Succombed to Communist Ideas

[pasithea]

Wee! Now isn't that a great topic? But it's true, sorta. I watched a whole bunch of 'Nu, Podogi' this weekend. (soviet-era russian cartoon) and one of the things I really liked about it was their solid understanding of physics.

We watched one episode where they were on a ship and a storm started blowing and the ship began to roll, and I commented at the time to centauress that it was neat because they'd animated the pitch of the ship with rotation of the compound and made the objects react accordingly. This makes a lot of sense for a complex scene being rotated weirdly. LITTLE DID I KNOW That these cartoons had made me suceptible to the power of communist animators!

Today, working on my cat animation, there's a scene where the cat hits the stand of the birdcage making it swing wildly and the bird inside squawk and flutter... I'm short on time and a wire cage is a tough render when moving because the wires will move in and out if you don't animate it right. But... What if the cage stayed still and the camera moved and the bird just flapped inside it? ...

Okay, so it's not fantastic animation. It's a flat side-on view and its a cheap shortcut BUT, it lets me come in close and focus on the expression of the bird and not spend a huge amount of time animating this scene (as I'm already WAY behind schedule) Hee! Yay for soviet cartoons! :)

Comments

[higginsdragon.livejournal.com]

Yes! I love "Nu, Pogoti!" (or however it's spelled) I have a whole tape filled with those cartoons that I keep meaning to digitize and maybe clean up a bit. It's like Tom & Jerry with a lot more class, even if I can't understand some of the more subtle verbal humor (obviously!) Definitely got better as time went on too.

I guess I'll have to watch them again to see what you're pointing out. Gives me a good excuse to do the whole digitizing thing too.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

I gotta keep my eyes open for cartoons on the Russian stations here -- or maybe I can see some cartoons in Brighton Beach. Do you know how the name of the cartoon looks in Cyrillic? I can just eyeball it then at a video store. (Brighton Beach is probably the largest Russian community in the USA. Well, at least the East Coast)