AV Geeks Lunch 6-15-2023

thank you hello everybody hi I'm skip Alzheimer welcome to the AV Geeks lunchtime streaming show where we watch old 16 millimeter films and uh talk about them uh and that one was a Lulu that was by the department of interior talking about the magical fiber that is asbestos it can do so many things it's heat resistant it's fire resistant it's so great and you can just mine it from the ground and process the stone and bring it out and oof um of course we know now uh this is one of those things where we're like oh yeah yeah that was not not good um but that's the benefit of why we watch these films and the hindsight that we have when we watch these films is that um we can see we can see um this next film is Jerusalem the holy city I think it's Encyclopedia Britannica I could be wrong but enjoy foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] Jerusalem City with nearly 40 centuries of History founded in the Stone Age Fortress beside a trade route of the ancient world garrison city of the Pharaohs of Egypt captured by David the Israelite destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt by Nehemiah conquered by Alexander the Great desecrated by Pompeii made a new city by Herod governed by Pontius pilot Jerusalem holy city of three religions to enter the ancient city is to enter a historic meeting ground of the peoples of the East and the West it is to walk among shrines men have held sacred Through the Ages near this Garden is said to have lived one Caiaphas the high priest and in the Palace of Caiaphas Christ was imprisoned to await his trial of the events that can pass within these Gates it was true and they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to campus the high priest where the scribes and the elders were assembled but Peter followed him afar off unto the high priest Palace and went in and sat down with the servants to see the animal [Music] and Rising beyond the Mount of Olives it was unto the Mount of Olives that Jesus and the disciples went following the Last Supper and in the writings of Matthew then cometh Jesus with them into a place called Gethsemane and set unto the disciples sitting here while I go and pray under this was the night before the crucifixion [Music] such is the Heritage shared by all the Christian faiths buried as may be the churches and monasteries established in Jerusalem near the Historic Site sacred to tradition [Music] here as the members of holy orders walk the grounds of their monasteries it is with the belief that in these same precincts Christ and the disciples walked and talked together [Music] in the Jerusalem at the time of David of Solomon of Greek conquerors of Roman governors in the Jerusalem of the time of Christ women carried pictures to the well for water and in the Jerusalem of today the women of the ancient city continue with the age-old practice the scene may have been much like this when in the time of Abraham Rebecca came forth with her picture on her shoulder and went down unto the well and Drew water threading its way laboriously toward the place called Golgotha is the Via Dolorosa the street of Sorrow which many believe Christ tried on his way to the crucifixion as it is the scene of the events from which Christianity took its origin Jerusalem is the scene too of rituals and ceremonies cherished by a multitude of Christian faiths [Music] [Music] among the rituals common to Greek Orthodox Roman Catholic Coptic Armenian and other churches are the daily pilgrimages to the Church of the Holy separate on this spot where Christ is thought to have been entombed Constantine emperor of Rome built this church in 326 A.D nine centuries later when the Crusaders held Jerusalem the church was rebuilt and enlarged by men who had marched from the West bells of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher yet well within the reach of their sound Rises the Dome of the Rock the shrines sacred to the followers of Muhammad the prophet of Allah so is one reminded of the variety of faiths that hold Jerusalem sacred even as he walks among the towers and walls of this ancient Christian Church [Music] the walls centuries old are threatened with decayed but a tradition and Heritage live on amid the storied reminders of a body of belief the pillar of Holy Fire from which Flames are said to have issued during an Easter Service Within These doors a stone held in veneration and awe as the one on which Christ was laid after his death upon the cross [Music] how long a history has this burial ground sacred to the Jews this at least we know that in the days of the years of Solomon centuries before the Christian era Jerusalem was the center of a great Hebrew kingdom for the Jews sacred ties stretched back to Solomon and Beyond Solomon the wise he it was who brought to Jerusalem a glory wealth and luxury befitting a capital city today there are only memories in a Wailing Wall where there was once a lavish Royal dwelling and the imposing Temple of Solomon gone is the Splendor of the great Hebrew Kings but the religion of Solomon of David of Moses of Abraham the worship of Jehovah and the honoring of his Commandments this endures in a living faith kingdoms have passed that the law and the prophets live on in a city that is Holy to the Jew [Music] and the to him too Jerusalem is a holy city he too has known an earlier age as Splendor