Animation and Advertising

PALGRAVE ANIMATION Series Editors: Caroline Ruddell · Paul Ward PALGRAVE ANIMATION Kirsten Moana Thompson is a Professor of Film Studies at Seattle University, US, and writes on animation, color and Pacific studies. Recent work includes the material color history of Disney and Faber Birren, advertising in Times Square, Ludwig Von Drake and the Disney promotional film, Egyptian sponsored film and the intersectional aesthetic surfaces of Moana. She is currently working on several new books, including Color, Visual Culture and American Cel Animation and Bubbles. Animation and Advertising Malcolm Cook is a Lecturer in Film at the University of Southampton, UK. His book Early British Animation: From Page and Stage to Cinema Screens was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2018. He is currently researching the role of advertising in the history of animation, and has published several chapters on this topic, which appear in The Animation Studies Reader (2018) and Aardman Animations: Beyond Stop-Motion (forthcoming). Edited by Malcolm Cook · Kirsten Moana Thompson Throughout its history, animation has been fundamentally shaped by its application to promotion and marketing, with animation playing a vital role in advertising history. In individual case study chapters this book addresses, among others, the role of promotion and advertising for anime, Disney, MTV, Lotte Reiniger, Pixar and George Pal, and highlights American, Indian, Japanese, and European examples. This collection reviews the history of famous animation studios and artists, and rediscovers overlooked ones. It situates animated advertising within the context of a diverse intermedial and multi-platform media environment, influenced by print, radio and digital practices, and expanding beyond cinema and television screens into the workplace, theme park, trade expo and urban environment. It reveals the part that animation has played in shaping our consumption of particular brands and commodities, and assesses the ways in which animated advertising has both changed and been changed by the technologies and media that supported it, including digital production and distribution in the present day. Challenging the traditional privileging of art or entertainment over commercial animation, Animation and Advertising establishes a new and rich field of research, and raises many new questions concerning particular animation and media histories, and our methods for researching them. Animation and Advertising ISBN 978-3-030-27938-7 9 783030 279387 Edited by Malcolm Cook Kirsten Moana Thompson 

palgrave.com Cultural and Media Studies : Animation Cook, Malcolm, Thompson, Kirsten Moana (Eds.), University of Southampton, Southampton, UK Animation and Advertising Argues that animation has been fundamentally shaped by its use for advertising Revises famous names of animation history in light of advertising work, including Pixar, Anime, Disney, MTV, Lotte Reiniger, George Pal Examines case studies from early 20th century to present day, and across North America, Asia and Europe Throughout its history, animation has been fundamentally shaped by its application to promotion and marketing, with animation playing a vital role in advertising history. In individual case study chapters this book addresses, among others, the role of promotion and advertising for anime, Disney, MTV, Lotte Reiniger, Pixar and George Pal, and highlights American, Indian, Japanese, and European examples. This collection reviews the history of famous animation Palgrave Macmillan 1st edition Due 2020-02-14 1st ed. 2019, XXIII, 335 p. 29 illus., 20 illus. in color. studios and artists, and rediscovers overlooked ones. It situates animated advertising within the context of a diverse intermedial and multi-platform media environment, influenced by print, radio and digital practices, and expanding beyond cinema and television screens into the workplace, theme park, trade expo and urban environment. It reveals the part that animation has played in shaping our consumption of particular brands and commodities, and assesses the ways in which animated advertising has both changed and been changed by the Printed book technologies and media that supported it, including digital production and distribution in the Hardcover present day. Challenging the traditional privileging of art or entertainment over commercial animation, Animation and Advertising establishes a new and rich field of research, and raises Printed book many new questions concerning particular animation and media histories, and our methods for Hardcover researching them. ISBN 978-3-030-27938-7 $ 119,99 In production Discount group Palgrave Standard US (P5) Product category Contributed volume Series Order online at springer.com/booksellers Springer Nature Customer Service Center LLC 233 Spring Street New York, NY 10013 USA T: +1-800-SPRINGER NATURE (777-4643) or 212-460-1500 customerservice@springernature.com Palgrave Animation Prices and other details are subject to change without notice. All errors and omissions excepted. Americas: Tax will be added where applicable. Canadian residents please add PST, QST or GST. Please add $5.00 for shipping one book and $ 1.00 for each additional book. Outside the US and Canada add $ 10.00 for first book, $5.00 for each additional book. If an order cannot be fulfilled within 90 days, payment will be refunded upon request. Prices are payable in US currency or its equivalent. ISBN 978-3-030-27938-7 / BIC: APFV / SPRINGER NATURE: SC413020 Part of 

PALGRAVE ANIMATION Animation and Advertising Edited by Malcolm Cook Kirsten Moana Thompson Palgrave Animation Series Editors Caroline Ruddell Brunel University London Uxbridge, UK Paul Ward Arts University Bournemouth Poole, UK This book series explores animation and conceptual/theoretical issues in an approachable way. The focus is twofold: on core concepts, theories and debates in animation that have yet to be dealt with in book-length format; and on new and innovative research and interdisciplinary work relating to animation as a field. The purpose of the series is to consolidate animation research and provide the ‘go to’ monographs and anthologies for current and future scholars. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15948 Malcolm Cook · Kirsten Moana Thompson Editors Animation and Advertising Editors Malcolm Cook Film Studies University of Southampton Southampton, UK Kirsten Moana Thompson Film Studies Seattle University Seattle, WA, USA ISSN 2523-8086 ISSN 2523-8094 (electronic) Palgrave Animation ISBN 978-3-030-27938-7 ISBN 978-3-030-27939-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: Lebrecht Music & Arts/Alamy Stock Photo Cover design by eStudio Calamar This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland This book is dedicated with love to Audra Lord —Kirsten Moana Thompson For Rachel, forever with love —Malcolm Cook ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The editors thank our contributors for their outstanding research and embrace of this new topic—without them this book would be nothing. We also thank Ellie Freedman, Lina Aboujieb, Carolyn Zhang, and the staff at Palgrave Macmillan in the editorial and production process. Thanks to Palgrave Animation series editors Caroline Ruddell and Paul Ward for their encouragement. Kirsten Moana Thompson would also like to thank Seattle University for a 2018 Summer Faculty Fellowship that provided some funds toward the research and writing of this manuscript. Malcolm Cook would also like to thank the University of Southampton for funding and research leave that supported this publication. On behalf of all our contributors, we thank the partners, families, friends, and colleagues who do so much to support our work. vii PRAISE FOR ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING “Animation and Advertising is a fascinating book—and one whose time has come. Though long marginalised by animation scholars, animated advertising can now be seen as a key object linking film history to the broader history of consumerism: its techniques, technologies and spaces. This is the first book to examine such practices from a global perspective, with sixteen rich essays that cut across historical epochs, geographical borders and media boundaries.” —Michael Cowan, Professor of Film and Media History, University of St Andrews, UK “Advertising has shaped modern media, but animation has shaped advertising in turn. From 19th century lantern slides to today’s computer graphics, animation practices, pioneers, and processes have profoundly changed how goods are sold and bought. In tracing this history across fifteen eye-opening case studies, Animation and Advertising revises the familiar narrative of art against industry, showing us that advertisers never acted outside of or against culture, but remain a vital and lasting part in it.” —Patrick Vonderau, Professor in Media and Communication Studies, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany ix x PRAISE FOR ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING “Animation and Advertising is a wonderful collection of essays. The topics covered demonstrate the diverse areas in which animation has traction and locates animated advertising at an intersection of different media, with transmedia and intermediality often at the forefront of the discussions.” —Aylish Wood, Professor of Animation and Film, University of Kent, UK CONTENTS 1 Introduction to Animation and Advertising Malcolm Cook and Kirsten Moana Thompson Part I 2 3 4 1 Revisionist Histories George Pal’s ‘Cavalcade of Colours, Music and Dolls’: 1930s Advertising Films in Transnational Contexts Mette Peters 55 Sponsored Silhouettes: Lotte Reiniger’s ‘Useful’ Films in Britain Tashi Petter 73 Magic Highways and Autopias: Disney and Automobile Advertising Malcolm Cook 89 xi xii CONTENTS Part II 5 6 7 Animation and Commercial Display in Britain During the 1920s Victoria Jackson 111 Live Electrically with Reddy Kilowatt, Your Electrical Servant Kirsten Moana Thompson 127 ‘A Very Flexible Medium’: The Ministry of Information and Animated Propaganda Films on the Home Front Hollie Price 145 Part III 8 9 Intermediality Brands Animation Across Borders: Schicht Fat Factory and Its Transmedia and Transnational Advertising Strategies Lucie Česálková Just Do It, Impossible Is Nothing: Animation and Sports Commercials Paul Wells 10 ‘Don’t Mind Me, I’m Just a Dermatophyte’: The Use of Animation in Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Television Advertising Janelle Applequist and Matthew P. McAllister Part IV 163 179 195 Television 11 Beyond Anime? Rethinking Japanese Animation History Through Early Animated Television Commercials Jason Cody Douglass 213 CONTENTS 12 The ‘Quasi-Artistic Venture’: MTV Idents and Alternative Animation Culture Lilly Husbands 13 ‘Stupid Little Stories’: Television Interstitial and Advertising Style in the Professional Culture of Indian Animation Timothy Jones Part V xiii 229 247 Digital and Contemporary 14 Promoting Computer Graphics Research: The Tech Demos of SIGGRAPH Jordan Gowanlock 267 15 ‘Movin’ to a Different Beat’: Commercial Pixar and the Simulated Ordinary Christopher Holliday 283 16 ‘Feel Everything’: Animation, Advertising and Affect in Cinema and Television Idents Aimee Mollaghan 299 Index of Film Titles 313 Subject Index 319 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Janelle Applequist (Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University) is an Assistant Professor of Advertising in the Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications at the University of South Florida. Her research interests include qualitative research methods, pharmaceutical advertising, advertising, health communication, and patient and healthcare representations via advertising. She is the author of Broadcast Pharmaceutical Advertising in the United States: Primetime Pill Pushers. Lucie Česálková is an Associate Professor at the Department of Film Studies and Audio-visual Culture of Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. She also works as a researcher and editor at the National Film Archive Prague, and is Chief editor of Czech peer-reviewed film journal Iluminace. She has been focusing on the history of Czech nonfiction and documentary film (and their educational, promotional, or propaganda functions), on the history of film exhibition and cinemagoing. Her research work has been published in international journals (Film History, The Moving Image, Memory Studies, Studies in Eastern European Cinema, zeitgeschichte), and edited volumes, e.g. Films that Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising (2016), Cinema in Service of the State: Perspectives on Film Culture in the GDR and Czechoslovakia (2015). Malcolm Cook is a Lecturer in Film at the University of Southampton. He has published a number of chapters and articles on animation, early cinema, and their intermedial relationships. His book Early British xv xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Animation: From Page and Stage to Cinema Screens was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2018 and examines the intermedial emergence of animation from prior traditions of print and stage entertainment and the subsequent engagement with new understandings of perception and vision in modernity. He is currently researching the role of advertising in the history of animation, and has published several chapters on this topic, which appear in The Animation Studies Reader (Bloomsbury, 2018) and Aardman Animations: Beyond Stop-Motion (Bloomsbury, Forthcoming). Jason Cody Douglass is a Ph.D. student in Yale University’s combined program in Film and Media Studies and East Asian Languages and Literatures, as well as the graduate program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. His research interests include animation, film, and media theory, and East Asian cinema. In 2018, his article “In Search of a ‘New Wind’: Experimental, Labor Intensive, and Intermedial Animation in 1950s and 1960s Japan” received the Maureen Furniss Award for Best Student Paper on Animated Media and was subsequently published in Animation Studies Online Journal. Jordan Gowanlock is a FRQSC Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley. He has a Ph.D. in Film and Moving Image Studies from Concordia University, Montreal. His research interests include digital media, animation, and visual effects, with a focus on media theory and technology. He is currently working on a monograph about the development of simulation-based animation software. Christopher Holliday teaches Film Studies and Liberal Arts at King’s College London specializing in film genre, animation history, and contemporary digital media. He has published several book chapters and articles on digital technology and computer animation, including work in Animation Practice, Process & Production and Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal. He is the author of The Computer-Animated Film: Industry, Style and Genre (Edinburgh University Press, 2018), and co-editor (with Alexander Sergeant) of Fantasy / Animation: Connections Between Media, Mediums and Genres (Routledge, 2018) for Routledge’s AFI Film Readers series that examines the historical, cultural, and theoretical points of intersection between fantasy and animation. NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii Lilly Husbands is a lecturer and scholar whose research is broadly concerned with the legacy and evolution of experimental animation in the context of contemporary multimedia practice. She has published numerous book chapters and articles on experimental animation in journals such as Moving Image Review & Art Journal (MIRAJ), Frames Cinema Journal, and Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. She is the co-editor of the anthology Experimental Animation: From Analogue to Digital published with Routledge in 2019. She is an associate editor of Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Victoria Jackson is an independent scholar. Her research and publications are in film history with particular interest in colour, exhibition, animation, and advertising films. This chapter was completed as part of her previous role as postdoctoral research associate on The Idea of Animation: Aesthetics, Location and the Formation of Media project at the University of Bristol. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ ERC grant agreement n° 338110. Timothy Jones is an Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Director of the Academic Media Center at Robert Morris University in Moon Township, Pennsylvania where he teaches courses in media culture and production. His research interests include animation, virtual reality, and new media production culture, as well as the relationship between education and sustainable professional media communities. Tim is co-chair of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Animated Media Scholarly Interest Group and Membership Officer of the Society for Animation Studies (SAS). His recent work appears in Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Animation Studies Journal, and Reconceptualising Film Policies. Matthew P. McAllister is Professor of Communications in the Department of Film-Video and Media Studies at Penn State. His research focuses on the political economy of media and critiques of commercial culture. He is the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture (with Emily West, 2013) and The Advertising and Consumer Culture Reader (with Joseph Turow, Routledge, 2009). xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Aimee Mollaghan is a lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast. She is the author of The Visual Music Film (2015). Her current research interests focus on the relationship between sound and the moving image and on landscape and sound in cinema. She continues to publish in both areas. Mette Peters is a film historian and animation specialist and has extensive experience in archival work and preservation projects. She is lecturer at the animation course of HKU, University of the Arts Utrecht. Her research focuses on the preservation of animation heritage, in particular animation artwork, and the history of Dutch animation. She is co-author of Meestal in ‘t Verborgene (2000), a book about animation film production in The Netherlands during the Second World War. Currently she is researching creative practices in the earliest period of animation filmmaking in The Netherlands, between 1918 and 1940. Tashi Petter is a scholarship holder and doctoral candidate in the Department of Film Studies, Queen Mary University of London. Her thesis explores the largely forgotten animator Lotte Reiniger with a focus on her 1930s silhouette films and Reiniger’s time in London as a German émigré. She is a graduate of the University of Bristol and UCL, where her M.A. thesis on Reiniger drew on extensive archival research. She has recently curated screenings of lesser-known shorts, reconstructing film society programs from the 1930s using 16 or 35mm prints. Her wider interests include interwar film culture and twentieth-century women artists. Hollie Price is a Research Fellow on the AHRC-funded Jill Craigie: Film Pioneer project based at the University of Sussex. Since completing her Ph.D. on domestic life in British 1940s film at Queen Mary, University of London, Hollie has taught in the Film Studies departments at Queen Mary and King’s College London, and was Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Ministry of Information (MoI) project at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Her work on the MoI’s Films Division will form part of a forthcoming history of the Ministry’s wartime information networks. Kirsten Moana Thompson is Professor of Film Studies and Director of the Film Programme at Seattle University. She teaches and writes on animation and colour studies, as well as American, German, and Pacific studies. Recent publications include the material colour history of Disney and Faber Birren, advertising in Times Square, Ludwig Von Drake and NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xix the Disney promotional film, Egyptian sponsored film and the intersectional aesthetic surfaces of Moana. She is currently working on several new books, including Color, Visual Culture and American Cel Animation, and Bubbles. Paul Wells is the Director of the Animation Academy, a research group dedicated to cutting edge engagement with Animation and related moving image practices. He has published widely in Animation and Film Studies and written and directed numerous projects for theatre, radio, television and film. His books include Understanding Animation (London: Routledge), Animation and America (Rutgers University Press), The Fundamentals of Animation (Lausanne: AVA) and The Animated Bestiary: Animals, Cartoons and Culture (Rutgers University Press). LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2 Fig. 1.3 Fig. 1.4 Fig. 1.5 Fig. 1.6 Fig. 1.7 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 An example of an early EPOK advertisement for Schaefer Beer animated by Otto Messmer, Times Square, 1940s (Douglas Leigh Papers, 1903–1999, Archives of American History [Smithsonian]) Two advertisements for Newbro’s Herpicide, The Raleigh Times, March 28, 1908 and Washington Post, March 12, 1916 (Newspapers.com) Frame grab sequence from Rabbit of Seville (Chuck Jones, 1950 (©Warner Bros) A composite image from promotional video 2018 Terrain Reveal x The Mill Blackbird (Bowe King, The Mill, Engage M1, 2017) showing The Mill’s Blackbird technology at work The Mighty Atom: Reddy Kilowatt is your friendly spokescharacter. (National Museum of American History [Smithsonian]) Targeting women and the Business girl in Charm’s BG * (Street & Smith/Paul Fennell Studios, 1948) (animationresources.org) Intermedial racism: Let the gold dust twins do your work, Press Advertising for N. K. Fairbanks Soap Co. featuring the Gold Dust Twins, c. 1916 (Print. Author’s collection) Choreography of dancers in The Philips Broadcast 1938 (George Pal, 1937) The opening credits of Philips Cavalcade (George Pal, 1939) introducing the leading star of the film 3 6 6 17 19 23 25 59 60 xxi xxii LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2 Fig. 11.1 Fig. 12.1 The orchestra of British bandleader Bert Ambrose in The Philips Broadcast 1938 (George Pal, 1937) Production still of the glass model of a ship with the Philips logo on the sails and a frame grab of the ship as seen in the completed film The Ship of the Ether (George Pal, 1934) Lotte Reiniger, frame grab from The HPO (1938) Rex Whistler, ‘First British St. Valentine’s Day greetings telegram’, 1936 (© Royal Mail Group 2019, courtesy of The Postal Museum) Photograph of Disneyland, California in July 1958, showing the Richfield Autopia attraction with its gas station design and prominent display of the sponsor’s name. Image with kind permission and from the collection of David Eppen (http://gorillasdontblog.blogspot.com) Page from the promotional comic book Clyde Beatty’s African Jungle Book (1956) showing extensive interaction between Disney and corporate sponsor Richfield Oil at Disneyland, California. [Author’s collection] Frame grab from Mr… Goes Motoring (David Barker, 1924): the film freezes in poses imitating postcards from the campaign Reddy Kilowatt as the ideal worker (Reddy Kilowatt Files, National Museum of American History/Smithsonian) I’m your faithful slave (Reddy Kilowatt Files, National Museum of American History/Smithsonian) Cartoon characters combine with diagrams in Filling the Gap (John Halas and Joy Batchelor, 1942) Frame grabs from Hannibal in the Virgin Forest (1932) Clockwise from top left: Everything for a Scrambled Pancake (1937), The Metamorphosis of Uncle Boby (1930), Uncle Boby in a press advertisement, Uncle Boby Takes a Plane Trip (1930) As the commercial progresses, Seikō products remain centred within the frame. Seikōsha no Tokei / Seikō Watch (Dentsū, 1953) Amazing Place (1991) Director and Producer, Flip Johnson; Designer, Bradley Gake; Animation, Julie Zammarchi, Bradley Gake, Flip Johnson; Frame grab in collaboration with Dae Lee 65 66 79 80 98 100 119 130 133 151 171 173 217 236 LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 12.2 Fig. 13.1 Fig. 14.1 Fig. 16.1 Fig. 16.2 Amazing Place (1991) Director and Producer, Flip Johnson; Designer, Bradley Gake; Animation, Julie Zammarchi, Bradley Gake, Flip Johnson; Frame grab in collaboration with Dae Lee V Kathakali (1999) Famous’s House of Animation, animated and directed by Vaibhav Kumaresh for Channel [V] (Courtesy of Vaibhav Studios) Brilliance (Robert Abel and Associates, 1985) Frame grab from the Sizzle Film (2015) demonstrating the high definition detail rendered by the projection system utilised by Vue Cinema theatres Frame grab from the Sizzle Film (2015) visualising the Dolby sound system available in Vue Cinemas xxiii 237 252 272 303 304 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to Animation and Advertising Malcolm Cook and Kirsten Moana Thompson From dancing hotdogs that announced the arrival of intermission at the movie theatre, to today’s pharmaceutical ads that affectively signal the powerful effects of mood-altering drugs, animated advertising engages our attention, invites our affection and nostalgia, and persists in our memory. From the earliest silent movies to illuminated billboards in Times Square and Piccadilly Circus, studio idents and bugs on TV channels, social media and the web, advertising and animation have a shared history and a common social and economic role in modernity. Advertising has been central to the work of famous animation studios and celebrated artists, who have relied upon income from the advertising industry and seized the creative and technical challenges of this form of filmmaking. Corporations and advertising agencies have embraced animation as a way to distinctively embody M. Cook (B) University of Southampton, Southampton, UK e-mail: m.cook@soton.ac.uk K. M. Thompson Seattle University, Seattle, WA, USA e-mail: thompski@seattleu.edu © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_1 1 2 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON products, brands and values, and engage consumers in emotive or rational ways. Large volumes of animated advertisements have been produced and seen, yet these are accorded limited or marginalised places in archival practices and histories of cinema. This book argues that throughout its history animation has been fundamentally shaped by its application to promotion and selling, and that animation has played a vital role in advertising history. It revises the existing history of famous animation studios and artists and rediscovers ignored ones, to reveal the extent to which their work was not simply supported by advertising, but entwined with it. It situates animated advertising within the context of a diverse media environment, influenced by print, radio and digital practices, and expanding beyond cinema and television screens into the workplace, theme park, trade expo and urban environment. It uncovers the role animation has played in shaping our consumption of particular brands and commodity categories. It assesses the way animated advertising shaped the technologies and media that supported it, such as television and the computer, and has been shaped by new technologies, including digital production and distribution in the present day. In doing so, this book establishes a rich new field of research, opening new questions about particular histories and our methods for researching them. The Importance of Advertising to Animation Advertising has always been a part of animation history. In his 1898 book, Animated Pictures C. Francis Jenkins stated ‘one can scarcely visit a large city anywhere in America without finding an advertising stand employing moving pictures wholly or in part as their attraction’.1 Jenkins’ title here reflects the usage of ‘animated’ as a synonym for the motion picture at the time and does not carry the more specialised meaning animation has since acquired. At this time all moving pictures were ‘animated’, and as Jenkins indicates, advertising was ever-present. As the techniques of trick films and what would later be called animation emerged, advertising was already a prominent part of film culture. The canonical pioneers of animation all have notable connections with advertising. The first lightning sketch film by James Stuart Blackton, credited by some as the ‘father of animation’, is instructive here.2 Blackton Sketches , No. 1 (1896) conspicuously displays his employer’s name, the New York World newspaper, as well as his own name, publicising both through their prominence.3 Blackton’s first film company Commercial Advertising 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 3 Bureau was founded in 1897 with his business partner Albert E. Smith to produce advertising.4 Emile Cohl is thought to have created several réclames (adverts) in 1912, only a few years after his celebrated film Fantasmagorie (1908).5 Donald Crafton also indicates that Cohl produced at least fifty advertising films between 1921 and 1923.6 Winsor McCay, Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks began their careers producing advertising of some kind.7 By 1937 the sponsored cartoons created by Felix the Cat animator Otto Messmer for advertising pioneer Douglas Leigh played continuously on large EPOK billboards in Times Square, Piccadilly Circus and elsewhere, drawing huge crowds of appreciative viewers (see Fig. 1.1).8 Dou- Fig. 1.1 An example of an early EPOK advertisement for Schaefer Beer animated by Otto Messmer, Times Square, 1940s (Douglas Leigh Papers, 1903–1999, Archives of American History [Smithsonian]) 4 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON glas Leigh’s EPOK ads led to his company being hired to produce the first American animated ads on television. Just two months after the first advertisement appeared on American television in 1941, Otto Messmer’s animation unit for Douglas Leigh produced fourteen eighty-second spots for tie manufacturer Botany Mills, featuring Lambie the animated spokescharacter who promoted Botany’s washable wool ties while also announcing the following day’s weather.9 Around the world, American dominance of film distribution meant local advertising was often a vital stimulus and outlet for animated films. The Wan Brothers’ Su Zhendong de zhongwen daziji / Su Zhendong’s Chinese Typewriter (1922) is credited as the first Chinese animation,10 while in Germany advertising pioneer Julius Pinschewer collaborated with a number of celebrated animation artists, including Walter Ruttmann and Lotte Reiniger.11 Advertising was crucial to the growth of animation in Turkey between 1939 and 1950, according to Başak Ürkmez, and a situation shared with many other Middle Eastern countries.12 Mihaela Mihailova and John MacKay indicate that ‘commercials composed a large proportion of all early Soviet animated film’, including work by Dziga Vertov.13 As commercial animation moved to television in the postwar period, it would become closely aligned with the promotion of the consumer products of American affluence, from food and drink to household goods and appliances including, most importantly, the television set on which these ads played. American animated advertising was initially a novel strategy adopted to counter the celebrity spokespersons of the late forties and early fifties, and animation was often interspersed between live-action footage.14 The use of animated spokescharacters and simple line drawings and diagrams reached a peak in the fifties on American television, and was exemplified by characters like Gillette Blue Blades’ animated parrot of 1946 with his famous catchphrase ‘How are you fixed for blades?’ (1946); the Friskies dog (1957), Hamm’s beer Bears (1956); Mr. Clean (1958) and the battling military insects of Captain Raid.15 One of the most commercially successful uses of animation was Rosser Reeve’s famous campaign for Anacin (1956, Ted Bates Agency), which featured three images that each illustrated a pounding headache: a hammer banging repeatedly, a bolt of electricity zapping and a metal spring coiling.16 A diagram of the human head showed animated white bubbles coming from the text ‘ANACIN’ to illustrate relief. A subsequent sales leap from $18 million to $54 million was credited to the ad being so memorable.17 By the 1960s and 1970s, cereal and toy advertisements were specifically targeting the children’s market 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 5 with Saturday morning cartoon channels showing animated advertising.18 In the 1980s toys also started to precede and provide motivation for the production of animated television shows like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983–1985) and She-Ra: Princess of Power (1985–1986), which provided product placement for Mattel’s action figures.19 The importance of television for the production of animated adverts was equally evident around the world. In Britain commercial television, launched in 1955, challenged the BBC’s dominance and provided a vital stimulus to animation production, such as the hugely popular Murray mints advert (1955, S. G. Benson) featuring animated Queen’s Guards singing the catchphrase ‘too-good-to-hurry-mints’.20 Television commercials were a central part of the work of most British animators and studios in the 1960s and 1970s, including Halas & Batchelor, Bob Godfrey, Richard Williams, George Dunning, Alison de Vere and joined by Aardman in the 1980s.21 In New Zealand when television began broadcasting in 1961, the first ad was the animated NZ Apples (Apple and Pear Marketing Board, Morrow Films, 1961), while animation also led the way in the first computer advertisements on New Zealand television two decades later.22 Advertising drew from the iconography of print media, including caricatures, comic strips and cartoon panels, but also influenced the content of theatrical animation as animated cartoons mined advertising jingles, catchphrases and other images and sounds for its gags and stories. For example, in 1908 Newbro’s Herpicide marketed a product that prevented dandruff, claiming that dandruff in turn caused baldness. The ad made famous the catchphrases ‘Going… going… gone!’ and ‘Too late for Herpicide!’ (see Fig. 1.2).23 These ads were popular well into the fifties and their influence can be seen in the visual design of the hair tonic sequence of Chuck Jones’ Rabbit of Seville (1950) (see Fig. 1.3). Similarly, in Bob Clampett’s 1944 Hare Ribbin’ when the ‘Mad Russian’ dog sniffs Bugs Bunny’s armpit, he does a double take and says ‘BBBBB—OOOOO!!’ in a foghorn voice, alluding to the signature catchphrase of soap brand Lifebuoy. The iconography and catchphrases derived from advertisements are examples of the ways in which advertising influenced theatrical animation. Alongside these prominent examples of advertising shaping well-known animation history, there is also a large parallel industry of animated advertising production that has received scant attention. Jeremy Groskopf has recently investigated American studios producing animation for advertising purposes in the silent era and he identifies a large number of companies, including significant ones such as the Scenic Film Company.24 Amid 6 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON Fig. 1.2 Two advertisements for Newbro’s Herpicide, The Raleigh Times, March 28, 1908 and Washington Post, March 12, 1916 (Newspapers.com) Fig. 1.3 Frame grab sequence from Rabbit of Seville (Chuck Jones, 1950 (©Warner Bros) Amidi profiles a similarly productive period after the Second World War when companies like the Jam Handy Organisation, Playhouse Pictures and John Sutherland Productions were active producing large numbers of television advertisements and sponsored corporate films.25 Even a brief review of the trade journals now available through the Media History Digital 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 7 Library reveals a further large number of American companies with inhouse facilities producing animated advertising, such as Chad Associates, Caravel Films, Cartoon Films and Ted Eshbaugh Studios who were all based in New York.26 Similar companies are found outside America, such as Publi-Ciné in 1920s France and Publicity Films in the UK in the first half of the twentieth century.27 Given this centrality of advertising to animation from its earliest days, animation historians and scholars have necessarily noted the connection, but have tended to privilege animated entertainment or art over animation created for commercial purposes. Leading animation studies scholars writing in the 1980s and 1990s such as Donald Crafton, Maureen Furniss and Norman Klein each made some reference to commercial animation.28 Yet this is either dealt with very briefly, as an aside, or interpreted through a simple art/commerce division. For instance, Crafton’s ground-breaking work Before Mickey discusses Oskar Fischinger’s work in this field, but implicitly values his independent experiments over and above his commercial work, saying Fischinger’s ‘bread-and-butter commissions from advertising helped make the abstractions possible’.29 This book challenges this marginalisation of advertising and advocates for a more nuanced account within histories of animation, arguing for a recognition of its fundamental and persistent role. The Importance of Animation to Advertising If advertising profoundly shaped animation history, the reverse is also true, and this book also explores the ways animation provoked and enriched advertising history. In tracing this history we understand animated advertising to have influenced the broader context of technological and industrial changes in mass production and the cultural practice of marketing and promoting goods.30 Long before Fred Flintstone and Bugs Bunny Bubble baths, animation was used to sell merchandise of trademarked screen characters, and to explain and promote other products, from television to THX. John Farnsworth used Steamboat Willie (1928) for his first television broadcast in June 1932, as did John Logie Baird who offered Mickey as the visual stand-in for ‘Mr. Watson, come here’ as he experimented with broadcasting from one room to another.31 Not only was Hollywood a market for DuPont products like celluloid but it was also a means by which DuPont advertised to other businesses, using the creative work of DuPont clients like Raoul Barre’s Mutt and Jeff series in the 20s and Disney’s Mickey 8 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON Mouse in the thirties to promote DuPont products like Pyralin, a type of plastic for cels.32 In 1959 advertiser Arthur Bellaire claimed ‘most humorous campaigns in television employ cartoon animation as the main visual technique’,33 citing Leo Burnett adman Huntley Baldwin’s famous statement, that ‘Animation can create a world of fantasy for a product that makes puffery palatable’ because ‘cartoons can get away with doing and saying things that real (live) people cannot… People tend to suspend disbelief and enter into the spirit of things in the animated world’.34 Baldwin went on to claim four other reasons for animation’s significant role in commercial advertising: (1) people enjoy cartoons, which play a role in attracting and maintaining attention; (2) animation creates unique identities through brands; (3) animation can reduce complex ideas to simple expressions; and (4) animation can ‘give form to an abstract idea, such as a detergent eating stains’.35 As these advertisers’ assessments indicate, there are a number of practical ways animation has contributed to the development and effectiveness of advertising. The intermediality of animation meant it provided an ideal mechanism for the creation of cross-media advertising campaigns by, for instance, propelling newspaper or poster illustrations into motion. The perceived universality of animation meant it was embraced by advertisers and agencies looking to communicate across national and linguistic borders, contributing to the expansion of a global marketplace. The ability of animation to embody abstract ideas and emotions was also used to help transform commodity goods into brands that communicated particular values. As well as these straightforward connections, which are expanded upon later in this introduction and throughout the collection, there are also several foundational theoretical affinities between animation and advertising. In his influential cultural history of advertising, Jackson Lears situates the rise of modern advertising at the end of the nineteenth century in relation to much earlier social and spiritual practices, making animism, metamorphosis and transformation central to his analysis. For Lears, the early modern period (1500–1800) was characterised by an animistic worldview with a ‘permeability of boundaries between nature and culture, matter and spirit, self and world’.36 At that time ‘commodities that were sold [in the marketplace] continued to provide magical connections between material and spiritual realms’ creating an ‘animated world’.37 The large-scale social, political and religious changes of modernity in the late-nineteenth-century dissipated that animism. While advertising was part of those developments, for Lears it also became a site of return or aspiration to prior animistic 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 9 beliefs. Advertising held out the prospect of self-transformation and metamorphosis, and thereby the potential for ‘reanimating the world’.38 Lears’ arguments bear close comparison to Sergei Eisenstein’s analysis of the appeal of animation. For Eisenstein, ‘the animated cartoon is like a direct embodiment of the method of animism’.39 Eisenstein argues that animation has a ‘primitive’ or ‘pre-logical’ appeal to the spectator, rooted in a return to an animistic worldview.40 This is most notable in the erasure of distinctions between humans and animals in the anthropomorphic characters common in the Disney animated cartoons he uses as examples.41 Just as Lears understands animism as a crucial basis for advertising, Eisenstein sees it as the root of the appeal of animation. This correlation would seem to suggest a special relationship between animation and advertising. The ‘plasmatic’ quality of animation outlined by Eisenstein supports the offer of transformation and metamorphosis through consumption that advertising holds out.42 Lears does not connect his theoretical account of animation and advertising with the applied techniques and genres of animated cartoons. The closest he comes is in a discussion of the use of comic strips by advertising. He praises Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland strip for offering a ‘vision of a reanimated world’ and explores the way this was appropriated by advertisers, however Lears ultimately sees these commercial examples as a degraded form.43 Similarly, Eisenstein does not discuss the application of animation to advertising specifically, but does discuss its role in capitalism in a general sense. Eisenstein argues that the return to animism seen in animation is a product of the plasmatic nature of the animated image and offers viewers a respite from the political economy to which they are subject. He states that animation provides ‘obliviousness, an instant of complete and total release from everything connected with the suffering caused by the social conditions of the social order of the largest capitalist government’.44 Both authors therefore point to qualities that seem to indicate that the application of animation to advertising is ambivalent or paradoxical. Animation and advertising are products of, and at the service of, capitalism and modernity, but evoke an animism that preceded them. This tension can also be seen in another important theoretical context for animated advertising, Marx’s notion of commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism is the process by which the exchange value of an object obscures its use value, and objects take on qualities they don’t inherently possess. For Marx, in capitalism, objects take on an independent life of their own while human labour becomes objectified.45 As David Ciarlo notes, the use of the 10 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON term ‘fetish’ again lends an otherwise modern concept a sense of atavistic reversion.46 While this can be observed in many circumstances, in his unfinished Arcades Project Walter Benjamin recognised the way advertising and other associated forms of promotional display serve as powerful engines of commodity fetishism, imbuing products with a particular form of liveliness.47 This applies to all forms of advertising, of course, but animated advertising would seem to have a special place here, enlivening commodities through movement and personality. Esther Leslie and Michael Cowan have both noted this in their writing on animation and advertising, each citing Marx and highlighting animation’s capacity to enliven commodities in a literal as well as metaphoric sense, to seemingly give them life through independent motion and character.48 A theoretical account suggests a deep-seated affinity between animation and advertising. However, as Liz McFall has extensively discussed, it might also be challenged for adopting broad epochal claims about historical change and adopting oversimplified binary divisions.49 Patrick Vonderau likewise raises related points in his discussion of the historiography of film advertising.50 Both McFall and Vonderau advocate the adoption of a genealogical approach to history, drawn from the work of Michel Foucault. Following their persuasive arguments, this book does not attempt to resolve these grand theoretical claims, nor does it present a singular chronological history of animation and advertising, but rather, offers a series of case studies that indicate the historical and cultural specificity of animation and advertising. Defining Advertising The centrality in advertising of the brand—a recognisable identity that encapsulates visual, auditory and affective qualities of a particular product—indicates the importance of the act of naming in this book’s field of study. On first inspection, the usage of ‘advertising’ in our title might seem self-evident in meaning. However, as many of the chapters here demonstrate, this term can encompass a wide range of animated works and industrial practices. Our collection does not offer a single, universal definition of animated advertising, but rather understands it to be historically and culturally constructed, varying in intention and effect in different places at different times. By investigating this phenomenon through individual case studies, we can consider the relationship of advertising to proximate terms, including non-theatrical, industrial, sponsored, educational, informational, 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 11 persuasive, propaganda and useful cinema, as well as to films that work or sell. Through this, our book contributes to the emergent study of film beyond the feature-length narrative, documentary or art film. In a significant early work in this field, Anthony Slide uses the term ‘nontheatrical’ to address a range of films that have generally been ignored in the canonical history of cinema.51 This term has considerable value as a corrective to a bias in film and media studies, but it does not easily map onto the animated advertising addressed here. Without doubt, many films discussed here were screened in a wide variety of contexts: in schools, churches, community centres, museums, workplaces and military barracks. The intermedial nature of animation saw it incorporated into a range of site-specific installations and temporary sites, such as shop windows, theme parks, circuses, world’s fairs and trade expos. However, many advertising films also took a more familiar form: they were structured as narratives, designed to be entertaining, included fantasy or fictional settings or characters (such as anthropomorphized objects) and were incorporated into theatrical screening programmes. Just as television has long challenged the theatrical monopoly of cinema, today sponsored animation appears in a wide range of online and streaming media platforms, appearing on our phones, tablets and other screens, while it also surrounds us on billboards, signs, shop windows, and screens in trains, buses, airplanes and a hundred other sites. The place and context in which an advertisement is screened is vital to its meaning, but this cannot be reduced to a simple distinction between theatrical and non-theatrical venues. Several influential collections have offered alternative terms to frame these often ignored films, including Films that Work and Useful Cinema.52 These have been followed by further specialised collections on educational, military and advertising films.53 It is tempting to understand these in hierarchical terms, the former collections mapping out a broad genus with the latter exploring individual species in the taxonomy. However, advertising cuts across these different areas and animation is a pervasive mode in all of them. The content of a film may allow us to categorise it based on different subject matter, but this does not preclude a consideration of its function. As discussed further below, the promotional intent of an animated film might be overt and clearly articulated or it could be understated or concealed, but it is a rare film that is not selling something: products, brands or ideas. Rick Prelinger has proposed the umbrella term ‘sponsored film’ as one solution to these debates.54 Prelinger’s pioneering work in identifying and 12 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON archiving such films makes him sensitive to the commonalities and diversity of the field and this term has considerable merit. Prelinger categorises advertisements as a subcategory of the sponsored film, but we could just as easily see it as a direct recognition of the consistent promotional intent in all such films. However, it also returns the discussion back to one of production context, losing the value of Slide’s original intervention in recognising the importance of the way films are presented and received. The extent to which a sponsor achieves some promotional benefit from an animated film will depend upon the context of its exhibition. This collection, and its use of advertising as an organising principle, aims to engage with these debates through the use of individual case studies that each offer a distinct perspective. Rather than conform to a uniform set of definitions, categories or labels, these case studies indicate a changing and contingent understanding of animation and advertising that intersects with propaganda, educational, entertainment, experimental and other uses of film. Key Issues As discussed above, our case studies recognise the diversity and differences of specific moments in the use of animation for advertising purposes. Nevertheless, common threads and thematic principles emerge from these singular instances. The rationale behind our chapter selection and their ordering is provided at the end of this introduction, along with an overview of the individual chapters. However, there are a number of recurring conceptual concerns that emerge from the collection that cut across the organisation of the book and are therefore highlighted here: rational communication and emotional appeal, the (in)visibility of animated advertising, the commodity object/spokescharacter and the intersections of gender, race and nation in the address to the consumer. These should not be understood as mutually exclusive and are frequently present together in different ways in each chapter. Furthermore, while some are framed as dual categories they should not be considered binary oppositions, but rather as continua in varying degrees. In each case, they help further elucidate the key question ‘why animation?’ 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 13 Rational Communication and Emotional Appeal Advertising can be both informative and affective. In many cases advertising has been seen as a rational channel for communicating factual information. American advertising in the early decades of the twentieth century was dominated by hard sell ‘reason-why’ advertising that argued for the practical superiority of the product in question, an innovation credited to copywriter John E. Kennedy and executive Albert Lasker at the Lord & Taylor agency, but which echoed the earlier factual approaches of John Powers and Charles Austin Bates.55 British advertising executive David Ogilvy espoused a similar paradigm of advertising that was both productcentric and posited a rational consumer. Writing in the 1980s and reflecting back on his career since the 1950s, Ogilvy consistently placed his emphases on the product and its functional qualities, arguing that advertising should ‘make the product the hero’ by foregrounding factual information about the item being sold.56 Yet advertising is also characterised by its appeal to consumers’ emotions. This is especially associated with the application of psychology in advertising, which has an extensive history. In 1904 Dr. Walter Dill Scott, a psychologist at Northwestern University, argued in his book The Theory of Advertising that ‘in the ideal advertisement the emotions and sensibilities of the possible customers must be appealed to’ and a 1908 revision of his theories contains extended discussion of ‘The Feelings and the Emotions’.57 German researchers in the 1920s had extensively investigated the use of psychological methods,58 and after the Nazis rose to power in 1933 émigrés like Paul Lazarsfeld and his student Ernest Dichter pioneered what would become known as motivational research in the United States.59 Meanwhile in the United States former behavioural psychologists-turned-admen like John Watson adopted a scientific approach to understanding and manipulating human drives, arguing that fear, sex and social emulation were three important subconscious motivators for the consumer.60 There are several important supplementary points to this generalised division between rational and emotional appeals. Value judgements are very often attached to the two positions. Practitioners have argued that advertising is a positive force, helping to maintain ideal market conditions, informing buyers and contributing to the regulation of prices through supply and demand. A 1924 review by the Manchester Guardian argued that advertising ‘is one method of creating and extending a market for goods’ and that it stimulates ‘active demand to ensure, and even progressively extend, 14 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON the advantages of large-scale supply’.61 Furthermore, the review found that advertising ‘can help social betterment in so far as it can contribute to the making of informed and critical minds capable of a resolute attitude’.62 In contrast, and perhaps more commonly, advertising has come under critical scrutiny in terms of its truthfulness, being seen as manipulative or downright deceitful. Most famously, Vance Packard’s 1957 bestselling book The Hidden Persuaders offered an exposé of the use of motivational research in advertising and advertisers’ exploitation of non-rational, subconscious desires.63 As a form of hyperbolic discourse, puffery became a permissible exaggeration in advertising under English and then American case law.64 Nevertheless, the recurring concern with the ‘subliminal’ or ‘puffery’ in advertising reflects a long-standing negative evaluation and moral alarm.65 The low esteem of advertising in these binary terms has surely been a factor in the exclusion of it from animation history, with historians focusing on more prestigious areas. Nonetheless, the history of different advertising techniques encompasses far more than this binary, including the use of drama, irony, humour and indirection, and hard and soft sell strategies have frequently alternated in different periods.66 In addition to matters of comparative evaluation, the rational/emotional distinction has also led some advertising scholars to identify sweeping historical developments in these terms. In such accounts there is an inexorable linear rise of mendacious emotional advertising over the twentieth century. William Leiss et al. make such a claim stating the twentieth century ‘opened with rationalism and the objective characteristics of goods at the centre of advertising…but this mode of representation has systematically been eroded and replaced by one in which products have been “reanimized” and given meaning, transporting them from the rational-physical universe of things to the world of human social interaction’.67 The use of ‘reanimized’ here, although intended in the broad terms Lears uses it, is suggestive of the place animation might have in this history, discussed further below. Rejecting linear and teleological histories, this collection adopts a more granular historical approach, and places animated advertising in its institutional and social context, allowing more nuance to this discussion. The intentions of advertisements and their effect upon viewers are not always so polarised. Roland Marchand discusses ‘reason-why’ advertising and suggests that their arguments and reasons were not as rational as they first appear.68 In contrast, emotional and affective engagement can be understood as a valuable and relevant basis for communication, rather than being 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 15 dismissed as simply false. The growth of academic studies of advertising and marketing in the 1960s and 1970s resulted in increased empirical knowledge and appreciation of the non-rational and affective functions of advertising alongside rational informative approaches.69 On first inspection it might be assumed that the use of animation in advertising would be exclusively directed at creating an emotional and affective response, given the attraction and appeal Eisenstein and others have identified in animation, and the implications of Leiss’ point above.70 Jim Loter’s discussion of early motion picture advertising in general argues for its role in ‘de-rationalising’ advertising.71 While the use of animation to create emotional appeal is evident in a number of the chapters here, studying animated advertising can provide insight into these larger questions and challenge simple binary distinctions and linear trajectories. Recent works on animated advertising by Vivian Sobchack and Michael Cowan respectively have developed a more nuanced approach to the way emotional and affective engagement can be understood as more than simply false or misleading, and a number of the chapters here do likewise.72 Conversely, animation can contribute to the rational and informative function of advertising and associated forms, such as educational, instructional and public service films. For example, the important role that sponsored animation has played in abstracting and simplifying complex technologies, machines and processes in the form of dotted lines, maps, blueprints and exploded diagrams as well as through anthropomorphised spokescharacters, indicates that its function in advertising should not be assumed, but investigated in individual circumstances.73 Further research is needed into the history of individual and hybrid animated modes adopted in all forms of advertising, such as stop motion, cel, collage and digital animation to consider the different ways that these modes may function for emotive, affective and rational purposes. The (In)visibility of Animated Advertising A second recurring concern of many of the chapters in this collection is the relative visibility of animation and its persuasive intent in advertising. The value judgements placed upon advertising discussed in the previous section undoubtedly play an important role in the variations in this, and the choice by advertisers to adopt animation as a method. If overt selling is commonly associated with negative values, then embedding the sales message or product placement within a narrative form resembling other entertainment might be considered effective. In contrast, concerns over 16 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON subliminal or psychological methods might advocate a direct, unconcealed sales message. As our chapters demonstrate, at different times animation has been seen as a sympathetic tool for both of these contrasting objectives. In Britain in the 1910s these issues were central to the parallel emergence of film advertising and animation as a recognised form. Propaganda films like The Battle of the Somme (1916) had demonstrated the persuasive power of cinema and advertisers were keen to capitalise on this, but exhibitors were opposed to including sales messages in film programmes, resulting in considerable debate and variation in views between advertising and cinema trade press.74 An equitable solution was found in newly emerging animation techniques, especially in this case stop-motion or object animation that could directly bring to life the branded packaging of products like Pilot’s Matches or Waterman’s Ink.75 Animated advertising of this kind was praised because it could be honest in promotional intentions, differentiated from feature narratives and concise and brief in length. As such, animation could fulfil the needs of advertisers and assuage the fears of exhibitors.76 Jeremy Groskopf has discussed the way the same concerns were addressed quite differently in the silent period in the American context, where screen advertising was more thoroughly marginalised.77 This may in part explain why many mid-century American examples from leading producers such as the Jam Handy Organisation and John Sutherland Productions fall more easily into the ‘sponsored’ category, avoiding direct selling in favour of informative and educational messages that offered general brand promotion.78 In contrast to the use of animation to differentiate advertising in 1920s Britain, later sponsored films in the United States commonly used animation to evoke entertainment and conceal the advertising message, as seen in Just Imagine (1947) created by the Jam Handy Organisation for American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T). In this film the cel-animated spokesperson Tommy Telephone and stop-motion animation of telephone parts create an entertaining diversion that sweetens the advertising message.79 In the present day, animated advertising has become pervasive due to the use of image manipulation software. All advertising in the twenty-first century is animated advertising. In one sense this means it is now more visible than ever, yet the adoption of photorealistic computer animation means it is, in another sense, invisible. The Blackbird technology developed by special effects house The Mill is a vivid example.80 The Blackbird is a ‘fully adjustable car rig’, an equivalent to a motion capture suit, but for cars. This can capture physical and environmental data, which can then be 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 17 Fig. 1.4 A composite image from promotional video 2018 Terrain Reveal x The Mill Blackbird (Bowe King, The Mill, Engage M1, 2017) showing The Mill’s Blackbird technology at work overlaid with computer generated models of the car being advertised with full control over revisions (colour, chassis design). The final photorealistic result is highly dependent upon animation techniques, yet these are undetectable to the end viewer, concealing the manipulation the advertising depends upon, as shown in Fig. 1.4.81 While the particular nature of this example is historically and technologically specific, the (in)visibility of animation within advertising recurs throughout the chapters in this collection. The Commodity Object and the Animated Spokescharacter A third concern that a number of our contributors explore are the embodied, often anthropomorphic forms of the commodity object and spokescharacter, that appear in the nineteenth century in print and later, moving image form, as part of the emergence of brand names and packaged goods. From ancient engravings and medieval symbols, to the trade cards, billboards, electrical signs and marquees of animated advertising in print, outdoor signage and the moving image, the commodity object has long been a central element in the promotion and selling of goods. While 18 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON branding was already an ancient practise (on livestock, barrels, etc.), as a marketing tool it was a product of the emergence of packaging and mass production in the nineteenth century. The Industrial Revolution enabled faster printing presses and new forms of paper making and packaging, as promotion and marketing exploded. Trademarks were legally protected visual entities that served as marks of differentiation for consumer products, especially on bulk goods like flour, eggs, sugar and biscuits that began to be sold under specific brands. Some of the earliest and most successful trademarks included Arm and Hammer (1867), Quaker Oats Man (1877), Bibendum (Michelin Man) (1895), Mr. Peanut (1916), Jolly Green Giant, Reddy Kilowatt (1926) and Snap, Crackle and Pop (1941).82 While trademarks were federally protected images or symbols in the United States (1870) and elsewhere, they often drew upon much older graphic and literary traditions, including folklore, fairytales, mythology, allegory and fables (such as elves, giants, leprechauns and genies), where, for example, cultural associations around specific animals, from chatty squirrels to wise owls, were used to connect to brands. Thus the association of the tiger with strength and speed is used for Exxon gasoline with its slogan ‘Put a tiger in your tank’.83 Personification, metaphor and verbal and visual puns also become important techniques that recur across the history of the spokescharacter. With the shift to mass production, the relationship between the seller and buyer was transformed, replacing the interpersonal with the mediated.84 In animated advertising this frequently occurred through a product endorser and salesperson, or through what Leo Burnett, cofounder of leading agency Burnett, Ogilvy and Mather termed ‘critters’ or recurring spokescharacters who helped humanise the product.85 According to Margaret F. Callcott, a leading researcher on the topic, a spokescharacter is ‘a fictional person employed to sell a product or service’.86 They could be humans (such as the Morton Salt Girl), racial caricatures (the Gold Dust Twins), animals (Smokey the Bear), mythological figures (Mr. Pizza’s Big Foot, Count Chocula), or objects (Mr. Peanut) and were frequently personified or anthropomorphised, often by adding faces, legs and arms to a product, together with movement.87 Spokescharacters usually embodied the characteristics of the product ‘whether it was purity, strength, gentleness, naturalness or low cost’.88 For example, Reddy Kilowatt was a trademarked spokescharacter and public relations symbol created to promote the consumption of electricity for the electrical utility industry, whose anthropomorphized design and appealing personality exemplified the attributes 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 19 of speed, reliability and modernity that the industry wished to convey to the consumer. (see Fig. 1.5) Through mannerisms, distinctive voices and style, they conveyed a sense of personality and humour that was emotionally accessible to the consumer and which, most significantly, played a role in consumer recall of the brand.89 They were product endorsers, symbols of the company and brand continuity and often became objects for Fig. 1.5 The Mighty Atom: Reddy Kilowatt is your friendly spokescharacter. (National Museum of American History [Smithsonian]) 20 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON viewer nostalgia.90 Their personality and aesthetic features, such as neotenous design helped shape their appeal, from the Pillsbury Doughboy to the Coca Cola Polar Bears and M&M’s chocolate candies.91 Unsurprisingly, spokescharacters were strongly connected with positive affect and appeal.92 In 1946 animation pioneer Walter Lantz, famed for his animated characters such as Woody Woodpecker, pointed to the successful role that animation played in war propaganda and training films in WWII. He saw this as a lesson that could be adopted by animation studios in the postwar period for sponsored and educational industrials, with films like Lantz’s own Reddy Made Magic (1946), a 12 minute Technicolor film about the history of Electricity for Reddy Kilowatt Co., or Shell Oil: The Story of Petroleum (1945) made for the US Government. For Lantz, ‘visual education is the education of the future’ suggesting that animated industrials were ‘really documentaries, and if they are carefully written, thought out, produced and marketed, they will open to motion picture producers a brand new field of endeavour and progress’.93 He also pointed to the wide audiences for these films, in schools from ‘kindergarten through college’ as well as men’s and women’s clubs, religious organisations and community groups. Lantz urged that sponsored film should be indirect in its approach and that ‘placing the sponsor’s films should be subtle and not impose itself on the audience’s attention at all’, but rather ‘[offer] a really instructive—and/or amusing—view of the product or industry’.94 One year after Lantz’s comments, in the trade publication Printer’s Ink, management and PR consultant Millard Faught also encouraged the greater use of cartoon characters like the Sunshine biscuit cooks and the ‘lovely White Rock nymph’, ‘because they are cute or friendly or because they have other ingratiating characteristics’.95 Describing a hypothetical employee in the C&O Railroad receiving a ‘company leaflet signed by “The Management”’ Faught suggested that it was by no means likely that a hypothetical employee might read such a leaflet, and that a more effective strategy would be to create company cartoon spokescharacters. For example, ‘if Chessie, the C&O’s tabbycat were to send him a personalised note he’d be likely to read the whole thing, and he might even take it home to his kids’.96 He called for a greater engagement with ‘our powerful folkway obsession with the humour and fantasy of comic characters and pixie personalities’, noting that ‘we cut our juvenile teeth on the covers of The Little Red Hen’ and that one of the best ways to combat ‘shrivel-minded 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 21 Goebbels’ during the Second World War were the ‘cartoonists who plastered our war factory walls with inspirational funny-paper posters and our bomber fuselages with ferocious beasties and wicked wenches’.97 Faught even suggested at this time of industrial strikes and actions, that the animated or cartoon spokesperson was ‘effective for bettering communications between management and its various publics—labour, stockholders, customers, etc.’ and that ‘a dash of humour would be welcome in our acid labour-management brew of the moment’.98 Faught’s desire for a humorous approach is exemplified by a sponsored animated cartoon like Cartoon Films Ltd.’s Crime Does Not Pay (Paul Fennell, c. 1940s), for Rinso. Parodying the musical genre it even shows a mock strike in which grey clothes protest their discoloured status, holding signs like ‘We want Rinso’, ‘Mrs Jones Unfair to Dirty Clothes’ and ‘No Hard Water scum’. For these commentators, animated trade characters were the wave of the future, linking the popularity of Popeye the Sailor, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny to animated advertising ‘spectaculars’ (or the gargantuan outdoor signage created by Oscar Gude and Douglas Leigh in Times Square), and the successful role that instructional and propaganda films had played during the Second World War.99 Faught and Lantz’s promotional arguments showed an insight into the selling power of cartoon celebrities across different media, from comic strips to television to cinema. This intermedial awareness is also demonstrated in a Printer’s Ink article that pointed to the animated spokescharacter’s new role, ‘The trade character in particular has had a new lease of life since the idea of animating it has taken hold. The popularity of Walt Disney’s characters, of comics and of such showmanship media as movies, electric spectaculars and the new medium of television has helped to maintain interest in them’.100 The entertainment and commercial industries looked to each other for inspiration and ideas. While Walter Lantz was drawing comparisons with Walt Disney and wartime propaganda and training films to promote educational sponsored film, Walt Disney was going down to Times Square to check out the EPOK animated advertising of Times Square Entrepreneur Douglas Leigh and his animator Otto Messmer.101 In turn, Douglas Leigh acknowledged that he got his best ideas for advertising by watching cartoons and noted that films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) helped him understand what made people laugh.102 Similarly, companies like Paul Fennell’s Cartoon Films Limited (which emerged 22 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON out of the old Ub Iwerks studio) were influenced by Walt Disney’s realistic details and full animation with its focus on story, emotional appeal and bright, musical tone.103 Although there were many spokescharacters that were created for advertising, such as Elsie the Cow and The Jolly Green Giant, many animated ‘celebrity’ spokescharacters (to use Callcott’s term) derive from preexisting media, whether it be comic strips, children’s literature, toys, film and/or television. Thus celebrity star Garfield has been a spokescharacter for Embassy Suites, while Bugs Bunny promoted Holiday Inn, Astro World and Kool Aid; the Flintstones endorsed Chesterfield cigarettes; and of course Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse and many others have had similar long histories in commodity merchandising.104 As a number of our contributors will explore, animated spokescharacters were particularly strongly represented in the promotion of soap, pharmaceuticals, food and drink, especially alcohol and candy. Animated spokescharacters flourished on American television in the golden era of American television commercials (1964–1970), and again in the nineties, with the renaissance of cel animation, the acceleration of character licencing, and with baby boomer nostalgia.105 Nostalgia has become an increasingly prominent topic of research and theorisation in scholarly work in recent years.106 Advertising has commonly harnessed the power of nostalgia to build brand engagement and loyalty, such as the use of recurring advertising spokescharacters to maintain a relationship with consumers from childhood through to adulthood.107 Nostalgia’s role in animated advertising is evident in several of our contributing essays. The study of animated advertising must go beyond enthusiastic reminiscence and be critical about the function nostalgia plays in constructing social relations, while also being alert to nostalgia’s closely linked flipside, futurism, which remains an equally vital mode in animated advertising. Intersections of Gender, Race and Nation Advertising has consistently been a crucial site for the negotiation of changing discourses about gender and race whether through representation in advertising copy and images, consumer address by advertising, or inclusion/exclusion from the advertising industry workforce.108 Individual studies have explored specific circumstances revealing a complex and ambivalent history, torn between stereotypes and opportunities.109 The traditional roles assigned to women, domestically or as objects of the male 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 23 gaze, meant advertising for household and beauty products were typically addressed to white middle class women, reinforcing stereotypes but also giving them privileged power as consumers. Increasingly entering the workforce after the First World War, women’s growing discretionary income meant that they were important consumers of stockings, cosmetics, tobacco and fashion, and throughout the history of modern advertising they have remained a principal target of advertisers, as the main decision makers for virtually all purchases, from the nineteenth-century onwards.110 In 1901, as one commentator, James Collins framed it, the female consumer ‘is mistress of the privy purse, keeper of the rolls, the hounds and the exchequer’.111 Animation has frequently intersected with and contributed to this history. For example, the film Charm’s BG * (Paul Fennell Studios, 1948) was sponsored by the publisher of fashion magazine Charm magazine, Street and Smith Publications, who wished to target a key underutilised market, the ‘BG’ or Business Girl, who, according to a study cited in the cartoon spent 20% of her income on apparel, and whose most important concerns were efficient shopping time and money (see Fig. 1.6). Fig. 1.6 Targeting women and the Business girl in Charm’s BG * (Street & Smith/Paul Fennell Studios, 1948) (animationresources.org) 24 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON At the same time, many animated ads also sought to educate and instruct female consumers in female domesticity, by serving products like Jello and television dinners that were new to market. One surprising such brand was Chiquita Bananas, advertised in a series made by John Sutherland Productions from 1947, which demonstrated how novel the fruit was to the American consumer.112 With its Carmen Miranda-like spokescharacter Miss Chiquita, and its catchy theme music ‘I’m Chiquita Banana and I’ve come to say, bananas have to ripen in a certain way’, we learn, in musical form, that you shouldn’t refrigerate bananas, that ‘when they are brown and speckled they are right to eat’, and that you can put them in pies and salads. Miss Chiquita is also evidence that demeaning ethnic and racial representations were rampant in the development of animation and advertising, often intersecting with similar representations of gender in the early twentieth century. Racial dehumanisation and objectification was particularly evident in representations of people of colour, such as portraits of Asian or Asian American men swallowing rats in print ads in the 1890s for rat exterminator powder (with the slogan ‘Rough on rats’).113 Animated racial representations were part of an intermedial continuum with minstrel imagery from print, theatre and vaudeville antecedents extending these in repeated derogatory ways.114 For example, the Gold dust twins, Goldie and Dustie, migrated from a Punch cartoon to an ad for N. K. Fairbanks Soap Co.’s Gold Dust Washing Powder around 1892 (see Fig. 1.7), whose advertising slogans (‘let the Gold Dust Twins do your work’), made explicit the alignment of slavery and labour in the marketing of its product.115 As Fig. 1.7 makes clear, the Gold Dust Twins exemplify the repeated ways in which black bodies were used to market washing powder, bleach, soap and other similar products, in a wider industrial discourse whose implicit message was the production of a normative whiteness. As that example indicates, racial depictions were also bound up with discourses about nation and international relations. A later Chiquita film from John Sutherland Productions, Bananas? Si Señor! (1956) and its companion film The Living Circle (1956), addressed audiences through specific ethnic and gendered forms, and was utilised as a tool for pan-American cooperation, as it was distributed across Latin America to promote international economic exchange and transnational commerce.116 Such topics were not only part of the onscreen representation of animated advertisements, but were also central to their production and distribution contexts. The influential role of émigré filmmakers has been explored in relation to 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 25 Fig. 1.7 Intermedial racism: Let the gold dust twins do your work, Press Advertising for N. K. Fairbanks Soap Co. featuring the Gold Dust Twins, c. 1916 (Print. Author’s collection) 26 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON other forms of cinema, but is especially evident in advertising and important to many of the chapters in this collection.117 In addition to the movement of personnel, the development of global brands has meant that there has been a complex exchange of films and techniques, while specific national or regional demands result in localisation and reinterpretation.118 Animation can have a varied but formative place in these terms, whether by offering a non-specific form of representation that can cross national or linguistic borders, or by allowing spaces for local craft traditions to be maintained. Further studies of the industrial contexts of animated advertising offer the opportunity to understand the international and transnational patterns of animation production, as well as specific historical national circumstances.119 In the present day, the impact of new media distribution networks is of central importance to changes in animated advertising.120 This in turn prompts consideration of much wider economic contexts, such as historical shifts between local, national and global markets and the organisation of political economies. It is our hope that this book will help initiate these conversations and scholarly research and deepen and refine our knowledge of these multifaceted and heterogenous histories. Structure and Organisation This collection is structured around five challenges to conventional animation and cinema history: Revisionist Histories, Intermediality, Brands, Television, and Digital and Contemporary. Their common basis is in demonstrating how the study of animated advertising extends beyond the conventional history and methods of animation and film studies. Revising familiar historical narratives, animated advertising is embedded in an intermedial exchange far beyond cinema as institution or exhibition venue. Animated advertising moves past the artist or studio as organising hermeneutic and must be considered within the commercial context of production. Animated advertising thrives in often ignored media, genres and countries. Animated advertising is at the forefront of the digital revolution, blurring boundaries between animation and other moving image forms. Within each section the chapters have been organised in chronological order and the overall flow of the book is also largely chronological, reflecting our commitment to this as a historical project, albeit a history that is not linear or singular, but instead multifaceted and divergent, perhaps even contradictory at times. Many of these chapters could fit under alternative headings. Christopher Holliday’s account of Pixar or Jason Cody 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 27 Douglass’ of anime are clearly revisionist accounts of well-known topics. Janelle Applequist and Matthew P. McAllister primarily discuss televisual animated advertising, while Mette Peters’ and Lucie Česálková’s examples of animated advertising are situated in the context of wider intermedial and transnational campaigns. A number of connections have been explicitly highlighted in chapter notes, and many more will be apparent to attentive readers. Revisionist Histories This book uncovers many new histories of previously ignored animated advertising, but part of its force is in revealing the extensive role animated advertising has played in the existing canonical history of animation. George Pal, Lotte Reiniger and the Disney studio are celebrated for their pioneering animation, and even the advertising films they produced may be known by some readers. The revisionist case studies in this section serve to show that advertising was not peripheral to these artists, as earlier historians have often mistakenly claimed, but rather advertising was integral to their careers and work in a number of ways. Our authors reject art/commerce binaries and the idea that these animators only produced this work to fund other more ‘personal’ work or were ‘smugglers’ bringing art into the commercial world. Instead, these chapters together explore how the aesthetic and technological innovations of animated adverts were inextricably linked to the institutional and economic context of their production. Mette Peters’ chapter examines the European career of George Pal in the 1930s. It shows how Pal’s work was intimately connected with its function as advertising in three ways that are exemplary of wider patterns in animation history. Firstly, she discusses the way the entertainment and promotional content of his films were mutually responsive and dependent upon each other. Secondly, she examines the international basis of Pal’s career and the transnational and intermedial circulation of his work, a product of the needs of the industries he worked with. Thirdly, and finally, she shows how Pal’s technological innovations in stop-motion animation production were driven by, and in some cases directly derived from, the business of the commissioning advertiser, electronics manufacturer Philips. Pal’s career is thus found to be deeply imbricated with advertising and its wider commercial context. Lotte Reiniger’s distinctive animated silhouette films have been widely acclaimed and influential. However, as Tashi Petter discusses in her chapter, 28 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON this has often been couched in terms that construct her work through craft, gender and an aesthetic of delicacy, following Rosalind Galt’s theorization of prettiness.121 Similarly, within Reiniger’s oeuvre her extensive work on advertising and public service films has typically been ignored or diminished. As Petter shows, these two areas, gender and advertising, are not distinct topics, rather they and their diminution are closely linked. Reiniger’s promotional work in Britain for the GPO Film Unit is shown here to have a strong alignment between the animator’s signature silhouette aesthetics and fairy tale narratives with the services they advertise. Rather than separate Reiniger’s aesthetics from their production context, or denigrate them for their commercial message, Petter reveals the complex contingent relationship between promotional message, target audience, aesthetic approach, industrial production and gender. The Disney studio has been synonymous with animation since the 1930s, but its extensive ties with advertising and corporate sponsorship have received far less attention. Malcolm Cook revises this position by examining the company’s work in the related fields of automobiles, oil and government highway construction. In the 1950s, Disney produced the popular television show Disneyland, which included many animated advertisements for sponsors featuring the studio’s well-known characters. That show was part of the company’s expansion into the Disneyland theme park, which saw Disney make closer ties with corporate sponsors in the automotive and related industries. Some park attractions included further screen-based animated advertising, but Disney also incorporated sitespecific expanded animation that promoted companies, products and social and political ideas. Cook shows how Disney’s animation was involved in a complex web of corporate activity with promotion, persuasion and selling at its centre. Intermediality As the discussion of Disney theme park attractions in Chapter 4 indicates, this collection adopts inclusive and expansive definitions of animation, and advertising has been an exemplar of that pattern. As the long-standing practice of a ‘campaign’ suggests, animated advertising does not start with, nor is it bound to, specific media, but necessarily crosses and combines them. Animation is just one tool amongst many that companies and agencies have used to sell products and promote brands. The intermediality of animation has undoubtedly made it an attractive choice for advertisers 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 29 looking to maintain a consistent message in different venues. The combination of graphic art with sound is crucial to many forms of animation, and this has allowed it to fuse print or poster visuals with radio, for instance, allowing spokescharacters from packaging and print advertising to be combined with catchphrases. We see that intermediality or the relationship between animation and advertising in photographic, graphic, architectural and sculptural forms, amongst other media, have been mutually influential and co-determinative. In this section, animation’s intermedial relationships with visual and auditory culture are framed and explored and the spatial, architectural and environmental sites for sponsorship are examined, with animation’s reception and understanding contingent on those contexts. Victoria Jackson examines animated advertising’s relationships beyond cinema in her consideration of the promotional and media contexts within which animated advertising sat. Jackson investigates the way animated adverts from the British company Cinads in the 1920s translated and adapted advertising from other media, such as posters or press illustrations. Movement and dynamic presentation was also important to other public advertising, such as illuminated billboards and shop window displays, suggesting a transmedial definition of animation that extends beyond theatrical exhibition. Whereas these early intermedial animated adverts adopted direct audience address and static or circular logic, Cinads’ sister company Adlets produced more complex narrative advertising that mimicked commercial entertainment and kept their persuasive message covert. Kirsten Moana Thompson’s examination of Reddy Kilowatt, a spokescharacter for the electrical industry, situates the character in a historical context in which cartoon characters played a key role in promoting consumption practices and modernity, from the twenties onwards, but especially after the Second World War. Her chapter explores the ways in which Reddy Kilowatt exemplified the fluidity with which sponsored animation moved intermedially between print, radio, comic book, film and television cartoons and commercials. Thompson discusses the ways in which Reddy Kilowatt translated the abstraction of electricity into an appealing and highly visible figure in popular culture, while also assessing how Kilowatt’s anthropomorphized yet gender flexible figure was inscribed by specific ideas around labour, productivity and race. By examining different sites of Reddy Kilowatt’s exhibition and interaction with the public, Thompson demonstrates how the animated spokescharacter can also be understood as a form of expanded animation, transforming the workplace, trade expo and world fair into extensions of the Kilowatt story. 