To Begin my project I wanted to get a clear aspect of the room, so I went to the actual location of the 1st floor in the library and did some measurements to help me break it down to 1:10 scale. I also took some more photo’s of the furniture, walls and ceiling to help me remember the detail and colour of the room. This also helped me get a better understanding of what the place looks like up close.
The next step was to start building my set, With the help of Liam from the workshop, we worked together on the measurements to cut the materials (MDF) to the right size. I then started putting it together by using super glue, wood glue and nail gun. I then applied water-based undercoat to the set so its ready to be decorated.
Once the undercoat is dry, I started to decorate the ceiling and floor, I had to mix the paints to get the right tone of colour.
With the pine effect on the desk and MacBook machine, i purchased some fin wood effect wallpaper and applied it with PVA glue.
I handcrafted the little chairs and switches, by cutting out small boxes with wood and painting them silver. The same goes for the black chairs, I painted them black and super glued the legs.
With the front design of the MacBook Machine I used the photo printouts of the grey lockers and used beads for the handles, and hand drawn the lights and markings.
Animated cartoons from 1930s to early 1950s, Tom and Jerry featured racial stereotypes.
Mammy Two Shoes
Mammy Two Shoes is a middle aged African American housemaid created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, and was voiced by Lillian Randolph in 1940 until 1952.
Mammy takes care of the house, and is often caught in the middle of Tom and Jerry’s scuffles. She’s also Tom’s owner ; he gets told off by her and she wallops him with a broom whenever he is misbehaving.
It was never clear if Mammy was the owner of the house, but by her appearances of wearing a white apron , red slippers and a broom in her hand, it would suggest that Mammy is a housemaid.
Characteristic, what does Mammy mean?
Mammy is known, formerly in southern United States, a black nursemaid or a nanny in charge of white children. They are usually portrayed as an older women that’s overweight with dark skin.
Mammy archetype comes from the memoirs and diaries that emerged after the Civil War with recordings and descriptions of African-American household women slaves who were considered by family members as their black mothers.
This in today’s society is offensive.
Mammy’s face was hidden in most of the episodes and was only seen by the lower half of her body. Mammy was only just a supporting character so the artists were worried that the audiences would draw their attention away from the main characters.
Mammy also appears in Walt Disney cartoons, it’s the same character from the MGM’s Tom & Jerry, and used the same voice actor, she appeared in the Orphans Benefit 1934, Three Orphan Kittens, More Kittens, Pantry Pirate and Figaro and Cleo. Her other name is Ant Delilah.
When Chuck Jones was under supervision of the MGM animation studios he created a censored versions of Tom and Jerry featuring Mammy. They edit Mammy out with rotoscoping techniques and replaced her with a white thin women with a Irish accented in the episode Saturday Evening Puss. The voice was provided by June Foray.
Mammy’s last appearances in the cartoon shorts was in 1952 Push-Button Kitty. In 1954 Mammy was replaced by two white couple Joan and George were the audiences could see the characters faces.
Joan
George
As Mammy was partially seen in the cartoon shorts, she was briefly seen in Saturday Evening Puss and Part Time Pal.
Mammy was originally voiced by Lillian Randolph. But in 1992s MGM animation studio the cartoons that featured Mammy were edited again, this time they replace the voice actress to Thea Vidale, because the use of potentially offensive dialect.
Lillian Randolph 1940–1952
Thea Vidale 1989–2001
Gene Deitch who directed Tom and Jerry shorts in 1961 said “ The stereotypical black housekeeper, didn’t work in a modern context”. Mammy was removed from production, and Tom had new owner Clint Clobber, a corpulent white middle class man, who is more brutal in punishing his pets when they make mistakes. From 1962 to1964 Toms owner was changed again, to a modern white women, who had her own apartment.
In Tom and Jerry Tales 2006 Mammy return but was redesigned and know as Mrs Two shoes, they kept the aspects of her personality but changed her skin tone to white, to avoid any controversy.
Mammy Two Shoes, after all she is the archetype of the black women working for a white family from the South USA, in the mid 20th century. When such women did not have the vote.
It’s us deeply patronising to suggest that modern day families are watching historical cartoons when values were different. Does certain people think by watching Tom and Jerry and seeing Mammy it will turn our children into racists. Believing she is the norm, this is a part of our history its no good airbrushing it.
The hand is a stop motion puppet film, directed by Jiri Trnka. The story follows a Harlequin, who is an artist that makes pots. Then he has a conflict with the power Hand, who commands the harlequin to just do sculptured hands. This was Trnka’s final film, when he sadly passed away in 1968. When Trnka died, the film was banned due to its story that reflects a restrictive environment in which many artists had to work.
The director has to think of the key techniques that the audiences needs to understand, when it comes to storytelling in animation. The background is the main set that your character is going to perform. The background can tell the audiences a lot about the characters backstory. The Harlequin is artist who makes sculptures, he wishes to make ceramic pots for his flowers. You can see by the set that there are pots on the floor and his spinning wheel table top.
There could be a set time period in this film by what the character is wearing, The harlequin costume is french, they are also mute, that’s why the character has no dialogue. When it comes to animation, location is not very imported in stop motion, you can set a scene anywhere as long as it fits the story.
There’s no dialogue in this film, moving techniques is very imported when comes to animating a puppet character. The audiences need to recognize the body language to show how the character is feeling. The Hand character has to be shown by movement because it has not got a face, so the Hand needs to do lots of body movement by moving his fingers and way he presents himself on screen. In one scene they have speech bubbles when the Harlequin is talking to the Hand on the telephone, this is an other technique to show the audiences what the characters are saying to each other.
The music brings more atmosphere to the scene. When you get first introduced to Harlequin the birds are singing and the sound of the flute playing in the background. This brings joy to the scene.
An other example is in the scene when the Hand and the Harlequin have a conflict and theirs sound of drums and base, while the Harlequin tries to hit the Hand’s fingers with a hammer, to show the characters is slightly angry.
Leonard Charles Huia Lye was born on 5th June 1901, he was a New Zealand-born artist known for his experimental films and kinetic sculptures.
Lye began to develop a his art style based on doodling at an early age, he was really interested in movement and wanted to portrait Kinetic energy within in his artwork. As you can see by the video Lye does some beautiful colours and strokes to present the movement to bring his art to life.
Its like his paint strokes are dancing with the music and you cant keep yours eyes off it.
When Lye moved to London in 1929 he then joined the Seven & Five Society exhibition in 1936 international Surrealist Exhibition and stared making experimental films.
Lye first animated was Tusalava in 1929. This film was not like his kaleidoscope colour box, Tusalava was in black & white and was quite dark and creepy, with slow moving animation.
You can find Lye sculptures collections of the Whitney Museum Of American Art, Albright-knox art gallery and Berkeley’s Art museum. Even doe Lye a naturalized citizen of the US in 1950 much of his amazing work went to New Zealand after his death in 1980.
The Animation Blog 