when Muslims rule Jerusalem and erected their sacred triumphs from early in the 7th Century until recent years mohammedans controlled the city with only brief interruptions during the time of the Crusades built upon the very same ground where the Temple of Solomon stood the Dome of the Rock stands as a shrine of the Muslim world foreign built this towering structure he not only raised a shrine to the greater glory of Allah but gave to the world a work of architectural Beauty around the walls below the tapering Dome runs an Arabic inscription this Dome was built in the year 691 by Abdul Malik commander of the faithful and servant of God may God accept this gift of him and bless him amen three faiths differing in origin in history and in Creed but each for its own reasons holding sacred the historic plot of ground that is Jerusalem the holy city all right there's a little mention of uh Muslims in that um yeah it's a beautifully shot and I think the deal was it was shot by somebody and then it was distributed by Encyclopedia Britannica so very pretty um even though it's like summer let's have fewer colds this is when I traditionally as a kid would get pneumonia so let's have fewer colds it feels so good when you come in after pipe yes these boys and girls are healthy and plus wants them to stay that way but right now she's noticing how many empty places there are do you know why because of colds yes some of the boys and girls are missing school they have to stay home with colds Billy doesn't have a cold though and he doesn't want one let's pretend we can see right inside bed we'll see a drawing of a healthy nose and a healthy mouth this part of your head and a healthy throat let's take a closer look the mucous membrane is the thin tender lining all over the inside of the nose and mouth and throat the fluid called mucus flows from the mucous membrane when you are well just enough mucus flows to help keep your nose and throat clean that's the way Billy's nose and throat are because he is well Billy's friend dick is absent today dick isn't having much fun because he's at home in bed he doesn't feel very well he has a headache and he didn't feel like eating breakfast his nose is running so much he has to keep blowing it when Dick blows he blows the right way very gently and he holds the tissue loosely he never squeezes his nose well Dick's mother knows how to take care of him mother isn't certain it's only a cold since this is the first day dick has felt this way some other diseases such as measles and scarlet fever start out pretty much like coals so mother will watch Dick's temperature and if he has a fever for more than a day or two she'll call the doctor she keeps dick warmly covered in bed but not too warm dick puts his used paper handkerchiefs in a bag so his mother can burn them because they may have cold germs on them what about medicine for dick to take well he has none and he won't use any unless his doctor tells him to dick will get well best if he stays here in bed resting that's the important thing to do for a cold oh this isn't much fun that running nose again what's going on inside Dick's nose and throat well somehow cold germs or virus too small to see gotta start in here and made his throat red and sore the inside of his nose felt dry and itchy have you ever felt like that well when you have a cold the mucous membrane swells up to help fight the cold germs and the mucus flows much more than usual acting like a wall the mucus and swelling nearly blocked Dick's nose so of course he can't breathe very well and when he sneezes imagine what would happen at school those tiny drops of mucus could carry coal germs around the room so Dick's seed is empty because he stayed home just as we all should do if we have a cold so we can keep the air in our classrooms clean and that's why Miss Ellis watches the boys and girls so carefully oh look here Mary sniffling well at least when she sneezes she covers her nose but she might be starting a cold so Mary must go see the school nurse and perhaps go home if she does have a cold she should not be here spraying cold germs into the air she'll take care of her cold right away Miss Ellis and her class know it isn't any fun to have colds so they will talk about some things to do to help prevent colds first stay away from coals just what does that mean well we stay home when we have a cold we try to keep colds out of the air but there are other things to do to stay away from colds you've seen boys wrestling like this but if you wrestle with a boy who has a cold you could get cold germs from him very easily maybe you used to trade bites but there could easily be cold germs on food someone else has been eating when someone with a cold handles his books or his pencils cold germs could easily get on them and you might pick up some of the germs from those books those are some of the things we all can do to stay away from colds next avoid chilling what happens when you are chilled well suppose you go outside with clothes that aren't warm enough what happens inside your nose and throat when you are chilled not as much mucus flows spots of the mucous membrane are left dry then cold germs can more easily get a start and that's what sometimes happens when you are chilled but did you know that you can be chilled by getting too hot oh Jack doesn't want to get too hot when you're