30 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON Hollie Price’s chapter on the animated films produced by the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War reveals the flexibility of animation and its deployment in a variety of ways and venues that disavow any singular definition of animated advertising. Price structures her discussion around the contrasting styles of the famous Halas and Batchelor studio and the largely ignored work of Francis Rodker at the Shell Film Unit. Halas and Batchelor adopted a cartoon style derived from their commercial advertising background, delivering the desired persuasive message in an entertaining manner. In contrast, Rodker was associated with a diagrammatic approach that made direct didactic points with graphic simplicity. Yet, these styles were never discrete, indicating the blurred boundaries that existed between advertising, propaganda, documentary and education. This is reflected in the distribution and reception of these films, which included both theatrical and non-theatrical venues, the differing contexts shaping the way the animated messages were received and understood. Brands While studies of animation and film very commonly centre on the creative process of individuals or studios, looking at animated advertising requires a consideration of other organisational and methodological approaches. As the study of Reddy Kilowatt in Chapter 6 signalled, in its industrial context animated advertising is routinely produced, organised and understood in terms of brands. It is these powerful yet intangible constructions that are the focus of this section, situating animated advertising within a wider material and corporate history and visual and auditory culture. The case studies of particular brands and product types here demonstrate that the relationship between animation and advertising is bi-directional. Animation has commonly been used to give identity to everyday consumable commodities from soap to alcohol, cigarettes, and confectionary. Animation extensively shapes the perception of the commodities it sells, but it is also shaped by that process, developing new techniques and technologies or creating new associations. Here the political and social ramifications of animated advertising become crucial, as our ideas about elementary needs like eating, exercise and health are transformed by their animated representation. In the first chapter of this section Lucie Česálková investigates the Czech Schicht fat factory whose interwar advertising commonly adopted animation as a key tool to sell its products, including candles, glycerine, cooking 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 31 fats, soap and laundry detergent. Česálková shows how the use of animation served three key values the Schicht brand incorporated: transnationality, transmediality, and the transformative nature of the products. Operating in a relatively small European country with considerable historical, cultural and linguistic links with neighbouring countries, Schicht used animation as a method to transcend national borders and languages to reach consumers. Similarly, animation was incorporated into advertising campaigns that operated across a variety of media, delivering a consistent look and branding message between packaging, print and poster advertising alongside moving images. Finally, the transformative nature of animation provided an apt method to communicate the malleability of the raw material of fat and the variety of products it could become. The appealing capacity of animation, such as the recurring example of spokesperson characters, allowed it to sell the transformative qualities of the products themselves, their promise to enrich and change those consuming them. As Česálková argues, animation was therefore both informative and appealing in its persuasion. A similar tension is evident in Paul Wells’ chapter, where the practical selling of sporting apparel intersects with the construction of brand identity and wider ideological concerns, such as race, gender and ability. Wells argues that since the 1980s sports brands like Nike and Adidas have utilised animation to depict transcendence, what he terms a ‘calling forth’. While this might begin with the potential for sports clothing and footwear to enhance physical performance, it is extended to narratives of professional athletes overcoming social barriers, such as discrimination on the basis of race or gender. The capacity of animation to exceed or defy reality here becomes a deeply political move, but also ambiguous. For Wells, animated advertising for sports brands offers a utopian transcendence, but one that is necessarily commodified. The use of animation for advertising pharmaceutical brands is the focus of Janelle Applequist and Matthew P. McAllister’s chapter. A number of common themes recur here, such as the use of animated spokespersons and the role of animation in generating an emotional appeal and engagement with a product. Nevertheless, the importance of considering specific product types and national regulatory contexts is also clearly evident here. Unlike most other countries, the advertising of prescription drugs is legal, if heavily regulated, in the United States and animation is extensively used for this purpose. Reflecting their disciplinary background in Advertising and Communications studies, they adopt a content analysis method that allows an extensive survey of fifty-four commercials spanning the decade 32 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON prior to 2017. Such coverage allows them to categorise and create a typology of the different uses of animation in drug commercials and the way it is used to visualise or enhance ailments, drugs, effects, bodies, and worlds. Animation here is found to have very significant real world effects and implications, whether it is the benefit of explaining difficult medical conditions in an accessible way, or the dangers of minimising the risks and side-effects of drugs. Television The previous two sections clearly highlight how inter- and trans-medial exchanges were crucial to animated advertising as it operated within larger campaigns. However, it is still necessary to take close consideration of the technological and cultural specificities of any individual medium, especially the rise to dominance of television in the second half of the twentieth century. As a result, the intersection between television, animation and advertising is our particular focus in the next section of this book. Like animation and advertising themselves, television was initially a neglected area in cinema and media studies (as opposed to communication or cultural studies), but in recent years this has started to change. Nonetheless, the study of advertising or animated advertising within the history of television remains relatively under researched.122 While the growth of television in the post-war period is often seen as having a negative effect on mainstream animation, the vast expansion of commercial television provided an unprecedented demand for advertising, including abundant animated examples. Television reshaped advertising and animation history, but was equally shaped by each of them. What emerges from these three case studies from different periods and cultural contexts is not a singular history or essential definitions of television or animation, but rather a recognition of the contingent specificity of animated television advertising in particular times and places. In his chapter on Japanese animated television advertisements in the 1950s and 1960s, Jason Cody Douglass demonstrates the value of revising animation history in light of advertising, but also the necessity of a culturally and historically specific method. Douglass draws attention to the large volume of Japanese television animated advertising that predates and complicates definitions of anime, which have previously identified Tetsuwan Atomu / Astro Boy (1963–1966) as the point of origin. The identification of anime as, at least initially, a televisual form necessitates the inclusion of 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 33 the animated advertising that was central to television, both economically and experientially. Analysing historical Japanese industry commentary and media theories, Douglass reconsiders anime aesthetics as engaging with medium specificity arguments about television of the period. Yet he also argues that these short-form animations were already part of a complex ‘media mix’ incorporating intertextual relationships with print illustrations and artists’ animation. While Douglass shows how anime was shaped by the discourses surrounding television in the 1950s, Lilly Husbands reveals an inverted influence, as experimental animation was incorporated into and formed the emerging identity of one of the most prominent developments in 1980s television: MTV. Husbands’ history of animated MTV idents in the 1980s and 1990s uncovers the rich contribution experimental and independent animation artists made to the MTV brand. Commissioned by a series of creative directors, starting in 1981 with Fred Seibert, a large number of animators produced very short animations that incorporated a diverse and innovative range of techniques and imagery. While bringing experimental practices to a mass audience, this work remains ambivalent as oppositional techniques were severed from their political basis. These idents are shown as a new historically specific configuration between animation art and commerce, reshaping and recombining television and animation history. Throughout this book, industrial practices commonly play a vital or determining role in the animated commercial. The majority of authors adopt a materialist historical method, drawing on archives and printed sources to supplement textual analysis. However, as Timothy Jones argues and puts into practice in the final chapter of this section, other methods are useful for contemporary subjects. Adopting production studies and interdisciplinary methods based on ethnographic interviews with animation practitioners is highly appropriate for the hybrid practices Jones investigates in Indian animation. The industrial ecology Jones investigates cuts across different media and animation techniques, incorporating a mix of digital workflows and artisanal craft; it is locally or nationally specific, yet engaged with international or transnational developments, and it blurs distinctions between advertising and other forms of promotional or commercial production. Jones shows how Indian animation practitioner discourses have incorporated advertising as a route to economic and creative autonomy, creating a self-sufficiency while building a collaborative culture of production. 34 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON Digital and Contemporary The previous four sections have each shown how animated advertising destabilises and contests entrenched ideas from animation and cinema history. The ‘digital turn’ has likewise been seen as disrupting cinema technologically, aesthetically and ontologically. The final section of this book looks at the intersection of these two lines, addressing the way animated advertising can be considered to have played a central role in the formulation of digital media. The chapters consider the role that sponsored animation’s self-reflexive and intersensorial aesthetics play in the digital era, in their domesticated and spectacular forms. Together, the chapters argue that we cannot properly understand the history of digital media, and their complex relationship with animation, without incorporating advertising into the discussion. Jordan Gowanlock examines the early history of computer graphics tech demos, whose development centred on the annual industry showcase SIGGRAPH. He uncovers the two driving principles of show, don’t tell and demonstrating potential and the way these were integrated and developed in the 1980s in both the institutional context and aesthetic form of computer graphics demos. He examines the ways in which early tech demos used animation to previsualize software applications that were not always fully functional, demonstrating that a promotional impulse was evident from the earliest presentations at SIGGRAPH, and continued as the demos were increasingly influenced by Hollywood and the media industries. The history of computer animation can thus be seen as intricately linked with advertising, not only as an avenue for its early commercial exploitation, but more fundamentally in the way research was conducted and disseminated, and previsualized throughout. Christopher Holliday traces the continuation of that close relationship between advertising and early computer graphics in the commercials produced by Pixar between 1989 and 1996. Adding to the revisionist histories of animation pioneers offered in the first section of this book, Holliday argues that this period of Pixar’s history should not be seen as simply an economic stop-gap, but rather as a formative and fundamental part of the studio in organisational, technological and aesthetic terms. In their work the application of computer animation to advertising operates very differently from other digital imagery of the period, with Pixar focussing on the ‘simulated ordinary’ of the everyday commodities they promoted. Holliday’s acknowledgement of the role advertising played in the development 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 35 of the computer animated film serves not only to revise the history of the studio most famously associated with it, but also nuances the broader history of the incorporation of digital imagery in Hollywood cinema. In the present day, distinctions between television, cinema and other media are increasingly breaking down as digital technologies have become dominant. Our final chapter demonstrates how animated advertising is playing an active role in this process and interrogates spectatorship in the digital age. Aimee Mollaghan examines several animated advertising campaigns and idents from the UK that sell the experience of cinema and television. Adopting a phenomenological framework, Mollaghan finds that while these advertisements are nominally about technology, such as 4K projection and Dolby sound, their definition of media rests on sensory appeal. The rational product values and information being sold here are the emotional affect of the technology, cutting across the rational/emotional division. Film and its theory have been entwined with ideas about spectacle throughout their history, but Mollaghan argues we need to expand our understanding of spectacle beyond the visual, to include auditory and intersensory correspondence. Just as the sponsored film can spark our interest, prompt our affection and nostalgia, and persist in our memory, it can also trigger our senses and our bodies. Our five sections offer challenges to conventional animation and cinema history and new ways of framing historiography, media and mediality, technology and promotional discourse, and we intend that they will prompt further research into this new field. We hope you will find the contributions in this collection stimulating and we invite you to begin this exploration with us… Notes 1. C. Francis Jenkins, Animated Pictures (Washington, DC: Unknown, 1898), 89. 2. Jerry Beck, ed. Animation Art: From Pencil to Pixel, the History of Cartoon, Anime & CGI (London: Flame Tree, 2004), 12. 3. Malcolm Cook, “Advertising and Public Service Films,” in The Animation Studies Handbook, eds. Nichola Dobson et al. (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 158. 4. Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907, History of the American Cinema: 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 253. 36 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON 5. Donald Crafton, Emile Cohl, Caricature, and Film (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1990), 363. 6. Ibid., 374. 7. John Canemaker, Winsor McCay: His Life and Art, Rev. and expanded ed. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2005), 44; Timothy S. Susanin, Walt Before Mickey: Disney’s Early Years, 1919–1928. (Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 2014), 3–22; Russell Merritt, and J. B. Kaufman, Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney (Pordenone: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, 1993), 38. 8. Kirsten Moana Thompson, “Rainbow Ravine: Colour and Animated Advertising in Times Square, 1891–1945,” in The Colour Fantastic: Chromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema, eds. Joshua Yumibe, Sarah Street, and Vicky Jackson (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 161–178, 173. 9. Thompson, “Rainbow Ravine,” 2018; Karl Cohen, “The Development of Animated TV Commercials in the 1940s,” Animation Journal (Fall 1992): 34–61; “Television’s Newest Character, a Weather Predicting Lamb… Has a Sketch for Every Forecast,” unnamed clipping, Scrapbooks, Douglas Leigh Papers (Hereafter DLP), National Museum of American History (Smithsonian). 10. Daisy Yan Du, “Suspended Animation: The Wan Brothers and the (in)Animate Mainland-Hong Kong Encounter, 1947–1956,” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 11, no. 2 (2017): 140. 11. Julius Pinschewer, “Film Advertising [1913],” in The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory, 1907 –1933, eds. Anton Kaes, Nicholas Baer, and Michael Cowan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016). 12. Stefanie Van de Peer, Animation in the Middle East: Practice and Aesthetics from Baghdad to Casablanca (London: I.B. Tauris, 2017), 87, 18; Kirsten Moana Thompson, “Arab Cinema and Animated Advertising: From the Frenkels to Future TV,” Conference Paper, Cinema of the Arab World (American University in Cairo, Egypt 2018). 13. Mihaela Mihailova and John MacKay, “Frame Shot: Vertov’s Ideologies of Animation,” in Animating Film Theory, ed. Karen Beckman (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014), 149. 14. Laurence R. Samuel, Brought to You By: Postwar Television Advertising and the American Dream (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009), 13, 24, 65–66. 15. Warren Dotz and Masud Husain, Meet Mr. Product: The Art of the Advertising Character (San Francisco: Chronicle, 2003), 26–27. See also “Classic Animated Advertising,” Cartoon Research. http://cartoonresearch.com/ index.php/category/classic-animated-advertising/. 16. Juliann Sivulka, Soap, Sex and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising (Boston: Wadsworth, 1998), 271. 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 37 17. “Rosser Reeves (1910–1984),” Ad Age, 15 September 2003. https:// adage.com/article/adage-encyclopedia/reeves-rosser-1910-1984/ 98848. 18. Jason Mittell, “The Great Saturday Morning Exile: Scheduling Cartoons on Television’s Periphery in the 1960s,” in Prime Time Animation: Television Animation and American Culture, eds. Carol A. Stabile and Mark Harrison (Abingdon: Routledge, 2003), 51. 19. Lou Scheimer with Andy Mangels, Creating the Filmation Generation (Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2012), 197–233. 20. Alison Jane Payne, ‘It Has Hit Us Like a Whirlwind’: The Impact of Commercial Television Advertising in Britain, 1954–1964 (Thesis, Birkbeck, University of London, 2016), 145. 21. Claire Kitson, British Animation: The Channel 4 Factor (London: Parliament Hill Publishing, 2008), 14–16; Malcolm Cook, “‘All You Do Is Call Me, I’ll Be Anything You Need’: Aardman Animations, Music Videos and Commercials,” in Aardman Animations: Beyond Stop-Motion, ed. Annabelle Honess Roe (London: Bloomsbury, Forthcoming). 22. NZ Apples was initially made for the UK TV market, then screened in NZ when television debuted April 1, 1961. Morrow Productions were also responsible for the first theatrical animated ad in colour, Trees (NZ Forest Service, Morrow, 1952) and the Mr. Dollar series to promote decimal currency in 1967. The first computer ad was Blue Skies (Peter Thompson, DDB, 1992), Hazel Phillips, Sell!: Tall Tales from the Legends of NZ Advertising (New York: Penguin, 2013), 130, 125; The Story of Morrow Productions scrapbook at Ngā Taonga Archive. https://www.ngataonga. org.nz/blog/nz-history/morrow-productions. 23. “Newbro’s Herpicide,” National Museum of American History (Smithsonian Archives). https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/ object/nmah_210014. Accessed 28 March 2019. 24. Jeremy Groskopf, Profit Margins: The American Silent Cinema and the Marginalization of Advertising (Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2013), 156, 311; Groskopf, “Profit Margins: Silent Era Precursors,” Film History 24, no. 1 (2012): 82–96. 25. Additional Studios included Academy Pictures, Animation Inc., Bill Sturm Studios, Cascade Pictures, Elektra Films, Era Productions, Filmfair, Fine Arts Films, Gifford-Kim Animation, Gantray-Lawrence Animation, Pantomime Pictures, Quartet Films, Ray Patin Productions, Robert Lawrence Productions, Sherm Glas Productions, Storyboard, Transfilm, TV Spots, and UPA. Amid Amidi, Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2006), 46, 66. Other important American producers included David Hilberman and Zach Schwartz’s 38 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. company Zac-David (later renamed Tempo) (Camel, Standard Brands, Plymouth, Tide and Clark Gum), Fletcher Smith Studios (Rinso, Super Suds, Sunbeam Bread, Motts Apple Juice) and Shamus Culhane (the Ajax Pixies, Tetley Tea, Rinso, Ajax, Halo Shampoo). American Cinematographer October 1955, 588–589; Business Screen 2:6 (1940), 5, 6; Business Screen 6:1 (1939), 21. Richard Neupert, French Animation History (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011); World Film News, April 1936, 29. See Malcolm Cook, “Advertising and Public Service Films,” in The Animation Studies Handbook, eds. Nichola Dobson, Amy Ratelle, Caroline Ruddell, and Annabelle Honess Roe (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 160–161. Donald Crafton, Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898–1928 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982), 235. Technological changes such as the half tone process (1885) and chromolithography (1860), transformed print media, and enabled, respectively, picture printing and the first colour adverts, on everything from suitcases to cigar boxes and greeting cards. Direct mail catalogues of Sears Roebucks and Montgomery Ward (1872) brought trademarks and brands to life through visual illustration. Didier Ghez, They Drew As they Pleased: The Hidden Art of Mid-century Artists (Los Angeles: Disney Edition, 2019), 14. Anon, “Pyralin’s Unique Use in the Movies,” The DuPont Magazine 17, no. 2 (February 1923): 5; Kirsten Moana Thompson, “The Colour Revolution: Disney, DuPont and Faber Birren,” Cinéma&Cie International Film Studies Journal, eds. Elena Gipponi and Joshua Yumibe 19, no. 32 (Spring 2019): 39–52. Cited in Margaret F. Callcott and Patricia A. Alvey, “Toons sell….and Sometimes They Don’t: An Advertising Spokes-Character Typology and Exploratory Study,” Proceedings of the 1991 Conference of the American Academy of Advertising, ed. Rebecca Holman (1991), 43–52, 43. Arthur Bellaire, TV Advertising: A Handbook of Modern Practice (New York: Harper, 1959), 96. Baldwin, cited in Callcott and Alvey, “Toons sell,” 44. Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 21. Ibid., 25. Ibid., 45, 63, 129. Sergei Eisenstein et al., Eisenstein on Disney (Calcutta: Seagull, 1986), 44. Ibid., 41, 59. Ibid, 49–53. Ibid., 41. Lears, Fables of Abundance, 330–333. 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 39 44. Eisenstein et al., Eisenstein on Disney, 8. 45. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1990), 163–165. 46. David Ciarlo, Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 26. 47. Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 7. 48. Esther Leslie, Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory, and the Avant-Garde (London: Verso, 2002), 6; Michael Cowan, “Advertising and Animation: From the Invisible Hand to Attention Management,” in Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau (London: BFI/Palgrave, 2016), 99. 49. Liz McFall, Advertising: A Cultural Economy (London: Sage, 2004), 95– 99. 50. Patrick Vonderau, “Introduction: On Advertising’s Relation to Moving Pictures,” in Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau (London: BFI/Palgrave, 2016), 3. 51. Anthony Slide, Before Video: A History of the Non-Theatrical Film (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992). 52. Vinzenz Hediger and Patrick Vonderau, eds., Films That Work: Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009); Charles R. Acland and Haidee Wasson, eds., Useful Cinema (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011). 53. Devin Orgeron, Marsha Orgeron, and Dan Streible, eds., Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau, eds., Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising (London: BFI/Palgrave, 2016); Haidee Wasson and Lee Grieveson, eds., Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2018). 54. Rick Prelinger, The Field Guide to Sponsored Films (San Francisco: National Film Preservation Foundation, 2006), vi. 55. Sivulka, Soap, Sex and Cigarettes, 107–108, 166; Lears, Fables of Abundance, 199. 56. David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising (London: Pan Books, 1983), 11, 18. 57. Walter Dill Scott, The Theory of Advertising: A Simple Exposition of the Principles of Psychology in Their Relation to Successful Advertising (Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1904), 29; Walter Dill Scott, The Psychology of Advertising: A Simple Exposition of the Principles of Psychology in Their Relation to Successful Advertising (Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1908), 22–37. 58. Michael Cowan, “Absolute Advertising: Walter Ruttmann and the Weimar Advertising Film,” Cinema Journal 52, no. 4 (2013): 57. 40 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON 59. Lawrence R. Samuel, Freud on Madison Avenue: Motivation Research and Subliminal Advertising in America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). 60. Sivulka, Soap, Sex and Cigarettes, 149. 61. Advertising Review: A Brief Notice of Some of the Theories & Principles of Advertisement and of the Contributory Arts (Manchester: Manchester Guardian, 1924), 1–4. 62. Ibid., 15. 63. Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: David McKay, 1957). 64. See Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Co. [1892] EWCA Civ 1, [1893] QB 256, [1893] 1 QB 256. http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1892/ 1.htm. Accessed 30 March 2019. The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defined puffery as a ‘term frequently used to denote the exaggerations reasonably to be expected of a seller as to the degree of quality of his product, the truth or falsity of which cannot be precisely determined.’ Better Living, Inc. et al., 54 F.T.C. 648 (1957), aff’d, 259 F.2d 271 (3rd Cir. 1958) 65. Charles R. Acland, Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 91–110; Ivan L. Preston, The Great American Blowup: Puffery in Advertising and Selling (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975). 66. Sivulka, Soap, Sex and Cigarettes, 55. See also discussion of Lifestyle marketing (265), Motivation research (266), the creative revolution (273, 298), inherent drama (277) and the “new” advertising (282). 67. William Leiss, Stephen Kline, and Sut Jhally, Social Communication in Advertising: Persons, Products & Images of Well-Being (London: Routledge, 1986), 279. 68. Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985), 10. 69. Yorgo Pasadeos, Joe Phelps, and Bong-Hyun Kim, “Disciplinary Impact of Advertising Scholars: Temporal Comparisons of Influential Authors, Works and Research Networks,” Journal of Advertising 27, no. 4 (1998); Fred K. Beard, “Peer Evaluation and Readership of Influential Contributions to the Advertising Literature,” Journal of Advertising, 31 (2002); Kyongseok Kim et al., “Trends in Advertising Research: A Longitudinal Analysis of Leading Advertising, Marketing, and Communication Journals, 1980 to 2010,” Journal of Advertising, 43, no. 3 (2014). 70. Eisenstein et al., Eisenstein on Disney, 21. 71. Jim Loter, “Early Motion Pictures and the ‘De-Rationalizing’ of Advertising,” (Dissertation, Iowa City, University of Iowa, 1996). 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 41 72. Vivian Sobchack, “The Line and the Animorph or ‘Travel Is More Than Just a to B’,” Animation 3, no. 3 (2008); Cowan, “Absolute Advertising: Walter Ruttmann and the Weimar Advertising Film.” 73. The Jam Handy Organisation, which made industrials for companies such as Chevrolet and General Motors (e.g. A Case of Spring Fever [1940]) in Detroit, had two animation production departments, with one specializing in character animation and one in technical animation. See Rick Prelinger, “Smoothing the Contours of Didacticism: Jam Handy and His Organization,” in Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States, eds. Devin Orgeron, Marsha Orgeron, and Dan Streible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 338–355. 74. The Advertiser’s Weekly 16 September 1916, 5; The Bioscope 2 November 1916, 457. 75. The Bioscope 7 December 1916, 981; The Bioscope 14 December 1916, 1103. 76. The Bioscope, ibid. 77. Groskopf, “Profit Margins,” 8. 78. See numerous examples of animated films listed in Prelinger, The Field Guide to Sponsored Films. 79. Prelinger, ibid., 51. 80. http://www.themill.com/portfolio/3002/the-blackbird. Accessed 30 March 2019. 81. http://www.themill.com/portfolio/3417/2018-terrain-reveal-x-themill-blackbird. Accessed 30 March 2019. 82. Sivulka, Soap, Sex and Cigarettes, 47–52. 83. Margaret B. Stern, “Medieval Allegory: Roots of Advertising Strategy for the Mass Market,” Journal of Marketing 52, no. 3 (July 1988): 84–94, 86. 84. William M. O’Barr. “A Brief History of Advertising in America,” Advertising and Society Review 11, no. 1 (2010). http://muse.jhu.edu/article/ 377516. Accessed 30 March 2019. 85. Sivulka, ibid., 279. 86. Margaret F. Callcott and Barbara J. Phillips, “Observations: Elves Make Good Cookies: Creating Likeable Spokes-Character Advertising,” Journal of Advertising Research (September/October, 1996): 73–79, 77. 87. Margaret F. Callcott and Wei-Na Lee. 1995. “Establishing the SpokesCharacter in Academic Inquiry: Historical Overview and Framework for Definition,” Advances in Consumer Research 22: 144–151, 144; Dotz, 13. 88. Dotz, 13. 89. Callcott & Lee, 1995, 149; Stern, 1988; Dotz, ibid. Additionally, as Callcott & Alvey note, there is an extensive body of research which ‘suggests that a positive attitude toward the ad can lead to a positive attitude toward the brand’, Callcott & Alvey, 45. 42 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON 90. Callcott & Lee, 1995, 144; Tim Hollis, Toons in Toyland: The Story of Cartoon Character Merchandise (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2015). 91. Callcott & Phillips’ research has identified four elements that play an important role in likeability: personality; physical characteristics (such as childlike features and props), humor, and cultural familiarity with animal symbolism and stereotypes, 77. 92. Marjorie Delbaere, Edward F. McQuarrie, and Barbara J. Phillips, “Personification in Advertising: Using a Visual Metaphor to Trigger Anthropomorphism,” Journal of Advertising 40, no. 1 (Spring, 2011): 121–130, 121; Callcott & Alvey, 44. Animation has played a partial or complete role in 22% of humorous advertising, which was around 15% of all advertising, Patrick J. Kelley and Paul Solomon, “Humor in Television Advertising,” Journal of Advertising 4, no. 3 (1975): 31–35. 93. Hilda Black, ‘Future of Commercial Cartoons’. International Photographer, February, 1946, 5–7, 5, 7; Walter Lantz Archive, 1927–1972, UCLA Performing Arts Special Collection, Collection 47, hereafter WLA. 94. Black, ibid., 7. As Rick Prelinger has noted, producers like Jam Handy adopted this strategy of indirection in 1940 when it stopped directly crediting Chevrolet as sponsor in films like A Case of Spring Fever (1940). 95. Millard C. Faught, “Cartoon Characters Make Good Management,” Printers Ink, November 28, 1947, 1–2, 2, WLA. 96. Faught, 1. 97. Faught, 2. 98. Ibid. 99. Ashton B. Collins, “Looking Ahead in Advertising,” Talk given to the New Jersey Utilities Association, Sea View NJ, 25 May 1945, Edison Electric Institute, July 1945: 193–195. Reddy Kilowatt Records, National Museum of American History (Smithsonian), hereafter RKR. 100. Anon, “Trade Characters Much Alive” Between the Lines, 25 February 1946, Reddy Kilowatt Bulletin, No. 553–546, RKR Disney’s long interest in television would be exemplified 20 years later in the use of Ludwig Von Drake as tripartite brand advertising RCA colour technology, NBC colour broadcasting and Disney colour programming, see Kirsten Moana Thompson, “Disney for Hire?: Sponsored Disney Animation, from Bucky Beaver to Ludwig von Drake,” Conference Paper. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Seattle, March 2019. 101. Leonard Lyons, “The Lyons Den” (c. 1939). Douglas Leigh Papers, 1903–1999. National Archives of American Art, Smithsonian, Washington DC, hereafter DLP; Thompson, “Rainbow Ravine,” 172. 102. Douglas Leigh, “This Business of Selling Big Spectaculars,” Signs of the Times, December 1934, 18, DLP. 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 43 103. Fennell’s films like Crime Does Not Pay mimicked the crime film, and The Villain Follies, the musical and melodrama, as well as the studio’s Zippy Spur and Sparkle series (where a young boy constantly rescues his young dog Sparkle from hazardous predicaments), were all in full animation and Technicolor IV, with high production values. https://animationresources. org/category/paul-fennell/. Accessed 30 March 2019. 104. Robert Heide and John Gilman, Disneyana: Classic Collectibles 1928–1958. (New York: Hyperion, 1995); Hollis, ibid. 105. Michael Barrier, “Memories for Sale,” Nation’s Business 77 (December, 1989), 18–26; Hollis, ibid. 106. Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001); Jason Sperb, Flickers of Film: Nostalgia in the Time of Digital Cinema (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015). 107. Margaret F. Callcott and Wei-Na Lee, “Establishing the Spokes-Character in Academic Inquiry: Historical Overview and Framework for Definition,” Advances in Consumer Research 22 (1995). 108. Lears, Fables of Abundance, 123–124, 209; Sivulka, Soap, Sex and Cigarettes, 81–82, 150–156, 253–259; Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940, 33–38, 167–188. 109. Ellen Gruber Garvey, The Adman in the Parlor: Magazines and the Gendering of Consumer Culture, 1880s to 1910s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Lori Anne Loeb, Consuming Angels: Advertising and Victorian Women (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); Katherine J. Parkin, Food Is Love: Food Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006); Jason Chambers, Madison Avenue and the Color Line: African Americans in the Advertising Industry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008); and Ciarlo, Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011). 110. In the United States 85% of all purchases are believed to be made by women, and this continued to be a key market in the eighties, with the ‘Levi’s for Women’ ad campaign in the eighties. Sivulka, Soap, Sex and Cigarettes, 96, 150–156, 411. 111. Lears, Fables of Abundance, 209. 112. Sponsor, March 1948, 36–37. 113. Sivulka, Soap, Sex and Cigarettes, 68–69; Linda C. L. Fu, Advertising and Race: Global Phenomenon, Historical Challenges, and Visual Strategies (New York: Peter Lang, 2015), 17–110. 114. Nicholas Sammond, Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015). 115. National Museum for American History (Smithsonian). 116. Business Screen 18:1 (1957), 63. 44 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON 117. Alastair Phillips, City of Darkness, City of Light: Émigré Filmmakers in Paris 1929–1939 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004); Tim Bergfelder and Christian Cargnelli, eds., Destination London: GermanSpeaking Emigrés and British Cinema, 1925–1950 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008); Vincent Brook, Driven to Darkness: Jewish Émigré Directors and the Rise of Film Noir (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009). 118. In the New Zealand context, the animated ‘Goodnight Kiwi’ (1975–1994, Sam Harvey), which marked the end of broadcasting for the evening between 1975–1994 had become an affectionate icon in nationalist popular culture, so much so that it was brought back to TV in 2007. ‘Goodnight Kiwi’. https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/goodnight-kiwi-1981 119. Sean Nixon, Hard Sell: Advertising, Affluence and Trans-Atlantic Relations C. 1951–69 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013); Pamela Swett, Selling Under the Swastika: Advertising and Commercial Culture in Nazi Germany (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013); and Winston Fletcher, Powers of Persuasion: The Inside Story of British Advertising: 1951–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 120. Amanda D. Lotz, The Television Will Be Revolutionized (New York: New York University Press, 2007), 152–192; Joseph Turow, Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). 121. Rosalind Galt, Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). 122. A recent exception is Susan Murray’s Bright Signals: A History of Color Television (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018), which usefully examines the relationship of technology and network and television set branding. Other useful books in the American context include Steve Kosareff’s Window to the Future: The Golden Age of Television and Advertising (San Francisco: Chronicle, 2005) and Lawrence R. Samuel, Brought to You By: Postwar Television Advertising and the American Dream (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002). Bibliography Acland, Charles R. 2011. Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Acland, Charles R., and Haidee Wasson, eds. Useful Cinema. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. Amidi, Amid. 2006. Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation. 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Black, Hilda. 1946. “Future of Commercial Cartoons.” International Photographer (February): 5–7. Walter Lantz Archive (WLA). Blaszczyk, Regina Lee. 2012. The Color Revolution. Cambridge: New York: MIT. Boym, Svetlana. 2001. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books. Brook, Vincent. 2009. Driven to Darkness: Jewish Émigré Directors and the Rise of Film Noir. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Callcott, Margaret F., and Patricia A. Alvey. 1991. “Toons Sell….and Sometimes They Don’t: An Advertising Spokes-Character Typology and Exploratory Study.” Proceedings of the 1991 Conference of the American Academy of Advertising, ed. Rebecca Holman, 43–52. Callcott, Margaret F., and Wai-Na Lee. 1994. “A Content Analysis of Animation and Animated Spokes-Characters in Television Commercials.” Journal of Advertising 23, no. 4 (December): 1–12. Callcott, Margaret F., and Wei-Na Lee. 1995. “Establishing the Spokes-Character in Academic Inquiry: Historical Overview and Framework for Definition.” Advances in Consumer Research 22: 144–151. Callcott, Margaret F., and Barbara J. Phillips. 1996. “Observations: Elves Make Good Cookies: Creating Likeable Spokes-Character Advertising.” Journal of Advertising Research (September/October): 73–79. Canemaker, John. 2005. Winsor McCay: His Life and Art. Rev. and expanded ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Co. [1892] EWCA Civ 1, [1893] QB 256, [1893] 1 QB 256. http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1892/1.htm. Accessed 30 March 2019. Chambers, Jason. 2008. Madison Avenue and the Color Line: African Americans in the Advertising Industry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Ciarlo, David. 2011. Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 46 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON Cohen, Karl. 1992. 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Mittell, Jason. 2003. “The Great Saturday Morning Exile: Scheduling Cartoons on Television’s Periphery in the 1960s.” In Prime Time Animation: Television Animation and American Culture, eds. Carol A. Stabile and Mark Harrison, 33–54. Abingdon: Routledge. Murray, Susan. 2018. Bright Signals: A History of Color Television. Durham: Duke University Press. Musser, Charles. 1994. The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907. History of the American Cinema: 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. Newbro’s Herpicide. 1899. National Museum of American History (Smithsonian Archives). https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_ 210014. Neupert, Richard. 2011. French Animation History. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Nixon, Sean. 2013. Hard Sell: Advertising, Affluence and Trans-Atlantic Relations. 1951–69. Manchester: Manchester University Press. O’Barr, William M. 2010. “A Brief History of Advertising in America.” Advertising and Society Review 11, no. 1. http://muse.jhu.edu/article/377516. Accessed 30 March 2019. 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 49 Ogilvy, David. 1983. Ogilvy on Advertising. London: Pan Books. Orgeron, Devin, Marsha Orgeron, and Dan Streible, eds. 2011. Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Packard, Vance. 1957. The Hidden Persuaders. New York: David McKay. Parkin, Katherine J. 2006. Food Is Love: Food Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pasadeos, Yorgo, Joe Phelps, and Bong-Hyun Kim.1998. “Disciplinary Impact of Advertising Scholars: Temporal Comparisons of Influential Authors, Works and Research Networks.” Journal of Advertising 27, no. 4 (December 1): 53–70. Payne, Alison Jane. 2016. “‘It Has Hit Us Like a Whirlwind’: The Impact of Commercial Television Advertising in Britain, 1954–1964.” Thesis, Birkbeck, University of London. Phillips, Alastair. 2004. City of Darkness, City of Light: Émigré Filmmakers in Paris 1929–1939. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Phillips, Hazel. 2013. Sell!: Tall Tales from the Legends of NZ Advertising. New York: Penguin. Pinschewer, Julius. 2016. “Film Advertising [1913].” In The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory, 1907–1933, eds. Anton Kaes, Nicholas Baer, and Michael Cowan, 530–532. Berkeley: University of California Press. Prelinger, Rick. 2006. The Field Guide to Sponsored Films. San Francisco: National Film Preservation Foundation. Prelinger, Rick. 2011. “Smoothing the Contours of Didacticism: Jam Handy and His Organization.” In Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States, eds. Devin Orgeron, Marsha Orgeron, and Dan Streible, 338–355. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Preston, Ivan L. 1975. The Great American Blowup: Puffery in Advertising and Selling. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Reddy Kilowatt Records, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Archives (RKR). Sammond, Nicholas. 2015. Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Samuel, Lawrence R. 2002. Brought to You By: Postwar Television Advertising and the American Dream. Austin: University of Texas Press. Samuel, Lawrence R. 2010. Freud on Madison Avenue: Motivation Research and Subliminal Advertising in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Scheimer, Lou with Andy Mangels. 2012. Creating the Filmation Generation. Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows Publishing. Scott, Walter Dill. 1904. The Theory of Advertising: A Simple Exposition of the Principles of Psychology in Their Relation to Successful Advertising. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. 50 M. COOK AND K. M. THOMPSON Scott, Walter Dill. 1908. The Psychology of Advertising: A Simple Exposition of the Principles of Psychology in Their Relation to Successful Advertising. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. Sivulka, Juliann. 1998. Soap, Sex and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising. Boston: Wadsworth. Slide, Anthony. 1992. Before Video: A History of the Non-Theatrical Film. New York: Greenwood Press. Sobchack, Vivian. 2008. “The Line and the Animorph or ‘Travel Is More Than Just a to B’.” Animation 3, no. 3 (November): 251–265. Sperb, Jason. 2015. Flickers of Film: Nostalgia in the Time of Digital Cinema. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Stern, Margaret, B. 1988. “Medieval Allegory: Roots of Advertising Strategy for the Mass Market.” Journal of Marketing 52, no. 3 (July): 84–94. Susanin, Timothy, S. 2011. Walt Before Mickey: Disney’s Early Years, 1919–1928. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press. Swett, Pamela. 2013. Selling Under the Swastika: Advertising and Commercial Culture in Nazi Germany. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Thompson, Kirsten Moana. 2008. “‘New Patterns for Living’: Design and the Industrial Films of Jam Handy.” Conference Paper. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, March Philadelphia, USA. Thompson, Kirsten Moana. 2013. “Colorful Cartography and the Empire State Thermometer: The 2012 American Election and Technological Display.” Conference Paper. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, March, Chicago, USA. Thompson, Kirsten Moana. 2018. “Arab Cinema and Animated Advertising: From the Frenkels to Future TV.” Conference Paper. Cinema of the Arab World Conference, American University, March, Cairo, Egypt. Thompson, Kirsten Moana. 2018. “Rainbow Ravine: Colour and Animated Advertising in Times Square, 1891–1945.” In The Colour Fantastic: Chromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema, eds. Joshua Yumibe, Sarah Street, and Vicky Jackson, 161–178. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Thompson, Kirsten Moana. 2019. “Disney for Hire?: Sponsored Disney Animation, from Bucky Beaver to Ludwig Von Drake.” Conference Paper. Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, March, Seattle. Thompson, Kirsten Moana. 2019. “The Colour Revolution: Disney, DuPont and Faber Birren.” Cinéma&Cie International Film Studies Journal, eds. Elena Gipponi and Joshua Yumibe, 19, no. 32 (Spring): 39–52. Turow, Joseph. 1997. Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Van de Peer, Stefanie. 2017. Animation in the Middle East: Practice and Aesthetics from Baghdad to Casablanca. London: I.B. Tauris. 1 INTRODUCTION TO ANIMATION AND ADVERTISING 51 Vonderau, Patrick. 2016. “Introduction: On Advertising’s Relation to Moving Pictures.” In Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau, 1–18. London: BFI/Palgrave. Wasson, Haidee, and Lee Grieveson, eds. 2018. Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. PART I Revisionist Histories CHAPTER 2 George Pal’s ‘Cavalcade of Colours, Music and Dolls’: 1930s Advertising Films in Transnational Contexts Mette Peters Introduction For the first ten years of his career in the 1930s, George Pal worked almost exclusively on animated advertising films in different European countries, prior to his better known Hollywood work.1 This chapter will reassess the role of these advertising films in understanding Pal’s career. In so doing, I will consider the mutual relationship between the advertising filmmaker and client and will focus on three aspects: the balance between appealing entertainment and the advertising message; the national and international This text is based on a paper presented at the Society for Animation Studies Conference, 26 June 2012, RMIT University Melbourne, Australia. With support of the Dr. Catharine van Tussenbroek Fonds. All images are provided by Eye Filmmuseum, The Netherlands. M. Peters (B) Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: mettepeters@telfort.nl © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_2 55 56 M. PETERS circulation and marketing contexts; and the role of materiality and innovative technology in creative practice at the Pal Studio. The relationship between Philips and Pal will be discussed in more detail as the Dutch manufacturing company was the major commissioner of the Pal Studio and Philips’ marketing strategies indicate transnational advertising prior to the Second World War. My argument suggests that Pal’s work on sponsored films was central to his professional identity in the 1930s, in addition to his artistic ambitions. Indeed, when Pal registered his new studio at the local Chamber of Commerce in Eindhoven he described the type of work that was being practised as ‘Cinematographic art for advertising’.2 Pal was born in Hungary in 1908.3 He started working in the film industry in Budapest, and in the early 1930s moved to Berlin, where he worked at the animation department at Ufa film studio and later made advertising films as an independent entrepreneur.4 At the time the political climate changed in Germany, as the Nazis gained political power, many artists left Berlin feeling deprived of their artistic freedom and hindered in their creative practice. Animation filmmakers Oskar Fischinger, Lotte Reiniger and Julius Pinschewer left Berlin, and so did Pal. They were all part of a broader movement of displaced artists to new locations. Pal worked in Paris and Prague for a short time, before he settled in the Netherlands in 1934. He was among several artists who left the German film industry in the 1930s to find work in the Netherlands, for a short or longer (intermediate) period.5 Entertainment and Advertising Pal decided to establish a studio in Eindhoven where the Dutch headquarters of manufacturer Philips were located. Between 1934 and 1940 the Pal Studio produced twelve animated advertising shorts for Philips, but also approximately twelve other shorts, for companies and brands such as the English Horlick’s malted milk and Rinso washing powder. The studio operated as an independent company and cooperated on commercials with the advertising department of Philips but also with different independent advertising agencies, such as Dutch Remaco and British—American J. Walter Thompson. While it may not be possible to precisely establish how the content and formal conventions of each of Pal’s advertising films was developed, it seems clear that they were influenced by representatives of advertising departments or agencies and the marketing strategies for specific brands or 2 GEORGE PAL’S ‘CAVALCADE OF COLOURS, MUSIC AND DOLLS’ … 57 products. In 1936 Pal wrote an extensive letter to Paul Kohner, a film producer and agent in Hollywood, in which he introduces his work in order to explore possibilities for producing entertainment animated shorts for the American market: ‘Of course, I am somewhat hampered here in Europe with the production of my films, because I have to concentrate chiefly on advertising films, where it is not always possible, as you will appreciate, to follow one’s own ideas from an artistic point of view. Before all, the advertising message must be put across, and sometimes the artistic value suffers’.6 Extensive research of contemporary Dutch press and trade magazines reveal that advertising films were most of the time completely ignored, and if they did get reviewed then often they were not reviewed in a very favourable manner.7 Information about the reception of advertising films is scarce, but Sight and Sound (1936) provides further insight into the ‘lingering prejudice against advertisement films’ in the UK, ‘audiences are slightly resentful when they are told they must buy such and such commodity. Were it not for this conviction that art and entertainment seldom go amicably hand in hand with commercial propaganda, the cartoon and doll films of young Hungarian, George Pal, would be far better known in England than they are’.8 Comments in press coverage suggest a reserved attitude of the general cinema public towards advertising films. But when discussing the work of Pal, Dutch journalists generally acknowledged the high production value of his advertising films. The films garnered audience attention and critical praise for both Pal himself and the manufacturers and brands he worked for, thus providing a countervailing argument for this public anxiety. In the Dutch press, Pal’s films were on the one hand compared to (lowbudget) advertising films and on the other hand with the highly popular American entertainment cartoons. Pal’s use of colour and high production values led him to be compared with Fleischer and Disney cartoons.9 Advertising films were generally shown in a side-programme alongside entertainment cartoons and other shorts, so they shared the same screening context. Pal advertising films were comparable with theatrical cartoons in playing time (3–10 minutes) but also in other formal aspects. Unlike contemporary advertising films that were screened more or less ‘anonymous’ (without credits or title), Pal made it common practice that his name featured prominently in the opening credits of each short, alongside the film title and names of other collaborators such as the composer, and also the names of the colour and sound systems. But most importantly the content and 58 M. PETERS narratives of his advertising films resembled entertainment formats. The advertising message, the advertised product and its special qualities, were often in the narrative in a covert manner. The product, brand name or a slogan was often only presented at the end of the film in texts or packshots (images of the product). Sies Numann, head of Philips advertising department, described the concepts for the advertising films as follows: ‘You always had to have a little story with a plot and then, at the end, came the Philips brand name, the deus-ex-machina’.10 The Sleeping Beauty (George Pal, Pal Studio, 1938) is an advertising film inspired by the classic fairy tale. After the witch made the princess and the whole court fall into a ‘deep and lasting slumber’, several men from different times come to the rescue, but fail. Finally, in 1939, the hero arrives at the castle. This modern man awakens everybody in the court with the sounds of a modern Philips radio. A Dutch advertising trade magazine spoke highly of the technical qualities of the film, but expressed doubts about the choices made in the script. Waking Sleeping Beauty with the beautiful sound of a radio instead of a kiss was considered questionable, as surely volume, not the quality of sound, would be the primary factor in waking up the sleepers.11 The same narrative structure could be used over again in a series of films. All Pal’s Horlicks films have the same narrative formula, in which the advertised product and its special qualities are introduced as the solution to a problem: the main characters are too tired to fulfil their duties but get new energy from drinking Horlick’s malted milk: the tired soldiers in On Parade (George Pal, Pal Studio, J. Walter Thompson, 1936), the sailors fighting the pirates in What Ho She Bumps (George Pal, Pal Studio, J. Walter Thompson, 1937) or the cowboy conquering the heart of his beloved girl in Love on the Range (George Pal, Pal Studio, J. Walter Thompson, 1938). Pal’s Philips radio advertising films have a recurring structure, where distinct sections represent music styles from different parts of the world. The radio, the advertised product, appears at the end of the film, or sometimes as an element of the mise-en-scène with which the characters interact. The special qualities of the product are spelled out, such as the innovative technique, the excellent sound quality and the international range of the radio player reception. In The Ship of the Ether (George Pal, Pal Studio, 1934) a ship sails through an air of radio waves and meets musicians from Paris, Vienna, Rome, Beromunster, Hilversum, München and Daventry. In The Magic Atlas (George Pal, Pal Studio, 1935) a magician leafs through an atlas and engages with the musicians from different nationalities, some of 2 GEORGE PAL’S ‘CAVALCADE OF COLOURS, MUSIC AND DOLLS’ … 59 whom are caricatures of contemporary famous artists, like Austrian tenor Richard Tauber or Dutch director Willem Mengelberg. The musical scenes in both The Philips Broadcast 1938 (George Pal, Pal Studio, 1937) and Philips Cavalcade (George Pal, Pal Studio, 1939) contain elaborate dance and musical performances, but these are only very loosely connected by the underlying narrative. The puppets are singers, musicians and dancers and reference contemporary (American) film conventions. For example, Fig. 2.1 shows a scene from The Philips Broadcast 1938, where the camera films the synchronic pattern of the choreography of the dancers from above, alluding to Busby Berkeley’s famous use of the crane shot in his musicals. In Philips Cavalcade the leading character, Philippa Ray, is introduced with her name and portrait image in the opening credits (Fig. 2.2). These references to formal conventions from contemporary musicals, the humorous caricatures of famous artists and the popular musicians who were hired to perform the music for the soundtrack Fig. 2.1 Choreography of dancers in The Philips Broadcast 1938 (George Pal, 1937) 60 M. PETERS Fig. 2.2 The opening credits of Philips Cavalcade (George Pal, 1939) introducing the leading star of the film of the film all contributed to the entertainment value of the advertising films. Entertainment and advertising were mutually dependent in these sponsored films, creating an appeal through stories, sensual stimulation and intertextual allusions. Furthermore, the entertainment value of radio advertising was a direct result and beneficiary of the commodity product advertised, which mediated the popular music as accessed by the radio. Advertising Films in Transnational Contexts Throughout the 1930s American entertainment shorts dominated cinema programming and the market for animated shorts in Europe. The puppet film Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (George Pal, Pal Studio, 1935) was the first of what was intended to be a series of six entertainment shorts. When Pal explained why he failed to make this series a success he referred to the lack of distribution options for European animation studios in comparison 2 GEORGE PAL’S ‘CAVALCADE OF COLOURS, MUSIC AND DOLLS’ … 61 to the American studios. Disney films were distributed at such a low cost that he could not compete. Furthermore, for advertising films he was paid immediately, rather than waiting for theatrical returns.12 While it seemed impossible for Pal to make a profit on the distribution and production of animated entertainment shorts because of the cheaper American competition, the relationship with his clients provided his advertising films with an international stage. Donald Crafton has described how the film industry in Europe was devastated after the First World War and how the stiff competition with American films affected the European market for animated films. He suggested that commercials ‘promoting local goods, merchants, and services’ remained the mainstay for animation producers in Europe.13 Advertising films were often commissioned by merchants and distributed on local markets. Some filmmakers would therefore re-sell the same film to promote another product in a different country. An advertising film like Kreise / Circles (Oskar Fischinger, 1933) was circulated internationally and reused in different national contexts.14 Pal however, worked for the Philips company who operated on a transnational market. At that time Philips was involved in the production and development of innovative products like light- and radio-bulbs, electric razors, televisions and was considered to be one of the largest manufacturers of radios worldwide. By 1932 Philips had sold 1 million radios and in 1939 Philips had 45,000 employees worldwide, of which 19,000 were in the Netherlands.15 Pal’s advertising films for Philips were also theatrical, as they were part of international advertising campaigns which included screenings in cinemas throughout Europe, Australia and South America. There are no exact figures about the number of film prints made of each film, in what countries they were shown or how many screenings were organized. However, there are some indications that these films were distributed on an extensive international scale, even taking into account that the information in the sources mentioned was probably positively biased by personal views and publicity purposes. First, Pal himself claimed in 1936 that 160 copies of his film The Magic Atlas were circulated in almost all parts of the world, ‘with the exception of United States and Canada, where the Philips company does not do any business’.16 In the 1980s a former employee of the Pal Studio recalled that 16 or 18 different language versions were made of one commercial.17 Also, the advertising department of Philips was keen to spread the information about the multiple versions. A publicity photo was made of the title department at the Pal Studio, in which piles of title card 62 M. PETERS texts in various languages are displayed.18 Surviving film prints in different language versions provide further information on the range of the Philips distribution network. For instance for the film Aladdin and the Magic Lamp (George Pal, Pal Studio, 1939) a 35 mm nitrate print survived containing overlay titles in seven different languages: English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Dutch and Portuguese.19 The transnational circulation of the Philips advertising films reveal a mutually beneficial relationship between filmmaker and commissioning manufacturer. A few surviving archival documents reveal intermedial marketing practices in three cases of Philips radio advertising films and related publicity materials. In 1938 Pal’s commercial The Philips Broadcast 1938 was part of an integrated marketing strategy in which Australian Philips retailers were given a special display to place in theatres to promote the Philips’ Radioplayer and their business alongside exhibition of the advertisement film.20 Tie-up activities for the advertising film The Sleeping Beauty included a special comic strip designed by Pal. These illustrated comic strips could be published in local Australian newspapers and were also printed in the form of picture books which could be distributed to audiences and used as colouring contests in which a Philips radio player could be won.21 For the campaign in which Philips Cavalcade was used, Pal created a life-size puppet of the leading character in this film called Philippa Ray, designed as a caricature of a glamorous live action female ‘star’. A series of publicity photographs were made with this puppet. In some Pal himself poses with this puppet: for instance on the stairs of a KLM airplane or with a policeman in front of London’s Parliament. These photos were apparently used as a publicity stunt and published in international newspapers and magazines.22 Philips Cavalcade was one of the last Philips films made at the Pal Studio in Eindhoven, and it seems clear that the publicity campaign was affected by the impact of the outbreak of the Second War World in Europe. Pal left the Netherlands in November 1939, just a few months before the German army invaded the country. In Philips’ publicity materials Philips Cavalcade was described as: ‘A cavalcade of colours, music and dolls’, literally emphasizing the special technical features of Pal’s films: being the sound, the colour and the puppet film technique.23 2 GEORGE PAL’S ‘CAVALCADE OF COLOURS, MUSIC AND DOLLS’ … 63 Experimenting with Materials and Innovative Technology Pal started his career in animation in 1929 with drawn animation and in 1932 made his first stop-motion animation. From then on he would use both drawn and puppet animation techniques, and occasionally combine it with live action. The creative practice at the studio was characterized by experimentation with new technologies, the use of a variety of materials and the development of innovative production methods and animation techniques. Pal, for example, refined a specific ‘replacement’ animation technique for puppet films, also known as Puppetoons, for which he received a special award at the Academy Award Ceremony in 1943.24 Contemporary stop-motion animation filmmakers still use the replacement method in puppet films, especially for facial expressions, and increasingly with computerized 3D printing systems, for example in feature films such as Kubo and the Two Strings (Laika, USA, 2016) or The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (Aardman, UK, 2012). Aardman’s director Peter Lord always associated the ‘substitution technique’ with the work of George Pal who, according to Lord, ‘raised it to a fine art’.25 In 1936 Pal underlined how he had been experimenting and improving the puppet technique, and stressed the possibilities he saw for it: ‘…being an entirely novel and comic presentation of the trick film’.26 At the studio many different materials were used to make the sets and props for the puppet films, such as glass, metal wire, tin plate, cardboard and textiles. But wood was used to fabricate the basic elements of the puppets’ bodies such as heads, trunks and legs. Pal was educated as an architect and trained as a carpenter, and was therefore an experienced woodworker.27 In contrast to puppet film technique in which a flexible single puppet was used, the process of Pal’s method was based on replacing inflexible puppets, or parts of a puppet, for every subsequent camera exposure. This meant that a large number of puppets had to be produced and modelled in sequential phases of a movement, a method that very much resembled the drawn animation process. With this method he could animate his puppets, made of inflexible materials such as wood, and make them move very smoothly while body parts changed in size and shape. His ambitions with this puppet animation technique led Pal to apply for patents in Germany and France in 1932 and in the USA in 1940.28 64 M. PETERS At the Pal Studio in Eindhoven ca. four to five animated shorts were produced every year. As a result of the serial nature of the production process and materials used, a form of assembly line production method was developed at the studio. These industrialized factory practices of modernity were common practice in cel animation at the time, but it was exceptional that Pal also applied this method to puppet animation. The labour of the 20–25 employees at the studio, was divided into different groups, with specialists focussing on concept design, drawing of key poses, inbetweening, woodworking, assembling of puppets, painting, set building, animation and camera operation.29 From his first stop-motion film Mitternacht / Midnight (George Pal, Trickfilmstudio Pal & Wittke, 1933) onwards, the design of the characters became more detailed and elaborate and the animated movements more sophisticated and complicated. While in the early films singing characters are filmed full-size, in one of his last films, Philips Cavalcade, he uses close-ups of facial expressions to add a dramatic touch to the lip-sync singing performance. The work on advertising films gave Pal financial leeway to experiment with state-of-the-art technology and equipment in terms of sound and colour systems, the two new technological developments in film production at the time. High-quality sound recording systems, such as that provided by RCA, was essential to communicate the quality of a sound product like the Philips radio. Furthermore, the music for the soundtracks was performed by popular dance bands of those days, like the Dutch band The Ramblers, or British bandleaders Jack Hylton, Debroy Somer or Bert Ambrose. Ambrose and his Orchestra are literally present as puppets in The Philips Broadcast 1938 (see Fig. 2.3). Furthermore Pal used early film cinematographic colour processes like the three-strip Gasparcolor system, and later the widely used three-strip Technicolor system. In Europe especially, animation filmmakers experimented with the Gasparcolor process, according to William Moritz because ‘many have judged Gasparcolor the best color film, providing the widest range of subtle and intense color sensations’.30 In the Netherlands, and probably other European countries, these innovative but expensive sound and colour technologies were not widely used in film production. The use of colour film stock alone made the films a special attraction in cinema programming, where most films were black and white, and further blurred boundaries between sponsored and non-sponsored films. Dutch film critic L. J. Jordaan recalls in 1939 that Pal’s film The Ship of the Ether marked a radical change in the way commercials were received by the public, because 2 GEORGE PAL’S ‘CAVALCADE OF COLOURS, MUSIC AND DOLLS’ … 65 Fig. 2.3 The orchestra of British bandleader Bert Ambrose in The Philips Broadcast 1938 (George Pal, 1937) ‘this world of coloured puppets, was completely detached from the realistic black and white photography of the other subjects on the programme’.31 The use of innovative technologies in Pal’s advertising films communicated perfectly the Philips brand quality of technological innovation. The public appreciation for the high production value was recognized by the manufacturers as an appealing way to get the advertising message across. Philips Company Advertising During the 1930s Philips used film, the new advertising medium, to propagate the technological modernity of the Philips products and innovative manufacturing methods. On a regular basis advertising and industrial films were commissioned—not only animated—by different innovative filmmakers such as Hans Richter, Joris Ivens and Julius Pinschewer. 66 M. PETERS The advertising department of Philips, called the ‘Propaganda Centrale’, developed international campaigns based on the commercial programmes of the sales departments, in which different advertising activities were combined.32 A network of local Philips retailers was brought into action for the international campaigns. Special publicity materials were developed and Philips furthermore assisted retailers with an editorial copy for insertion in the local press and with instructions on how to make good use of local screenings of the commercials. Sies Numann recalled in 1967: ‘We are a big company and in many respects we are considered pioneers. So we should pioneer a little in advertising also, do new things, keep at the top, experiment a little. If you have a large budget you can afford to do new things’.33 The filmmakers and artists associated with Philips advertising and the vicinity of the Philips factories contributed to a network of creative energies bundled in company town Eindhoven, which has been described by Thomas Elsaesser as a MedienVerbund.34 On occasion the shared industrial context of the manufacturer and advertising filmmaker, the technical expertise and facilities, led to close collaboration. For instance when Pal wanted to design a glass model of a ship for his film The Ship of the Ether he turned to the glass blowing experts at the glass factory where light bulbs were fabricated (see Fig. 2.4).35 The transparency of the glass, the chosen material to model the ship, reflects the narrative concept of the invisible sound waves which bring music from all around the world to every home. Fig. 2.4 Production still of the glass model of a ship with the Philips logo on the sails and a frame grab of the ship as seen in the completed film The Ship of the Ether (George Pal, 1934) 2 GEORGE PAL’S ‘CAVALCADE OF COLOURS, MUSIC AND DOLLS’ … 67 Pal’s work for Philips moved beyond film production, as images from Pal’s commercials were used in the designs of Philips radio print advertisements, or when the special technical and artistic skills of the Pal Studio were called upon for applications such as scale-models built for Philips’ showrooms, where different sorts of lights are demonstrated.36 To promote a new film by Pal, Philips organized special screenings in the Netherlands and visits to the Pal Studio for the press. Publicity photos were made, such as film stills and portraits of Pal, but also photos taken during production at the studio: employees working on the three-dimensional sets, at the drawing tables or in the ateliers where the puppets were made.37 The Philips advertising department promoted Philips products, and additionally, in some publicity materials Pal himself and the state of the art technological features of his films such as the sound, colour and the special puppet film technique. While these qualities were emphasized, Pal’s reputation was reinforced as an independent and innovative filmmaker. Pal can be considered an experimental animator as he was developing new techniques and used new technologies, which were part and parcel of the industrial process needed to make the films and the modern commodities these films advertised. Advertising Made His Name and Fame Pal’s advertising career demonstrates the crucial interdependent relation between filmmaker and the commissioning company. Aspects of this mutual relation can be found in the development of the content and form of the films, in the way these films were circulated in marketing campaigns and in the use of technology and materials in the production process. In both his puppet and drawn advertising films Pal developed a distinct aesthetic, characterized by a stylized visual design and technical craftsmanship. Corporations embraced the modern way in which Pal embodied brands and products through animation, and in how these innovative ads engaged with consumers in an affective way. In 1936 Pal claimed that he had ‘the largest and best equipped trick film studio on the Continent’.38 It seems clear that Pal was well informed about the work of his European animation colleagues, because between 1928 and 1939 he had worked in Budapest, Berlin, Paris, Prague and Eindhoven, was commissioned by companies from different European countries (Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Czechoslovakia) and travelled to the 68 M. PETERS UK to visit advertising agencies, film laboratories and studios where postproduction of his films was done.39 But to further contextualize the significance of Pal’s advertising films in Europe, more comparative and transnational studies are needed into animation from other European countries and by other filmmakers.40 Years before Pal’s move, he was already looking for opportunities and new orders for entertainment shorts in the United States.41 He was in contact with agents, who were active in the American film industry, and in 1938 travelled to the United States for press screenings and lectures. The New York Times described him as a filmmaker with ‘a name and modest fame which should win him welcome’, and his advertising films were called ‘some of the most delightful and interesting animated films made outside this country’.42 The advertising films Pal produced in the 1930s, thus brought him international fame and ultimately paved the way to a career in Hollywood. Notes 1. Motion Picture Herald, 12 March 1938; Gail Morgan Hickman, The Films of George Pal (South Brunswick and New York: A.S. Barnes 1977). 2. The Dutch phrase is ‘Film-kunst voor reclame’. File no. 9437, Handelsregister van de Kamer van Koophandel en Fabrieken te Eindhoven, Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum (hereafter File no. 9437 KvK Eindhoven). Dutch and German texts are translated to English by the author. 3. Jules George Pal was born in Cegléd, Hungary 1 February 1908 and died in Beverly Hills, USA, 2 May 1980. He was born as Gyula György Marczincsák. Archives of Pest County, birth records city of Cegléd, 1907–1909, entry nr. 129. Details kindly supplied by Márton Orosz; On 8 June 1939 it is noted that Jules Georges Marczincsak received permission by the Hungarian Government to change his name to Jules George Pal. File no. 9437 KvK Eindhoven; Ole Schepp and Fred Kamphuis, George Pal in Holland 1934– 1939 (Den Haag: Kleinoffsetdrukkerij Kapsenberg, 1983), 15. 4. Further research should establish exactly which films Pal worked on and how he was creatively involved in each one of them. See also Günter Agde, Flimmernde Versprechen. Geschichte des deutschen Werbefilms im Kino seit 1897 (Berlin: Das Neue Berlin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 1998), 88 and Czech Animated Film I 1920–1945 (Praha: Národní Filmový Archiv, 2012), 43, 65, 89. 5. Between 1933 and 1940 fifty to sixty thousand residents of the Third Reich fled to neighbouring country the Netherlands, amongst whom were many filmmakers. Kathinka Dittrich, Achter het Doek. Duitse emigranten in de 2 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. GEORGE PAL’S ‘CAVALCADE OF COLOURS, MUSIC AND DOLLS’ … 69 Nederlandse speelfilm in de jaren dertig (Houten: het Wereldvenster, 1987), 12. Letter George Pal to Paul Kohner, 15 July 1936 (hereafter Letter Pal to Kohner, 1936). Sammlung Paul Kohner 1988/14a, Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin. Biography of Paul Kohner. Paul Kohner Agency Records, Margaret Herrick Library. For example L. J. Jordaan, “De Poesjenellenkelder der Film,” Haagsche Post, 8 July 1939. Marie Seton, George Pal, Sight and Sound, vol. 5, nr. 17, Spring 1936; HLM, George Pal Puppetoons are a new hit. Business Screen, nr. 7, 1941. “Artistieke Film-Reklame,” De Kunst, 23 February 1935; “Platische trucfilm in kleuren,” Het Volk, 28 February 1935. Eelke de Jager, “Never a Dull Moment”: An Interview with S.W. Numann (Eindhoven: N.V. Philips’ Gloeilampenfabrieken, General Advertising Department 1967), 14. “Van het witte doek,” Revue der Reclame, October 1938. Letter Pal to Kohner, 1936. Donald Crafton, Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898–1928 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 218 and 228. William Moritz, Optical Poetry: The Life and Work of Oskar Fischinger (Eastleigh: John Libbey, 2004), 220–221; Stefan Schlesinger, “Oskar Fischinger, ‘Cirkels’, een Gaspar-color film,” Officieel Orgaan van het Genootschap voor Reclame, March 1937. Guus Bekooy, Philips Honderd, een industriële onderneming 1891–1991 (Zaltbommel: Europese Uitgeverij 1991), 91, 96. Letter Pal to Kohner, 1936. Schepp and Kamphuis, George Pal in Holland 1934–1939, 42. “Staatscineast no.1,” Cinema & Theater, 2 October 1937. Aladdin en de Wonderlamp, film print B10144-2. Collection Eye Filmmuseum, the Netherlands. “Developing the Showman’s Outlook,” Radio Retailer of Australia, 25 March 1938. Schepp and Kamphuis, George Pal in Holland 1934–1939, 48. “Sleeping Beauty Competition. Prize to Ulverstone,” The Advocate, 5 December 1939. Photo collection Philips Company Archives; Cine Mundial, December 1939; Algemeen Handelsblad, 19 July 1939; De Indische Courant, 19 August 1939. Schepp and Kamphuis, George Pal in Holland 1934–1939, 59. Special Award ‘To George Pal for the development of novel methods and techniques in the production of short subjects known as Puppetoons’. The Official Academy Awards ® Database, http://awardsdatabase.oscars. org, retrieved 28 September 2017. 70 M. PETERS 25. Peter Lord and Brian Sibley, Cracking Animation: The Aardman Book of 3-D Animation (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004), 91. 26. Letter Pal to Kohner, 1936. 27. Hickman, The Films of George Pal, 18. 28. République Française, Ministère du Commerce et de L’Industrie, Direction de la Propriété Industrielle, Brevet d’Invention no. 765924, issue date: 18 June 1934; Deutsches Reich, Reichspatentamt, Patentschrift nr. 646066, issue date: 20 May 1937. European Patent Office; United States Patent Office no. 2327059, issue date: 17 August 1943. United States Patent and Trademark Office. 29. Letter Pal to Kohner 1936; “George Pal,” De Tijd, 12 February 1938. 30. William Moritz, “Gasparcolor: Perfect Hues for Animation,” Animation Journal 5, no. 1 (1996): 52. 31. L. J. Jordaan, “De Poesjenellenkelder der Film,” Haagsche Post, 8 July 1939. 32. Frans Wilbrink, Kunst in de Philips-reclame 1891–1941 (Eindhoven: (Z)OO producties, 2005), 63. 33. De Jager, “Never a Dull Moment,” 36. 34. Thomas Elsaesser, “Archives and Archaeologies: The Place of Non-fiction Film in Contemporary Media,” in Films That Work: Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media, eds. Vinzenz Hediger and Patrick Vonderau (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009), 22–23. 35. Schepp and Kamphuis, George Pal in Holland 1934–1939, 20. 36. Documents in collection Ole Schepp; “Bij Pal-Studio. Men vervaardigt hier ook maquettes,” Eindhovensche en Meierijsche Courant, 16 March 1938. 37. Photo collections at Philips Company Archives and Eye Filmmuseum. 38. Letter Pal to Kohner, 1936. 39. In 1934 Gasparcolor Ltd and in 1937 Technicolor laboratory opened in the UK. Sarah Street, Colour Films in Britain: The Negotiation of Innovation 1900–55 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 57, 273. 40. Other examples are discussed in Gunnar Strøm, “Desider Gross and Gasparcolor in a Norwegian Perspective,” Animation Journal 8, nr. 2 (2000); Moritz, Gasparcolor. 41. “George Pal here with 3D dimension films,” Variety, 18 March 1938; “Pals poppenfilms,” Het Vaderland, 12 February 1938. 42. Bosley Crowther, “Pal of the Puppet Pictures,” New York Times, 13 March 1938. Bibliography Agde, Günter. 1998. Flimmernde Versprechen. Geschichte des deutschen Werbefilms im Kino seit 1897. Berlin: Das Neue Berlin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH. 2 GEORGE PAL’S ‘CAVALCADE OF COLOURS, MUSIC AND DOLLS’ … 71 Bekooy, Guus. 1991. Philips Honderd. Een industriële onderneming 1891–1991. Zaltbommel: Europese Uitgeverij. Crafton, Donald. 1993. Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898–1928. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dittrich, Kathinka.1987. Achter het Doek. Duitse emigranten in de Nederlandse speelfilm in de jaren dertig. Houten: Het Wereldvenster. Hediger, Vinzenz, and Patrick Vonderau. 2009. Films That Work: Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Hickman, Gail Morgan. 1977. The Films of George Pal. South Brunswick and New York: A.S. Barnes. Jager, Eelke De. 1967. “Never a Dull Moment”: An Interview with S.W. Numann. Eindhoven: N.V. Philips’ Gloeilampenfabrieken, General Advertising Department. Lord, Peter, and Brian Sibley. 2004 (revised and updated edition). Cracking Animation: The Aardman Book of 3-D Animation. London: Thames & Hudson. Moritz, William. 1996. Gasparcolor: Perfect Hues for Animation. Animation Journal 2: 52–57. Moritz, William. 2004. Optical Poetry: The Life and Work of Oskar Fischinger. Eastleigh: John Libbey. Schepp, Ole, and Fred Kamphuis. 1983. George Pal in Holland 1934–1939. Den Haag: Kleinoffsetdrukkerij Kapsenberg. Street, Sarah. 2012. Colour Films in Britain: The Negotiation of Innovation 1900– 55. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Strøm, Gunnar. 2000. Desider Gross and Gasparcolor in a Norwegian Perspective, Part 2. Animation Journal 2: 44–55. Wilbrink, Frans. 2005. Kunst in de Philips-reclame 1891–1941. Eindhoven: (Z)OO producties. CHAPTER 3 Sponsored Silhouettes: Lotte Reiniger’s ‘Useful’ Films in Britain Tashi Petter In an interview conducted in 1980, a year before her death, the German animator Lotte Reiniger reflected on her arrival to London in 1935 and her introduction to John Grierson’s GPO Film Unit: They asked me to do a Post Early for Christmas ad with silhouettes, which I could do since I had all the material I’d brought for the exhibition and so I could set up an animation stand. As well as that film I made some other little films I don’t recall.1 In this recollection of her early years in exile, Reiniger’s response reveals a transportable filmmaking technique that was easily adapted for international audiences and commercial purposes. As this chapter will clarify, however, her first silhouette film for Grierson was in fact The Tocher: A Film Ballet (1938), released many years earlier than the title she probably refers to here, Christmas is Coming (1951). The animator was famously T. Petter (B) Queen Mary University of London, London, UK e-mail: t.petter@qmul.ac.uk © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_3 73 74 T. PETTER self-deprecating about her work and such discrepancies are commonplace in interviews, particularly when conducted more than forty years after the event. Nevertheless, Reiniger’s dismissive summary of her GPO productions as ‘some other little films’ is also indicative of a wider tendency to disregard and overlook advertising film, an attitude that is perpetuated by filmmakers as well as historians and scholars. Reiniger occupies an important (if undervalued) position in the history of animation, as pioneer of the silhouette technique showcased in Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed / The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), the earliest-surviving animated feature. Largely forgotten in modern popular culture and marginalised within traditional film studies, her contribution to the field of ‘useful’ cinema—films made to sell, promote or to teach—has received even less attention.2 Throughout her career, Reiniger accepted commissions from various advertising and governmental bodies, including Julius Pinschewer’s agency in Berlin and the German Ministry of Transport. Contrary to her interview response in 1980, sponsored silhouette films make up almost a quarter of her catalogue and adopt many of the features familiar from her wider animation work.3 Whether publicising beauty products or postal services, these ‘useful’ films almost always employ a highly decorative aesthetic and privilege gesture, dance and non-verbal modes of communication, with musical soundtracks and the occasional witty intertitle. While Reiniger’s early advertising work in Germany has received some recent analysis, this chapter will focus on the films made in Britain for the GPO (later the Crown Film Unit) following her departure from Berlin in the mid-thirties.4 Typically occupying a footnote in the history of the GPO, these animations have been overlooked by film historians, deemed ineffective advertising or irrelevant to the wider GPO catalogue.5 Following the new approaches suggested by useful cinema studies and drawing on archival research to sidestep prior interpretation, this chapter will rediscover the production and reception of these GPO animations, identifying underlying patterns in their target audiences while confronting the gendered dismissal of Reiniger’s work.6 Considering the ways in which her unique silhouette storytelling translates into the professional, commercial spheres of non-fiction film, connections begin to emerge between these ‘useful’ animations and the didactic function of traditional folklore, thereby demonstrating Reiniger’s engagement with a wider revival of the fairy-tale canon. 3 SPONSORED SILHOUETTES … 75 In the spring of 1936, Reiniger was invited to produce a short advertising film for the GPO. The outcome, The Tocher: A Film Ballet (1938), is a Scottish folk tale with a twist. A Rossini choral suite (arranged by a young Benjamin Britten) supports Reiniger’s cast of cut-outs including a penniless hero Angus, his love interest Rhona and her cruel Laird father who has promised her to a wealthier suitor. Chased from the castle, Angus wanders into a picturesque woodland where an ensemble of ‘wee-folk’ ballerinas present him with a magical box, later revealed to contain a Post Office Savings Bank book. This ‘tocher’ (Gaelic for dowry) enables the hero to marry his true love. The limited scholarship concerning Reiniger’s ‘film-ballet’ is probably exacerbated by cataloguing errors, such as the unknown title, ‘Daughter’, which appears in some filmographies (presumably a translation of the German word ‘tochter’).7 Writings tend to emphasise The Tocher’s aesthetic appeal or dismiss it on the basis of functionality, as in Rachael Low’s typically negative assessment: ‘the film is charming but, one would think, hardly likely to have much persuasive effect on an audience’.8 As this chapter will clarify, archival research indicates that this evaluation is misleading. Established in 1933, the GPO Film Unit brought together a diverse body of filmmakers to produce information and advertising films relating to the activities of the Post Office, then a governmental institution and the largest employer in Britain. Reiniger’s commissions, along with titles by Len Lye and Norman McLaren, formed a supplementary collection of short-form animated fillers, described in a GPO pamphlet as ‘technical novelties which serve to focus attention on a particular Post Office subject’.9 Employing silhouettes, direct animation and other techniques to promote the airmail scheme or low-cost parcel delivery, these animated advertisements gave a playful identity to an otherwise faceless and bureaucratic service, celebrating the aesthetic possibilities of film through screen rhythm, music and colour, such as Reiniger’s second commission, a Dufaycolor experiment The HPO (1938). Widely distributed via the GPO network, these animations were screened around the country to diverse, public audiences—both adult and juvenile—as pre-feature shorts in cinemas and more commonly at workforce events, trade exhibitions or through local societies, schools or churches via the travelling film units or the special film library.10 Reiniger’s The Tocher, for instance, featured in a 1938 GPO showcase at Piccadilly Theatre, London, while the Mid Sussex Times reported its exhibition along with several GPO documentaries to 200 Franklands Village residents.11 76 T. PETTER Repeated to local businesses the following day, the opening speech by a GPO official declared the objectives of the screening: ‘engaging public interest as a whole, thus fostering an understanding of Post Office problems and an appreciation of the services which it affords’.12 According to other sources, however, along with GPO titles North Sea (1938) and Mony a Pickle (1938), Reiniger’s The Tocher was specially commissioned for the 1938 Great Empire Exhibition in Glasgow.13 Hosted by the ‘Second City of the Empire’ (as Glasgow had become known during the Victorian era), this final Empire exhibition sought to restore prosperity and national pride in Scotland.14 Visitors could forget the dark, grimy streets of a city in the throes of depression to discover the modern utopia inside the 80 exhibition pavilions. As well as daily presentations of GPO films, the GPO pavilion promised ‘modern marvels for your interest and information’, such as Tim the talking clock.15 This exhibition context is particularly illuminating when considering the overt theme of The Tocher, with its title from Robert Burns’ ‘A Lass Wi’ A Tocher’, and its cast of archetypes: the ‘Wee-Folk’, the aptly named Angus and Rhona, and the Highland-jigging Laird with a Tam o’Shanter and kilt. Glaswegian spectators might have better luck deciphering Rhona’s love note which reads, ‘My ain love, I maun wed my rich kinsman the morn’. Constructed for this particular Scottish spectatorship, Reiniger’s advertising technique becomes highly sophisticated. Her jovial folk tale humours and disarms its viewer before the nonsensical (but highly memorable) appearance of a GPO product. However, as Michael Brooke observes, the film may also function as a ‘conscious tribute’ to the Perthshire-born John Grierson, Reiniger’s friend, mentor and head of the unit.16 The animator had come to Britain in December 1935 to launch a solo exhibition at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. As she wrote to her friend Bryher, editor of film magazine Close Up: ‘The exhibition begins to blow up like a balloon!’17 The popular retrospective toured the country with accompanying talks and screenings, creating a buzz in the press and cementing Reiniger’s reputation in British artistic circles. As Samuel Harris reported: There ought to be a sort of religious pilgrimage of the literati [to the Victoria and Albert Museum]. There they should be worshipping the shrine of Frau Lotte Reiniger, whose silhouette films have, for many years now, proven some of the Film Society’s most reiterated and appreciated ornaments.18 3 SPONSORED SILHOUETTES … 77 Hosted in London by filmmaker Thorold Dickinson, Reiniger became acquainted with his wider circle, including GPO filmmakers Grierson, Basil Wright and Len Lye. She accepted invitations to lecture, published articles in respected journals and attended Film Society gatherings as guest of honour.19 Although intended as a short trip, Reiniger’s return to Germany was delayed by this warm welcome and a worsening situation in Berlin, where her Jewish friends faced growing hostility and film censorship tightened under Joseph Goebbels. As she reflected in 1979, ‘They gave me a very friendly reception and I stayed’.20 This little-known episode of her biography is crucial for understanding her ‘useful’ filmmaking. During these early years in exile (from 1935 to 1939), Reiniger became increasingly active within British interwar film culture. As well as public screenings and trade exhibitions, programmes reveal that her animated advertisements also found receptive audiences within the film society movement. As well as Lye’s Kaleidoscope (1935) for Churchman’s cigarettes, Reiniger’s Das Rollende Rad / The Rolling Wheel (1934) and The HPO (1938) were among 15 Reiniger titles screened by the London Film Society from 1927 to 1939.21 Olwen Vaughan’s sister organisation the London Film Institute Society showed The Tocher in a mixed programme including non-fiction titles and Jean Renoir’s Nana (1926).22 Screened as a one-reel warm up for a silent feature and dislocated from a commercial context, film society audiences might have been more responsive to this experiment with film-ballet and less preoccupied with the potency of its advertising message.23 By reconstructing The Tocher’s diverse network of spectatorship and exhibition through the archive, Reiniger’s first GPO title is reconceived as a synthesis of aesthetic expression and promotional propaganda, further dismantling the binary between art and commerce that has permeated previous scholarship. The tensions around artistic freedom and sponsorship are more conspicuous in Reiniger’s second GPO work, The HPO (1938). Her earliest experiment working in colour, the short has been criticised for adhering too closely to its brief. As Brooke claims, ‘Reiniger has conscientiously put the message ahead of the art: by the end of the film, only the dimmest viewer will be unaware of what is being promoted’.24 Through a series of vignettes, cherubic characters descend from the clouds to deliver ‘GREETINGS’, marking everyday celebrations from the delivery of a baby to a birthday party. Playing on the sponsor’s famous acronym, these creatures are employees of the ‘Heavenly Post Office’, as the slogan puns in an almost affected tone: ‘It’s Heaven to Receive a Greetings Telegram. Be an Angel 78 T. PETTER and Send One!’