All posts tagged: animated

See Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Visualized in Colorfully Animated Scores

See Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Visualized in Colorfully Animated Scores

Music is often described as the most abstract of all the arts, and arguably the least visu­al as well. But these qual­i­ties, which seem so basic to the nature of the form, have been chal­lenged for at least three cen­turies, not least by com­posers them­selves. Take Anto­nio Vival­di, whose Le quat­tro sta­gioni, or The Four Sea­sons, of 1718–1720 evoke not just broad impres­sions of the epony­mous parts of the year, but a vari­ety of nat­ur­al and human ele­ments char­ac­ter­is­tic to them. In the course of less than an hour, its lis­ten­ers — whether of the ear­ly eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry or the ear­ly twen­ty-first — “see” spring, sum­mer, autumn, and win­ter unfold vivid­ly before their mind’s eye. Now, com­pos­er Stephen Mali­nows­ki has visu­al­ized The Four Sea­sons in an entire­ly dif­fer­ent way. As pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture, he uses his Music Ani­ma­tion Machine to cre­ate what we might call graph­i­cal scores, which abstract­ly rep­re­sent the instru­men­tal parts that make up wide­ly loved clas­si­cal com­po­si­tions in time with the music itself. On this page, you can watch …

The Sinking of the Britannic: An Animated Introduction to the Titanic’s Forgotten Sister Ship

The Sinking of the Britannic: An Animated Introduction to the Titanic’s Forgotten Sister Ship

We all know about the Titan­ic. Less often do we hear about the Bri­tan­nic—the sis­ter pas­sen­ger lin­er that the British turned into a hos­pi­tal ship dur­ing World War I. Launched in 1914, two years after the Titan­ic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Bri­tan­nic fea­tured a num­ber of safe­ty improve­ments. It had enhanced water­tight com­part­ments, an increased num­ber of lifeboats, and improved ven­ti­la­tion and escape routes. Those refine­ments paid div­i­dends when the Bri­tan­nic struck a Ger­man naval mine in 1916, then sank near the Greek island of Kea. Of the 1,066 peo­ple on board, most man­aged to escape on lifeboats and only 30 peo­ple ulti­mate­ly lost their lives. (An esti­mat­ed 1,500 peo­ple died on the Titan­ic.) The ani­ma­tion above tells the tale of the Bri­tan­nic in an hour, rough­ly the same time that the ship took to slip into the sea. If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon. If you would like to sup­port the …

Watch the Surrealist Glass Harmonica, the Only Animated Film Ever Banned by Soviet Censors (1968)

Watch the Surrealist Glass Harmonica, the Only Animated Film Ever Banned by Soviet Censors (1968)

The Sovi­et Union’s repres­sive state cen­sor­ship went to absurd lengths to con­trol what its cit­i­zens read, viewed, and lis­tened to, such as the almost com­i­cal removal of purged for­mer com­rades from pho­tographs dur­ing Stalin’s reign. When it came to aes­thet­ics, Stal­in­ism most­ly purged more avant-garde ten­den­cies from the arts and lit­er­a­ture in favor of didac­tic Social­ist Real­ism. Even dur­ing the rel­a­tive­ly loose peri­od of the Khrushchev/Brezhnev Thaw in the 60s, sev­er­al artists were sub­ject to “severe cen­sor­ship” by the Par­ty, writes Keti Chukhrov at Red Thread, for their “’abuse’ of mod­ernist, abstract and for­mal­ist meth­ods.” But one oft-exper­i­men­tal art form thrived through­out the exis­tence of the Sovi­et Union and its vary­ing degrees of state con­trol: ani­ma­tion. “Despite cen­sor­ship and pres­sure from the Com­mu­nist gov­ern­ment to adhere to cer­tain Social­ist ideals,” writes Pol­ly Dela Rosa in a short his­to­ry, “Russ­ian ani­ma­tion is incred­i­bly diverse and elo­quent.” Many ani­mat­ed Sovi­et films were express­ly made for pro­pa­gan­da purposes—such as the very first Sovi­et ani­ma­tion, Dzi­ga Vertov’s Sovi­et Toys, below, from 1924. But even these dis­play a range of tech­ni­cal …

Orson Welles Narrates an Animated Parable About How Xenophobia & Greed Will Put America Into Decline (1971)

Orson Welles Narrates an Animated Parable About How Xenophobia & Greed Will Put America Into Decline (1971)