very warm your body is wet with perspiration and it's very easy to cool off too fast and so be chilled Billy thinks of some other things you should do to avoid chilling when you come home from school every day check over your clothes to be sure they are dry cap and jacket all right on the inside but Billy's mittens they're soaked now wet clothing can chill you verily so Billy will put on a dry pair of mittens before going out again now outside for some fun it's a good idea to play outside but be sure to dress warmly and keep your feet dry so you won't be chilled and later the fun turns into a snow battle oh oh Billy got it in the neck well it's getting close to supper time and he'll go into the house now to dry out before he gets chilled as soon as he comes inside Billy takes off all his wet clothes at home and at school Billy takes care to avoid chilling now what else should we do Billy would like to explain the third poster he made it to show some good health habits one is exercise he gets good outdoor exercise to help keep his body strong another good health habit is eating the right Foods meat and potatoes and vegetables are important for health mmm and they taste good too and look over here tomato juice milk fresh salads with lettuce fruit eating the right kinds of food is a good health habit and of course Billy always washes his hands with soap and water before he eats Billy has another good health habit it gets lots of sleep and rest exercise good food sleep those are good health habits and now let's remember some of the things we've learned about having fewer colds when you have a cold take care of it rest in bed keep warm but not too warm and stay away from other people and these are some of the things to do to help prevent colds stay away from colds avoid chilling warm clothes for outdoors but take off your wraps indoors and practice good health habits exercise good food and sleep isn't it um yeah the cross section of the kid's head is is is something else um I love when they do that in the show basically like eviscerate little kids bodies to show kids like oh this is what you look like inside your body but it is it's got this darker interpretation of we're going to dissect this child to show you how children work um this next film is uh about journalism maybe this is a career that you're looking for in journalism um yeah let's see how much of this is still applicable today enjoy [Music] the alphabet has only 26 letters with these 26 magic symbols however millions of words are written every day millions of words to report the news of all the world in newspapers words to tell the news of local happens in thousands of Suburbans Small Town and Country papers millions of other words and magazines of various types in farm periodicals in business Publications in trade and Technical journals and in general and popular magazines giant presses print all these words and someone buys them either on newsstands through the mail or from Newsboys first however words must be written and there are many writing jobs or newspapers if you visit The Newsroom of a daily paper you will find it very similar to any busy office although arranged somewhat differently The Newsroom is the heart of the newspaper the managing editor who on most papers coordinates all activities of news Gathering send certain reporters out on important assignments this reporter is in a hurry and for a very good reason he's going to cover a fire covering a fire is usually an exciting event but it doesn't come nearly as often as you might think amid the turmoil and confusion the reporter must be able to think clearly and quickly and he must get his facts accurately assignments of this type may keep the reporter out in bad weather for many hours of hard tiresome work but there's a real thrill in seeing your own byline over a story when it's in print and there's always the feeling that you'll try to make the next story just a little better a newspaper of any size divides its local territory into districts reporters are given certain beats in these districts such as the city hall which they covered day after day the hospital beat is a valuable news source and one on which events sometimes happen with startling speed other reporters cover the airports bus and railroad stations which provide a good opportunity to interview celebrities arriving or departing reporters on Beats are known as outside man since they work away from the office most of the time Gathering news every reporter must secure from the people along his beat a steady supply of the everyday happenings which fill most of the local news Columns of a newspaper the police station is frequently assigned to beginners the Cub reporter takes information and leads on news of crime accidents and death from the daily police record or blotter although he gathers the news the outside man often does not write the story himself Odd as this may seem much of the time he stays on his beat and phones in his information this is especially true on the larger papers and are nearly all daily papers when the deadline is near the information is taken at the other end by a rewrite man who is usually a more experienced writer and is paid more for his work after the story is written and before it is set up in type copy readers edit it for errors improve it here and there if they can and write the headlines then