. Made in Dufaycolor, Reiniger’s fluffy white angels hover above a vividly painted backdrop. Brian Easdale’s joyful score enhances the convivial atmosphere evoked by the cherubs, who appear in different costumes to cheer up a lonely fisherman or congratulate a fox that has survived a hunt. The light entertainment provided by The HPO therefore captures the very function of the Greetings Telegram service, introduced in 1935 to lighten the mood of telegraph communication. For a few extra pence, ordinary telegrams would arrive in golden envelopes on colourful, illustrated forms designed by Rex Whistler, Edward Ardizzone and other graphic artists including many women.25 As E. T. Crutchley explained in 1938, this initiative allowed the service, ‘the chance to play its part in the joyful occasions of life, and helps to dispel that atmosphere of dread and sorrow with which the telegram was so often surrounded in the past’.26 Greetings Telegrams were hugely popular with 26,000 sent weekly in 1935–1936, rising to 100,000 by 1938.27 The limited writings on The HPO tend to overlook this connection between form and function. Reiterating the synopsis and emphasising the frivolity of the film, curators and historians have failed to acknowledge that this was precisely the point.28 While Low’s survey finds the film ‘an elegant trifle’ (although ‘more effective’ than The Tocher), Bryony Dixon suggests that, ‘The legacy of the film may lie more in the pages of Elle Decoration than in documentary film history but, once seen, it is never forgotten’.29 A survey of 1930s Greetings Telegram designs reveals further correspondences between The HPO’s mise-en-scène and the product it was made to advertise.30 As we see in Figs. 3.1 and 3.2, contemporary consumers might have recognised The HPO’s cherub figures, floral imagery and colour palette from the decorative borders designed by Whistler and others.31 These recurring themes and motifs (also evident in Telegram promotional materials) indicate the likely target audience of this new initiative.32 Similarly, the decision to market this product using the distinctive craft aesthetic of silhouette animation was surely intended to appeal to an audience of female homemakers. According to Ruth Artmonsky’s survey, women were the predominant users of the Greetings Telegram service, ‘which lines up with the general stereotype of the woman as the social networker for the family’.33 Michael Cowan has investigated the historical associations between the ‘feminine’ and the silhouette form in the history of advertising, rooted in connotations with delicacy and design (via orientalism and rococo) as well as the opportunities offered to women artists working with 3 SPONSORED SILHOUETTES … 79 Fig. 3.1 Lotte Reiniger, frame grab from The HPO (1938) silhouettes.34 As Cowan suggests, this ‘ambivalent gendered positioning’ is manifested in Reiniger’s early advertisements for Julius Pinschewer—Das Geheimnis der Marquise / The Secret of the Marquise (1921/1922) and Der Barcarole / The Barcarole (1924)—where ornate, moving cut-outs promote Nivea cream and chocolate.35 While these commissions gave Reiniger and others creative autonomy, women were restricted to the promotion of luxurious ‘ladylike’ products such as perfume or confectionary. Low and Dixon’s patronising responses to The HPO participate in the gendered bias against craft-based animation, also investigated by Rosalind Galt in Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image.36 Galt identifies a tendency to denigrate the ‘pretty’ filmic image in its various manifestations—‘the decorative, the ornamental, the colourful, the picturesque’—as a consequence of enduring patriarchal and colonial bias against visually rich imagery.37 Indeed, Reiniger’s hand-cut silhouettes are characterised by ‘prettiness’, from their intricate, filigree aesthetic and colour palette as well as the ‘endless mobility’ of her multi-jointed figures, which have been interpreted by Michael 80 T. PETTER Fig. 3.2 Rex Whistler, ‘First British St. Valentine’s Day greetings telegram’, 1936 (© Royal Mail Group 2019, courtesy of The Postal Museum) Cowan as ‘a form of ornament in the temporal sphere: an ornamental movement’.38 Rosalind Galt resituates filmmakers ‘whose prettiness has left them placed awkwardly in their respective genres; their aesthetics and politics do not fit within dominant paradigms’.39 Her enquiry certainly speaks to Reiniger’s ‘outsider’ position, as both a maker of decorative, craftbased film and as a woman within the GPO Film Unit. One of only two among twenty-one GPO directors, Reiniger’s silhouette filmmaking certainly enabled her access to a male-dominated environment.40 In The HPO, the ‘heavenly’ telegrams are delivered to a range of recipients, including a boxer and fisherman, thereby implying a wider customer base than her earlier films for Pinschewer. However, in contrast with the wider GPO canon— predominantly documentaries preoccupied with traditionally ‘masculine’ realms of industry and technology—The HPO operates within a familial, homely and thus ‘feminine’ setting.41 In a sense, Reiniger’s animations 3 SPONSORED SILHOUETTES … 81 could surely be categorised alongside the GPO telephone films, identified by Scott Anthony as an ‘alternative feminine, domestic and cheeky strand of the Film Unit’s work’.42 In William Coldstream’s whimsical yet instructional The Fairy of the Phone (1936) for instance, the eponymous protagonist and her chorus of telephone exchange girls perform a revue offering advice on telephone etiquette. Alongside Reiniger’s HPO cherubs and magical Savings Bank, this Telephone Fairy becomes another figure of enchantment, a recurring motif in GPO films, which may shed light upon the unit’s wider objective to improve public perception of Britain’s emerging communications network.43 As well as entertainment, these otherworldly features elevated the status of the GPO, proposing a system that functions ‘as if by magic’. Introducing the commercial concept of customer service, this miscellaneous, magical workforce represent the friendly, public face of the institution. Curiously, this mystification of the wider infrastructure works alongside, but in opposition to, the GPO documentary films, which deliberately unmask the inner workings of the network and emphasise the impact of human activity and technology.44 For Reiniger, who famously claimed to ‘believe more in the truth of fairy tales than newspapers’, the presence of benevolent spirits is typical of traditional folklore, an endless source of inspiration that pervades her corpus.45 The Tocher’s ‘wee-folk’ bear a striking resemblance to the fairies in Reiniger’s Dornröschen / Sleeping Beauty (1922). Cherub helpers appear in many of her animation films, from the commedia dell’arte-inspired Harlequin (1930) to the Mauxion advertisement Die Barcarole (1924), where they construct the company logo. Akin to the ‘invisible hand’ in early German animated advertising, Reiniger’s fairies become a tool for attention management.46 In The HPO’s climax, it is the cherubs that conjure the slogan, perfectly synchronised to music. Word by word, the viewer’s eye is guided along the text, which is reconfigured to spell ‘Heavenly Post Office’, signalling the brand and reinforcing the advertising message. As well as an instrument for control of the frame, Reiniger’s ‘useful’ films exploit the narrative possibilities of the fairy-tale form, twisting tales of romance and adventure to comedic and commercial effect. The ‘complexion like snow’ of the heroine in Das Geheimnis der Marquise (1921/1922) is the result of Nivea cream. In Die Barcarole (1924), having failed to win over his lover in the conventional manner (by fighting off a rival), the suitor resorts to Mauxion chocolate. While Walter Benjamin claimed in 1936 that, ‘the first true storyteller is, and will continue to be, the teller of fairy 82 T. PETTER tales’, in Reiniger’s sponsored films these universal truths—bravery, honour, courtship—are mocked and commodified.47 The familiar structures of situation, trial and resolution identified by folklorists, or the sequence of functions catalogued by Propp, are interrupted and resolved by the arrival of a purchasable product or service.48 In Proppian terms, The Tocher’s ‘weefolk’ act as the ‘donor’. Their ballet performance is ‘the provision of the hero with a magical agent’, which is unveiled as the commercial entity that prompts the happy ending.49 While Benjamin muses on the ‘usefulness’ of storytelling—the offering of ‘good counsel’ through practical advice, the dictation of a moral, proverb or maxim—there is a curious interplay between these ‘useful’ animations and the instrumental value of traditional fairy tales.50 As Reiniger’s technique is a transformation of traditional handicraft practices, her advertising films are modern fairy tales in a meaningful sense. In this magical marketplace, the adult consumer replaces the typical child listener.51 Capitalist consumption has replaced moral order, fairies become publicity agents and wisdom is imparted through advertising slogans. Jack Zipes highlights the shifting receptions of the fairy tale in Western culture: ‘now the market, technology, and the routines of capitalist exchange dictate how stories will be imparted’.52 Throughout the history of advertising, popular folklore has often provided basic scenarios for commercials, such as Jam Handy’s A Coach for Cinderella (1936) for Chevrolet. As Wolfgang Mieder summarises, ‘By using traditional fairy-tale motifs and by adapting them to the modern world of consumerism and the instantaneous gratification syndrome, advertising agencies create the perfect medium with the irresistible message’.53 In Reiniger’s works, however, rather than alluding to legendary characters or tropes as a referential framework, archival materials indicate that she created her own stories and narratives, thereby engaging with a wider literary tradition.54 In a period in which Benjamin was lamenting the dying art of storytelling, and Béla Balázs and Kurt Schwitters were recycling folklore as sociopolitical commentary, Reiniger’s fairy-tale adaptations are playfully subversive.55 Whether toying with gendered stereotypes (see the chocolate-loving damsel-in-distress in Die Barcarole [1924]) or the cloying tone of The HPO slogan, these ‘useful’ fairy tales are knowingly ironic, perhaps offering a subtle critique of the advertising industry that they emerged from. Having re-evaluated The Tocher and The HPO to reveal new layers of meaning and resonance, this chapter further challenges the assumptions that have devalued Reiniger’s practice and her animated advertisements 3 SPONSORED SILHOUETTES … 83 in particular. Highlighting the connections between Reiniger’s distinctive filmmaking style and the products and services she publicised, one discovers silhouette films that are both ‘pretty’ and ‘useful’. While acknowledging her marginalised position as an émigré, a craft-based filmmaker and a woman working within the GPO Film Unit, it seems that Reiniger’s fairy-tale narratives and ‘outsider’ aesthetics were specifically targeted at marginalised consumer groups, whether women homemakers or Scottish audiences within the British Empire. These sponsored silhouette films raise pertinent questions in relation to Reiniger’s wider oeuvre, whether the theme of national identity, the employment of irony or her techniques for controlling the frame. By highlighting the pivotal position of this woman émigré working in interwar Britain, this study broadens the parameters of ‘useful’ cinema and calls for further recovery of Reiniger’s ‘other little films I don’t recall’. Notes 1. Alfio Bastiancich, “Lotte Reiniger: An Interview with Alfio Bastiancich,” in Women and Animation: A Compendium, ed. Jayne Pilling (London: British Film Institute, 1992), 14. 2. Rachel Palfreyman, “Life and Death in the Shadows: Lotte Reiniger’s Die Abenteuer Des Prinzen Achmed,” German Life and Letters 64, no. 1 (2011). For ‘useful’ cinema, see Charles R. Acland and Haidee Wasson, Useful Cinema (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011). 3. Her catalogue of 62 contains 15 ‘useful’ titles with others likely unidentified. 4 missing Pinschewer titles are credited to Reiniger in André Amsler, Wer Dem Werbefilm Verfällt, Ist Verloren Für Die Welt: Das Werk Von Julius Pinschewer 1883–1961 (Zürich: Chronos, 1997), 30. Discrepancies are common. Amsler and the Huntley Film Archive catalogue Pinschewer’s Tres Caballeros (1930) as Reiniger, while Rudi Klemm is credited in Julius Pinschewer, Martin Loiperdinger, and Alexander Duesterberg, Julius Pinschewer - Klassiker Des Werbefilms [DVD Booklet] (Berlin: Absolut Medien, 2010). 4. Michael Cowan, “The Ambivalence of Ornament: Silhouette Advertisements in Print and Film in Early Twentieth-Century Germany,” Art History 36, no. 4 (2013). 5. Len Lye is given an entire chapter while Reiniger is represented by an extract from her ‘Moving Silhouettes’ (1936) article in Scott Anthony and James G. Mansell, The Projection of Britain: A History of the GPO Film Unit (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 134–136. 84 T. PETTER 6. An analysis of the ‘Auftrag’ (commissioner), ‘Anlass’ (purpose) and ‘Adressat’ (audience) is recommended in Thomas Elsaesser, “Archives and Archaeologies: The Place of Non-fiction Film in Contemporary Media,” in Films That Work: Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media, eds. Vinzenz Hediger and Patrick Vonderau (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009), 23. 7. Ralph Stephenson, Animation in the Cinema (London: Zwemmer, 1967), 175. Re-printed in Jean Petrolle and Virginia Wexman Wright, eds., Women and Experimental Filmmaking (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2005), 261. 8. Rachael Low and Roger Manvell, Documentary and Educational Films of the 1930’s (London: Allen & Unwin, 1979), 150. 9. GPO Film Unit, “Programme of GPO Films, Piccadilly Theatre (28th April 1938).” London, British Postal Museum and Archive, 109/296. 10. The library loaned GPO films to local organisations with their own projecting facilities. Ernest Tristram Crutchley, GPO (Cambridge: University Press, 1938), 248. 11. GPO, “Programme of GPO Films, Piccadilly Theatre (28 April 1938),” London, British Postal Museum. Item 4, 109/296. Anon, “Post Office Films at Haywards Heath: Franklands Village Residents and Local Organizations Entertained,” Mid Sussex Times, 1 November 1938. 12. Ibid. 13. Ian Aitken, The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 947. 14. Perilla Kinchin, Neil Baxter, and Juliet Kinchin, Glasgow’s Great Exhibitions: 1888, 1901, 1911, 1938, 1988 (Wendlebury: White Cockade, 1988). 15. GPO Pavilion postcard, reproduced in Graham Moss, The Post Office and the Empire Exhibition, 1938 (Scottish Postal History Society, 1988), 54. 16. The Tocher was finished under Alberto Cavalcanti, following Grierson’s resignation in 1937. 17. Letter from Reiniger to Bryher, 19 November 1935. New Haven, Beinecke Library. Box 51 GEN MSS 97- Folder 1879. 18. Samuel Harris, “Silhouettes,” The Cinema (February 5, 1936): 8. 19. Lotte Reiniger, “Scissors Make Films,” Sight and Sound 5, no. 17 (1936). 20. Translated from Alfred Happ, Lotte Reiniger 1899–1981: Schöpferin Einer Neuen Silhouettenkunst (Tübingen: Kulturamt, 2004), 52. 21. G. Amberg, Film Society Programmes (1925–39) (New York: Arno Press, 1972). 22. London Film Institute Society, “Programme (13th February 1938).” BFI Special Collections. ITM-5967. 23. For her ‘film-ballet’ theory see Lotte Reiniger, “Film as Ballet,” Life and Letters To-day 4 (Spring 1936). 3 SPONSORED SILHOUETTES … 85 24. Michael Brooke, “The H.P.O. (1938),” in BFI Screenonline (British Film Institute). 25. Women account for a quarter of the designers in Ruth Artmonsky, Bringers of Good Tidings: Greetings Telegrams, 1935–1982 (Woodbridge: Artmonsky Art, 2009). See note 31. 26. Crutchley, GPO, 140. 27. Doris M. Green, The Greetings Telegram Service (Poole: The Minster Press, 1967), 9. 28. See also Amy Sargeant, “A Wide Shot of Exile, Émigré and Itinerant Activity in the British Film Industry in the 1930s,” in Destination London: GermanSpeaking Emigrés and British Cinema, 1925–1950, eds. Tim Bergfelder and Christian Cargnelli (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008). 29. Low and Manvell, Documentary and Educational Films of the 1930’s, 150. Bryony Dixon, “The H.P.O. (1938),” in We Live in Two Worlds: The GPO Film Unit Collection [DVD Booklet] (London: British Film Institute, 2009), 58. 30. Lotte Reiniger, Frame Grab from the HPO, 1938; Rex Whistler, First British St. Valentine’s Day Greetings Telegram, 1936 (Figs. 3.1 and 3.2). 31. See designs by Margaret Calkin James (1935), Miss I. M. Hyde (1938), Ida Mackintosh Simpson (1939), Mrs. Claudia Freedman (1937) in Artmonsky, Bringers of Good Tidings: Greetings Telegrams, 1935–1982. 32. See Alex Jardine’s 1936 poster in Anthony and Mansell, The Projection of Britain: A History of the GPO Film Unit, 228. 33. Artmonsky, Bringers of Good Tidings: Greetings Telegrams, 1935–1982, 19. 34. Cowan, “The Ambivalence of Ornament: Silhouette Advertisements in Print and Film in Early Twentieth-Century Germany.” 35. Ibid. 36. See Caroline Ruddell and Paul Ward, eds., The Crafty Animator: Handmade, Craft-Based Animation and Cultural Value (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 37. Rosalind Galt, Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image (New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2011), 8. 38. Cowan, “The Ambivalence of Ornament: Silhouette Advertisements in Print and Film in Early Twentieth-Century Germany,” 790. 39. Galt, Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image, 299. 40. With Evelyn Spice (1904–1990). 12 of 84 employees were women according to Phyllis Cain, “Personal Recollections of John Grierson’s Secretary.” London, British Postal Museum and Archives. 108/298. 41. See for instance, the GPO’s most celebrated film, Basil Wright and Harry Watt’s Night Mail (1936). 42. Scott Anthony, “The Fairy of the Phone (1936),” in BFI Screenonline (British Film Institute). 43. See also the spectral post-box in Len Lye’s N or NW (1938). 86 T. PETTER 44. See for example Evelyn Spice’s Calendar of the Year (1936). 45. Jayne Pilling, A Reader in Animation Studies (London: John Libbey, 1997). 46. Michael Cowan, “Advertising and Animation: From the Invisible Hand to Attention Management,” in Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico De Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau (London: British Film Institute, 2016). 47. Walter Benjamin, “The Storyteller,” in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 101. 48. Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, 2nd ed. (Austin, TX: University of Texas, 1968). 49. Ibid., 79. 50. Benjamin, “The Storyteller,” 101. 51. The ‘child listener’ is a recent construct according to Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales/Maria Tatar (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), xxvi. 52. Jack Zipes, Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children and the Culture Industry (New York: Routledge, 1997), 137. 53. Wolfgang Mieder, “Advertising and Fairy Tales,” in The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (Oxford University Press, 2015). 54. Reiniger, “The Hidden Treasure” [typescript for The Tocher]. Tübingen, Reiniger Collection, R 01471/001-003. 55. Jack Zipes, Fairy Tales and Fables from Weimar Days (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1989); Benjamin, “The Storyteller.” Bibliography Acland, Charles R., and Haidee Wasson. 2011. Useful Cinema. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Aitken, Ian. 2013. The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. New York, NY: Routledge. Amberg, G. 1972. Film Society Programmes (1925–39). New York: Arno Press. Amsler, André. 1997. Wer Dem Werbefilm Verfällt, Ist Verloren Für Die Welt: Das Werk Von Julius Pinschewer 1883–1961. Zürich: Chronos. Anthony, Scott. “The Fairy of the Phone (1936).” In BFI Screenonline. British Film Institute. Anthony, Scott, and James G. Mansell. 2011. The Projection of Britain: A History of the Gpo Film Unit. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Artmonsky, Ruth. 2009. Bringers of Good Tidings: Greetings Telegrams, 1935–1982 [in English]. Woodbridge: Artmonsky Art. Bastiancich, Alfio. 1992. “Lotte Reiniger: An Interview with Alfio Bastiancich.” In Women and Animation: A Compendium, ed. Jayne Pilling. London: British Film Institute. 3 SPONSORED SILHOUETTES … 87 Benjamin, Walter. 1969. “The Storyteller.” In Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books. Brooke, Michael. “The H.P.O. (1938).” In BFI Screenonline. British Film Institute. Cowan, Michael. 2013. “The Ambivalence of Ornament: Silhouette Advertisements in Print and Film in Early Twentieth-Century Germany.” Art History 36, no. 4: 784–809. Cowan, Michael. 2016. “Advertising and Animation: From the Invisible Hand to Attention Management.” In Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico De Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau. London: British Film Institute. Crutchley, Ernest Tristram. 1938. GPO. Cambridge: University Press. Dixon, Bryony. 2009. “The H.P.O. (1938).” In We Live in Two Worlds: The GPO Film Unit Collection [DVD Booklet]. London: British Film Institute. Elsaesser, Thomas. 2009. “Archives and Archaeologies: The Place of Non-fiction Film in Contemporary Media.” In Films That Work: Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media, eds. Vinzenz Hediger and Patrick Vonderau. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Galt, Rosalind. 2011. Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image. New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press. Green, Doris M. 1967. The Greetings Telegram Service. Poole: The Minster Press. Happ, Alfred. 2004. Lotte Reiniger 1899–1981: Schöpferin Einer Neuen Silhouettenkunst. Tübingen: Kulturamt. Kinchin, Perilla, Neil Baxter, and Juliet Kinchin. 1988. Glasgow’s Great Exhibitions: 1888, 1901, 1911, 1938, 1988 [in Engels (TA)]. Wendlebury: White Cockade. Low, Rachael, and Roger Manvell. 1979. Documentary and Educational Films of the 1930’s. London: Allen & Unwin. Mieder, Wolfgang. 2015. “Advertising and Fairy Tales.” In The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. Oxford University Press. Moss, Graham. 1988. The Post Office and the Empire Exhibition, 1938. Scottish Postal History Society. Palfreyman, Rachel. 2011. “Life and Death in the Shadows: Lotte Reiniger’s Die Abenteuer Des Prinzen Achmed.” German Life and Letters 64, no. 1: 6–18. Petrolle, Jean, and Virginia Wexman Wright, eds. 2005. Women and Experimental Filmmaking. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Pilling, Jayne. 1997. A Reader in Animation Studies. London: John Libbey. Pinschewer, Julius, Martin Loiperdinger, and Alexander Duesterberg. 2010. Julius Pinschewer - Klassiker Des Werbefilms [DVD Booklet]. Berlin: Absolut Medien. Propp, Vladimir. 1968. Morphology of the Folktale. 2nd ed. Austin, TX: University of Texas. Reiniger, Lotte. 1936a. “Film as Ballet.” Life and Letters To-day 4 (Spring): 157– 163. Reiniger, Lotte. 1936b. “Scissors Make Films.” Sight and Sound 5, no. 17: 13–15. 88 T. PETTER Ruddell, Caroline, and Paul Ward, eds. 2019. The Crafty Animator: Handmade, Craft-Based Animation and Cultural Value. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Sargeant, Amy. 2008. “A Wide Shot of Exile, Émigré and Itinerant Activity in the British Film Industry in the 1930s.” In Destination London: German-Speaking Emigrés and British Cinema, 1925–1950, eds. Tim Bergfelder and Christian Cargnelli. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Stephenson, Ralph. 1967. Animation in the Cinema. London: Zwemmer. Tatar, Maria. 1987. The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales/Maria Tatar. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Zipes, Jack. 1989. Fairy Tales and Fables from Weimar Days. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Zipes, Jack. 1997. Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children and the Culture Industry. New York: Routledge. CHAPTER 4 Magic Highways and Autopias: Disney and Automobile Advertising Malcolm Cook Introduction The 1958 episode ‘Magic Highway, U.S.A.’ from the Disneyland television series provides a revealing insight into the attitudes Walt Disney Productions held towards advertising at this time. Imagining the future of highway travel, an animated comic vignette shows a driver passing invasive and ‘unsightly’ roadside billboards (‘Wear Burpo…Eat Burpo…See Burpo…Buy Burpo’). It then offers a solution to ‘preserve our scenic beauty’, as Walt Disney’s voice-over puts it. The billboards dissolve to be replaced by topiary forming the word ‘Burpo’, a cow with ‘Burpo’ in its markings (recalling the archaic meaning of a ‘brand’), and a flock of birds who form the ubiquitous company name. Advertising is not eliminated, but rather moves from an overt and intrusive form to being more discreet and integrated into the environment. This mirrors the wider shift occurring at Disney in the late M. Cook (B) Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK e-mail: m.cook@soton.ac.uk © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_4 89 90 M. COOK 1950s, as it moved away from the production of direct television commercials, but remained heavily involved in a range of promotional activities for other companies, especially beyond cinema and television screens.1 This chapter will argue that advertising is an important part of Disney history, which earlier historians have ignored or downplayed. A case study of the company’s work in the related fields of automobiles, oil and government highway construction between 1954 and 1964 reveals a complex web of corporate activity with promotion, persuasion and selling at its centre. Disney had been involved with advertising from its earliest days. Walt Disney’s first job at the Kansas City Slide Company, the studio’s pioneering of merchandising and the Mickey Mouse Club in the 1930s, and the large volume of persuasive educational, training and information films during the Second World War all provide prominent examples.2 In the 1950s, Disney directly engaged with agencies and advertisers to produce television commercials for products including Peter Pan Peanut Butter, 7-Up soft drinks, Trix cereal and Ipana toothpaste. As with the other examples given here, this has previously been noted by animation historians, but has been seen as short-lived and inconsequential.3 In the restricted terms of the studio simply taking commissions for television commercials, this interpretation has some validity. It is notable that a woman, Phyllis Hurrell, was placed in charge of the commercial unit.4 This was an unusual situation in the maledominated power structure of the studio, and suggests the limited respect the unit had, echoing Jane Gaines’ argument that women in the early film industry could get a foothold in areas that were deemed unimportant or uneconomic.5 Furthermore, the Disney commercial unit was closed by the end of the 1950s, less than ten years after it opened. This chapter argues that this was not the end of Disney’s advertising, however, but signalled the incorporation of sponsorship and promotion as a cornerstone of the company’s activities. A case study of Disney’s work with the automotive industry, and associated oil companies and government initiatives, provides the most extensive evidence of this deepening pattern. As Susan Ohmer has shown, Disney had been involved in marketing campaigns in this field before, collaborating in 1939 with Standard Oil to promote travel to the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco.6 With the launch of Disneyland (both theme park and television show) the mutual promotional relationship between Disney and car culture became complex and extensive: as a source of funding to build the park, as a sponsor and topic for television shows and theme park attractions, as transportation for park visitors. In 4 MAGIC HIGHWAYS AND AUTOPIAS … 91 turn, Disney was shaped by that involvement in terms of industrial design, environmental engineering and urban planning. The Disneyland Television Show and American Motors’ Sponsorship In 1954, in connection with plans for the Disneyland theme park, Disney signed a contract to produce a weekly television show, also to be called Disneyland, for the American ABC network.7 In addition to the $100,000 production budget for each episode, American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres (AB-PT) invested $500,000 for an approximate 35% share of Disneyland Inc. and provided an initial $4.4 million credit line for the construction of the park.8 A number of writers have addressed the importance of this show for Disney and animation history, but for the present discussion it is significant because it saw Disney embrace advertising as a core part of its business.9 Sharing the same name, the Disneyland show was a publicity vehicle for the Disneyland park. The show was structured around the same four ‘lands’ from the park and included behind the scenes material on the construction of the park and shows broadcast from there once it opened.10 This was openly acknowledged by trade newsletter Television Digest, which reported that many of the shows would ‘be slanted as promotion for Disney theatrical films and other Disney properties’.11 More than this self-promotion, however, Disney’s entry into television also meant promoting the interests of other companies. In this early period of commercial American television, shows were closely associated with a small number of sponsors who took the complete commercial break, although full exclusivity was starting to decline.12 The first season of Disneyland was sponsored by three companies: American Dairy Association, Derby Foods and American Motors.13 American Motors sponsored half of every show, while the two remaining sponsors alternated for the other half hour.14 The total sponsorship cost for each hour-long show was $69,000 for the first run and $39,000 for reruns, thereby rapidly covering the production costs of the show and entering profitability.15 In addition to having these companies’ brands and messages displayed in the flow of the programme, Disney was an active part of producing the messages.16 These incorporated new animation alongside live-action material, and Disney allowed its well-known cartoon characters to serve as spokespersons for the products being sold. In the case of some products, 92 M. COOK the association between Disney characters and brands had an obvious rationale. For instance, Derby Foods’ Peter Pan Peanut Butter was an apt sponsor with Disney’s 1953 J. M. Barrie adaptation fresh in viewers’ minds.17 This was deemed highly effective by Television Digest, which described them as the ‘most delightful commercials on TV’.18 There was no such obvious rationale for the association between Disney and American Motors, but this would ultimately prove to be a more extensive collaboration, reflecting shared interests the two companies held. The American automotive industry was undergoing considerable changes at this time.19 American Motors was a product of this, formed in 1954 from the merger of Hudson and Nash-Kelvinator, two longstanding automobile manufacturers.20 Small manufacturers were struggling to compete in the face of the oligopoly of the ‘big three’ manufacturers, Ford, Chrysler and General Motors (GM), who controlled 94% of the market between them.21 Tied up with that consolidation was a second change in the car industry, as manufacturers shifted from an engineering-led approach focused on technological innovation and functionality to a design-led approach dominated by style and increasingly frequent model revisions.22 The result was the transformation of the look of American cars, as designers such as Frank Hershey and Virgil Exner introduced stylistic flourishes inspired by jet planes, including tail fins and wraparound windshields.23 Advertising, especially on television, was becoming a crucial tool for automobile manufacturers at the time of American Motors’ sponsorship of Disneyland. Television advertising could differentiate similar products and directly present the visual style of new models. As a result, Variety reported that in the 1954–1955 season automobile manufacturers were ‘the biggest spenders in television, even outranking the soap, cigaret [sic] and food companies’.24 The animation industry that Disney operated in was undergoing a parallel stylistic development to that seen in the automotive industry. The United Productions of America (UPA) studio led a development in animation design during the 1950s that Amid Amidi calls the ‘cartoon modern’ style.25 As a number of writers have observed, modern art and commercial illustration had a significant influence on this change.26 While the Disney studio did produce some films that responded to this new style, notably Ward Kimball’s short Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953), its involvement in commercial television would seem to have stimulated an embrace of new design and style principles, both in Kimball’s extensive work on the Disneyland show and the commercials for its sponsors. 4 MAGIC HIGHWAYS AND AUTOPIAS … 93 Of particular importance here, it was for Disney’s American Motors advertisements that designer Tom Oreb restyled the studio’s most famous star, Mickey Mouse.27 Oreb applied a stark graphic style to Mickey, rejecting the circles previous character models were founded on and instead using squares and triangles that left sharp angles and points evident, including on Mickey’s iconic ears. Just as the Nash Rambler went from a sturdy rotund design in the late 1940s to a sleek linear design over the course of its 1950s model revisions, so the Mickey who advertised them was similarly transformed by Oreb into an angular dapper character. Additional commercials featured similar makeovers of other characters from Disney films, including Donald Duck, Alice and the White Rabbit, Pinocchio and Brer Rabbit. There is a clear alignment in the incorporation of new design principles in both animation and automobiles, but perhaps fittingly neither company embraced the extreme stylisations of their competitors, both targeting a family audience and restrained modernism. The immediate stimulus for Disney adopting new 1950s cartoon styles was its commercial work and the influence of industrial design. These commercials for American Motors allowed modernist design principles to be extended into motion, providing a clear rationale for American Motors’ choice to sponsor Disney’s show and embracing animation for its car commercials. Animation offered an intermedial extension of industrial design, animating blueprints and concept drawings. The emphasis on style and design is evident in one of the first Mickey Mouse Nash commercials, which opens with Oreb’s new stylish Mickey getting dressed in front of a mirror, taking care over his appearance. In addition to his new design, this is a departure from the hard-working personality Mickey normally performed. He converses with his reflection, seemingly discussing an imminent date saying ‘Boy, oh boy, is she a dream, what style…a continental beauty!’, again focusing on appearance over personality. The punchline is, of course, that Mickey is describing the 1955 Rambler automobile from Nash, not a female companion. As well as providing a new modern Mickey as spokesperson for the brand, the advertisement also animates industrial design in a more practical sense, as photographic footage of an actual car is overlaid with a diagrammatic blueprint of the car’s new internal body structure, echoing the applied form of animation Disney had used in wartime training and propaganda films. The overall impression of the commercial is of the way Disney’s animation brings movement and life to what is a rather average automobile for the period, encapsulated by a 94 M. COOK final shot of the car statically turning its wheels on a treadmill while an animated cityscape with neon-style signs passes above it, giving the impression of the car moving through an urban space. Disneyland and Expanded Screen Advertising The collaboration with American Motors is not only a significant example of Disney’s commercial television work in the 1950s, but also signals the way advertising had a larger place in its activities at this time, especially the Disneyland theme park. On the opening day of Disneyland, one of the major attractions in Tomorrowland was the Circarama presentation of the film Tour of the West sponsored by American Motors.28 Circarama was an expanded projection system providing a 360-degree immersive image produced by eleven interlinked 16 mm projectors.29 As its title suggests, the film took viewers on a journey through the western United States, taking in natural sights including Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon, as well as urban scenes of Las Vegas and Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. American Motors’ involvement was predicated on ‘the advertising value of the show’ and the company paid the $350,000 costs for the attraction, which did not require an entry ticket.30 The presentation served as an advertising conduit in some obvious ways. The motor company name was prominently displayed outside the building, and the ‘car’ in the Circarama name was emphasised with colour. The screening space for the film contained showroom examples of automobiles and Kelvinator appliances, such as refrigerators.31 Moreover, the attraction also promoted American Motors products in a less obtrusive manner and associated them with intangible ideas and values. Widescreen processes were growing in popularity in the mid-1950s, but the immersive nature of the Circarama projection was undoubtedly still a novelty and aimed to impress audiences with its technological innovation.32 The patent for the ‘Panoramic motion picture presentation arrangement’, filed in 1956 by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney, has an automobile as a crucial part of the filming technology, as a rig of 11 film cameras was attached to the roof of a car with controls integrated into the dashboard.33 American Motors was thus incorporated into the technological spectacle of A Tour of the West in both a practical physical manner and at an ideological level, associating the company’s products with innovation and the immersive embodied response produced. 4 MAGIC HIGHWAYS AND AUTOPIAS … 95 That ideological promotion also extended to ideas of the nation and the ‘manifest destiny’ of western expansion, with the automobile replacing the railways as the technological agent for it.34 The production of a panoramic image of the American west to promote a new technology of transport clearly has antecedents in the nineteenth century-painters who produced images promoting the railways as a fulfilment of American exceptionalism.35 Even as recently as 1947 the Advertising Council had used a ‘Freedom Train’ as a vehicle to promote free enterprise as an American virtue, while also framing advertising as a positive democratic force.36 A Tour of the West utilised similar iconography to promote automobiles as the new embodiment of that national ideal. These ideas would be extended in a subsequent Circarama presentation sponsored by Ford, The USA in Circarama, which Disney produced for the Brussels World’s Fair held in 1958. It replaced A Tour of the West at Disneyland as the attraction America the Beautiful, sponsored by Bell Telephone System.37 Disney, of course, has often been read in broad ideological terms, but even where such discussions are concerned with ideas of consumption or capitalism they rarely address Disney’s direct involvement in advertising.38 The relevance here is that the promotion of these ideas was bound up with Disney’s advertising of automobiles as a consumer product, and also the company’s own commercial interests. Symbolically, the location of the original Disneyland park in California placed it at the far reaches of that national westward expansion; in practical terms, it was heavily dependent upon automobile travel and the associated highway infrastructure. Disneyland was built close to the Santa Ana Freeway, which at the time was designated part of U.S. Route 101. The freeway had been expanded during Disneyland’s construction in anticipation of increased traffic, bringing rapid expansion to the surrounding Orange County. The county included not only Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm attractions, but also extensive industry and an annual $120 million income from local oil and gas.39 In 1956, American President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, committing $25 billion to establishing the interstate system and expanding and improving roads.40 This signalled his belief that automobiles meant ‘progress for our country…greater convenience…greater happiness and greater standards of living’.41 While the act had been preceded by many years of political wrangling, this transformative legislation reflected an ‘American commitment to automobility’.42 Disneyland directly benefited from this, as the Santa Ana Freeway was an early incorporation into the network, as part of Interstate 5, allowing even more people to visit the 96 M. COOK park. It is therefore unsurprising that Disney actively promoted this vast infrastructure project in its Disneyland television episode ‘Magic Highway, U.S.A.’ Alongside the accounts of the past and projected future of highways, ‘Magic Highway, U.S.A.’ includes an extended presentation (around 15 minutes long) of the construction of highways, promoting their economic and political function while assuaging fears the audience might have about the impact upon their environment. It adopts many different strategies to persuade the viewer of the necessity and inevitability of Eisenhower’s interstate programme, as the act is referenced directly and described as ‘the biggest building project in the history of man’. The show uses biological analogies, promoting the roads as the ‘arteries’ of the nation, with a danger that if they are clogged the ‘economy will be strangled’. The military function of the expressways is also highlighted, described as ‘strategic military highways for national defence’, echoing a shot from the start of the programme that showed a jet plane being transported on a truck. It is alert to the competing interest groups advocating different forms of road building, from the need for ‘farm-to-market’ connections to faster interstates that bypass small towns and urban congestion, each of which is presented as a drawn caricature of the group described. The advanced technology adopted to plan and construct the highways is repeatedly shown and emphasised, including aerial photography, electronic computers and road building techniques. The purported care taken to avoid disruption to existing inhabitants is emphasised: ‘wherever possible the route is planned to bypass schools, cemeteries, hospitals and churches’. It is notable that the shots accompanying this voice-over feature one of the few female workers we see, in an attempt to offer a moment of stereotypical feminine care and humanity in contrast to the rational engineers and planners who dominate the process. This is further communicated visually, as the female planner has prominent red lipstick and nail varnish that is matched to the ink she uses to mark out the path of the road. The pen even resembles a lipstick or other makeup applicator which she guides freehand rather than the careful measurement and use of mathematical implements seen in other shots. This example also indicates the prevailing narrative of this sequence, the translation of drawing into built environment. We repeatedly see planners, designers and artists holding pencils, pens, paint brushes and other mark making tools, followed by the images they have created being translated first into three-dimensional models and then fully realised real world spaces. 4 MAGIC HIGHWAYS AND AUTOPIAS … 97 As well as promoting Eisenhower’s road building programme, in ‘Magic Highway, U.S.A.’ Disney was also documenting its own shift from simple animated screen advertising to the use of engineering to animate the physical environment at the service of corporate promotion. Advertising Beyond the Screen at Disneyland with Richfield Oil As well as promoting automobile manufacturing and government highway infrastructure policies, as discussed above, the opening of Disneyland saw the studio boosting the oil industry, and in so doing it moved beyond the screen and into a variety of expanded forms of animated advertising. From 1955, Disneyland featured two attractions sponsored by the Richfield Oil Corporation. The first attraction, billed as ‘The Richfield Show—The World Beneath Us’ incorporated a traditional Disney animated film produced and projected in ‘CinemaScope’ format.43 This film included contributions from personnel who had recently completed Lady and the Tramp, including celebrated designer Eyvind Earle, bringing a modern design aesthetic to the film.44 Character animation of a newly designed spokesperson, Professor Rich Field, was used to create appeal as he gave a lecture on the geological history of oil supported by diagrammatic animation that communicated factual information. Following this, the show expanded into an animated diorama depicting the local California geography, which sat in front of the CinemaScope screen. A domed projection screen with a wedge indentation rose from the diorama, onto which further animated diagrams were projected to depict the future of oil drilling.45 The Richfield Show thus incorporated in microcosm the shifts in advertising practices Disney implemented more generally in developing Disneyland. While starting with a traditional screen-based presentation of character animation, the show expanded onto site-specific mechanical apparatus. Furthermore, the advertising message was increasingly and discreetly incorporated into the entertainment, rather than standing alongside or apart from it. Richfield Autopia was the second attraction at Disneyland sponsored by the oil company. An antecedent to the Honda-sponsored attraction still operating today, the ride offered both children and adults the opportunity to drive a futuristic automobile, fuelled by Richfield gasoline, round a miniature highway system. Richfield Autopia provides another prominent example of Disney’s site-specific integrated advertising. The oil company name was appended to the attraction name in many official materials and 98 M. COOK was prominent in the television broadcast of the opening of the park.46 It was also conspicuously displayed on the ride entrance, which was modelled on the company’s service station forecourts and featured other elements with its name or its Eagle logo, including fuel pumps (see Fig. 4.1). Richfield not only benefitted from the promotional association with this Disney attraction, but also became the ‘official gasoline of Disneyland’ and operated a service station at the Disneyland hotel that provided direct income. This marketing was bidirectional, as Richfield also actively advertised the Disneyland park through its chain of service stations, which distributed two promotional items given to customers buying gas. The ‘Official Disneyland Road Map—Courtesy of your friendly Richfield Dealer’ gave a schematic view of the highway routes to the park, driving instructions from a variety of California locations and highlighted key attractions at the park, including those sponsored by Richfield.47 The second giveaway promoting the Disney park to Richfield customers was a children’s comic book Adventure in Disneyland by Richfield. This contained a long comic strip in which a futuristic family from space accidentally navigate their ‘spacemobile’ to Fig. 4.1 Photograph of Disneyland, California in July 1958, showing the Richfield Autopia attraction with its gas station design and prominent display of the sponsor’s name. Image with kind permission and from the collection of David Eppen (http://gorillasdontblog.blogspot.com) 4 MAGIC HIGHWAYS AND AUTOPIAS … 99 Disneyland and lose their son, resulting in a tour of the park’s different lands to find him. When reunited with their son they refuel with ‘Richfield Ethyl Gasoline’ before leaving the park.48 A further comic book was published in 1956 and again incorporated evidence of the cross-promotion between Disney and Richfield (see Fig. 4.2). These joint initiatives between Disney and Richfield clearly had an overt promotional intent and message, encouraging consumers to buy Richfield fuel and visit the Disneyland park. However, they also saw Disney adopting forms of advertising that were integrated into customers’ everyday environment or the theme park experience, rather than a segregated division between entertainment and advertising. Richfield Autopia, like Disney’s collaboration with American Motors, saw the animation company embrace modern industrial design and extend it in time and space. Robert (‘Bob’) Henry Gurr, who joined Disney in 1955, designed the vehicles for Richfield Autopia.49 Gurr had worked for both GM and Ford in the early 1950s, and wrote and illustrated a book, How to Draw Cars of Tomorrow, that advocated the new designled approach to automobiles discussed earlier. In the book Gurr encouraged ‘designing without constraint’, allowing the designer’s imagination to ‘go wild’ without the consideration of mundane engineering principles.50 While this may have been too radical for Detroit car manufacturers, this visionary approach was in keeping with the intended principles of the Tomorrowland area of Disneyland. Gurr’s book places considerable emphasis on the development of ‘character in existing cars’ and their expression of a distinctive ‘character-line’ that distinguish and differentiate particular models.51 This emphasis on character is suggestive of an alignment with the development of character animation, which had established Disney as the leading animation studio before the Second World War. Richfield Autopia would not go so far as to feature anthropomorphised cars of the kind seen in the 1952 Disney short Susie the Little Blue Coupe, and it was a product of mechanical engineering rather than traditional animation techniques. Nevertheless, by extending Gurr’s illustrations into three-dimensional objects and propelling them around the attraction’s highways, Disney was offering a new form of animated drawing at the service of advertising. As well as providing a showcase for the way Richfield gasoline animated cars, Disney brought to life Gurr’s imagination of the future, promoting a utopian vision of technological enhancement that would recur in its 1964 World’s Fair exhibits, including 100 M. COOK Fig. 4.2 Page from the promotional comic book Clyde Beatty’s African Jungle Book (1956) showing extensive interaction between Disney and corporate sponsor Richfield Oil at Disneyland, California. [Author’s collection] 4 MAGIC HIGHWAYS AND AUTOPIAS … 101 the Magic Skyway. The types of advertising offered by Disneyland attractions had proven highly successful, with International Projectionist reporting that the companies involved were ‘greatly pleased by the advertising and publicity they receive’.52 The World’s Fair would continue and expand this practice. The 1964--1965 New York World’s Fair The 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair was, in many respects, a restatement of earlier developments, and Disney’s contributions to it were no exception. The fair was held on the same site that had hosted the 1939 New York World’s Fair.53 That fair, and others like it, had been a regular reference point for the construction and understanding of Disneyland.54 Disney designed and engineered four major attractions for the 1964–1965 fair, all of which extensively promoted sponsoring corporations and advertised specific products. One of these, the Ford Rotunda, contained the Disney designed Magic Skyway, which reconnected Disney with sponsor Ford following their collaboration for the Brussels Expo 58.55 As Lee Grieveson has shown, Ford had a long history of the use of film to promote its corporate interests, including advocating for road building and reinforcing a liberal political economy.56 Ford’s projects in conjunction with Disney revived such goals. Magic Skyway offered visitors a 12-minute journey back in time, using Ford motor cars as ride vehicles, with narration and music played through the car radio.57 The cars progressed automatically past a series of dioramas depicting prehistoric scenes, populated with audio-animatronic dinosaurs and cave people, leading to the development of the wheel.58 The ride repeated many elements seen in earlier attractions: the teleological history of The World Beneath Us, the mobile viewpoint and animation of the latest automobile design seen in Autopia, extensive coverage and promotion in the Disney television show.59 The name of the Ford ride, Magic Skyway, obviously recalls the earlier Disneyland episode ‘Magic Highway, U.S.A.’ and the attraction promoted automobiles as the expression of technological expansion and freedom. Like the Disneyland park, the fair was a product of, and instrument for, the massive highway expansion described earlier with the pivotal involvement of the powerful New York planner Robert Moses, who instigated large-scale highway infrastructure projects to allow visitors to travel by car to the site.60 102 M. COOK Importantly, the Magic Skyway not only reiterated many of the patterns seen throughout this chapter, but also extended the idea of animated advertising through the innovation of audio-animatronics. Magic Skyway extended the conventional cel animation, expanded screens and environmental animation of earlier attractions into a new experience. The animatronics allowed animated figures to extend beyond two-dimensional screens, while spectators were immersed and propelled into a shared space. This all served to give a practical product demonstration of the Ford convertibles guests were sat in, as well as promote the idea that automobiles were the apotheosis of human technological evolution and freedom through its teleological historical narrative. Magic Skyway might also be understood to have inadvertently signalled the limits of these ideas, and the challenges of the wider social context they sat within. The ride was plagued with excessive queues, with Business Screen (hardly a radical critical voice) reporting simply ‘crowd lines are generally long’.61 Once in the ride vehicle, guests had none of the control allowed on Richfield Autopia, instead being guided automatically around the track at a predetermined pace. Likewise, guests were directed and controlled in their interpretation of what they saw by a narrating soundtrack played through the car radio.62 This form of advertising would seem to have depended on control and the restriction of animation in a wider sense. The freedom of the automobile and the highway offered by Magic Skyway was prophetically curtailed by congestion and predetermined itineraries. Furthermore, opening months before the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, the fair as a whole saw increasing unrest and protest from groups such as Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).63 While a myriad of discriminatory practices were at stake here, among them was the way highway construction schemes ignored or disrupted African-American neighbourhoods, and road building was often used as a tool for social engineering, displacing or segregating people seen as undesirable.64 Conclusion Despite this vocal dissent, the New York World’s Fair was greeted as a great success for Disney. It served as an important stimulus for the creation of the Walt Disney World resort, which opened in Florida in 1971 with attractions including the Universe of Energy sponsored by Exxon for most of its lifetime, World of Motion sponsored by GM and its replacement Test 4 MAGIC HIGHWAYS AND AUTOPIAS … 103 Track sponsored by GM and their Chevrolet brand. Disney has continued to advertise car and oil companies’ products and promote the ideals of automotive transportation through expanded forms of animation in its theme parks, while providing a tourist destination that depends upon and necessitates the use of those same vehicles. This chapter serves as a case study for a wider revision of Disney history that shows the studio being intimately involved with advertising and promotion of other companies’ products, and the social and political principles underlying them. This has incorporated many examples of the traditional cel animation Disney was famous for in the twentieth century, but can also be understood in an expanded sense. As well as selling commodities, Disney’s advertising was animating industrial design, engineering new dynamic spaces and enlivening social and urban planning. Notes 1. For clarity, ‘Disney’ here and throughout refers to the organisation Walt Disney Productions. Walt Disney as an individual will be referred to by first and last name. 2. Jeremy Groskopf, Profit Margins: The American Silent Cinema and the Marginalization of Advertising (Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2013), 18–19; Tim Hollis, Toons in Toyland: The Story of Cartoon Character Merchandise (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015), 11–15; A. Bowdoin Van Riper, ed. Learning from Mickey, Donald and Walt: Essays on Disney’s Edutainment Films (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2011). 3. Amid Amidi, Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2006), 153; Don Hahn, Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Disney’s Magical Mid-Century (Los Angeles: Disney Editions, 2017), 80– 83. 4. Mindy Johnson, Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation (Los Angeles: Disney Editions, 2017), 251. 5. Jane Gaines, “Of Cabbages and Authors,” in Feminist Reader in Early Cinema, eds. Jennifer M. Bean and Diane Negra (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), 105. 6. Susan Ohmer, “On the Road with Disney: Standard Oil, Advertising, and the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition (Conference Paper),” in 18th Biennial Conference on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing (CHARM) (Liverpool John Moores University, 2017). 7. Television Digest, with Electronic Report, 3 April 1954, 1. 8. Broadcasting Telecasting, 2 April 1956, 66–67; Motion Picture Daily, 19 May 1954, 4. 104 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. M. COOK J. P. Telotte, Disney TV (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004). Broadcasting Telecasting, 11 October 1954, 97, 106–107. Television Digest, with Electronic Report, 15 May 1954, 8. Lawrence R. Samuel, Brought to You By: Postwar Television Advertising and the American Dream (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2001), 48, 106–107. Sponsor, 28 June 1954, 1. Broadcasting Telecasting, 11 October 1954, 97. Television Digest, with Electronic Report, 15 May 1954, 8. Broadcasting Telecasting, 11 October 1954, 97. Television Digest, with Electronic Report, 12 June 1954, 7. Television Digest, with Electronic Report, 20 November 1954, 9. David Gartman, Auto Opium: A Social History of American Automobile Design (London: Routledge, 1994). Sponsor, 31 May 1954, 72. Gartman, Auto Opium: A Social History of American Automobile Design, 142. Ibid., 142–143. Ibid., 159. Variety, 7 July 1954, 25. Amidi, Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation. Norman M. Klein, Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon (London: Verso, 1993), 231; Dan Bashara, “Cartoon Vision: UPA, Precisionism and American Modernism,” Animation 10, no. 2 (2015). Amidi, Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation, 152; Hahn, Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Disney’s Magical Mid-Century, 80–81. Business Screen (16:6), 1955, 37–44 (labelled 1A–8A as ‘Special Report’). International Projectionist, September 1955, 10–11. Business Screen (16:6), 1955, 5A; International Projectionist, September 1955, 10. Business Screen (16:6), 1955, 4A. Motion Picture Herald, 2 July 1955, 13. Walter E. Disney and Ub Iwerks, Panoramic Motion Picture Presentation Arrangement. United States Patent 2942516. American Cinematographer August 1955, 476, 485–486. Sarah Nilsen, “America’s Salesman: The USA in Circarama,” in Learning from Mickey, Donald and Walt: Essays on Disney’s Edutainment Films, ed. A. Bowdoin Van Riper (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2011), 243. Tom Gunning, “Landscape and the Fantasy of Moving Pictures: Early Cinema’s Phantom Rides,” in Cinema and Landscape, eds. Graeme Harper and Jonathan Rayner (Bristol: Intellect, 2010), 40. 4 MAGIC HIGHWAYS AND AUTOPIAS … 105 36. Dawn Spring, Advertising in the Age of Persuasion: Building Brand America 1941–1961 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 29–41. 37. Motion Picture Daily, 1 July 1959, 4; Business Screen (19:4), 1958, 31. 38. Eric S. Jenkins, Special Affects: Cinema, Animation and the Translation of Consumer Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016). 39. Broadcasting Telecasting, 30 January 1956, 90. 40. Mark H. Rose and Raymond A. Mohl, Interstate: Highway Politics and Policy Since 1939 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2012), 89. 41. Dwight D. Eisenhower “Remarks to the White House Conference on Highway Safety,” 17 February 1954. 42. Rose and Mohl, Interstate: Highway Politics and Policy Since 1939, 55–84, 93. 43. International Projectionist, September 1955, 32–33. 44. Business Screen (16:6), 1955, 5A. 45. Business Screen (16:6), 1955, 5A–6A. 46. Official Disneyland Road Map (Richfield Oil Corporation, 1955); Official Driver’s License for Richfield Autopia (Walt Disney Productions, 1955). 47. Official Disneyland Road Map (Richfield Oil Corporation, 1955). 48. Adventure in Disneyland by Richfield (Disneyland Inc., 1955). 49. Hahn, Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Disney’s Magical Mid-Century, 58–61. 50. Henry Gurr, How to Draw Cars of Tomorrow (Arcadia, CA: Dan Post Publications, 1952), 6. 51. Ibid., 13. 52. International Projectionist, September 1955, 32. 53. Lawrence R. Samuel, End of the Innocence: The 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2007), 4–5. 54. Business Screen (16:6), 1955, 7A; Broadcasting Telecasting, 25 July 1955, 39. 55. Business Screen (25:3), 1964, 38; Business Screen (19:4), 1958, 31. 56. Lee Grieveson, Cinema and the Wealth of Nations: Media, Capital, and the Liberal World System (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018), 117– 157. 57. Walt Disney and the 1964 World’s Fair (Audio CD) (Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Records, 2009). 58. Business Screen (25:3), 1964, 38. 59. Broadcasting, 22 April 1963, 56. 60. Rose and Mohl, Interstate: Highway Politics and Policy Since 1939, 95–111; Samuel, End of the Innocence: The 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair, 4, 13. 61. Business Screen (25:3), 1964, 38. 62. Ibid. 63. Samuel, End of the Innocence: The 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair, 33–37. 64. Rose and Mohl, Interstate: Highway Politics and Policy Since 1939, 109. 106 M. COOK Bibliography Amidi, Amid. 2006. Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Bashara, Dan. 2015. “Cartoon Vision: UPA, Precisionism and American Modernism.” Animation 10, no. 2: 82–101. Disney, Walter E., and Ub Iwerks. 1955. Panoramic Motion Picture Presentation Arrangement. United States: United States Patent Office. Gaines, Jane. 2002. “Of Cabbages and Authors.” In Feminist Reader in Early Cinema, eds. Jennifer M. Bean and Diane Negra. Durham: Duke University Press. Gartman, David. 1994. Auto Opium: A Social History of American Automobile Design. London: Routledge. Grieveson, Lee. 2018. Cinema and the Wealth of Nations: Media, Capital, and the Liberal World System. Oakland: University of California Press. Groskopf, Jeremy. 2013. “Profit Margins: The American Silent Cinema and the Marginalization of Advertising.” Dissertation, Georgia State University. Gunning, Tom. 2010. “Landscape and the Fantasy of Moving Pictures: Early Cinema’s Phantom Rides.” In Cinema and Landscape, eds. Graeme Harper and Jonathan Rayner, 31–70. Bristol: Intellect. Gurr, Henry. 1952. How to Draw Cars of Tomorrow. Arcadia, CA: Dan Post Publications. Hahn, Don. 2017. Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Disney’s Magical Mid-Century. Los Angeles: Disney Editions. Hollis, Tim. 2015. Toons in Toyland: The Story of Cartoon Character Merchandise. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Jenkins, Eric S. 2016. Special Affects: Cinema, Animation and the Translation of Consumer Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Johnson, Mindy. 2017. Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation. Los Angeles: Disney Editions. Klein, Norman M. 1993. Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon. London: Verso. Nilsen, Sarah. 2011. “America’s Salesman: The USA in Circarama.” In Learning from Mickey, Donald and Walt: Essays on Disney’s Edutainment Films, ed. A. Bowdoin Van Riper. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Ohmer, Susan. 2017. “On the Road with Disney: Standard Oil, Advertising, and the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition (Conference Paper).” In 18th Biennial Conference on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing (CHARM). Liverpool John Moores University. Riper, A. Bowdoin Van, ed. 2011. Learning from Mickey, Donald and Walt: Essays on Disney’s Edutainment Films. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Rose, Mark H, and Raymond A. Mohl. 2012. Interstate: Highway Politics and Policy Since 1939. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. 4 MAGIC HIGHWAYS AND AUTOPIAS … 107 Samuel, Lawrence R. 2001. Brought to You By: Postwar Television Advertising and the American Dream. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Samuel, Lawrence R. 2007. End of the Innocence: The 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Spring, Dawn. 2011. Advertising in the Age of Persuasion: Building Brand America 1941–1961. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Telotte, J. P. 2004. Disney TV. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. PART II Intermediality CHAPTER 5 Animation and Commercial Display in Britain During the 1920s Victoria Jackson The interwar period has been described as a ‘golden age for advertising’ in Britain, with expenditure on publicity increasing rapidly during the 1920s.1 Traditional forms of advertising media, such as posters and print advertisements, were joined by new advertising media, including the electric sign and the animated film. These different media formed a fertile modern advertising environment in which the consumer could be almost constantly communicated with: The newspaper advertising carries its message each morning into the home, into the train, into the office; the poster makes the message inescapable outof-doors; the film carries on the message in its most entertaining form right through the evening’s amusement up till bed-time; while in between cinema and home, and home and cinema, there is the electric sign!2 V. Jackson (B) Portishead, UK © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_5 111 112 V. JACKSON Taking this sense of a multifaceted advertising environment as a starting point, this chapter traces the intermedial influence of the poster and related forms of print advertisements on animated films. As André Gaudreault has demonstrated, new media often draw on existing media forms during their period of emergence to institutionalisation.3 This was the case with early animated advertising films, which drew heavily on the techniques, aesthetics and form of posters and print advertisements. Furthermore, animation itself criss-crossed advertising media, between the cinema and other spaces, in the form of electric signs and moving displays. Across these different media, animation was often used for spectacular and novel effects, attracting the attention of audiences, consumers and pedestrians. But animation was also deployed to offer other values of advertising, notably to convey advertising messages which appealed to a consumer’s logic and emotion. This chapter explores an expanded understanding of animation and its historical role in advertising—its forms, aims and methods—through a focus on two producers of advertising films in Britain during the 1920s: Cinads and Adlets. Established in 1923 and 1924, respectively, and in operation until the early 1930s, these two companies were closely connected; they shared a number of directors, officers and, from around 1925, were both marketed under the Adlets brand.4 These companies were major producers of animated advertising films, with Cinads placing adverts for its services in trade journals and securing exclusive exhibition rights with the theatre circuit, Moss Empire.5 The kinds of films the two companies produced were distinct, with Cinads focusing on short animated films of a minute or two, using basic forms of cut-out animation, and Adlets producing longer films of four or five minutes, using drawn animation and normally centred around a simple narrative. Examining the influence of the advertising and film industries on the output of these two companies, this chapter aims to illuminate some of the important ways in which an intermedial context shaped animated advertising films in Britain during the 1920s. Intermedial Campaigns and Exhibition Spaces In the 1920s, animation was becoming increasingly used in electric signs, commercial displays and film. The first electric signs had been introduced in London in the 1890s and up until the First World War movement appears to have been limited to flashing text, while restrictions during the war impeded the medium’s further development. However, by the early 1920s, various 5 ANIMATION AND COMMERCIAL DISPLAY … 113 forms of complicated illusions of movement, described by one commentator as ‘story signs’, began to appear.6 The most prominent site for electric signs in the UK was, and remains to this day, Piccadilly Circus. Contemporary press and fictional accounts described the signs as a major attraction: There is always a crowd on the southern corner of Piccadilly, staring at the sky signs - at the car with the silver wheels; at the red crystal bottle which pours port into a waiting glass; at the stars of Hennessey’s brandy and the old gentleman who sees cats intermittently when the brandy stars go out; at the baby with the illuminated forelock sucking a bottle of Nestle’s Milk.7 This sense of awe parallels the reception of animated electric signs in Times Square and Broadway from the 1910s onwards, which has been explored by Kirsten Moana Thompson.8 The first use of motion in British department store displays appears to have been during the 1910s within elaborate Christmas bazaars often featuring tableaux of winter scenes. It was during the interwar period that the use of animated displays to sell specific goods was introduced.9 These could vary from simple displays of motion such as the agitation of a backcloth representing the sea to give the effect of waves to more complicated forms such as W. H. E. Marsden’s ‘Shemannikin’ display cabinet depicting a woman pulling up her stocking.10 Within this context of commercial animation in the UK, animated advertising films, mostly shown in cinemas and entertainment venues, grew in prominence during the 1920s.11 Cinads and its sister company Adlets operated at the intersection between the advertising and film industries.12 In their self-advertising, they stressed that their ‘Film Producers are not only experts in Film Technique, but are also soundly versed in modern advertising methods’.13 They also shared links with the advertising industry through two associated companies: Glimpsograph, manufacturers of ‘automatic advertising machines’, and Animated Pictures, who produced moving signs.14 The businesses of all these companies were closely connected; regional sales representatives were responsible for selling the services of all four companies to prospective clients around the country and the companies shared stands at trade fairs.15 This alignment of companies suggests that the directors saw a shared form and appeal for animation which they could exploit across media. Moreover, it seems likely that this cross-industry, multimedia environment inhabited by Cinads and Adlets informed their conception of the animated advertising film. However, the two companies developed distinctive styles and 114 V. JACKSON approaches to animated advertising films. While Cinads fostered a style which drew heavily on existing advertising forms and ideas, Adlets—which is discussed later in this chapter—would develop a form which looked more towards the evolving animated film industry. In an advertisement from June 1924, Cinads described their films as ‘a living advertisement’.16 However, rather than giving life to commodities and branding or developing a new advertising form for the medium of film, Cinads largely conceived of ‘a living advertisement’ as something that could bring a poster or print advertisement to life. Popular contemporary trends in poster design were moving towards a reliance on image and colour to catch the eye and deliver the advertising message quickly. The text was generally kept to a minimum and often limited to a memorable slogan. Writing in 1923, the trade journal Commercial Art summed up the role of the poster: ‘When a poster is put on the hoardings its primary object should be to attract attention to itself, its second object to convey its message in pithy, effective and happy manner, and its third object to leave a good and lasting impression’.17 The films produced by Cinads were described by one journalist in markedly similar terms, ‘Being small films, they pithily and effectively tell the story of somebody’s goods or services…’18 As well as sharing these qualities, the short films produced by Cinads fulfilled a similar role in the cinema programme as a poster in the street—conveying an advertising message quickly. Their brevity further allowed them to be relatively unobtrusive in the film programme; they were also typically shown at the start, intermission or end in order to minimise any disruption to the evening’s entertainment.19 The aesthetics of surviving Cinads films indicates an emphasis on image rather than text, much like posters at the time. As one of their advertisements noted: ‘“Cinads” present your advertisement pictorially and in caricature-the language that all can understand’.20 This pictorial emphasis is seen clearly in an advertisement for Clark’s Creamed Barley (1923). Lasting only 23 seconds the film presents a hungry toddler who grows rapidly in size after their meal. It features only one caption, shown at the end of the film, ‘Clark’s Creamed Barley Builds Growing Children’. This slogan simply reinforces the message already conveyed by the animated images. Other surviving Cinads films, including The Durant 15.6 Motor Car (1923), drew on the print advertisement rather than the poster form. Print advertisements were often designed to ‘perform a more direct selling task than was normally the case with other forms of advertising’ and as a result 5 ANIMATION AND COMMERCIAL DISPLAY … 115 could rely on text alongside image to convey and expand on the sales message,21 although during the 1920s print advertisements with minimal text that closely resembled posters also became established.22 For the most part, however, contemporary print advertisements varied in form based on the publication in which they featured. For example, newspaper advertisements relied heavily on advertising copy and usually featured only one simple illustration, if any at all. Advertisements in illustrated newspapers and magazines often featured more elaborate and striking illustrations, sometimes in colour, often with more emotive supporting copy to build up an advertising message. The Durant 15.6 Motor Car by Cinads was an animated adaptation or ‘living advertisement’ of an existing newspaper advertisement which although featuring an illustration of the car model was dominated by the supporting copy. It begins, ‘the performance, the price and most of all the amazingly good value of the 15.6 by Durant has set the experts of the Motor world talking’, before outlining key features of the model.23 The film provides an animated reworking of this advertising copy, featuring one character dressed as a motoring enthusiast and a second wearing a chauffeur’s outfit with a globe for his head. In order to make the message clear, supporting text was used: ‘The 15.6 Durant Motor Car has set the motor world talking’. The film continues to follow the structure and content of The Times newspaper advertisement, supplying the same technical details and pricing information. Unlike films produced by Cinads, most of the surviving Adlets productions were influenced more by contemporary animated film styles than other advertising media. One notable exception was the film Mr…Goes Motoring (1924), which used the ‘living advertisement’ form developed by Cinads. Adlets began producing animated advertisements in 1924, collaborating with H. E. Bateman and William Heath Robinson, who were both famous cartoonists and advertising illustrators.24 Bateman was involved with two productions: The Boy Who Wanted to Make Pictures (1924) for Kodak and Mr….Goes Motoring for Shell-Mex. The latter film was part of a simultaneous illustrated poster, press and pamphlet campaign which included a competition to name the character. The campaign presented the character in a number of scenes. ‘Recommendation’, for example, showed ‘Mr…’ talking with another driver and gesturing at cans of Shell.25 The animated film re-enacted all of the campaign’s scenes, with each one momentarily freezing in its final image in the same pose as the press campaign. Directly adapting these illustrated situations, animation was not used to 116 V. JACKSON develop characters or the branding of the product but was instead used to give life to the advertising campaign itself. Intersections of animation and advertising form were evident beyond the films of Cinads and Adlets, including a wider array of ‘living advertisements’ that gave motion to existing advertising forms. The animated electric sign occupied a similar position in the urban context as poster hoardings.26 Signs relied largely on images and needed to present relatively short commercial messages, with the additional possibility of motion. Like films produced by Cinads and Adlets, some signs animated print advertising campaigns. For example, a sign by Borough Electric Signs for the News Chronicle adapted a famous poster by H. E. Bateman to promote the newspaper. Described in the Advertising World as an ‘animated cartoon’, the sign featured a woman stretching her neck to astonishing lengths in order to read a copy of the newspaper over the shoulder of a man.27 O. D. Binger, who created animated commercial displays, offered a service for ‘posters and trademarks faithfully reproduced as mechanical window models’.28 One such display for Armitage’s Chicken Feed featured a woman throwing food to chicken surrounding her feet, accompanied by signs with the name of the advertiser and the tagline: ‘Get it! And You’ll Never Regret It!’ The animated display was described as ‘reproduced from an actual poster. Instead of a flat advert you have a window display of the real thing in motion’.29 While highlighting qualities of novelty and realism, the display’s primary appeal was its capacity to give motion to static forms of advertising. A shared iconography of animation also crossed between different advertising media. Particular kinds of animated actions evoked different kinds of products. For example, the pouring bottles used in the Cinads films Eno’s Fruit Salts (1923) and Hennessy’s Brandy (1923) was also used in many advertising signs, including the Sandeman’s Port sign in Piccadilly Circus.30 Revolving wheels were another popular animated form, suggesting travel and vehicles. A Cinads advertisement for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (1923) foregrounded wheels of a train carriage turning in a manner much like animated signs in Piccadilly Circus for the Overland Motor Car and Pirelli tyres. Sometimes using a similar iconography, advertising films and signs—as well as displays—used motion as a way to give life to posters and other forms of advertising in a dynamic landscape of intersecting media. 5 ANIMATION AND COMMERCIAL DISPLAY … 117 Advertising Appeal Across the different media of posters, films, electric signs and window displays there was a growing commercial interest in how motion could be used for selling. Most obviously it was seen as a means to capture the attention of consumers through spectacle and novelty. However, a separate concern within the advertising industry was how animation could be linked in a meaningful way to the product being sold, with animation being used to directly convey a selling message to consumers. One advertising expert noted how important this was in animated display models: …in the use of mechanical appliances, or models, judgment and care have to be used not to subordinate the merchandise. Mechanical displays are always good provided they help to centre attention on the big message you want to “put over.”31 Cinads’ self-advertising similarly promoted this dual purpose of animation to attract and to convey a sales appeal, aiming to stimulate desire in audience members which would lead them to purchasing the goods advertised. Prior to the First World War two key sales approaches had emerged from the American advertising industry which sought to create a link between a product being advertised and consumer desire. The logical or ‘reason why’ appeal sold a product based on its ‘performance features or its ability to solve a problem’.32 There was also emotional, atmospheric or ‘human interest’ advertising, which sold products based on the satisfaction or pleasure a consumer would experience from owning the item. Such appeals had found similar traction in Britain and as animation evolved in the advertising industry during the 1920s it became a distinctive means of conveying rational and emotional motives for purchasing goods, across different advertising media. Cinads used animation to convey both kinds of appeals to consumers, often in the same film. In The Durant 15.6 Motor Car advertisement, animation is used predominantly to convey logical motives for purchasing the car—this included its performance and price. The newspaper advertisement that the film was based upon conveys this message through text alone.33 The film version relies heavily on text to convey the sales message, while also using animation to visualise and support this message. For example, to illustrate the efficiency of the car’s gearbox and emphasise the functionality 118 V. JACKSON of the car, the film animates a car driving uphill and then reversing downhill, with numbers and ‘reverse’ appearing to indicate what gear the car is in. This practical demonstration is accompanied by a more emotive appeal: that everyone in the motoring world is talking about the Durant 15.6. Here, while animation is partly used for reasons of novelty and to hold the interest of viewers, its primary purpose is tied in with the sales message through reason why and emotional persuasion. Rather than telling a story or developing a character, it animates advertising aims. Moreover, the Cinads films could convey multiple emotions for example, in the Clark’s Creamed Barley advertisement, where animation visually conveys the ‘reason why’ the consumer should buy the product: an infant jumps into a large box of creamed barley and suddenly grows in size. However, the film also offers an emotional appeal to the viewer with the animation used to convey the toddler’s frustration at the unsuitable food offered and their pleasure and contentment after eating Clark’s. From these very simple events, the film deploys animation to both shows the reason for the use of the product and the emotional value associated with its purchase. The Adlets film Mr… Goes Motoring offered a fuller and more comprehensive use of emotional appeal through animation. The poster and press campaigns featured cartoon drawings of the Mr… character in a series of activities and emotional responses related to Shell-Mex, such as ‘Concentration’, ‘Fascination’ and ‘Jubilation’.34 Rather than selling Shell products by outlining their technical qualities, the advertisements emphasised the sense of wellbeing and confidence that using Shell products gave the motorist. The animated film version provided a series of vignettes in which Mr…. re-enacted the same scenes from the print media campaign.35 For example, the ‘Recommendation’ vignette begins with a motorist standing by his car on a country road, rubbing his chin in thought. Mr…. pulls up in his car and gets out carrying two cans which are revealed to be Shell products. He talks to the motorist while insistently and repeatedly shaking his arm and gesturing at the cans. The caption ‘Recommendation’ appears, and the scene freezes for a moment in an almost exact imitation of the original cartoon featured in print advertisements (Fig. 5.1). Animation was used in the film to both add life to an existing campaign based around still images and to develop the emotional motive for purchasing Shell products, animating the character’s eagerness and enthusiasm for the product. The film does not develop a story in which to embed these emotional appeals; instead, it uses animation to directly visualize emotion. 