More than 50 years and 10 pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tions have passed since Orson Welles nar­rat­ed Free­dom Riv­er (1971). And while it shows signs of age, the ani­mat­ed film, a para­ble about the role of immi­gra­tion, race, and wealth in Amer­i­ca, still res­onates today. Actu­al­ly, giv­en the cyn­i­cal exploita­tion of xeno­pho­bia dur­ing this most unpres­i­den­tial of pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns, you could say that Free­dom River strikes a big­ger chord than it has in years. That’s why we’re fea­tur­ing the ani­ma­tion once again on Open Cul­ture. The back­sto­ry behind the film deserves a lit­tle men­tion. Accord­ing to Joseph Cavel­la, a writer for the film, it took a lit­tle cajol­ing and per­se­ver­ance to get Orson Welles involved in the film. For sev­er­al years, Bosus­tow Pro­duc­tions had asked Orson Welles, then liv­ing in Paris, to nar­rate one of their films. He nev­er respond­ed. When I fin­ished the Free­dom Riv­er script, we sent it to him togeth­er with a portable reel to reel tape recorder and a siz­able check and crossed our fin­gers. He was either des­per­ate for mon­ey or (I would …

How a 16th-Century Explorer’s Sailing Ship Worked: An Animated Video Takes You on a Comprehensive Tour

How a 16th-Century Explorer’s Sailing Ship Worked: An Animated Video Takes You on a Comprehensive Tour

These days, it feels as if you can’t go very long at all before scrolling past anoth­er announce­ment about some new tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment (real­ized or sched­uled) relat­ed to space explo­ration. Some react to this by won­der­ing what could pos­si­bly be out there in the uni­verse to jus­ti­fy such enor­mous­ly cap­i­tal- and research-inten­sive projects. Cen­turies ago, sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments were no doubt voiced about the more adven­tur­ous kinds of sea­far­ing. In the new Ani­ma­graffs video above, you can see all that went into the con­struc­tion and equip­ment of a six­teenth-cen­tu­ry explor­er’s sail­ing ship in great detail, from the keel to the fish davit. The par­tic­u­lar ship you see bro­ken down into its con­stituent parts in this video nev­er actu­al­ly exist­ed. But it may look famil­iar, espe­cial­ly if you’ve seen the recon­struc­tion in Lon­don of Gold­en Hind, the galleon in which Fran­cis Drake cir­cum­nav­i­gat­ed the world in the fif­teen-sev­en­ties. The video’s cre­ator Jacob O’Neal drew a good deal of inspi­ra­tion from that par­tic­u­lar ship, but also incor­po­rat­ed oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics bor­rowed from the Mary Rose, the Mayflower, Swe­den’s Vas­sa, …

Watch The Idea, the First Animated Film to Deal with Big, Philosophical Ideas (1932)

Watch The Idea, the First Animated Film to Deal with Big, Philosophical Ideas (1932)

A vague sense of dis­qui­et set­tled over Europe in the peri­od between World War I and World War II. As the slow burn of mil­i­tant ultra­na­tion­al­ism min­gled with jin­go­ist pop­ulism, author­i­tar­i­an lead­ers and fas­cist fac­tions found mount­ing sup­port among a cit­i­zen­ry hun­gry for cer­tain­ty. Europe’s grow­ing trep­i­da­tion fos­tered some of the 20th century’s most strik­ing painter­ly, lit­er­ary, and cin­e­mat­ic depic­tions of the total­i­tar­i­an­ism that would soon fol­low. It was almost inevitable that this peri­od would see the birth of the first deeply philo­soph­i­cal ani­mat­ed film, known as The Idea. The Idea first emerged as a word­less nov­el in 1920, drawn by Frans Masereel. Masereel, a close friend of Dadaist and New Objec­tivist artist George Grosz, had cre­at­ed a stark, black-and-white sto­ry about the indomitable nature of ideas. Employ­ing thick, aggres­sive lines obtained through wood­cut print­ing, Masereel depict­ed a con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal order’s fight against the birth of a new idea, which even­tu­al­ly flour­ished in spite of the establishment’s relent­less attempts to sup­press it. Set­ting to work in 1930, a Czech film­mak­er named Berthold Bar­tosch spent two …

Watch Fantasmagorie, the World’s First Animated Cartoon (1908)

Watch Fantasmagorie, the World’s First Animated Cartoon (1908)

