Animation has come a long way since the ’80s, but how about even further back than that? Nowadays, a cinematic video game has such a crisp rendering that players can make out every individual pore in a character’s skin and every single strand of their hair. As far as movies are concerned, CGI revolutionized the special effects sector, making the lives of practical effects teams a whole lot easier.
While there are arguments that practical effects trump CGI any day, it’s more miraculous and mind-blowing to think that we started out with nothing more than kaleidoscopes and stop motion with clay builds. Speaking of stop-motion animation, the very first stop-motion film produced was The Humpty Dumpty Circus in 1898, a short film made using dolls with moveable joints to simulate the movements of circus acrobats.
Long before the days of CGI, stop motion was all filmmakers had; they had to painstakingly position their characters/figurines in different positions with every single second of footage, making sure to not move too much too fast, otherwise the end product would appear rigid and less free-flowing than animation is supposed to be. Nowadays, stop motion is better than ever before, and some animators still prefer the old-fashioned way of working, likely because the modern age is a tad overwhelming for old-school filmmakers.
Over on Reddit, a three-minute-long stop-motion film from over 92 years ago has resurfaced. The animation piece in question, featuring Charley Bowers and a bizarre bird, is from the short film It’s a Bird directed by Harold L. Muller. There isn’t much of a plot, but the general gist is that a metal-eating bird resembling a woodpecker devours scrap metal in a garage, only to soon lay an egg that transforms (rather impressively) into a full-sized, fully-functioning car — with wheels and everything! Even the most accurate description wouldn’t do the clip justice, so just watch for yourself and draw your own conclusion as to how remarkable (or not) it is.
Honestly, it wouldn’t be too much to suggest that this black-and-white stop-motion film, which would have come out around the 1930s, withstood the test of time to prove more entertaining than some modern-day animations. Back in the ’30s, technology didn’t exactly exist — at least not properly — and the only way to film something was to use a vintage handheld camera with a crank.
That means that any stop-motion project would have required multiple people, so it isn’t as straightforward as it appears. There were plenty of comments praising the masterful filmmaking in the film, especially for such a disadvantaged era. It’s safe to assume that anyone living in the ’30s would have had their minds blown, so it’s no small feat that the 21st century is picking their jaws up off the floor as well.
Not bad for our impromptu today’s issue of ‘things you never thought you’d see today.’
Published: Nov 4, 2022 12:22 pm