5 ANIMATION AND COMMERCIAL DISPLAY … 119 Fig. 5.1 Frame grab from Mr… Goes Motoring (David Barker, 1924): the film freezes in poses imitating postcards from the campaign Animation was used in similar ways to convey emotional appeals in other media, including animated signs. For example, the electric sign for Pinnace cigarettes in Piccadilly Circus featured Bonzo the Pup, a well-known cartoon character who appeared in a range of books, prints, advertisements and his own animated film series. The Bonzo sign captured the ways in which animated advertising crossed between media and also emphasised emotional value. Animation and character demonstrated an emotional appeal for the product: ‘An immense Bonzo… is beheld with a cigarette in his mouth. His expression is beatific. His eyes close in ecstasy; the tobaccosmoke trickles upwards from between his lips and from the tip of the cigarette’.36 The animation offered a moment of ecstasy for Bonzo, which the consumer was invited to share if they too smoked Pinnace Cigarettes. Similarly, a sign for Nestle’s milk, featuring a baby, deployed emotive animation. The sign was reportedly the most popular in Piccadilly Circus and received a great deal of attention from commentators who delighted in its 120 V. JACKSON depiction of the baby’s changing moods. Animation is used to convey the reward of purchasing Nestle’s milk: ‘Suddenly the bottle becomes filled with some luminous fluid. The pucker in the baby’s brow vanishes; the corners of its mouth turn up: a dimple appears in either cheek; the left eyelid is lifted knowingly, and lowered again’.37 Like the advertising films discussed earlier, animation becomes a vital means to prompt an emotional response in the viewer that mirrors the smiling baby’s and, by doing so, sells the product. Animated Advertising and Narrative Entertainment During the early 1920s, the advertising film form exemplified by Cinads engaged with key forms and aims of the advertising industry. However, as the advertising film industry continued to evolve during the 1920s and into the 1930s, other advertising strategies were developed which instead took inspiration from the mainstream animated film. Reflecting this trend Adlets moved towards narrative-based animated advertising films.38 An advertisement for these production companies explicitly stated this approach in their work, linking ‘cartoon film advertisements’ to the appeals of ‘Mutt and Jeff, of Felix the cat, or other film cartoon characters’ while also noting that ‘a film must be a film before it can be a successful advertisement ’.39 While this advertisement was released at the same time as Cinads was promoting its ‘living advertisements’, this contradictory rhetoric reflects the evolving figuration of animated advertising films occurring within these two companies at this time. One commentator noted in 1930: ‘The whole value - the whole strength of this new means of advertising - lies in the art with which the commercial effort is blended with the entertainment’.40 The focus on narrative entertainment ahead of advertising message is reflected in the largely distinct forms of advertising films produced by Cinads and Adlets. Following their collaborations with H. E. Bateman and Heath Robinson, Adlets produced advertising films with original scenarios using drawn animation, closer in look and feel to mainstream popular animated films of the period. Of Adlets’ later productions, at least five advertisements for Persil washing powder survive for examination. While Cinads’ films were animated adaptations of the poster and print advertisement form, Adlets’ films attempted to be animated entertainment films with a sales message. Three of their productions also included a live action sequence showing 5 ANIMATION AND COMMERCIAL DISPLAY … 121 audiences how to use the product. In most surviving Adlets films, the product itself and the film’s sales message were only revealed at the end of the film or the animated sequence. For example, in The White Wash Job (1929) two decorators paint a drawing room in a residential property. By the end of the day they have splashed paint everywhere. The sequence concludes with a woman leading the decorators to the kitchen where she has spent the day washing with Persil: ‘You call this white washing…I’ll show you white washing’ she declares. The initial scenes of the decorators give no hint of Persil or its purpose. This hidden or indirect style perhaps reflected trends in the advertising industry for soft sell approaches in which advertising message was by suggestion or association.41 It also likely reflects a desire for the advertising film to form an unobtrusive part of the film programme that did not disrupt the entertainment. As one commentator noted: the cartoon advertising film is rapidly becoming a recognised medium for publicity…although they do contain a definite commercial message, it is so ingeniously wrapped up under a well devised sugar-coating of entertainment value…42 In these Adlets films animated motion was less tied to advertising appeals. For example, In Good News Travels Far (1930), an astronomer identifies intelligent life on Mars through his telescope as he spies Persil being used to wash clothes. While the astronomer’s reaction to his discovery is conveyed through vibrant animated motion, there is no emotional response tied directly to the product. Instead, the film’s narrative offers rational reasons for buying Persil delivered humorously—it is so good at cleaning clothes that its use is a sign of intelligent life. Similarly, The Grand Washing Contest (1930) shows a character using Persil in a washing contest. While she has time to read the newspaper her competitors furiously scrub. Although highlighting the pleasure of reduced labour, the appeal is conveyed through the story and scenario rather than through the animated motion. Notably, the benefits of using Persil are shown by a character’s lack of motion as she reads the paper, while the driving force of the sales message is provided by the story. Conclusion The surviving films of Cinads and Adlets reveal an evolving conception of what the animated cartoon advertising film could be, which was informed 122 V. JACKSON by both the advertising and animated film industries. Animated advertising in Britain in the 1920s was an intermedial practice, with cinema advertisements influenced by prior forms like print and posters, but also extending beyond the screen to site-specific electric signs. While Cinads’ notion of the animated advertised film was concerned with adapting existing media, Adlets were increasingly influenced by popular animated films. Cinads sought to bring advertisements to life, Adlets ultimately came to embed their sales message within a humorous narrative. And while Cinads used animated movement as a means to communicate the sales appeal, Adlets increasingly used narrative. The two companies provide a richly intermedial example of a changing conception of the animated advertising film in Britain during the 1920s, borrowing from both the advertising and animated film industries. This formation of the animated advertising film continued to develop through the 1930s and beyond as the advertising industry sought to identify and exploit the specific potentials of the animation medium. Notes 1. T. R. Nevett, Advertising in Britain: A History (London: Heinemann, 1982), 145. 2. “The Screen’s Place in Advertising,” Advertising World 58, no. 4 (October 1930): 328, 330. 3. André Gaudreault, Film and Attraction: From Kinematography to Cinema (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2011). 4. Board of Trade, Records of the Companies Registration Office for Adlets Limited. Company No: 19115, 1923-1932, BT 31/27994/191151, The National Archives, Kew; Board of Trade, Records of the Companies Registration Office for Cinads Limited. Company No: 186281, 1922-932, BT 31/27621/186281, The National Archives, Kew. 5. Cinads. Advertisement, Advertiser’s Weekly 42, no. 566 (4 April 1924): 40. 6. Ward Muir, “POSTERS IN FIRE: The ‘Bright’ Idea in Advertising, Which Has Become Quite a Feature of London by Night,” The Sphere 98, no. 1287 (20 September 1924): 354. 7. Stephen Graham, London Nights: Studies and Sketches of London at Night (New York: George Doran, 1926): 182–183. 8. Kirsten Moana Thompson, “Rainbow Ravine: Colour and Animated Advertising in Times Square, 1892–1950,” in The Colour Fantastic. Chromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema, eds. Giovanna Fossati et al. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 161–175. 5 ANIMATION AND COMMERCIAL DISPLAY … 123 9. “Display Aids…Continuing Shelf Appeal’s Survey of Recent Trends in Point of Sale Publicity,” Shelf Appeal 6, no. 11 (May 1939): 40–46. 10. See Charles Cromwell Knights, More Sales Through the Window (London: Sir I. Pitman & Sons: 1931); W. H. E. Marsden. Advertisement, Display: The Merchant and Window Display Record 14, no. 9 (December 1932): 525. 11. “House Publicity and the Cartoon Film,” Kinematograph Weekly 78, no. 850 (9 August 1923): 48. 12. Cinads, Advertiser’s Weekly, 4 April 1924. 13. Cinads. Advertisement, Advertising World 46, no. 3 (June 1924): vii; Cinads. Advertisement, Advertising World 46, no. 4 (July 1924): xv. 14. Board of Trade, Adlets Limited; Board of Trade, Cinads Limited; Board of Trade, Records of the Companies Registration Office for Glimpsograph Ltd. Company No: 186206, 5 December 1922, BT 31/27615/186206, The National Archives, Kew; “Bakers’ and Grocer’s Exhibition. Varied Display in Glasgow,” Scotsman, 20 March 1923: 10, The British Newspaper Archive; Catalogue of the British Industries Fair (London: British Industries Fair, 1923): 178. 15. Classified Advertising, Daily Telegraph, 19 December 1922, 15; Catalogue of the British Industries Fair (London: British Industries Fair, 1923): 178. 16. Cinads, Advertising World, June 1924. 17. “Impressing the Need for Better Art in Advertising,” Commercial Art 1, no. 8 (June 1923): 145. 18. “Bakers’ and Grocer’s Exhibition.” 19. For discussions on the presence of advertising films in cinema programmes see: Colin Bennett, “Advertising By Projection,” Kinematograph Weekly 66, no. 799 (17 August 1922): xi; Sidney L. Bernstein, “Film Publicity Analysed: Some of the Pitfalls Which the Wise Exhibitor Will Learn to Avoid,” Kinematograph Weekly 94, no. 922 (18 December 1924): 65; Baron Hartley, “Film Advertising,” Advertising World 47, no. 5 (February 1925): Screen Advertising Supplement x. 20. Cinads. Advertisement, Advertiser’s Weekly 42, no. 570 (25 April 1924): 134. 21. Hamilton, “Some Current Press Advertisements,” Commercial Art, 1, no. 1 (July–December 1926): 60–63. 22. F. A. Mercer and W. Gaunt, “Press Advertising of To-Day,” in Posters & Publicity Fine Printing and Design ‘Commercial Art’ Annual, eds. F. A. Mercer and W. Gaunt, 9–12. (London: The Studio, 1928). 23. Durant 15.6 Motor Car. Advertisement, Times, 4 May 1923, 19. 24. While no further reference to the planned collaboration with Heath Robinson has been found, an animated advertising film made in 1925 by Robinson for Amplion producers of wireless loudspeakers survives. The Tale of the Amp Lion (Adlets, 1924) has no narrative but is more playful with the animation medium than other Adlets films. 124 V. JACKSON 25. Shell-Mex. Advertisement, Western Morning News, 24 April 1924, 3. 26. John Harrison, “Electric Sign Advertising in London,” Commercial Art 2, no. 6 (June 1927): 244–247. 27. “The Trend Out of Doors: New Ideas and Developments in Posters and Signs,” Advertising World 62, no. 6 (December 1932): 362, 364, 366–367. 28. O. D. Binger. Advertisement, Display: The Merchant and Window Display Record 9, no. 12 (March 1928): 501. 29. Ibid. 30. Although it worth noting the pouring bottle was not used in Cinads’ film advertisement for Sandeman’s Port (1923, London: Cinads). 31. E. N. Goldsman, “Action, Life and Movement,” Display: The Merchant and Window Display Record 9, no. 6 (September 1927): 240, 242, 246, 248. 32. See Juliann Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising (Wadsworth: Cengage Learning, 2012), 102–103. 33. Durant 15.6 Motor Car. Advertisement, The Times. 34. Shell-Mex. Advertisement, Aberdeen Press and Journal. 35. “Some Notes on Art Work in ‘Shell’ Advertising. An Interview with Mr. E. W. Decalour, the Advertising Manager,” Commercial Art 2, no. 1 (1 December 1926): 41–43; Shell-Mex Ltd. Advertisement, The Observer 17 August 1924: 10. 36. Muir, “POSTERS IN FIRE.” 37. Ian Hay, “London’s Flashing Sky-Signs,” Daily Mail Atlantic Edition, 17 May 1923, 14. 38. For a history of animation in Britain from 1890s to the 1920s see Malcolm Cook, Early British Animation: From Page and Stage to Cinema Screens (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). 39. Cinads, Advertiser’s Weekly, 25 April 1924. 40. “The Screen’s Place in Advertising,” 328, 330. 41. Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes, 103. 42. “The Advertising Film,” Kinematograph Weekly 115, no. 1014 (23 September 1926): 99. Bibliography Anonymous. 1923. Catalogue of the British Industries Fair. London: British Industries Fair. Cook, Malcolm. 2018. Early British Animation: From Page and Stage to Cinema Screens. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Gaudreault, André. 2011. Film and Attraction: From Kinematography to Cinema. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Graham, Stephen. 1926. London Nights: Studies and Sketches of London at Night. New York: George Doran. 5 ANIMATION AND COMMERCIAL DISPLAY … 125 Mercer, F. A., and W. Gaunt. 1928. “Press Advertising of To-Day.” In Posters & Publicity Fine Printing and Design ‘Commercial Art’ Annual, eds. F. A. Mercer and W. Gaunt, 9–12. London: The Studio. Nevett, T. R. 1982. Advertising in Britain: A History. London: Heinemann. Sivulka, Juliann. 2012. Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Thompson, Kirsten Moana. 2018. “Rainbow Ravine: Colour and Animated Advertising in Times Square, 1892–1950.” In The Colour Fantastic. Chromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema, eds. Giovanna Fossati et al., 161–175. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. CHAPTER 6 Live Electrically with Reddy Kilowatt, Your Electrical Servant Kirsten Moana Thompson First created in 1926 by the commercial manager of the Alabama Power Company, Ashton B. Collins, Sr. (1885–1976), to personify electricity for advertising and promotional purposes, Reddy Kilowatt would become a phenomenally successful and ubiquitous spokescharacter.1 With electrical outlets as ears, a light bulb for a nose and zigzag lightning bolts for his body, a cheerful cartoon spokescharacter introduced himself under the bold headline ‘Introducing… Reddy Kilowatt, Your Electrical Servant’ in a newspaper ad for the United Illuminating Company: Hello Folks….I’m your electrical servant. I stand right behind the switch in your wall ready to spring out and go to work the instant you demand service. I’m on the job twenty-four hours a day, every day in the year, Sundays and holidays, rain or shine. I never shirk a task, never get sick, never ask for a day off, never talk back and can be taken off a job just as easily as I’m put on one. … My wages are the lowest of any servant, anywhere!2 K. M. Thompson (B) Film Program, Seattle University, Seattle, WA, USA e-mail: thompski@seattleu.edu © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_6 127 128 K. M. THOMPSON Through the Reddy Kilowatt Service (RKS), a licensing program designed to promote the consumption of electricity, Kilowatt became a public relations symbol for the electrical utility industry, promoting rural electrification, commercial and consumer lighting (including electrical billing, wiring and safety), and electrical appliance sales, with many tied to specific holidays. With mat or template print advertisements, as well as newsletters, database surveys, mailings and an extensive array of promotional gifts emblazoned with the cheery spokescharacter, by 1938 Reddy Kilowatt was everywhere, appearing on a quarter of 24 million utility customer bills and licensed by over 300 companies worldwide, from Australia to Mexico,3 with the company boasting that their spokescharacter ‘may even become as popular with [children] as Mickey Mouse or Popeye’.4 While Reddy never reached this level of success, Collins’ promotional zeal ensured Reddy Kilowatt become part of popular culture, cheerily beaming from city signs, posters, window displays and on toys, novelties and gift items, from balloons to buttons, and candy to clothes.5 While negotiations with Disney to produce a cartoon in 1943 ultimately fell through, Reddy did appear in Walter Lantz’s Reddy Made Magic, a 1946 Technicolor educational history of electricity, from Thales to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison.6 Costing $60,000, the 12 minute film was available in 16 and 35 mm colour to companies for a minimum charge of $300 and featured sequences about the natural occurrence of electricity, scientific experimentation and the harnessing of electricity in the modern world. A decade later the John Sutherland studio recycled sequences of Reddy Made Magic while updating it for the nuclear era as The Mighty Atom (1959), while Reddy also appeared in further television commercials (Paul Terry, 1957–1964) and children’s shows (Reddy and Mr. Toot , 1972, with some international commercials as recent as 2011.7 Reddy Kilowatt was an exemplary case study for the prolific fluidity with which sponsored animation moved between different media platforms, from print, radio, comic book and comic strips, slide shows, film, television and commercials to outdoor signage and shop windows, the spokescharacter appeared in electrical expositions, trade shows and in the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs. Indeed, Kilowatt was intermedial from the start, starring in a comic book series ‘Reddy Kilowatt and His Friends’ for New York Power and Light Co., and a radio show for the Tennessee Electric Power Co.8 Reddy Kilowatt translated the abstraction of electricity into an appealing and highly personable spokescharacter, targeting different rural and industrial workplaces and consumer markets, while also cleverly presenting 6 LIVE ELECTRICALLY WITH REDDY KILOWATT … 129 power bills in labour terms as ‘cheap wages’. As an anthropomorphized, yet gender flexible figure who was also marked by implicit notions of class and race, Reddy paradoxically was both humanized and a mechanical symbol of modernity’s values for speed, efficiency and convenience. As both trademark and public relations symbol for the company, Collins’ detailed specifications for the character emphasized his ‘eye appeal’, storytelling ability and ability to charm: he will make himself a genial, likeable personality, ingratiate himself with the public, become a household pet and byword and, as a common denominator for the Industry…[will] tend to disarm the public.9 The Character of Labour Indeed, Reddy was conceived as an anthropomorphized worker from the beginning. In the character’s origin story, Collins wrote that he began to get the idea when he observed that many industry leaders described electricity as ‘the God-given element, the servant of mankind…. and he began wondering what the electrical servant should look like’. He first thought of bellhops, English valets and maids as possible symbols, before claiming inspiration in a eureka-like moment, which was no doubt apocryphal: ‘while gazing out of his office window in Birmingham, on a stormy afternoon, a flash of lightning streaked across the sky. So the idea was born’.10 The Reddy Kilowatt program had certain unique, copyrighted features in which power usage on utility bills was described as ‘Reddy Kilowatt--servant hours’ and billed as ‘wages’. By marketing Reddy as an ‘electrical servant’, Collins could promote the cheapness of electrical utility service in comparison to servant wages, through stickers on utility bills featuring Kilowatt that said ‘My wages this month were less than 2 & 1/2 cents per hour. Quite reasonable, I’d say’.11 In advertisements Reddy’s refrain was ‘I never get tired or weary--I’m never late--I gladly work long hours for little pay’!12 with other ads emphasizing that Reddy never takes a vacation (see Fig. 6.1). The catchphrase ‘Your Electric Servant’ was even copyrighted, reiterating another exemplary instance of the recurrent relationship between the onscreen figuration of labour and the offscreen production practices of the labour-intensive animation industry.13 As with other animation, the labour involved in production is simultaneously revealed, yet obfuscated through this onscreen figuration, implying an agency to animated characters that 130 K. M. THOMPSON Fig. 6.1 Reddy Kilowatt as the ideal worker (Reddy Kilowatt Files, National Museum of American History/Smithsonian) was at the same time denied to the offscreen artists who produced them. Interestingly, this quantification of electrical bills as Kilowatt hours was later used by Collins as a strategy for rate increases after the war and pitched as a long overdue ‘raise’, that added up to a ‘thin dime a week’.14 Reddy also helped utility companies address delinquent customers, exclaiming ‘No Pay, No work’! with promotional literature suggesting that ‘Reddy puts the customer in the position of “firing” him--unless they pay his wages like any other servant’.15 Collins reported that ‘people write letters of apology to him for delinquent bills, saying they are sorry to delay payment of his wages’. In a series of comic strip panels, Reddy Kilowatt 6 LIVE ELECTRICALLY WITH REDDY KILOWATT … 131 interacted with different customers. Speech bubbles like ‘I gotta eat, don’t I?’ are underscored with ‘Customers don’t resent a “dun” from Reddy as they would from a Corporation--and they respond promptly’.16 The spokescharacter was not only used in external promotional campaigns, but as a company symbol to communicate internal policies and procedures, transforming the workplace into an extension of the Reddy Kilowatt story. The Kilowatt service began with an internal campaign introducing the other employees of the utility service to the character, thereby extending the cartoon into the real workplace. As the RKS service advised its licensees, ‘it is very important to interpret Reddy Kilowatt properly and thoroughly to all employees before he is introduced to the public… by good speakers from sales or advertising’ in meetings, and then reinforcing that through circulars or leaflets, ‘so that [employees] can become thoroughly versed in the story’.17 Subsequent rollouts of Reddy then appeared in ‘moving pictures, in theatres, schools, service clubs and other centers of public activity’.18 So extensive was the construction of Kilowatt as worker that the Mississippi Power and Light Co. described Reddy in a cover story for their internal employees’ newsletter, as a ‘versatile, industrious young man, full of pep, ingenuity and helpful ideas’ and a ‘most attractive little character, a congenial and clever fellow’ who ‘makes friends wherever he goes’. Accompanying this story was a photograph of a wooden cutout Reddy Kilowatt shaking hands with the President and General Manager Rex Brown, who is ‘welcoming the little fellow’, as he checked into the company as a new employee.19 Similarly, local newspapers reported Reddy passing his ‘employee physical inspection, given by Dr. Rabinowitz, company doctor’ in a 1942 promotion for the Gloucester Power Co.20 This transformation of the workplace into a form of expanded animation, in which humans interacted with Reddy, was also extended into the promotional sphere with members of the public and dealers invited to interact with several ‘talking Reddy Kilowatts’ at trade expos and world fairs.21 These proto-animatronic figures with prerecorded speech were offered for sale or rental as ‘a WOW for Rotary, Kiwanis and other meetings’.22 Other three dimensional Kilowatts included a marionette (1934) and those made from pipe cleaner (20s), copper (1935) and plywood (1937).23 This interactivity between spokescharacter and members of the public was continued in Holiday with Light , a 25 minute musical show at the 1964 World’s Fair, which was hosted by performers dressed up as Reddy Kilowatt and Benjamin Franklin. Hosted in the beautiful Tower of Light, a 132 K. M. THOMPSON kaleidoscopic building made up of 600 aluminum prisms with a giant projected searchlight reaching into the sky, audiences were moved on a giant turntable through seven different electrically illuminated holiday tableaux, including Christmas, New Year, Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. As a form of expanded animation, the show reanimated Walter Lantz’s Reddy Made Magic and its educational story of electricity’s experimental discoveries, while also remediating the recently opened Disney’s ‘Enchanted Tiki Room’, with a chorus line of singing ‘kilowatt’ birds. Reddy was a paradoxical blend of appealing personality and inhuman efficiency, reliability and speed: from the perspective of utility companies and corporations, the ideal modern worker, who never takes a vacation and never calls in sick. The cheapness of Kilowatt’s hourly wages and his unrelenting capacity for work was signalled through representations that moved between the machinic and the racially dehumanized, with one ad of an Ali Baba-like Reddy Kilowatt saying ‘I’m your faithful slave. I stand guard over your family’s health by furnishing real refrigeration’ (see Fig. 6.2) and another ad’s tagline reading ‘He’ll work and work for ages at a coolie’s meager wages’.24 Through props and costumes, the ‘Reddy Remarks’ mat series in which these advertisements appeared showed Reddy in dozens of different roles, from farmhands to magicians to cowboys, metonymically suggesting that stereotypes of race, ethnicity, gender and nationality were simple costumes, like one ad in this series which shows Reddy wearing a Scottish kilt (‘A penny saved is a penny earned’).25 By invoking historically specific terms of dehumanization like ‘coolie’ and ‘slave’, these representations implied that Reddy Kilowatt was an avatar for electrical modernity, relieving (white) bodies from labour by its mechanization, and yet, paradoxically at the same time, replacing them (again) with bodies of colour. Nestled within this discourse of utopian modernity was a deeply racist imaginary, where the consumer could bid Reddy to work for them as ‘their faithful slave’. What’s more, as another ‘Reddy Remarks’ panel suggested, which featured Reddy holding a director’s megaphone, ‘Only Lords and Nobles of old had their slaves. But today every man and woman keeps his Kilowatt ready’, it proffered these relations of power like master-slave as cinematically mediated white fantasies.26 Wired: Better Living Through Electricity Reddy Kilowatt first appeared in a cultural context in which electricity not only was becoming a newly available consumer service, but also entering popular discourse as a linguistic marker of the transformative powers of 6 LIVE ELECTRICALLY WITH REDDY KILOWATT … 133 Fig. 6.2 I’m your faithful slave (Reddy Kilowatt Files, National Museum of American History/Smithsonian) 134 K. M. THOMPSON modernity. In the first decade of the twentieth century, newspapers and advertisements had already begun to use electrical metaphors implying that the energy of this new technology, or getting ‘wired’, could make humans into something quite new, even machinic. In 1908 a Shredded Wheat ad suggested that the standard American greeting should be ‘What’s your horsepower?’ … because ‘This would be more in keeping with the spirit of our modern progress; for isn’t it a fact that the human machine nowadays is expected to develop a certain amount of Power?’27 In 1909 the J. Walter Thompson Book announced that ‘Every American is potentially a live wire. He lives in an atmosphere of action…’ while a Saturday Evening Post article the next year described the Governor of New York William Barnes as having ‘the vital spark and is sparking regularly’, implying that electricity embodied the innovations and energy of the modern age.28 By 1930, two thirds of American homes had become electrified, doubling from a decade earlier.29 Spokescharacters promoting electricity, communications, technology, automobiles and other modes of transportation, like Elektro and Sparko (1937, Westinghouse), Abel Grasshopper (1943, Aeronca aircraft), Danny Thunderbolt (1955, Plumbing tools) and Esso Oil(1962), in the form of anthropomorphized thunderbolts, pistons, spark plugs, chips, transistors, robots, gas flames and drops of oil,30 suggested that Reddy Kilowatt was an early example of a larger phenomenon in advertising that created intermedial spokescharacters embodying energy, flow, movement and action. With his first name indicating his ‘readiness to serve’ and his surname the metric power of the kilowatt (literally one and one half horsepower or ‘stronger than a horse’),31 Reddy Kilowatt was a character of ‘action and voice’, anthropomorphizing power and speed in a modern age which discursively mechanized humans and humanized machines.32 Although the character appeared in print and comic strip form for twenty years before appearing in an animated film, the character’s graphic design embodied proto-animation as a priori energy, ‘a kilowatt come to life’ named Reddy because he ‘lives in a wire, ever ready, and he comes running merely at the flip of a switch to do your bidding at any moment’.33 Company literature described Reddy like this: It is plain that this wonderful electrical servant could not look like other people. His inexplicable mystery, his untiring energy, his expertness, his power, his gentleness could not be matched on earth. He was truly the servant of the people. He could not take a body like ours because his body was lightning itself.34 6 LIVE ELECTRICALLY WITH REDDY KILOWATT … 135 Second World War propaganda and educational films influenced citizens to reconceive ‘personal consumption in national and patriotic terms’35 and the proliferation of the phrase ‘Better Living’ originally developed by the Federal Housing Association, and famously taken up and adapted by DuPont into ‘Better Things for Better Living…Through Chemistry’ in 1935, also proliferated across heating, air conditioning, appliance and electric advertising, from Kelvinator to General Electric. Through their advertising, these companies aligned the consumption of electrical appliances with what Andrew Shanken has called a ‘state of being, a sensual pleasure, or an anticipated standard of living’ in which admen were ‘apostles of modernity’, who constructed consumer citizenship through allegories of light, heat or chemistry.36 In a 1945 address to the New Jersey Utilities Association, Collins urged utility companies to change their selling strategies from promoting electricity as cheap, to one that imagined a world of ‘full electric living’ in which ‘the more electric service they use…. the more modern and efficiently that home is operated’. Ultimately he urged the industry to focus on desire, not need, for ‘we are advertising and selling the whole scale of human desire--health, comfort and convenience, twentyfour hours a day’.37 Kilowatt’s slogan ‘Live electrically and enjoy the difference’, like that of Disney’s sponsored film for Westinghouse, The Dawn of Better Living (1945),38 addressed what Collins called ‘the wanting mind rather than the thinking mind’, by simultaneously constructing an aspirational modernity and the means by which it could be achieved.39 This alignment of modernity, desire and liveliness come together around the plasmatic appeal that animation offered through its anthropomorphized animism, as an imaginary respite from the conditions of capitalism. Comics, Animation and Visual Education As we saw in Chapter 1, producers like Walter Lantz drew upon their wartime experience making educational, propaganda and training films for the US government, arguing that filmmakers should capitalize on the American public’s interest in comic characters, harnessing it for postwar consumerist goals. This trend was fundamentally intermedial in nature; as a Dallas newspaper described it, ‘some of the staidest of corporations are distributing comic books, illustrating or cartooned reports to employees, stockholders and the public, and using the radio, phonograph records and lately, television to din their annual reports into the public consciousness’.40 Like Lantz, Ashton Collins also believed ‘that sound motion pictures are 136 K. M. THOMPSON a valuable, modern method of teaching the public. The Army and Navy have proved that’.41 In a series of speeches and articles delivered during and after WWII to trade organizations like the Pennsylvania Electric Association, Collins suggested that the industry needed to adopt new strategies in the face of the war’s financial constraints (with sales of appliances down under the restrictions of wartime production) and under the continued political threat of Franklin Roosevelt’s nationalization of power companies. He analyzed FDR’s political success and use of emotion to appeal to the masses, suggesting that the industry needed to adopt the same strategies in selling: It is like two fellows courting a girl. One does it in dignified, gentlemanly fashion. That’s you. The other fellow appeals to her emotions. That’s the New Deal. She, your public has a head and a heart. Which will prevail?…. The industry, as a whole, has never aimed at this large market which we call 75 percent of the people and it would be good business to get their good will, if only to make them buy more electricity from you….Eighty percent of them never finished high school. They are non-technical. They buy and act on emotion and emotions elect people.42 Collins considered that the ‘study of mob or mass psychology, not only as it affects politics, but … particularly the electric industry’, was ‘an essential part of my work’ and he repeatedly emphasized the importance of youth as a key market, to that end establishing Reddy Kilowatt Youth Clubs in the late 1940s. In a speech he made in 1944 before industry group the Edison Institute, he drew attention to the importance of visual storytelling in targeting youth, citing a study on newspaper reading habits: 96 percent of the boys and girls read the front page first, and 89 percent then immediately turn to the comic sections…. And you can’t laugh off the value of comic strip treatments. From the time of Mark Twain, comic strips in America have been the forerunner of imaginative developments. … Comic strips have been the most popular item with the soldiers at the front. Comic strips have been approved by educators… It is a definite American habit.43 Observing that the public ‘prefer advertising of a lighter vein’,44 and that Reddy Kilowatt brought a ‘lightness and a touch of humor that we all need in these trying times’, Collins mentioned successful radio programs of the time like those of Bob Hope, Fibber McGee and Mollie, and Charlie McCarthy.45 Pointing to the British Ministry of Information’s use 6 LIVE ELECTRICALLY WITH REDDY KILOWATT … 137 of cartoons to ‘illustrate the Nazi technique of falsehoods, intimidation, barbarism’, Collins argued that ‘the Ministry felt that pictures could do what wordy statements could not, because pictures are much the same in all languages…’ (for more on the Ministry’s use of animation, see Price, Chapter 7).46 Warning that ‘after each war, business is supposed to return to normal but it never does’, and that advertisers had to adopt an aggressive campaign and tell their story differently using these new tools, he urged that ‘now is the time for the Electric Industry to get off the defensive, a wonderful opportunity to tell its great story and dramatize it for the Public at large’.47 Putting his arguments into action, Collins hired Walter Lantz to produce Reddy Made Magic in 1946 and promoted the educational cartoon as one of the most dramatic attention-getting features of the Reddy Kilowatt program, calling it ‘on the order of Walt Disney’s Three Little Pigs ’ and yoking it wherever possible with Disney.48 Lantz’s film was praised by the American Public Relations Association (APRA) as an ‘outstanding example of the best in PR films’ and selected to be shown at their All-Industrial conference in Washington, D.C.’49 Adopting strategies from the theatrical film industry, Reddy Made Magic was blockbooked to schools, employees of West Penn Power, service clubs (Kiwanis, Rotary) and women’s groups. Ads even suggested that it competed with bingo, with G. Douglas Anderson, an engineer at the Novia Scotia Power Co. reporting that: During the past week, we have been showing Reddy Made Magic at the Lions’ Club Fair …. It has stolen the show, and has on every showing attracted so many people that the bingo games and other money grabbing games suffered considerably …. In order to keep everyone happy we have toned down the volume a little and run about five shows each evening, which all attract large audiences.50 Design In shifting to sponsored motion pictures, comic books and comic strips, Collins was deliberately moving away from what he called the ‘orthodox’ approach of the utility industry to something that was more appealing and accessible. While Collins tightly controlled Reddy Kilowatt’s design, with licensees carefully instructed through the Charts for Drawing Reddy Kilowatt, there had been modifications since the original 1926 design.51 Dick 138 K. M. THOMPSON Lundy’s model sheets for the Walter Lantz cartoon made Kilowatt three and a half heads high, with a globular head, light bulb nose and rubber gloves and shoes (as required for safety), but reduced his fingers from four to three, adding a more detailed face, with pupils in the eyes and a mouth with a tongue (but no teeth) to increase appeal. Collins agreed with this approach, reporting that his artists had previously drawn Reddy’s eyes as triangles, but that ‘they now lean to your goo-goo or cartoon eyes as lending themselves to more flexibility of expression’.52 After seeing Lantz’s storyboard, Collins offered extensive detailed feedback, including suggestions for the cartoon’s title like Stepping Stones to Wonder Homes and The Miracle Box, and other comments on design, script and musical sequences. He pointed out that Lantz’s studio had put too many zigzags in Reddy’s body, warned against making Kilowatt’s hair too long ‘so as to seem hornlike’ and changed the lyrics of Kilowatt’s Polka Song (removing references to electricity causing shocks). Collins complained that Walter Tetley’s voicing of Reddy sounded too juvenile, urging that ‘the voice should be snappy in keeping with Reddy Kilowatt’s zippy, electrical characteristics’.53 In particular, he focused on the scale, personality and design of Reddy, wanting the character to have ‘all the action and pull, flexibility and punch’,54 and not be shown as too small in size: We are just a little bit afraid that by showing Reddy Kilowatt as a little, impish sort of person power companies in their future advertising would also make a little imp out of Reddy. From an advertising standpoint we don’t think this would be a good idea. Yet, on the other hand, from a motion picture standpoint, it may be just the proper way of doing it. We…would like very much to have your thoughts on the subject….we are still worried about the influence it may have on future advertising techniques. In the end, Collins suggested that Reddy could be small in scale when coming from an electrical outlet or ‘Reddy box’, but adult size in other tasks, such as running machinery in a factory, doing ‘heroic jobs in Superman style’. Indeed Collins’ acknowledgement of Kilowatt’s flexible scale (‘we have always portrayed him as small one moment and large the next’) was a tactic that suggested Kilowatt’s flexible capacity to do any job, large or small, while preserving size as a marker of electricity’s power.55 Appeal and expressivity was also an important part of Reddy’s characterization and guidelines on the model sheet cautioned: 6 LIVE ELECTRICALLY WITH REDDY KILOWATT … 139 Reddy has a genial, likeable personality He is usually smiling and happy, but occasionally his expression shows doubt, perplexity, determination or any expression that a human being can show. However since Reddy is such a wellmannered, even-tempered fellow- a hard working servant- angry, defeatist, or vicious expressions should be avoided.56 In 1957 Collins followed Lantz’s film with four 20 second television spots to be produced by Terrytoons and in 1959, hired John Sutherland to make Reddy Kilowatt: The Mighty Atom, by recycling the historical sequence from the 1946 film, but adding a new section promoting atomic energy that followed Lundy’s design changes. Collins’ attention to details in Reddy Kilowatt’s appearance was in keeping with his longstanding business practices, since he first trademarked Kilowatt eight years before he ultimately found a paying customer for the RKS. Collins was particularly attuned to the role that iconic trademark characters played in business, with the Kilowatt archives holding extensive files on the Jolly Green Giant and Elsie the Cow, amongst others, and Collins closely monitored his competitors’ use of electrical spokescharacters, vigorously challenging Willie Wiredhand in court for trademark infringement.57 As businesses increasingly turned to comic book and animated cartoon characters, during and after World War Two, new print and animated spokescharacters joined Reddy Kilowatt like Tommy Telephone for the Mutual Telephone Co. of Hawaii, Mr. Friendly for the American Mutual Liability Insurance Co. (1943), Allegheny Al, for the Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corporation (1947) and Danny Diesel for Caterpillar Tractor Co. The key intermedia l role that comics and cartoons paid in visual education found its way into Collins’ sales pitch for RKS, where he emphasized that Reddy Kilowatt ‘talks the language of the man in the street’, interests and educates young people, ‘the customers of tomorrow’ through ‘simplified, graphic, pictorial or humorous adaptations’, while also enabling ‘more conspicuous advertising’. Collins also anticipated animation’s anthropomorphic flexibility, for the comic spokescharacter ‘permits cartooning and other unusual treatment’.58 As a ‘Master of Ceremony that no one can take offence at’, Reddy Kilowatt could be coded as Dad, Mom or child, depending upon the target audience, and sometimes as both combined (‘I’m housemaid and butler’). In different Kilowatt ad series, a Mom could see Reddy performing her roles as cook, cleaner, washer, baker and mother; a Dad see Reddy supplying electricity for his razor, his morning commute and his factory’s power; a child see Reddy running his electric train set, 140 K. M. THOMPSON and a baby watch Reddy guarding over him in the night as a friendly light bulb.59 Along with the youth market, Collins was particularly interested in targeting the cost-conscious female customer, observing, ‘The housewife plays a large part in the eyes of the electric company. …She is the first to see the electric bill…… The opinion of the woman is far more significant than the opinion of the man. If she thinks the bill is high, the man will admit that it is…’60 Having begun his career selling electrical appliances, in the thirties Collins promoted Reddy Kilowatt to women as a ‘labor-saving or comfortgiving’61 avatar with slogans like ‘I’ll be your dishwashing man’ and ‘Go Electric!’.62 In the forties Reddy appeared in a series of four-panel Reddytoon comic strips, each promoting a specific appliance like vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, dishwashers and stoves. For example, Reddy Kilowatt: Back to Nature, contrasted ‘Anemic Elsie’ who was ‘white as a sheet, The Boys never date her altho’ she’s quite sweet’, with ‘Nancy Noodle [who] has a healthy tan’ and who plugs in a sun ray lamp with Reddy Kilowatt, ‘cause she knows the secret for getting her man’.63 Here, Reddy Kilowatt’s gendered marketing aligned women with the consumption of electricity, whereas racial representations of Reddy (as genie or ‘coolie’) were connected to the production and labour of electricity. Created as an industrial symbol to guard against federal intervention into the utility industry, by the late sixties and seventies, Reddy Kilowatt was increasingly adapted to address a greater public interest in conservation and environmentalism. After Collins’ retirement, his company was merged into Xcel Energy in 1998, but Reddy Kilowatt’s career as spokesperson continued, mostly outside the United States, and recently appearing in Electricity and You (2011) for the Barbados Light and Power Co.64 Reminding us that the relationship of sponsored and theatrical entertainment may be more closely linked than we previously realized, in his heyday from the thirties to the fifties, Reddy played a leading role across different media platforms as a corporate spokesperson who also entered popular culture, and whose fame far exceeded other now forgotten spokescharacters like Danny Diesel. While Reddy Kilowatt’s personality and anthropomorphic design conjured a friendly charm, the character’s promotional representations and their implied audiences were deeply inscribed by cultural attitudes around race, class and gender. Underscoring the close discursive relationship between animation and the representational politics of labour, Reddy Kilowatt’s career revealed the ways in which sponsored animation could transform the workplace into an extension of the comic strip and animated 6 LIVE ELECTRICALLY WITH REDDY KILOWATT … 141 motion picture, converting workers into supporting characters and power bills into animated props for its ‘story’. Appealing to the aspirations and desires of the contemporary consumer, Reddy Kilowatt’s embodiment of reliability, speed and efficiency offered the promise of ‘Living Electrically’ in a discursive modernity that humanized machines and mechanized humans, and that hinted at the future cyborgs we would all become. Notes 1. Kilowatt was designed by Dan Clinton and later refined by children’s author Dorothea Warren who saw herself as the ‘godmother’ of Reddy Kilowatt and requested ‘some sort of percentage method’ to Ashton Collins. Each of these artists would unsuccessfully claim partial ownership of the trademarked spokescharacter: see correspondence with Collins, January 15, 1934 (Dorothea Warren); February 9, 1948 (Dan Clinton), Histories and Origins of Reddy Kilowatt, 1926–1977, Series 1, Subseries 2, Reddy Kilowatt Records, 1926–1999 (hereafter abbreviated as RKR), Archives Center, National Museum of American History/Smithsonian. 2. Series 4, Subseries 2, Advertising Materials, Promotional Ads c. 1940s, RKR. 3. It would not be until 1934 that Collins got his first paying clients signed up to RKS, beginning with the Philadelphia Power Co. He registered his trademarks in prospective overseas markets at an early stage in Canada (1934), Argentina (1937), Great Britain (1938), Mexico (1938) as well as Australia, Barbados, Kenya, Mexico, South Korea, Venezuela and the Netherlands Antilles, RKR. 4. Harold Clark Metcalfe, “Reddy Kilowatt, Your Electrical Servant” (March 25, 1938): 1–7; 5–6, Series 1, Subseries 2, RKR. 5. Promotional Materials, RKR. 6. Letter from Kay Kamen to Roy O. Disney, July 30, 1943, Jeremy Marx, “Disney Guest Star Day with Reddy Kilowatt” (January 11, 2010). http:// www.disneyhistoryinstitute.com/2010/01/disney-guest-star-day-withreddy.html. 7. Electricity and You (Barbados Light and Power Co., 2011). https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=OOVffAeAmII. 8. Metcalfe, “Reddy Kilowatt,” 4; 6. 9. Metcalfe, “Reddy Kilowatt,” 2; Anon, “Detailed Specifications #1: Introduction of the Reddy Kilowatt Program,” n.d.: 1–3, Advertising Materials, RKR. 10. Anon, “The Story of Reddy Kilowatt,” 1–2; 1. Typewritten MS, n.d. Histories and Origins of Reddy Kilowatt, 1926–1977, Series 1, Subseries 2, RKR. 11. Metcalfe, “Reddy Kilowatt,” 4. 142 K. M. THOMPSON 12. Advertising Materials, RKR. 13. For more on this relationship, see, e.g., Kirsten Moana Thompson, “‘Quick—Like a Bunny!’ The Ink and Paint Machine, Female Labor and Color Production,” Animation Studies 9 (February 2014). https://journal. animationstudies.org/?s=Kirsten+Thompson. 14. Collins, “Synopsis of Reddy Kilowatt as Originated by Ashton B. Collins” (c. 1940s): 1–3; 2–3, RKR. 15. “Reddy and How,” Reddy News (c. 1946): 1–3; 3. Walter Lantz Animation Archive (hereafter WLA) 47, UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections, Box 51P, Folder 6. 16. Anon, “Reddy Kilowatt: Your Electrical Servant,” MS, 1–4; 4, Series 1, Subseries 2, RKR. Promotional literature relayed the story that ‘Mrs. ---’ phoned the Alabama Power Co. to note that “Reddy didn’t show up for work this morning. Please be sure and send him right out here; I’ve lots of work for him”’, Metcalfe, “Reddy Kilowatt,” 5. 17. Anon, “Detailed Specifications #1,” 1. My emphasis. 18. Anon, “Detailed Specifications #1,” 2. 19. Anon, “Meet Reddy Kilowatt: New Employee Joins Company on September First,” Mississippi Power and Light Co., Employes’ (sic) Publication, 4, no. 6 (August 1942): 1. 20. Anon, “Introducing Reddy Kilowatt,” Daily Times (June 26, 1942): n.p., Advertising Materials, Business Advertising Presentation Binder, 1942, RKR. 21. Series 3, Subseries 11, 1949–1970, RKR. See also http://americanhistory. si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1333175. Accessed 1 February 2019. 22. “Own Your Own Talking Reddy Kilowatt,” Promotional Ad, Reddy Kilowatt Bulletin, 4/1/1949, n.p., RKR. 23. “Reddy Kilowatt Story,” Basic Material Files, RKR. 24. The ‘faithful slave’ image of Kilowatt was published 3/7/36 as part of ‘Reddy Remarks’, a mat service with 18 images of Reddy Kilowatt working on different tasks from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. It was used by the Tennessee Electric Power Co., Duke Power Co. and South Carolina Power Co. and published in The Chattanooga Times between 9/4/35 and 6/1/36, Background Materials, RKR. 25. “Reddy Remarks,” 2/27/36. 26. “Reddy Remarks,” 1/28/36. 27. Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America (New York: Basic, 1994), 180–181. 28. Lears, Fables of Abundance, 180–181. 29. Juliann Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising (Wadsworth: Cengage Learning, 2012), 174–175. 6 LIVE ELECTRICALLY WITH REDDY KILOWATT … 143 30. Warren Dotz and Masud Husain, Meet Mr. Product: The Art of the Advertising Character (San Francisco: Chronicle, 2003), 184–213. 31. Metcalfe, “Reddy Kilowatt,” 2. 32. Anon, “Reddy Kilowatt,” 4. 33. Ibid. 34. Anon, “Story of Reddy Kilowatt,” 2. 35. Andrew Shanken, “Better Living: Towards a Cultural History of a Business Slogan,” Enterprise and Society 7, no. 3 (2006): 1–35; 17; 7; 1. 36. Roland Marchand cited in Shanken “Better Living,” 14. 37. Ashton B. Collins, “Looking Ahead in Advertising: For Coordination of Utility Service, Sales and Appliance Advertising for Better Public Relations,” A Talk Before the New Jersey Utilities Association at Sea View, NJ (May 25, 1945): 193–195; 195, RKR. 38. Disney made several other titles for the electrical industry, including Prevention and Control of Distortion in Arc Welding (1945) for Lincoln Electric Co. 39. Collins, “Looking Ahead,” 495. 40. Sam Dawson, “Cartoon Characters Held Good Business,” Dallas Daily Times Herald (March 20, 1950); Anon, “Trend to Capitalize on Humor Growing,” n.d.; and Sam Dawson, “Reddy Kilowatt Has Peers as Business Discovers Comics,” Seattle Times (March 20, 1950), Press clippings, Advertising Materials, RKR. 41. Ashton B. Collins, “Proposals Presented to the Board of Directors,” Edison Electrical Institute (December 14, 1944): 1–13; 5, RKR. 42. Collins, “Proposals Presented,” 10. 43. Collins, “Proposals Presented,” 5. 44. Ashton Collins, “Address at the Public Utilities Advertising Association Convention,” New York (June 23, 1947): 1–9; 7; Speeches; RKR. 45. Collins, “Address at the Public Utilities,” 7. 46. Ibid. 47. Collins, “Address at the Public Utilities,” 8. 48. “Detailed Specifications #2: Application of Reddy Kilowatt to Various Advertising and Promotional Media,” 1–3; 2; Values in the Reddy Kilowatt Program, RKR. 49. “APRA Selects Reddy Kilowatt Film,” n.d., Promotional Media, WLA. 50. Promotional Materials, 1940s, WLA. 51. Charts for Drawing Reddy Kilowatt (1942), 1–20, RKR; How to Draw Reddy Kilowatt, 1–19, WLA. 52. Letter, Ashton Collins to Walter Lantz, Section IV, 1 (February 24, 1945), WLA. 53. Ibid. 54. How to Draw Reddy Kilowatt, 15, WLA. 55. Letter from Collins to Walter Lantz, ibid. 144 K. M. THOMPSON 56. How to Draw Reddy Kilowatt, 10. 57. Reddy Kilowatt, Inc., Appellant, v. Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative, Inc., and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Inc., Appellees, 240 F.2d 282 (4th Cir. 1957). Copyright, Trademark and Other Legal Materials, 1926–1994, Series 6, RKR. 58. “Guide Chart of the Reddy Kilowatt Program,” n.p., Advertising Materials, RKR. 59. “Put in Plenty of Reddy Boxes,” Wisconsin Power Co. Booklet, Advertising Materials (1946), RKR. 60. “Values in the Reddy Kilowatt Program,” RKR. 61. Collins, “Looking Ahead in Advertising,” RKR. 62. Reddy Kilowatt Ads, 1953, WLA. 63. Reddytoon 79, Comic strip Series G, 1946, WLA. 64. Barbados Power and Light Co. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= OOVffAeAmII. Accessed 1 February 2019. Bibliography Primary Reddy Kilowatt Records, 1926–1999, Archives Center, National Museum of American History/Smithsonian (abbreviated as RKR). Walter Lantz Archive, 1927–1972, UCLA Performing Arts Special Collection, Young Research Library, Reddy Made Magic Files, Collection 47, Box 51P, Folders 1–9 (abbreviated as WLA). Secondary Dotz, Warren, and Masud Husain. 2003. Meet Mr. Product: The Art of the Advertising Character. San Francisco: Chronicle. Leach, William. 1993. Land of Desire: Merchants, Power and the Rise of a New American Culture. New York: Pantheon. Sivulka, Juliann. 2012. Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising. Boston, MA and Wadsworth: Cengage Learning. CHAPTER 7 ‘A Very Flexible Medium’: The Ministry of Information and Animated Propaganda Films on the Home Front Hollie Price Filling the Gap (1942), the first of Halas and Batchelor’s films released for the British Ministry of Information (MoI), promoted digging for victory and growing vegetables in all available gardens and allotments. Documentary News Letter—an in-house journal for the documentary movement that closely followed the work of the MoI’s Films Division throughout the war—approved of Filling the Gap’s ‘pleasing’ combination of animated diagrams and cartoons, concluding that it ‘will probably command more attention in the cinema than most’.1 The review also indicates ‘an unpleasant change of style at the end in the drawing of the gathering of vegetables’, suggesting that this ‘smacks of advertisements for Heinz 57 varieties’.2 In other words, the closing image reinforcing the film’s official message belonged to the visual language of commercial advertising, rather than the H. Price (B) University of Sussex, Sussex, UK e-mail: h.price@sussex.ac.uk © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_7 145 146 H. PRICE more subtle, indirect form of public relations that the documentary movement championed. Drawing on a range of archival evidence of the MoI’s work, this chapter explores and expands on the claim that Filling the Gap’s ending ‘smacks of advertisements’ by highlighting the burgeoning relationship between animated propaganda films and practices in film advertising and public relations in this period.3 Through an examination of the Films Division’s programme for film propaganda, its distribution schemes and the films themselves, I demonstrate how the MoI’s use of animation developed alongside different forms of animated advertising and that its flexible use is indicative of the intersecting functions of MoI films as propaganda, publicity and education in wartime Britain. The MoI Films Division In January 1940, Kenneth Clark—the newly appointed head of the Films Division at the MoI—circulated a memorandum that presented some ideas on the uses of film for propaganda. Though he was not a film specialist, he suggested that animated cartoons could be ‘a very flexible medium of propaganda’, which would be particularly useful for showing ‘What Britain is fighting for’.4 Drawing on Disney for inspiration, Clark emphasised that animated cartoons ‘have the advantage that ideas can be inserted under cover of absurdity’, detailing how cartoons ‘can present (as in Mickey Mouse) a system of ethics in which independence and individuality are always successful, bullies are made fools of, the weak can check the strong with impunity, etc’.5 For Clark, the value of animated cartoons was that entertaining narratives could camouflage propaganda messages and he optimistically proposed that he knew of ‘several artists in England who can do [animated cartoons] really well’.6 Clark’s tenure as head of the Films Division was short-lived (he was promoted within the Ministry in April 1940) but he had ‘created a healthy atmosphere which prompted film-makers to approach the division’ and his idea of animation as a ‘flexible medium of propaganda’ was taken up in the work of the Division’s final head, Jack Beddington.7 During the interwar years, Beddington was the General Manager and Director of Publicity at Shell-Mex and BP, where he built a reputation as an advertising man par excellence. He was responsible for Shell’s enlightened policy on publicity, characterised by an understanding of the expressive potential of British art and film in advertising. On his appointment, Advertiser’s Weekly announced: 7 ‘A VERY FLEXIBLE MEDIUM’: THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION … 147 Shell-Mex have always been classed […] as one of the pioneers of a high standard of commercial advertising and Mr. Beddington has been largely responsible for their enlightened policy. He has had experience of propaganda film work through his connection with the Shell-Mex film unit, who have produced a number of excellent publicity films.8 Under Beddington, the MoI Films Division built up its networks for film distribution. This included a scheme of short films and trailers shown by theatrical exhibitors for free, and its non-theatrical distribution scheme whereby MoI films, as well as documentaries and instructional films acquired from other ministries and studios, were shown in village halls, social clubs and factories using a fleet of mobile film units, projectors and a film lending service based at the Central Film Library.9 In the early 1940s, these avenues for distributing propaganda films on the home front offered opportunities for animators also working on films for the purposes of commercial advertising and public relations to make films for the Ministry. Some of the most prolific animators commissioned to make MoI films were Halas and Batchelor, and Francis Rodker at the Shell Film Unit (SFU). John Halas and Joy Batchelor made approximately 70 cartoon films and trailers for a variety of wartime campaigns and also short films for commercial sponsors including Kellogg’s, Lux and Rinso. Francis Rodker’s diagrammatic sequences were a key feature of numerous MoI documentaries and instructional films made by the SFU, building on his interwar work on educational films made as publicity for Shell. As the following sections on Halas and Batchelor’s drawn animations and Rodker’s diagrammatic sequences explore, the MoI’s animated films encompassed both the entertaining Disney-influenced narratives that Clark had envisaged and more directly didactic animated diagrams encouraged by the documentary movement. According to several accounts, Beddington cultivated a spirit of experimentation and freedom for filmmakers during this period and, through the Division’s growing film distribution networks, the propaganda work undertaken by these studios offered opportunities for their different styles of animation to develop and flourish.10 Halas and Batchelor In 1940, the MoI introduced a series of five-minute films shown in cinemas that would ‘help people to remember government messages by putting them in dramatic form’.11 Shortly following the introduction of 148 H. PRICE this series, documentary filmmaker Paul Rotha wrote to Sidney Bernstein, the Ministry’s resident specialist in commercial film distribution, detailing some ideas and drawing connections between the Ministry’s work and advertising: The 5-minute film is not new. Some of the very best examples of elementary film technique – particularly as regards timing and cutting values – often appears in what are commercially called Trailers […] the new series of M. of I. 5-minute films offers remarkable chances for similar experiment.12 In 1942, the MoI replaced the five-minute films with longer 15-minute films released monthly that allowed for more information to be relayed to cinema audiences, accompanied by trailers—with the same aim of conveying official information in a ‘dramatic form’ albeit in a tighter time frame. In the early years of the war, Halas and Batchelor were ideally placed to contribute to these short film schemes. John Halas had previous experience of making animated commercial films and the Halas and Batchelor studio was formed under the banner of the J. Walter Thompson (JWT) advertising agency to continue this work, aided by ideas and scripting from JWT writer Alexander Mackendrick—who had scripted and storyboarded a successful series of cinema advertisements for Horlicks (animated by George Pal, these are discussed further by Mette Peters in Chapter 2). Paul Wells emphasises how Halas and Batchelor usefully ‘deployed some of the strategies they used in the advertising films they made for the J. Walter Thompson agency’ in their MoI films: using entertainment first and mention of the advertised product second.13 In two commercials for Lux soap, Carnival in the Clothes Cupboard (1941) and Fable of the Fabrics (1942), Halas and Batchelor experimented with just such techniques aimed at ‘building up the goodwill of the audience through entertainment’.14 Both films were fairytale stories set in the mundane, domestic settings of a clothes cupboard and laundry basket: they each focus on a group of characters from the designs and patterns on various garments coming to life, a narrative showing their magical renewal by soap flakes, and a final reveal of the Lux product as the ‘pay off to the story climax’.15 Carnival in the Clothes Cupboard features a ‘dingy and drab’ clown who, unpopular with the other characters in the cupboard, attempts to drown himself before being happily transformed by Lux flakes. In Fable of the Fabrics , a cupid from the embroidered corner of a handkerchief stands up to eerie figure ‘Old Father Time’, using Lux flakes to preserve the other 7 ‘A VERY FLEXIBLE MEDIUM’: THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION … 149 characters’ youth and vibrancy. In both productions, recognisable elements from Disney animations—using characters’ personalities to provoke ‘pathos as well as humour’ and semi-magical settings—imbue ordinary, domestic landscapes with this sense of possibility, simultaneously entertaining potential customers and endowing Lux with powers of transformation.16 Some of Halas and Batchelor’s MoI trailers took a similar tack, depicting wartime domestic transformations in a fairytale style. In From Rags to Stitches (1944), Cinderagella, a rag forlornly mopping the floor in a drab interior is transformed into a nurse’s uniform by a trip to the salvage factory with a ‘Fairy Rag Bag’—an informative fairy godmother in the form of an anthropomorphic cloth bag. The story is resolved with a trip to the ‘War Service Rag Time Ball’ and the message: ‘when sorting salvage, don’t forget the rag bag’. In Mrs Sew and Sew (1944), a resourceful housewife—the face of the Board of Trade’s ‘Make Do and Mend’ campaign—has a magical touch that makes the different components of her sewing kit come to life and get to work on making new clothes out of old. Rather than revealing a product at the end of the film as the reason for the aesthetic renewal as in the Lux films, the ‘Fairy Rag Bag’ and the resourceful ‘Mrs Sew and Sew’ drive the narrative and make contributions to the war effort seems more appealing (and quasi-magical).17 In doing so, they aligned alterations to everyday life demanded of audiences with optimistic possibilities of transformation in the language of advertising. By adapting the techniques with which they presented commercial products, these films offered entertaining narratives that would light-heartedly inform audiences of the ways that they could be involved in the war effort. Another tale of renewal, Halas and Batchelor’s five-minute film Dustbin Parade (1942) focuses on a group of anthropomorphised household objects—a spinning top, a bone, a tin can and an empty toothpaste tube— thrown out onto the street and intent on making use of themselves. Made to encourage audiences to recycle household waste in aid of munitions production, it tracks the items’ journey: from receiving advice from a nearby fencepost, signing themselves up at the local ‘recruitment centre’ (recycling boxes outside a front door) to their eventual, communal metamorphosis into an artillery shell. It uses the same idea of enlivening a mundane domestic task by creating the objects to be recycled as distinctive characters and emphasising their transformation. Described by Wells as a film in which ‘optimism is allied with efficiency as “Disney” meets “Documentary”’, this tale of transformation has a realist edge.18 Rather than a magical, immediate metamorphosis, Dustbin Parade displays the mechanics of the objects’ 150 H. PRICE change into munitions. In factory scenes, the objects are transferred onto a conveyer belt: the paper-characters are compressed into cartridges, rubber hot water bottles clamped into tyres and bones into uniforms, and—in perhaps the most visually striking act of self-sacrifice—a row of tin cans dives into the hot liquid in a melting pot, which is poured out into shell moulds. For Wells, the cartoon also ‘softens the effect that a necessary “transformation” might have’ and ‘the sacrifice is one of “change” and not potential endangerment or death’.19 Employed to soften the potential threat of the war effort, Halas and Batchelor’s use of commercial tropes sold the everyday, exigent and dangerous wartime activities in the form of lively, visually arresting cartoon transfigurations. In 1942, a Mass-Observation report on the reception of the Ministry’s five-minute films in cinemas highlighted the important (and difficult) balance between propaganda and entertainment, suggesting that such official films were ‘liable to be resented or rejected if they are too much propaganda, and loved but ignored as propaganda if they are too much entertainment’.20 Halas and Batchelor’s films had to tread a fine line between entertainment and information in order to avoid derision and to communicate propaganda messages effectively. The transformation-narratives developed in their advertising work offered a way to do this, using an entertaining format but incorporating a more didactic function in various different ways. For instance, these included cartoon characters offering instructions or advice, such as an outraged talking bin who details how to recycle scrap materials in Model Sorter (1943); a dancing wireless advising animate fuelusing domestic appliances in Cold Comfort (1944); and a cartoon incarnation of popular gardening expert C. H. Middleton who, in the company of a thankful vegetable, explains the importance of the compost heap as a ‘plant canteen’ in Compost Heaps (1943). As in Dustbin Parade, these characters and narratives illuminate and explain ideas, demonstrating what John Halas describes as animation’s ‘penetrative’ potential for unveiling hidden processes.21 For example, in Compost Heaps , Middleton’s suggestion ‘suppose we get down to the root of the matter’ is followed by a combination of pictorial illustrations of a plant, its roots and a compost heap with comic, character-driven animations to symbolise the work of producing nutrients. Revealing this process, the compost heap illustration fades to an x-ray-style image of its interior, where a series of kinetic, anthropomorphised figures work on assembly lines, one of them peddling a cart labelled ‘delicious nitrogen potash phosphates’ under the earth to deliver to hungry roots. 7 ‘A VERY FLEXIBLE MEDIUM’: THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION … 151 Filling the Gap also embodies the combination of the ‘transforming, penetrating and symbolising powers’ attributed by Halas and Batchelor to animation.22 Commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture, the film uses cartoon characters and diagrams to encourage audiences to use all available land to grow vegetables in the face of diminishing levels of imported food. Depicted in a more simple, diagrammatic style, its central character is a silent line-drawn figure, which is used to symbolise the food intake of the national population: the figure’s chewing mouth expands into a funnel shape and the rest of its body into the base of a vessel with three empty compartments, accompanied by graphic symbols for vegetables, milk and other foods such as meat and grains—a sack, a bottle and a box—to represent the nation’s food supply needs. As a result of the central character’s gardening efforts, a series of anthropomorphised vegetables—in a closer style to the personality-animations in Dustbin Parade and others—are shown joyously springing from branches and bouncing from the soil, before they march together with the central figure and are diagrammatically shown filling the gaps left by reducing imports (Fig. 7.1). Although Documentary News Letter had qualms about this ending and its proximity to commercial advertisements, it conceded that ‘animated diagram and cartoon meet in this film on common ground’.23 The review suggests that ‘by adopting the cartoon’s flexibility and some hint of its inconsequent gaiety in their diagram sequences, and by retaining something of the diagram’s essential simplicity in their pure cartoon sequences, the makers have achieved a lively and entertaining film’.24 Through adapting and developing the Fig. 7.1 Cartoon characters combine with diagrams in Filling the Gap (John Halas and Joy Batchelor, 1942) 152 H. PRICE tropes of transformation, escapism and sympathetic characters that they were simultaneously using in their commercial work, Halas and Batchelor maintained a focus on conveying information in an entertaining way. Filling the Gap, though, incorporates a more didactic approach and a diagrammatic style later developed in their sponsored films in the immediate postwar period. For the MoI, such animated diagrams represented a useful mode of propaganda and this educational function of the animation medium was cultivated, in a different style, in Shell Film Unit documentaries and instructional films. Francis Rodker and the Shell Film Unit Based at the SFU from the 1930s, Francis Rodker was a technical animation specialist whose diagrams appeared in the majority of Shell’s wartime output. His wartime diagrammatic sequences were characterised by an austere, realist style, emphasising their straightforward intent as part of the MoI’s film propaganda. For instance, Ack-Ack (1941)—a five-minute film sponsored by the War Office to stress how British forces were hitting back against bombing—explains the work of a group of anti-aircraft gunners. It features live-action sequences that capture the nightly activities of their station in an observational style—including manning the guns, plotting courses and recreational time, as well as a simple, graphic diagram to explain the exact nature of their work. The voiceover commentary—ostensibly provided by one of the gunners themselves—evokes a direct, down-to-earth approach, which explains how the trajectory of the anti-aircraft guns is calculated. With the instruction to ‘look at this diagram’, a scene fades to an illustration of a German plane annotated with white dotted lines to show both its trajectory and that of the shell fired by the gunners. The sequence is characterised by a sombre visual style: its grey sky background evokes the realist depiction of the station in the film’s other scenes and its simple style of white lines (evocative of chalk ones) denotes its didactic function. In the 1930s, the SFU specialised in documentary films exploring different technological and scientific themes, which were made as a form of indirect, prestige publicity for the company and which began with a programme of educational films recommended by John Grierson. These early films included Power Unit (1937), which explains the principles of the internal combustion engine illustrated using animated diagrams and model work, and Springs (1938), which used animated diagrams to show 7 ‘A VERY FLEXIBLE MEDIUM’: THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION … 153 the working parts of a car. Any branding was kept discreet: consultant producer Arthur Elton established that ‘Shell films were in no way to be classed as advertising films. There was to be no heavy-handed waving of the product or the Company name’.25 The aim of the films were that they would be used within the company ‘to improve the efficiency of the Shell organisation by creating a greater knowledge of the products marketed and of the organisation’; and outside ‘to improve the demand for Shell products’ and, through the provision of an educational service, ‘to create general goodwill’.26 Having trained as an engineering draughtsman at Shell with a self-confessed ‘flair for fine art’, Rodker’s factual animations played a significant role in illustrating and explaining technical processes and mechanisms.27 With the outbreak of the war and the government sponsorship of SFU productions, Rodker’s experimentation with animation techniques was shaped by wartime constraints of time, costs and the new practical considerations of working during air raids.28 His graphic, mechanical style of animation was adopted as a medium for both visual education and propaganda, proving valuable in a number of different forms for the MoI. Three of the SFU’s early five-minute films—War in the East (1941), Middle East (1942) and Naval Operations (1941)—used animated maps to explain different aspects of the war effort. A simple diagrammatic style— using arrows and symbols to indicate trade routes and raw materials, battleships and trajectories, and national relationships—emphasises the educational or informational role of these films, distinguishing them from other five-minuters using dramas and cartoons to enliven propaganda messages. An austere style of information design is particularly evident in War in the East . Interwoven with animated maps, a man moves labels on printed maps to show the movement of Allied forces in the Middle East; compasses are used to draw a pencil line around Singapore to show the line of British defence; and a hand reaches in to the frame and pulls down string lines to visually illustrate the Allies’ stop to their supplies. The analysis of War in the East in Mass-Observation’s 1942 report concludes that ‘the informative film […] aims to impart facts’ and ‘is more likely [….] to succeed in its job than the more “propagandist” film’.29 Shell’s emphasis on ‘imparting the facts’ in the map films is characterised by a symbolic system that reinforces their nationalistic propaganda function. For instance, in War in the East , dark colouring and black arrows are used to portray Japan as aggressive and threatening and, in Middle East , this propagandistic symbolism is taken further with graphic symbols for Axis soldiers with guns at the ready 154 H. PRICE flashing over a map of the Middle East and casting looming shadows over a brightly lit white space indicative of the Allied ‘stronghold’.30 Further demonstrating their educational focus, many of Rodker’s animated sequences were made for training films distributed using the Ministry’s non-theatrical circuits. Initially headed by the documentary movement’s distribution expert, Thomas Baird, the MoI’s network for nontheatrical distribution served as an avenue for ‘background’ propaganda in the form of film education.31 As such, a number of Shell’s educational films were released as part of the general programmes shown to audiences in village halls and social clubs. For instance, Airscrew (1940)—which explains the production of aeroplane propellers using diagrammatic sequences combining basic line diagrams with more sophisticated, realist illustrations and models—was included in general programmes on ‘Men and Armaments’.32 Animated sequences were also used as illustrative asides in training films targeted at specialised groups, often alongside live-action scenes. For example, Debris Tunnelling (1943) details processes for digging through rubble through a combination of live-action shots of a group of wardens with line diagrams, smudged with charcoal and accompanied by hand-written labels, to show the structures needed to do so. Similar combinations were used in SFU films for the National Fire Service, including more formal black and white line and letter diagrams to show the NFS chain of command in Mobilising Procedure (1942), and the same style to depict the calculations for getting water to bomb damaged sites in Model Procedure for Water Relaying (1942). The integration of Rodker’s animated sequences is particularly inventive in Control Room (1942), a film made for the Civil Defence Service in order to explain the chain of communication activated in the event of an air raid. Control Room uses a system of bold graphic symbols to denote the different stations and officers involved in this emergency system. A shot of a chain linking these stations is first introduced as a ‘simple plan’ of communications, which over the course of the film is illustrated by live-action sequences depicting the different sections of the Civil Defence Service in Bristol, accompanied by complementary diagrams to explain their role as part of the system as a whole. Using sound bridges, transitions including wipes and fades, and visual congruences between live-action scenes and animated sections, the diagrams are closely interwoven into the action of the documentary-style sequences—serving as the film’s ‘connective tissue’.33 Rodker himself emphasised that animated diagrams—carefully planned to be entertaining and closely integrated into the rest of the film—would 7 ‘A VERY FLEXIBLE MEDIUM’: THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION … 155 ensure effective education. In a piece on the ‘Diagram Sequence’ published in the Documentary News Letter in 1941, Rodker draws attention to the change of medium when a diagram comes up on the screen and ‘the subconscious schoolroom feeling we get […] reminiscent of school, where uninteresting drawings were chalked up on blackboards, and textbook illustrations were devoid of interest and life’.34 He suggests that this feeling could be avoided by ‘weaving diagrams into actuality in such a way as to make the audience unconscious of the change of medium, thus retaining uninterrupted attention’: for example, by depicting the live-action and diagrams from a similar angle. Rodker’s technique of creating visual congruence between diagrammatic sequences and others is evident in a number of his SFU films: in Control Room, a shot of a warden in her ‘W’ helmet fades to a graphic symbol depicting the warden’s office with a large W emblazoned on a helmet; in Debris Tunnelling , a shot of the wooden tunnel structure being built on a bombsite fades to a hand-drawn diagram of the different parts of the same wooden structure from the same angle, visually connecting the real clearance of rubble in practice (highlighted by the realist, documentary style used) with the theory and planning behind it. Rodker’s educational animations were not simply used to explain ideas and processes, but simultaneously served as visual systems for propaganda. Rodker’s animated diagrams, a communications network themselves, were used to convey the strength and efficiency of British wartime networks: from the calculations behind anti-aircraft guns in Ack-Ack to the organisation of sea battles in Naval Operations ; from hose pipe routes and measurements in Model Procedure for Water Relaying to the civil defence communications network in Control Room. The starkness of his diagrams, while simple and educational in purpose, was also developed as a realistic interpretation of information that was closely in tune with the realities of their subjects. The smooth visual integration of diagrams into the depiction of communications networks illuminated in Control Room—and the proximity between visual representation through animation and wartime life—is particularly dramatic. In a sequence depicting the destruction of the central control room in the network, civil defence workers are shown crawling out from rubble and fallen rafters, followed by an iris shot which reveals the animated diagram of the emergency communications system. The damaged control room remains at the centre of the diagram until it becomes a dull black scorch mark on the diagram itself, replacing a symbol formerly denoting the control room. Accompanied by the ominous sound of an 156 H. PRICE aeroplane overhead (and the dramatic silence of the control centre’s communications), the sections of the diagram immediately surrounding the scorch mark start to blur and the lines connecting different sections of the network become duller to visually convey a loss of communications. The diagram of the civil defence communications network is visibly damaged, seemingly as a result of bombing. The animated diagrams are therefore deployed as a visually symbolic system representative of the communications network explained throughout the film: the diagrams are carefully integrated into the film’s action with the aim of maintaining the audience’s attention and fulfilling the Control Room’s educational function. ‘A Very Flexible Medium of Propaganda’ From Disneyesque marching vegetables to black and white diagrams charting hose pipe measurements, the animation styles of Halas and Batchelor and Francis Rodker were visually very different. In an interview with Kay Mander in 1972, Joy Batchelor said that they didn’t come into contact at all, and Halas’ co-authored 1959 book on animation technique drew attention to Rodker’s ‘specialized technical animation’ as a ‘radically different method’ from others detailed.35 Jez Stewart has noted Halas’ publicly dismissive attitude towards his advertising work and Halas’ published writing emphasises a clear distinction between animation for advertising films in theatres and for public relations, propaganda, instructional and educational films.36 However, the animated films made for the MoI by both studios offer a more nuanced picture of the relationship between advertising and animation in wartime. The MoI films made throughout the war indicate the studios’ creative blurring of such distinctions—in terms of style, format and distribution—in an effort to use animation as a ‘flexible medium of propaganda’. Influenced by aesthetic styles and modes of distribution developed for the purposes of film advertising in their respective fields, both studios developed mutable modes of address in films distributed via cinemas and non-theatrical circuits: creating narratives and offers of transformation; incorporating documentary influences and providing specialised information; and combining entertainment with education in different permutations and with different aims. As such, the studios’ distinctive animation styles developed according to the fluctuating needs of wartime propaganda and, in doing so, advanced a flexible system for visual communication. 7 ‘A VERY FLEXIBLE MEDIUM’: THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION … 157 Acknowledgements Many thanks to the staff at the Imperial War Museum Film archive for all their help with accessing some of the films consulted and to Colin Burgess for his advice and assistance on the Shell Film Unit. Notes 1. Documentary News Letter, April 1942, 55. 2. Documentary News Letter, April 1942, 55. 3. The chapter relies on records of the Films Division’s work held at the National Archives in Kew, UK (TNA) and in the Sidney Bernstein collection at the Imperial War Museum (IWM), as well as contemporary publications, reports and interviews with the animators in question. 4. TNA INF 1.867 Ministry of Information—Co-ordinating Committee Minutes and Papers, Programme for Film Propaganda, October 1939–April 1940. 5. TNA INF 1.867 Ministry of Information—Co-ordinating Committee Minutes and Papers. In 1940, when the MoI sent a film expert to the US to report on the possibilities for film propaganda targetting US audiences, liaising with Walt Disney was a high priority. At the same time, Disney characters were discussed elsewhere at the Ministry as a potentially valuable ‘medium’ of ‘world wide appeal’ (TNA INF 1.536 Export Publicity Scheme: Utilising the Disney Characters). 6. TNA INF 1.867 Ministry of Information—Co-ordinating Committee Minutes and Papers. 7. Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards, Britain Can Take It: British Cinema in the Second World War (London: I.B. Tauris, First Published 1986, 2007), 7. 8. Advertiser’s Weekly, 18 April 1940, 74. 9. TNA INF 1.126 Re-organisation of Films Division, 1940–1946. 10. See Charles Drazin, The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s (London: I.B. Tauris, First Published 1997, 2007), 177–185; Ruth Artmonsky, Jack Beddington: The Footnote Man (London: Artmonsky Arts, 2006). 11. Kenneth Clark quoted in Jeffrey Richards and Dorothy Sheridan, MassObservation at the Movies (London: Routledge, 1987), 424. On the fiveminute film scheme and its reception, see: James Chapman, The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda, 1939–1945 (London: I.B. Tauris, First Published 1998, 2000), 86–113. 12. IWM 65.17.2 Sidney Bernstein Collection. Letter from Paul Rotha—Notes on M. of I. 5-Minute Films, 18 August 1940. 13. Paul Wells, “Dustbins, Democracy and Defence: Halas and Batchelor and the Animated Film in Britain 1940–1947,” in War Culture: Social Change and Changing Experience in World War Two, eds. Pat Kirkham and David 158 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. H. PRICE Thoms (London: Lawrence & Wishart Ltd., 1995), 64–65. This stress on entertainment in animated advertising films in cinemas is noted in Jez Stewart, “Robin Hood and the Furry Bowlers: Animators vs. Advertisers in Early British Television Commercials,” in Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico De Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau (London: Palgrave Macmillan, on behalf of the BFI, 2016), 245. John Halas and Roger Manvell, The Technique of Film Animation (London: Focal Press, 1959), 114. Halas and Manvell, 115. This technique was developed in the studio’s later commercial advertising work, as examined in Paul Wells, “Joy, Britain Needs You,” in A Moving Image: Joy Batchelor 1914–1991, Artist, Writer and Animator (London: Southbank Publishing, 2014), 69. Wells, 63–66. For further discussion of the role of fairy tales as a model for advertising, see Tashi Petter’s analysis in Chapter 3. Wells, 66–67. Wells, 66–67. “M-O File Report 1193 ‘Report on Ministry of Information Shorts, 1 April 1942’,” in Mass-Observation at the Movies, eds. Jeffrey Richards and Dorothy Sheridan (London: Routledge, 1987), 455. John Halas referenced in Paul Wells, “The Beautiful Village and the True Village: A Consideration of Animation and the Documentary Aesthetic,” Art and Animation 12, no. 3/4 (March–April): 41. John Halas and Joy Batchelor, “European Cartoon,” in The Penguin Film Review (1949), 15. Documentary News Letter, April 1942, 55. Documentary News Letter, 55. Norman Vigars, History of the Shell Film Unit: 50th Anniversary (1984), x. Grierson’s memorandum on SFU production (1937) quoted in: Norman Vigars, History of the Shell Film Unit: 50th Anniversary (1984), ix. Francis Rodker, Transcript of an Interview Recorded in April, Shell International Archive, London (1983), 14. For context, see: Colin Burgess, “Sixty Years of Shell Film Sponsorship, 1934–94,” Journal of British Cinema and Television 7, no. 2 (2010), 215–218. Rodker, 20–21. “M-O File Report 1193 ‘Report on Ministry of Information Shorts, 1 April 1942’,” in Mass-Observation at the Movies, eds. Jeffrey Richards and Dorothy Sheridan (London: Routledge, 1987), 451. This is a graphic language shared with the Why We Fight series, as examined in Annabelle Honess Roe, “Interjections and Connections: The Critical Potential of Animated Segments in Live Action Documentary,” Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 12, no. 3 (2017), 274. 7 ‘A VERY FLEXIBLE MEDIUM’: THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION … 159 31. Documentary News Letter, September 1941, 170. IWM 65.17.4 Sidney Bernstein Collection. Memorandum on British Non-theatrical Film Distribution, 1 April 1940. 32. IWM 65.17.4 Sidney Bernstein Collection. British Non-theatrical Film Distribution Scheme—Progress Report, November 1940. 33. Annabelle Honess Roe, “Interjections and Connections: The Critical Potential of Animated Segments in Live Action Documentary,” 273, 282. 34. Francis Rodker, Documentary News Letter, July 1941, 138. 35. Joy Batchelor, BECTU History Project—Interview No. 294, Transcript of Interview in May 1972. Halas and Manvell, 234. 36. Jez Stewart, “Robin Hood and the Furry Bowlers: Animators vs. Advertisers in Early British Television Commercials,” in Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico De Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau (London: Palgrave Macmillan, on behalf of the BFI, 2016), 246–247; John Halas and Roger Manvell, The Technique of Film Animation (London: Focal Press, 1959), 107–148. Bibliography Aldgate, Anthony, and Jeffrey Richards. 2007. Britain Can Take It: British Cinema in the Second World War. First Published 1986. London: I. B. Tauris. Burgess, Colin. 2010. Sixty Years of Shell Film Sponsorship, 1934–94. Journal of British Cinema and Television 7, no. 2: 213–231. https://doi.org/10.3366/ jbctv.2010.0003. Chapman, James. 2000. The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda, 1939– 1945. First Published 1998. London: I.B. Tauris. Halas, John, and Roger Manvell. 1959. The Technique of Film Animation. London: Focal Press. Richards, Jeffrey, and Dorothy Sheridan. 1987. Mass-Observation at the Movies. London: Routledge. Roe, Annabelle Honess. 2017. Interjections and Connections: The Critical Potential of Animated Segments in Live Action Documentary. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 12, no. 3: 272–286. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1746847717729552. Stewart, Jez. 2016. Robin Hood and the Furry Bowlers: Animators vs. Advertisers in Early British Television Commercials. In Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico De Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau, 239–250. London: Palgrave Macmillan, on behalf of the BFI. Vigars, Norman. 