genres and styles, produced cartoons for children and adults and gave many generations of children the inimitable Winnie the Pooh, whose image eclipsed all foreign analogues with its character.
In Soviet animation, the most significant figure is still the artist Yuri Norshtein. His cartoons “Hedgehog in the Fog” (1975) and “The Overcoat” (1981 to this day) are the gold fund of world animation.
And, of course, to this day in domestic animation, having eclipsed all records of popularity in terms of views and circulation, the first place is occupied by the animated series “Well, wait a minute!” (60s-80s), the result of the creative union of animator V. Kotenochkin and screenwriters A. Khait and A. Kurlyandsky.
A huge part of the success of Soviet animation is the merit of famous Soviet actors. In the voices of Yanina Zheimo, Andrey Mironov, Anatoly Papanov, Vasily Livanov, Oleg Tabakov, Evgeny Leonov, Alisa Freindlich, Oleg Anofriev, Alexander Kalyagin, Vladimir Vysotsky, Gennady Khazanov, Klara Rumyanova, Olga Arosyeva, Mikhail Kazakov, Vyacheslav Nevinny, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan and others meters of Russian cinema, the most notable characters of Soviet animation are voiced.
Victoria Maltseva
In Russia, the first steps in creating animation were taken at the beginning of the 20th century, just like in the West. There was no celluloid in our country, so two methods were used: “landscape” - drawing on plain paper, and puppet animation. The process was quite labor-intensive because the scenery and characters had to be manually redrawn from one sheet of paper to another.
One of the pioneers of Russian animation was beetle lover Vladislav Starevich. He quite clearly and naturally managed to convey the details and individual features of his characters, which were insects.
The arrival of socialist ideology in Russia affected literally everything, including cinema and even animation. If in all other countries animation developed as an entertaining art, in the USSR the first cartoons immediately acquired a political connotation. V. Mayakovsky was one of the first to express ideology in animation. He tried to revive the scenes from his “Windows of GROWTH”.
The first attempts at creating cartoons did not bring much fame to their authors. The formation of this type of creativity occurred in the 30s. At the same time, in 1936, not without the participation of the Komsomol Central Committee, the first and most famous animation studio, Soyuzmultfilm, appeared in Moscow.
Animation courses were opened at the studio. Their graduates included such famous cartoon creators as F. Khitruk, B. Dezhkin, R. Davydov, G. Kozlov and others.
In the period from 40 to 60, many bright names and their famous works appeared in the history of Soviet animation. These are the cartoons “Puck, Puck” by B. Dezhkin, “Golden Antelope” and “The Snow Queen” by L. Atamanov, and the later “Who Said Meow” by N. Degtyarev. All these works can rightfully be called classics of Soviet animation.
Soviet cartoons, as before, could hardly be called entertaining creativity, or special art for children. All of them had a kind of satirical and philosophical overtones. Separately, we can highlight the director Yu. Norshtein, whose works “Hedgehog in the Fog” and “Tale of Tales” received worldwide recognition over time.
Yuri Norshtein
Subsequently, Russian animation acquired many original and effective techniques. Cartoons were not only drawn, but also sculpted from plasticine, bent from wire, and sprinkled with sand and coffee.
In the Soviet years, the “Iron Curtain” prevented the global recognition of Russian animation, but today we can be proud of the work of our animators; their work is appreciated both in Russia and abroad.
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The first cartoon appeared in Russia in 1910. It was created by director Vladislav Starevich. This cartoon was about beetles and was not at all like what we were used to seeing. It was filmed for educational purposes: the first Russian animator did not intend to entertain young viewers at all, he wanted to create a documentary about beetles. However, during filming, he encountered a problem - when he set the right light, the beetles refused to move. Then Vladislav Starevich made stuffed beetles, attached strings to them and shot the film frame by frame. This picture was called the first puppet cartoon. Starevich produced several more similar insect-themed cartoons, but now he used real scripts. These cartoons were very popular among viewers - many did not understand how the pictures were made and were surprised at how the author managed to train the beetles in such a way.