the story is set in tight by the operator of a linotype a type-setting machine which casts the words in solid lines of lead type the placing of the type after it has been set is often supervised by the makeup editor he has already planned the general arrangement of the paper on a layout sheet and has selected a spot for the story among all the other stories pictures and advertising material practically all daily newspapers have special departments in which certain sections of the paper are written and edited one of these departments handles the telegraph news which it receives from the great press associations with reporters and writers scattered all over the world the Press associations gather important news and relay it to hundreds of newspapers over special Telegraph Wire services this teletype at the local newspaper is bringing in news reports from distant parts of the nation and world the sports section is handled in another special Department the sports reporter must be a specialist in his knowledge of sports he gets his story right at the sporting event and often sends it into his paper play-by-play the financial section is reported by experts in the field of business Financial reporters and editors must be able to analyze and explain business conditions as well as to report them and they must be extremely accurate for even a slight error has been known to influence the financial Market the society section for the most part is handled by news women important social events are usually covered by Society reporters in person however much of the news for the society section comes in over the telephone women find it difficult to compete with men in general reporting jobs so girls who want to be successful in journalism should prepare for work in the special women's departments home decoration Child Care gardening and household hints are found in the homemaking section A Department handled by women also included a cookery meal planning suggestions menus recipes and attractive ways of arranging the table work in Fashions Beauty care and merchandise reporting affords further opportunities almost exclusively for women music and dramatic critics must be authorities in their fields they report from first-hand observation and to hold reader confidence they must be truthful in the information they give the public and they must be fair to artists and performers the editorial writer must be able to write on many subjects but instead of merely reporting news he analyzes it and explains its meaning often expressing his personal opinions he must reason accurately and fairly and write in an interesting manner to understand and interpret problems of the day he must read and study continually in addition to having a great amount of knowledge and experience another specialist is the political writer he must interview political candidates and workers he must also report a great many speeches and be able to interpret for the people who read his paper acts of government and the ideas of political leaders the work of feature writers is found in the Sunday editions and in magazines and these writers have names usually well known to readers some feature writers started their careers by writing about their Hobbies a number of magazines will buy articles on how to do things and how to make things especially if the writer can supply good illustrations the columnist is another writing specialist it's nice work but it takes years of experience and a genuine talent for writing some columnists and writers of many other kinds of material are able to place their work with syndicates The Syndicate wraps copies and sends them out to be printed in hundreds of newspapers or at the local newspaper a matrix is received from The Syndicate The Matrix is made of material like heavy paper into which has been stamped words and pictures it is placed in a casting box into which molten type metal is poured the Matrix serves as a mold and leaves its impression on the metal when cool the solid type metal which now is similar to type is removed from the casting box and the Matrix may be discarded the type is now ready to be used to print the original Syndicate material on the newspaper's own press the country editor unlike the city editor must spread his attention Over All Phases of the business he must go out after news himself and from local Merchants solicit the advertising that provides part of the revenue from his pay he must then write the advertising as well as the news and plan the layout of each issue and that's not all he is also a printer knowing every branch of the business he's typesetter Pressman and press feeder all in one in fact he has to know and be able to do a great many things which can be learned only through actual experience and there's no better place to get this experience than on a Small Town Newspaper being able to set type by hand is almost a necessity for in addition to his newspaper work job printing forms an important part of the business of the country publisher all this knowledge and experience seems a great deal to ask of one man but he leads a happy life and takes pride in the fact that he is in business for himself the publisher of a city paper has the responsibility of running a large organization his is a good position and one you might do well to aim for but there aren't many of them as it is one of the top