1984. History of the Shell Film Unit: 50th Anniversary. Wells, Paul. 1995. Dustbins, Democracy and Defence: Halas and Batchelor and the Animated Film in Britain 1940–1947. In War Culture: Social Change and 160 H. PRICE Changing Experience in World War Two, eds. Pat Kirkham and David Thoms, 61–72. London: Lawrence & Wishart Ltd. Wells, Paul. 1997. The Beautiful Village and the True Village: A Consideration of Animation and the Documentary Aesthetic. Art and Animation 12, no. 3/4 (March–April): 40–45. Wells, Paul. 2014. Joy, Britain Needs You. In A Moving Image: Joy Batchelor 1914– 1991, Artist, Writer and Animator, 59–79. London: Southbank Publishing. PART III Brands CHAPTER 8 Animation Across Borders: Schicht Fat Factory and Its Transmedia and Transnational Advertising Strategies Lucie Česálková It is significant that the first preserved animated film associated with the Czech territories is an advertisement for a pencil. Based in České Budějovice, the Koh-i-noor Hardmuth Company (still in operation), manufactured writing and art supplies. In 1925 it ordered Der Zauberblau / The Magic Pencil , an animated sketch by Bruno Granassfrom the Berlinbased Deulig, who used the assignment to experiment with the possibilities of animation. As a film produced in Berlin for a Viennese company based in Czechoslovakia, it illustrated the multinational and multilingual market that was so important for advertising in the region. It also surpassed its utilitarian function to be self-reflexive as it was based on the key metaphor of the magical pencil, and it emphasized the traditional theme of the invisible hand of the artist and metamorphosis.1 As such, The Magic Pencil L. Česálková (B) National Film Archive Prague, Prague, Czech Republic © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_8 163 164 L. ČESÁLKOVÁ identifies several levels of transgression that can be considered representative of Czechoslovak animated advertising from the interwar period: it was international, intermedial, and self-reflexive. This chapter takes up another Czech case study, focussing on the ways in which the Schicht Company, originally an Austro-Hungarian business, organized its animated advertising on a transnational and intermedial basis as a key tool for the company to maintain a unified, yet variable visual campaign in print and film in a complex multilingual European market. Furthermore, the use of animated advertising was bound up with an expression of the specific products and brands of the company, with the transformative powers of animation reflecting the malleable and adaptable commodities made from fat that the company produced. The Multinational Market, the Mass Viewer, and ‘Serial Advertising’ Originally an Austro-Hungarian business, Schicht’s international business strategy successfully supported a sophisticated advertising policy. Specializing in the processing of fat, this family company relocated at the end of the nineteenth century from the North Bohemian town of Liberec to the nearby Ústí nad Labem closer to water and railroad transportation by the German border. At first the key products of the gradually expanding Schicht concern included candles, glycerin, and cooking fats, which were later expanded to include detergents—soap and laundry detergent— and cosmetics. Even before the First World War, Schicht actively did business between Prague, Vienna, and Budapest; in other words, across all of Austria-Hungary, but also in Italy. For this purpose, they issued multiplelanguage versions of their traditional promotional materials, which included the Schicht calendar, the Schicht bulletin, and promotional fairy-tales.2 These early print advertisements indicate that, from the beginning, Schicht was already using a transnational business strategy that eliminated linguistic and cultural differences. During the course of the early twentieth century it issued only minor linguistic variations of the posters, brochures, and aforementioned print materials and regularly tested the visual identity of the individual products. Product logos and their relationship to the overarching Schicht brand were gradually developed in the direction of ever greater simplicity and above all intermedial brand consistency. There was a close connection between specific products and visual elements, such as 8 ANIMATION ACROSS BORDERS: SCHICHT FAT FACTORY … 165 spokescharacters and simple slogans, traveling from packaging across various promotional media (leaflets, calendars, cookbooks, table games, fairy tales, print advertising, street advertising, posters, slides, and films).3 Each Schicht product had its own distinctive visual design, but was always associated with a specific figure or spokescharacter (Smart Housewife, Uncle Boby, or a ‘Bublín’—Bubbleman) and often incorporated a reference to the master Schicht brand through the big letter S, which was reminiscent of a swan’s tail. Product figures had distinctive graphic features (the big hat of the Smart Housewife, big glasses and three hairs of Uncle Boby, the Bubbleman’s body) which enabled easy reproduction and made these figures a key unifying element circulating across all Schicht advertising media related to the particular product. It was these practices that later in the 1920s helped Schicht expand into other international markets and establish itself as the leader of the multinational concern, Unilever.4 Schicht advertising in the 1920s clearly transformed as a result of the postwar breakup of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the emergence of independent nation-states. The new Czechoslovak Republic was considered by advertising experts of the time to be problematic terrain in terms of options for developing effective advertising. Advertising and sales expert, member of the Advertising Club of Czechoslovakia, and head editor of the advertising magazine Typ, Jan Brabec stated ‘In our country we have a relatively small market. It is weak in numbers and advertising activity is further hindered by the fact that the citizenry of our nation speaks various different languages, which of course is not an insurmountable obstacle, but which represents a certain complication in advertising’.5 The nation and its market on the one hand were small, but at the same time multinational and diverse in its languages—besides the Czech majority, the population was 23% German, 6% Hungarian, and 4% Russian, with numerous persons of Jewish and Polish nationality.6 For this reason the advertising industry hoped to turn this feature into an advantage—a hope for this small but multilingual country/market was in the conquering of foreign markets.7 As more recent research has confirmed, Schicht’s decision to homogenize the multinational market through standardized advertising showed great foresight particularly because it was commodities like soap, detergents, cosmetics, and toothpaste that were at the core of Schicht’s production, that ranked with tobacco, non-perishable groceries, beer, and non-alcoholic beverages as the most easily transportable and most profitable goods in multinational markets.8 For this reason, Schicht’s business and its advertising targeted traditional business relationships between Austria, Hungary, and Italy in 166 L. ČESÁLKOVÁ the wider space of Central Europe that had been developed during the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, as well as with opening new business with the west, primarily with Germany. The key obstacle posed by the multinational market of Czechoslovakia from the advertising perspective, namely the linguistic and cultural diversity of the audience, also opened up the doors to international business in the minds of advertising experts. The need to appeal to a wide range of consumers already in the domestic market was reflected by research on the mass audience that recommended using the United States’ approach, in Brabec’s words, that targeted not ‘the customer, but […] the mass of customers’9 basing advertising on these principles. Following period theories of the mass audience Czechoslovak advertising practitioners and psychologists asserted that ‘an idea can take effect only if it is frequently repeated’.10 According to these ideas, the effects of repeated messaging on human attention and memory were greatest if the advertising included both familiar and new features at the same time.11 As a key trend of Czechoslovak advertising practice at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, ‘serial advertising’ was then applied to the mass audience of the multinational market through the integration of new and old visual and linguistic components of advertising messages. The motto ‘each advertisement is different, but one recalls the other’ in practice meant attempting an advertising campaign in the widest possible media spectrum (print, posters, brochures, displays, slides, films, and walking advertisements) and seeking new ways of integrating the individual advertising channels with one another.12 As such, serial advertising was essentially a transmedial concept. This idea of repetition and variation of key advertising elements (logos, product figures/characters, slogans, etc.) fundamentally affected both the advertising industry and advertising aesthetics. The requirement for repetition and variation of visual and textual motifs in the wide media market in Czechoslovakia at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s produced an increased demand for professionalization of the field and the expansion of the advertising industry.13 In the 1930s Prague became a crossroads of artistic and business pathways, when the active advertising industry attracted new agencies, offering more opportunities for artists in the field of functional graphic design. Advertising agencies mostly operated on an international level with contracts for both national and transnational advertising campaigns.14 It was Schicht that took the most systematic advantage of these conditions in the Czech territory in its advertising strategy. For this reason, its film/advertising portfolio was more 8 ANIMATION ACROSS BORDERS: SCHICHT FAT FACTORY … 167 diverse in type, including, for example, films by Berlin based Deulig company, and several films by Karel Dodal. It also included the entire Prague work of György Pál (who adopted the anglicized name George Pal when he moved to Eindhoven, and is discussed further in Chapter 2), which consisted of two animated and one live-action film with animated elements. Schicht’s transmedial advertising campaigns were based on the development of product figures or spokescharacters across media. The basic features of the figure were established in print advertising, where their potential for transposition into audio-visual media was already evident, as the characters addressed the customer with direct speech and were associated with movement. Uncle Boby was presented as a traveler, a Smart Housewife danced and Bubbleman washed the clothes and fluttered with clean towels. Raw materials or products were represented with the potential for change/metamorphosis and therefore movement was already present in the printed version (fats changed into food, the hen and the cow had human bodies and animal heads). This made it easy to translate into radio and film advertising, and to develop basic characteristics and slogans in small narratives. It was an animated film that, at the beginning of the 1930s when photography in advertising was only just becoming established, that presented the simplest tool for transposition of graphic elements of print advertising into film. The Mechanized Language of Advertising and the Magic of Animated Film Animated film was also easily integrated into the vision of ‘serial advertising’, just as the concept of varied repetition was entrenched in the rhetoric of advertising with key aspects of modernity: speed, automation, and mechanization. Jan Brabec perceived advertising explicitly as the language of modernity as well as of a time marked by the expansion of consumer culture, and spoke of it repeatedly as a ‘machine’ or ‘directly mechanical sales language’.15 This perspective nonetheless was not as exclusively utilitarian in its productivism as it initially might seem. Just as it was meant to be mechanical, reliant on scientific foundations, rational and effective, advertising was also meant to be suggestive, poetic, and appealing to emotions. The harmony of these contradictions in its self-presentation was aptly expressed by the advertising expert Jiří Solar, who was described as follows in the advertising strategy of his company: ‘Solar is a technician and a poet. Solar has joined the cold, realist mind of the technician with the ardent heart of 168 L. ČESÁLKOVÁ the poet and the dynamism of a good salesman. He knows how to evaluate facts and ciphers, to evaluate them and present them in an elevated manner, with a new, warm word, and a passionate idea’.16 Animated film in the same period was described as the ‘poetry of [the] unreal’,17 as it managed in a ‘playful’ and simple manner to demonstrate and explain the mystery of the invisible world of science, to be magical and explanatory at the same time, and therefore to ideally fulfill the ideals of poetic and rational advertising.18 The poetic magic can be compared to the very definition of animation described by Tom Gunning as ‘the ability of the image to transform’, which creates a specific experience of time and movement using technology.19 The potential of the ‘wonder of transformation’20 in animation could already be seen by early Czech commentators, who expressed amazement over the miracle of transformation and movement, primarily with inanimate objects. Concealing the actual process of its creation, animation itself appeared mysterious, even though in certain cases, particularly in its popular/scientific use, it removed the mystery of particular phenomena— and enabled it to penetrate the ‘realm of technique’ and ‘the mystery of biological relationships’.21 Yet animation remained internally paradoxical, rational, and magical at the same time, even from the perspective of popular science, whose representational system was based on a ‘dialectic of indexicality and artificiality’, combining the indexical mode of the documentary image with an abstract objectivity of the animated depiction of science, such as diagrams.22 Animation evokes the automation of a machine in its magical simplicity. As such it perfectly suited Czech advertising experts of the 1930s, for ‘Taylorist production is superseded by images and beings that seem to generate spontaneously’,23 and is therefore a perfect fulfillment of the ideal of ‘mechanized language’ or the ‘sales machine’ of advertising. The animator Karel Dodal considered animated advertising to be an adventure in which ‘anything is possible’ and in keeping with this illusion of playful simplicity he built his own creative vision of slapstick animated advertising.24 Slapstick animated advertising in the Czech environment found a wider application because, as Paul Flaig states, it allowed the ‘reflection, sublimation, and satire of Fordism’.25 Karel Dodal in his adverts, for example, explicitly mocked the principles of factory production and at the same time exploited its rhythmical potential. Slapstick animated advertising was thus considered to best suit the requirement of mechanical and concurrently poetical language of the varied repetition of ‘serial advertising’. Combining the explanatory framework of the lecture about the product with typical 8 ANIMATION ACROSS BORDERS: SCHICHT FAT FACTORY … 169 slapstick features such as physical humor and illogical gags, animated advertising at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s became a format that captured the tension between advertising’s educational and humorous objectives.26 Varied repetition, self-reflexivity and a mixture of scientific and magical approaches were also key to Schicht’s aesthetic strategies. Transformative Repetition and Instruction for the Advancement of Schicht Film Advertising Schicht film advertising formed one element in a complex intermedial portfolio in which newspaper inserts dominated along with brochures and posters. In addition, Schicht appealed to its customers through direct mail, calendars, and its own magazine (Schichtův posel / Schicht’s Courier), promotional toys (cutout books, marionette theaters) for children, electrical advertising and slides, as well as many forms of live advertisements associated with sales—such as advertising cars in which sales staff traveled the region and organized lectures with product demonstration. At the same time the last two formats offered other opportunities (in addition to visits to the cinema) during which the customer could encounter film advertising. The different form and focus of films associated with Schicht also corresponded to these different dispositifs.27 The company had a range of industrial films available representing both the history of the company and the workflow of processing the fats from which most of their products were produced,28 and these were used in a variety of exhibition contexts. Some films were included in the educational framework of in-person lectures and demonstrations. These lectures had a very complex structure—not only did they present the Schicht brand and explain the benefits of the goods and the principles of their use, but also entrenched the products of Schicht into wider frameworks of a modern lifestyle. Along with the product, they therefore sold modern consumer behavior—given Schicht’s focus, this consisted primarily of lectures on the lifestyle of the modern woman and her work (with grocery and toiletry products) in the modern household. Emphasis on the moment of change played a significant role in the rhetoric of the lectures, where the lecturer could accentuate the benefits of the new product and associate the Schicht brand with modernity. The tried and tested model of emphasizing the change was used to advantage by Schicht advertising in a refined way on 170 L. ČESÁLKOVÁ multiple levels—change entered as a significant topic into advertising slogans and the plots of advertising films and was also a key principle of their animation devices and methods of ‘serial advertising.’ Film and its techniques (particularly sound and animation) were presented to viewers as another example of modernization and technological change and progress. One part of the lecture was a screening of two Schicht advertising films, one of which was accompanied with a gramophone sound, while the other was a sound film. The lecturer explicitly encouraged the viewer to compare them and experience the thrilling technological progress in cinema. This enjoyment was then compared to the enjoyment of Vitello lard: ‘And just as you welcome this advancement of film and sound engineering, nothing in your kitchen will stand in the way of modern food product Vitello’.29 The first film, Dobrá kuchyně Vitello / Vitello, the Good Cuisine (Excentric Film Berlin, 1930), used cel animation to show the process of baking a chocolate cake. Eggs, flour, chocolate, and other ingredients enter as anthropomorphic figures that pour, sift, and grate themselves into the mixing bowl. The second film, Klip—Klap (1934), in contrast carried the subtitle ‘rhythmic sound film’, and had the sound/rhythmic concept incorporated directly into the text. In this live-action film with elements of animation of physical objects, the familiar figure of the Smart Housewife (with the typically large hat) was portrayed by film star Světla Svozilová, who with clogs and an accordion around her neck played a simple melody that provided rhythm to a child’s day from breakfast to lunch. Vánočka bread, bábovka cake, and potatoes with meat and cauliflower moved on the table in rhythm through the unseen hand of animation, while at the end the words promoting Vitello were accompanied by animated cubes of lard. Both films were rather entertaining, in the direct comparison demanded by the lecturer, however, the sound film was far more convincingly captivating. Giving the instruction for reading the advertising film as part of the development of the cinematographic technique the lecturer fundamentally shaped the viewing experience. Schicht products were introduced as a part of technological progress and a modern lifestyle, represented through the cinema. This was but one type of reflexivity we can reveal in Schicht film/advertising strategy. In addition the display of technological innovations was common in early Czech animated advertising. This allowed the creation of a world of modernity typified by the presence of media—turntables, telephones, and radios were frequent, and even early television was evident.30 8 ANIMATION ACROSS BORDERS: SCHICHT FAT FACTORY … 171 Other types of reflexivity included the representation of product demonstrations and lectures directly in animated advertisements, as was the case for the Schicht films Jája miluje čistotu / Johnnie Loves It Clean (1932) and Prací přehlídka / A Washing Parade (1937). In the film Hanibal v pralese / Hannibal in the Virgin Forest (1932), the character of the monkey promoting Schicht products demonstrates specific processes self-reflexively. Here the animated film is transformed many times through the film screen into an ethnographic documentary (showing old washing techniques of African native women), only to return once again to animated format. This depicts both the very technique of promotion via lecture and film, as well as the popular Schicht hybrid combination of film formats—animation and documentary, more frequently animation and live-action film (for example in the films Schichtal, or Radion [1925], and Bílý jelen / White Deer [1932]). Switching between the modes of live-action, animated, and documentary film prepared the viewer for various types of depictions (photographic image, film image, illustration, and animation), the various types of frameworks in which they could encounter Schicht products and in the spirit of ‘serial advertising’ informed them about their encounters with various graphical variations of the same across different media. Both the emphasis on change and various types of self-reflexivity fulfilled serial advertising’s requirement of transformative repetition—Schicht’s advertising strategy was to repeat, but with some differences (Fig. 8.1). A telling application of this strategy was the use of figures/characters, of whom the one who achieved the greatest utilization was Uncle Boby. Boby was a character associated with the promotion of Vitello lard and was presented as a well-traveled older gentleman who, thanks to his globetrotting, could identify the best products and therefore recommend Vitello lard to the modern housewife. Boby persuaded the viewer by comparing Fig. 8.1 Frame grabs from Hannibal in the Virgin Forest (1932) 172 L. ČESÁLKOVÁ and gauging the exceptional qualities of Vitello against foreign products, as well as through his familiarity with the pulse of the time: ‘Vitello is cheaper and nowadays makes more sense than butter’. Boby’s commentary also indirectly referred to the rhetoric of Schicht industrial films, founded on depictions of hygienic and modern industrial processing. As a spokescharacter Uncle Boby appeared across various media from print to posters and slides to films, and in the hands of various artists he acquired a variety of graphical forms. Boby’s potential to travel across media was supported by the unchanging nature of certain basic contours—a round head with three strands of hair, large glasses and a suit with a tie—otherwise, however, Boby transformed in minor ways even across individual newspaper inserts. In film he appeared once as a marionette (Proměna strýčka Bobyho / The Metamorphosis of Uncle Boby, Excentric Film Berlin, 1930), as well as a drawing (Všechno pro trhanec / Everything for a Scrambled Pancake, IRE-film, Karel Dodal 1937) and as a live actor (Strýček Boby podniká cestu aeroplánem / Uncle Boby Takes a Plane Trip, 1930). Schicht replicated this template only in the typography of the individual brands, while it switched out other elements in keeping with the principles of ‘serial advertising’—consequently the character of Uncle Boby was a collective product by artists operating in film and print media, and as such, exemplified universal advertising strategies for the multinational market (Fig. 8.2). In addition, the ever varying Boby explicitly referred to the transforming capacity of animated advertising as a magical machine. In the film The Metamorphosis of Uncle Boby, Boby must transform into a housewife, because as an old man he does not seem trustworthy to a cow and chicken who do not wish to give him fresh milk and eggs (the only things from which the quality Vitello lard can be made). The transformation of Boby into a housewife is supplied in spirit by the fairy tale tradition of the fairy godfather. The transformation of the ingredients into fat occurs through a similar miracle, but this time in the equipment of a large factory, whose values include not only efficiency, but also perfect sterility. As a miraculous mechanism the factory stands out in the range of other advertisements by Schicht; it acquires an almost demonic character in the film by Karel Dodal Nezapomenutelný plakát / The Unforgettable Poster (1937). The fairytale, the factory and animation have a compelling correspondence here: they are each seemingly self-sufficient instruments of transformation, metamorphosis, and modification, which thematizes progress and change as a part of modern life. The transformative potential of fat became a key narrative principle of Schicht advertising. Both simple substances, like soap bubbles, 8 ANIMATION ACROSS BORDERS: SCHICHT FAT FACTORY … 173 Fig. 8.2 Clockwise from top left: Everything for a Scrambled Pancake (1937), The Metamorphosis of Uncle Boby (1930), Uncle Boby in a press advertisement, Uncle Boby Takes a Plane Trip (1930) and simple stories, like baking with lards, highlighted the gap between presence and absence and revealed the effect of dis/appearance, essential for the im/material rhetoric of animation. Conclusion The subversive potential of hyperbole, humor, and fairy tales allows slapstick animated advertisements to lampoon and thereby familiarize the mechanical character of machines—and, by extension, Schicht Company’s open appeal to progress, rationalization, and modernization, without seeming too abstract. In its advertising strategy, Schicht purposefully developed the core property of its key product. The fat is always changing with its use. It dissolves in food preparation, it dissolves as a soap or detergent, and 174 L. ČESÁLKOVÁ therefore it disappears and/or transforms. Transformation then served as a crucial idea of Schicht’s advertising strategy both on the level of culture and industry, when the advertising, together with commodities, traveled across borders and languages, as well as on the level of media, when the spokescharacter appeared in a range of advertising media. Schicht, however, avoided standardization and complete homogeneity. Its advertising commented on and reflected modern industrial principles and advertising techniques, using both humor and exaggeration. Moreover, Schicht defined its spokescharacters through distinctive visual features and manners in any medium. Nevertheless, Schicht was not interested in buying a license and replicating the character in exactly the same form. Just the opposite—its product-characters, their stories and related advertising messages traveled across various media and collaborated in a complex transmedial advertising campaign, varying according to the style of a particular artist. This specific concept enabled Schicht to be familiar and new at the same time and to move easily across transnational markets. Notes 1. See Crafton, Before Mickey, 87–88. Elaborated in Cowan, “Advertising and Animation,” 95. 2. See Setuza Enterprise Archive. Collection of Promotional Material. The State Regional Archives Litoměřice. Box No. 9. 3. Ibid. 4. Martin Krsek, “Transfery lidského potenciálu” [Transfers of the Human Potential], in Region na hranici [Border Region], eds. Tomáš Velímský and Kateřina Kaiserová (Ústí nad Labem: Univerzita Jana Evangelisty Purkyně, 2015), 285–310. 5. E. Millerová and Jan Brabec, Působivá reklama a jak ji psáti [Impressive Advertising and How to Write It ] (Praha: Sfinx, 1929), 335. Jan Brabec added the experience from the Czech context to the translation of an originally English text. The same thesis, including the concept of serial advertising, was outlined by Brabec in his earlier text: Jan Brabec, Zásady výnosné obchodní reklamy [Profitable Business Advertising Policies ] (Praha: Sfinx, 1927). 6. Census figures from 1921 and 1930 are similar in the distribution of these national minorities. See Andrej Tóth, Lukáš Novotný, and Michal Stehlík, Národnostní menšiny v Československu 1918–1938. Od státu národního ke státu národnostnímu? [National Minorities in Czechoslovakia 1918–1938: From the Nation State to National State] (Praha: FF UK, 2012). 8 ANIMATION ACROSS BORDERS: SCHICHT FAT FACTORY … 175 7. František Uhlíř, Učebnice racionelní reklamy [Textbook of Rational Advertising ] (Praha: František Uhlíř, 1923), 4. 8. See Noreene Z. Janus, “Advertising and the Mass Media: Transnational Link Between Production and Consumption,” Media, Culture and Society 3 (1981): 13–23. 9. E. Millerová and Jan Brabec, Působivá reklama, 334. 10. Alfred Fuchs, “Tisk” [Press], Našinec (October 25, 1927): 1. 11. Rudolf Souček, Kapitoly z praktické psychologie [Chapters from Practical Psychology] (Praha: Melantrich, 1930), 88; Vojta Holman, Reklama a život [Advertising and Life] (Praha: Vojta Holman, 1909); František Uhlíř, Učebnice racionelní reklamy, 5; Jan Brabec, Reklama a její technika [Advertising and Its Technique] (Praha: Orbis, 1946), 102. 12. E. Millerová and Jan Brabec, Působivá reklama, 355–360; Jan Brabec, Reklama a její technika, 102. 13. František Munk et al., Tři roky Reklubu [Three Years of Advertising Club] (Praha: Reklamní klub Československý, 1931). 14. See for example Piras, a. s. The State Regional Archives, Prague. 15. Jan Brabec, Zásady výnosné obchodní reklamy, 116; E. Millerová and Jan Brabec, Působivá reklama, 333. 16. Jiří Solar, Reklamní příručka [Advertising Guide] (Praha: Jiří Solar, 1938). 17. -nk-, “Kreslený film—poesie neskutečna” [Cartoon—Poetry of Unreal], Večerník Práva lidu (August 2, 1936): 3. 18. R. Říha, “Filmové zázraky” [Film Wonders], Kinorevue (August 4, 1937): 474–475. 19. Tom Gunning, “The Transforming Image: The Roots of Animation in Metamorphosis and Motion,” in Pervasive Animation, ed. Suzanne Buchan (New York and London: Routledge, 2013), 52–70. 20. Ibid. 21. R. Říha, “Filmové zázraky,” 474. 22. For a discussion on animation and scientific representation see the work of Kirsten Ostherr, especially Chapter 2 in Kirsten Ostherr, Cinematic Prophylaxis: Globalization and Contagion in the Discourse of World Health (London and Durham: Duke University Press, 2005). 23. Scott Bukatman, “Disobedient Machines: Animation and Autonomy,” in Beyond the Finite: The Sublime in Art and Science, eds. Roald Hoffmann and Iain Boyd Whyte (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 128–148. 24. Karel Dodal, “Reklama kresleným filmem (Trikfilm),” Zpravodaj zemského svazu kinematografů v Čechách (September 10, 1927): 5–6. 25. See Paul Flaig, “Slapstick After Fordism: WALL-E, Automatism and Pixar’s Fun Factory,” Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 11 (2016): 56–74. 26. Jan Brabec, Zásady výnosné obchodní reklamy, 290–291. 176 L. ČESÁLKOVÁ 27. According to Frank Kessler, the concept of dispositif helps to focus on different uses of the same text within changing exhibition settings and institutional framings. Frank Kessler, “Notes on Dispositif,” Unpublished paper, Utrecht Media Research Seminar, 2006. See also Frank Kessler, “The Cinema of Attractions as Dispositif,” in The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded, ed. Wanda Strauven (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), 57–69. 28. For example Apollo Candels Manufacturing, Manufacturing of Margarine, Manufacturing of Coconut Oil, etc. 29. Lectures of a four-day course on the rationalization of household spending within the Ceres and Vitello advertising campaign. Setuza Enterprise Archive. Collection of Promotional Material. The State Regional Archives Litoměřice. Box No. 17. 30. See for example Karel Dodal’s movies What’s New on TV (IRE-film, 1936) or The Secret of the Lucerna Palace (IRE-film, 1936), but also Kalodont toothpaste advertising What We Miss and What We Have (IRE-film, 1935). Bibliography Brabec, Jan. 1927. Zásady výnosné obchodní reklamy [Profitable Business Advertising Policies]. Praha: Sfinx. Brabec, Jan. 1946. Reklama a její technika [Advertising and Its Technique]. Praha: Orbis. Bukatman, Scott. 2011. “Disobedient Machines: Animation and Autonomy.” In Beyond the Finite: The Sublime in Art and Science, eds. Roald Hoffmann and Iain Boyd Whyte, 128–148. New York: Oxford University Press. Cowan, Michael. 2016. “Advertising and Animation: From the Invisible Hand to Attention Management.” In Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau, 93–113. London: BFI— Palgrave. Crafton, Donald. 1993. Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898–1928. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Flaig, Paul. 2016. “Slapstick After Fordism: WALL-E, Automatism and Pixar’s Fun Factory.” Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 11: 56–74. Gunning, Tom. 2009. “The Transforming Image: The Roots of Animation in Metamorphosis and Motion.” In Pervasive Animation, ed. Suzanne Buchan, 52–70. New York and London: Routledge. Hediger, Vinzenz, and Patrick Vonderau, eds. 2009. Films That Work: Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press. Holman, Vojta. 1909. Reklama a život [Advertising and Life]. Praha: Vojta Holman. Janus, Noreene Z. 1981. “Advertising and the Mass Media: Transnational Link Between Production and Consumption.” Media, Culture and Society 3: 13–23. 8 ANIMATION ACROSS BORDERS: SCHICHT FAT FACTORY … 177 Kessler, Frank. 2006a. “Notes on Dispositif.” Unpublished paper, Utrecht Media Research Seminar. Kessler, Frank. 2006b. “The Cinema of Attractions as Dispositif.” In The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded, ed. Wanda Strauven, 57–69. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Krsek, Martin. 2015. “Transfery lidského potenciálu” [Transfers of the Human Potential]. In Region na hranici [Border Region], eds. Tomáš Velímský and Kateřina Kaiserová, 285–310. Ústí nad Labem: Univerzita Jana Evangelisty Purkyně. Millerová, E., and Jan Brabec. 1929. Působivá reklama a jak ji psáti [Impressive Advertising and How to Write It]. Praha: Sfinx. Munk, František et al. 1931. Tři roky Reklubu [Three Years of Advertising Club]. Praha: Reklamní klub Československý. Ostherr, Kirsten. 2005. Cinematic Prophylaxis: Globalization and Contagion in the Discourse of World Health. London and Durham: Duke University Press. Solar, Jiří. 1938. Reklamní příručka [Advertising Guide]. Praha: Jiří Solar. Souček, Rudolf. 1930. Kapitoly z praktické psychologie [Chapters from Practical Psychology]. Praha: Melantrich. Tóth, Andrej, Lukáš Novotný, and Michal Stehlík. 2012. Národnostní menšiny v Československu 1918–1938. Od státu národního ke státu národnostnímu? [National Minorities in Czechoslovakia 1918–1938: From the Nation State to National State]. Praha: FF UK. Uhlíř, František. 1923. Učebnice racionelní reklamy [Textbook of Rational Advertising]. Praha: František Uhlíř. Wells, Paul. 2011. “The Chaplin Effect: Ghosts in the Machine and Animated Gags.” In Funny Pictures: Animation and Comedy in Studio-Era Hollywood, eds. Daniel Goldmark and Charlie Keil, 15–28. London and Los Angeles: University of California Press. CHAPTER 9 Just Do It, Impossible Is Nothing: Animation and Sports Commercials Paul Wells Calling Forth The first Nike ‘Just Do It’ advertisement in 1988 featured 80-year-old Walt Stack, a renowned American athlete, still running 17 miles each morning. His run across the Golden Gate Bridge epitomized the idea of transcending apparent or expected limitations to achieve self-determined ends. If an 80year-old former athlete could still do it, it implied, it was merely a matter of just doing it, and with that, the idea that any younger, reasonably fit person, could do it. Goldman and Papson argue the phrase speaks to ‘the restraint and inhibition in everyday life that keep people from the experience of transcendence. Nike provides a language of self-empowerment—no matter who you are, no matter what your physical, economic or social limitations. Transcendence is not just possible, it is waiting to be called forth’.1 In this chapter I wish to argue that animation and animated visual effects are also an act of ‘calling forth’ that produces transcendent, or at the very least P. Wells (B) Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK e-mail: p.wells@lboro.ac.uk © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_9 179 180 P. WELLS alternative narrative, meaning and affect as it is presented in commercial sport campaigns. Crucially, even in its most conservative applications, animation’s rhetorical condition always calls material reality and its ideologically charged construction into relief, offering at minimum, a possible ‘thinking space’ in which revision, reflection or intervention is implied. Animation’s capacity to enunciate its own self-referential ‘difference’ in essence insists upon an alternative ‘register’ of expression in whatever technique or approach is employed. When used in deliberately politically or commercially charged contexts, animation can suggest alternative perspectives, and in the case of its use in Nike and Adidas commercials often encourages a philosophic engagement with moral and ethical discourses outside mere market imperatives. Though these ‘philosophic’ agendas are not innocent or neutral, and work singularly in the service of selling things, it is nevertheless pertinent to suggest that the very embeddedness of the advertising ‘text’ in the crossplatform mediated deliveries in contemporary culture renders it likely to co-opt trends, emergent identities and fresh social concepts as part of its agenda and message. As such, it operates as a site in which a seamless integration of cultural forms and practices is assumed and naturalized as a model of consumption. Further, such texts are the embodiment of the normalization of a late industrial capitalism with a global infrastructure. I wish to suggest that the use of both classical animation and its digital applications within visual effects place into relief these issues of normalization and naturalization, and may be viewed as a way to assess social values and ideological perspectives as they have been inculcated in conventional representation. This becomes especially pertinent when related to sports advertising because it is often freighted with related political discourses about race, gender, celebrity, health and well-being, but crucially, about physical activity. As Boyd has noted, for example, ‘Much like musicians who talk about their “music” or filmmakers discussing their “films”, basketball players regard their abilities in much the same way as a craft. This definition of physical activity as art is a radical departure from the elitist definitions often associated with the concept of art in Western Culture’.2 I wish to argue then, that animation and animated visual effects are also both a further recognition of ‘physical activity as art’ and an extension of its potentially radical possibilities. 9 JUST DO IT, IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING … 181 Alluring Plays, Animated Anarchy Nike first produced basketball icon Michael Jordan’s ‘Air Jordan’ shoes in 1985, and benefited from the fact that the red and black shoes violated the NBA’s dress code. The subsequent ban on the shoes (or specifically the Nike ‘air ship’ that promoted them), and Jordan’s defiance in wearing them (Nike paid his fines), led to unprecedented sales for the shoe now dubbed ‘Banned’. From 1987, Nike’s iconic ‘Air Jordan’ ads featuring fan-boy, Mars Blackmon, played by director, Spike Lee, and Jordan himself, were filmed in black and white, and crucially, associated Jordan with the Nike ‘swoosh’. The ‘swoosh’ was at first an intentionally ‘empty signifier’ without specific meaning.3 In line with McFall’s view, though, this simply meant that rather than imposing meaning at the semiotic level, the ‘swoosh’ itself took on meaning through its use in social practices and other means of cultural production.4 It was Jordan’s very ‘movement’ that was essentially defining a product and ultimately, a brand. As Boyd remarks ‘basketball was a game perfectly suited to the fast-paced visual culture that television now offered on a regular basis, a visual style which had a lot to do with the spectacle of music videos…basketball’s spectacular nature works perfectly when distilled to the most visually alluring plays’.5 Lee was clearly aware of these shifting trends but, conversely, based his commercials on rapid editing and comic repetition that clearly drew upon Looney Tunes cartoons in pacing, editing, and exaggerated expression, rather than ‘alluring plays’. The sheer athleticism of Jordan’s leaps was often recorded in ‘human highlight’ films and stressed—often in slow motion—the sheer lyricism of his motion.6 Lee’s aesthetic leaned more to the rapid-edit-as-animation like those in animated shorts by Jan Svankmajer, including Muzné Hry / Virile Games (Jan Svankmajer, 1988), and particularly featured in Nobody, Nobody, Nobody (Spike Lee, Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 1988), You Cannot Do This (Spike Lee, Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 1989) and Kapeesh ? (Spike Lee, Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 1989), which all adopted the indirect reverse psychology of suggesting that even if someone purchased these shoes, they could never play like Jordan. No Mars (Spike Lee, Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 1990) even goes so far as to include a disclaimer, ‘Mr. Jordan’s remarks do not represent those of Nike Inc’, when he constantly denies that all the equipment he wears enables him to play well. 182 P. WELLS Crucially, these light-hearted commercials were memorable for the relationship between Lee and Jordan, and ultimately become about the problem of actually representing Jordan’s extraordinary ability. Action Photos (Spike Lee, Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 1991) uses a series of polaroids of Jordan’s feet supposedly in flight to signify his prowess; A Scientific Explanation (Spike Lee, Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 1991) uses a college professor to explain Jordan’s physical prowess; while Little Richard the Genie (Spike Lee, Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 1992), featuring rock ‘n’ roll veteran Little Richard as a genie, actually turns Mars Blackmon into Jordan, referencing Muhammed Ali in the process by saying ‘I am the Greatest’. These shorts signal Lee’s urgency in pushing the limits of the cinematic apparatus, especially as it had been used in commercials, towards the condition of animation, in which apparently hyper-realist imagery, through some of the first deployments of the Adobe Digital non-linear editing techniques, took on a ‘cartoonal’ veneer. It was clear, however, that extending and redefining Jordan’s skills was only possible by placing Jordan within a classical animation environment and exaggerating the characteristics of sporting aesthetics by using classical cartoon conventions. It was this that drew animation and sport into closer alliance. As a forerunner of Space Jam (Joe Dytka, 1996), Nike paired Jordan with Bugs Bunny in a 90 second commercial, also featuring Marvin the Martian, but enhanced the importance of the concept in a commercial made for Super Bowl 1992, by suggesting Jordan had been reunited with ‘one of the most powerful icons of the twentieth century’ in Warner Bros.’ most famous star. It should be remembered that the general public would not have recalled the early cartoon experiments by Disney and the Fleischer brothers mixing cartoon and live-action, and further that even if this mix was recalled from films like Dangerous When Wet (Charles Walters, 1953), when Tom and Jerry swim with Esther Williams, the idea was seen as novelty not innovation. While there is self-evident hyperbole and irony in making a grandiose statement about Bugs’ significance, especially given Jordan’s own status as a sporting superstar, Bugs possesses a major recognition factor as an animated character whose identity has passed seamlessly into popular culture. After Mickey Mouse, Bugs had become the cartoon’s most wellknown signifier and ambassador. The 60 second spot shows Bugs and Jordan—‘Who’d ja expect, Elmer Fudd?’—taking revenge on four villains at basketball in a plot that echoed Bugs’ standard narrative set-up in his cartoons, in which he is disturbed from sleep in his underground warren, then provoked and attacked, before 9 JUST DO IT, IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING … 183 declaring ‘you know, of course, this means war’. Thereafter, the ad includes a compendium of cartoon sight gags, including slam-dunking an anvil, a cross-dressing Bugs, the Tex Avery patented holding-a-sign-out-with-acomment-directed-straight-to-the-audience (‘silly, aren’t they?) and Jordan pulling back the shrinking black ‘iris’ that concludes the commercial to say ‘That’s all folks’, only to be interrupted by an irate Fudd insisting that this is his line. This idea of featuring both animation and sports stars proved very significant in that professional sport was successfully integrated with another medium, simultaneously making it accessible to a children’s audience, but also speaking to the affection with which Looney Tunes were held by those adults who had enjoyed cartoons since their own childhoods. Professional sport took on new identity in the TV era moving from its status as a mass spectating social practice to a mass viewing cultural practice7 —a process interestingly recorded in the Goofy sports cartoons made between 1941– 1951.8 Importantly, too, it was also proving necessary to actually feature and reinvent sport to sell sports products, and this crossover approach to aspirant youth and middle-class adults, with considerable investment in leisure time, and disposable income to pay for it was highly successful. It also spoke directly to the split marketplace noted earlier—sports equipment (for dedicated professional and amateur athletes and participants), and sport related coverage (for the committed viewers of Saturday morning cartoons, adult and child). This also chimed with Be Like Mike (Bernie Pitzel, Bayer Bess Vanderwarker Agency, 1991) the now iconic Gatorade commercial, featuring Jordan, whose original song was only written because the Disney studio charged too much to use a rewritten version of ‘I Wanna Be Like You’. The commercial was later reconfigured as an animation called Groove Like Mike (Henri and Sebastian, TBWA/CHIAT/DAY Agency, 2015). Jordan’s currency as an athlete, and importantly, as a Black athlete, aligned with Lee’s urban, independent identity, and spoke directly to Black audiences. Lee’s auteur persona very much associated him with the emergent rap, hip-hop and R&B music defined by Black urban artists, and the always ‘live’ race-related discourses in the United States. Jordan, however, epitomized excess in sporting talent—it was the Warner Bros. cartoon texts that ultimately exaggerated his abilities into the super-iconic and superheroic. While this was valuable for Nike’s overall investment in Jordan as its leading figure, it arguably divided audiences. On the one hand, this diluted Jordan’s effect by making him a more universal figure and less of a Black icon; on the other, amplifying him as the most celebrated Black 184 P. WELLS athlete operating as the most aspirational figure for Black (and White) audiences. The animation in the Nike commercials in essence ‘called forth’ these discourses for the first time, as the ‘cartoon’ had essentially drawn Jordan into a mainstream visual aesthetic. There is some irony here, in that normative White audiences—despite the cartoon’s affiliation with jazz, and the Black idioms drawn upon by the Fleischers and Warner Bros. in the 1930s— essentially saw cartoons as free from ‘identity politics’. Disney, even in spite of its own gothic idioms, had inculcated the cartoon as a somehow innocent medium. By drawing upon the more adult stylings and pacing of the Fleischers and Warner Bros. Lee’s interventions made Black culture more familiar through cartoon idioms familiar to White audiences. Boyd argues that Jordan embodied a ‘fusion of the formal and the vernacular’,9 combining ‘textbook’ basketball skills with an accessible grasp of Black idioms that spoke to Black audiences. His identity within ‘the cartoon’, however, helped to broker his identity with a wider audience, and seal his cultural function as a role model for all. Role models come with different identities, though, and if Jordan spoke to clean-cut, positive values, and a more benign version of Black culture, Phoenix Suns’ basketball star, Charles Barkley’s I Am Not a Role Model (Michael Owens, Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 1992) took a more abrasive stance, once more adopting the ironic tactics of denial used by Jordan and Lee earlier. Barkley simply asserts ‘I am not a role model. I am not paid to be a role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I can dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids’. This assertive resistance to the implicit moral and ethical coding of ensuring that as a superstar athlete and celebrity, behaviour on and off the field, carried positive connotations, Barkley cast himself as a streetwise, urban sceptic. This ultimately enabled him to actually play a villain in Space Jam, and to be on the opposition team to Jordan and Warner Bros’. roster of cartoon stars, Bugs and Lola Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. Crucially, this once again, pushed the boundaries in reaching different market sectors, and allowed both ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ to assume some notion of ‘cool’. Though Barkley’s commercial was not animated, it drew into relief the complexity of politicized Black identity, which sometimes needed to accommodate more aggressive engagements with play, and advance a cultural mythology that included resistance and ambivalence. Once more, it was animation that enabled these contradictory and contrary positions to find a place in mainstream discourses. 9 JUST DO IT, IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING … 185 This approach, accommodating both Jordan’s and Barkley’s persona, was both a vindication of Black culture, and an implied critique of an inhibiting White patriarchal thinking, and was fully played out in Nike’s first puppet stop-motion animation, L’il Penny (Stacy Wall, Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 1995), in which Chris Rock voices a small puppet ‘alter ego’ of Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway, the Orlando Magic point guard. Hardaway was viewed as the heir apparent to Jordan’s mantle as basketball’s superstar figure, but his public persona was of a quiet, modest man that neither spoke to the universal reach of Jordan, or to established models of urban ‘cool’. The marketing of Hardaway allowed Nike to return to both the principles of ‘Just Do It’—Hardaway’s civility makes him seem disinterested in the hype that might surround him, and heightens his dedication to just playing the game—and to a new model in which animation could be used as a playful filter for oppositional discourses to core ‘White’ ideologies. Boyd suggests that a clear ‘Afro-American aesthetic’ defined basketball, part informed by ‘nigga’ politics, gangsta culture, and new Black identities, epitomized in the increasingly controversial figure of Dennis Rodman.10 Nike embraced this through the figure of ‘L’il Penny’, knowing that once again, animation dilutes as it may amplify—the puppet’s comic identity renders this radical discourse overtly but filters its potential threat to mainstream audiences. Rock, as the puppet ‘alter ego’ articulates what the shy Hardaway does not, wisecracking critiques of other players and teams, using Black urban idioms, and playing out the trappings of the celebrity ‘party-animal’. The use of the animated puppet, made by M5i, the San Francisco based VFX company, who made puppets for James and the Giant Peach (Henry Selick 1996) and remote controlled shoes for Nike, enables Hardaway to sustain his authenticity, while also enabling the overall discourse of the commercials to satirize conventional models of representation. In one commercial, Living Room (Stacy Wall, Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 1995) Hardaway and his puppet alter ego watch a commercial on television, which shows Hardaway as a gold-suited lounge entertainer, promoting Nike shoes, but with old school, mainstream show business values. L’il Penny stares sceptically at an embarrassed Hardaway, and using a Nike in-joke, says ‘Well, I guess Spike Lee wasn’t available’. The puppet facilitates the re-dismissal of mainstream advertising by ‘calling forth’ the resonance of the original Air Jordan ads, and the meaning and affect that comes from knowing that this culturally embedded concept transcends conservative models of White representation. This transcendence by implication is reinforced 186 P. WELLS by the very ordinariness of watching a superstar basketball player sitting at home watching TV, in essence taking the place of the assumed White viewer, yet reasserting the cultural impact of Black culture through the medium of animation. While all these identities are cultural fabrications, Hardaway’s apparent domesticity also acknowledges the audience’s particular relationship to the television culture and mainstream conservative advertising—now appropriated by Nike. It is a domesticity signified again in another commercial, That Was Tyra Banks, Fool ! (Stacy Wall, Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 1996) when Hardaway is merely out driving with his alter ego puppet, and it is the puppet who reminds him ‘you know what your problem is? You’re too modest. Hey, I give good quotes’, at which point he notices supermodel, Tyra Banks, in an adjacent car, and starts showing off to her in order to win her affections. While ‘calling forth’ celebrity culture and the mediation of identity in the text of the advertisement, the animation itself permits L’il Penny to voice some of the assumed clichés of less conservative representations of Black culture, and call forth a critique of these discourses to vindicate Hardaway’s ‘authenticity’ outside the social and cultural constructions these perspectives and exchanges evidence. More importantly, by giving voice to less conservative notions of Black identity, and Hardaway’s seemingly ‘authentic’ persona, this prompts recognition of an African-American aesthetic that is cool, urban but non-threatening that revises White constructs of Blackness both in sport and animation. Such was the success of the campaign in selling Air Penny shoes, L’il Penny commercials ran for two more years, and gained considerable cult following. Three Circles of Influence It is this sense of authenticity that Nike also sought to promote in their 2008 campaign entitled ‘Here I Am’ to encourage wider participation and interest in sport by young women. Though again, it seems necessary to qualify that the campaign is intrinsically a commercial, I wish to argue that the act of selling is not necessarily without value, nor always an apparently exploitative act. Equally, new campaigns are inevitably in competition with other campaigns informed by a particular outlook and ethos, and must necessarily speak to what Conlon describes as ‘the three circles of influence’: ‘the first circle relates to understanding an underlying social tension that desperately requires resolving. The second circle relates to the core brand that expresses reasons for the brand’s very existence. And the third 9 JUST DO IT, IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING … 187 circle connects a specific unmet customer need in a way that the brand can legitimately address’.11 When establishing the ‘Just Do It’ campaign, for example, Nike was speaking to the effect of economic recession and its impact on sports programmes in schools; increasing obesity in young people; and Reebok’s hold on the concept of promoting ‘fitness’ and successfully reaching the female market. All future campaigns would thereafter seek to play out concepts that were both market-centred and competitive, but also in some way socially redemptive, in order to transcend the commonly held view that money-making is the central, and only imperative of all commercial activity. Arguably, in a late capitalist global economy, where this is the only imperative, to have a ‘bigger’ message that speaks to people first, and profit later, may well stand out as even more commercially sound outlook. The first product of the ‘Here I Am’ campaign was a limited edition coffee table book featuring graphic narratives of twenty-two ‘journeys to confidence’ experienced by the young woman athletes, each expressed in a different illustrative style to stress the individuality of each athlete and specificity of sport.12 Five stories became animated films, featuring judo practitioner Delphine Desalle (Here I Am: Do Judo, Adam Marko-Nord, 2008), tennis player Maria Sharapova (Here I Am: Be Your Own Fan, Sophie Gateau, 2008),13 sprinter and hurdler Nicola Sanders (Here I Am: Conversations from the Inside, Luis Nieto, 2008), triathlete Nicola Spirig (Here I Am: Show Me Your Dark Side Mother Nature, Edouard Salier, 2008) and long jumper Simona La Mantia (Here I Am: A Short Story of a Tall Girl, Luis Nieto, 2008), each ultimately becoming a vindication of the synthesis between the sporting narrative defining each athlete and the animation technique employed. Sharapova’s trajectory from a schoolgirl tennis player born in Siberia to mass-mediated global icon is played out in clashing drawn lines, one colour-coded blue for images delineating key moments in her development and success, one colour-coded red for the sexist and prejudicial judgements and criticism she encounters along the way. The theme of triumph over adversity is embedded in these symbolic visual motifs, suggesting that success for a woman in sport, and by extension, life itself, is perpetually challenged by patriarchal culture, and its inherently reactionary stance. It is a perspective shared by the animation featuring Delphine Desalle in which she defeats Vikings, Hells Angels, ninjas, construction workers, robot toys and action figures as judo combatants in a flowing and seamless bout that concludes with her fending off all opposition, removing her black belt and saying ‘Too macho?, I don’t think 188 P. WELLS so’. The animation here has physically empowered Desalle so that she can make her point about the physical presence and cultural impact of masculine stereotypes, without being compromised by her actual size. Though in the material world Desalle may well still be able to engage in a real encounter, her representation in animated form elevates the fight between a woman and hyper-muscular foes to a metaphoric level, simultaneously foregrounding female identity, promoting greater integration for modern womanhood, and in a similar vein to Sharapova, countering the patriarchal norm of viewing women as sexual objects. In the latter context, the sporting body can take on fetishistic allure, but its re-presentation in animation— Sharapova as a drawn graphic, Desalle as a plastic action figure—permits each to have an alternative and potentially radical social identity. Again, ‘physical activity as art’ radicalizes the presentational space, and offers alternative social perspectives, even while selling material culture. The film featuring sprinter and hurdler Nicola Sanders takes this to its logical conclusion. The use of animation enables Sanders not to be defined by her external appearance but by her internal organs, which are not only rendered visible, but take on human characteristics. This anthropomorphic strategy, common in animated film, is both comic and alludes to other kinds of motion aesthetics in animation from video games to medical imaging. Leg muscles cry out in pain; the ear responds to a starting gun; the brain rationalizes the body’s physical health; the heart becomes emotional, all in the service of the physical limits that must be transcended to secure victory. The commercial effectively dramatizes biometric tension as the running figure exhibits the interplay between straining organs, muscles and bloodlines on the inside of the body. Sanders, then, is less defined by the narrative of the external world of commercial and celebrity culture, and more by the understanding of the interior feelings and capabilities of her body; feelings and capabilities only readily exposed by animation. Triathlete Nicola Spirig’s trials as a swimmer, cyclist and runner are presented as a journey through a brutal science-fictional terrain, populated by monstrous robots and reptilian clouds. Spirig has the strength and skill to endure this terrain, quietly negotiating the obstacles, immune to the excesses of ‘mother nature’ and the more violent attentions of machines and the elements. Again, animated narratives enable and enact this analogy. If Sanders’ experience is presented as an internal landscape, Spirig’s becomes an external landscape, both dramatizing sport as conflict and challenge. This is illustrated further in the film featuring long jumper, Simona La Mantia, who in animation can literally leap across impossible landscapes 9 JUST DO IT, IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING … 189 (space) and through day and night (time) to prove that ‘Not fitting in gave me a reason to stand out’. The film presents La Mantia as a giant figure among her peers, a social outcast, who mobilizes her talent to transcend the limits of her situation. While the use of animation encourages aspirational and affective appeal, it nevertheless places issues of authenticity into relief as acts of political and ludic agency. By placing these women in animated scenarios in which their sport is not merely seen as an act of physical labour but as a metaphoric act, they each take on a radical social identity. In permitting amplification of this sort, ‘calling forth’ a literal interpretation of a metaphoric act, animation encourages an empathy with both an idea and a feeling simultaneously. As such the concept and the context precede commerce while ultimately reinforcing it. Nike’s aspirational philosophy was equally matched by Adidas in their slogan, ‘Impossible is Nothing’, although the company outlook in the first instance was entirely pragmatic in wanting durability in their equipment and the protection it provided for athletes. The phrase was attributed to one of Muhammad Ali’s renowned rants in advance of the second Ali versus Joe Frazier encounter in 1974, but it is likely that it was actually created by the advertising agency, 180/TBWA in Amsterdam or TBWA/CHIAT/DAY in San Francisco. The phrase is part of a longer text: ‘impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in a world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing’ (see Impossible Is Nothing [Sean Flores and Aimee Lehto, 180/TBWA/CHIAT/DAY Agency, 2004]). The early commercials supporting this idea showed a young Ali apparently fighting his daughter, Laila Ali (Ali vs Ali, Lance Acord, 180/TBWA/CHIAT/DAY Agency, 2004),14 while in another later commercial (The Long Run, Sid Lee Agency, 2011) contemporary athletes like Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, and Tracy McGrady appear to accompany Ali on an early morning run he made in 1974. These animated visual effects employing digital layering make the idea of ‘impossible is nothing’ a literal outcome—once again, time and space has been transcended to apparently evidence the proof that nothing is impossible if it can be effectively and persuasively visualized in animated interventions. These more hyper-realistic animated effects persist throughout Adidas’ campaigns and, in the same way as classical cartoon animation, create an alternative visual regime that refuses normalization and naturalization. 190 P. WELLS ‘Physical Activity as Art’ continues as a presiding theme, even transcending the nature of physical activity itself, and reinventing the parameters of animated art. This is evidenced in Impossible Field (Daniel Kleinman, 180 Amsterdam Agency, 2005) a match seemingly played out on a raised metal framed pitch, where high energy soccer is executed acrobatically in midair, sliding tackles are made on precarious beams, shots aimed with adventurous leaps. This approach permits a hyper-aestheticism that emerges from hyper-athleticism—the body and the game is re-contextualized in a way that moves beyond its material limits and imagines a challenging, yet freer state of play. In order to prove ‘impossible’ can be overcome, it must be first created, and then made to seem ordinary in some way—again, animation can dilute one aspect of the image while amplifying another. The very ‘gesture’ of the action is heightened in order to vindicate and verify the ways in which the seemingly non-negotiable terrain has not merely been naturalized, but made to operate as a context that has become ‘nothing’ in the face of the talent that may be seen playing within it. Adidas was careful to recognize, however, that such science-fictional trappings can also serve to de-humanize and distanciate physical capability and achievement even if it seems that the ‘before-our-very-eyes’/‘cameranever-lies’ imagery seems to authenticate experience. In a similar fashion to Nike, this was all about finding particular kinds of relatable narratives in the actions and lifestyles of athletes that would appeal to viewers. This resulted in a number of commercials in the ‘Impossible is Nothing’ campaign in 2007, in which an athlete would draw their earliest formative memory of childhood engagement with what they ultimately achieved as professional and world-class performers. These drawings then become animated narrating the athlete’s story, but more significantly prompting a certain empathy and emotional affect in viewers as they recall their own childhoods and embrace the apparent simplicity of the expression. Animation is particularly conducive at communicating memory in this sense, as a memory is not only something that has happened in the past, but can be rendered in a form familiar to anyone who as a child sought to apprehend the feelings and events of existence in naïve ‘stick’ drawings. This aesthetic seems embedded with the visual vernacular of innocence and inexperience; a formative sense of the untrained and natural that all might share and take inspiration from. In this it echoes the idea of ‘the formal and the vernacular’ that Boyd saw in Jordan’s public persona and market identity and, arguably, may be central to sporting figures in these texts, and to the use of animation as a form. 9 JUST DO IT, IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING … 191 England footballer David Beckham, for example, draws himself at the moment when he was sent off for pettily kicking out at Diego Simeone when playing for England against Argentina in the quarter-final of the World Cup in 1998, and the viewer sees his lonely, embarrassed and painful trudge from the pitch into the tunnel and then into a dark forest populated by monsters (Impossible Is Nothing: David Beckham, Sean Thompson and Dean Maryon, 180 Amsterdam, 2007). This gothic scenario in many ways overstates the importance of the incident but emphasizes the emotional impact felt by Beckham, something similar to Spirig’s narrative cited earlier. In the voice-over he describes the extent of the critical backlash from sports commentators and the public alike, even resulting in death threats. This mood and tone is relieved when we see the same figure scoring a free kick in the final moments of the 2002 World Cup qualifying game against Greece, a red ball in the corner of the goal replacing the earlier red card of his dismissal. Beckham stresses how necessary it is to stay strong in the face of adversity and overcome setbacks. In a quasi-fairytale narrative, Beckham is ‘out of the woods’, having overcome his demons, and in a rite of passage, secured maturity and salvation from the despair that came out of his earlier naivety and inexperience as a 23-year old. The ‘impossibility’ of coming to terms with what went wrong and the public approbation Beckham received is made ‘nothing’ by his perseverance and the eventual triumph of his skill and quality as a footballer, but more significantly, as a person. Innocence is metaphorically replaced by experience; public error corrected by enhanced self-knowledge; life events animated into a story with narrative and counter-narrative. Physical Activity as Art These narratives—like those in all the commercials addressed here—hint at the idea that they operate as secular folk-tales; personal mythologies that vindicate a moral and ethical stance against the injustices or inhibitions of everyday life. By employing an ‘ugly duckling to proud swan’ story arc, and playing this out in the child-related idioms of illustrative drawing and animation, the commercials cease to directly sell sport, but sell through sport, making it less about spectacles of play, and more about rites of passage experiences, and familiar narrative themes and concepts. Animation, whether used as the fantasy of performance in a hyperrealistic manner or in more personalized hand-drawn animation of childhood-expression, shifts the properties of material space to those of 192 P. WELLS a more psychological and emotional space, and is particularly pertinent in enabling sport to be seen as social metaphor and as cultural iconography. While more obviously ‘cartoonal’ animation makes this explicit, the ‘invisible’ currencies in hyper-realistic animation implicitly reinforce ‘impossible’ imagery, both aesthetic strategies elevating the ‘idea’ of sport and not merely its execution. Instead of being read singularly as an act of athletic performance—the province of broadcast sport—animation and animated visual effects insist sport is a rhetorical enactment of affective life choices and lifestyles. These are normally about the ways in which animation permits the depiction of the ‘idea’ of aspiration in the service of elevating self-esteem and personal identity by playing or identifying with sport. It permits the expression of scenarios in the service of promoting sport as a quasi-utopian phenomenon translating commercial imperatives into expressions of fantasy and empathy, disguising hard sell as soft power, and promoting sport as a means and a method for reconciliation, and radicalism. Notes 1. Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, Nike Culture (London: Sage, 1998), 19. 2. Todd Boyd, Am I Black Enough For You? Popular Culture from the ‘Hood and Beyond (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 111. 3. Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, Nike Culture, 17. 4. See Liz McFall, Advertising: A Cultural Economy (London: Sage, 2004). 5. Todd Boyd, Am I Black Enough For You? Popular Culture from the ‘Hood and Beyond, 117. 6. Ibid., 108. 7. See Steven Barnett, Games and Sets: The Changing Face of Sport on Television (London: BFI, 1990). 8. Paul Wells, Animation, Sport & Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 78–96. 9. Todd Boyd, Am I Black Enough For You? Popular Culture from the ‘Hood and Beyond, 111. 10. Ibid., 119–127. 11. See J. Conlon, “The Brand Brief Behind Nike’s Just Do It Campaign,” August 5, 2015. brandingstrategyinsider.com. Last Accessed August 5, 2018. 12. Paul Wells, Animation, Sport & Culture, 170–176. 13. Interviews with Directors, Adam Marko-Nord and Sophie Gateau about the films, feature in the catalogue for The Beautiful Frame: Animation & Sport Exhibition (Loughborough University/National Football Museum, 2017). 9 JUST DO IT, IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING … 193 14. See E. Neel, “New Adidas Ad Lands the Perfect Combo,” espn.com. Last Accessed August 5, 2018. Bibliography Barnett, Steven. 1990. Games and Sets: The Changing Face of Sport on Television. London: BFI. Boyd, Todd. 1997. Am I Black Enough For You? Popular Culture from the ‘Hood and Beyond. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Conlon, J. 2015. “The Brand Brief Behind Nike’s Just Do It Campaign.” Branding Strategy Insider, August 6, 2015. https://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/ 2015/08/behind-nikes-campaign.html. Goldman, Robert, and Stephen Papson. 1998. Nike Culture. London and Diamond Oaks: Sage. McFall, Liz. 2004. Advertising: A Cultural Economy. London and Diamond Oaks: Sage. Neel, E. “New Adidas Ad Lands the Perfect Combo.” ESPN.com, February 23, 2004. http://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=neel/040223. Wells, Paul, 2014. Animation, Sport & Culture. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. CHAPTER 10 ‘Don’t Mind Me, I’m Just a Dermatophyte’: The Use of Animation in Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Television Advertising Janelle Applequist and Matthew P. McAllister Prescription drugs are a product category that poses various levels of inherent risk for consumers, including at a level that can literally be life and death. A striking number of these ads use some form of animation.1 Using content and textual analysis, this chapter argues that animation in these ads constructs different elements such as medical conditions, the brand, and even the world we live in, in ways that offer the best possible image of J. Applequist (B) Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA e-mail: applequist@usf.edu M. P. McAllister Bellisario College of Communications, University Park, PA, USA e-mail: mattmc@psu.edu © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_10 195 196 J. APPLEQUIST AND M. P. MCALLISTER the drugs, their effectiveness, and their potential dangers. This has implications for how we understand prescription drugs, their risks, and even what it means to have a happy life. The development of prescription drugs ideally supports medicine in its quest for cures, treatments, and knowledge. However, in a for-profit medical and media system, pharmaceuticals exist in a mix of biomedical complexity, ambiguity, and a persuasive context in which drug companies encourage the consumer-patient to ask their doctor to prescribe branded drugs, to enhance the companies’ bottom line. Often, a consumer’s awareness of a drug is through pharmaceutical advertisements seen on television, in magazines, or online. The various techniques that are used to advertise these drugs, including animation, attempt to influence how consumers relate to a drug, understand its use and side effects, or define what it means to be healthy. Animation in advertising may simplify medical conditions, contributing to portrayals of advanced medical technology that can make otherwise confusing and alienating treatment options seem friendlier and more accessible for consumers.2 But such portrayals are also self-serving. For example, not all medical treatment options are discussed in commercials, only those chosen by the branded companies. In addition, how advertisers personify difficult concepts through such techniques as animation can lead to more positive emotions for the consumer, meaning a greater connection with the brand and greater likelihood of the intent to purchase.3 Diagnoses and conditions may be framed as especially frightening or allencompassing in commercial contexts, exploiting a vulnerable consumer group facing an uncertain medical future. The United States and New Zealand are the only two industrialized nations in the world that permit advertising of prescription drugs. Whereas New Zealand practises industry self-regulation of such ads, the United States mandates that its pharmaceutical ads be under the purview of the FDA.4 Compared to other product categories, direct-to-consumer ads (DTC) for prescription drugs arrived late in the history of advertising, with the first US print advertisements being published in magazines in the early 1980s (although before then there were ads for these drugs that targeted physicians). Beginning in 1997, the FDA permitted pharmaceutical advertisements to be aired in broadcasting. This began a debate of whether such ads inform or persuade audience members, and who benefits from this balance.5 At this time the FDA released guidelines for televised pharma ads, and the first US television commercials were broadcast in 1999.6 Animation was used nearly from the beginning, most notably in a long-running 10 ‘DON’T MIND ME, I’M JUST A DERMATOPHYTE’ … 197 commercial for Zoloft that debuted in 2001 (and discussed later in this chapter), directed by animator Pat Smith (Daria [MTV, 1997–2002]).7 By 2016, nearly 20% of total US health care spending went towards prescription drugs, signifying that the nation prioritizes these medications as the most sought-after treatment option for various ailments and diseases. Approximately $5.2 billion was spent on pharmaceutical advertisements in 2015, up 19% from the previous year.8 Whereas overall advertising spending in traditional media has been decreasing, ‘big pharma’ has consistently increased its marketing budget. This results in viewer exposure to a high frequency and variety of prescription drug ads.9 Beginning in 2016, the FDA expressed its concern over the use of animation in DTC advertising, announcing a series of studies to be conducted with the aim of determining whether animated ads have a detrimental effect on viewers’ recollection of important safety and side effect information.10 Specifically, the FDA called for studies (yet to be conducted) that address whether consumers process ads with animation differently and whether consumer understanding is impacted in cases where animation is used to personify a disease, drug benefit, or a patient. The pharmaceutical industry responded by arguing that the FDA’s proposal unfairly simplified animation’s role.11 Given regulatory uncertainty, and the high-stakes involved with DTC ads, it is important to investigate the ways in which animation is being used in broadcast prescription drug advertising, and how these animated worlds may visually romanticize the benefits of the drugs while minimizing their risk. Method and Sample This chapter defines animation liberally: any text or imagery (e.g. characters, logos) created via line drawings, stop-motion, and 2D/3D computer animation. The FDA conceptualized animation as encompassing varying modes, including the use of rotoscoping (an early cinematic technique where animators trace over motion picture footage), humans being transformed into cartoons via rotoscope animation, and anthropomorphized objects meant to represent the patient, disease, or benefits of a medication.12 Fifty-four animated DTC (Direct to consumer) ads that spanned several years and represented 37 unique medications were examined.13 Of particular focus in the analysis was how animation represented the narrative elements in the ads, how these elements changed before and after the 198 J. APPLEQUIST AND M. P. MCALLISTER drug’s use, the various warnings and disclaimers mandated in DTC commercials, and the overall brand image of the drug. Understanding how animation constructs these elements to enhance the benefits of the drug’s efficacy and reduce concerns about dangers was a key goal of the analysis. Animation in drug ads, then, do not simply explain the drugs—they construct images of what people should value, how they should live, and what makes them happy. Thus, we have commercial stories of trials, tribulations, and triumphs in which the branded drugs often are celebrated as the literal remedy for good health and happiness. These ads are therefore ideological; they are embedded in relations of power between consumer/patients, physicians, and drug companies, with the former often searching for help in a medical crisis, and the latter having the resources to construct persuasive and multimodal commercial messages. In such ads, medical conditions may be personified as monsters, drugs (or their beneficial effects) appear as wings and umbrellas, hand-drawn landscapes serve as serene video wallpaper while alarming side effects are narrated and body parts talk directly to viewers. Animation is used as a key vehicle for selling the positive transformative effects of these drugs. More specifically, the study interrogated five animated categories present in broadcast DTC advertisements: ailment, drug, effect, body, and world. Although analysed separately, sometimes these categories overlap: ailments may be represented as animated unruly body parts, for instance. The Animated Ailment A common animated element in the commercials is the ailment or medical condition that the brand is purported to treat. Such animated ailments were used in 34 of the 54 ads (63%). This element typically anthropomorphizes the ailment, where the condition or its symptom(s) ‘come to life’ with demonstrative human-emotional qualities. In this way, the ads narrativize the medical and social problems of the ailment by having the negative consequences of the ailment become a character in the commercial’s story. Such animated spokescharacters have been found to be more favourable to consumers who have less experience with the brand being portrayed.14 This is particularly important for pharmaceutical advertising in the United States, given the large number of brands and the frequency with which new brands are released. This may be a reason why big pharma uses animation in its ads: visually striking iconography creates brand distinctiveness. It’s Alive (Phil Robinson, Deutsch Inc. NYC, 2003), an ad for Lamisil, features an 10 ‘DON’T MIND ME, I’M JUST A DERMATOPHYTE’ … 199 animated yellow demonic-looking creature who informs viewers, ‘Oh, hey, I’m Digger. Don’t Mind Me, I’m Just a Dermatophyte. You know, a nail infection. All I want is to get in here and live under your nails’. As he says this he lifts up a toenail and crawls underneath it, and we see him walking in the body of the person, turning skin from pink/smooth to yellow/cracked as other demons turn the skin landscape into a brown, desolate setting. Some animated representations of medical conditions are even more abstract and emphasize a starker version of the condition. In an ad titled Multiple Symptoms (Auge Reichenberg, McCann HumanCare, 2016) for Trintellix, a medication for the treatment of depression, various characters are shown with their heads surrounded by animated lined streaks that represent the ‘tangle of symptoms’ associated with depression. Within the red, blue, and yellow tangled lines are large words associated with depression (e.g. ‘sadness’, ‘loss of interest’, ‘indecisiveness’, and ‘tiredness’). Each tangled web has a physical presence in the world of the ad and makes it difficult for each character to function throughout the day; the lines surround the live-action characters, overwhelming them as indicated by their blank facial expressions and disengagement from their work or leisure setting. The lines represent the figurative weight of depression by making it a literal impediment in the physical environment. Expressionistic music and a sombre male narrative voice reinforce the serious nature of the emotional states represented by the tangles. Other ads in the sample, such as Zoloft Dot (Pat Smith, Deutsch Inc. NYC, 2001) and Cloud (Pat Smith, Saatchi & Saatchi, 2011) presented dark clouds, whereas another for Abilify titled Add Abilify (Neil Boyle, th1ng London, 2001) featured a black hole, to represent depressive symptoms. The Animated Drug In this category the product itself such as the pill or pill bottle becomes animated, with emphasis often placed on a brand name. The animation of the drug is often done in ways that personify its abilities, encouraging the consumer to assign physical or emotional attributes to the brand. This category appeared in nearly one-fourth (22%) of the sample, and often alongside other animated categories. Predictably, the animated drugs were presented as the best options for relief, cast as heroes in the commercial narrative to indicate a better life is within reach if the drug is obtained. 200 J. APPLEQUIST AND M. P. MCALLISTER Consistent with previous research investigating attributes of likeable animated spokescharacters in advertising, the majority of the ads used characters that had distinct, identifiable traits that exemplified the positive aspects of each brand overall.15 One prominent example is the gentle, fluorescentgreen animated butterfly in Wings (Ken Aldrige, Grey New York, 2011) for Lunesta, prescribed for insomnia. The ad features characters having difficulty falling asleep, but once they take Lunesta, an animated butterfly, representing the drug, enters their bedroom. The butterfly lands on the back of the characters as they begin to drift off to sleep, with the narrator describing their ‘restful, rejuvenating’ slumber. The commercial portrays the Lunesta users sleeping on their sides with smiles on their faces, as the lighted wings pulsate gently. The ad paints a very different picture from the reality of taking this medication, which is considered a strong, potentially lethal sedative-hypnotic that could increase the risk of suicidal thoughts.16 The FDA even placed stronger warning labels on the bottles of Lunesta following this ad’s airing, citing possible ‘sleep eating’ or ‘sleep driving’ incidents, where users woke to find themselves in unfamiliar territory with little to no recollection of their activity.17 Other ads represent the actual branded artefact in animated form. In both ads for Trulicity—Restoration (Ken Aldrige, Grey New York, 2016) and Jerry (Ken Arlidge, Grey New York, 2016)—which is a medication for Type II diabetes, the environment and characters are live-action, yet the medication delivery system (an injectable pen) is digitally animated as a green dot to look more like a pill—rather than a potentially alarming injection pen—as you hear it ‘click’ to indicate the medication being dispensed. Upbeat music plays in the background when the animated drug-symbol glides across the screen, leaving a trail of bright green dots behind it to symbolize the medication being dispensed. As the medication ‘clicks’, the main character Jerry discusses how Trulicity allows his body to activate what’s already within him. Immediately following the introduction of the brand name, viewers see the patient’s ability to ‘have a better life’ with the drug, as he completes an entire home renovation. The main character ends the ad by saying ‘with Trulicity, I click to activate what’s within me’, where the animated drug again ‘clicks’. Here, the commercial offers a better life within reach and in a way that deemphasizes the reality of the device. The bodily effect signified by the use of animation is the internal release of insulin, using green dots that are offered as more benign than an injection. 10 ‘DON’T MIND ME, I’M JUST A DERMATOPHYTE’ … 201 The Animated Effect Connected to both categories above is the idea of a cure promised by the branded drugs. The animation of positive or negative outcomes associated with a health condition and/or its corresponding prescription treatment occurred in more than half (56%) of the sample. Most often (in 44% of the total category), these ads featured a juxtaposition of the negative consequences associated with a condition or ailment, followed by the positive benefits that could be expected with the prescribed treatment option. In one ad, an altered colour scheme and facial expression of animated characters drive home the claimed benefits of a drug. Intermezzo (Jerry Riscoe, AbelsonTaylor Chicago, 2013), a commercial for the prescription sleepaid by the same name, shows a smiling blue-tinted light bulb for those able to sleep because of the drug, and a sad-faced, bright yellow light bulb for those not. Here, specific hues are used to signify sadness, grumpiness, and tiredness (blue), whereas the upbeat, refreshed, and happy experiences receive brighter tones (yellow). A live-action ad titled Feeling Wound Up (Bob Tabor and Mari Helen Bohen, JWT, 2010) for Pristiq features a woman describing her experience with depression. Next to her is a 3D CGI animated wind-up doll, used to illustrate her experience. She says that often, with depression, it feels as though you have to ‘wind yourself up’ just to get out of bed. As she continues to describe the experience of having to continue ‘winding yourself up’ just to accomplish daily tasks, the doll is shown being wound up and initially walking in a slouched position, with a frown on its face. The narrator then introduces Pristiq, and following a description of how the drug works, the main character looks at the doll as its posture improves, a smile forms on its face, and it walks across the table. The ‘wind up’ key on the doll’s back has disappeared, and eventually, the doll’s movements are replaced by the woman experiencing more of her life (e.g. talking with her friends, visiting a glassware store). One irony is that while animation is used to highlight the potential positive effects of the drugs’ use, it may also be used to distract from or downplay the mandated disclaimers and warnings about these products’ dangers to our health. In the Improve (Auge Reichenberg, McCann HumanCare, 2016) Trintellix commercial, while product users master their psychological environment by walking through tangles (thus visually emphasizing an improvement in health and depressive symptoms), the voiceover describes the risk of potential side effects, ranging from an increase in depression or 202 J. APPLEQUIST AND M. P. MCALLISTER thoughts of suicide. Such a strategy was a common occurrence among the sample of ads, with animated ailments visualizing improvement with the medication while the voiceover lists serious side effects. In this sense, it is possible that animation is being used as a form of distraction, with objects, words, and personified illness being used in ways that shows an improvement in life overall while diverting attention away from the important risk information being presented. The Animated Body Animated constructions of the body that appear in ads, either in totality or as an animated organ/part of the body, can serve multiple purposes: to show the way a medication works, or to provide a visual representation of symptoms associated with an ailment within the body. This bodily representation was present in half (50%) of the sample, and most often with an animation of a specific body process illustrating how a medication works within one’s system. The FDA’s legal justification for the existence of prescription drug ads is based on the assumption that they play a role in educating the consumer about various conditions and ailments, above simply promoting brand name medications.18 This sample revealed, however, that in many instances where animation was used seemingly as a form of education, it placed the product at the forefront of the message as opposed to the ailment, potentially blunting their educational efficacy. Previous research in the field of consumer psychology has shown that priming consumers with such personified connections via animation shifts their attention away from important, pragmatic considerations, such as a drug’s functionality or associated risks.19 One study found that viewers practised poorer encoding of drug side effects when animation was used.20 The commercial titled Red Fish (Jon Parkinson, GSW New York, 2016) for Pradaxa, intended for reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke, presented a school of red fish (symbolizing blood platelets) swimming through an animated diagram of the body’s bloodstream. Rather than showing how the condition of heart disease impacts this process, the ad instead emphasizes how Pradaxa enables the body’s processes to allow blood through the system, reducing the likelihood of a clot. Here, it would be most appropriate for the ad to educate about heart disease and its subsequent increased risk of heart attack or stroke, but instead, the product and brand name are highlighted. Other ads also animate the body to legitimize the drug’s effectiveness, yet offer little in specifics. For example, in an ad titled Texting (Joe Vitale, 10 ‘DON’T MIND ME, I’M JUST A DERMATOPHYTE’ … 203 Roska Healthcare Advertising, 2016) for Myrbetriq (an overactive bladder medication), the patient is shown discussing Myrbetriq with her doctor. He shows her an iPad with an animated graphic of the body’s bladder, with text underneath that reads ‘getting started with Myrbetriq’. Yet, when looking closer at the graphic, it is clear it does little in terms of informing one about one of the processes associated with the drug’s entrance to the body. It only features three arrows pointing towards the bladder. Particularly when providing this animation in the context of one’s conversation with their doctor, this practice offers superficial infographics and diagrams to give the product medical credibility when little helpful medical information is actually offered. The Animated World This animated category included perhaps the largest degree of animation, where the main character/patient’s experience is presented as part of an animated environment. Greater than one-quarter of this sample featured an animated world (28%). In such cases, a main character’s surroundings were entirely or largely constructed via animation. A notable example is the original ad for Zoloft, Zoloft Dot (Pat Smith, Deutsch Inc. NYC, 2001), which begins with a sparse world, mostly in black and white. The person is represented as an oval on the ground, with a worried facial expression and a bluebird next to it. Grey clouds are in the air, and the narrator states ‘you know when you feel the weight of sadness. You may feel exhausted, hopeless, and anxious’. The oval slides along the ground, away from the chirping bird. The cloud continues to follow the oval. More upbeat music begins to play as the narrator explains (and a drawing illustrates) the chemical imbalance from one nerve to another in depressed patients. Soon after, the focus is back on the oval, showing it smiling as the cartoon cloud breaks up and yellow flowers appear next to the oval. The oval then begins following the bird by bouncing and moving faster. The bird then lands on the ‘z’ of the Zoloft logo at the end of the ad, showing the animated characteristics interacting with one another and the merging of the animation and product’s logo. In another ad for Botox, titled Refuse to Lie Down (Kent Swell, Pacific Communications, 2017), a live-action character is actually inserted into the animated world around her. She remains human, yet her surroundings are composed entirely of colourful line drawings. The ad begins with her lying on her bed, discussing how she will not take her migraines ‘just laying 204 J. APPLEQUIST AND M. P. MCALLISTER down’. The narrator then introduces Botox for chronic migraine use, and the woman is able to stand up because the animated bed rotates from horizontal to vertical, creating the impression that she is lifted out of bed. Suddenly feeling better, she walks around her home, interacting with her family members, neighbours, and strangers, all of whom are animated but her. This becomes a portrayal of the ways in which the patient is ‘standing up’ to her pain and taking charge of her own patient journey but still visually implies it is done for her, and she is placed in this world by Botox. The ability of the animated world used in particular pharmaceutical ads is apparent, with the tones conveying happy, upbeat, and colourful representations of what it means to have a health condition, disease, or ailment. Conclusion Given the economic, ethical, and health implications of DTC advertising, the ways in which the pharmaceutical industry advertises this product class to consumers merits analysis, as animation attempts to influence views of health issues, drug risks and benefits, patient–physician relationships, and definitions of a good life. This analysis examined the ways in which DTC advertising uses animation to construct medical conditions, branded products, potential effects, the body, and the world in ways that place these elements in the best rhetorical light for the brand. Complex science and medical elements are reduced to simplified drawings, cartoons, or graphics that frame such elements either in stark ways when presenting life without drugs, and in romanticized ways with drugs. This research suggests that animation connects affectively to the promise of a ‘better life’ by dramatizing health conditions, sanitizing the risks associated with particular drugs, simplifying complexities, and inflating the role pharmaceuticals should play in our health and well-being. Ideologically, such portrayals construct a message that the pharmaceutical industry is philanthropic and does not put its profits and reputation above consumer education and health, ultimately persuading consumers to want brand name drugs above other less expensive or homoeopathic treatment options. For those using the branded drugs, they can conquer demons, be helped by magical beings, and experience transcendent worlds. Previous research has demonstrated, however, that the use of animation in pharmaceutical advertisements does not always enhance its effectiveness in terms of consumers’ ability to interpret information about a drug.21 The use of animation can capture the attention of 10 ‘DON’T MIND ME, I’M JUST A DERMATOPHYTE’ … 205 consumers, but also raises problematic issues in terms of patient education and understanding given such a serious product category. Modern forms of animation in pharmaceutical advertisements are often presented via personification, whereby the representation of an object, ailment, person, or treatment is presented as a person. In this sense, consumers are able to ‘get to know’ products and services being advertised on a more intimate level, ultimately assigning human-like characteristics and attributes to commodities.22 Using such strategies in personifying various medical concepts is more than likely beneficial for the pharmaceutical industry. Research has shown that when compared with a human spokesperson in the same print advertisement, the use of animated spokescharacters leads to more positive consumer perceptions of the ad, brand, and an increased intention to purchase.23 It is therefore important for future studies to investigate this influence in the realm of pharmaceutical advertising and to consider the ways in which such animation impacts one’s ability to learn about a medication, understand its risk information, and embrace reasonable expectations about its efficacy.24 While animation can equally help communicate complex information in accessible ways to help consumers make informed decisions, this analysis showed that in most instances, such tactics are used to further position these brands as medical authorities, leading to promising consumers better, happier lives. Animation has become an important tool for drug marketers, but often in ways that may blunt understanding of conditions, treatment efficacy and risks. It may point to the reason why, since 2016, the FDA has remained interested in studying these areas and their impact on the consumer’s ability to process this information, and why the use of cartoons in ads is not always such a lighthearted technique. As previous research has primarily focused on the animated spokescharacters in pharmaceutical advertising, this study expanded the knowledge base to include all forms of animation used in various modes. Consistent with the findings of Pashupati, this case study shows that there continues to be substantial variation in the use of animation across pharmaceutical brands; however, the use of animation is most often associated with the affirmation of positive traits associated with the product or brand rather than being used to educate consumers on conditions, treatments, or bodily functions.25 206 J. APPLEQUIST AND M. P. MCALLISTER Notes 1. Janelle Applequist, Broadcast Pharmaceutical Advertising in the United States: Primetime Pill Pushers (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016), 56. 