Try­ing to describe the plot of Fan­tas­magorie, the world’s first ani­mat­ed car­toon, is a fol­ly akin to putting last night’s dream into words: I was dressed as a clown and then I was in a the­ater, except I was also hid­ing under this lady’s hat, and the guy behind us was pluck­ing out the feath­ers, and I was maybe also a jack in the box? And I had a fish­ing pole that turned into a plant that ripped my head off, but only for a few sec­onds. And then there was a giant cham­pagne bot­tle and an ele­phant, and then, sud­den­ly I was on an oper­at­ing table, and you know how some­times in a dream, it’s like you’re being crushed to death? Except I escaped by blow­ing myself up like a bal­loon and then I hopped onto the back of this horse and then I woke up. The brain­child of ani­ma­tion pio­neer Émile Cohl (1857 – 1938), the trip­py silent short from 1908 is com­posed of 700 draw­ings, pho­tographed onto neg­a­tive film and dou­ble-exposed. Clock­ing …

4 Franz Kafka Animations: Watch Creative Animated Shorts from Poland, Japan, Russia & Canada

4 Franz Kafka Animations: Watch Creative Animated Shorts from Poland, Japan, Russia & Canada

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guat­tari thought of Kaf­ka as an inter­na­tion­al writer, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with minor­i­ty groups world­wide. Oth­er schol­ars have char­ac­ter­ized his work—and Kaf­ka him­self wrote as much—as lit­er­a­ture con­cerned with nation­al iden­ti­ty. Aca­d­e­m­ic debates, how­ev­er, have no bear­ing on how ordi­nary read­ers, and writ­ers, around the world take in Kafka’s nov­els and short sto­ries. Writ­ers with both nation­al and inter­na­tion­al pedi­grees such as Borges, Muraka­mi, Mar­quez, and Nabokov have drawn much inspi­ra­tion from the Czech-Jew­ish writer, as have film­mak­ers and ani­ma­tors. Today we revis­it sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al ani­ma­tions inspired by Kaf­ka, the first, above by Pol­ish ani­ma­tor Piotr Dumala. Trained a sculp­tor, Dumala’s tex­tur­al brand of “destruc­tive ani­ma­tion” cre­ates chill­ing, high con­trast images that appro­pri­ate­ly cap­ture the eerie and unre­solved play of light and dark in Kafka’s work. The Pol­ish artist’s Franz Kaf­ka (1992) draws on scenes from the author’s life, as told in his diaries. Next, watch a very dis­ori­ent­ing 2007 Japan­ese adap­ta­tion of Kafka’s “A Coun­try Doc­tor” by ani­ma­tor Koji Yama­mu­ra. The sound­track and monot­o­ne Japan­ese dia­logue (with sub­ti­tles) effec­tive­ly con­veys the tone …

India’s animated video wars cause stir on the campaign trail

India’s animated video wars cause stir on the campaign trail

An animated video released by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party was taken down from Instagram after it sparked a backlash for demeaning Muslims. The removal put a spotlight on what has been called a war of animated videos between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress party, notes FRANCE 24’s Leela Jacinto. Issued on: 05/05/2024 – 09:20 4 min Barely a day after it was released, an animated video posted on the official account of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was taken down from Instagram.  It was removed after many Instagram users flagged it over hate speech concerns. But although the video is not available on Instagram, the animated clip is still circulating widely on WhatsApp and other messenger platforms. Policing hate speech these days is a challenge that security experts liken to a game of whack-a-mole. While the video is certainly incendiary, it drew particular attention since it was not created by some overenthusiastic BJP supporter. That can happen on the campaign trail in many …

North Koreans Secretly Animated Amazon and Max Shows, Researchers Say

North Koreans Secretly Animated Amazon and Max Shows, Researchers Say

Some file names gave away clues about the series and episode numbers. There were also files and projects the researchers could not identify—including a “bunch of files” with videos of horses and a Russian book on horses, Williams says. Sanctions placed upon the North Korean regime, for its ongoing human rights abuses and nuclear warfare programs, prohibit US companies from working with DPRK companies or individuals. However, the researchers say it is highly unlikely that any companies involved would have a clue about North Korean animators working on the shows, and there is nothing suggesting the companies violated any sanctions or other laws. “It is likely that the contracting arrangement was several steps downstream from the major producers,” the report says. Spokespeople for Amazon and Max spokesperson declined to comment for this story. YouNeek Studios did not respond to a request for comment. “We do not work with North Korean companies, or Chinese companies on Invincible, or any affiliated entities, and have no knowledge of any North Korean or Chinese companies working on Invincible,” a …