positions in journalism you will probably start outside in just any kind of weather reporting news if you choose journalism as your life works news reporting is a young man's job for the reporter must have stamina and endurance to withstand the strain of long and strenuous hours of work he must have the courage and perseverance to get the story in spite of obstacles the qualifications of a newspaper worker are not easy ones to fill check your qualifications find out what courses you should take in school if you don't like to write you won't be happy in journalism if you do like it practice writing as much as you can your school newspaper and your English and social science classes are good places to start make them your first assignments towards success [Music] um yeah so a lot has changed man a lot of the physical aspects of it um have been uh uh Gone Away with uh but also some of the proofreading and the editing has gone away with so the idea that you had to go through these multiple steps to get something distributed to hundreds thousands of eyeballs meant that there were important things that had to happen lots of people looking at the at the information whereas nowadays um it goes straight from someone's phone into the media universe and that's with film or video and with words and audio so we're dealing with that on a daily basis uh thank you Kevin for donating to the cause he went to uh hit the super thanks button uh and that's a way to support us so that we can uh buy some coffee um I had a doctor's appointment and of course got some coffee and made a poor food Choice um anyways so behind me I have a film scanner and we have a film set up and I'm hoping that uh this will not get taken down um this is made by Weston Woods which got acquired by golden no Simon Schuster got acquired by a uh child children's Publishing Company and this is talking about an animator who I love Gene deich uh or deach um and talks about his process and I think it talks about him making Where the Wild Things Are which is a really amazing um thing that he did he was animating besides doing Tom and Jerry besides doing a bunch of Terry Tunes cartoons in the 60s and 70s uh he also uh he I guess he moved to the um Czechoslovakia or no or Hungary it'll say uh and set up an animation studio there and did a lot of really amazing stuff um his son is Kim teach Kim deich who uh was an amazing underground comics artist uh so here we go let's give this a shot this is uh where is it [Music] I might have to get some more coffee holy cow um this is gene deich and let me actually get the title um the picture book The Picture Book animated the picture look animated enjoy [Music] foreign the big days of my life in Prague are those on which Mrs perelova the male person on our block brings me another picture book from Weston Woods in Connecticut living in Prague an ancient town so full of its own stories I'm surrounded with an ideal Ambiance for my kind of work I'm Gene deich and I animate picture books Prague is itself a picture-booked town with an architectural and cultural continuity a thousand pages long in the 14th century Bohemian King Charles IV built this Stone Bridge which quite logically continues right onto Bridge Street it is there that I and my Czech wife and colleague zenka live and where I mainly do my work in our Courtyard stands a Gothic Tower where an alchemist one of many in the Prague of Rudolph's second labored a changing lead into gold and now I'm working in here trying to change books into film of course I have it easier gold is already here I just have to shine it onto a movie screen [Music] tucked into each book when it arrives is always a note from Morton shindo producer at Weston Woods to guide me in my first step to find the core of meaning a motion picture might project in each book it's different and my film adaptation must grow from the unique character and content of the individual books every element of our film the kind of scene continuity animation of characters Music and Sound mix the total atmosphere must be structured so that they do seem to shine onto the movie screen directly from the book pages themselves there is always something that Clues me as to what the book is really about Ed and Barbara emberly's drummer Hoff is a fine example of what I mean hidden among the bright colors of this outwardly light-hearted book are some interesting hints of its real depth as the grandly uniformed soldiers strut along intent on constructing their Mighty Canon they ignore the flowers underfoot the birds and insects that seem to watch them in our film I was able to show the soldiers actually stepping on the flowers and chewing away the birds actions which support what I felt to be the meaning of the last page of the book The Ultimate Triumph of nature over the posturings of humans and their sometimes destructive machine yet the fun is still there we've tried only to project the ideas in the book so that when the child returns to it after seeing the film he will love it more and see it more as our aim is always to project the book we try always for the most valid way to adapt its graphic style to motion the woodcut illustrations of drummer Hoff suggested these paper puppets which could be animated in the stiff formal way you would expect these figures to move with Patrick we had a vividly contrasting style to work with