2. Phillip M. Hart, Shawn R. Jones, and Marla B. Royne, “The Human Lens: How Anthropomorphic Reasoning Varies by Product Complexity and Enhances Personal Value,” Journal of Marketing Management, 29, nos. 1–2 (2013): 105–121. 3. Marjorie Delbaere, Edward F. McQuarrie, and Barbara J. Phillips, “Personification in Advertising: Using a Visual Metaphor to Trigger Anthropomorphism,” Journal of Advertising 40, no. 1 (2011): 121–130. 4. Hazel Phillips, Sell! Tall Tales from the Legends of New Zealand Advertising (Auckland: Penguin Group New Zealand). 5. Applequist, Broadcast Pharmaceutical Advertising, 5–6. 6. Applequist, Broadcast Pharmaceutical Advertising, 6. 7. Kate Aurther, “Little Blob, Don’t Be Sad (or Anxious or Phobic),” New York Times (January 2, 2005), https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/ arts/television/little-blob-dont-be-sad-or-anxious-or-phobic.html. 8. “U.S. Measured Ad Expenditures Declined 3.9% in Q3 2015 to $36 Billion,” Kantar Media (2015), http://www.kantarmedia.com/us/ newsroom/press-releases. 9. “Observations on Trends in Prescription Drug Spending,” Department of Health and Human Services, 2016, http://www.aspe.hhs.gov. 10. Kevin McCaffrey, “Drugmakers Spar with FDA Over Proposed DTC Animation Study,” MMM Online (October 27, 2016), http://www.mmm-online. com. 11. Zachary Brennan, “Drugmakers Criticize FDA’s Plan to Research Animation in DTC Drug Ads,” Regulatory Focus (October 24, 2016), https:// www.raps.org/regulatory-focus%E2%84%A2/news-articles/2016/10/ drugmakers-criticize-fda%E2%80%99s-plan-to-research-animation-in-dtcdrug-ads. 12. “Comment Request: Animation in Direct-to-Consumer Advertising,” Food and Drug Administration, 2016, https://federalregister.gov/d/201625727. 13. Two data collection strategies were used. First, animated ads on the YouTube playlist “Prescription Drug Commercials” were collected, which included several older commercials. Second, SnapStream Express, a television recording software, was used to record and collect daytime and primetime television content from the four major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX) for a 15-week period (12-weeks at the end of 2016 and 3-weeks at the beginning of 2017). 14. Judith A. Garretson and Ronald W. Niedrich, “Spokes-Characters: Creating Character Trust and Positive Brand Attitudes,” Journal of Advertising 33, no. 2 (2004): 25–36. 10 ‘DON’T MIND ME, I’M JUST A DERMATOPHYTE’ … 207 15. Margaret F. Callcott and Barbara J. Phillips, “Observations: Elves Make Good Cookies: Creating Likable Spokes-Character Advertising,” Journal of Advertising Research 36, no. 5 (1996): 73–79. 16. Stephanie Saul, “F.D.A. Warns of Sleeping Pills’ Strange Effects,” New York Times (March 15, 2007), http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/ business/15drug.ready.html. 17. W. Vaughn McCall, Ruth M. Benca, Peter B. Rosenquist, Mary Anne Riley, Laryssa McCloud, Jill C. Newman, Doug Case, Meredith Rumble, and Andrew D. Krystal, “Hypnotic Medications and Suicide: Risk, Mechanisms, Mitigation, and the FDA,” American Journal of Psychiatry 174, no. 1 (2017): 18–25. 18. “Prescription Drug Advertising: Questions and Answers,” Food and Drug Adminstration (June 19, 2015), http://www.fda.gov/drug/ resourcesforyou/consumers/prescriptiondrugadvertising. 19. Jesse Chandler and Norbert Schwarz, “Use Does Not Wear Ragged the Fabric of Friendship: Thinking of Objects as Alive Makes People Less Willing to Replace Them,” Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (2010): 138–145. 20. Russell B. Clayton and Glenn Leshner, “The Uncanny Valley: The Effects of Rotoscope Animation on Motivational Processing of Depression Drug Messages,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 59, no. 1 (2015): 57–75. 21. Nilesh S. Bhutada, Brent L. Rollins, and Matthew Perri III, “Impact of Animated Spokes-Characters in Print Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising: An Elaboration Likelihood Model Approach,” Health Communication 32, no. 4 (2017): 391–400. 22. Barbara Stern, “Other-Speak: Classical Allegory and Contemporary Advertising,” Journal of Advertising 19, no. 3 (1990): 14–26. 23. Robert S. Heiser, Jeremy J. Sierra, and Ivonne M. Torres, “Creativity via Cartoon Spokespeople in Print Ads: Capitalizing on the Distinctiveness Effect,” Journal of Advertising 37, no. 4 (2008): 75–84. 24. J. T. Luo, Peter McGoldrick, Susan Beatty, and Kathleen M. Keeling, “On-Screen Characters: Their Design and Influence on Consumer Trust,” Journal of Services Marketing 20, no. 2 (2006): 112–124. 25. Kartik Pashupati, “Beavers, Bubbles, Bees, and Moths: An Examination of Animated Spokes-Characters in DTC Prescription Drug Advertisements and Websites,” Journal of Advertising Research 49, no. 3 (2009): 373–393. Bibliography Applequist, Janelle. 2016. Broadcast Pharmaceutical Advertising in the United States: Primetime Pill Pushers. Lanham: Lexington Books. 208 J. APPLEQUIST AND M. P. MCALLISTER Aurther, Kate. 2005. “Little Blob, Don’t Be Sad (Or Anxious or Phobic).” New York Times, January 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/arts/ television/little-blob-dont-be-sad-or-anxious-or-phobic.html. Accessed 15 October 2017. Bhutada, Nilesh S., Brent L. Rollins, and Matthew Perri III. 2017. “Impact of Animated Spokes-Characters in Print Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising: An Elaboration Likelihood Model Approach.” Health Communication 32: 391–400. Brennan, Zachary. 2016. “Drugmakers Criticize FDA’s Plan to Research Animation in DTC Drug Ads.” Regulatory Focus, October 24. https://www.raps.org/ regulatory-focus%E2%84%A2/news-articles/2016/10/drugmakers-criticizefda%E2%80%99s-plan-to-research-animation-in-dtc-drug-ads. Accessed 18 September 2018. Callcott, Margaret F., and Barbara J. Phillips. 1996. “Observations: Elves Make Good Cookies: Creating Likable Spokes-Character Advertising.” Journal of Advertising Research 36: 73–79. Chandler, Jesse, and Norbert Schwarz. 2010. “Use Does Not Wear Ragged the Fabric of Friendship: Thinking Objects as Alive Makes People Less Willing to Replace Them.” Journal of Consumer Psychology 20: 138–145. Clayton, Russel B., and Glenn Leshner. 2015. “The Uncanny Valley: The Effects of Rotoscope Animation on Motivational Processing of Depression Drug Messages.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 59: 57–75. Comment Request: Animation in Direct-to-Consumer Advertising. 2016. Food and Drug Administration. https://federalregister.gov/d/2016-25727. Accessed 15 July 2017. Delbaere, Marjorie, Edward F. McQuarrie, and Barbara J. Phillips. 2011. “Personification in Advertising: Using a Visual Metaphor to Trigger Anthropomorphism.” Journal of Advertising 40: 121–130. Garretson, Judith A., and Ronald W. Niedrich. 2004. “Spokes-Characters: Creating Character Trust and Positive Brand Attitudes.” Journal of Advertising 33: 25– 36. Garreston, Judith A., and Scot Burton. 2005. “The Role of Spokes-Characters as Advertisement and Package Cues in Integrated Marketing Communications.” Journal of Marketing 69: 118–132. Hart, Phillip M., Shawn R. Jones, and Marla B. Royne. 2013. “The Human Lens: How Anthropomorphic Reasoning Varies by Product Complexity and Enhances Personal Value.” Journal of Marketing Management 29: 105–121. Heiser, Robert S., Jeremy J. Sierra, and Ivonne M. Torres. 2008. “Creativity via Cartoon Spokespeople in Print Ads: Capitalizing on the Distinctiveness Effect.” Journal of Advertising 37: 75–84. 10 ‘DON’T MIND ME, I’M JUST A DERMATOPHYTE’ … 209 Luo, J. T., Peter McGoldrick, Susan Beatty, and Kathleen M. Keeling. 2006. “Onscreen Characters: Their Design and Influence on Consumer Trust.” Journal of Services Marketing 20: 112–124. McCall, W. V., Ruth M. Benca, Peter B. Rosenquist, Mary Anne Riley, Laryssa McCloud, Jill C. Newman, Doug Case, Meredith Rumble, and Andrew D. Krystal. 2017. “Hypnotic Medications and Suicide: Risk, Mechanisms, Mitigation, and the FDA.” American Journal of Psychiatry 174: 18–25. McCaffrey, Kevin. 2016. “Drugmakers Spar with FDA Over Proposed DTC Animation Study.” MMM Online, October 27. http://www.mmm-online.com. Accessed 5 October 2017. “Observations on Trends in Prescription Drug Spending.” 2016. Department of Health and Human Services. http://www.aspe.hhs.gov. Accessed 10 October 2017. Pashupati, Kartik. 2009. “Beavers, Bubbles, Bees, and Moths: An Examination of Animated Spokes-Characters in DTC Prescription Drug Advertisements and Websites.” Journal of Advertising Research 49: 373–393. “Prescription Drug Advertising: Questions and Answers.” 2015. Food and Drug Administration. http://www.fda.gov/drug/resourcesforyou/consumers/ prescriptiondrugadvertising. Accessed 30 June 2017. Saul, Stephanie. 2007. “FDA Warns of Sleeping Pills’ Strange Effects.” New York Times, March 15. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/business/15drug. ready.html. Accessed 30 June 2018. Stern, Barbara. 1990. “Other-Speak: Classical Allegory and Contemporary Advertising.” Journal of Advertising 19: 14–26. “U.S. Measured Ad Expenditures Declined 3.9% in Q3 2015 to $36 Billion.” 2015. Kantar Media. http://www.kantarmedia.com/us/newsroom/ press-releases. Accessed 3 September 2018. PART IV Television CHAPTER 11 Beyond Anime? Rethinking Japanese Animation History Through Early Animated Television Commercials Jason Cody Douglass Rhythmic ticks and tocks accompany a female voiceover in the opening seconds of what is often regarded to be Japan’s first television advertisement.1 A corporate logo and animated text morph from Roman alphabet into Japanese characters to spell out the product, a Seikō timepiece, as the speaker informs the viewer that this is Nihon Terebi (the television network now known as NTV).2 The commercial, Seikōsha no Tokei / Seikō Watch (Yuhara Hajime, Dentsū Eigasha, Dentsū, 1953),3 clocks in at 30 seconds, the shortest length of advertisement time made available on Japanese television until the formalization of 15-second blocks in 1961.4 Following the title card, a black-and-white animated sequence features a rooster meandering up to a clock to wind its gears. Revved and ready for service, the clock reveals an anthropomorphic face in a friendly exchange with the rooster J. C. Douglass (B) Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA e-mail: jason.douglass@yale.edu © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_11 213 214 J. C. DOUGLASS before transforming back into its original form. Three cuts announce a succession of ever-larger Seikō timepieces chiming to mark the arrival of seven, culminating with the emblematic Wakō department store clock tower in Ginza. This advertisement, and many others like it, can be considered an important, albeit ignored, part of anime history, predating most accounts of the origins of anime. Unlike clockwork, marking the arrival of anime within the longer history of Japanese animation has proved an imperfect science. As Rayna Denison begins her recent book, ‘anime seems to defy easy definition’.5 Despite such persistent defiance, several recent English-language publications have endeavoured to pin-down and historicize anime, a term that long ago solidified its position within the lexicon of the English-speaking world. While the various textual, cultural, and industrial approaches proposed by influential voices within the field of anime studies differ substantially, scholarship by Tsugata Nobuyuki serves as a common point of departure. Marc Steinberg, Jonathan Clements, and Denison each cite Tsugata in their introductory chapters, foregrounding his belief that the practice of anime began with Tetsuwan Atomu / Astro Boy (Tezuka Osamu, Mushi Production, 1963– 1966),6 one of the first Japanese television series, created by means of ‘limited’, cel-based animation. To this, Steinberg adds, ‘anime is, in its initial form, primarily organized around television’7 ; Clements emphasizes Tsugata’s delineation between ‘anime’ (‘TV cartoons’) and ‘Japanese animation’ (‘full animation films’)8 ; and Denison proposes, ‘anime still normally retains aspects of its limited animation roots’.9 What remains largely absent from this linkage between ‘anime’ and the ‘televisual’ is a large amount of animation airing during the earliest years of Japanese television, namely commercials. Hundreds of animated advertisements—frequently non-narrative and sometimes non-cel-based—appeared on television in the ten years before the debut of Tetsuwan Atomu, and as such I will argue that the frequent omission of animated commercials within histories of anime betrays a scholarly overreliance on narrative media such as television shows. The dearth of research on early animated television advertisements is by no measure limited to the Japanese context: despite comprising ‘somewhere between a quarter and a third of all productions [in Britain between 1955 and 1965]’, Jez Stewart attributes the underrepresentation of animated advertisements in both British archives and scholarship to a ‘dismissal of their work [that] has directly affected the survival of such works for advertising researchers today’.10 Patrick Vonderau similarly suggests that only in recent years have researchers and archivists begun to 11 BEYOND ANIME? RETHINKING JAPANESE ANIMATION … 215 ‘establish new explanatory frameworks for films that never were meant to be interpreted, let alone preserved’.11 In this chapter, I aim to re-evaluate the relationship between ‘anime’ and ‘television’ by considering early animated and partially animated advertisements on Japanese television as productive, historically undervalued sites for critical exploration. Among the questions driving my research, I ask: How might the forms and functions of early animated advertisements corroborate or contradict prevailing accounts of anime’s history? To what extent have notions of ‘television’ been projected onto histories of anime? And, in light of Denison’s concession ‘that anime is a category that has emerged out of the erasure of historical complexity’, how might the relative absence of television commercials within scholarship on Japanese animation betray the underlying cultural politics that shape the popular and scholarly images of anime and its dominant aesthetic?12 Chronicling the Emergence of Anime From its inception, television viewing in Japan was more than watching shows, with commercial networks marketing goods to generate revenue. Looking beyond shows reveals the abundance of animation rounding out 1950s programming: by Tsugata’s count, of the 480 commercials created by the Television Corporation of Japan (operating at that time as Nihon Terebijon) during the first five years of broadcasting, more than 70% incorporated animation.13 Clements, citing Tsugata, also makes note of this ‘vast and largely unchronicled market for Japanese animation’ but ultimately refrains from exploring the aesthetic and industrial nuances of such works.14 Considering that animated commercials exemplify the bulk of domestic animation and advertising media on television during the inaugural years of Japanese broadcasting, the paucity of animated commercials in configurations of anime’s history calls for a pause. Despite her deft mapping of anime as a complex constellation of television series, feature films, industry periodicals, and trade shows, Denison has sparse analysis in Anime: A Critical Introduction of animated televisual works before 1963. Given that Denison periodically grants credence to the ‘consideration of anime’s early life as a television format’, this absence must not be overlooked.15 The stakes of such an omission are raised in Steinberg’s conceptualization of anime’s ‘media mix’, in which he focuses on the evolution of the Tetsuwan Atomu franchise in order to sketch anime as a network of consumable worlds, with merchandisable characters serving 216 J. C. DOUGLASS as key points of access. Whereas Steinberg privileges franchises as his central node, Denison considers televisual ‘brand entities’, such as the amorphous and ever-popular Gundam series, as crucial to understanding anime’s shifting genres.16 For both scholars—and others within the field of anime studies—‘the rise of television’ proves ‘necessary to the birth of what we now think of as “anime”’.17 However, such evocations of ‘television’ as fundamental to the formation of anime tend to implicitly reference cel-based, limitedly animated, character-oriented, and narratively driven dramatic series. In fact, animated advertisements airing on Japanese television in the years before Tetsuwan Atomu exhibited a diversity of material and stylistic forms. Consider, for instance, the first Japanese Coca-Cola commercial, broadcast in 1962 as Coca-Cola was installed in vending machines across the country.18 The commercial’s stop-motion animation, featuring an ensemble of doll-like characters constructed from Coca-Cola bottles and adorned in festive sweaters, demonstrates remarkable stylistic similarities with contemporaneous projects directed by renowned animator Mochinaga Tadahito, who began working with puppets in 1947. Blended in with the animation, a number of live-action shots zoom in on and linger upon the product, which remains centred within the frame. The first twenty-five seconds of the soundtrack are consumed by a repetitive commercial song performed by the ‘Four Coins’ choir: in English, the lyrics would read, ‘let’s drink Coca-Cola, chill the Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, everyone all together Coca-Cola, refreshing Coca-Cola’. The song’s circularity augments the product-centric aesthetics to drive home a single message in a variety of ways. Narrative developments are minimized and human bodies are excluded so that the world of the commercial can be constructed by means of the product. Whether one sees or hears the commercial, the message remains intact. Similar stylistic gestures assume a different material form in the aforementioned Seikōsha no Tokei, which aired during television broadcasting’s inaugural year in Japan (1953), setting the pace for many animated commercials in the 1950s and 1960s. In the commercial, the material commodity, once introduced, remains central throughout the scene. The organizing logic of time pushes the commercial forward visually and aurally as a repetitive display of clocks striking seven reminds the viewer not only of their utility, but also of the unremitting flow of time which typifies the ‘live’ broadcast. The constructed nature of animation allows for a precise synchronization between image and soundtrack, and the employment of 11 BEYOND ANIME? RETHINKING JAPANESE ANIMATION … 217 a nondescript animal rather than a live-action human insures against distracting gestures or disembodied limbs (Fig. 11.1). Both the Seikō and Coca-Cola commercials serve to catch the eye and lure the ear of the potential consumer by means of repetitive spectacle and melody. If one were to consider Coca-Cola as a brand entity, or the introduction of the Wakō department store clock tower as part of a broader commodified media ecology, the inner workings of early animated commercials begin to echo prevailing accounts of anime’s industrial logic, but complicate those same arguments through their disparate aesthetic and material forms. Because the inclusion or exclusion of these works from histories of anime currently hinges upon their creation for television, I dedicate the next section to the consideration of an important underlying issue: what, exactly, was ‘television’—or the ‘televisual’—within the first decade of broadcasting within Japan, and how does this relate to cel-based, character-driven limited animation series? Fig. 11.1 As the commercial progresses, Seikō products remain centred within the frame. Seikōsha no Tokei / Seikō Watch (Dentsū, 1953) 218 J. C. DOUGLASS Thinking Through Television Like anime, television also defies easy definition, and it is not my intention in this chapter to comprehensively define what television may or may not be, given its complex history and ever-changing forms. Instead, I argue that understanding early discourses on the medium of television—that is, what television seemed to have been to some—during its arrival and proliferation within Japan can serve as a linchpin to analysing early animated commercials and the role they might perform in fleshing out anime’s historical complexities. As mentioned earlier, scholars in Japan, Europe, and North America periodically trace the emergence of anime to the early years of Japanese television without sufficiently considering the forces working to define television at that time. Within early Japanese discourses on television, critics and scholars alike frequently define television by directing attention towards what it is not: film. Iijima Tadashi concludes his essay on the ‘Braun Tube and Screen’ with an emphasis on television’s soundscapes.19 Of utmost importance to Iijima is volume: In particular with television, one must emphasize the issue of sound. […] As mentioned earlier, television’s voice is not loud, like that of a film’s; rather, it is not very different from the voice of a family member within the home.20 Given the predominance of aesthetic analyses of televisual content, Iijima’s insistence on a theorization of television’s sound in addition to image production or visual montage resonates with the cacophony of most animated commercials. Consider Kuroi Otoko no Burūzu / Black Man’s Blues (Uchida Kentarō, Tōei Dōga, Asatsū, 1964), an award-winning advertisement for the Asahi Pentax wide-angle camera.21 In a mere thirty seconds, the eponymous man manages to babble ‘Pentax’ more than fifteen times, with as many visual occurrences of the word flashing around the character as he wanders into and out of the frame. From beginning to end, the commercial exhibits an awareness of how words sound and how images look. To accentuate one of the camera’s key selling points—long-range visibility, or bōen in Japanese— the man marches a Pentax camera with an elongated lens across the screen while stretching out his declaration, ‘bō----en de, bō---en de, bō--en de, bōen de, bōen de’. The commercial message, ‘this camera can see far into 11 BEYOND ANIME? RETHINKING JAPANESE ANIMATION … 219 the distance’, can thus be conveyed even if the viewer is listening without watching, or watching without listening. Graphic and acoustic content within Kuroi Otoko no Burūzu march along in lockstep precisely because the word or the image may be functioning alone, depending upon the type of attention granted by the viewer. Despite Iijima’s scrutiny of the acoustic role of television within the home, it would be nearly a decade after television’s inaugural year within Japan until more than half of households nationwide had acquired a set, with potential consumers in the meantime more likely to encounter commercials through televisions installed on the street or in public spaces. 22 Thus, the commercial intent of Kuroi Otoko no Burūzu needed to remain cogent if broadcast through a muted television set within the home, but also compete for attention within the riotous soundscape of a train station. While many animated commercials from the first fifteen years of television within Japan possess a repetitive, product-oriented function and exhibit conceptual reinforcement between graphic and acoustic elements, there remains wide-ranging variability in terms of aesthetics, soundscapes, and technological means of production. Mō Ichido Mitai: Nihon no CM 50-nen / I Want to Watch Once More: Fifty Years of Japanese Commercials, a standout compilation of seventy-eight award-winning commercials broadcast during the half-century following the inception of the Zennihon Shiiemu Hōsō Renmei (‘All Japan Radio & Television Commercial Council’, abr. ACC) in 1960, contains a number of visually disparate animated advertisements.23 More than one-third of all the commercials within the collection, as well as the lion’s share of animated works, are the creation of Dentsū, a colossal advertising and public relations conglomerate and household name. The two earliest Dentsū animated ads on the DVD made for Mitsubishi’s Uni P pencil (Nagai Kyōji, Nihon Animēshon Eigasha, Dentsū, 1961)24 and Rohto’s Rōto Megusuri eye drops (Ōkuma Takafumi, Shiba Production, Dentsū, 1962),25 both sixty seconds in duration, exemplify this diversity of aesthetics. The former, partially hand-drawn and in clear homage to Oskar Fischinger’s visual music, summons the hand of the animator, as a line traced by the artist with a Mitsubishi pencil takes on a life of its own. In the latter, a pair of wide-eyed puppets dance about a Ferris wheel as a commercial song praises the rejuvenating benefits of the eye drops. In each case, the visual composition foregrounds the product and its function, yet, at a technological level, differ substantially. These two examples, when considered alongside Seikōsha no Tokei, Kuroi Otoko no Burūzu, and 220 J. C. DOUGLASS the aforementioned chorus of Coca-Cola bottles, display but a sampling of the varied approaches employed in the creation of contemporaneous commercials. Thus, documenting early Japanese televisual animation in terms of a dominant aesthetic or technological process—as is often the case in anime studies—obscures the breadth of practices on display. This scenario begs a number of questions: how can all of these be televisual ? Might it remain possible to detect a unifying characteristic between such disparate works? Writing on the characteristics of hōsōjin (a term coined to broadly denote those working in the television industry) in the first decade of Japanese television,26 influential anthropologist Umesao Tadao proposes a polemic idiosyncrasy: In my contacts with young hōsōjin, I found one thing to be particularly interesting: that is, hōsōjin do not think of their work in broadcasting as a specialized occupation (senmonteki na shokugyō). As I have heard it, ‘as long as they are cultured, anyone can do this type of work’. […] Compared to [the case of the newspaper writer], everything created by broadcast people (hōsō no kata) has an amateur look.27 For scholars and fans of television, Umesao’s ethnographic argument may sound all too familiar: because television—especially live television—does not appear as polished as film or other well established mass media, televisual content should be characterized across the board as amateurish. However, while Umesao offers this notion of amateurism as a means of justifying his later claim that, ‘therefore, the work of broadcast people is not an acquired skill’,28 he celebrates television’s amateurism as ‘great’ (idainaru), pondering at length the potentially democratizing possibilities offered by a highly accessible job market within the media industry. Though Umesao does not write specifically about animation, many of his insights prove apt when applied to animated commercials. For instance, while the advertisements included on Mō Ichido Mitai are produced by a limited number of agencies and studios, rarely does the name of the same writer, director, or camera operator appear on multiple works, especially in the earliest years. Thus, the variety of animation techniques may be explained in part by the number of individuals creating these works. Clements echoes this sentiment in his claim that ‘the more crucial issue [for early animated commercials] is one of a vast and largely unchronicled market for Japanese animation, aesthetically unappealing and industrially 11 BEYOND ANIME? RETHINKING JAPANESE ANIMATION … 221 uncommemorated, which nevertheless provided significant work for many animators’.29 Perhaps what Clements finds to be ‘aesthetically unappealing’ is precisely the aura of ‘amateur’ lauded by Umesao. If so, the same reasons why television was once overlooked within media history—as something lowbrow or amateur—now contribute to the downplaying of early animated commercials within histories of anime. In a seminal 1958 edition on television of the philosophical journal Shisō, Shimada Atsushi begins to formulate a medium-specific definition for television while simultaneously disclaiming that television, as art and industry, remains in flux.30 Crucial to Shimada’s piece is his construction of televisual specificity: Without exception, it is already clear that that which is channeled through the semiotic mechanism of television must be more or less reconfigured. Therefore, if a drama broadcast on television is interesting, that is not because the live dramatic action performed within the studio is interesting, but rather because the televisual drama – filtered through and configured by the semiotic mechanism of television – is interesting. Even a broadcast of a theatrical performance is no exception. […] The play viewed from the theater seat and the play dissected and transmitted by the camera are each received by the spectator in ways quite different than one might imagine. Supposing the broadcast of the live performance is interesting, this is due to the camera, from inside the theater, skillfully capturing the dramatic elements most suitable for television and reconfiguring them.31 For Shimada, the uniqueness of television—that is, where it differs from other pre-existing media, lies in its semiotic mechanism (kigōteki mekanizumu), which captures (toriageru) elements of other arts and then reconfigures (saikōsei) those elements into something distinctly televisual. Because Shimada believes television to possess a combinatory relationship with other arts—including ‘dramas, shows, manga, and dance’32 —he cites Sergei Eisenstein’s work on cinematic montage as a theoretical model that could be expanded upon to articulate the televisual. Montage, as applied to television, functions on multiple levels: as a ‘synthetic art’ (sōgō geijutsu), television combines various elements of other arts, but also combines various genres and entire programs to construct the programming schedule. If one entertains Shimada’s version of televisual specificity, it becomes necessary to consider the place of commercials within television programming. 222 J. C. DOUGLASS Shimada’s ambitious theory as contained within his Shisō essay remains preliminary. As Aaron Gerow points out, it displays an amnesia of similar movements played out in earlier Japanese film theory.33 Nevertheless, Shimada’s characterization of the synthetic function of television can be adapted to make the argument that all animated content broadcast during the emergent years of television can be deemed equally televisual: all animated commercials and shows, stop-motion or cel-based, ‘aesthetically unappealing’ or scholastically commemorated, are functioning as television at the level of content and programming unit. In such a scenario, it would be difficult to state, as Steinberg does, that ‘anime is, in its initial form, primarily organized around television’,34 without then considering the forms and functions of early animated commercials in addition to franchises such as Tetsuwan Atomu. In my next section, I examine two long-running, character-based animated commercials as possible exemplars of anime’s dominant aesthetic while interrogating the cultural politics at work in the enshrinement of limited animation as standard-bearer. Norihei and Uncle Torys: Two Early ‘Anime’ Characters? Both Clements, in his expansive history of ‘anime’s first century’,35 and Nakai Kōichi, in his doorstop of a book on 120 years of Japanese advertisements,36 devote considerable space to a discussion of Uncle Torys, the Caucasian-looking recurring character appearing in animated commercials for Suntory’s Torys Whiskey as early as 1958. While Nakai heralds the debut Torys Bar (Yanagihara Ryōhei, 1958) commercial as the ‘first masterpiece’ on Japanese television, Clements points to an earlier series of alcohol-hawking, adult-oriented advertisements, Beer Mukashimukashi / Beer Long, Long Ago (Iizawa Tadasu, Nihon Animēshon Eigasha, Dentsū, 1956),37 comprised of segments animated by the likes of Ōfuji Noburō, Kawamoto Kihachirō, and Mochinaga Tadahito, to propose that Nakai’s source—the character’s designer, Yanagihara Ryōhei—overstates his case when claiming his work single-handedly pioneered ‘cartoon[s] that grownups could enjoy’.38 This quibble draws attention to an important aspect of the Uncle Torys commercials. Unlike Beer Mukashimukashi, Torys Bar registers unquestionably to the eye as a variant of UPA-style limited animation. The impact of American animation flooding the Japanese television market during the mid-to-late 1950s has been noted in histories of anime not only in terms of 11 BEYOND ANIME? RETHINKING JAPANESE ANIMATION … 223 aesthetic influences, but also with regard to lasting industrial effects. The prime example is ‘Tezuka’s curse’, succinctly summarized by Steinberg and cited later by Denison: Aiming to quell the TV station’s anxiety about the cost of animation production and undersell the [American-made] competition in advance, Tezuka sold each episode [of Tetsuwan Atomu] for less than it cost Mushi Production to make it. (There is some dispute about the actual amount Tezuka asked for, but the most commonly cited sum is 550,000 yen, while it is said to have cost 2.5 million yen to produce each episode.) This fateful move—known to the animation industry today as Tezuka’s curse—guaranteed that anime would develop as a transmedia system.39 The narrative of Japanese animation as a labour-intensive undervalued medium economically dependent upon profit from a transmedia system supports Steinberg’s overarching investment in limited animation (which yields the ‘dynamic immobility of the image’)40 and character franchising (fuelled by the consumption of character goods)41 as fundamental tenets of the anime ‘media mix’. It is not hard to imagine, then, that the Uncle Torys commercials would represent the pre-history of anime as defined by Steinberg (‘pre-history’, in this case, because Torys Bar does not yet fit within a transmedia system or market a post-Fordist immaterial commodity). Permitting even one early animated commercial into a categorization of anime that privileges two-dimensional limited animation unleashes a host of unresolved issues because, first and foremost, ‘advertising command[ed] high fees’.42 Though many early animated Japanese television series may have been dependent upon alternative channels of income to cover production costs, Tsugata, Yamaguchi Yasuo, and Takano Kōhei, among others, have noted the financial benefits animated advertisements offered to both corporations and artists. ‘Art-house animations’, as Clements describes certain works by Kuri Yōji, Manabe Hiroshi, and Yanagihara, the trio of artists operating under the banner Animēshon Sannin no Kai (‘Animation Association of Three’) in the early 1960s, ‘were often funded by day jobs in the advertising world’.43 Conversely, animated commercials allowed companies to construct their brand images from scratch, featuring visually consistent characters that would not age. 44 These advertisements were ‘often considerably more accomplished and better funded’, and also ‘more widely seen—Torys Bar might have only lasted sixty seconds, but a viewer who saw 224 J. C. DOUGLASS it once a night, every night, would have sat through a feature film’s worth of content in barely eight weeks’.45 While this supposition requires speculation about reception practices and programming schedules, there is another recurring animated character that has literally appeared in a feature film’s worth of commercials since his televisual debut in 1958. Norihei, the spectacled comic created by food manufacturer Momoya, has starred in more than 120 animated advertisements, the first forty of which were broadcast between 1958 and 1969. Mapping the complexity of the Norihei character and his humour, as well as the breadth of pop-cultural and literary references embedded within the commercials, requires a significant familiarity with Japanese history. Fortunately, streaming video files for all of the commercials, many accompanied by detailed descriptions of each work’s intertextual allusions, remain enshrined in the Momoya website in a sprawling section dedicated to the history of Norihei productions.46 The Norihei character was created as an animated doppelganger of prolific actor Miki Norihei, whose appearances by that period already included countless films and radio programmes, in addition to theatrical productions and television shows. Viewers of the first Norihei commercial, Sukeroku (1958), would have recognized Miki Norihei’s comedic voice and signature circular glasses. The title and narrative structure of the commercial are also products of parody, as Norihei performs a number of parts from Sukeroku, one of the famed ‘Eighteen Great Kabuki Plays’ (Kabuki Jūhachiban). In the guise of samurai Sukeroku and courtesan Agemaki, among others, Norihei describes the deliciousness of his product, Edo Murasaki, a flavoured paste made with seaweed (‘nori’). Throughout the sixty-second advertisement, two-dimensional limited animation is combined with photographic collage featuring jars of Edo Murasaki. Aesthetically, the commercial draws upon earlier renditions of Norihei from manga-like newspaper advertisements created by Momoya from 1953. Though Momoya had produced simpler, non-character-based televisual commercials between 1953 and 1957, the use of the Norihei character and a parodic format in Sukeroku proved popular and financially successful, remaining mainstay elements of Momoya commercials ever since. In fact, written in the opening section of Momoya’s webpage ‘Momoya and Miki Norihei’ is the phrase ‘Norihei toieba Momoya. Momoya toieba Norihei’: essentially, to speak of one is to speak of the other. Arguably, Torys Bar and Sukeroku could fit comfortably within the early history of anime as it is currently constructed. The American-influenced 11 BEYOND ANIME? RETHINKING JAPANESE ANIMATION … 225 limited animation of Uncle Torys, in addition to the intertextuality and manga-like aesthetics of Norihei commercials, predate similar trends traced back to Tetsuwan Atomu by many within anime studies. Yet, acknowledging such conditions calls for a re-evaluation of Tezuka’s industrial ‘curse’ as artistic ‘choice’, championing limited animation not only out of necessity but also (and, I argue, primarily) out of stylistic flourish. Historians must grapple with works such as Torys Bar and Sukeroku complicating origin stories centred on Tetsuwan Atomu and exposing industrial and scholastic forces which espouse anime’s thriftiest mode of production at the expense of a variety of costlier, more labour-intensive techniques and aesthetics on display in the early days of animated television. Conclusion On the preceding pages, I have suggested a need to re-evaluate the relationship between ‘anime’ and ‘television’ in light of the vast number of animated commercials broadcast during the emergent years of television in Japan. As a result of the marginalization of advertising media within histories of anime, the characteristics of many early animated commercials remain unaccounted for in theorizations of anime centred on television series and limited animation. In order to contest notions of ‘television’ projected from the present back onto the past, I turned to select early discourses on television within Japan in order to explore alternative conceptual methods that might better account for the utility of stop-motion and other non-cel-based animated commercials. Finally, I documented two character-based works of limited animation, the Uncle Torys and Norihei series, as a means of pinpointing a fruitful site of intersection between anime’s dominant image and early animated commercials. This chapter has analysed key aspects of several early animated commercials, but it has by no measure exhausted their richness. Future studies should endeavour to rethink prevailing accounts of anime through the close investigation of advertising media. Early animated advertisements, flowing through television sets and supporting the work of animators in Japan long before the premiere of Tetsuwan Atomu, represent a dynamic field of texts that will enable scholars to restore to anime some of its long-erased historical complexity. 226 J. C. DOUGLASS Notes 1. Kōhei Takano, “Terebi CM no kōkogaku” [An Archaeology of Television Commercials]. Shisō 956 (2003): 133–142; 135. 2. Such early commercials can often be found on YouTube. For instance, see OmoshiroCM (‘Interesting Commercials’). YouTube. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=vunisyzDy10. Accessed 25 April 2017. 3. All translations by author unless otherwise noted. 4. Takano, 136. 5. Rayna Denison, Anime: A Critical Introduction (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 1. 6. Nobuyuki Tsugata, Nihon animēshon no chikara: 85-nen no rekishi o tsuranuku futatsu no jiku [The Power of Japanese Animation: Two Axes Running Through 85 Years of History] (Tokyo: NTT Shuppan, 2004), 150–152. 7. Marc Steinberg, Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2012), 8. 8. Jonathan Clements, Anime: A History (London: BFI Palgrave, 2013), 1. 9. Denison, 9. 10. Jez Stewart, “Robin Hood and the Furry Bowlers: Animators vs Advertisers in Early British Television Commercials,” in Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau (London: British Film Institute, 2016), 239–250; 246, 247. 11. Patrick Vonderau, “Introduction: On Advertising’s Relation to Moving Pictures,” in Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau (London: British Film Institute, 2016), 1–20; 4. 12. Denison, 6. 13. Nobuyuki Tsugata, “Anime no rekishi” [A History of Anime], in Animegaku [Anime Studies], eds. Takahashi Mitsuteru and Tsugata Nobuyuki (Tokyo: NTT Shuppan, 2011), 24–44; 26. 14. Clements, 86. 15. Ibid., 70. 16. Ibid., 93. 17. Ibid., 75. 18. See Koka kōra CM 1962 (‘Coca-Cola Commercial 1962’). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmwr3H5_j0Y. Accessed 2 May 2017. 19. Tadashi Iijima, “Terebi to eiga” [Television and Film]. Terebi Dorama 2, no. 7 (1960): 14–18. 20. Ibid., 18. 21. See “Pentakkusu ‘kuroi otoko no burūzu’” [Pentax’s “Black Man’s Blues”]. Advertising Museum Tokyo official website. http://www.admt. jp/collection/treasure/detail.php?id=3&ad=3. Accessed 2 May 2017. 11 BEYOND ANIME? RETHINKING JAPANESE ANIMATION … 227 22. Kenji Iwamoto and Mamoru Makino, eds. Eiga nenkan [Film Almanac] 21 (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Sentā, 1993) 357. 23. See Discography. Avex Io. http://avex-io.com/others/IOBD-21064. html. Accessed 8 May 2017. 24. See “CM 1957-nen ~ 1962-nen” [Commercials from 1957–1962] starting from 04:38. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= Jkvuh6Jc9ZM. Accessed 8 May 2017. 25. Ibid., starting from 10:50. 26. Tadao Umesao, “Hōsōjin, idainaru amachua” [Broadcast People, Great Amateurs]. Hōsō Asahi 89 (1961): 8–15. 27. Ibid., 14. 28. Ibid. 29. Clements, 86. 30. Atsushi Shimada, “Terebi geijutsu no kiso” [The Foundations of Televisual Art]. Shisō 413 (1958): 232–239. 31. Ibid., 236. 32. Ibid. 33. Aaron Gerow, “From Film to Television: Early Theories of Television in Japan,” in Media Theory in Japan, eds. Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017), 33–51; 41. 34. Steinberg, 8. 35. Clements, 85–86. 36. Kōichi Nakai, Nihon kōkoku hyōgen gijutsushi: kōkoku hyōgen no 120-nen o ninatta kurieitātachi [A Technical History of Japanese Advertising: The Creators Who Shouldered 120 Years of Advertising] (Tokyo: Genkōsha, 1991), 734–737. 37. See “Beer mukashi mukashi” [Beer Long, Long Ago]. YouTube. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6WdIOhtfr4. Accessed 9 May 2017. 38. Clements, 85. 39. Steinberg, 39–40. 40. Ibid., 6. 41. Ibid., 200. 42. Clements, 85. 43. Ibid., 87. 44. Nakai, 735–736. 45. Clements, 87. 46. See Natsukashi no norihei anime CM (lit. ‘Dear Old Norihei Anime Commercials’). Momoya official website. http://www.momoya.co.jp/gallery/ norihei/cm/. Accessed 10 May 2017. 228 J. C. DOUGLASS Bibliography Denison, Rayna. 2015. Anime: A Critical Introduction. London: Bloomsbury. Gerow, Aaron. 2017. “From Film to Television: Early Theories of Television in Japan.” In Media Theory in Japan, eds. Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten, 33–51. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Iwamoto, Kenji, and Makino, Mamoru, eds. 1993. Eiga nenkan [Film Almanac] 21. Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Sentā. Nakai, Kōichi. 1991. Nihon kōkoku hyōgen gijutsushi: kōkoku hyōgen no 120-nen o ninatta kurieitātachi [A Technical History of Japanese Advertising: The Creators Who Shouldered 120 Years of Advertising]. Tokyo: Genkōsha. Shimada, Atsushi. 1958. “Terebi geijutsu no kiso” [The Foundations of Televisual Art]. Shisō 413: 232–239. Steinberg, Marc. 2012. Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Stewart, Jez. 2016. “Robin Hood and the Furry Bowlers: Animators vs Advertisers in Early British Television Commercials.” In Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau, 239– 250. London: British Film Institute. Takano, Kōhei. 2003. “Terebi CM no kōkogaku” [An Archaeology of Television Commercials]. Shisō 956: 133–142. Tsugata, Nobuyuki. 2004. Nihon animēshon no chikara: 85-nen no rekishi o tsuranuku futatsu no jiku [The Power of Japanese Animation: Two Axes Running Through 85 Years of History]. Tokyo: NTT Shuppan. Tsugata, Nobuyuki. 2011. “Anime no rekishi” [A History of Anime]. In Animegaku [Anime Studies], eds. Takahashi Mitsuteru and Tsugata Nobuyuki, 24– 44. Tokyo: NTT Shuppan. Umesao, Tadao. 1961. “Hōsōjin, idainaru amachua” [Broadcast People, Great Amateurs]. Hōsō Asahi 89: 8–15. Vonderau, Patrick. 2016. “Introduction: On Advertising’s Relation to Moving Pictures.” In Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau, 1–20. London: British Film Institute. Yamaguchi, Yasuo. 2004. Nihon no anime zenshi [A Complete History of Japanese Animation]. Tokyo: Ten Bukkusu. CHAPTER 12 The ‘Quasi-Artistic Venture’: MTV Idents and Alternative Animation Culture Lilly Husbands Introduction American and European audiences who watched the Music Television channel (MTV) from the 1980s to the early 2000s will likely recall being intrigued, disturbed or delighted by the ten-second animated network identifications (idents)1 that showcased the channel’s logo amidst the flow of commercials, music videos and VJ monologues. Since the earliest days of broadcasting, idents have served not only to help audiences distinguish between channels but also to symbolise and promote their associated brand values and characteristics. The appeal and sophistication of these idents became increasingly significant as competition for viewers grew in the early 1980s with the proliferation of niche cable networks like MTV, Cable News Network (CNN), Nickelodeon and Black Entertainment Television (BET).2 MTV’s first creative director Fred Seibert broke with established broadcast orthodoxies when the channel first aired in 1981 by deciding to have the animated idents continuously change in ‘brand-new and cuttingedge’ ways.3 The MTV logo in the idents could be transformed, deformed, L. Husbands (B) Middlesex University, London, UK © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_12 229 230 L. HUSBANDS exploded and reconfigured in any material, colour or style, ultimately rendering it a highly adaptable ‘anti-logo’4 that conveyed MTV’s core principles of rebelliousness and innovation. Despite initial resistance from executives at MTV’s parent company Warner-Amex, Seibert pioneered a new style of television channel branding with these idents, initiating a new industry norm in the form of what Naomi Klein has described as its ‘model of medium-as-brand’.5 She notes that the channel was not only a ‘marketing machine’ for products (via commercials) and albums (via music videos), it was also ‘a twenty-four-hour advertisement for MTV itself’.6 The idents were integral to establishing MTV’s identity for its target audience ages 15–34 as the embodiment of rock and roll’s irreverent ideology, and their constant variation enabled MTV to spearhead and respond to changes in popular music and culture throughout its first decades.7 The decision to commission small studios and independent animators to make the hundreds of idents for MTV and MTV Europe between 1981 and the early 2000s served not only to create a unique brand for the channel but also to expand the visual language of popular culture by exposing millions of viewers around the world (including a generation of future animators, illustrators, graphic artists and designers) to innovative and experimental animation styles and techniques. Scholars have noted the influence of experimental film techniques on music videos and television commercials in the 1980s and 1990s,8 yet little attention has been paid to the ways that independent and experimental animators helped shape the face of the MTV Generation by lending their personal aesthetics and techniques to the brand in the form of idents and promos. This chapter will explore the intersection of independent animation and television branding that characterised this particular period of the channel’s history, focusing on the variety of alternative animation techniques and styles found in the two decades leading up to what Lev Manovich calls the ‘Velvet Revolution’, or ‘the new hybrid visual language of moving images’ brought about by the dissemination of Adobe After Effects in the mid-1990s.9 MTV’s desired public image of trailblazing unconventionality created a consistent need for animation that showcased clever new ideas and styles. Animators such as George Griffin, Frank and Caroline Mouris, Deanna Morse, Marv Newland, Bill Plympton, Henry Selick, Caroline Leaf and Bob Sabiston made animated promos for MTV in its first two decades, creating idents, ‘Art Breaks’, social issue awareness campaigns or other promotional packaging like ‘Top Twenty Countdown’ or ‘Dial MTV’ introductions. 12 THE ‘QUASI-ARTISTIC VENTURE’ … 231 When commissioned, ident animators were given extensive artistic licence as long as the animation finished on a recognisable version of the bold sans serif ‘M’ and graffitied ‘TV’ of the MTV logo, initially designed by Seibert’s friends Frank Olinsky, Pat Gorman and Patty Rogoff at their small agency Manhattan Design (1979–1991).10 Ten seconds is a uniquely challenging time constraint, which artists responded to in multiple ways. Idents exhibited an array of materials and techniques, including 2D hand-drawn, object and puppet animation, clay animation, pixilation, collage, cut-out, hand-coloured Xeroxed photographs, back light photography, video compositing, mixed media and live action. Some exhibited a cartoon style and others made use of experimental animation techniques like sliced wax, pinboard animation, scratch or paint on filmand sand or paint on glass. Idents ranged in tone from parodic, quirky and grotesque to stylish and abstract. Many took the form of micro-narratives or scenarios that were structured around a single idea or gag (where the logo often acted as the punch line). Others exhibited a graphic or thematic associational logic that used the logo as a central point of resolution. The brand’s emphasis on being humorously irreverent, provocative and visually innovative lent itself to formal experimentation, and the shortness of these interstitial animations and their positioning between programmes and commercials freed them from the expectations associated with longer programming. That they were selling an attitude rather than a specific product further opened up their expressive possibilities. Even though other television channels quickly began to take more creative approaches to interstitials, MTV idents exhibited an exceptional degree of formal experimentation and expressive freedom.11 In his examination of the cultural significance of moving image adverts, Patrick Vonderau connects ‘the ways screen advertisers have nested into institutional forms and routines’12 to anthropologist George E. Marcus’s notion of the ‘para-site’, or a cultural ‘site of alternativity in which […] something different […] could happen’.13 Marcus’s notion of ‘alternativity’ here is particularly apt when applied to the animated MTV idents in that it refers to cultural producers and products that do not necessarily oppose mainstream culture but nevertheless present ‘ambiguously alternative perspectives’ within ‘major institutional powers’.14 The creative directors who commissioned most of the early idents in the United States and Europe— Seibert, Judy McGrath, Abby Terkuhle, John Payson, Jon Klein and Peter Dougherty—carved out an ‘ambiguously alternative’ space for technical 232 L. HUSBANDS and stylistic exploration within the institution of broadcast television that eventually became a significant component of the mainstream. The ‘Quasi-Artistic Venture’ MTV’s animated idents are an underexamined part of the larger imbricated histories of experimental animation and advertising. Animation’s close links with the graphic arts have always challenged neat modernist bifurcations between mass culture and the avant-garde, aligning the art form with the long history of commercial artists and graphic designers adapting avantgarde styles and techniques in the service of industry. In the United States, the use of modernist design aesthetics on television in the 1950s and 1960s further disseminated styles derived from avant-garde art movements to a wide audience.15 By the 1970s, socio-economic transformations such as a decrease in public funding for the arts in New York led experimental animators to take commissions from supportive producers like Arlene Sherman at the Children’s Television Workshop’s ‘Sesame Street’.16 Increasingly, as Robert Russett and Cecile Starr noted, young animators who previously ‘might have devoted themselves to purely artistic projects [were] focusing their creative abilities on the production of high-powered television advertising, free-form music videos, and other quasi-artistic ventures’.17 Experimental animation in this period had begun to diversify beyond its canonical associations with abstraction, and independent and commercial animators alike were influenced by contemporary art movements such as Pop Art, Op art, performance and conceptual art as well as subcultural graphic art styles like graffiti, underground comix and fanzines, psychedelic album cover art and concert posters. Most of these styles later appeared in MTV idents. In fact, Seibert initially conceived of idents as album cover art for a new generation of music fans, intending them to attain a similar cultural significance.18 As the channel and its brand increased in popularity, the kind of formal and stylistic experimentation exhibited in these short animations became associated with youthful style, pop culture and commercialism. The Idents: An Overview Research into the MTV channel idents presents numerous challenges, primarily due to their brevity, quantity, uncredited anonymity and the lack 12 THE ‘QUASI-ARTISTIC VENTURE’ … 233 of accessible and official archives.19 One way to gain some perspective on the array of animated works that appeared on the channel over its first two decades is to focus on the primary creative directors who commissioned them, in particular Seibert (1981–1984), Abby Terkuhle (1986–1997, when he became head of MTV Animation) and Peter Dougherty (1990– 2001) at MTV Europe. Each creative director brought their own tastes and commissioning styles to the channel, working under different executive management teams and responding to changing historical and cultural contexts. However, across all of their tenures the underlying criteria for selecting idents remained ‘humour, risk-taking, unpredictability, irreverence’ and visual unconventionality.20 Seibert and his creative partner Alan Goodman sought out smaller graphic design collectives and advertising agencies to create idents because they were interested in using animation styles that ‘everybody else was absolutely ignoring’.21 Part of the incentive behind approaching independent animators and smaller commercial studios, especially during the channel’s early years, was the relatively small budgets allocated for promotional work.22 The resulting animations had an offbeat, DIY aesthetic; what had begun as an economic constraint thus ultimately supported the channel’s contrarian, youth-orientated identity. Later creative directors like Terkuhle and Dougherty, who had a specific interest in alternative forms of animation, were keen to actively support—and make use of—more independent work. As these short idents were relatively lowrisk and inexpensive commissions, the creative directors were able to offer artists extraordinary creative freedom in terms of fulfilling the brief. MTV’s first ident, the thirty-second One Small Step ‘Top of the Hour’ animation, which featured archival footage of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, set the tone for future idents both in terms of its hip, lo-fi, handmade aesthetic and its hubristic and irreverent attitude in comparing the moon landing with the launch of a music television channel. Seibert and Goodman commissioned the animation in 1981 from New York-based commercial studio Perpetual Motion Pictures (later BuzzCo Associates), then owned by Buzz Potamkin and Hal Silvermitz.23 It was directed, illustrated and animated by Candy Kugel, an animator who straddled both the independent and commercial worlds of animation. In order to create the ‘Man on the Moon’ idents (and later the well-known 1984 ‘I Want My MTV!’ national campaign) as quickly and cheaply as possible, Kugel and her team used a technique involving Xeroxed photographs and Photostats that were hand-coloured with watercolour markers. The ident began 234 L. HUSBANDS with footage of the rocket launch, followed by Buzz Aldrin’s leap from the spaceship and a series of shots of Aldrin and Neil Armstrong standing around the staked American flag, whose stars and stripes were replaced with the MTV logo. The ident ends with a close up on the logo as it kaleidoscopically cycles through coloured patterns that flicker and swipe across the image in synchronisation with the electric guitar riff on the soundtrack. In her history of the creation of the iconic ident,24 Kugel notes that she drew inspiration from NYU students and independent animators in New York who were experimenting with Xerox technology, and she was equally inspired by the postmodernist mixture of brightly coloured designs coming out of the Memphis Milano art movement.25 These ‘Top of the Hour’ and ‘Bottom of the Hour’ animations played continuously until 1986 when the Challenger space shuttle exploded during its launch. They were estimated to have aired over seventy five thousand times.26 Between 1981 and 1984, Seibert and Goodman commissioned idents primarily from three small commercial studios: Perpetual Motion Pictures, Colossal Pictures27 (founded in 1976 by Drew Takahashi and Gary Gutierrez in San Francisco) and Broadcast Arts (founded by Steve Oakes and Peter Rosenthal in 1981 in Washington, DC and later named Curious Pictures in New York). A number of the artists working at these small commercial studios had made and continued to make independent, personal or experimental animations that were screened at animation festivals and elsewhere. Indeed, independent animators such as Ken Brown and Lisa Crafts, Sky David (aka Dennis Pies), Jerry Lieberman, Eli Noyes, Jr. and Tony Eastman designed or worked on MTV idents and promotions at points throughout the 1980s. Later, during McGrath’s and Terkuhle’s tenures as creative director, small studios like The Ink Tank (founded by animator and illustrator R. O. Blechman in 1978), Olive Jar Studios (founded in 1984 in Boston by Mark D’Olivera and Bill Jarco), International Rocketship Limited (founded by Marv Newland in 1975) and Cat & Crossbones Productions (founded by designer/animator Graham Elliott) created a variety of animated idents. Although the majority of the idents during this period were made using analogue techniques, some commercial studios used programmes like Quantel Paintbox to create vibrant computer-animated idents, such as Silver Cloud Production’s Dot to Dot (1982). A studio’s creative team would determine the animation’s technique and style on a case-by-case basis, selecting an appropriate aesthetic for the pitch’s central theme or idea.28 Takahashi notes that Colossal Pictures, who 12 THE ‘QUASI-ARTISTIC VENTURE’ … 235 produced some of the channel’s most self-reflexive and tongue-in-cheek idents, worked primarily with artists from different artistic backgrounds who were interested in coming up with unusual ways of making animation.29 Especially evident in the early studio-made idents are the influences of various underground and ‘lowbrow’ graphic art subcultures. Suzy Prince and Ian P. Lowey describe these subcultures as drawing from ‘low’ cultural forms like graffiti, ‘erotica, surfing and skateboarding, soft porn, Bmovies, horror film, manga, carnival and fairground signage, kitsch, tattoos, tiki, retro advertising graphics, pulp fiction, and hot rod and Kustom Kulture’.30 These alternative approaches were often influenced by the reflexive consciousness of punk graphic design, which was often ‘distinctly postmodern in its ability to both self-consciously “quote” its early twentiethcentury reference points and to critique its own position as an element of marketing’.31 When Terkuhle was hired as creative director in 1986, he began to commission idents from independent and experimental animators in addition to small commercial studios. With a background in film and art, his interest in animation began when he was a student at Loyola University where his professor Bill Kuhns, who helped found the Ottawa International Animation Festival in 1976, introduced him to the different visual styles and thematic content of Eastern European animation.32 This interest eventually led Terkuhle to commission idents by such well-known animators as Jan Svankmajer and the Quay Brothers.33 He attended animation festivals like Ottawa and Annecy to scout for animators and established an opendoor policy where independent artists and designers could pitch ideas for idents and other promotional work for MTV. Terkuhle and John Payson held international competitions for idents, simultaneously offering emergent artists and students a chance to have their work aired on MTV affiliates around the world (Sheila Sofian and Nicholas Jennings were among the winners) while soliciting fresh creative input for the brand. An example of one of Terkuhle’s commissions was Flip Johnson’s formally experimental ident called Amazing Place (1991) (Fig. 12.1). The landscape-like imagery was hand-drawn and combined with silkscreen prints on 16 mm with an Oxberry animation stand to create a dual-layered cacophony of vibrant colour, superimposed shapes and movement that passes through several abstract phases, including a composite of landscape background, coloured spots and a rotating MTV logo (Fig. 12.2). 236 L. HUSBANDS Fig. 12.1 Amazing Place (1991) Director and Producer, Flip Johnson; Designer, Bradley Gake; Animation, Julie Zammarchi, Bradley Gake, Flip Johnson; Frame grab in collaboration with Dae Lee Dougherty, who had worked in the on-air promotions department at MTV in New York since 1982, took over for Jon Klein as creative director at MTV Europe in 1990. He was known for his personal connections to the underground arts and music scenes in New York in the 1970s and 1980s, and contributed significantly to shaping the channel’s identity in its early years.34 Credited with introducing hip-hop to MTV in the form of ‘Yo! MTV Raps’ (1988–1995), he commissioned promotions like the ten-second ‘Art Break’ featuring artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1985 (these were intended to demonstrate MTV’s artistic credibility by spotlighting vanguard New York artists like Robert Longo, Kenny Scharf, Charles Clough, Keith Haring, Doug Aitken and Richard Prince). Dougherty preferred a ‘rough around the edges’ aesthetic with an ‘intentionally handmade, tactile feel’,35 and he explicitly nurtured non-computer based animation in his commissions for MTV Europe in the 1990s and early 2000s.36 12 THE ‘QUASI-ARTISTIC VENTURE’ … 237 Fig. 12.2 Amazing Place (1991) Director and Producer, Flip Johnson; Designer, Bradley Gake; Animation, Julie Zammarchi, Bradley Gake, Flip Johnson; Frame grab in collaboration with Dae Lee Unlike his colleagues in the United States, Dougherty faced a different set of challenges in terms of designing and commissioning idents that would be accessible to viewers from all over Europe. He and his creative team turned to ‘more abstract, stylized graphics’, believing that design was ‘a common frame of reference’ that was based on a ‘strong graphic tradition in rock and roll’.37 In this way, the aspirations of early experimental animators like Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter and Oskar Fischinger to have Visual Music act as a ‘universal language’ can be seen to have reemerged in MTV Europe’s animated idents, albeit shaped by the consumerist logic of late capitalism.38 Towards the end of Dougherty’s time at MTV Europe, several extracts from Len Lye’s Rainbow Dance (1936), The Birth of the Robot (1936), Colour Flight (1938), Swinging the Lambeth Walk (1939) 238 L. HUSBANDS and Colour Cry (1952) were used (with credit) as idents, at least implicitly acknowledging the debt the channel owed to the early traditions of experimental animation (and these works’ commercial origins). Dougherty, and Klein before him, took advantage of the fine arts tradition of animation in Europe, commissioning work from animators such as Jiří Barta, Piotr Dumala and Jerzy Kucia in Eastern Europe and Ged Haney and Emma Calder, Stuart Hilton, Jonathan Hodgson, Neil Bousfield, Phil Mulloy, Osbert Parker, Paul Vester and Run Wrake in the UK. Experimental and fine art animation techniques frequently appeared in the idents he and Klein commissioned; for example, Welsh experimental animator Clive Walley used his signature multiplane camera and paint on glass technique for the abstract ident Phase Change in 1996. Another ident called Emulsion (1988), made by Marc Kitchen Smith at the Film Garage studio, presented vibrantly coloured imagery that was bleached, painted and stamped directly onto 16 mm film. In the late 1980s, animation festivals began to offer awards for commissioned work, and a number of MTV idents and short animations won international recognition. For instance, Dougherty commissioned the metamorphosing, hand-drawn Pets (1993) from Sarah Cox and John Parry, recent graduates from the Royal College of Art in London, which became an official selection at Annecy in 1995. As MTV became more popular and well known for its exhibition of unorthodox and cutting-edge animation, young animators saw the potential for their work to reach a broad audience and sought commissions for idents. Initially shaped by individual animators’ creativity, MTV itself eventually became a major influence on the animation industry and on evolving conceptions of animation as art. One-Dimensional Animation MTV first went on air as a subsidiary of Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment Company and then was purchased by Viacom in 1984—facts which highlight the paradoxical nature of its marketing itself as an ‘antiauthoritarian’ and ‘anti-establishment’ music television channel. MTV’s corporate rhetoric of rebellion reflects Marxist theorist Herbert Marcuse’s notion of contemporary consumer culture’s ‘one-dimensionality’—that is, the inability of critical thought or opposition to escape commodification in late capitalism.39 This view is aligned with critical theories of how MTV’s postmodern co-optation of avant-garde techniques and subcultural styles emptied them of their oppositional social and political power.40 While these 12 THE ‘QUASI-ARTISTIC VENTURE’ … 239 arguments are compelling critiques of the anchoring of certain experimental techniques to commercial meanings, this way of thinking fails to acknowledge experimental animation’s intersections with commercial art since early modernism. It is also based on a somewhat teleological view of the channel’s success and the effects of mass exposure, ignoring the experimentation and innovation that characterised its fledgling years.41 MTV and in particular the creative teams that commissioned idents can be seen as both proponents and products of the cultural and economic landscape of an increasingly postmodern and neoliberal era. MTV was one of the first companies in the United States to consistently commission work from independent animators during a period when unions were failing and animation work was increasingly being outsourced to other countries. The ‘ambiguously alternative’ spaces carved out by MTV’s creative directors offered animators financial and creative freedom to explore new styles and techniques.42 However, the negative connotations conjured by Marcus’s term ‘para-site’ also correspond to the ambivalent economic relationships established between a powerful mass media corporation and the often young and up-and-coming independent artists who made idents. Young animators graduating from art schools with interesting personal styles sold their aesthetics (without credit) to be used in service of the brand. For instance, John Schnall used the stop motion animated still photograph technique that he developed for his animation Frankenstein (1992) for an ident called X-Ray (1993). The ident features a man sitting at a table preparing to eat a roasted pig when rips in the image begin to reveal the man’s skeleton, whose ribcage forms the ‘M’ of the logo and his heart the ‘TV’. The skeleton then ‘pulls’ the photograph of the man down over itself like a window blind, only to reveal that the pig has now turned into a skeleton. Because of MTV’s pop-cultural influence, after creating an ident for MTV, artists would sometimes see their techniques copied by advertising agencies in commercials elsewhere on television.43 In his study of the infiltration of countercultural anti-commercialism into the rhetoric of 1960s advertising, cultural historian and critic Thomas Frank notes that advertisers’ self-conscious, critical rebellion against the formulaic and paternalistic tone of their predecessors started a cycle of knowing, nonconformist ‘hipness’ that has continued to evolve with each new generation of advertisers.44 He also notes that the ‘creative revolution’ was for the most part actually driven by ‘hip’ young people working at advertising agencies. MTV’s creative teams were similarly comprised of young people who were enthusiastically participating in the culture they were selling. 240 L. HUSBANDS Television scholar Catherine Johnson observes that a key aspect of MTV’s marketing strategy was its emphasis on young staff members, ‘proclaiming that there is no boundary between the executive, the brand and the audience—they all embody the same values and experiences’.45 Seibert, Goodman and MTV’s first director of programming Robert Pittman were in their mid-twenties when they started working for the channel, and from the very beginning Seibert and Goodman looked to their friends in various creative industries to help create the channel’s visual branding. Many of the independent animators and small commercial studios that contributed idents were young, emergent artists, illustrators and animators that were responding to the financial realities of the era and directly engaging with the cultural zeitgeist of postmodernism. Artists who worked in-house for MTV often came from art school backgrounds and were admirers of avantgarde art and cinema. In the mid-1990s, when MTV began phasing out music videos, some of these artists became increasingly disenchanted with the channel’s role in the culture industry.46 This highlights the ambivalences of these cultural industries’ relationships to emergent underground, subcultural and avant-garde art forms. As Frank suggests, the ‘myths of authenticity and co-optation’ are inadequate for a full understanding of cultural history.47 By the beginning of the 1980s, preconceptions of the avant-garde as synonymous with esotericism and alienation from popular culture had been significantly broken down. MTV certainly played an active part in the further disintegration of these artistic boundaries; however, the political, economic and cultural context out of which it arose was already challenging the binaries of art and commerce. Conclusion The digital revolution and the rise of the Internet cued many stylistic and technical changes to the ways that animation was made and exhibited both on television and online. By the early 2000s, changes in executive management had brought the era of the animated ident largely to a close in the United States and, a bit later, in Europe.48 Despite the ambivalences inherent in these commercial exchanges, the creative directors’ support of independent animators during this period ended up disseminating an alternative visual language that significantly impacted popular culture and the status of animation as an art form. 12 THE ‘QUASI-ARTISTIC VENTURE’ … 241 Notes 1. Network idents normally take the form of a visual graphic or animation depicting the channel’s logo and name and are related to other ‘paratextual’ forms of interstitial promotional materials such as spot adverts, programme trailers and teasers, announcements, contests and sponsorship ‘bumpers’. 2. Catherine Johnson, Branding Television (London: Routledge, 2012). 3. Candy Kugel, “The Creation of an Icon: MTV,” Animation World Magazine 2, no. 10 (January 1998), http://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.10/2. 10pages/2.10mtv.html. 4. Sue Apfelbaum and Laura Forde, “22 Iconic New York Music Logos Explained,” Red Bull Music Academy Daily 12 (June 3, 2013), http:// daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2013/06/iconic-logos. 5. Naomi Klein, No Logo (London: Fourth Estate, 2010), 44. 6. Ibid. 7. See Lida Hujić, The First to Know: How Hipsters and Mavericks Shape the Zeitgeist (London: Bubble Publishing, 2010). 8. See Greg S. Faller, “From Sitney to TV: Classical Experimental Style in Contemporary Music Videos,” Popular Music and Society 20, no. 1 (1996): 175–189. William Fowler, “The Occult Roots of MTV: British Music Video and Underground Film-Making in the 1980s,” MSMI 11, no. 1 (Spring, 2017): 63–77. 9. Lev Manovich, “After Effects, or the Velvet Revolution (Part I),” 2006, http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/after-effects-part-1. 10. Frank Olinsky, “MTV Logo Story,” http://www.frankolinsky.com/ mtvstory1.html. 11. Seibert initiated similar changes to idents and promos on MTV’s sister channels Nickelodeon (1977-present), Nick at Nite (1985-present), and VH1 (1985-present). 12. Patrick Vondereau, “Introduction: On Advertising’s Relation to Moving Pictures,” in Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vondereau (London: Palgrave BFI, 2016), 13. 13. George E. Marcus, “Introduction,” Para-Sites: A Casebook Against Cynical Reason, ed. George E. Marcus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 7. 14. Marcus, “Introduction,” 5. 15. Michael Betancourt, The History of Motion Graphics: From Avant-Garde to Industry in the United States (Maryland: Wildside Press, 2013), 103. Lynn Spigel, TV By Design: Modern Art and the Rise of Network Television (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008): 64–66. 16. Mo Willems, “A Conversation with: Arlene Sherman and Abby Terkuhle,” Animation World Magazine 2, no. 6 (August 6, 1997), https://www.awn. com/mag/issue2.6/2.6pages/2.6wilhelmctw.html. 242 L. HUSBANDS 17. Ibid., 24. 18. Fred Seibert in discussion with author, June 2017. 19. See Fred Seibert, “MTV: Music Television,” http://fredseibert.com/ tagged/MTVposts; Jean Bergantini Grillo, “New Network Look: Hairy, Fat,” Cablevision Magazine (June 7, 1982), 4–11. 20. Willems, “A Conversation with: Arlene Sherman and Abby Terkuhle”. 21. John Canemaker, “Over the Edge with MTV,” Print Magazine 46, no. 5 (1992), 24. 22. Fred Seibert in discussion with author, June 2017. 23. David Sameth produced the animation, and John Petersen and Jonathan Elias composed the iconic guitar riff. 24. Kugel, “The Creation of an Icon: MTV”. 25. Popular throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Memphis Milano style was based on an Italian design and architecture group founded by Ettoree Sottsass and was known for its mix of Art Deco, Pop Art and kitsch in its furniture and design objects. 26. Fred Seibert, “More Than 75,000 Times,” http://fredseibert.com/post/ 184137950/more-than-75000-times. 27. As discussed in Chapter 15, Colossal would play an important role in Pixar’s forays into advertising. 28. J. J. Sedelmaier in discussion with author, June 2017. 29. Drew Takahashi in discussion with author, August 2017. 30. Suzy Prince and Ian P. Lowey, The Graphic Art of the Underground: A Countercultural History (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 190–192. 31. Ibid., 110. 32. Willems, “A Conversation with: Arlene Sherman and Abby Terkuhle.” I am grateful to Chris Robinson for confirming this connection. 33. Terkuhle commissioned these idents through Keith Griffiths at Koninick Studios in the UK. Abby Terkuhle in discussion with author, September 2017. 34. Jon Caramanica, “Peter Dougherty, Who Brought Rap to MTV, Dies at 59,” The New York Times (October 27, 2015), https://www.nytimes. com/2015/10/28/arts/music/peter-dougherty-who-brought-rap-tomtv-dies-at-59.html?mcubz=3. 35. Joanna Norland, “Peter Dougherty: The Tunes (and Graphics) They Are a-Changin’,” Ithica College Quarterly (Spring 1997), https://www.ithaca. edu/icq/1997v2/mtv2.htm. 36. Ruth Lingford, email message to author (September 27, 2017). 37. Peter Dougherty, quoted in Norland, “Peter Dougherty: The Tunes (and Graphics) They Are a-Changin’.” 38. Hans Richter, “Easel-Scroll-Film,” Magazine of Art (February 1952), 79. 39. Herbert Marcuse, On-Dimensional Man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society (London: Routledge Classics, 2002), 93. 12 THE ‘QUASI-ARTISTIC VENTURE’ … 243 40. See E. Ann Kaplan, Rocking Around the Clock: Music, Television, Postmodernism and Consumer Culture (London: Routledge, 1987); Lauren Rabinovitz, “Animation, Postmodernism, and MTV,” The Velvet Light Trap (Fall, 1989): 99–112; Dana Polan, “SZ/MTV,” Journal of Communication Enquiry 10, no. 1 (1986): 48–54; David J. Tetzlaff, “MTV and the Politics of Postmodern Pop,” Journal of Communication Enquiry 10, no. 1 (1986): 80–91. 41. See Andrew Goodwin, Dancing in the Distraction Factory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992) for a more materialist approach to MTV’s cultural history. 42. Chris Robinson, “CTW and MTV: Shorts of Influence,” Animation World Network, Profiles, Monday, September 1, 1997, https://www.awn.com/ animationworld/ctw-and-mtv-shorts-influence. 43. John Schnall and Steven Dovas, “The Vague Rumor of Independence in New York Animation,” Animation World Magazine 4, no. 2 (May 1999), https://www.awn.com/animationworld/vague-rumor-independencenew-york-animation. 44. Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 28. 45. Johnson, Branding Television, 20. 46. Chris Harvey in discussion with author, September 2017. 47. Frank, Conquest of Cool, 8. 48. In 2015, MTV International’s creative agency World Creative Studio launched an online rebrand campaign that reintroduced the commissioning of idents by emergent experimental animators. The largely computeranimated idents maintain the abstract, offbeat, humorous and creative logic of their forebears. See http://wcs-mtv.com/projects/artist-idents/. Bibliography Apfelbaum, Sue, and Laura Forde. 2013. “22 Iconic New York Music Logos Explained.” Red Bull Music Academy Daily 12, June 3. http://daily. redbullmusicacademy.com/2013/06/iconic-logos. Accessed April 2018. Betancourt, Michael. 2013. The History of Motion Graphics: From Avant-Garde to Industry in the United States. Maryland: Wildside Press. Canemaker, John. 1992. “Over the Edge with MTV.” Print Magazine 46, no. 5: 21–31. Caramanica, Jon. 2015. “Peter Dougherty, Who Brought Rap to MTV, Dies at 59.” The New York Times, October 27. Colpan, Selma, and Lydia Nsiah. 2016. “More Than Product Advertising: Animation, Gasparcolor and Sorela’s Corporate Design.” In Films That Sell: Moving 244 L. HUSBANDS Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk and Patrick Vondereau, 114–130. London: Palgrave BFI. Faller, Greg S. 1996. “From Sitney to TV: Classical Experimental Style in Contemporary Music Videos.” Popular Music and Society 20, no. 1: 175–189. Fowler, William. 2017. “The Occult Roots of MTV: British Music Video and Underground Film-Making in the 1980s.” MSMI 11, no. 1 (Spring): 63–77. Frank, Thomas. 1997. The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Goodwin, Andrew. 1992. Dancing in the Distraction Factory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Grillo, Jean Bergantini. 1982. “New Network Look: Hairy, Fat.” Cablevision Magazine, June 7, 4–11. Hujić, Lida. 2010. The First To Know: How Hipsters and Mavericks Shape the Zeitgeist. London: Bubble Publishing. Johnson, Catherine. 2012. Branding Television. London: Routledge. Kaplan, E.Ann. 1987. Rocking Around the Clock: Music, Television, Postmodernism and Consumer Culture. London: Routledge. Klein, Naomi. 2010. No Logo. London: Fourth Estate. Kugel, Candy. 1998. “The Creation of an Icon: MTV.” Animation World Magazine 2. no. 10, January. http://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.10/2.10pages/2. 10mtv.html Accessed 24 April 2018. Manovich, Lev. 2006. “After Effects, or the Velvet Revolution (Part I).” Manovich.net. http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/after-effects-part-1. Accessed June 2017. Marcus, George E. 2000. “Introduction.” In Para-sites: A Casebook Against Cynical Reason, ed. George E. Marcus. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1–13. Marcuse, Herbert. 2002. On-dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. London: Routledge Classics. Norland, Joanna. 1997. “Peter Dougherty: The Tunes (and Graphics) They Are a-Changin’.” Ithica College Quarterly, Spring. https://www.ithaca.edu/icq/ 1997v2/mtv2.htm. Accessed September 2018. Olinsky, Frank. n.d. “MTV Logo Story.” Frank Olinsky.com. http://www. frankolinsky.com/mtvstory1.html. Accessed July 2017. Polan, Dana. 1986. “SZ/MTV.” Journal of Communication Enquiry 10, no. 1: 48–54 Prince, Suzy, and Ian P. Lowey. 2014. The Graphic Art of the Underground: A Countercultural History. London: Bloomsbury. Rabinovitz, Lauren. 1989. “Animation, Postmodernism, and MTV.” The Velvet Light Trap 24 (Fall): 99–112. Richter, Hans. 1952. “Easel-Scroll-Film.” Magazine of Art, February, 78–86. Robinson, Chris. 1997. “CTW and MTV: Shorts of Influence.” Animation World Network, Monday, September 1. https://www.awn.com/animationworld/ ctw-and-mtv-shorts-influence. Accessed July 2017. 12 THE ‘QUASI-ARTISTIC VENTURE’ … 245 Schnall, John, and Steven Dovas. 1999. “The Vague Rumor of Independence in New York Animation.” Animation World Magazine 4, no. 2 (May). https://www.awn.com/animationworld/vague-rumor-independence-newyork-animation. Accessed July 2017. Seibert, Fred. n.d. “More Than 75,000 Times.” Fred Seibert.com. http:// fredseibert.com/post/184137950/more-than-75000-times. Accessed July 2017. Spigel, Lynn. 2008. TV By Design: Modern Art and the Rise of Network Television. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tetzlaff, David J. 1986. “MTV and the Politics of Postmodern Pop.” Journal of Communication Enquiry 10, no. 1: 80–91 Vondereau, Patrick. 2016. “Introduction: On Advertising’s Relation to Moving Pictures.” In Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk and Patrick Vondereau, 1–18. London: Palgrave BFI. Willems, Mo. 1997. “A Conversation With: Arlene Sherman and Abby Terkuhle.” Animation World Magazine 2, no. 6, August 6. https://www.awn.com/mag/ issue2.6/2.6pages/2.6wilhelmctw.html. Accessed September 2018. CHAPTER 13 ‘Stupid Little Stories’: Television Interstitial and Advertising Style in the Professional Culture of Indian Animation Timothy Jones India’s economic liberalisation in the early 1990s had dramatic consequences for television animation, and advertising in particular. A proliferation of cable and satellite services not only created opportunities for transnational networks, it also fostered an urgent demand for branded content, soon to be met by a cluster of boutique animation studios. The station identifiers, and soon after commercials, these studios produced for an ever-expanding number of channels sought to replicate the success of small Western studios—like Aardman Animations—in the 1980s. Indian animators seized on these examples, even including their ‘handmade’ often stopmotion aesthetics, but adapted to recognisably Indian—sometimes overtly orientalist—subjects and themes; blending the traditional with the postmodern, and juxtaposing global brands with local artisanship. T. Jones (B) Robert Morris University, Moon Township, PA, USA e-mail: jonest@rmu.edu © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_13 247 248 T. JONES This expansion in animated advertising is important for several reasons: it represented a major departure from both historic and contemporary Indian animation practice, organised around either small-scale government communication or large-scale outsourcing; the growth of numerous new small firms to produce animated advertising; and within these, increasing experimentation in hybrid western and local aesthetic traditions, creative autonomy, and the social organisation of production. The continuing presence of small studios in media spaces dominated by large conglomerates has been the subject of considerable scrutiny across media industry studies. Both the persistence of boutique firms and the role they play in the evolution of the cultural industries have complicated analyses of organisational management and content.1 Calling upon cultural associations such as creative autonomy, innovation, and aesthetic practices that attend to local tradition, their significance cannot be reduced merely to market rationality. As Raymond Williams noted in 1961, it is difficult to even conceive a negative characterisation of creativity, so it follows that romantic notions of cultural labour remain extremely potent.2 Nonetheless increasing ethnographic production culture scholarship suggests that celebration of entrepreneurism belies wide variation in the labour conditions that creative workers in small firms regularly experience today.3 What then does investigating the practice and self-reflection of boutique studio participants add to an understanding of Indian animation? In this chapter I investigate practitioner accounts alongside the animation practice they describe, revealing the role of animated advertising as simultaneously a laboratory of both localised Indian style and organisational culture, at a crucial moment in the indigenisation of global brands. Practitioners single out interstitials—short-duration advertising between programmes—as especially fertile ground for experimentation. Consider how animation director Arnab Chaudhuri describes his first job out of the National Institute of Design (NID), as Creative Director at the music television network Channel [V] in 1994: It was promo idents, channel idents, logo formation, so just stupid little stories… but it was good learning. It was just basically very dirty hands; no technology, no money, just cheap and cheerful production.4 Here Chaudhuri establishes the cheapness, speed, and overall crudity of production not simply as obstacles, but rather as virtues, specifically the opportunity to develop skills across the whole range of production. Station idents are short, inexpensive, and can be produced in a virtually unlimited 13 ‘STUPID LITTLE STORIES’: TELEVISION INTERSTITIAL … 249 range of styles. In return, television networks have gained one-stop venues for distinctive animation content that is not only cost-effective to purchase locally, but also associates their brands with an explicitly indigenous aesthetic. The modes of production established in this interstitial practice have proven remarkably durable, becoming house styles and practices boutique studios have since maintained across a wide portfolio of digital practices in advertising and more recently long-form animation. Drawing on interviews, I identify the resurgence—in the late 1990s into the 2000s—of a more artisanal mode of animation production, and a corresponding narrative of practitioner self-sufficiency compared to the much larger Indian outsourced animation and visual effects sectors.5 Characterised by their relatively small size and varied output, such boutique studios are aided by industrial innovations and new organisational practices that have both reduced cost and further increased their access to niche advertising markets. In turn, the testimony of ‘neo-artisanal’ production is both illustrated and sustained by the association of creative freedom with the flexibility of short-term projects, and the latitude to subsidise other endeavours, increasingly in long-form animation production, that remains informed by the same stylistic sensibilities.6 I argue that, just as the aesthetic of interstitial production now extends to other forms of animation, the director-driven organisational practices resulting from advertising work also have social impacts far beyond the boutique studios that produced them—most notably on the long-term coherence of the wider animation production community. Approach The core research data for this chapter is coded from interviews with twelve key participants—animators, designers, directors, and studio heads, representing seven different companies and two independents, from relatively diversified firms with forty or more staff like Mumbai’s Studio Eeksaurus to microenterprise design partnerships like Delhi’s Vivi5, and the independent filmmaker Gitanjali Rao. Where possible, I let individuals speak for themselves by engaging with quotations that reflect the many different voices in a diverse cultural environment, recognising that they are active agents in their own culture of production.7 Accordingly, my analysis draws from what participants understand and say about the conditions of their animated advertising practice, while also placing the resulting works in contemporary stylistic and industrial context. 