Publication details
Mundane Functionality of Animation Film Production. Improvised Places for “Clean Production” in Post-WWII Czechoslovakia and Poland
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Dis/functionality of the animation production’s working spaces in the post-war Czechoslovakia and Poland is the main focus of this paper. While the early post-war era status of animation differed significantly between these two countries, the shared material obstacles the filmmakers faced were rooted in post-war economic poverty, material shortage, and prominence of feature production demands over equipment and spaces for shooting animation movies. There was no robust production infrastructure inherited from the 1930s and 1940s which would help to overcome the problem of post-war and state-socialist shortage in Poland, while the infrastructure available in Czechoslovakia – the studio lots at Barrandov and Zlín – were or exclusively, or preferably used for other types of movie production. Consequently, the production which became a showcase of state-socialist film industry was implemented in improvised working spaces, including storages, exhibition halls, factories, or animators’ own flats. While animation film administrators as well as filmmakers were searching for “functional” spaces with large windows, high ceilings, or generous space for rows of tables for animators, in-betweeners or contourists, they were allocated to buildings with very “mundane” appearance: in striking contrast not only to the „fantastic functionalities“ identified by Brian Jacobson in exterior ornamentation of the film studios facades in the era of early Hollywood, but also to iconic panorama of Barrandov and Zlín studios, or to film cities planned for both Czechoslovak and Polish cinema by the Czech film architect Jan Novák. This paper, benefitting from a collective research project carried out by film historians from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, and Łodź University in Poland and co-authored by Michal Večeřa and Ewa Ciszewska, presents production spaces for animation in the post-war era of state socialist film industry in the context of film studios’ architecture, technical and spatial demands on animation, transnational ideas on design of “film cities” and, last but not least, the contrast between “black” production of non-animation films with its industrial waste, on one side, and “clean” production of animation, suitable to be located in a centre of a city. The paper establishes floor for a research design available for extension in time, as well as in geographical scope. It aims at specificities of animation production demands on space and location, its compatibility with urban space, and its competitive “ecological” advantages in comparison to the “dirt” production of live action movies. |
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