Quentin Blake's drawings are loose and Free as a bird the book is so visually Lively we decided to let the film version do its storytelling with movement and sound alone that meant the movement had to be right I remember how Quentin and Mort and stanky and I all met in a London hotel room trying to imagine how Patrick would walk how a character walks can be the key to his whole personality well there we were all the lumping around that hotel room trying to find a walk that would Express Patrick's dreamy in her life hear the series of drawings we finally worked out to produce this one walk and here is how it looked when these same drawings were photographed by our animation camera capture the sketchy chalk and aquaral effects of the Patrick book we had to use techniques untried in traditional animation we found a special kind of oil crayon which would work on our sheets of celluloid and Quentin Blake sent us the actual box of crayons that he had used for his book illustrations and we used what was left of these to make our color backgrounds you can't get any more authentic than that [Music] the musical concept for Patrick seemed simple enough a solo fiddle that's what Patrick plays as Patrick is clearly Irish an Irish tune also seemed obvious but too obvious we thought for a story so Universal in concept [Music] one evening I was working on the layouts while stanka was doing her turn in the kitchen a dvojak concerto on the turntable was backgrounding our tasks but I was at the moment more focused on my drawings when the first side ended I just automatically flipped the disc over and went back to work [Music] suddenly zdenka called out and you know it was we just took that simple theme and fiddled with it you know in each of our films we have a great time musically in Rosie's walk for instance I had the problem of finding a local czechoslovak Group which could play American country music you know it was easy we have a terrific outfit here in Prague who calls themselves the green horse they had to hold themselves way back to play this simple square dance repeats for Rosie's walk and another of Pat Hutchins books gave us an even more intriguing musical score that was changes changes where we had little wooden characters without elbows or knees this prompted not only the jerky Movement we used but the music too [Music] everything in the book is made of wood so why not use pieces of wood tuned wood for the music [Music] a xylophone and a marimba were the only actual musical instruments to qualify [Music] for our bass drum we use the wooden crate [Music] there were lots of wood blocks and rattles [Music] and one glorious instrument invented to the occasion a rank of ordinary two by four planks saw into calculated lengths hung and struck with a wooden mallet [Music] surely the only musical instrument on Earth is tuned with a hammer and a saw it gave us our base tones and I called it our Blanco Plover kranti check belfine and his all wood Orchestra created plenty of musical fun but it was also a discipline I wanted to reflect the discipline of the little man and woman whose carry-on Spirit helps them solve each Problem by the rearrangement of one set of wooden blocks and our visual discipline was equally strict each drawn block had its own number and individual wood padding each film has its particular discipline but the central discipline of every animated film begins with what we call a storyboard a visual scenario which correlates all of the elements of the movie to be my little drawings show the scene continuity camera Framing and Transitions and in the captions I indicate the relationship of spoken words sound effects and music to the film action but once our disciplines surrendered to the unexpected and all because of the way I communicate with the producer thousands of miles away to flesh out my storyboards and written treatments I always send more chindel a tape cassette the Three Robbers can be most effective I feel Mort if we can get a kind of mock Menace In The music I'm thinking of a bold base a tuba and a bassoon all playing in unison this may be an electric guitar for accents now I'm sorry that I can't carry a tune at all but you'll have the storyboard there in front of you and I hope you'll get an idea what I have in my head true once upon a time there were three Fierce robbers [Music] Mort wired me back to forget the bassoon and just put that cassette on the soundtrack somehow it worked but I think once is enough of deich bassooning anyway I always feel the need to send off a sound cassette not just for the booing but more often to add real bits of Music and Sound which happened to be lying around my tape Library anything that I can put together to help get across my film concept it's not just a simple matter of photographing a book page by Page so our secret aim might be to give the impression that you're really seeing the picture book animated or that the author has personally made the film in fact though in none of our films have we ever used any of the original book illustrations in our medium we must recreate every illustration in terms of motion and a film always requires a good deal of additional artwork not found in the book at all yet it is our task to keep ourselves as filmmakers out of sight to attempt to get as much of the author illustrator onto the screen as we can so besides my own