250 T. JONES Animation in India For most purposes, studio animation in India began in 1956 with the formation of a Government animated film unit under the Government Ministry of Information. Early animation produced by the Films Division Cartoon Unit, under the guidance of Disney animator Clair Weeks, adopted a recognisable Disney style of animation, with subjects adapted to Indian literature, and the needs of public communication.8 In 1972, veteran Films Division animator Ram Mohan started Ram Mohan Biographics in Mumbai to produce commercials.9 However, animation remained very much a cottage industry until the early 1990s with the arrival of outsourcing contracts. In 2005, approximately 90% of revenue for Indian animation companies came from ‘global services’, dominated by major international players like Disney, DreamWorks, Rhythm & Hues, and their large local partners.10 However, largely obscured are a growing number of much smaller producers as well. The key factor that unites boutique producers is the premise that they can operate in market niches that larger studios cannot. Consider the following definition of ‘artist-driven boutique studios’ by writer, designer, and community organiser Akshata Udiaver: With teams from five to fifty artists, they are buoyed by the burgeoning demand for animation and visual effects in domestic advertising, television and regional film industries. While the big studios were preoccupied with riding the outsourcing wave, the small studios took on projects that were too small to interest the big guys.11 By targeting local projects, they are freed from the necessity of operating only in global hubs and more able to target customers in regional markets and languages. In short, they are presented as everything that outsourcing studios are not: dynamic and both locally situated and managed. The degree of artist discretion within these types of firms, as well as the social networking between them, has been termed by Eberts and Norcliffe, neoartisanal animation production.12 In India, as in other industrial contexts, this is perhaps most evident in the dramatic growth of television advertising. Although India’s early 90s economic liberalisation had dramatic consequences across the cultural industries, changes in television were especially drastic, from two national channels and a handful of regional language options in 1991 to 500 channels in 2010, and well over 800 today.13 Ever 13 ‘STUPID LITTLE STORIES’: TELEVISION INTERSTITIAL … 251 since the introduction of television to India in 1959, the governmentrun national station Doordarshan had enjoyed a broadcast monopoly. In 1991, the Hong Kong-based satellite network StarTV introduced the first transnational network, with five channels, notably including MTV Asia.14 The subsequent proliferation of cable and satellite services not only created opportunities for major networks: like Viacom’s MTV India and Nickelodeon, twenty-first-Century Fox’s Channel [V], and later Cartoon Network and Disney, it also created a niche demand for animated content in the form of distinctive station branding. Simple station idents made at studios like Mumbai-based Famous’s House of Animation [sic], including V Kathakali (Kumaresh, 1999) for Channel [V] and Poga: Free Your Life (Oshidar and E. Suresh, 2001) for MTV India created the initial public and client exposure, learning opportunities, and organisational conditions that allowed this and other studios to survive, setting the scene for the digital practice of successor firms like Studio Eeksaurus and Vaibhav Studios today. ‘Indianising’ MTV and Channel [V] This has happened before, most prominently in New York. In many respects, commercial work and high-visibility interstitials for the everexpanding number of domestic television channels, especially Channel [V] and MTV India, replicated the success of small Western studios for the same types of clients in the early 1980s.15 MTV has been associated with a revival of television animation into the 90s, from Beavis and Butthead to The Simpsons , a renaissance with its origins in interstitial branding.16 Not coincidentally, as Malcolm Cook has demonstrated, advertising in this period was also central to the growth of prominent ‘artist-driven’, that is, neo-artisanal firms, from Aardman Animation’s Lurpak Butter Man (Gold Greenlees Trott, 1985) to Will Vinton Studios’ California Raisins (Foote, Cone and Belding, 1986).17 A decade later, Indian animators were quick to embrace these precedents, in some instances even their look, feel, and modes of production—in pursuit of similar stylistic and economic results. MTV launched in India in 1991 as MTV Asia, part of StarTV—for the most part featuring American, European, and East Asian music and content. This programming was, as later MTV India vice president and executive producer Natasha Malhotra would describe, ‘not convincing’ and clearly understood as a cultural incursion from the West.18 In 1994 MTV left the Star Platform, now owned by News Corporation, which then 252 T. JONES launched its own pan-Asian music network, Channel [V]. However, the struggles of MTV quickly allowed Channel [V] to brand itself as a localised alternative featuring Bollywood film music, domestic music videos, and even local interstitials.19 V Kathakali, Famous’s House of Animation’s first foray into interstitial work in 1999, is exemplary of Channel [V]’s push towards local cultural relevance (see Fig. 13.1). Created by animator Vaibhav Kumaresh in just two days, the 30-second station identifier represents the movements, music, and distinctive costume of Kathakali dance, one of India’s major classical Hindu performance art forms with origins in the South-western state of Kerala. The figure is rough and handmade. Both the makeup and recognisably stylised hand movements of the costumed clay kathakali dancer are adapted to form the network’s signature V logo. While the imagery is overtly traditional, the animated creation of the logo closely evokes the structure and logic of the familiar MTV animated logo. The clear message conveyed by the ad is that this is a multinational music network made from local ingredients. At first MTV followed an extremely cautious strategy towards localisation. Marginalised to a small programming block on Doordarshan, MTV relaunched in 1996 as MTV India, bringing in Malhotra as Executive Producer and returning expatriate Cyrus Oshidar as Creative Director.20 Through parent company Viacom, MTV India had the budget to outspend Channel [V], but also switched to localised formats, 70% Hindi film music, and increasingly local VJs. As at Channel [V], this rebranding coincided Fig. 13.1 V Kathakali (1999) Famous’s House of Animation, animated and directed by Vaibhav Kumaresh for Channel [V] (Courtesy of Vaibhav Studios) 13 ‘STUPID LITTLE STORIES’: TELEVISION INTERSTITIAL … 253 with the introduction of locally produced interstitial content, again often produced by Famous’s House of Animation. Writing about MTV India’s late nineties turn towards cultural nationalism, Jocelyn Cullity writes that animated graphics were not only integral to the replication of MTV’s signature seamless stream of branded imagery, it was also critically important to ‘Indianise’ the humour used in that branding.21 Two years after V Kathakali and far more ambitious in scope, the Poga series of station identifiers, made for MTV India promote the unusual mind and body benefits of juxtaposing yoga and pogo sticks. Directed by Oshidar and animated by Kumaresh and E. Suresh, these thirty-seconds to one-minute shorts combine rhyming voiceover with traditional imagery and droning music, affecting a deliberately orientalist style.22 In Heal Your Life, the afro’d yogi extols, ‘Many ways to find universal peace, best of all do Poga with the head between the knees’.23 As observed by Harvey Deneroff in 2003, this fast morphing of rough clay forms, immediately evoke early commercials created by Will Vinton.24 Not coincidently, the character’s rapid-fire metamorphosis from lion, to elephant, snail, and finally the MTV logo—insert as much Indian iconography as possible. These idents led to Famous’s being ‘swamped with a whole season of clay animation’, including television commercial campaigns for Amaron batteries, Smirnoff Vodka, Top Ramen, and Brooke Bond Tea. Kumaresh’s Vaibhav Studios, founded in 2003, continues to produce similar ads today. One campaign in particular, promoting the localised Indian production of Sesame Street (Sesame Workshop 1969–) demonstrates Kumaresh’s continuing stylistic affinity with previous well-known artisanal studio practice. Gali Gali Sim Sim—Abrahams (Vaibhav Studios, Turner International India, 2011) is in several respects homage to Aardman Animation, and as such bears more than a passing resemblance to Creature Comforts (Nick Park, 1989). He adopts both a similar visual style and production approach—utilising hand-shaped clay characters with recognisably Aardman-like eyes. More so, he even adapts the central conceit of animating over spontaneous interview recordings—parents discussing their favourite Gali Gali Sim Sim characters. The significance of the subject matter itself is also striking. It seems unlikely to be a coincidence that, like so many western commercial animators since 1969, Vaibhav Studios and other Indian boutiques—like Delhi’s Vivi5—make content advertising numbers and letters for Sesame Street . As will be addressed below, this similarity in practice has not only informed the visual style of Indian animation advertising but 254 T. JONES also had substantial impact on the organisation and production culture of small animation studios that produce it. Learning Autonomy The benefits of niche interstitial practice far exceeded the economic impact of exposure. Rather, this practice also put in place the conditions for artisanal production to take hold by creating a learning environment for a new generation of animators to practise producing original content, particularly the skills to develop a project from scratch. Growth in short-term work for station idents and other short-form branded content created employment opportunities for recent design graduates, as part of a generation that had grown up with Anant Pai’s Amar Chitrakatha comics, attended design schools like the NID, and were now interested in learning to create their own characters and stories. One of the most vocal exemplars is Vaibhav Studios founder Kumaresh, who stressed the importance of advertising practice during his time at Famous’s House of Animation (1998–2003) in learning to execute each stage of production from conception to final delivery: The best part about Famous is that we had to do everything ourselves… That is something that we had learned, to make films and tell our own stories. I was very happy that this was a place that we could continue doing that. In fact, eventually we had to go and get the jobs. We had to meet with clients. We had to pitch concepts. We had to bring work in. We were doing everything. We had to create the scripts in many cases. We had to produce it.25 Here we perceive the basis for a trade narrative of self-sufficiency. This account, describing the work of producing advertising content in the 1990s ‘design boom’, is effectively an origin story for a distinctive kind of animation practice. As such, it emphasises common attributes and legitimises strategic practices shared by boutique and independent animators—selfmanagement, customer support, and most importantly, ownership of the entire project. Like Chaudhuri, Kumaresh reflects on both the crudeness of early productions like V Kathakali and the creative freedom they offered, but also focuses on how this has represented a substantial departure from contemporary practice, wherein, ‘The homework was done by someone else and given to us, and we only executed the film’.26 Key to this account is the artisanal—specifically discretionary—control boutique animators have 13 ‘STUPID LITTLE STORIES’: TELEVISION INTERSTITIAL … 255 been able to exercise over pre-production in advertising work. This conceptual ‘homework’ is a critical link in Kumaresh’s model for a self-sufficient ecosystem, and he asserts these are practices conspicuously absent in the outsourcing sector. Gernot Grabher, writing on the British advertising industry, notes that such a correlation of boutique firms with both creativity and autonomy has significant socio-economic implications. ‘Even if this association were hardly more than a kind of trade folklore, the career decisions of people in the trade are based largely on these perceptions’.27 In other words, the entrenchment of this kind of reflexive narrative has consequences for both economic strategy and cultural organisation. It is significant that the other consistent attribute of this narrative is the centrality of learning. On the one hand, this reflects similar educational backgrounds among the specific individuals I spoke to, most prominently the NID. On the other, these values reinforce a career progression for boutique production that explicitly links creative skills and professional authority to a particular set of experiences, acquired gradually over time, or what Animagic director Chetan Sharma terms ‘submitting to the process’.28 By this means artisanal practices are positively associated not only with originality but also with acquired ‘patience’, in contrast to outsourcing which they characterise by impatience, boom, and bust. Given the asserted differences between them, it may seem incongruous that, like larger globally engaged Indian animation firms, many of the boutique animation studios are also organised on a service model of production, providing clients with a variety of bespoke design products. Boutique animators, comparable to other artisanal symbol creators, have largely flourished in niches that depend on novelty—distinction in either form or process of production—in order to sell products. Integration of different kinds of production demonstrates the often-permeable boundary between animation and other forms of design, from advertising to illustration. Designers have strongly asserted their own individuality within the confines of a creative services framework, having experienced considerable autonomy in both conceiving and executing project work. A good example of this balance is Famous’s 2009 two-minute commercial short film for the Indian yellow pages company Sulekha.com, Arjuna the Archer (Suresh, FHOA, J. Walter Thompson, 2009). As in the case of the earlier music channel idents, the design of the commercial is a hybrid of traditional Indian characters and design with overtly digital representations of global consumer culture. Facing a scolding from his girlfriend, Arjuna, the protagonist of the Hindu epic Mahabharata and Bhagavad 256 T. JONES Gita scripture, replaces his traditional arrows with a quiver of mouse cursors, that he fires to acquire a series of useful commodities and services: a bicycle, motorcycle, numerous gifts—and soon after—wedding, car, modern apartment, flat screen television, and family, all equipped with similar cursors. The short ends with the whole city and gods in the sky shopping online. The ease of juxtaposition of a traditional illustration aesthetic and digital iconography is largely distinctive to animation. The effect is to stress the growing confidence and purchasing power of the Indian middle class.29 While lucrative for the advertiser, it is at least also compelling for the artisan. The depicted buffet of consumerism nonetheless provides numerous opportunities for the animators to practise ever more digital inflections of traditional Indian design, evoking both illustration and puppetry, applied to contemporary objects and situations. Self-Funding For some, this unique ability to move between contract and self-funded work from project to project relieves inevitable tensions that grow out of the relationship between practitioner and client, as Gitanjali Rao describes: If you look for personal space [in ad work], you are just doing the wrong thing, which we all do in our young age. We all want to create the best animation for this client who doesn’t want it most of the time. He just wants his product to sell but you want to create that animation for it, which is going to make you famous. It’s like a personal agenda. It is healthy. It has to happen, but it clashes.30 For Rao, the crucial response is to ‘compartmentalise’ the commercial and the personal. While Rao’s commercial practice, for brands like Hutch mobile phones, demonstrates a range of visual styles, having an outlet to produce her own films removes potential conflict with clients who have different commercial objectives, such as avoidance of sexual content. Accordingly, she conceives films like Orange (2006) as an ‘indulgent reaction’ to those limitations.31 However Rao’s work also clearly complicates such a simple binary division. Her eclectic and increasingly ambitious film work— from the Cannes award-winning short Printed Rainbow (2006) to her recent feature Bombay Rose (2019)—blends visual styles and traditions that themselves range from the commercial to the devotional—matchbox art, truck decoration, and Patua picture scrolls.32 13 ‘STUPID LITTLE STORIES’: TELEVISION INTERSTITIAL … 257 A narrative of self-sufficiency extends to strategies for implementing change in the production environment. This is possible as the growth of the boutique design sector has not only provided a platform for experimentation, but also new practices and organisational structures. As they have become more established, many animators who built their reputations in advertising are now making forays into their own original content. As in other industrial contexts, it is increasingly common for Indian animators to use advertising contracts to subsidise in-house projects. It is also these efforts that animators present as their lasting contributions to the culture of production. Three leading boutique firms in Mumbai, Studio Eeksaurus, Vaibhav Studios, and Animagic have all pursued variations on this strategy. To underscore the risk of such an endeavour, in 2011 Vaibhav Studios entirely ceased taking on commercial work in order to concentrate on a 90minute spec. film Return of the Jungle (2018), which represents a dramatic increase in the scope and scale of production. Although like much of Vaibhav Studios’ more recent work, Return of the Jungle adopts 3D computer animation, it maintains much the same art and character designs of earlier commercial work as well, including Aardman-influenced clay animation. Organisational Authority Self-funding is part of a wider discourse of control in boutique production, not only limited to personal creative autonomy, but also organisational authority. This testimony poses an increasing emphasis on continuous relationships. Rather than structure boutique production around temporary social arrangements between autonomous artisans, as is common in advertising work—what Grabher terms the logic of a ‘project ecology’— boutique producers describe a shift towards varying degrees of organisational coherence between projects.33 Whereas project ecologies cultivate diversity through rivalry and the constant negotiation of control between participants, long-term relations foster the evolution of practices over time through organisational learning. At one end of the spectrum are individual practitioners, often working with an evolving network of trusted collaborators on a project basis. Vaibhav Studios consists of a core team of seven augmented with a pool of freelance collaborators. As Kumaresh explains: As a filmmaker, I have a certain style/flavour of working. Over a period of time that flavour tends to get a bit monotonous. Therefore, working with 258 T. JONES different artists with different flavours is the best way to constantly refresh yourself.34 By deliberately disrupting established ways of working, he foregrounds improvisation through temporary collaboration. In contrast E. Suresh, founder and director at Studio Eeksaurus manages a larger permanent staff that offers him greater consistency over time.35 This approach trades a degree of creative insularity for a more consistent internal evolution, less reliant on the strength of a nascent local network: I need to have people on board all the time, so that even if there is no work, there are people here… what happens with our people, they are adaptable. They adapt and they become malleable because they have been with me.36 While large studios display a sometimes substantial disconnect between creative leadership and organisational management, in smaller-scale advertising production the distinctions between these roles may be blurred, or even erased. As Suresh puts it, ‘I don’t have a management guy who is running the company. Fortunately or unfortunately, it is me… [who] has worked for the last 12 years’.37 These accounts present the boutique studio as in many respects an extension of the individual artisanal director, the arbiter of creativity and authority within the—quite-often eponymous—firm. Communality To paraphrase Sherry Ortner, ‘independence does not [always] mean isolation’, but instead membership in a community may be defined by opposition to ‘mainstream commercial practice’.38 While individual Indian animators do invoke just such a ‘fraternity’, the coherence of this is open to debate. Despite similarities in localised aesthetic, production approach, and tentative steps towards the development of an embedded social economy, what remains lacking is the persistent collaboration that often accompanies project ecologies in contemporary artisanal clusters, like Toronto’s computer animation scene.39 Practitioners advocate efforts to increase the impact of small-studio production through subcontracting work locally, developing a mutually self-supporting social and economic structure. Digitales’ R. K. Chand makes the comparison to the project ecologies of the advertising industry explicit: 13 ‘STUPID LITTLE STORIES’: TELEVISION INTERSTITIAL … 259 Advertising has created a supply chain of the agency, production house, animation house, sound house, TV crew, voicing, as different sectors. And they do a full project and still there’s entire different subsections of the industry cater[ing] to itself.40 Conclusions Since the late 1990s, animated advertising at boutique studios has been the setting for some of the most significant experimentation in the style, practice, and organisation of Indian animation. The creative autonomy that artisanal symbol creators have experienced has led them to innovate and address new niche markets but has also encouraged them to explore new ways of interpreting the conditions of that practice as well. Indeed, given the tenuous balance of creativity and risk inherent to advertising practice, such reflexive strategising would seem to be an essential part of their work. I have observed how the theorisation of self-sufficiency is inclusive of a wide area of cultural practice, comparable to extant academic theories of industrial ecology, addressing complex patterns of collaboration and competition in a dynamic cultural and economic environment—yet framed by practitioner understandings, uniquely grounded in local conditions. It is somewhat paradoxical to observe that the same conditions that have produced such innovative creative practices as well as the network effects of that innovation—increasing social capital and opportunities for engagement—also offer the biggest challenges to the cultural and economic cohesion of a boutique production sector, that a narrative of self-sufficiency provides both a template for introspective evolution and community development. As a result, those best positioned to empirically interpret these experiences and resolve the tensions between risk and reward, commercial viability and cultural relevance, creative freedom, and collaborative engagement—are the practitioners themselves. This provides an opportunity to observe the creation of animator discourse, moving from private to public, migrating to new areas of practice, and helping define the order of that practice within the bounds of an emerging culture of production. 260 T. JONES Notes 1. These attributes have been of particular interest to geographers studying the management of creativity in mutually-interdependent clusters (see Grabher 2002). This has given rise to analysis of distinct spatial distributions or ‘ecologies’ of creativity and cultural production. 2. Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (London: Chatto and Windus, 1961). 3. This ranges from freelancers by necessity—termed ‘survival entrepreneurs’— to those who deliberately embrace greater risk for creative reward (see Davis 2011, 167). 4. Arnab Chaudhuri (former Creative Director Channel [V] and Disney India), interviewed by Timothy Jones in Mumbai, India, 4 November 2011. 5. Derek Eberts and Glen Norcliffe, “New Forms of Artisanal Production in Toronto’s Computer Animation Industry,” Geographische Zeitschrift 86, no. H.2 (1998): 120–133. 6. David Hesmondhalgh, The Cultural Industries, 3rd ed. (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington, DC: Sage, 2013), 210. 7. John Thornton Caldwell, “Industrial Geography Lessons,” in MediaSpace: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age, eds. Nick Couldry and Anna McCarthy (New York: Routledge, 2004), 163–189. 8. Stephen Worth, “Animation History: Clair Weeks—Pioneer of Indian Animation,” Animation Resources, 2016. https://animationresources.org/ history-clair-weeks-pioneer-of-indian-animation-2/. Accessed 10 October 2016. 9. Mohini Kotasthane, “Ram Mohan,” Design Thoughts: Series on Design Masters in India, 2012. http://www.designinindia.net/design-thoughts/ masters/ram-mohan/. Accessed 5 June 2012. 10. “Colours Fade for Animation Sector,” The Economic Times—Bangalore Edition (September 1, 2009). http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/ NormalPage.aspx?id=57536. Accessed 5 June 2012. 11. Akshata Udiaver, “How Small Animation Studios Are Drawing in Regional Films,” Daily News and Analysis (October 9, 2011). 12. Eberts and Norcliffe (1998, 122). 13. Press Trust of India, “23.77 mn DTH Subscribers by June 2010: Trai,” Business Standard (October 5, 2010). http://www.business-standard. com/article/technology/23-77-mn-dth-subscribers-by-june-2010-trai110100500228_1.html. Accessed 5 June 2012. 14. Jocelyn Cullity, “The Global Desi: Cultural Nationalism on MTV India,” Journal of Communication Inquiry 26, no. 4 (October 2002): 408–425, 411. 15. Harvey Deneroff, “Famous’s House of Animation: Creativity and Independence in Indian Animation,” Asian Cinema (Spring/Summer 2003): 120– 132, 128. 13 ‘STUPID LITTLE STORIES’: TELEVISION INTERSTITIAL … 261 16. See Lilly Husband’s chapter on MTV in this volume, also Lauren Rabinovitz (1989). 17. Malcolm Cook, “‘All You Do Is Call Me, I’ll Be Anything You Need’: Aardman Animations, Music Videos and Commercials,” in Aardman Animations: Beyond Stop-Motion, ed. Annabelle Honess Roe (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming). 18. Cullity (2002, 412). 19. Vamsee Juluri, “Music Television and the Invention of Youth Culture in India,” Television and New Media 3, no. 4 (2002): 367–386, 371. 20. In 1997, MTV India timed its new ‘Indianisation’ specifically to coincide with the 50th anniversary of independence (Juluri 2002, 371). 21. Cullity (2002, 415). 22. Leela Fernandes, “Nationalizing ‘the Global’: Media Images, Cultural Politics, and the Middle Class in India,” Media, Culture and Society 22 (2002): 611–628. 23. Cyrus Oshidar, “MTV Poga: Heal Your Life,” Youtube.com, 2001, published December 17, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 0xpNkgCXSq8. Accessed 10 October 2016. 24. Deneroff (2003, 125). 25. Vaibhav Kumaresh (Founder and Director—Vaibhav Studios and Board member—The Animation Society of India) interviewed by Timothy Jones, Mumbai India, 31 October 2011. 26. Ibid. 27. Gernot Grabher, “Ecologies of Creativity: The Village, the Group, and the Heterarchic Organisation of the British Advertising Industry,” Environment and Planning A 33 (2001): 351–374, 356. 28. Chetan Sharma (Director—Animagic Studios) interviewed by Timothy Jones in Mumbai India, 3 November, 2011. 29. Fernandes (2002, 618). 30. Gitanjali Rao (Independent animator) interviewed by Timothy Jones in Mumbai India, 16 October 2011. 31. Gitanjali Rao, “Shorts—Orange,” published January 22, 2013. http:// www.gitanjalirao.com/orange.html. Accessed 10 October 2016. 32. Rao, “About,” published January 22, 2013, http://www.gitanjalirao.com/. For part of her career Rao was represented by the same US commercial studio as Chris Landreth, Caroline Leaf, Bill Plympton, and others (Acme Filmworks 2014). 33. Gernot Grabher, “The Project Ecology of Advertising: Tasks, Talents and Teams,” Regional Studies 36, no. 3 (2002): 245–262. 34. 11 Second Club, “Vaibhav Studios Interview,” The 11 Second Club Blog (May 7, 2012). http://blog.11secondclub.com/2012/05/vaibhavstudios-interview.html. Accessed 10 October 2016. 262 T. JONES 35. Suresh was previously the founder and director of Famous’s House of Animation. 36. Suresh Eriyat (Founder and Director, Studio Eeksaurus) interviewed by Timothy Jones in Mumbai India, 2 November 2011. 37. Ibid. 38. Sherry Ortner, Not Hollywood: Independent Film at the Twilight of the American Dream (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013), 33. 39. Eberts and Norcliffe (1998). 40. R. K. Chand (Business Director, Digitales Studios) interviewed by Timothy Jones in Mumbai India, 31 October 2011. Bibliography 11 Second Club. 2012. “Vaibhav Studios Interview.” The 11 Second Club Blog, May 7. http://blog.11secondclub.com/2012/05/vaibhav-studios-interview. html. Accessed 10 October 2016. Acme Filmworks. 2014. http://www.acmefilmworks.com/directors/. Accessed 10 October 2016. Caldwell, John Thornton. 2004. “Industrial Geography Lessons.” In MediaSpace: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age, eds. Nick Couldry and Anna McCarthy, 163–189. New York: Routledge. “Colours Fade for Animation Sector.” 2009. The Economic Times—Bangalore Edition, September 1. http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/ NormalPage.aspx?id=57536. Accessed 5 June 2012. Cook, Malcolm. Forthcoming. “‘All You Do Is Call Me, I’ll Be Anything You Need’: Aardman Animations, Music Videos and Commercials.” In Aardman Animations: Beyond Stop-Motion, ed. Annabelle Honess Roe. London: Bloomsbury. Cullity, Jocelyn. 2002. “The Global Desi: Cultural Nationalism on MTV India.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 26, no. 4 (October): 408–425. Davis, Charles. 2011. “New Firms in the Screen-Based Media Industry: Startups, Self-Employment, and Standing Reserve.” In Managing Media Work, ed. Mark Deuze, 165–177. London, Thousand Oaks, Delhi, and Singapore: Sage. Deneroff, Harvey. 2003. “Famous’s House of Animation: Creativity and Independence in Indian Animation.” Asian Cinema (Spring/Summer): 120–132. Eberts, Derek, and Glen Norcliffe. 1998. “New Forms of Artisanal Production in Toronto’s Computer Animation Industry.” Geographische Zeitschrift 86, no. H.2: 120–133. Fernandes, Leela. 2002. “Nationalizing ‘the Global’: Media Images, Cultural Politics, and the Middle Class in India.” Media, Culture and Society 22: 611–628. 13 ‘STUPID LITTLE STORIES’: TELEVISION INTERSTITIAL … 263 Grabher, Gernot. 2001. “Ecologies of Creativity: The Village, the Group, and the Heterarchic Organisation of the British Advertising Industry.” Environment and Planning A 33: 351–374. Grabher, Gernot. 2002. “The Project Ecology of Advertising: Tasks, Talents and Teams.” Regional Studies 36, no. 3: 245–262. Hesmondhalgh, David. 2013. The Cultural Industries. 3rd ed. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington, DC: Sage. Jones, Timothy. 2016. “Rhythm to Reliance: The Globalized Discourse of Indian Animation.” Animation Studies Journal, 11. Juluri, Vamsee. 2002. “Music Television and the Invention of Youth Culture in India.” Television and New Media 3, no. 4: 367–386. Kotasthane, Mohini. 2012. “Ram Mohan.” Design Thoughts: Series on Design Masters in India. http://www.designinindia.net/design-thoughts/masters/rammohan/. Accessed 5 June 2012. Kumaresh, Vaibhav 1999. “V Kathakali.” Youtube.com. Published December 17, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd70w7EgvRU. Accessed 10 October 2016. Ortner, Sherry. 2013. Not Hollywood: Independent Film at the Twilight of the American Dream. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Oshidar, Cyrus. 2001. “MTV Poga: Heal Your Life.” Youtube.com. Published December 17, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xpNkgCXSq8. Accessed 10 October 2016. Press Trust of India. 2010. “23.77 mn DTH Subscribers by June 2010: Trai.” Business Standard, October 5. http://www.business-standard.com/article/ technology/23-77-mn-dth-subscribers-by-june-2010-trai-110100500228_1. html. Accessed 5 June 2012. Rabinovitz, Lauren. 1989. “Animation, Postmodernism, and MTV.” The Velvet Light Trap 24: 99–113. Rao, Gitanjali. 2013a. “Shorts—Orange.” Published January 22. http://www. gitanjalirao.com/orange.html. Accessed 10 October 2016. Rao, Gitanjali. 2013b. “About.” Published January 22, 2013. http://www. gitanjalirao.com/. Udiaver, Akshata. 2011. “How Small Animation Studios Are Drawing in Regional Films.” Daily News and Analysis, 9 October. Williams, Raymond. 1961. The Long Revolution. London: Chatto and Windus. Worth, Stephen. 2016. “Animation History: Clair Weeks—Pioneer of Indian Animation.” Animation Resources. https://animationresources.org/history-clairweeks-pioneer-of-indian-animation-2/. Accessed 10 October 2016. PART V Digital and Contemporary CHAPTER 14 Promoting Computer Graphics Research: The Tech Demos of SIGGRAPH Jordan Gowanlock Technological displays and demonstrations in contexts such as international expositions and world’s fairs have played an important part in media history for over a century. William Boddy argues that nineteenth-century technological spectacles and ‘scientific demonstrations’ influenced the development of cinema and broadcast media.1 Examples that involve moving images and animation also abound in this context, a form of cinema Haidee Wasson refers to as ‘exhibitionary cinema’.2 This chapter concerns a particular example of technology demonstration in the context of computer graphics research, the computer graphics ‘tech demos’ exhibited at the annual conference of ACM SIGGRAPH: the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interested Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. This association, which has introduced countless influential tools for making digital images, has a rich visual culture of promotion and explanation. J. Gowanlock (B) University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA e-mail: jgowanlock@berkeley.edu © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_14 267 268 J. GOWANLOCK Covering a period of dramatic change in the 1980s, this chapter observes both the changing function and aesthetics of tech demos at SIGGRAPH in light of the ascendant influence of media industries at the conference. While the tech demo was always used to demonstrate potential applications of new technologies, applications for media industries became a primary concern during this period. This shift in function had a visible effect on the aesthetics of tech demos, with conventional formal constructions of space and time found in film and television slowly becoming the norm, to the point that tech demos became indistinguishable from animated shorts and feature film clips. This offers important context on an era when animated and visual effects-laden feature films were increasingly functioning as technology demonstrations themselves. The unique position of the computer graphics tech demo warrants a hybridized methodological approach. On one hand, tech demos are very clearly functional moving images. In this sense, they fit within the categories established in recent work like Haidee Wasson and Charles Acland’s Useful Cinema, and Patrick Vonderau and Vinzenz Hediger’s Films that Work. Wasson and Acland write that ‘useful’ films are ‘more involved with functionality than beauty’,3 and Hediger and Vonderau write that these films are not concerned with ‘an aesthetic experience of the artistic kind’.4 This is a key conceptual component of their respective projects of widening film studies beyond its narrow focus on theatrical cinema. Of course, many examples do not fit neatly into a functional or theatrical category. Vonderau acknowledges this when discussing promotional media, arguing that they are ‘best represented as a spectrum, rather than a binary division between the institutional/noninstitutional and the theatrical/nontheatrical’.5 Thus, this chapter will take time to note both the function of various computer graphics tech demos within their institutional context and also their aesthetic form. These two methods can elucidate each other, with institutional changes helping to explain aesthetic changes and vice versa. It is worth briefly establishing some key features of the computer graphics tech demo before examining its transformation in the 1980s. Douglas Engelbart’s demonstration of the oN-Line System at the 1968 ACM/IEEE Fall Joint Computer Conference in many ways defines the early computer graphics tech demo.6 So influential was Engelbart’s demonstration that co-founder of SIGGRAPH Andries Van Dam would later refer to it in retrospect as ‘the mother of all demos’, a term now used in virtually any mention of the event.7 Engelbart’s tech demo established two key concepts that would influence all that came after it. First, is the principal of 14 PROMOTING COMPUTER GRAPHICS RESEARCH … 269 show, don’t tell. In his introduction to the oN-Line System demo Engelbart says to the audience, ‘The products of this program, the technology of it, lends itself well to an interesting way to portray it for you. So we are going to show you rather than tell you…’ In other words, because the technology he is demonstrating ultimately outputs to a screen, he can demonstrate the technology simply by showing the screen. The demonstration is also the product; the two are one and the same. This logic of show, don’t tell would prove to be fundamental to future demos. There is one other important tacit feature of Engelbart’s demo that proved influential. The oN-Line System demo is remembered today for the way it demonstrated concepts like the computer mouse, windows, and collaborative editing.8 All of these things would someday become a technological reality, but in 1968 some were decades away. Much of the functionality Engelbart demonstrated did not actually ‘function’. Rather, it had to be partially faked for demonstration purposes by teams of technicians working in the background.9 In other words, Engelbart was not just demonstrating function but also demonstrating potential; he was demonstrating a vision for the future. The computer graphics tech demo thus had a clear promotional function even in this very early, very academic context. The promotional and explanatory function of the tech demo would make it an increasingly important institution as the field of computer graphics grew over time, particularly as private interests, including media industries, began to play a greater role. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Joint Computer Conference’s successor, ACM SIGGRAPH. SIGGRAPH started as a seminar and newsletter in 1967, with the first annual conference held in 1974.10 The first five years of SIGGRAPH saw a variety of paper presentations on new computer graphics technologies, but only some integrated moving images as demonstrations. Examples include University of Utah researcher Frederic Parke’s demonstration of 3D facial animation in 1974,11 and Nicholas Negroponte and Guy Weinzapfel’s MIT Architecture Machine Group demo in 1976.12 In 1978, the directors of SIGGRAPH decided to formally include video and film in future conferences ‘to serve the membership and further the state of the art’,13 and 1979 was the first time there was a ‘call for slides, videotapes, and films’ as well as a call for papers.14 University of Illinois researcher Tom DeFanti organized this first Film & Video Show, which played in a theater setting at the conference.15 The Film & Video Show consisted of a variety of tech demos focused on different applications of computer graphics. Examples in the first two years included Nelson Max’s DNA with Ethidium (1979), 270 J. GOWANLOCK funded by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which featured a three-dimensional visualization of molecular structures; Jim Blinn’s visualization for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Voyager 2 Encounters Jupiter (1979); a demonstration of Ivan Sutherland and David C. Evan’s CT5 Flight Simulator (1980), produced by their company Evans and Sutherland; and Turner Whitted’s demonstration of ray-tracing technology The Compleat Angler (1979), funded by Bell Laboratories. The first tech demo at SIGGRAPH to elicit a comparable reaction from the computer science community as Engelbart’s oN-Line System demo was Boeing researcher Loren Carpenter’s 1980 demo Vol Libre. Vol Libre demonstrated Carpenter’s technique for drawing naturalistic geological topographies using a combination of fractals and nonlinear computational processes. By inputting a few parameters, Carpenter could automatically generate a naturalistic landscape of mountains and valleys. According to one account, when Carpenter showed Vol Libre the crowd erupted in applause and demanded a second viewing, and after his talk he was immediately offered a job at the Computer Division of Lucasfilm by Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull.16 Like the oN-Line System demo, Vol Libre did not describe how Carpenter’s software worked, it showed what it could do. The explanatory details of his technique were presented in his separate peer-reviewed paper presentation.17 This was also an effective case of demonstrating potential, particularly for emerging media industries applications. Although Carpenter was working for Boeing at the time, the demo clearly made an impression on the people at Lucasfilm. Indeed Carpenter’s technology would soon be put to work animating a sequence for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). Vol Libre is also a prime example of the aesthetics of early threedimensional computer graphics tech demos. It consists of a single long shot, beginning with a flat polygonal surface. The surface gradually grows, developing features and facets that begin to resemble a mountain range. The camera then begins to fly through three-dimensional space, rotating and turning at will before it enters a black void populated by moving fractal shapes suspended in space. These aesthetics are important to note because the aesthetic norms and conventions of computer graphics demos would soon change along with other institutional changes at SIGGRAPH. Over the 1980s a marked change started to take place, both in terms of the institutions involved in SIGGRAPH and the tech demos on display. This began with the proliferation of computer graphics animation studios. Rather than bringing demonstrations of research, these studios 14 PROMOTING COMPUTER GRAPHICS RESEARCH … 271 brought demo reels, edited shorts that exhibited the work they were doing for clients. The first such company to bring a demo reel to SIGGRAPH was Information International Inc. (1979), followed by Digital Effects (1980), MAGI (1980), Robert Abel and Associates (1981), Image West (1981), Real Time Designs (1982), Marks and Marks (1982), Pacific Data Images (1983), Cranston-Csuri Productions (1984), Digital Productions (1984), and Omnibus Computer Graphics (1985). The work these studios did was almost exclusively creating three-dimensional logos for companies such as ABC, Gillette, Tide, South Western Bell Telephone, and AT&T. Toward the mid-1980s studios such as Robert Abel and Associates started demoing full-length commercials. In 1985 they showed a fully animated three-dimensional television commercial titled Brilliance, which aired the same year during the Superbowl. An advertisement for the Canned Food Information Council, Brilliance is noteworthy not just for the public audience it reached but also for its aesthetics. Three-dimensional logo work typically consisted of a single short shot where the virtual camera fliestoward or rotates-around the logo. This aesthetic of the long take, where the virtual camera flies into space, is consistent with that of Vol Libre and other early examples. Brilliance, by contrast, is framed and cut in a style more reminiscent of a film or video shoot. The commercial consists of a total of six cuts in thirty seconds, although in certain shots the virtual camera does move at angles reminiscent of their earlier logo work (Fig. 14.1). The appearance of Brilliance coincided with several other events between 1984 and 1986. Following the paradigm set down by Engelbart’s oN-Line System demo, tech demos at SIGGRAPH had always demonstrated the technical potential of a given technology. They offered compelling and often spectacular examples of what a new piece of software or hardware could do for certain scientific or industrial applications. During this period though, tech demos were increasingly focused on demonstrating creative potential for media industries applications. In 1984, Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group released The Adventures of Andre and Wally B at SIGGRAPH to demonstrate Alvy Ray Smith’s paper on an algorithmic technique for drawing branches and leaves.18 As the title indicates though, this demo was more than just a demonstration of a technology. In addition to the naturalistic digital foliage, the demo features two cartoon-like characters in an exchange reminiscent of mid-century MGM or Warner Bros. animation. The soundtrack also features clear references to Chuck Jones’ Looney Tunes shorts Long-Haired 272 J. GOWANLOCK Fig. 14.1 Brilliance (Robert Abel and Associates, 1985) Hare (1949) and Rabbit of Seville (1950). Like Brilliance, Wally B features numerous cuts, and here the virtual camera moves even less, never moving forward into three-dimensional space. Beyond demonstrating new technology, Wally B was demonstrating the viability of Lucasfilm’s technology for media industries. It was still demonstrating what new technology could do, but what it could do now includes the idea of making a cartoon. In 1985 a group from the Université de Montréal, Pierre Lachapelle, Philippe Bergeron, Pierre Robidoux, and Daniel Langlois, premiered a demo at SIGGRAPH titled Tony De Peltrie. De Peltrie accompanied a paper, titled ‘Controlling Facial Expressions and Body Movements in the Computer Generated Animated Short Tony De Peltrie’, and the team had also developed animation software, named TAARNA, in the process of making De Peltrie.19 Yet, like Wally B, it is abundantly clear that De Peltrie is doing more than simply demonstrating their technology. It demonstrates creative potential and arguably media industrial potential as well. The aesthetics of De Peltrie are similar to Brilliance. The demo opens with cinematic framing 14 PROMOTING COMPUTER GRAPHICS RESEARCH … 273 and a static camera. As De Peltrie plays the piano there are close-up shots of his feet pressing the pedals and of his fingers pressing the keys. There is also a countershot between De Peltrie and an audience member who winks at him. As the tenor of the demo picks up though, the style loosens somewhat, allowing the camera to move into space and rotate. Like Wally B, De Peltrie is situating itself in the context of existing media industries and their aesthetic conventions. Like Brilliance, De Peltrie also served an immediate commercial function. Lachapelle would go on to use the model of De Peltrie to make a commercial for Optrex eye drops. In 1986 Lucasfilm returned, now under the name Pixar, with the now iconic Luxo Jr., a demo that features a brief interaction between two desk lamps. Luxo Jr. was a demonstration of new shading and shadow-casting technology being developed at Pixar. The choice of desk lamps, which act as moving light-sources, serves this purpose. But like other examples from the mid-1980s, the demo also served several other functions. According to period accounts from director John Lasseter, Luxo Jr. was meant to demonstrate that computer animation could be used to create Disney-like animation.20 Rather than attempting to produce detailed character models, they focused on bringing relatively simple shapes to life with detailed gesture and movement in the tradition of hand-drawn cel animation. Indeed, the most striking aesthetic aspect of Luxo Jr. is how two-dimensional it is. It consists of a single shot with a completely static camera, and the characters move exclusively on a perpendicular axis to the camera. It is staged as though it was drawn on an animation stand. Perhaps more than any other examples from the mid-1980s, this was a demonstration of the creative potential of the tools they were building, rather than a demonstration of their technical potential. It showed how Pixar’s tools could be used to imbue objects with character and emotion, and, importantly, to tell a story. It is debatable whether a company like Pixar would have had aims of becoming an animation studio to rival Disney at this point. Luxo Jr. was the first project former Disney animator John Lasseter worked on as director.21 Furthermore, key figures at Pixar had also been at the New York Institute of Technology during the failed attempt at making an animated feature there, titled The Works. So clearly the idea was on some individuals’ minds. But as Malcolm Cook points out, and as Christopher Holliday discusses in Chapter 15, Pixar was named after their hardware product, the Pixar Image Computer, and they were owned by Apple, a computer company.22 Furthermore, they marketed their technology for various computer imaging applications, such as medical and scientific imaging. This suggests they were 274 J. GOWANLOCK aiming to sell hardware and software rather than become a film studio.23 Tony De Peltrie presents a similarly complex case, with some team members going on to work in film and animation, while Daniel Langlois went on to develop Softimage 3D animation software. Softimage would prove to be an extremely important piece of software for animation and visual effects in the years that followed. These demos thus cannot be reduced to a single function. They were part animated short, part advertisement, and part technical demonstration, both in terms of their function and their aesthetics. The demos of the mid-1980s need to be understood in the context of institutional and economic changes. Up to this point computer graphics research had been mostly funded and facilitated by university computer science departments (for example Frederic Parke’s work at University of Utah School of Computing), military research funding agencies like ARPA (for example the oN-Line System), technology companies associated with the military–industrial complex (for example Loren Carpenter’s early work at Boeing), and often some combination thereof. However, the shape of research and development funding was beginning to change in the United States. Over the period of 1981–1994, Cold War era federal defense funding began to wane and was replaced by corporate tax credits for ‘research and experimentation’.24 Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group was the first Hollywood entity to sponsor sustained computer graphics research and development. Other companies were just beginning to find economic viability in media industries through making corporate logos and television commercials. Computer Graphics were also beginning to appear in feature films such as Tron (1982) Wrath of Khan (1982), The Last Star Fighter (1984), and 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984), all of which had clips exhibited in the Film & Video Show. Other businesses affiliated with media industries would soon follow in Lucasfilm’s path. These studios were not just making images with computers, they were funding basic research, and this research was being conducted by many of the leading experts in the field. The function and aesthetics of the tech demo at SIGGRAPH were changing in response to these institutional changes. As a result the line between animated shorts and tech demos started to become very blurred. In 1984 festival chair Maxine Brown changed the Film & Video Show into the Computer Animation Festival. Along with the name change the new festival was broken into two theaters, the ‘Electronic Theater’ and the ‘Animation Theater’.25 This reorganization seems to have been a response 14 PROMOTING COMPUTER GRAPHICS RESEARCH … 275 to the problem presented by demos like Wally B, Luxo Jr., and Tony De Peltrie. Some distinction needed to be drawn between animated shorts and tech demos. But there was only so much the organizers could do to separate animation from tech demos. More and more examples came along that seemed to confound a stable dichotomy between the two. Tech demos produced by research labs at universities and technology companies appeared in the animation theater, and the work of animation studios and visual effects studios appeared in the electronic theater.26 As media industries’ involvement grew and grew during the 1990s, the importance of the visual communications of SIGGRAPH continued to grow as well. Organizers started archiving the Computer Animation Festival and Art Show as ‘Visual Proceedings’ in 1992, first on CD-ROM, then on the internet later on.27 The centerpiece of SIGGRAPH had always been the scientific paper proceedings, but now visual communications finally seemed to be rivaling these in terms of importance. The Computer Animation Festival continued to feature content from commercials, television and feature films throughout the 1990s, and the aesthetics of these demos became more and more deeply merged with the conventions of those medial traditions. For example the 1997 festival featured fully rendered clips from Hollywood films like Dante’s Peak (1997), which demonstrated Digital Domain’s new technique for animating lava flows, and Crimson Tide (1995), which demonstrated Dream Quest Images’ technique for animating bubbles underwater.28 The following year featured examples from the DreamWorks animated feature Antz (1998) and the disaster film Deep Impact (1998).29 In these examples the spectator cannot differentiate the specific technology being demonstrated from the total composited image and sound, which consists of a multitude of other production elements attributable to different studios and workers. Following the paradigm of the mid-1980s, these clips function as demonstrations of creative potential, media industries potential, and technological potential. Charting various examples from the first Film and Video Show in 1979 into the Computer Animation Festival of the 1990s, a clear aesthetic trend emerges across all demos. Organizers observed this trend at the time and made sense of it mostly in terms of technological progress. The chair of the 2002 festival John McIntosh notes with admiration how high the standard of production values had become, observing, ‘Scientific and medical visualizations require good science, great animation, and near broadcastready presentations’.30 He also notes how many shots each clip contained, 276 J. GOWANLOCK taking the higher number as a sign of increased sophistication and ‘production values’. But these features that McIntosh observed so favorably in scientific and medical tech demos have clear antecedents. This is what the explanatory and promotional function of the tech demo looks like in an era where media industries are a prime source of research investment. The tech demos were taking on established media industry conventions found in television and film. Camera movement, framing, and shot length are all examples of this trend. Early examples such as Frederic Parke’s facial animation demo and Vol Libre all consistently feature long (often single) shots, where the virtual camera flies into three-dimensional space. These early examples put what Lev Manovich refers to as the ‘automated digital nominalism’ of computed perspectival geometry on display.31 This trend continues in the early logo animation of the first computer animation studios. Starting in 1984 one can see changes in cases like Brilliance, Wally B, Luxo Jr., and Tony Del Peltrie. Although Luxo Jr. does consist of a single shot, the camera does not move at all. Conversely, while Brilliance, Wally B, and Tony Del Peltrie do feature somewhat mobile virtual cameras, they feature high shot counts, constructing space with cuts rather than camera movement, obeying rules and conventions that are hallmarks of the ‘classic Hollywood cinema’ form.32 The inclusion of fully composited visual effects sequences and clips from animated features in the 1990s represents an endpoint of this trend, where the aesthetics of tech demos and feature films become one and the same. While the juries may have observed this as a sign of progress, this was the ‘progress’ of the influence of the film industry and other media industries. Conclusion As industries like Hollywood began to feature more and more spectacular digital images and tech demos began to look more and more cinematic, films themselves began to function much like demos, promoting new technologies. Scholars have noted how spectacular digital visual effects and animation sequences have a particular presentational modality. Tom Gunning suggests that the cinema of attractions of early cinema reappears in special effects sequences of this period.33 Gunning writes, ‘early audiences went to exhibitions to see machines demonstrated… rather than to view films’, and much the same could be said of digitally animated features and visual effects sequences of the 1980s and 90s.34 Furthermore, Michael Allen argues spectacular sequences in Hollywood blockbusters often function to introduce 14 PROMOTING COMPUTER GRAPHICS RESEARCH … 277 new filmmaking technologies and ‘renegotiate the industry status’ of Hollywood,35 while Leon Gurevitch argues that animated features produced by studios such as DreamWorks and Pixar effectively function as advertisements for the processes that created them. Gurevitch writes, ‘CG animated features constitute a relationship between processes of manufactured imaging and processes of imaging manufacture that go beyond product placement. Where product placement took the industrial object and ‘inserted’ it into the filmic narrative, the CG feature is the industrial object around which the narrative is constructed’.36 One can see the promotional logic of the tech demo at work here. This is not to say that the computer graphics tech demo determined the presentational logic of animated features and visual effects sequences during this key period of change, but rather that the theatrical and institutional context need to be considered together. Clearly there is no distinct line to be drawn between them. In the same way Luxo Jr. or Tony De Peltrie blurs the line between animated short and promotional demo, the animated feature or visual effects sequence blurs the line between cinema and industrial promotional demos. Over the 1980s one can see this hybrid logic emerge in the form and function of the tech demos of SIGGRAPH as media industries began to play a greater role in computer graphics research. Acknowledgements This research was supported by funding from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Société et Culture (FRQSC). Notes 1. William Boddy, “Early Cinema and Radio Technology in the Turn of the Century Popular Imagination,” in The Cinema: A New Technology for the Twentieth Century, eds. Andre Gaudrealt, Catherine Russell, and Pierre Veronneau (Editions Payot Lausanne, 2004), 289. 2. Haidee Wasson, “Selling Machines: Film and its Technologies at the New York World’s Fair,” in Films That Sell, eds. Bo Florin, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau (BFI Palgrave, 2016), 54–55. 3. Haidee Wasson and Charles R. Acland, “Introduction: Utility and Cinema,” in Useful Cinema, eds. Charles R. Acland and Haidee Wasson (Duke University Press, 2011), 2. 4. Vinzenz Hediger and Patrick Vonderau, “Introduction,” in Films That Work: Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media, eds. Patrick Vonderau and Vinzenz Hediger (Amsterdam University Press, 2009), 10. 5. Vonderau, “Introduction,” 7. 278 J. GOWANLOCK 6. As a sign of its importance, in 2015 Stanford University hosted an opera commemorating the oN-Line System demo, simply titled ‘The Demo’. See https://live.stanford.edu/calendar/april-2015/demo. 7. Thierry Bardini, Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing (Stanford University Press, 2000), 139. 8. Brad Myers, “A Brief History of Human-Computer Interaction Technology,” Interaction 5, no. 2 (1998): 45–51, https://doi.org/10.1145/ 274430.274436. 9. It should be noted Engelbart was very upfront about the fact that there was a team of technicians making all of the functions he was demoing possible. 10. Judy Brown and Steve Cunningham, “A History of ACM SIGGRAPH,” Communications of the ACM 50, no. 5 (2007): 55. 11. Frederic I. Parke, “A Model for Human Faces That Allows Speech Synchronized Animation,” in SIGGRAPH ‘74 Proceedings of the 1st Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (Association for Computing Machinery, 1974), 1–2, https://doi.org/10.1145/563182. 563183. 12. Nicholas Negroponte and Guy Weinzapfel, “Architecture-by-Yourself: An Experiment with Computer Graphics for House Design,” in SIGGRAPH ‘76 Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (Association for Computing Machinery, 1976), 74– 78. 13. Association for Computing Machinery, “1978–1979 Objectives/Goals,” Computer Graphics 11, no. 4 (1978): 6–7. 14. Association for Computing Machinery, “Calls for Papers and Meetings,” Computer graphics 12, no. 4 (1978): 32. 15. Association for Computing Machinery, “SIGGRAPH Departments,” Computer Graphics 11, no. 4 (1978): 8–9; Heather Kenyon, “SIGGRAPH 2008’s Expanded Computer Animation Festival: Interview with Carlye Archibeque,” https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/siggraph-2008sexpanded-computer-animation-festival. 16. Michael Rubin, Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution (Gainesville: Triad, 2006), 163–178. 17. Loren C. Carpenter, “Computer Rendering of Fractal Curves and Surfaces,” in Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (Association for Computing Machinery, 1980), 9. 18. Alvy Ray Smith, “Plants, Fractals, and Formal Languages,” in Proceedings of the 11th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (Association for Computing Machinery, 1984), 1–10. 19. Phillippe Bergeron and Pierre Lachapelle, “Controlling Facial Expressions and Body Movements in the Computer Generated Animated Short ‘Tony 14 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. PROMOTING COMPUTER GRAPHICS RESEARCH … 279 de Peltrie’,” in SIGRAPH ’85 Tutorial Notes, Advanced Computer Animation Course (Association for Computing Machinery, 1985), 1–3; Tom Sito, Moving Innovation (MIT Press, 2013), 68. John Lasseter, “Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation,” Computer Graphics 21, no. 4 (July 1987): 35–44; Harry McCracken, “Luxo Sr. An Interview With John Lasseter,” http://www. harrymccracken.com/luxo.htm. Lasseter had worked on Wally B, but at the time he job title was ‘interface designer’. Richard Neupert, John Lasseter (University of Illinois Press, 2016), 31. Malcolm Cook, “Pixar, ‘The Road to Point Reyes’, and the Long History of Landscapes in New Visual Technologies,” in Animated Landscapes, ed. Chris Pallant (Bloomsbury, 2015), 65. Ibid. National Science Foundation, “Chapter 4: U.S. and International Research and Development: Funds and Alliances: R&D Support in the United States,” http://wayback.archive-it.org/5902/20150817205722/http:// www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind02/c4/c4s1.htm. Kenyon, “SIGGRAPH 2008’s Expanded Computer Animation Festival”. It is worth noting that there has been an Art Show at SIGGRAPH since 1981. But the division between the Art Show and the Computer Animation Festival has been relatively stable: the Art Show is for theoretical artistic experimentation and the Computer Animation Festival is industry oriented. “Computer Animation Festival,” SIGGRAPH 92 Visual Proceedings (Association for Computing Machinery, 1992), CD-ROM. “Computer Animation Festival,” SIGGRAPH 97 Visual Proceedings (Association for Computing Machinery, 1997), CD-ROM. “Computer Animation Festival,” SIGGRAPH 98 Visual Proceedings (Association for Computing Machinery, 1998), CD-ROM. John McIntosh, “Introduction to the 2002 Computer Animation Festival,” in SIGGRAPH Electronic Art and Animation Catalogue (Association for Computing Machinery, 2002), CD-ROM, 149–150. Lev Manovich, “The Mapping of Space: Perspective, Radar, and 3-D Computer Graphic,” http://manovich.net/content/04-projects/003-article1993/01-article-1993.pdf. David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, The Classic Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (Columbia University Press, 1987), 42–87. Tom Gunning, “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Films, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde,” in Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, eds. Thomas Elsaesser and Adam Barker (BFI, 1990), 58. Gunning, 61. 280 J. GOWANLOCK 35. Michael Allen, “Talking About a Revolution: The Blockbuster and Industrial Advancement,” in Movie Blockbusters, ed. Julian Stringer (Routledge, 2013), 101. 36. Leon Gurevitch, “Computer Generated Animation as Product Design Engineered Culture, or Buzz Lightyear to the Sales Floor, to the Checkout and Beyond!” Animation 7 no. 2 (2012): 147. Bibliography “1978–1979 Objectives/Goals.” 1978. Computer Graphics 11, no. 4: 6–7. Able, Robert, et al. 1985. Visual Pathfinders. https://archive.org/details/ visualpathfinders. Allen, Michael. 2013. “Talking About a Revolution: The Blockbuster as Industrial Advertisement.” In Movie Blockbusters, ed. Julian Stringer, 101–114. Taylor and Francis. Bardini, Thierry. 2000. Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing. Stanford University Press. Bergeron, Phillippe, and Pierre Lachapelle. 1985. Controlling Facial Expressions and Body Movements in the Computer Generated Animated Short ‘Tony de Peltrie’. SIGGRAPH ’85 Tutorial Notes, Advanced Computer Animation Course. Association for Computing Machinery. Boddy, William. 2004. “Early Cinema and Radio Technology in the Turn of the Century Popular Imagination.” In The Cinema: A New Technology for the Twentieth Century, eds. Andre Gaudrealt, Catherine Russell, and Pierre Veronneau, 285–294. Editions Payot Lausanne. Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson. 1987. The Classic Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. Columbia University Press. Brown, Judy, and Steve Cunningham. 2007. “A History of ACM SIGGRAPH.” Communications of the ACM 50, no. 5: 54–61. “Calls for Papers and Meetings.” 1978. Computer Graphics 12, no. 4: 32. Carpenter, Loren C. 1980. “Computer Rendering of Fractal Curves and Surfaces.” In Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, 1–9. Association for Computing Machinery. Computer Animation Festival. 1997. SIGGRAPH 97 Visual Proceedings. Association for Computing Machinery. CD-ROM. Computer Animation Festival. 1998. SIGGRAPH 98 Visual Proceedings. Association for Computing Machinery. CD-ROM. Cook, Malcolm. 2015. “Pixar, ‘The Road to Point Reyes’, and the Long History of Landscapes in New Visual Technologies.” In Animated Landscapes, ed. Chris Pallant, 51–72. Bloomsbury. 14 PROMOTING COMPUTER GRAPHICS RESEARCH … 281 Engelbart, Douglas, and William English. 1968. A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect. https://archive.org/details/XD30023_ 68HighlightsAResearchCntAugHumanIntellect. Florin, Bo, Nico de Klerk, and Patrick Vonderau. 2016. Films That Sell: Moving Pictures and Advertising. BFI Palgrave. CHAPTER 15 ‘Movin’ to a Different Beat’: Commercial Pixar and the Simulated Ordinary Christopher Holliday Introduction Over a seven-year period between 1989 and 1996, Pixar Animation Studios was responsible for producing seventy-nine computer-animated advertisements for a number of eminent North American companies and global brands. Beginning with a contract for the Japanese printing company Toppan Printing, and following interest from worldwide advertising agencies, Pixar were quickly hired to develop computer-animated ads for clients such as Tropicana, Listerine, Coca-Cola and Levi’s, before leaving commercials in the early 1990s for highly-successful feature-film production. Many critical accounts of Pixar and broader histories of CG effects technology, as well as popular and press representations of the company tracing their journey from visual effects facility to major Hollywood animation studio, have regularly side-lined the company’s brief ‘commercial break’, often framing their turn to lucrative advertising work as necessary economic insurance in C. Holliday (B) King’s College London, London, UK e-mail: christopher.holliday@kcl.ac.uk © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_15 283 284 C. HOLLIDAY the face of financial downturn. The New York Times reported as early as April 1991, for example, that Pixar had experienced a ‘difficult time converting technical leadership into profits’ following their separation from Lucasfilm Ltd. in 1986, yet one area of the company ‘that has been profitable […] is its animation group, which makes television commercials’.1 More recent examinations of the studio’s commercial projects have further framed them as requisite reactions to company deficits.2 Across the growing scholarship on Pixar and its production culture, their advertising campaigns remain largely understood in this way, positioned as a set of ancillary projects caught between short and feature production, and serving only to generate much-needed financial revenue for the company during its formative period.3 Pixar’s collaboration with the advertising industry was undoubtedly a major source of income at a moment when ‘computerised commercials’ on U.S. television (heavily indebted to digital effects) offered speciality animation companies regular business.4 Yet it equally marks a significant period in Pixar’s stylistic and formal development far beyond simply securing their economic fortunes. The success of their commercials moved the studio away from their business identity as a hardware and software computer company, while the hiring of animators Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Joe Ranft, Jan Pinkava and Bob Peterson stabilised a set of working relationships that have firmly supported Pixar’s more recent filmmaking achievements. Most significantly, between the release of their short Knick Knack (John Lasseter, 1989) and feature-film debut Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995), Pixar were largely producing television commercials, often at the rate of 15 per year. They would not return to shorter form production until the 37-episode Toy Story Treats (1996) television series for ABC, and the release of Geri’s Game (Jan Pinkava, 1997) towards the end of the nineties.5 Alongside the parallel development of their proprietary RenderMan software system, Pixar’s shift towards commercial projects therefore represents their primary activity and professional identity as an animation studio between 1989 and 1995. This chapter seeks to interrogate the dominant perception threaded throughout Pixar’s critical and popular history that has positioned the studio’s commercial ventures (unlike their Academy Award-winning short films) as nothing more than an economically-driven stepping stone, quickly forgotten on the way to feature production. Indeed, the story of how Pixar’s commercial projects became spaces where the studio worked through elements of its house style and particular ‘hyperreal’ visual illusionism is one 15 ‘MOVIN’ TO A DIFFERENT BEAT’: COMMERCIAL PIXAR … 285 that remains largely untold.6 However, a closer look at a cross-section of advertisements produced in this period reveals their importance to Pixar’s digital aesthetic, which emerged out of a number of important collaborations with brands, companies, corporations and advertising agencies. Not only can this phase of ‘promotional Pixar’ be historicised against the increasing use of ‘digital editing and computer-generated images’ in advertising throughout the early 1990s, but also alongside the emergence of computer graphics within mainstream Hollywood cinema.7 In place of any regularised short film programme, Pixar’s commercials (running anywhere between a few seconds to two minutes) honed their particular formal style and creativity in storytelling. At the same time, they also refined a new kind of ‘ordinary’ digital aesthetic that would come to function as a clear counterpoint to the dominant currents of effects-laden Hollywood blockbuster cinema of the early 1990s. The studio’s treatment of computer graphics across its numerous advertisements can therefore be understood as presenting a style of digital animation that—as the tagline to their ‘dancing candy’ advert for the Life Savers confectionary company (Dance Club [John Lasseter, Pixar, FCB/Leber Katz, 1991]) put it—would ‘move to a different beat’. Conventional critical histories of CGI and special effects have certainly argued that convincing photographic verisimilitude developed during the 1990s, following an earlier phase of spectacular science-fiction imagery rooted in a scientific imagination of hyperreality. However, Pixar’s advertising projects both complicate and contradict this historical narrative of digital image processing, as the studio’s simulation of the ‘ordinary’ in what was otherwise a period of CG ‘technofuturism’ conveyed the aesthetic potential of computer graphics through a less dramatic handling of technological possibility.8 Before the Buzz The Pixar studio’s transition from their highly-successful short film programme to the production of commercial projects was inaugurated in September 1989 by a deal with San Francisco-based entertainment and effects studio Colossal Pictures. Pixar’s earlier cycle of shorts Luxo Jr. (John Lasseter, 1986), Red’s Dream (John Lasseter, 1987) and Tin Toy (John Lasseter, 1988) had already promoted the studio’s activities and CG productions at a number of industry and international computer graphics events.9 Yet announcing the Pixar/Colossal deal in July 1989, Richard Goldrich recognised that Pixar would now gain ‘the marketing and production wherewithal to make its first foray into tv commercials’.10 Founded in 286 C. HOLLIDAY 1976, Colossal’s experience in broadcast media (with clients that included Nickelodeon, Coca-Cola, Levis and as discussed in Chapter 12, MTV) would certainly help to move Pixar headlong into television advertising. Pixar’s then-director of animation production Ralph Guggenheim noted in 1991 their ‘strategic collaboration’ with Colossal would allow Pixar ‘resources we had been lacking to effectively break into the commercial market’.11 However, as Colossal’s incumbent ‘computer graphics arm’, Pixar would also provide their partner with access to their ‘creative people’ trained in traditional animation techniques as part of their joint commercial ventures.12 Pixar’s customised advertising projects have been widely understood as helping the studio smooth over the financial and industrial obstacles (company size, lack of revenue produced by animation division, focus on hardware and software sales) that had prevented their transition to featurelength production. Karen Paik explains that it had always been Pixar’s intention to work on commercials over a predefined two-year period, and ‘then produce a half-hour computer-animated TV special that would convince Hollywood studios that the company could tell longer stories’.13 David A. Price also notes that Pixar’s ‘three-step plan’ involved the company’s cycle of commercial projects, leading to television specials, before they would ‘finally graduate to a full-length feature-film’.14 The chronology of Pixar’s advertisements between their shorts (that were themselves produced at the rate of one per year between 1986 and 1989) and the release of Toy Story in November 1995 has certainly worked to frame their commercial output as an essential step towards their business goal of producing a computer-animated feature-film. The role of Pixar’s commercials within their business strategy would, however, appear something of a teleological assumption sanctioned by, and promoted across, more recent company accounts. When Pixar was first spun off from Lucasfilm, for example, there was no mention of a possible commercial future or even feature-film production. Variety predicted the company ‘will become an independent company engaged in the design and marketing of state-of-the-art computer graphics and image processing systems and technology’.15 Even Price’s retrospective company history emphasises a degree of ambivalence felt by Pixar employees in reorienting production towards commercial projects for external clients. He recognises their doubts at the lack of creative latitude afforded by commercials when offset against their Academy Award-winning short film programme.16 15 ‘MOVIN’ TO A DIFFERENT BEAT’: COMMERCIAL PIXAR … 287 It is tempting to view Pixar’s commercials as tied only to economic imperatives, and retroactively cast to veil what was an altogether more chaotic era of false starts, trials and errors. Yet there is some evidence among the Hollywood trade press that situates full-length film production within Pixar’s initial business pursuits, and also suggests that smaller commercial projects were considered vital in developing character animation, which could be then scaled up for feature-films. Soon after Pixar’s deal with Colossal was signed in September 1989, Guggenheim claimed that ‘For some time, we had been considering getting into commercial production’ with the anticipation of ‘longer-form projects’ a viable prospect for the studio’s growing portfolio.17 The following year, The Hollywood Reporter noted in a similar vein that Colossal had ‘an agreement to work with Pixar’s animators on various commercial and feature projects’.18 As demonstration animations that showcased the limits and possibilities of digital technology, these commercial projects do appear to have formed part of an overarching business model backing Pixar’s desire to be a self-supporting company. Furthermore, Pixar would continue to produce computer-animated content for television commercials even after they signed a $26 million threefeature distribution deal with Walt Disney Pictures in 1991.19 In the most robust account of Pixar’s advertising projects to date, Richard Neupert supports the view that their move away from computeranimated shorts towards television commercials in the late-1980s was perhaps one in excess of necessary economic dependence, and defends the idea that it was simply a calculated business move designed to provide relief from Pixar’s ‘financial predicament’.20 Neupert argues that, on the one hand, these new commercial income streams would provide business security for the company’s animation unit (allowing them to hire more animators) and accumulate up to $2 million in revenue. But despite low sales of the Pixar Image Computer (Pixar would sell its hardware business to Viacom in 1990), the studio’s decision to shift focus onto commercial production marketed the representational possibilities of the emergent digital technology, just as much as it helped to solidify Pixar’s business profits or promote ancillary global brands. If Pixar’s commercial projects contributed to the mainstreaming of digital imagery, then they equally functioned as test spaces in which the studio could trial their technical breakthroughs in graphics technology through a steady programme of advertising campaigns. For Neupert, Pixar was ‘a leading player in making this digital transition part of the everyday experience of media production and consumption’.21 Audiences were presented with 288 C. HOLLIDAY convincing reality effects that would rapidly define the visual style of digital imagery well into the 1990s, and publicise Pixar as attractive to high-profile collaborators. In 1991, Michael Lev noted the increasing use of ‘computergenerated effects and animation for television commercials’, including work by Pixar, Pacific Data Images Inc. and the Rhythm and Hues company, enabled ‘clients to get more and better effects’, and gave greater control over ‘shadow and light’ to create ads that copywriters ‘could only dream of seeing on television’.22 Beyond the revolutionary 3D software RenderMan—that in time would become central to Pixar’s business model—the studio’s advertisements functioned as testing grounds for innovative product lines. It was during the creation of Pixar’s commercials that ‘software engineers perfected additional programmes to sell to graphic artists and desktop publishers’, while the resultant adverts were—as with the studio’s earlier computer-animated shorts—screened at the annual computer technology convention SIGGRAPH.23 Developments included the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) licenced to Disney for The Little Mermaid (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1989); the ‘blendo’ style combining animated media; and the IceMan (Image Computing Environment) image editing tool used to model and render advanced 3D graphics. Pixar would demonstrate their capabilities in convincing light and shadow manipulation using their RenderMan software in Cracks (Flip Phillips, Pixar, J. Walter Thompson Company, 1992), an advertisement for Egg Beaters, a low-fat, healthy substitute for chicken eggs manufactured by Fleischmann’s. The advertisement begins with a single egg illuminated under a spotlight, which cracks as the shell collapses and the pieces scatter in the limelight. The voice-over describes the health ‘flaw’ in eggs (high cholesterol and fat content), as the fallen pieces of shell begin to slowly rise and reform in the shape of a carton of Egg Beaters. Reminiscent in its visual design and fixed camera set-up to Luxo Jr., this one-shot commercial provides a showcase for Pixar’s lighting effects, shadow detailing and texture mapping. The first wave of Pixar ads would embrace a range of materials to fully exhibit the mixed media potential for computer graphics. Lasseter’s Tropicana adverts (the first of which debuted in 1989, with another three following in 1991) all recreated natural textures using complex surface shaders, colour variation and light patterning to model the dancing citrus fruits.24 By comparison, Pixar’s Toys ‘R’ Us commercial Grand Opening (Andrew Stanton, Pixar, 1991) recalled their short Tin Toy in depicting numerous plastic dolls, metal bicycles and furry animals— objects entirely appropriate to the stock held at ‘The World’s Biggest Toy 15 ‘MOVIN’ TO A DIFFERENT BEAT’: COMMERCIAL PIXAR … 289 Store’—as they escape their packaging and assume their position on the superstore’s shelves. In their many collaborations with popular brands (Tropicana, Volkswagen, Kellogg’s, Levi’s, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola), Pixar revealed their investment in the spectacle of the manufactured object as commodity. The precision with which a range of mass-produced consumer products were visualised using RenderMan—from aluminium cans to plastic-coated packaging—recalls the impact of computer-aided design (CAD) processes upon engineering in the industrial sector. The studio’s first wave of short films featuring a lamp (Luxo Jr.), unicycle (Red’s Dream) and snow globe (Knick Knack) anticipated the kinds of products that would feature in their later commercial projects. In Pixar’s 1992 advert for Kellogg’s AllBran titled Hourglass (Galyn Susman & Andrew Stanton, Pixar, Leo Burnett, 1992), a flexing hourglass gyrates, hops and flips as if animated into life, while a 15-second commercial produced for Arm & Hammer Fridge Fresh Refrigerator Air Filter (About to Uncover [Mike Belzer, Pixar, Kelly, Nason Inc., 1994]) shows a plastic carton in ways that evoke two-point perspective drawing. Paik notes how the Pixar Imaging Computer ‘was an obvious attraction for companies working on computer-aided design’ given the system’s capabilities for volumetric rendering and its capacity to rotate an object in three-dimensions.25 Many of these design features central to Pixar’s proprietary hardware found their way into the formal repertoire of the studio’s adverts. In Pin Box (Bob Peterson, Pixar, Creative Artists Agency, 1995), one of Pixar’s three adverts for Coca-Cola, the virtual camera rotates fully around a Pin Art box (a toy involving moveable pins that can be pressed against a surface to create three-dimensional imprints). With a visual style that recalls the versatility of solid modelling within computer-aided design and manufacture systems, the Pin Art advert permits the viewer to take in all sides of the digitally-produced threedimensional object. Pixar’s advertisements were certainly highly technologised spaces in which the studio matured new aesthetic possibilities for computer graphics using their advanced RenderMan software. However, with an emphasis on everyday (often domestic) locations and a fidelity to mimetic realism, they ultimately stake out a very different territory to that of popular Hollywood genre cinema of the period. From fighting fridge magnets (Hallmark— Magnets [Bob Peterson, Pixar, Leo Burnett, 1996]) to those commercials promoting Tetrapak drinking boxes—including two ads directed by Docter in 1991 and 1992—and at a time ‘when Hollywood was still suspicious of 290 C. HOLLIDAY the market potential of a technology’, Pixar’s advertisements would provide computer graphics with an alternate set of aesthetic priorities.26 From the Wonder Years to the Ordinary Beginning with their Dance of the Waterlilies (John Lasseter, Pixar, Toppan Printing Co., Ltd., 1989) advertisement for Toppan Printing and culminating in 1996 with collaborations with Rosarita, Levi’s and Nickelodeon, Pixar’s commercial projects run almost exactly parallel to what Michele Pierson has called the ‘wonder years’ of North American art direction. This was a period of popular Hollywood cinema, bookended by the release of two feature-films The Abyss (James Cameron, 1989) and Johnny Mnemonic (Robert Longo, 1995), in which visual effects imagery was largely put to use in big-budget science-fiction blockbusters.27 The simultaneous output of Pixar’s commercial division during the same period offers a significant corrective to the aesthetic project of the ‘wonder years’, in which the emergence of computer graphics stabilised into a relatively homogenous set of visual practices. The synthetic, glossy ‘technofuturism’ aesthetic (often representing cyberspace itself) celebrated the fantasies of the hyper-visible to define early-1990s science-fiction cinema. Such a visual regime is, however, almost completely sidestepped by Pixar’s ulterior visual focus on an early ‘simulationist’ register across its commercials, or what Stephen Prince has called ‘perceptual realism’, as an investment in ‘the phenomenological simulation of photographic or cinematographic reality’.28 Produced using RenderMan, Pixar’s ‘realist’ commercials deviated strongly from the electronic aesthetic of the ‘technofuturist’ imperative, despite Pierson’s suggestions that the ‘simulationist’ style would actually come much later in the decade. In fact, the dominant formal techniques and aesthetic qualities that loomed large over early ‘technofuturist’ effects cinema (mutation, morphing, liquidity, heterogeneity, warping, reconfiguration) are all countered by Pixar’s animated advertisements of this same period, which instead prioritised the tribulations of everyday objects and ordinary products. Whether showing a set of dancing playing cards that flex and shuffle in unison (California Lottery—Dancing Cards [Flip Phillips, Pixar, Dailey & Associates, 1990]), or a piano-playing ice cube (Trident Freshmint Sugarless Gum—Quite a Package [Andrew Stanton, Pixar, J. Walter Thompson, 1990]), Pixar’s adverts plot an alternative path for how digital imagery was being explored both across popular genre cinema and effects-driven commercials. Paik argues that ‘at the time, computer graphics, especially in 15 ‘MOVIN’ TO A DIFFERENT BEAT’: COMMERCIAL PIXAR … 291 commercial work, was used primarily to create effects: flying logos, “gleams and glows,” and especially morphing (the hot new use of CG). But Pixar carved out a different niche for itself’.29 Not only was Pixar embracing the kinds of visual realism central to the ‘simulationist’ aesthetics of latenineties Hollywood, but they were also operating at a distance from other digital effects used in television advertising. As Guggenheim puts it, when it came to the aesthetic principles and formal style of the studio’s commercial programme, ‘we were the guys who didn’t do morphing’.30 From plastic Listerine bottles to dancing Christmas trees, Pixar’s ability to bring ‘character and emotion to inanimate objects’ across their short films would attract regular commercial work for North American, French and Mexican television markets.31 With ‘Every new ad contract […] perceived as an opportunity to develop further Pixar-styled character animation’, their celebration of the everyday object ‘in performance’ across their commercials refined and reflected the studio’s welldocumented principles of characterisation.32 Lasseter developed nuanced forms of character animation (personality, weight/volume, timing and anticipation of movement, following through and overlapping/secondary actions), matched with ambitious and highly-sophisticated visualisations of three-dimensional space.33 Animation’s long-standing anthropomorphic tradition is evidenced throughout several Pixar adverts, not least in those that personify food and, most notably, confectionary, as in the campaigns for Pillsbury Grands Biscuits (Pump [Henry Selick & Flip Phillips, Pixar, Leo Burnett, 1990]), Carefree chewing gum (Bursting [Pete Docter, Pixar, 1993]) and Hershey’s (Amazin’ Straws [Andrew Schmidt, Pixar, 1995]). Lasseter’s early Babies (Pixar, FBC/Leber Katz, 1990) advert for Life Savers depicted colourful flavoured candy at the park (on swings, playing hopscotch, skipping), actions that provided a backdrop for the translucent effect of the sweets that would be revisited in three other Life Savers commercials produced in 1991 and 1994.34 The movement central to the Babies commercial reflects several of Lasseter’s principles in character animation, not least his suggestion that character appeal is ‘a quality of charm, pleasing design, simplicity, communication or magnetism’.35 The construction of adult/child candy through differing ‘bodily’ proportions and speed of movement (including posing) illustrates how the application of personality transformed unspectacular objects into expressive and appealing figures undertaking actions in virtual space. Following the debut of Lasseter’s first advertisement for Tropicana, Cary Potterfield, a producer at Leo Burnett (Tropicana’s ad agency), 292 C. HOLLIDAY argued that ‘At first, we hadn’t planned on eyes and mouth on the straw, but Pixar suggested that it would make the character come alive faster’.36 Similar regimes of anthropomorphic representation mark Pixar’s first advert for Tropicana—in which the fruit juice’s tagline ‘taste for adventure’ is realised through erratic dancing fruit—and Twizzlers’ Pull n’ Peel (Check Me Out [Jan Pinkava, Pixar, 1996]), one of only a handful of advertisements produced following the release of Toy Story. In an earlier Nutri Grain cereal advert (We’ve Got Taste [Roger Gould, Pixar, Leo Burnett, 1993]), clusters of raisins, almonds and bran flakes are launched from a cereal box to conduct a Busby Berkeley-style choreographed dance routine, before a final dismount into a breakfast bowl. In its divergent mode of ‘domesticated’ digital spectacle rooted in a ‘simulationist’ visual register, Pixar’s short-lived commercial cycle ultimately helps to secure a kind of ‘simulated ordinary’ far removed from the ‘technofuturist’ imperative of mainstream Hollywood. If ‘technofuturism’ as an aesthetic ‘can barely be imagined’ outside of science-fiction cinema, then Pixar’s ‘simulationist’ brand of CG hyperrealism is anchored to the convincing representation of recognisable locations rendered in threedimensions (the supermarket, the kitchen, the office, the playground).37 As part of Pixar’s focus on the phenomenologically and perceptually ordinary, industrial commodities are represented to cleanly accentuate the software’s photo-realistic capabilities while avoiding the compositional unruliness or ‘boiling’ effects of traditional cel-animated techniques.38 This persuasive simulation of ordinary objects situated in everyday spaces is typically framed by a reorientation in dramatic narrative value. The crescendo moments in many of Pixar’s commercials are disclosed through the advertised product (coerced into a new extraordinary identity as characters with a personality) suddenly occupying and moving through ordinary, quotidian or domestic environments. The possibilities engendered by Pixar’s simulation of the ordinary are illustrated in two adverts that premiered in 1993 for the colour-changing Jordan Magic Toothbrush (Launching Magic [Roger Gould, Pixar, 1993]) and popular citrus-flavoured soft drink Fresca (Chuckling Straws [Andrew Schmidt, Pixar, 1993]). In the former, the virtual camera tracks slowly down a toothbrush’s ‘body’ from the bristles, observing its sleek lines and moulded plastic edges, but also taking in the extraordinary surface detail achievable in hyperreal CG that is ‘just too pristine’.39 As the plastic toothbrush transforms from red to yellow, it then writhes in all directions, sporadically laughing and giggling at its own visual transformation. Pixar’s 15 ‘MOVIN’ TO A DIFFERENT BEAT’: COMMERCIAL PIXAR … 293 thirty-second Fresca commercial is similarly committed to a practical understanding of the everyday, providing spectators with astonishing visual detail in colour, lighting, and texture to fully support its depiction of uneventful, ordinary activity. Designed to narrativise the ‘irresistible’ taste of the Fresca drink, the thirty-second advert is plotted around a (purportedly male) anthropomorphic drinking straw, who follows up his desiring gaze of another (female) straw by leaning in and, rather predatorily, drinking the soft drink from ‘her’. The camera then pulls back to reveal another, much larger (male) red drinking straw, ready and waiting to relieve the smaller male of his liquid contents. These largely silent commercials reflect the capacity of animation to create different kinds of characters, both in their anthropomorphic register but also via the ability of the virtual camera to take in new angles and perspectives. Each advert mines the fantasy of animation to accentuate mundane details in ways that evoke cinema’s historical potential for ‘undramatic achievement’, activating ‘life experiences based around the routine or repetitive, the apparently banal or mundane, and the uneventful’.40 In many of Pixar’s commercials, everyday situations are made strange through discourses of personification and mise-en-scène, which come together to afford a more unusual depiction of a household object. This would, of course, appear to challenge the de-dramatisation of narrative and stillness normally associated with ‘undramatic’ cinema. But what Pixar’s commercials achieve is the control and intensification of everyday events, occurrences, interactions and objects. The playful treatment of domestic, massproduced products indicates that their elevation of the everyday is a highly reflexive preoccupation with the very rhetoric of expressivity. Pixar’s commercials are alert to the dramatic possibilities of asserting significance by stating their triumphs through the medium of animation. Actions and objects based on realism, routine, repetition, the ‘banal or mundane, and the uneventful’ are made culpable in helping spectators understand the potential of the still-new medium.41 The playful movement of objects-ascharacters becomes part of the style and execution of the ordinary, rather than necessarily a threat to it. This is because Pixar’s advertisements represent a meaningful confrontation with the everyday through these same devices, part of how their commercials transform the quotidian through alternative forms of organisation that invite spectators to feel greater connection with the ordinariness of the object. This is, consequently, effective marketing: a new kind of attractive spectacle that quickly catches the eye not through distraction, but through attention. 