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Real cartoons appeared a few years later during the Soviet years. The first cartoon with sound - "Mail" - was based on the work of Samuil Marshak in 1930. The author of the script was Marshak himself. Soviet animators began working with color in the late 1930s. Already the first experiments ended successfully - such color films as “Sweet Pie” (1936), “Little Red Riding Hood” (1937) and “Little Mook” (1939) appeared on the screens of the country.
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In the post-war period, Soviet animation not only quickly recovered, but also continued to develop rapidly. At this time, domestic cartoons began to slowly but surely enter the world animation arena. The most notable films of that period are “Sinbad the Sailor”, “The Lost Letter”, “Spring Melodies” and “The Little Humpbacked Horse”.
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Creating a cartoon is a long and painstaking work of many people. In the mid-50s, cartoons were made in large groups: about 20-30 people worked on just one 8-minute cartoon. The group was divided into the following categories: -Director (manages the entire project) -Producer (pays expenses) -Scriptwriters (think through every frame of the cartoon) -Artists (make the cartoon beautiful) -Composers (select the music)
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One cartoon took from 3 months to 1 year to create. Any cartoon begins with a script. It takes a long time to write and is difficult, the dialogues change several times, some scenes are thrown out completely. And only when the whole film has been put together on paper can it be drawn.
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What the cartoon characters will look like in profile and from the front, front and back, what they look like in motion is decided by the film's production designer. He has to draw so much that an enormous number of pencils are worn out in a day.
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Then animators join the game, under whose hands the cartoon characters come to life. For example, in order for the hero to raise his hand, animators need to draw a considerable number of frames. There are 25 of them in one second. And if the cartoon lasts an hour and a half, you will need to create 135,000 frames.
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The result of the animators' work is picked up by the rendering artists. As a result, we have a color film. But there are not only heroes on the screen, they are surrounded by trees and cities. All these backgrounds are created by many other artists.
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And the most interesting thing is how the characters talk. The entire dialogue is recorded on a voice recorder. Then they count the time (down to milliseconds) per word in the dialogue. And under each letter you need to draw a mouth. So the characters move their mouths with each word. The actors' voices are recorded before the animators start working, that is, the characters first have voices, and only then they begin to animate them based on their lines. And what would a cartoon be without music and songs?
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The most common technology for creating cartoons is animation. Animation is the magical technology that makes inanimate objects move. For animation, the main thing is to create actions and effects that are impossible in reality. Only in this fairy-tale world can you fly, change your appearance, and recreate yourself. The animation of objects looks magical. It’s amazing how small grains of sand can form a sand castle on their own, or how a pencil can suddenly, without anyone’s influence, begin to draw bizarre images on paper.
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They can’t come to a common opinion, what was the very first cartoon in the world? Three cartoons at once can lay claim to the palm. These are "Phantasmagoria" by Emile Cohl, as well as "The Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" and "The Haunted Hotel" by James Stuart Blackton. Even before 1900, J. Stewart Blackton, along with Thomas Edison, made "moving drawings" and filmed them, thereby combining film techniques with graphics. The resulting film was called "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" and was presented to the French public on April 6, 1906.
Using the same dynamic animation technique, Blackton created another film in 1907, The Haunted Hotel. But in our understanding, these cartoons were still very imperfect, and only demonstrated some of the capabilities of the animation technique, which was then called the “American Movement.”
Later, these possibilities were used by the French cartoonist Emile Colas in the cartoon Phantasmagoria, shown by Gaumont in August 1908. Although “Phantasmagoria” lasts only one and a half minutes, many experts consider it to be the first full-fledged cartoon in the world. It was drawn on white paper and filmed in negative, with light lines on a dark background creating an unusual effect.
The first cartoons of Russia and the USSR
By the way, the very first cartoon was made in Russia in 1912, and first soviet cartoon published in 1924. It was called “Soviet Toys” and, of course, promoted the Soviet system.
It came out in 1928 and was called Plane Crazy. Disney's very first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, premiered on December 21, 1937. It was a cinematic sensation. In the same year, for his first cartoon, Walt Disney received one full-length and seven small (according to the number of dwarves) Oscar statuettes. Since February 4, 1938, this cartoon has been widely released and to this day occupies a high place among the best animated films.
