Posts by Joe Wylie
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I should add that Doug Hood didn't simply suggest Point That Thing. He offered it, because he had access to the separate tracks, and he knew it would be cool with The Clean. A hell of a generous thing to do from all involved.
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Lea:
I certainly hope so, though the legalities of these things are beyond me. It would help if you were warned before you attempted to view the video, because it does come across as a bit of a slap in the face with a wet fish when the message appears in an otherwise blank screen.About the soundtrack: It was a massive piece of good fortune that Chris Knox was able to give it a go. Not only Chris but Doug Hood. Both Chris and Doug had recently worked wonders with a TEAC 4-track on the Tall Dwarfs’ Three Songs, the Dunedin Double Ep, and of course The Clean’s Boodle Boodle Boodle.
I learned a lot about sound from Doug, like how miserable NZ sound effects libraries were back then. Doug went out with a portable recorder and grabbed everything from buses to cicadas. It was like having Phil Spector do your effects, without any of the pistol-packing loopiness.
Most importantly, especially as it’s the part of the film where sound and vision magically combine to be more than the (cough) sum of the parts, it was Doug who suggested the unmixed instrumental of The Clean’s Point That Thing for the psychedelic finale. As was usual with animation in that analog era the soundtrack was completed up front, with the visuals built to fit. It was after seeing animation from the later part of the film that Doug made the suggestion. Pure inspiration, entirely Doug’s. There are a few empty links to his name on Wikipedia, but as yet no page.
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"Mother Nature Forgives" - dug this morning from the quivering soil of St Albans.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Thanks Rob, that's far and away the best part of the film, and the only song therein that doesn't make Always Look on the Bright Side of Life sound like the music of the spheres. That sequence was very much one person's baby, and if he'd had his way the film would have been Lindsay's illustrations with the breath of life. Funnily enough he appears to be among those who opted to have their name left off the credits. A Philippines animation crew pulling out all the stops to prove themselves, but they still sent the bulk work to Korea.
Anyway, it's almost time to grab the lantern and step out to the cowshed to see the oxen on their knees, so Happy Hanukkah.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Rob Stowell,
I remember when things came to near open rebellion on the Pudding, where someone was saying 'Why do we have song and dance sequences simply because it's some kind of stilted convention?' The original idea of the cut-and-come-again Puddin' was like the golden goose - as a Puddin' owner you'd never starve, in fact you could become immensely wealthy. It was about power, and the fickle nature of Albert the Pudding put the moral onus on the Puddin' owner.
So instead of vapid song and dance numbers we could have had the trial of the Puddin' thieves from Lindsay's original, where the judge suddenly declares his lust to be a Puddin' owner, and everyone chases the elusive Albert around the courtroom, including the walls and ceiling, because as Max Fleischer said, if it can happen in real life, it's not worth animating.
Instead we got a script from someone whose next gig was McCloud's Daughters.
Happy xmas y'all. -
Hard News: Te Rerenga Wairua, in reply to Ken Sparks,
Nice to hear from you Ken. I read back through your posts re. When A City Falls. I look forward to the DVD, as I know a few others do, because a theatrical viewing is not something that many of us are quite ready to roll with. It sounds like the kind of documentary where a real editorial hand is absolutely vital, and it's great to feel your passion is as strong as ever. Congratulations and thanks, the work of witnessing and recording is so vital in these times.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Did storyboards and layouts - see storyboard page. Animation was high-quality Korean. I feel the film was let down by a wretched script - sticking to Norman Lindsay's original could have saved it, without all that nonsense about finding parents. Directed by Robbert Smit - Footrot Flats, the notorious dancing cossacks etc, An appalling excuse for a human being, and I know it's Xmas. For all its faults, Footrot is a credit to Murray Ball's refusal to be overwhelmed by production concerns. The early designs for Pudding were literally breathtaking, before Smit infected things with his godawful brand of twee.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Jeez Graeme, I worked on that thinly drawn knock-off of The Waltons. I also counted five titles I’ve whored myself out on in your Wikipedia link. Not something I’m proud of, but one likes to eat. The other pilot farmed out to Hanna-B’s Australian studio in that distant Summer was Hong Kong Phooey which, in keeping with Joseph Barbera’s dog fetish, starred a dog, and unlike These Are the Days got picked up by the networks.
For lovers of such trivia, Hanna-Barbera used the same fake cut & paste animation department credit list for all of their pilots back then. That was a response to union pressure which ensured that productions using offshore labour weren’t eligible for Emmy awards, and an Emmy was a big selling point for Saturday morning cartoon fare back then.
The Australian-made one-off special Last of the Curlews scored an Emmy in 1972, despite the characters looking as if they were made of concrete à la Charlotte’s Web. ‘Ecology’ was all the go then, and the theme of father & son meatheads who decide not to shoot an endangered bird was a shoo-in. None of the animation personnel listed in that link had any involvement with its production. Eventually they sent an Emmy statuette to grace the front office in Artarmon, only it was one awarded in 1959 for Huckleberry Hound.
With union dues of over $US1000 per annum the Southern California Cartoonists’ Local was a lucrative closed shop. Members worked for around the six months of the average production season, and received welfare, based on a proportion of their lucrative piecework rates, during the remainder of the year. The quality of their work had sunk to the level evident in the Roman Holidays intro. Australians spoke English and were comparatively keen and hungry. That’s why Bill Hanna travelled there to case the joint for talent, and why he repeated the process later in the 70s in the Philippines.
You can’t trust IMDB credit listings, especially for early 70s US Saturday Morning junk.
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Posted by Lianne Dalziel on Facebook - Silt Santa.
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Hard News: Te Rerenga Wairua, in reply to ,
I’ve seen it theatrically, in (I think} 1984, at the Wintergarden. It went out as a short, when they still had such things, with Heart of the Stag. After a bit I forgot about all the cringe-inducing technical flaws magnified large, because the people around were whispering such nice things to one another, they obviously overwhelmingly liked it. It was a shock to see how much of the top and bottom of the frame had been cut off though.
After the interval (they had those back then) I made my way to the projection room, where the projectionist was watching TV while the projector chugged away. He was delighted that someone showed an interest in his work, and happily racked the gate up and down in the projector to demonstrate how much adjustment was possible. Bruno Lawrence was driving a tractor across the screen at the time, hopefully the audience didn’t blame the sudden lurching on James Bartle’s camera work. He showed me his selection of brass projector gates, and picked out one with a better aspect ratio that he promised to use for future screenings.
Very educational for me.