294 C. HOLLIDAY A Pixar advert created for the Sun Microsystems company in 1996— who specialised in information technology services (providing 100 highpowered computers to render images for Toy Story)—achieves a similar effect.42 The ad depicts lively paperclips dancing in unison across a desktop workspace, before coming together to form the Sun Microsystems logo. The paperclips’ dizzying spectacle of performance is here countered by the cluttered workspace, while the choreographed conduct of this office stationary is a reminder of Pixar’s focus on the abstract qualities of everyday consumer objects. As Brad Fornaciari (of ad agency Dailey & Associates) put it regarding Pixar’s style of commercial in 1990, ‘people notice this advertising. But it’s not a case of it being too creative; they [Pixar] really do connect it to the product’.43 The attribution of dramatic personality to the otherwise undramatic paperclips installs a spectacular visibility within prosaic, commonplace objects. Yet here the normalisation of spectacle becomes its reduction to the tabletop, now displaced onto and filtered through the objects and spaces of the everyday. The spectacular is both tempered and controlled by its very interplay with the banality of the location, transformed into a spectacle that self-consciously plays with its very identity as a spectacle at all. Conclusion In swerving Hollywood’s historical devotion to traditions of the spectacular in their investment in the ‘simulated ordinary’, Pixar’s commercial projects stand as important formal explorations into the proficiencies of computer animation. But they also illustrate how the studio’s computeranimated commercials provide the ‘missing link’ between their Academy Award-winning shorts of the late-1980s and equally lauded feature-film canon. When taken together, these adverts plotted an ulterior trajectory for computer graphics, one not in thrall to the ‘technofuturism’ that defined the comparable period of blockbuster cinema, but rooted instead in the persuasive rendering and reproduction of everyday objects. Beyond their contribution to Pixar’s financial and production structures, these computer-animated advertisements made in the early 1990s ultimately inform the way we think about—if not where we look to discern—cinema’s often ambivalent relationship to technology. Pixar’s advertisements epitomise a highly chaotic period of experimentation within the newly intersecting fields of advertising, computer graphics and popular North American cinema. In their recourse to simulating the ordinary, 15 ‘MOVIN’ TO A DIFFERENT BEAT’: COMMERCIAL PIXAR … 295 Pixar’s computer-animated commercials ultimately represent a key vote in a wider ballot on a new set of industrial practices and illustrative tools. They bear out not just the push/pull relationship between ‘technofuturism’ and ‘simulationist’ that splintered early effects imagery, but their shift away from Hollywood’s ambitious electronic hyperreality popularised an aesthetic style that many commentators note would not fully arrive in mainstream cinema until later in the decade. Pixar’s adverts embody a divergent logic of representation, perhaps even a forgotten space where digital imagery hardened into new aesthetic horizons. In his account of the progressive ‘digitising’ of moving image culture, Andrew Darley argues that it was the ‘technical groundwork’ of Pixar’s successful short films that paved the way for their move into feature-length computer-animated filmmaking.44 However, Pixar’s many computer-animated commercial projects can also be understood as equally preparatory and highly significant works important to the development and accomplishments of computer imaging technologies. Notes 1. Lawrence M. Fisher, “Hard Times for Innovator in Graphics,” New York Times (April 2, 1991): D5. 2. Dietmar Meinel argues that once Pixar gained a ‘foothold in the market for television advertisements’ in the late-1990s, they were able ‘to create and increase revenue […] to offset its losses in the hardware and software business’. Dietmar Meinel, Pixar’s America: The Re-Animation of American Myths and Symbols (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 5. 3. See Karen Paik, To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios (London: Random House, 2007); Eric Herhuth, Pixar and the Aesthetic Imagination: Animation, Storytelling, and Digital Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016); and Lawrence Levy, To Pixar and Beyond (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2016). 4. Michael Lev, “Special-Effects Wizards Are Putting in the Overtime,” New York Times (September 10, 1991): D17. 5. In 1991, Pixar did create four educational segments for the children’s television programme Sesame Street (Joan Ganz Cooney & Lloyd Morrisett, 1969–) all featuring the Luxo lamps from the studio’s debut short. 6. For an examination of Pixar’s ‘hyperreal’ aesthetic style of computer graphics, see J. P. Telotte, “‘Better Than Real’: Digital Disney, Pixar, and Beyond,” in The Mouse Machine: Disney and Technology (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 159–178. 296 C. HOLLIDAY 7. Anon., “Commercials’ Production Sold on New Technologies,” Variety (March 24, 1993), available at: http://variety.com/1993/tv/news/ commercials-production-sold-on-new-technologies-105289/. 8. Michele Pierson, Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 101. 9. See Jordan Gowanlock’s discussion in Chapter 14 of this collection for further discussion of this. 10. Robert Goldrich, “Colossal, Pixar Ink Production/Sales Agreement,” Back Stage 30, no. 28 (July 14, 1989): 1. 11. Qtd. in Goldrich, “Colossal, Pixar Ink Production/Sales Agreement,” 25. 12. Goldrich, “Colossal, Pixar Ink Production/Sales Agreement,” 25. 13. Paik, To Infinity and Beyond! 70. 14. David A. Price, The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 110–111. 15. Bill Daniels, “Lucasfilm Sells Pixar Graphics,” Variety 322, no. 3 (February 12, 1986): 7. 16. Price, The Pixar Touch, 110–111. 17. Qtd. in Goldrich, “Colossal, Pixar Ink Production/Sales Agreement,” 25. 18. Anon., The Hollywood Reporter 313, nos. 1–17 (1990): 238. See also Richard W. Stevenson, “It’s Computerized Animation—Backed by Steve Jobs, Naturally,” New York Times (August 4, 1991): F4. 19. Colossal Pictures would terminate its contract with Pixar in 1992 when production began on Toy Story. Pixar’s commercial division would officially close on July 8, 1996. 20. Richard Neupert, John Lasseter (Contemporary Film Directors) (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016), 85. 21. Neupert, John Lasseter, 87–88. 22. Lev, “Special-Effects Wizards Are Putting in the Overtime,” D17. 23. Neupert, John Lasseter, 88. Pixar’s first advertisement for Tropicana Wake Up (1989, Pixar, Leo Burnett) premiered at SIGGRAPH in 1990. 24. Tropicana—Warehouse (John Lasseter, Pixar, Leo Burnett, 1991); Tropicana—Orange Kiwi Passion (John Lasseter & Andrew Stanton, Pixar, Leo Burnett, 1991); Tropicana—Three Fruits Dancing (John Lasseter & Pete Docter, Pixar, Leo Burnett, 1991). See also Tony Apodaca and Darwyn Peachey, “Writing RenderMan Shaders,” SIGGRAPH 1991 Course 21 (July 27, 1992), available at: http://pds20.egloos.com/pds/201005/30/81/ Writing_RenderMan_Shaders.pdf. 25. Paik, To Infinity and Beyond!, 56. 26. Tetrapak—Lunchbox (Pete Docter, Pixar, Lintas, 1991); Tetrapak—Daydream (Pete Docter, Pixar, Lintas, 1992). Greg Singh, Feeling Film: Affect and Authenticity in Popular Cinema (London and New York: Routledge, 2014), 153. 27. Pierson, Special Effects, 93–136. 15 ‘MOVIN’ TO A DIFFERENT BEAT’: COMMERCIAL PIXAR … 297 28. Pierson, Special Effects, 101. Stephen Prince, “True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images, ad Film Theory,” Film Quarterly 49, no. 3. (Spring 1996): 27–37. 29. Paik, To Infinity and Beyond!, 67. 30. Qtd. in Paik, To Infinity and Beyond!, 67. 31. Robert Goldrich, “Pixar Gives Conceptual CGI Fit to Levi’s Mannequin,” Shoot 35, no. 33 (September 19, 1994): 12. 32. Neupert, John Lasseter, 88. 33. See John Lasseter, “Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation,” SIGGRAPH ‘87, Computer Graphics 21, no. 4 (July 1987): 35–44. 34. Life Savers—Dance Club; Life Savers—Life At the Beach (Pete Docter, Pixar, FCB/Leber Katz, 1991); Life Savers—Wacky Frootz (Mike Belzer, Pixar, FCB/Leber Katz, 1994). 35. Lasseter, “Principles of Traditional Animation,” 42. 36. Bernice Kanner, “Imitation of Life,” New York Magazine (September 10, 1990): 22–23. 37. Pierson, Special Effects, 101. 38. See Dan Torre, “Boiling Lines and Lightning Sketches: Process and the Animated Drawing,” Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 10, no. 2 (July 2015): 141–153. 39. Andrew Darley, Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 85–86. 40. Andrew Klevan, Disclosure of the Everyday: Undramatic Achievement in Narrative Film (Trowbridge: Flicks Books, 2000), 1–2. 41. Ibid., 1–2. 42. Sun Microsystems—Magic Desktop (Andrew Schmidt, Pixar, 1996). 43. Qtd. in Kanner, “Imitation of Life,” 22. 44. Darley, Visual Digital Culture, 83. Bibliography Anon. 1990. The Hollywood Reporter 313, nos. 1–17: 238. Anon. 1993. “Commercials’ Production Sold on New Technologies.” Variety (March 24), available at: http://variety.com/1993/tv/news/commercialsproduction-sold-on-new-technologies-105289/. Apodaca, Tony, and Darwyn Peachey. 1992. “Writing RenderMan Shaders.” SIGGRAPH 1991 Course 21 (July 27), available at: http://pds20.egloos.com/pds/ 201005/30/81/Writing_RenderMan_Shaders.pdf. Daniels, Bill. 1986. “Lucasfilm Sells Pixar Graphics.” Variety 322, no. 3 (February 12): 7. 298 C. HOLLIDAY Darley, Andrew. 2000. Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres. London and New York: Routledge. Fisher, Lawrence M. 1991. “Hard Times for Innovator in Graphics.” New York Times (April 2): D5. Goldrich, Robert. 1989. “Colossal, Pixar Ink Production/Sales Agreement.” Back Stage 30, no. 28 (July 14): 1. Goldrich, Robert. 1994. “Pixar Gives Conceptual CGI Fit to Levi’s Mannequin.” Shoot 35, no. 33 (September 19): 12. Herhuth, Erc. 2016. Pixar and the Aesthetic Imagination: Animation, Storytelling, and Digital Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kanner, Bernice. 1990. “Imitation of Life.” New York Magazine (September 10): 22–23. Klevan, Andrew. 2000. Disclosure of the Everyday: Undramatic Achievement in Narrative Film. Trowbridge: Flicks Books. Lasseter, John. 1987. “Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation.” SIGGRAPH ‘87. Computer Graphics 21, no. 4 (July): 35–44. Lev, Michael. 1991. “Special-Effects Wizards Are Putting in the Overtime.” New York Times (September 10): D17. Levy, Lawrence. 2016. To Pixar and Beyond. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Meinel, Dietmar. 2016. Pixar’s America: The Re-Animation of American Myths and Symbols. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Neupert, Richard. 2016. John Lasseter (Contemporary Film Directors). Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Paik, Karen. 2007. To Infinity and Beyond!: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios. London: Random House. Pierson, Michele. 2002. Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder. New York: Columbia University Press. Price, David A. 2008. The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Prince, Stephen. 1996. “True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images, and Film Theory.” Film Quarterly 49, no. 3. (Spring): 27–37. Singh, Greg. 2014. Feeling Film: Affect and Authenticity in Popular Cinema. London and New York: Routledge. Stevenson, Richard W. 1991. “It’s Computerized Animation—Backed by Steve Jobs, Naturally.” New York Times (August 4): F4. Telotte, J. P. 2008. “‘Better Than Real’: Digital Disney, Pixar, and Beyond.” In The Mouse Machine: Disney and Technology, 159–178. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Torre, Dan. 2015. Boiling Lines and Lightning Sketches: Process and the Animated Drawing.” Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 10, no. 2 (July): 141–153. CHAPTER 16 ‘Feel Everything’: Animation, Advertising and Affect in Cinema and Television Idents Aimee Mollaghan In 2006 UK based VFX studio The Mill produced a series of short animated trailers as part of the Sky HD launch campaign under the tagline ‘Feel Everything’, which were screened in cinemas and on television. This tagline highlighted an intention to touch the audience on a corporeal level, to offer them a whole-body experience that actively engages their sensorium. Innovations in sound and image technology such as Dolby Digital and 4K image resolution, both in the cinema and the home, have affected the way audiences comprehend the hierarchy between sound and image, allowing for an ambiguity between what audiovisual information they perceive and how they perceive it. As Maurice Merleau-Ponty points out, our bodies are our ‘general instruments’ of understanding in the world, enrobing us with the fabrics onto which experience is woven.1 The Mill suggests that the animation for the Sky campaign ‘was looking so fantastic with details you felt you could reach out and touch’.2 Yet they also remind us that this A. Mollaghan (B) Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK e-mail: a.mollaghan@qub.ac.uk © The Author(s) 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4_16 299 300 A. MOLLAGHAN potential to feel the image through the eyes and ears of the audience was nonetheless an advertisement for the spectacle of what this new technology could provide. Part of cinema’s allure is the promise of an experience that you cannot enjoy at home and recent idents such as the 2015 Vue entertainment (Vue) Sizzle Film and Vue: This is Not Cinema campaign promote the spectacular affective qualities of Sony 4K and Dolby Digital technology particular to Vue Cinema Theatres. This is not only limited to the cinema theatre as related promotional strategies predicated on notions of intersensory correspondence and technological developments are increasingly drawn on by the television industry in an era of increased competition for viewers. This idea of intersensory correspondence is grounded in the neurological condition of synaesthesia in which the senses are crossmodally stimulated, allowing those affected by it to enjoy highly idiosyncratic experiences such as seeing sound or tasting colour. This idea of synaesthesia has long been appropriated as a metaphor by those engaged in creative practices.3 However, as K. J. Donnelly suggests, appropriating the concept of synaesthesia in order to discuss the relationship between sound and image in audiovisual media also allows for an emphasis on ‘the bodily (perceptual-cognitive) aspects of sound and image relations, where the effect is physical rather than simply analogous or metaphorical’.4 Drawing on these ideas, this chapter will contend that these animated advertisements employ hyperreal audiovisual aesthetics premised on the ability of technological advances and intersensory correspondence to physically affect audiences. The distinct corporeal experience that these idents offer allows them to advertise the spectacular qualities of cinema and HD television to both audiences and advertisers. The continuing impetus to stimulate box office revenue has resulted in a number of agencies such as Digital Cinema Media (DCM) in the UK and Wide Eye Media in Ireland specialising exclusively in both the sales of advertising space and creation of advertising content within and for cinemas.5 The mission statement for Wide Eye Media highlights a desire ‘to create, shape and deliver interactive, high impact advertising campaigns across cinemas nationwide’.6 Iain MacRury asserts that since the latter part of the twentieth century an increased interest in the subjective experience of audiences has affected the manner in which advertisers approach the relationships between audiences and their outputs.7 Using taglines such as ‘See it. Hear it. Feel it’ and ‘Let go of your senses’,8 Wide Eye Media’s cinema campaign foregrounds this idea of an affective corporeal encounter grounded in intersensory correspondence. Lest we forget, however, these 16 ‘FEEL EVERYTHING’: ANIMATION, ADVERTISING … 301 are not solely perceptual events, they are also underscoring the spectacularity of the cinemagoing experience, foregrounding what the apparatus of the black box of the cinema can deliver to both audiences and for advertisers. The campaign highlights the uniqueness of experience and technology that only cinema can deliver; the ident complementing Wide Eye Media’s rationale for using cinema for advertising as a way of eliciting ‘deeper brand engagement’ through ‘emotive advertising’ in the multisensory environment of the cinema.9 With an audience seated in a fixed monocular position, free from the incursions of contemporary life, the company suggests that advertising in the cinema works harder for clients, eliciting greater attention and ability to remember details with an impact eight times greater than television.10 Moreover, the company emphasises that they are targeting both advertisers and audiences stating, ‘We want Cinema goers to enjoy a more interactive, entertaining and spontaneous cinema experience, while advertisers now have the opportunity to unveil more dynamic campaigns across the entire cinema environment’.11 Similar to Wide Eye Media and DCM, the Vue cinema chain, as part of Vue International, underscores the unique benefits of cinema as a venue for a technologically advanced multisensory experience. Vue’s holdings in the United Kingdom include ‘271 3D screens, 11 Extreme Screens, 7 Gold Class screens, 6 Scene Screens and Bars and 3 IMAX screens’.12 With over 150,000 seats, they own the first and third highest grossing cinemas in the UK.13 Vue’s cinema theatres project all of their films in Sony Digital Cinema 4K for ultra-high definition pictures, which they claim offers audiences four times more detail than standard projection systems.14 In addition to the film, they offer audience blockbuster live event screenings of opera, ballet, musicals, national theatre, sporting events, concert and gaming events. As such, their success as an entertainment enterprise rests on tempting audiences away from the comforts of their sofas and into their cinema venues. To do this, they intentionally position themselves as a purveyor of events, drawing attention to the inimitable experience that their cinemas with their state of the art technology can provide. This is evident in two of their recent idents, Sizzle Film and Vue: This is Not Cinema. The idents, produced by The Mill, explicitly foreground the spectacular affective qualities of Sony 4K and Dolby Digital technology particular to Vue Cinema Theatres. This advertising of cinema’s spectacular qualities is not a novel rejoinder. The idea of a ‘cinema of attractions’ premised on the spectacle of technology and the positioning of cinema as event has proved a persistent 302 A. MOLLAGHAN and influential way of approaching spectacle in the moving image both academically and commercially, historically enjoying a resurgence at times where cinema finds itself in economic peril.15 Recently, the proliferation of competing media and increasing convergence between film and television has seen a rise in event cinema with live screenings, CGI special effects, high-quality 3D and franchise films employed to lure audiences back into theatres. As Leon Gurevitch points out, the notion of the cinema of attractions with its reliance on spectacle has much in common with advertising as early films often served as their own advertisement for the apparatus and experience of cinema.16 In addition, he postulates that early screen advertising was not markedly different from non-advertising films of that period. They were often comparable in length and, like the animated advertisements under consideration here, ‘were promotional at the same time as they were attractions to be viewed for general entertainment’.17 Further to this, these idents as products of the advertising industry, recognise and actively gesture towards the audience. This direct solicitation of the viewer’s attention is readily apparent in Vue’s second major ident of 2015. Entitled ‘Vue: This is Not Cinema’, the ident juxtaposes heavily graded live-action images with amorphous CGI animation. Nebulous gassy light resolves into an approximation of an eye, a ‘cosmic’ eye disseminating energy like a star radiating sun flares. These cosmic associations, the idea of something bigger, negates the idea of the voyeuristic viewer. The image of an eye staring back defiantly at the spectator in an acknowledgement of their presence coupled with a direct mode of address is also foregrounded within the Wide Eye Media ‘See it. Hear it. Feel it’ ident, which both begins and ends with a hazy blue iris with undulating filaments hovering in negative space. Described by creators The Mill as ‘a bold, encompassing audiovisual experience’,18 the Sizzle Film, also released in 2015, was designed to visualise the performance of the Dolby Atmos sound system and Sony Digital 4K projectors employed in Vue cinemas. The ident has four distinct movements to take audiences on ‘an artistic journey through four key components of the Vue Cinema’s experience: refreshments, comfort, state of the art sound and unparalleled picture projection’.19 The first, a succession of viscous rumbling liquid textures and hissing effervescent bubbles complemented by an ebullient, pulsating soundtrack, helps to prepare the audience for the experience of attending a screening at a Vue Cinema. The audience gradually becomes aware that they are viewing the interior of an ice-filled 16 ‘FEEL EVERYTHING’: ANIMATION, ADVERTISING … 303 Fig. 16.1 Frame grab from the Sizzle Film (2015) demonstrating the high definition detail rendered by the projection system utilised by Vue Cinema theatres cup of cola. They are becoming immersed in the experience of preparing for the cinema event, a taster of what is to come. This preparation for the main attraction continues with the second movement as the viewer moves from the lobby into the black box of the cinema. The liquid cola transmogrifies into a grainy hard-textured surface, which at first has the appearance of the scaly lamina of bark or the stratified layers of a rock formation. It later reveals itself to be the simulated leather of a cinema seat which becomes stitched with computer generated red thread, a surface so rich in detail that the viewer can exteroceptively caress it with their eyes because of the richness of the HD detail (see Fig. 16.1). The phrase ‘Take your seat’ appears on screen as throbbing rock music fades in allowing us to be simultaneously somatically stimulated by the vibration of the sound. Even the experience of being inside the cinema is a heightened event in and of itself. The third movement demonstrates the state of the art Dolby sound system in Vue Cinemas through gleaming silver balls arranged in concentric circles to approximate the interior of a speaker. Vibrating in tight synchronisation with the resonant soundtrack to demonstrate the somatosensory qualities of the Dolby system (see Fig. 16.2). The final distinct movement asks the spectator to ‘Discover Sony 4K’ as they barrel through the hazy 304 A. MOLLAGHAN Fig. 16.2 Frame grab from the Sizzle Film (2015) visualising the Dolby sound system available in Vue Cinemas beam of a projector into a rotating circular metallic tunnel towards beams of multi-coloured light that coalesce into white light as the music hits a crescendo before the music and image contract in a stylised rendering of gravitational collapse. The entire ident is positioned as an interstellar ride, evoking Douglas Trumbull’s Stargate sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey.20 In a fashion akin to the Wide Eye Media ident, the spectator is moving through the screen as though on a first person virtual journey. It begins by preparing the audience for their voyage, but in fragments, as though recalling a sense memory. This reliance on an aesthetic rooted in cross modal stimulation is no longer peculiar to cinema. Kindred in spirit to the Wide Eye Media campaign, The Mill, in partnership with advertising agency Venture Three, produced five animations as part of the Sky HD launch campaign. The idents, designed to showcase the new technology that Sky was attempting to bring to a saturated consumer television market, utilised the tagline ‘Feel Everything’ to explicitly draw on this idea of a haptic intersensory correspondence. The original creative brief from UK brand consultancy firm Venture Three called for five idents for television, each based on an emotion; Intense, Euphoric, Alive, Hot and Serene. These ‘feelings’ illustrated through pseudo-synaesthetic colour, sound and movement were combined 16 ‘FEEL EVERYTHING’: ANIMATION, ADVERTISING … 305 into a 60-second advertisement for cinema and a 30-second advertisement for television. This brief highlights the intention to affect audiences on a phenomenal level. Yet it also reminds us that this potential to feel the image through the eyes and ears of the audience was nonetheless an advertisement for the spectacle of what this new technology could provide: ‘We also wanted to reflect what HD delivers; mind-blowing detail, depth of field and full on vibrant colour. Venture Three wanted the animations to make your eyes bleed!’.21 As with the other idents discussed in this chapter, the Sky HD cinema advertisement takes you on a sensory journey, the combined idents roughly functioning as movements in music. As temporal art forms animation and music enjoy many shared attributes such as isomorphic patterns, structure and motion. Indeed, Don Ihde suggests that sound in fact ‘reveals time’.22 The soundtracks of the idents under consideration here helps to elucidate and reinforce the motion and temporality of the animation. Significantly, Stephen Bottomore asserts that ‘the portrayal of complex natural motion was one of the aspects of early films which most impressed spectators. Water and wave motion was particularly noticed’.23 It is perhaps, not surprising therefore that these idents often rely on patterns of motion that echo those of the natural world in their direct address to the audience. The ‘Feel Everything’ idents for example, directly reference the ‘textures and movements of deep-sea creatures and microscopic organisms’.24 The hyperreal blue aqueous textures and movements of the first movement ‘Euphoric’ contract and release on the screen, shrinking and darting into the space of the screen to fuse with the green, kaleidoscopic plantlike figure of ‘Alive’, in the second movement. The virtual camera moves through the figure in ‘Alive’ to reveal the mutating, writhing figure of ‘Hot’. At first this figure appears to be a gleaming geometric flower, centrifugally rotating before unfurling to morph into a stylised marine creature. The figure pulls away to reveal the glowing gassy atmosphere of ‘Intense’, its pink, red, purple and blue amorphous circular forms folding and twisting back on themselves to dissolve into the final movement of ‘Serene’. The gaseous lines of ‘Serene’ return to the colour palette of the first movement and diffuse outwards in a wave motion as the taglines ‘Feel Everything’, ‘Sky HD’ and ‘High Definition TV’ slowly fade in. Spectacle in the moving image is often aligned with an emphasis on visuality, I would suggest however, that this is to disregard the sonic and tactile qualities of spectacular sequences such as these. The raison d’être of these idents is not solely the rendering of the visibility of the visible at 306 A. MOLLAGHAN which audiences may wish to stop and stare but also the aurality of the aural, the tactility of the tactile as they coalesce into a gesamtkunstwerk, offering something greater than the sum of its constituent parts. It is my contention that these animated idents are employing hyperreal aesthetics predicated on the ability of technology to invoke affect and intersensory correspondence in order to highlight, in an era of increased convergence between film and television, the distinctive qualities of these media as an attraction for both audiences and advertisers by engaging our bodies on a haptic level. This is apparent in Wide Eye Media’s cinema ident for its ‘See it. Hear it. Feel it’ campaign. Echoing Vivian Sobchack’s idea of film possessing its own body, the ident is constantly creating connections between the audience and the moving image on screen. Foregrounding its body and calling attention to interior and exterior processes of the body as it undergoes an affective cross modal experience; pupils contract and expand, hairs stand on end, the circulatory and nervous systems fire. We move through vaporous eyes, through misty nebulae, through dot particles to delicately rendered flowers enrobed in clouds of gas. We follow the downy filaments of dandelion clocks as they disperse through a firing red-toned nervous system. Red blood corpuscles are propelled forward through the tunnel of the circulatory system as the electrical sounds of firing synapses are followed by the sound of a beating heart. In haptic viewing our bodies are physically involved with the process of looking, resting on a bodily relationship between the viewer and image so that we are essentially touching through our eyes. I suggest that these digitally rendered advertisements accomplish this through what musicologist Anahid Kassabian, expanding on the idea of haptic visuality, might suggest to be auditory or haptic hearing. Hearing is a more obvious candidate for haptic perception. Audiences respond to the physical vibrations produced by sound on a somatic level, allowing for a more direct bodily experience. Regardless of whether sounds are audible to the human ear or not, the vibrational qualities of sound mean that our bodies can experience it on a subconscious level creating affective atmospheres through sonic qualities such as frequencies, volume or pitch. The pyscho-accoustic properties of sound affect our physical, psychological and emotional states. They are sensed and listened to through our skin, through our internal organs. It is an embodied practice and sound technologies such as Dolby Digital have helped to expand our ability to physically experience film sound 16 ‘FEEL EVERYTHING’: ANIMATION, ADVERTISING … 307 through our bodies due to the wider range of frequencies, dimensionality and spatialisation that advances in technology offer. This is something that is accentuated in the Vue Cinema idents, which offer an audiovisual realisation, not only of the Dolby digital system equipping their cinemas but also the hyperreal definition that their Sony 4K digital projectors can deliver, and which is unlike the softly, palpable celluloid images rendered by analogue projectors. Factory, a sound design and audio facility in London, were responsible for the creation of a three-dimensional Dolby Atmos sound mix for Vue as part of their ‘This Is Not a Cinema’ campaign, a campaign which is continuously highlighting the spectacular immersive nature of the cinema. Tasked with creating an ‘immersive soundscape’ using the Dolby Atmos System, they worked with The Mill in London to showcase the fact that Vue Cinemas are more than just cinemas, they are venues for immersive experiences. Founding partner and Creative Director of Factory Anthony Moore asserts, Every sequence of the film is designed to immerse you in what Vue has to offer as a cinema. From the outset of this project, we set about designing our sounds so that they would fully utilise the creative possibilities offered by mixing in Dolby Atmos. We wanted to make the cinema audience have a physical reaction to the sound. We wanted them not only to hear it, but to feel it.25 Interestingly, although the cinema and television idents for the Sky HD ‘Feel Everything’ campaign are generally comparable, they do enjoy different soundtracks. The cinema soundtrack utilises the much wider dynamic and frequency ranges provided by the Dolby sound technology available to cinema theatres than the individual television idents. For example, the visceral sizzling sound married with the ‘Hot’ movement of the cinema ident is replaced with a less abrasive collection of whirls and clicks for the television version; the slow repeating low frequency booms of ‘Serene’ is replaced by layers of mid-range repeating glissandi resolving upwards into a celestial hum, to celebrate the coming of high definition resolution to Sky. This of course affects the audience’s experience of the advertisement with the multi-channel capabilities of Dolby stereo allowing for an expansion of the world of the Sky HD cinema ident to fill the entire space of the cinema, providing a greater illusion of space beyond the edges of the screen 308 A. MOLLAGHAN when compared to the television idents. This increase in space results in the reversal of the ‘cinematic hierarchy’.26 A reversal that frees the image from the responsibility to elucidate the soundtrack to one in which the soundtrack provides the context of the image.27 These idents, however, do not solely reverse this hierarchy; but confuse it by disavowing the privilege of one sense over the other. Yet one could also assert that, severed from the necessitudes of narrative cinema with its ties to verisimilitude, these audiovisual extravaganzas enjoy an ambiguous relationship between the image, sound and touch. The superfield of the sound provided by Dolby systems allows the illusion of 2D images extending into the auditory domain by the process of haptics so that the audience is essentially being physically caressed by the sound. This reification of sound by our bodies in addition to the unrelenting movement of the images can also have the ability to affect our perception of temporality. Rather than stretching temporality, trailers such as these have, as Sobchack asserts, the potential to truncate time, accelerating temporality to the point of quickening our blood and the ‘internal tempi’ of our physical existence. However, what is perhaps most interesting about the temporal perception of these idents is the sense of presentness or what Sobchack refers to as ‘immediacy’.28 Sobchack contends that this movement in digital Dolby trailers, although experienced as ‘overwhelmingly present and kinetically powerful’,29 possess much of the immateriality of sound. It is this dynamic energy and seeming alteration of temporality that continues to affect contemporary audiences, assimilating them into the somatic experience that cinema and more recently high definition television purport to provide. Innovations in sound technology have led to a shift in cinematic visuals, one which in the case of these idents, can be accounted for in a greater predication on intersensory correspondence, in which the audience is invited to haptically feel, hear and see everything. These idents, irrespective of whether they are abstract in nature, often employ nebulous particle systems that move differentially according to simple harmonic motion, a form of motion exhibited by many physical systems such as vibrating sound waves or swinging pendulums. If, as Sobchack suggests, the motion in idents such as these, is intensified due to the visual elements being in constant flux,30 I aver that much of this flux stems not only from the mutable visual images but also from fluctuations in the audiovisual relationship. These texts rarely enjoy points of didactic synchronisation, rather they enjoy a loose coalescing between the sound and image. 16 ‘FEEL EVERYTHING’: ANIMATION, ADVERTISING … 309 These idents tend to rely on swirling particles constituting, deconstituting and reconstituting, fluid renders that melt, contract and release like lava pushing its way through a lamp or hyperreal renders of exceptionally detailed materials. Rarely is the virtual camera static for even a moment, rarely does it pause to focus on an aspect unless to highlight the spectacular technological prowess of the animator. The agencies behind these campaigns are playing on the gap-mouthed awe at the representation of the unpresentable or the haptic hyperreal textures that their high definition renders can engender. Further to this, they are exploiting the manner in which sound and images can, under certain conditions, be processed into memories across sensory boundaries, allowing for complex textured images to be heard and expansive resonant sonic spaces to be seen when experienced in combination with each other in an audiovisual reciprocity. To conclude, in a bid to counter dwindling audiences, the cinema industry has found itself in a position where it is necessary to compete with new forms of media and reposition itself from solely functioning as a theatre for the screening of narrative films to a technologically sophisticated venue for event cinema. This is something that broadcasters such as Sky in search of quality audiences in increasingly crowded television and streaming markets are also seeking. By highlighting the pleasures and direct experience to be had from their digital technology within an intimate domestic sphere they are upending the received notion of a passive television viewer. Geoff King states ‘If narrative offers order and coherence, moments of spectacle may offer an alternative, the illusion of a more direct emotional and experiential impact’.31 I would however, suggest that these idents often go beyond illusion. Harnessing the ability of advertising to manipulate attention, audiences are taken on an immersive ride, in which the boundaries and hierarchies between senses collapse. Drawing explicitly on intersensory correspondences, hyperreal aesthetics and the affective powers of cinema and increasingly television, they openly address an active audience on both the big and small screen, something that is a hallmark of the advertising industry and something that ultimately allows for the advertising of the spectacle and subjective experience, which can be provided by new audiovisual technology to audiences and advertisers. 310 A. MOLLAGHAN Notes 1. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (New York: Routledge, [1945] 2003), 273. 2. The Mill. http://www.themill.com/. Accessed 27 October 2017; cg + news https://cgnews.com/5461/the-sky-is-the-limit-for-mill-3d/. Accessed 2 July 2019. 3. Aimee Mollaghan, The Visual Music Film (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 4. K. J. Donnelly, Occult Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 96. 5. Interestingly both companies initially came under the banner of Carlton Screen Advertising before the Irish and UK operations were sold, consolidated and rebranded into separate companies between 2008 and 2009. 6. http://www.wideeyemedia.com/The-Exchange/Innovations/1/. Accessed 27 October 2017. 7. Iain MacRury, Advertising (London: Routledge, 2009), 19. 8. http://www.wideeyemedia.com/The-Exchange/Innovations/1/. 9. http://www.wideeyemedia.com/Why-Cinema/. Accessed 27 October 2017. 10. http://www.wideeyemedia.com/Why-Cinema/. 11. http://www.wideeyemedia.com/Why-Cinema/. 12. https://www.myvue.com/about-vue/about-us. Accessed 27 October 2017. 13. https://www.myvue.com/about-vue/about-us. 14. https://www.myvue.com/about-vue/about-us. 15. Tom Gunning, “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde,” in Early Cinema: Space, Film, Narrative, ed. Thomas Elsaesser (London: BFI, 1990), 56–62. 16. Stephen Bottomore, “The Panicking Audience? Early Cinema and the ‘Train Effect’,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 19, no. 2 (1999). 17. Gurevitch, “The Cinemas of Transactions,” 369. 18. http://www.themill.com/portfolio/2604/sizzle-film. Accessed 27 October 2017. 19. http://www.themill.com/portfolio/2604/sizzle-film. 20. Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968. 21. Anon, Web. CG News. 22. Don Ihde, Listening and Voice: A Phenomenology of Sound (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976), 102. 23. Steve Bottomore, “The Panicking Audience?,” 212. 24. Anon, Web. CG News. https://cgnews.com/5461/the-sky-is-the-limit-formill-3d/. Accessed 27 October 2017. 25. Anon, Web. CG News. 16 ‘FEEL EVERYTHING’: ANIMATION, ADVERTISING … 311 26. Mark Kerins, Beyond Dolby (Stereo): Cinema in the Digital Sound Age (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2010), 86. 27. Kerins, Beyond Dolby, 86. 28. Vivian Sobchack, “When the Ear Dreams: Dolby Digital and the Imagination of Sound,” Film Quarterly 58, no. 4 (Summer 2005): 11. 29. Vivian Sobchack, 40. 30. Vivian Sobchack, 11. 31. Geoff King, Spectacular Narratives, 36. Bibliography Anon. 2006. The Sky is the Limit for Mill 3D. CG News. https://cgnews.com/ 5461/the-sky-is-the-limit-for-mill-3d/. Accessed 27 October 2017. Barker, Jennifer M. 2009. The Tactile Eye: Touch and the Cinematic Experience. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bottomore, Stephen. 1999. “The Panicking Audience? Early Cinema and the ‘Train Effect.’” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 19, no. 2: 177–216. Chion, Michel. 1994. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, ed & trans. Claudia Gorbman. New York: Columbia University Press. Donnelly, Kevin J. 2014. Occult Aesthetics: Synchronisation in Sound Film. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goodman, Steve. 2012. Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. Cambridge, US: MIT Press. Gunning, Tom. 1994. “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-garde.” In Early Cinema: Space, Film, Narrative, ed. Thomas Elsaesser, 56–62. London: BFI. Gurevitch, Leon. 2010. “The Cinemas of Transactions: The Exchangeable Currency of the Digital Attraction.” Television & New Media 11, no. 5: 367–385. Ihde, Don. 1976. Listening and Voice: A Phenomenology of Sound. Athens: Ohio University Press. Kassabian, Anahid. 2013. Ubiquitous Listening: Affect, Attention, and Distributed Subjectivity. Berkeley and London: University of California Press. Kerins, Mark. 2010. Beyond Dolby (Stereo): Cinema in the Digital Sound Age. Indiana: Indiana University Press. King, Geoff. 2000. Spectacular Narratives: Hollywood in the Age of the Blockbuster. London: I.B. Tauris. Kubrick, Stanley. 1968. 2001: A Space Odyssey. LaBelle, Brandon. 2010. Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life. New York and London: Continuum. Little Black Book. https://lbbonline.com/news/factory-immerses-viewers-withdolby-atmos-mix-for-vues-this-is-not-a-cinema/. 312 A. MOLLAGHAN MacRury, Iain. 1999. Advertising. London: Routledge. Marks, Laura. U. 1999. The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. [1945] (2003). Phenomenology of Perception. New York: Routledge. Mills, Brett. 2013. “What Does It Mean to Call Television ‘Cinematic’?” Television Aesthetics and Style, eds. Steven Peacock and Jason Jacobs, 57–66. London: Bloomsbury. Mollaghan, Aimee. 2015. The Visual Music Film. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Sobchack, Vivian. 1992. The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sobchack, Vivian. 2005. “When the Ear Dreams: Dolby Digital and the Imagination of Sound.” Film Quarterly 58, no. 4: 2–15. Sky. 2006. “Feel Everything.” Stash 3D Animation Collection 1. [DVD] 2008. Sky. 2006. “Alive.” http://www.themill.com/portfolio/1567/alive. Accessed 5 March 2019. Sky. 2006. “Intense.” http://www.themill.com/portfolio/1569/intense. Accessed 5 March 2019. Sky. 2006. “Hot.” http://www.themill.com/portfolio/1568/hot. Accessed 5 March 2019. Sky. 2006. “Serene.” http://www.themill.com/portfolio/1570/serene. Accessed 5 March 2019. The Mill. http://www.themill.com/. Accessed 27 October 2017. Vue Cinemas. https://www.myvue.com/about-vue/about-us. Accessed 27 October 2017. Vue Cinemas. 2015. “Sizzle Film.” http://www.themill.com/portfolio/2604/ sizzle-film. Accessed 5 March 2019. Wide Eye Media. http://www.wideeyemedia.com. Accessed 27 October 2017. Wide Eye Media. 2014. http://www.wideeyemedia.com/About-Us/. Accessed 5 March 2019. Index of Film Titles A note on film titles: Wherever possible contributors have been asked to provide relevant details about the production context of advertisements in the following format:Title (Director, Studio, Advertising Agency, Year)E.g. Headbomz (Åsa Lucander, Aardman Animations, Valenstein & Fatt, 2017)It has not been possible to identify this information in all cases. There are several reasons for this. Archival practices for advertising remain less developed than for other forms of media history, indicating the value of this collection in raising the awareness and importance of these works for our historical understanding. Equally, the changing production and institutional contexts of advertising also means these categories are not always defined or relevant. This is especially the case for older examples where practices did not recognise or define advertising agency, director, or even give titles to commercials. We invite readers to reflect on these historical and archival matters when reading. A Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, Die / Adventures of Prince Achmed, The (1926), 74 About to Uncover (1994), 289 Abyss, The (1989), 290 Ack-Ack (1941), 152, 155 Action Photos (1991), 182 Add Abilify (2001), 199 Adventures of Andre and Wally B, The (1984), 271 Airscrew (1940), 154 Aladdin and the Magic Lamp (1939), 62 Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1935), 60 Ali vs Ali (2004), 189 Amazing Place (1991), 235–237 Amazin’ Straws (1995), 291 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4 313 314 INDEX OF FILM TITLES Antz (1998), 275 Arjuna the Archer (2009), 255 B Babies (1990), 291 Bananas? Si Señor! (1956), 24 Barcarole, Der / Barcarole, The (1924), 79, 81, 82 Battle of the Somme, The (1916), 16 Be Like Mike (1991), 183 Beavis and Butthead [Television Show] (1993-1997), 251 Beer Mukashimukashi / Beer Long, Long Ago (1956), 222 Bílý jelen / White Deer (1932), 171 Birth of the Robot, The (1936), 237 Blackton Sketches, No. 1 (1896), 2 Boy Who Would Make Pictures, The (1924), 115 Brilliance (1985), 271–273, 276 Bursting (1993), 291 C Calendar of the Year (1936), 86 California Raisins (1986), 251 Carnival in the Clothes Cupboard (1941), 148 Charm’s BG * (1948), 23 Check Me Out (1996), 292 Christmas is Coming (1951), 73 Chuckling Straws (1993), 292 Clark’s Creamed Barley (1923), 114, 118 Cloud (2011), 199 Cold Comfort (1944), 150 Colour Box (1935), 75 Colour Cry (1952), 238 Colour Flight (1938), 237 Compost Heaps (1943), 150 Control Room (1942), 154–156 Cracks (1992), 288 Creature Comforts (1989), 253 Crime Does Not Pay (c. 1940s), 21 Crimson Tide (1995), 275 CT5 Flight Simulator (1980), 270 D Dance of the Waterlilies (1989), 290 Dancing Cards (1990), 290 Dangerous When Wet (1953), 182 Dante’s Peak (1997), 275 Daria [Television Show] (1997–2002), 197 Dawn of Better Living, The (1945), 135 Debris Tunnelling (1943), 154, 155 Deep Impact (1998), 275 Disneyland [Television Show] (19541958), 28, 89, 91, 92, 96, 101 DNA with Ethidium (1979), 269 Dobrá kuchyně Vitello / Vitello, the Good Cuisine (1930), 170 Dornröschen / Sleeping Beauty (1922), 81 Dot to Dot (1982), 234 15.6 Durant Motor Car, The (1923), 115 Dustbin Parade (1942), 149–151 E Electricity and You (2011), 140, 141 Eno’s “Fruit Salt” (1923), 116 F Fable of the Fabrics (1942), 148 Fairy of the Phone, The (1936), 81 Fantasmagorie (1908), 3 Feeling Wound Up (2010), 201 Filling the Gap (1942), 145, 146, 151, 152 Frankenstein (1992), 239 From Rags to Stitches (1944), 149 INDEX OF FILM TITLES G Gali Gali Sim Sim – Abrahams [Advertisement] (2011), 253 Gali Gali Sim Sim [Television Show] (2006-), 253 Geheimnis der Marquise, Das / Secret of the Marquise, The (1921/22), 79, 81 Geri’s Game (1997), 284 Good News Travels Far (1930), 121 Grand Opening (1991), 288 Grand Washing Contest (1930), 121 Groove Like Mike (2015), 183 H Hanibal v pralese / Hannibal in the Virgin Forest (1932), 171 Hare Ribbin’ (1944), 5 Harlequin (1930), 81 HeMan and the Masters of the Universe [Television Show] (1983-1985), 5 Hennessy’s Brandy (1923), 116 Here I Am: Be Your Own Fan (2008), 187 Here I Am: Conversations from the Inside (2008), 187 Here I Am: Do Judo (2008), 187 Here I Am: A Short Story of a Tall Girl (2008), 187 Here I Am: Show Me Your Dark Side Mother Nature (2008), 187 Hourglass (1992), 289 HPO, The (1938), 75, 77–82 I I am not a role model (1992), 184 Impossible Field (2005), 190 Impossible is Nothing (2004), 189 Impossible is Nothing: David Beckham (2007), 191 Improve (2016), 201 315 Intermezzo (2013), 201 It’s Alive (2003), 198 J Jája miluje čistotu / Johnnie Loves It Clean (1932), 171 James and the Giant Peach (1996), 185 Jerry (2016), 200 Johnny Mnemonic (1995), 290 Just Imagine (1947), 16 K Kaleidoscope (1935), 77 Kapeesh? (1989), 181 Klip—Klap (1934), 170 Knick Knack (1989), 284, 289 Kreise / Circles (1933), 61 Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), 63 Kuroi Otoko no Burūzu / Black Man’s Blues (1964), 218 L Lady and the Tramp (1955), 97 Last Star Fighter, The (1984), 274 Launching Magic (1993), 292 L’il Penny (1995), 185 Little Mermaid, The (1989), 288 Little Richard the Genie (1992), 182 Living Circle, The (1956), 24 Living Room (1995), 185 London, Midland and Scottish Railway (1923), 116 Long Haired Hare (1949), 272 Long RunThe (2011), 189 Love on the Range (1938), 58 Lurpak Butter Man (1985), 251 Luxo Jr. (1986), 273, 275–277, 285, 288, 289 316 INDEX OF FILM TITLES M Magic Atlas, The (1935), 58, 61 Magnets (1996), 289 Middle East (1942), 153 Mitternacht / Midnight (1933), 64 Mobilising Procedure (1942), 154 Model Procedure for Water Relaying (1942), 154, 155 Model Sorter (1943), 150 Mony a Pickle (1938), 76 Mr Dollar (1967), 37 Mr…Goes Motoring (1924), 115, 118, 119 Mrs Sew and Sew (1944), 149 Multiple Symptoms (2016), 199 Murray Mints (1955), 5 N Nana (1926), 77 Naval Operations (1941), 153, 155 Nezapomenutelný plakát / Unforgettable Poster, The (1937), 172 Night Mail (1936), 85 Nobody, Nobody, Nobody (1988), 181 No Mars (1990), 181 N or NW (1938), 85 North Sea (1938), 76 NZ Apples (1961), 5, 37 O On Parade (1936), 58 Orange (2006), 256 P Pets (1993), 238 Philips Broadcast 1938, The (1938), 59, 62, 64, 65 Philips Cavalcade (1939), 59, 60, 62, 64 Pin Box (1995), 289 Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!, The [also known asPirates! Band of Misfits, The] (2012), 63 Poga: Free Your Life (2001), 251 Power Unit (1937), 152 Prací přehlídka / Washing Parade, A (1937), 171 Prevention and Control of Distortion in Arc Welding (1945), 143 Printed Rainbow (2006), 256 Proměna strýčka Bobyho / Metamorphosis of Uncle Boby, The (1930), 172, 173 Pump (1990), 291 Q Quite a Package (1990), 290 R Rabbit of Seville (1950), 5, 6, 272 Rainbow Dance (1936), 237 Reddy and Mr. Toot [Television Show] (1972), 128 Reddy Kilowatt; The Mighty Atom (1959), 128, 139 Reddy Made Magic (1946), 20, 128, 132, 137 Red Fish (2016), 202 Red’s Dream (1987), 285, 289 Refuse to Lie Down (2017), 203 Restoration I (2016), 200 Return of the Jungle (2018), 257 Rollende Rad, Das / Rolling Wheel, The (1934), 77 Rōto Megusuri / Rōto Eyedrops (1962), 219 S Sandeman’s Port (1923), 116 INDEX OF FILM TITLES Schichtal, or Radion (1925), 171 Scientific Explanation, A (1991), 182 Seikōsha no Tokei / Seikō Watch (1953), 213, 216, 217, 219 Sesame Street [Television Show] (1969-), 253 Shell Oil: The Story of Petroleum (1945), 20 SheRa: Princess of Power [Television Show] (1985-1986), 5 Ship of the Ether, The (1934), 58, 64, 66 Simpsons, The [Television Show] (1989-), 251 Sizzle Film (2015), 300–304 Sleeping Beauty, The (1938), 58, 62 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), 21 Space Jam (1996), 182, 184 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), 304 Springs (1938), 152 Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, The (1982), 270, 274 Steamboat Willie (1928), 7 Strýček Boby podniká cestu aeroplánem / Uncle Boby Takes a Plane Trip (1930), 172 Sukeroku (1958), 224, 225 Susie the Little Blue Coupe (1952), 99 Su Zhendong de zhongwen daziji / Su Zhendong’s Chinese Typewriter (1922), 4 Swinging the Lambeth Walk (1939), 237 T Tale of the Amp Lion, The (1924), 123 2018 Terrain Reveal x The Mill Blackbird (2017), 17 Tetsuwan Atomu / Astro Boy [Television Show] (1963-1966), 32, 214 Texting (2016), 202 317 That Was Tyra Banks, Fool ! (1996), 186 Three Little Pigs (1933), 137 Tin Toy (1988), 285, 288 Tocher: A Film Ballet, The (1938), 73, 75 Tony De Peltrie (1985), 272, 274, 275, 277 Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953), 92 Torys Bar (1958), 222–225 Tour of the West, A (1955), 94, 95 Toy Story (1995), 284, 286, 292, 294 Toy Story Treats (1996), 284 Trees (1952), 37, 291 Tres Caballeros (1930), 83 Tron (1982), 274 U Uni P (1961), 219 USA in Circarama, The (1958), 95 V Virile Games (1988), 181 V Kathakali I (1999), 251–254 Vol Libre (1980), 270, 271, 276 Voyager 2 Encounters Jupiter (1979), 270 Všechno pro trhanec / Everything for a Scrambled Pancake (1937), 172 Vue: This is Not Cinema (2017), 300, 301 W War in the East (1941), 153 We’ve Got Taste (1993), 292 What Ho She Bumps (1937), 58 White Wash Job, The (1929), 121 Wings (2011), 200 318 INDEX OF FILM TITLES X X-Ray (1993), 239 Y 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984), 274 You Cannot Do This (1989), 181 Z Zauberblau, Der / Magic Pencil, The (1925), 163 Zoloft Dot (2001), 199, 203 Subject Index A Aardman Animation, 5, 247, 251, 253, 257 ABC Television network, 91 Abel, Robert & Associates, 271 AbelsonTaylor Chicago Agency, 201 Abstract animation, 199 Academy Awards (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), 63, 69, 286 Acland, Charles R., 268 Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interested Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (ACM SIGGRAPH), 267, 269 Acoustic role of advertising, 219 Adlets, 29, 112–116, 118, 120–123 Adressat/Audience, 84 Advertiser’s Weekly, 146 Advertising agencies, 56, 239 Advertising appeals, 117, 121 Advertising campaigns, 8, 31, 35, 61, 116, 166, 167, 174, 176, 284, 287, 300 Advertising, serial, 168 Aesthetic, 67, 156. See also Animated diagrams/Diagrammatic sequence(s) Affect, 15, 20, 35, 136, 180, 185, 190, 300, 305, 306 African-American, 102 After Effects, 230 Aitken, Ian, 84 Album cover art, 232 Aldrin, Buzz, 234 Ali Baba, 132 Alice, 93 Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corporation, 139. See also Spokescharacters Allen, Michael, 276, 280 Amberg, George, 84 American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres (AB-PT), 91 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 M. Cook and K. M. Thompson (eds.), Animation and Advertising, Palgrave Animation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27939-4 319 320 SUBJECT INDEX American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 102 American Dairy Association, 91 American Mutual Liability Insurance Co., 139 American Public Relations Association (APRA), 137 Amidi, Amid, 5–6, 37, 92, 103, 104 Amplification, 189 Amsler, André, 83 Animēshon sannin no kai/Animation Association of Three, 223 Animated Body, 202 Animated commercial displays, 116 Animated diagrams/Diagrammatic sequence(s), 97, 145, 147, 151–156, 168, 202 Animated element, 167, 198. See also Anthropomorphism Animated Pictures, 113 Animation, India, 248 Animation studios, boutique, 247, 248 Anime, 27, 32, 33, 214–218, 220–225 Anime studies, 216 Animism, 8, 135 Anlass/Purpose, 84 Anthony, Scott, 81, 83, 85 Anthropomorphism, 11, 15, 18, 29, 99, 129, 134, 135, 149–151, 197, 198, 213, 291, 293 Appeal, 15, 291 Apple and Pear Marketing Board (NZ), 5 Apple Computers, 273 Ardizzone, Edward, 78 Armstrong, Neil, 234 ARPA, 274 Artisanal animation, 259 Artmonsky, Ruth, 78, 85, 157 AT&T, 271 Auftrag/Commissioner, 84 Austria, 165 Austro-Hungarian, 164, 165 Automobile manufacturers American Motors, 91, 92, 93, 94, 99 Chevrolet, 41, 42, 82, 103 Chrysler, 92 Durant, 115 Ford, 92, 99, 101, 102 General Motors (GM), 41, 92, 99, 102, 103. See also Disney Autonomy, 33, 79, 248, 255, 257, 259 Autopia (Disneyland attraction), 97, 99, 101 Avant-garde, 232, 238, 240 B Baird, John Logie, 7 Baird, Thomas, 154 Balázs, Béla, 82 Baldwin, Huntley, 8 Banks, Tyra, 186 Barnes, Gov. William, 134 Barré, Raoul, 7 Barrie, J.M., 92 Barta, Jiří, 238 Basquiat, Jean-Michel, 236 Bastiancich, Alfio, 83 Batchelor, Joy, 147, 151, 156, 158, 159 Bateman, H.E., 115, 116, 120 Bates Agency, Ted, 4 Bates, Charles Austin, 13 Baxter, Neil, 84 Beckham, David, 189, 191 Beddington, Jack, 146, 147 Bell Laboratories, 270 Bell Telephone System, 95 Benjamin, Walter, 10, 39, 81, 86 Bergeron, Philippe, 272, 278 Bergfelder, Tim, 44 Berlin, 56, 67, 74, 77, 163, 167 Bernstein, Sidney, 123, 148 SUBJECT INDEX Bert Ambrose and his Orchestra, 64 Big Pharma, 197, 198 Billboards, 17 Bill Sturm Studios, 37 Binger, O.D., 116, 124 Blackbird, 16 Black culture, 184 Black Entertainment Television (BET), 229 Blackton, James Stuart, 2 Blendo style, 288 Blinn, Jim, 270 Boddy, William, 267, 277 Boeing Research, 270 Bonzo the Pup, 119 Bottomore, Stephen, 305 Bousfield, Neil, 238 Boutique producers, 250, 257 Brabec, Jan, 165, 167 Brand/Branding, 10, 18, 31, 44, 89, 114, 116, 153, 195, 229, 230, 240, 251–253 Adidas, 180 Aeronca, 134 Air Jordan, 181 Ajax, 38 Amaron, 253 Anacin, 4. See also Pharmaceuticals Armitage’s Chicken Feed, 116 Asahi Pentax, 218 Botany, 4 Brooke Bond Tea, 253 Chesterfield, 22 Churchman’s cigarettes, 77 Clark’s Creamed Barley, 114 Coca-Cola, 216, 217, 220, 283, 286, 289 Edo Murasaki, 224 Egg Beaters, 288 Embassy Suites, 22 Fresca, 292. See also Pixar Gatorade, 183 321 Gillette, 271 Halo Shampoo, 38 Heinz 57 varieties, 145 Hennessey’s brandy, 113 Hershey, 291 Horlick’s, 58 Horlick’s malted milk, 56 Ipana (toothpaste), 90 Kellogg’s, 147, 289 Kelvinator, 92, 94, 135 Kodak, 115 Levi’s, 283, 286, 289, 290 Life Savers, 285, 291, 297 Listerine, 283, 291 Lux (laundry flakes), 147, 148 M&M, 20 Mauxion praline, 81 McDonald’s, 289 Motts Apple Juice, 38 Nash Rambler, 93. See also Automobile manufacturers Nestle’s Milk, 113 Nike, 179 Nivea, 79, 81 Nutri Grain cereal. See Pixar Optrex, 273 Overland Motor Car, 116 Persil, 121 Peter Pan Peanut Butter, 90. See also Derby Foods Pilot’s Matches, 16 Pinnace Cigarettes, 119. See also Bonzo the Pup Pirelli, 116 Reebok, 187 Rinso, 21, 38, 56, 147 Rosarita, 290 Schaefer Beer, 3 Schicht, 164 Seikō, 213, 214, 217 Shredded Wheat, 134 Smirnoff Vodka, 253 322 SUBJECT INDEX Sunbeam Bread, 38 Super Suds, 38 Tetley Tea, 38 Tide, 271 Top Ramen, 253 Torys Whiskey, 222 Toys ‘R’ Us. See Pixar Trident Freshmint Sugarless Gum, 290 Trix, 90 Tropicana, 283, 288, 289, 291, 292, 296 7-Up (soft drink), 90 Vitello lard, 170, 171 Volkswagen, 289 Waterman’s Ink, 16 Brer Rabbit, 93 Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, 76 Britain, 5, 16, 28, 74–76, 81, 83, 111, 112, 117, 122, 124, 146, 214 British Empire, 83 British Ministry of Information (MoI), 30, 136, 145 Britten, Benjamin, 75 Broadcast Arts (later Curious Pictures), 234 Broadcast television, 232 Broadway, 113 Brooke, Michael, 76, 77, 85 Brown, Ken, 234 Brown, Maxine, 274 Brown, Rex, 131 Brussels World’s Fair (Expo 58), 95, 101 Bryher, Winifred Ellerman, 76, 84 Budapest, 56, 67, 164 Bunny, Bugs, 7 Bunny, Lola, 184 Burnett Agency, Leo, 291, 292 Burnett, Ogilvy and Mather Agency, 18 Burns, Robert, 76 BuzzCo Associates, 233. See also Perpetual Motion Pictures C Calder, Emma, 238 Callcott, Margaret F., 18 Calling Forth, 31, 179, 185, 186, 189 Camera, virtual, 289, 293 Capitalism, 238 Caravel Films, 7 Cargnelli, Christian, 44 Caricatures, 5, 59 Carpenter, Loren, 270, 274, 278 Cartoon Films, 7 Cartoon Network, 251 Cartoon panels, 5 Cascade Pictures, 37 Cat & Crossbones Productions, 234 Catchphrase, 5 ‘BBBBB—OOOOO!!’, 5 ‘Better Things for Better Living…Through Chemistry’, 135 ‘electrical servant’, 129 ‘Feel Everything’, 299, 305, 307. See also Sky HD ‘Go Electric’, 140 ‘Going… going… gone’, 5 ‘I’ll be your dishwashing man’, 140. See also Kilowatt, Reddy ‘Impossible is Nothing’, 189 ‘I Want My MTV’, 233 ‘Just Do It’, 187 ‘Let go of your senses’, 300 ‘Live electrically and enjoy the difference’, 135. See also Kilowatt, Reddy ‘Put a tiger in your tank’, 18 ‘See it. Hear it. Feel it’, 300. See also Wide Eye Media (Ireland) ‘Take your seat’, 303. See also Vue SUBJECT INDEX ‘This Is Not a Cinema’, 307. See also Vue ‘too-good-to-hurry-mints’, 5 ‘Too late for Herpicide’, 5 ‘What’s your horsepower?’, 134 ‘Your Electric Servant’, 129. See also Kilowatt, Reddy Caterpillar Tractor Co., 139 Catmull, Ed, 270 Cavalcanti, Alberto, 84 Cel animation, 22, 64, 102, 103, 170, 214, 273 Celluloid, 7 Central Europe, 166 Chad Associates, 7 Chand, R.K., 258, 262 Channel [V], 248, 251, 252, 260 Character animations, 97, 99, 287, 291 Chaudhuri, Arnab, 248, 254, 260 Children’s Television Workshop, 232 Ciarlo, David, 9 Cinads, 29, 112–118, 120–124 Cinderagella. See Fairy tale Cinema exhibition, 26, 267 Cinema idents, 306, 307 Cinema of Attractions, 276, 301, 302 CinemaScope, 97 Circarama, 94, 95 Circulation, (Inter)national, 56, 62 Civil Defence Service (UK), 154 Civil Rights Act (1964), 102 Clark, Kenneth, 146, 157 Clay animation, 253, 257 Clements, Jonathan, 214, 226 Cohl, Emile, 3 Coldstream, William, 81 Collins, Ashton B., 42, 127, 135–137, 143 Colossal Pictures, 234, 285, 287, 296 Colour, 75, 235 Comics Amar Chitrakatha, 254 323 Comic strips, 5, 62, 136 Commercial Advertising Bureau, 2–3 Commercial Art, 114 Commodity fetishism, 9 Communality, 258 Computer Animation Production System (CAPS), 288 Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), 201, 285, 288, 302 Computer-Aided Design (CAD), 289 Confectionary/Candy advertising, 291 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 102 Cook, Malcolm, 28, 35, 37, 38, 251, 261, 273, 279 Coolie, 132, 140 Counterculture, 239 Cowan, Michael, 10, 15, 39, 78, 80, 83, 86 Cox, Sarah, 238 Crafton, Donald, 3, 7, 36, 38, 61, 69 Crafts, Lisa, 234 Cranston-Csuri Productions, 271 Creative practice, 56, 63, 259, 300 Creative Revolution, 40, 239 Crown Film Unit, 74 Crutchley, E.T., 78, 84 Cullity, Jocelyn, 253, 260 Curious Pictures. See Broadcast Arts (later Curious Pictures) Czechoslovakia, 67, 163, 165, 166 D Darley, Andrew, 295 David, Sky (Dennis Pies), 234 DeFanti, Tom, 269 De Klerk, Nico, 39 Demonstration animations, 287 Deneroff, Harvey, 253, 260 Denison, Rayna, 214–216, 223, 226 Dentsū Eigasha Agency, 213, 217, 219, 222 324 SUBJECT INDEX Depression. See Pharmaceuticals Derby Foods, 91, 92 Dermatophyte (nail infection), 199 Desalle, Delphine, 187, 188 Design, 237 Deulig (Berlin), 163 Deutsch Inc. NYC Agency, 199 de Vere, Alison, 5 Diagram Sequence, 151, 155. See also Animated diagrams/Diagrammatic sequence(s) Dichter, Ernest, 13 Dickinson, Thorold, 77 Digital Cinema Media (DCM) (U.K), 300 Digital Domain, 275 Digital Effects, 271 Digital Productions, 271 Digitales, 258, 262 Dilution, 185, 190 Direct-to-consumer ads (DTC), 196, 197 Disney, 9, 27, 28, 57, 61, 89–103, 128, 132, 135, 137, 146, 147, 149, 182–184, 250, 251, 273, 288 Disney, Walt, 3, 21, 89, 90, 94, 102, 103, 137, 157, 287 Disneyland, 28, 90, 91, 94, 95, 97–101 Dispositif, 169 Dixon, Bryony, 78, 79, 85 Docter, Pete, 284, 289 Documentary film, 171 Documentary Movement, 145–147, 154 Documentary News Letter, 145, 151, 155, 157–159 Dodal, Karel, 167, 168, 172, 175, 176 Dolby, 35, 299–301, 303, 306–308 Dolby Atmos, 307 Dolby digital, 308 Dolby Sound, 303, 307 Donnelly, K.J., 300 Doordarshan, 251, 252 Dougherty, Peter, 231, 233, 236–238, 242 DreamWorks, 250, 275, 277 Drugs. See Pharmaceuticals DTC advertising, 197, 204 Duck, Daffy, 184 Duck, Donald, 21, 93 Dufaycolor, 75, 78 Dumala, Piotr, 238 Dunning, George, 5 DuPont, 7, 135 E Earle, Eyvind, 97 Easdale, Brian, 78 Eastman, Tony, 234 Edison Institute, 136 Edison, Thomas, 128 Educational, 153, 155 Educational films, 135, 156 Eggeling, Viking, 237 Eindhoven, 56, 62, 64, 66, 67, 167 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 95–97, 105 Eisenstein, Sergei, 9, 15, 38–40, 221 Electrical spokescharacter, 139. See also Kilowatt, Reddy Electricity, 138 Electricity, as modernity, 18–19, 29, 132, 134, 135 Electric signs, 111–113, 116, 117, 119, 122 Elektra Film, 37 Elliott, Graham, 234. See also Cat & Crossbones Productions Elsaesser, Thomas, 66, 70 Elton, Arthur, 153 Emotional, 12–15, 22, 31, 35, 117–121, 167, 188, 191, 192, 199, 306, 309 SUBJECT INDEX Enchanted Tiki Room, 132. See also Disneyland Engelbart, Douglas, 268–271 Entertainment, 7, 12, 15, 16, 21, 27, 29, 55, 57, 58, 60, 61, 68, 78, 81, 97, 99, 113, 114, 120, 121, 140, 148, 150, 152, 156, 158, 285, 301, 302 EPOK, 3, 21 Eshbaugh Studios, Ted, 7 Ethnographic scholarship, 248 Evans, David C., 270 Exhibition sites, 62, 147 Exhibitors, 147 Exner, Virgil, 92 Expanded animation, 131 Experimental animation, 33, 147, 230–232, 234, 238, 239 Exxon, 18, 102 F Factory (sound design and audio facility), 307 Fairy tale, 74, 82, 148, 164, 172 Famous’s House of Animation, 251–254, 262 Fanzines, 232 Farnsworth, John, 7 Fat, 31, 163, 164, 173. See also Schicht Company Faught, Millard, 20, 21, 42 Federal Housing Association (FHA), 135 Federal-Aid Highway Act, 95 Felix the cat, 3, 22, 120 Filmfair, 37 Film sound, 306 Films Division, 145–147, 157, 250 Fine Arts Films, 37 First World War, 61, 112, 164 Fischinger, Oskar, 7, 56, 61, 219, 237 325 Flaig, Paul, 168 Fleischer Bros. Studio, 57, 182, 184 Fleischer, Max, 182 Fletcher Smith Studios, 38 Flintstone, Fred, 7 Florin, Bo, 39 Folklore, 82 Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 196, 197, 200, 202, 205 Fordism, 168 Fornaciari, Brad, 294 Foucault, Michel, 10 Fractals, 270 Franklin, Benjamin, 128, 131 Freedman, Mrs. Claudia, 85 Fudd, Elmer, 182 Furniss, Maureen, 7 G Gaines, Jane, 90, 103 Gantray-Lawrence Animation, 37 Galt, Rosalind, 27, 44, 79, 80, 85 Garfield, 22 Gasparcolor, 64 Gaudreault, André, 112, 122 Gender, 129, 132 General Electric, 135 Genie, 18, 140, 182 German film industry, 56 German Ministry of Transport, 74 Germany, 4, 56, 63, 67, 74, 77, 166 Gerow, Aaron, 222, 227 Gifford-Kim Animation, 37 Ginza district (Tokyo), 214 Glass (materiality), 66 Glimpsograph, 113 Glycerin, 164 Godfrey, Bob, 5 Gold Greenlees Trott Agency, 251 Golden Gate International Exposition, 90 326 SUBJECT INDEX Goodman, Alan, 233, 234, 240 Goofy, 183 GPO Film Unit, 28, 73, 75, 80, 83, 84 Grabher, Gernot, 255, 257, 260, 261 Granass, Bruno, 163 Graphic arts, 232 Graphic design, punk, 235 Great Empire Exhibition 1938, Glasgow, 76 Green, Doris M., 85 Greetings Telegrams, 77, 78, 80 Grey New York Agency, 200 Grierson, John, 73, 76, 77, 152, 158 Grieveson, Lee, 101, 105 Griffin, George, 230 Groskopf, Jeremy, 5, 16, 37, 103 GSW New York Agency, 202 Guggenheim, Ralph, 286, 287, 291 Gunning, Tom, 104, 168, 175, 276, 279, 310 Gurevitch, Leon, 277, 280, 302, 310 Gurr, Robert (‘Bob’) Henry, 99, 105 Gutierrez, Gary, 234. See also Colossal Pictures H Halas and Batchelor, 5, 30, 145, 147–152, 156 Halas, John, 147, 148, 150, 151, 158, 159 Hand-made aesthetic, 236 Hand of the animator, 163, 219 Haney, Ged, 238 Happ, Alfred, 84 Haptic, 308 Haptic visuality, 306 Hardaway, Penny, 185 Harris, Samuel, 105 Hediger, Vinzenz, 39, 268, 277 Hershey, Frank, 92 Highways, 96 Hilberman, David, 37 Hilton, Stuart, 238 Hodgson, Jonathan, 238 Holiday with Light Show (1964), 131 Hollywood animation studio, 283 Hollywood cinema, 35, 276, 285, 290, 294 Honda, 97 Hope, Bob, 136 House style, 284. See also Pixar Hudson, 92 Humour, 149, 231 Hungary, 165 Hurrell, Phyllis, 90 Hyde, Miss I.M., 85 Hylton, Jack, 64 Hyperreal aesthetic, 284, 292, 306, 309 I Iceman (Image Computing Environment), 288 Ident, 1, 33, 35, 229–235, 237–240, 248, 253, 255, 300–302, 304–309 Ihde, Don, 305 Iijima, Tadashi, 218, 219, 226 Image West, 271 Inbetweening, 64 Indian animation, 259 Indigenous, 249 Industrial design, 93 Information International Inc., 271 Ink Tank, The, 234 instructional animation, 156 Intermediality, 8, 26, 28–30, 56, 62, 93, 112, 128, 134, 139, 164, 169 International Rocketship Limited, 234 Intersensory correspondence, 35, 300, 304, 306, 308, 309 Interstitial, 231, 241, 248, 249, 251–254 SUBJECT INDEX Italy, 164, 165 Ivens, Joris, 65 Iwerks, Ub, 3, 22, 94, 104 J Jordaan, L.J., 64, 69, 70 Jam Handy Organisation, 6, 41 James, Margaret Calkin, 85 Jardine, Alex, 85 Jenkins, C. Francis, 2 Jennings, Nicholas, 235 Jingles, 5 Johnson, Flip, 235–237 Jones, Chuck, 5, 6, 271 Jordan, Michael, 181 K Kansas City Slide Company, 90 Kassabian, Anahid, 306 Kawamoto, Kihachirō, 222 Key poses, 64 Kilowatt, 29, 128–132, 134, 138, 139 Kilowatt, Reddy, 18, 19, 29, 30, 127–134, 136–139, 140, 141. See also Spokescharacter Kimball, Ward, 92 Kinchin, Juliet, 84 Kinchin, Perilla, 84 King, Geoff, 309 Kiwanis, 131, 137 Klein, Jon, 231, 236 Klein, Norman M., 7, 104 Knotts Berry Farm, 95 Koh-i-noor Hardmuth Company, 163 Kohner, Paul, 57, 69, 70 Kucia, Jerzy, 238 Kugel, Candy, 233, 234, 241, 242 Kumaresh, Vaibhav, 251–255, 257, 261 Kuri, Yōji, 223 327 L Labour, 9, 24, 29, 64, 121, 129, 132, 140, 189, 248 Lachapelle, Pierre, 272, 273, 278 Laika, 63 La Mantia, Simona, 187–189 Langlois, Daniel, 272, 274 Language versions, 61, 62, 164 Lantz, Walter, 20, 21, 128, 132, 135, 137–139, 142, 143 Lasseter, John, 273, 279, 284, 285, 288, 290, 291, 297 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 270 Leaf, Caroline, 230, 261 Lears, Jackson, 8, 142 Lee, Spike, 181, 182, 185, 189 Leigh, Douglas, 3, 21 Leiss, William, 14 Leslie, Esther, 10 Lev, Michael, 288, 295 Licensees, 137 Lieberman, Jerry, 234 Light bulbs, 66 Limited animation, 214, 217, 222–225 Lions’ Club, 137 Logo, 66, 81, 98, 164, 166, 197, 203, 213, 229–231, 234, 235, 239, 248, 252, 271, 274, 276, 291, 294 London Film Society, 77 Lord & Taylor agency, 13 Lord, Peter, 63 Loter, Jim, 15 Low, Rachael, 75, 84, 85 Lucasfilm, 270, 272–274, 284, 286 Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group, 271, 274 Lundy, Dick, 138 Lye, Len, 75, 77, 83, 85, 237 328 SUBJECT INDEX M MacKay, John, 4 Mackendrick, Alexander, 148 MacRury, Iain, 300 MAGI, 271 Magic, 168, 172 ‘Magic Highway, U.S.A.’, 89, 96, 97, 101 Magic Skyway, 101, 102 Malhotra, Natasha (VP and Exec. producer, MTV India), 251 Manabe, Hiroshi, 223 Mander, Kay, 156 Manga, 221, 224, 225, 235 Manhattan Design (Frank Olinsky, Pat Gorman and Patty Rogoff), 231 Manovich, Lev, 230 Mansell, James G., 83 Manvell, Roger, 84, 85, 158, 159 Marchand, Roland, 14 Marionette, 131, 169, 172 Marketing strategies, 56 Marsden, W.H.E., 113, 123 Marvin the Martian, 182 Marx, Karl, 9 Mass audience, 166 Mass Observation, 150, 153 Mass psychology, 136 Mat service, 142 Materiality, 56, 308 Mattel, 5 Max, Nelson, 269 McCann HumanCare Agency, 199 McCarthy, Charlie, 136 McCay, Winsor, 3, 9 McFall, Liz, 10 McGee, Fibber and Mollie, 136 McGrath, Judy, 231, 234 McIntosh, John, 275, 276, 279 McLaren, Norman, 75 Mechanization, 132, 167 Media mix, 33, 215, 223 MedienVerbund, 66 Memphis Milano art movement, 234 Mengelberg, Willem, 59 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 299 Messmer, Otto, 3, 21 Metamorphosis, 8, 163, 167 Mickey Mouse Club, 90 Middleton, C.H., 150 Mieder, Wolfgang, 82, 86 Mihailova, Mihaela, 4 Miki, Norihei, 224 Mill, The, 16, 17, 299, 301, 302, 304, 307 Ministry of Information (MoI), 146, 250 MIT Architecture Machine Group, 269 Mitsubishi, 219 Mobile film units, 147 Mochinaga, Tadahito, 216, 222 Modernity, 9, 65, 129, 132, 135, 141, 167, 169 Modernization, 173 Mohan, Ram, 250 Montage (televisual), 221 Moritz, William, 64, 69 Morrow Films, 5 Morse, Deanna, 230 Moses, Robert, 101 Moss Empire, 112 Moss, Graham, 84 Mouris, Caroline, 230 Mouris, Frank, 230 Mouse, Mickey, 7–8, 21, 22, 93, 128, 146, 182 MTV Europe, 230, 233, 236, 237 MTV Generation, 230 MTV India, 251–253, 261 Mulloy, Phil, 238 Multilingual, 163, 165 Multinational, 163, 165, 172 SUBJECT INDEX Music Television (MTV), 33, 197, 229–236, 238–241, 243, 251–253, 286 Music videos, 230 Mutt and Jeff, 7, 120 Mutual Telephone Co. of Hawaii, 139 N Nakai, Kōichi, 222, 227 National Fire Service, 154 Nazi/Nazis, 13, 137 Negroponte, Nicholas, 269, 278 Neo-artisanal production, 249 Netherlands, 56, 61, 62, 64, 67, 68 Neupert, Richard, 38, 287, 296, 297 New Deal, 136. See also Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (FDR) Newland, Marv, 230. See also International Rocketship Limited New York Institute of Technology, 273 New York World, 2 New York World’s Fair, 1939, 101, 102, 128 New York World’s Fair, 1964, 99, 101, 102, 128, 131 New Zealand, 5, 44, 196 Nickelodeon, 229, 251, 286, 290 Nihon Terebijon (‘Television Corporation of Japan’), 215 Non-theatrical, 11, 147, 154 Nostalgia, 1 Noyes, Jr., Eli, 234 Numann, Sies, 58, 66 NYU students, 234 O Oakes, Steve, 234. See also Broadcast Arts (later Curious Pictures) Ōfuji, Noburō, 222 Ogilvy, David, 13 Ohmer, Susan, 90, 103 329 Olive Jar Studios, 234 Omnibus Computer Graphics, 271 oN-Line System, 268, 269 Oreb, Tom, 93 Organisational authority, 257 Ortner, Sherry, 258, 262 Oshidar, Cyrus, 251–253 Oxberry animation stand, 235 P Pacific Data Images Inc., 271, 288 Packard, Vance, 14 Pai, Anant, 254 Paik, Karen, 286, 289, 290, 295–297 Paint on glass animation, 238 Pal Studio, 56, 58 Pal, George (György Pál), 27, 55, 57–60, 62–66, 68–70, 148, 167 Palfreyman, Rachel, 83 Para-site, 231, 239 Paris, 56, 58, 67 Parke, Frederic, 269, 274, 276, 278 Parker, Osbert, 238 Park, Nick, 253 Parry, John, 238 Patent, 63, 70 Payson, John, 231, 235 Perceptual realism, 290 Perpetual Motion Pictures, 234. See also BuzzCo Associates Personality, 129 Personification, 18, 196, 202, 205, 291 Peterson, Bob, 284, 289 Petrolle, Jean, 84 Pharma. See Pharmaceuticals Pharmaceuticals, 1, 22, 31, 196–198, 204, 205 Abilify, 199 Botox, 203, 204 Intermezzo, 201 Lamisil, 198 330 SUBJECT INDEX Lunesta (sleeping drug), 200 Myrbetriq (bladder medication), 203 Pradaxa (heart/stroke medication), 202 Pristiq, 201 Trintellix, 199, 201 Trulicity, 200 Zoloft, 197, 203 Phenomenology, 35, 290 Philips, 27, 56, 58, 61, 62, 64–67 Philips Co. (Netherlands), 56 Philips Company Archives, 70 Piccadilly Circus, 1, 3, 113, 116, 119 Pierson, Michele, 290, 296 Pig, Porky, 184 Pilling, Jayne, 86 Pinboard animation, 231 Pinkava, Jan, 284, 292 Pinocchio, 93 Pinschewer, Julius, 4, 36, 56, 65, 74, 79, 80 Pittman, Robert, 240 Pixar, 26, 34, 273, 277, 283–295 Pixar Image Computer, 273, 287 Playhouse Pictures, 6 Plympton, Bill, 230, 261 Pop music, 232 Popeye the Sailor, 128. See also Fleischer Bros. Studio Popular culture, 29, 44, 74, 128, 140, 182, 230, 240 Popular science, 168 Post Office, 75–77, 81 Posters, 8, 21, 29, 31, 111, 112, 114– 118, 120, 122, 128, 164–166, 169, 172, 232 Postmodernism, 235, 240 Potterfield, Cary, 291 Powers, John, 13 Prague, 56, 67, 167 Prelinger, Rick, 11 Price, David A., 286, 296 Prince, Stephen, 290 Print advertisements, 67, 111, 112, 114, 115, 118, 120, 128, 164, 196, 205 Production culture, 248, 254, 284 Promotion (promo), 2, 4, 16, 17, 22, 28, 79, 90, 91, 95, 97, 101, 103, 131, 171, 234, 236, 267 Promotional toys, 169 Propaganda, 11, 12, 16, 20, 21, 30, 57, 77, 93, 135, 146, 147, 150, 152–157 ‘Propaganda Centrale’ (Philips Advertising Department), 66 Propp, Vladmir, 82, 86 Proprietary hardware, Pixar, 289 Proto-animatronic, 131 Psychedelic, 232 Psychology in advertising, 13 Publi-Ciné (France), 7 Publicity, 7, 61, 62, 66, 67, 82, 91, 101, 111, 121, 146, 147, 152 Public relations animation, 156 Puppet, 62, 63, 219 Puppets, colored, 65 Puppetoon, 63 Pyralin, 8 Q Quantel Paintbox, 234 Quay Brothers, 235 Quotidian, 293 R Race, 132 Ramblers, The (band), 64 Ram Mohan Biographics (Mumbai), 250 Ranft, Joe, 284 Rao, Gitanjali, 249, 256, 261 Rational, 117, 167, 168 SUBJECT INDEX RCA, 64 Real Time Designs, 271 Realism, 293 Reception, 29, 30, 57, 58, 74, 77, 82, 113, 150, 224 Reddy Electric, 20, 136, 138–140 Reddy Kilowatt and His Friends, (Comic Book series), 128 Reddy Kilowatt Guidebook, 138 Reddy Kilowatt Youth Clubs, 136 Reddy News, 127, 131 Reddy Remarks mat series, 132 Reddytoon, 140 Reeve, Rosser, 4 Reflexivity, 170 Reiniger, Lotte, 4, 27, 28, 56, 73–86 Remaco, 56 RenderMan software, 284, 288–290 Renoir, Jean, 77 Rhythm & Hues, 250, 288 Richfield, 97–99. See also Richfield Oil Corporation Richfield Oil Corporation, 97 Richter, Hans, 65, 237, 242 Robidoux, Pierre, 272 Robinson, Phil, 198 Robinson, William Heath, 115, 120, 123 Rock and roll, 230, 237 Rock, Chris, 185 Rodker, Francis, 30, 147, 152–156, 158, 159 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (FDR), 136 Rosenthal, Peter, 234. See also Broadcast Arts (later Curious Pictures) Roska Healthcare Advertising, 203 Rossini, Gioachino Antonio, 75 Rotary, 131, 137 Rotha, Paul, 148, 157 Rotoscoping, 197 331 Royal College of Art, London, 238 Ruddell, Caroline, 85 Russett, Robert, 232 Ruttmann, Walter, 4 S Saatchi & Saatchi Agency, 199 Sabiston, Bob, 230 Sanders, Nicola, 187, 188 San Francisco, 90, 185, 189, 234, 285 Sand animation, 231 Sargeant, Amy, 85 Scenic Film Company, 5 Schicht Company, 164 Schichtův posel/Schicht’s Courier, 169. See also Schicht Company Schnall, John, 239, 243 Schwitters, Kurt, 82 Scientific demonstrations, 267 Scott, Dr. Walter Dill, 13 Scratch/paint on film animation, 231 Second World War/War effort, 6, 21, 29, 56, 90, 99, 135, 139, 149, 150, 153 Seibert, Fred, 33, 229–234, 240–242 Self-funding, 256, 257 Self-reflexive, 164 Selick, Henry, 185, 230, 291 Serial advertising, 166 Servant, 127, 129, 130, 134, 139 Service, Reddy Kilowatt (RKS), 131, 139 Sesame Street, 232 Shanken, Andrew, 135 Sharapova, Maria, 187, 188 Sharma, Chetan, 255, 261 Shell Co., 146, 154 Shell Film Unit (SFU), 30, 147, 152 Shell-Mex, 118, 146 Shemannikin, 113 Sherman, Arlene, 232 332 SUBJECT INDEX Shimada, Atsushi, 221, 222 SIGGRAPH, 34, 268–272, 274, 275, 277, 288 Signage, 17, 21, 128, 235 Silhouette, 74 Simpson, Ida Mackintosh, 85 Simulationist, 290, 292, 295 Simulationist aesthetics, 291 Sky HD, 299, 304, 305, 307 Slapstick, 168, 169, 173 Slave, 132, 133 Slide, Anthony, 11 Slogans. See Catchphrase Smith, Albert E., 3 Smith, Alvy Ray, 270, 271, 278 Smith, Marc Kitchen, 238 Sobchack, Vivian, 15, 41, 306, 308, 311 Sofian, Sheila, 235 Softimage 3D animation software, 274 Solar, Jiří, 167 Somatic experience, 306 Somer, Debroy, 64 Sonic, 305 Sony Digital 4K projectors, 302 Sound and colour systems, 64 Sound recording, 64 Sound technology, 299 South Western Bell Telephone, 271 Special effects, 16, 276, 285, 302 Spectacle, 21, 35, 94, 117, 181, 191, 217, 267, 289, 292–294, 300–302, 305, 309 Spice, Evelyn, 85, 86 Spirig, Nicola, 187, 188, 191 Spokescharacter, 4, 17, 127, 165, 167, 172 Abel Grasshopper, 134 Allegheny Al, 139 ‘Bublín’—Bubbleman, 165, 167 Captain Raid, 4 Coca Cola Polar Bears, 20 Count Chocula, 18 Danny Thunderbolt, 134 Diesel, Danny, 139, 140 Elektro and Sparko, 134 Elsie the Cow, 139 Esso Oil, 134 Field, Professor Rich, 97 Friskies dog, 4 Gillette Blue Blades, 4 Hamm’s beer Bears, 4 Jolly Green Giant, 18, 139 Kilowatt, Reddy, 18, 19, 29, 30, 127–134, 136–139, 140, 141 Lambie, 4 Michelin Man (Bibendum), 18 Mr. Clean, 4 Mr. Peanut, 18 Norihei character (Miki Norihei), 224 Philippa Ray, 62 Quaker Oats Man, 18 Smart Housewife, 167, 170 Snap, Crackle and Pop, 18 Uncle Boby, 165, 167, 171 Willie Wiredhand, 139. See also Schicht Company Sponsored film, 11 Stack, Walt, 179 Standard Oil, 90 Stanton, Andrew, 284, 288–290 Stargate sequence, 304. See also 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Starr, Cecile, 232 StarTV, 251 Station identification (ident), 248, 251, 254 Steinberg, Marc, 214–216, 222, 223, 226, 227 Stephenson, Ralph, 84 Stewart, Jez, 156, 158, 159, 214, 226 Stop-motion animation, 16, 27, 63, 185, 216 SUBJECT INDEX Studio Eeksaurus, 249, 251, 257, 258, 262 Substitution technique, 63 Sun Microsystems, 294, 297 Suntory, 222 Superman, 138 Suresh, E., 251, 253, 255, 258, 262 Sutherland, Ivan, 270 Sutherland, John, 16, 24, 128, 139 Švankmajer, Jan, 181, 235 Svozilová, Svêtla, 170 Synaesthesia, 300 T TAARNA animation software, 272 Tactile, 305 Takahashi, Drew, 234, 242. See also Colossal Pictures Takano, Kōhei, 226 Tatar, Maria, 86 Tauber, Richard, 59 Taylorism, 168 Tech Demo, 34, 267–271, 274–277 Technicolor, 20, 43, 64, 128 Technofuturism, 285, 290, 292, 294, 295 Technology, 2, 15–17, 30, 35, 42, 44, 56, 63–65, 67, 80–82, 94–96, 134, 168, 196, 234, 248, 267–277, 283, 286–288, 290, 294, 295, 299–301, 304–309 Telephone, Tommy, 16. See also Spokescharacter Television, 2, 4–8, 11, 21–22, 24, 26, 28, 29, 32–33, 35, 61, 89–92, 94, 98, 101, 128, 135, 139, 170, 181, 185, 186, 196, 206, 213–225, 230–232, 239, 240, 247–251, 253, 256, 268, 271, 274–276, 284, 286–288, 291, 299–302, 304, 306–309 Telotte, J.P., 104 333 Terkuhle, Abby, 231, 233–235, 242 Terry, Paul, 128 Test Track, 103 Tetley, Walter, 138 Tezuka, Osamu, 214 Th1ng (thing one) Agency London, 199 Thales, 128 Theatrical/Commercial distribution, 11, 61, 147, 148, 287 Thompson, J. Walter (JWT), 56, 58, 134, 148, 201, 255, 288, 290 Thompson, Kirsten Moana, 29, 36, 38, 113, 122, 279 Three Circles of Influence, 186 3D facial animation, 269 3D printing, 63 THX, 7 Time, 216 Times Square, 1, 113 Tim the talking clock, 76. See also Spokescharacter Tom and Jerry, 182 Toppan Printing, 283, 290 Top Ramen, 253 Trademark, 129, 139 Training films, 154 Transcendence, 179 Transfilm, 37 Transformation/Metamorphosis, 8, 9, 149, 168, 172 Transformation/Transformationnarratives, 149, 150, 156 Transmedial, 29, 30, 166 Transnational, 31, 56, 61, 164 Trickfilmstudio Pal & Wittke (Eindhove, The Netherlands), 64 Tropicana, 291, 292 Trulicity, 200 Trumbull, Douglas, 304 Tsugata, Nobuyuki, 214, 215, 223 TV Spots, 37 334 SUBJECT INDEX Typ, 165 U Udiaver, Akshata, 250, 260 Umesao, Tadao, 220, 221, 227 Underground comix, 232 Unilever, 165. See also Schicht Company United Illuminating Company, 127. See also Utility industry United Kingdom (UK), 7, 35, 57, 67, 68, 113, 238, 299, 301, 304 United Productions of America (UPA), 37, 92 United States of America (USA), 63, 68, 196 Universe of Energy, 102 University of Utah School of Computing, 274 Utility industry, 128, 137 Alabama Power Co., 127, 142. See also Kilowatt, Reddy Barbados Light and Power Co., 140. See also Kilowatt, Reddy Duke Power Co., 142 Gloucester Power Co., 131 Mississippi Power and Light Co., 131 New Jersey Utilities Association, 135 New York Power and Light Co., 128 Novia Scotia Power Co., 137 Pennsylvania Electric Association, 136 South Carolina Power Co., 142 Tennessee Electric Power Co., 128, 142 West Penn Power, 137 Wisconsin Power Co., 144. See also Kilowatt, Reddy V Vaibhav Studios, 251–254, 257 Van Dam, Andries, 268 Van de Peer, Stefanie, 36 Vaughan, Olwen, 77 Venture Three Brand Consultancy (UK), 304, 305 Vertov, Dziga, 4 Vester, Paul, 238 Viacom, 238, 252, 287 Victoria and Albert Museum, 76 Vinton, Will, 253 Virtual camera, 271, 304 Visibility, 15 Visual effects, 274, 290 Vivi5, 249, 253 Vonderau, Patrick, 10, 39, 226, 268, 277 Vue, 300–302, 307 W Wakō department store, 214, 217 Walley, Clive, 238 Wan Brothers, 4 Ward, Paul, 85 Warner Bros., 184 Warren, Dorothea, 141 Wasson, Haidee, 39, 267, 268, 277 Watson, John, 13 Watt, Harry, 85 Wave motion, 305 Wax animation, 231 Weeks, Clair, 250 Weinzapfel, Guy, 269, 278 Westinghouse, 134, 135 Wexman Wright, Virginia, 84 Whistler, Rex, 78, 80, 85 White Rabbit, 93 Wide Eye Media (Ireland), 300–302, 304, 306 Wieden and Kennedy Agency, 181 SUBJECT INDEX Williams, Esther, 182 Williams, Raymond, 248, 260 Williams, Richard, 5 Worker, 129. See also Labour World of Motion, 102 World’s Fairs, 11, 95, 99, 101, 102, 128, 131, 267 Wrake, Run, 238 Wright, Basil, 77, 85 X Xcel Energy, 140. See also Utility industry 335 Xerography, 231, 233 Y Yanagihara, Ryōhei, 222, 223 Yo! MTV Raps, 236 Z Zac-David/Tempo, 38 Zennihon Shiiemu Hōsō Renmei/All Japan Radio & Television Commercial Council (ACC), 219 Zipes, Jack, 82, 86