analysis of each book I try to get whatever feelings the authors can personally give me I learned a great lesson from the late Crockett Johnson when I was working on two of his Herald Purple Crayon stories never Overlook the art of the seemingly simple he told me he happened to be a master of the seemingly simple no films we've made though were in fact more technically difficult to produce than a picture for Harold's room and Harold's fairy tale both of which look so simple on the screen Harold's room for example is really a fascinating lesson in size relationship and perspective to make it work on the screen it meant that Harold must always be the exact same size in relation to the film frame in effect it meant that the entire film must appear to be one continuous scene and if that weren't enough of a problem and now how am I going to get you non-animators to believe this we were forced to shoot the entire film backwards you see if we were to add on each bit of line which Herald draws it would produce a disturbing wiggling and jittery which would destroy the illusion that Harold is really making it drawing with this purple crayon the delicate fantasy would be lost so we had to prepare in advance Harold's entire drawing moving over it relentlessly backwards from the end to the beginning all along the way we erased the line matching each of Harold's positions photographed in reverse order before our camera Herald undrew his scenery when we finished shooting the huge drawing had been completely wiped out only when you saw the film projected forward did you see it reappear one mistake and we shoot the whole thing over again foreign ly simple in the case of story a story I was especially lucky author illustrator Gail Haley was kind enough to come to Prague and show me in our animators the specific nature of the body movement and gestures inherent in this African Legend how a spoon would be held a gesture would be executed or a dance performed came across to us vividly with her personal demonstrations a story a story also provided us with one of our most exciting musical Adventures we wanted authenticity but the only Africans we could find in Czechoslovakia besides diplomats were young exchange students and they played only hard rock on electric guitars the Prague Old Town stanka scouted out the naprostovo ethnographic museum which houses a fine collection of African instruments here in a tiny upstairs room she found Dr watsloff kupita the Museum's expert on the music of Asian and African peoples Dr kubitza was able to compose and notate an amalgam of African instrumental Styles which could support the various episodes of our film and to gather together a group of musicians who understood the tonalities involved [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] ER the story the greater the book we start off with the greater our responsibility I don't know if the news will impress you or fill you with dismay but we worked on Where the Wild Things Are on and off and in and out of five years before I could see it approved for release adapting wild things into a movie was probably my most hazardous undertaking for Weston Woods the Mount Everest of children's books we had to do it because it was there and once started there was no hedging I had to find my own way to wear the Wild Things Are an animated motion picture of this book faced enormous difficulties technical as well as philosophical Maurice wanted the film to go beyond the book a tall order but he knew there was no point in doing it at all unless we could illuminate some of the implied dimensions of the book and try to extend them he too came to Prague and we had some long walking talks through old corners of the town we both wanted a magical film and he did give me some fascinating hints in this story he said everything is Max as for the music he later wrote think of Deep Purple the old song Deep Purple stirred memories for me too as Maurice I'm also a child of the 30s I began to see the root of a musical and sound device to evoke the distance between Max and his parents who were unseen in the book after all why is Max making Mischief of one kind than another to attract the attention of his parents but where are they probably in the next room having a party or watching TV but not being with Max so I came to the idea of this muffled sweet 30s music the Applause the candle after the comedian's joke and so on I decided that this very music which represents the distance between Max and his parents would become increasingly distorted with Max's growing rage and his journey into fantasy along the same line I wanted all of the sound effects to be within Max's home experience so to create the Wild Things dance Rhythm I restricted myself to domestic sounds which might Express Max's feeling of isolation and which might suggest parents being too busy for Max a gas oven lighting a door slam a car starting a baby crying all of these sounds repeated over and over were used to heat up the music which I distorted simply by spinning the record by hand and letting it reverberate from one tape recorder to another [Music] thank you it took weeks to get all of these elements positioned just right onto the four tracks of my Quadro recorder then it was a matter of mixing them all together for the balance and atmosphere I wanted so he was sent to bet without eating anything [Music] thank you the Wild Things Are they roared terrible [Music] foreign but then how to animate these complex drawings in the traditional processes of cartoon film animation such characters as these would first have to be simplified to sterile line and flat color it would have certainly been the easy way for us too but it wouldn't have been Sendak a new technique developed especially for this film by one of the studio artists Rudolf Holland made it possible to use the book's original rendering style directly onto our animation cells it was basically painting of a white latex base in the shape of each animating figure when this dried a paper-like surface resulted onto which we could paint and draw with pencil fine pen lines and even watercolor it took a year and a half just to render the hundreds of moving character drawings and backgrounds for this film but such extraordinary drawings could not move in an ordinary way as the Wild Things Are presumed to be a product of Max's mind I devised a special way of photographing these drawings in series of overlapping multiple dissolves to give them the sluggish dreamlike quality Maurice envisioned all of this required much doing and redoing we gave up and restarted several times it was five years later that we were able to hold a party celebrating the release of wild things [Music] party all the way was doing Tommy younger's the Beast of mashira scene I loved Missouri scene's perfect Serenity in a world of chaos and here was an elderly person doing interesting things an important image for children [Music] I felt I was searching out with them the secret fun of this marvelous book when I take my storyboard soundtracks scene layout drawings and production notes up to the bond off Studio the film is already conceptually complete but there's still a mountain of creative and production work to be done zdenka and her crew are all artists and Craftsmen of world caliber foreign [Music] ERS are our actors they can give life to drawings to the skillful timing of carefully phased series of poses it takes 10 years to make an animator so don't expect me to explain that to you in a few words then there are the assistants who laboriously draw the in-between positions each with its vital film frame number and the color and rendering Specialists who can paint figures and backgrounds in the style and technique of any book illustrator character anchors and colorists camera operators [Music] and film assemblies without these people our little movies would not exist at the beginning I said it was the continuity of Prague which was one of the things which attracted me to stay and work here an even more compelling Factor was the continuity represented by these people many have worked here for over 30 years including Mize Danka she started here as a kid and has never worked anywhere else well we're not kids anymore but our happy work Keeps Us in continuous touch with children that's our youth potion now if you'll excuse me I think I'll run downstairs and see if Mrs perlaw has a new book for me people [Music] that film I very big fan of um his work and a lot of those so a lot of the western Woods uh films were basically iconographic which what that means is they would just take illustrations from the book and then they would pan or zoom in or zoom out or you know tilt or whatever um very basic as as someone narrated um some of the the better ones are like the ones that you saw uh ones that were actually animated um and you can see how much work went into uh this now what's interesting is in the 80s they released a bunch of these and I think it was Scholastic was it Scholastic I can't remember but they released a bunch of Western wood things on video and they actually changed the soundtrack for Where the Wild Things Are it went from a really awesome film an awesome soundtrack to something that was really pedestrian and just not good um which is frustrating and I don't know why that was but um yeah I thankfully have a copy of that on film uh the original version and it it does it's like it kind of puts you into this otherworldly type of feeling um and so kudos to him um I think he's passed the other thing was that he was a record collector he loved collecting 78s so that's one of the things he used to write he used to draw cartoons for a 78 collector magazines so there's a whole thing about about that so look him up um gene deich or deech I I heard him say it and then I immediately forgot how you pronounce it uh thank you so much m Trader for donating in your uh Euro currency your check currency um I'm happy that we got to show your hometown um and thanks everybody for tuning in we'll be back again tomorrow watch some more films uh and you know that's what we do uh you can hit the Thumbs Up Button the like button even if you've done it in the past please do it again uh subscribe so that I can get another plaque right there from YouTube um and you can donate at ko-fi.com avgeeks or patreon.com avgeeks that will help pay for some film leader that we just had to buy uh we're always because we're constantly pulling and scanning films and cataloging them we're constantly using supplies um and so putting leader on a film is one of the things that we do you're uh donations help us pay for that uh everybody have a great rest of your day what is it Thursday yeah I don't know anyways talk soon bye