Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly: animator profile

Animators are one of the unsung heroes of Pat & Mat and probably every stop motion series. They are the ones who spend the most time actually creating the action we see on the screen, which makes their work vitally important.

While they have mostly stuck to similar principles throughout the years, each animator on this series has some quirks and differences which make their style unique. One of these animators, and definitely a legendary one, is Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly.

at work in 2019 (photo: ČT)

Biography

Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly was born on January 9, 1948 in České Budějovice. He is originally from a known aristocratic family whose roots are in Czechia, France and Austria. Actually, Alfons is a count, which makes him probably the only count to have worked on Pat & Mat. ČT produced a documentary about his family as part of their Blue Blood series. It can be viewed here, but only if you access it from Czechia.

He joined the Jiří Trnka studio in 1969 and started animating sometime in the 1970s, working on many important films, with different directors such as Stanislav Látal and Jiří Barta. When Lubomír Beneš opened his aiF Studio, Alfons followed him there and worked up to the 1997 Jája a Pája series. When aiF went to pieces in 1998, he joined Hafan Film, while also working on some episodes for Patmat. In the next decades he again worked on some feature films, most notably Toys in the Attic and Fimfárum 2.

Even though he is about to turn 72, Mensdorff-Pouilly is still working on Pat & Mat, animating some of the episodes of the new 39 episodes due for TV release 2018-2020. Along with puppet armature maker Ondřej Zika, he is the only member of the current production team who had some involvement on the original ...a je to! series.

Pat & Mat career

His Pat & Mat career spans four decades. After animating on the 1982 episode Mal'ovanie, he worked on the episodes made in aiF, three from 1992 and four from 1994. He handled the episodes which took place outside, while František Váša worked on the indoor sets. Interestingly, in one recent interview Váša stated that a mishap happened to one of his colleagues, presumably this animator, when during the replicating process a negative cutter severely damaged the negative on which a Pat & Mat episode had been filmed, which meant that the whole short had to be reshot from scratch. I wonder which episode was affeceted by that.

at work on ep. #45 in 1994 (photo by I. Vít)

Mensdorff-Pouilly also animated the 45-second opening sequence used on aiF shorts.

intro - take a good look at Mat

When Marek Beneš started his studio Patmat s.r.o., Alfons was its first animator. He animated a short commercial for Merkur and episodes Puzzle and Bodygárdi.

Patmat's humble beginnings - Merkur commercial (P&M DVD 4)

with Marek Beneš, working on Bodygárdi (P&M DVD 4)

When production of the new series started less than 15 years later, he rejoined the studio and worked on episodes such as Odpad and Iglú. I must say I was a bit disappointed with some of the animations in the new episodes, mostly those subcontracted to China. It was then a nice surprise to watch The Nativity Scene and instantly spot that there's a lot of Alfons' work in it (with Jan Smrčka also handling some scenes). This is confirmed when, as an in-joke, he appears on the back of one of the books as the "scene builder". Also, the episode's story was provided by Alfons' son, Adam Mensdorff-Pouilly.

a familiar face

Style

 

Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly is one of my favorite animators on the series because his characters move in very elaborate ways. For him, the focus is on flexibility and the moves he produces from the puppets are very technically smooth. It almost looks like he produces double the amount of frames from one pose to another when compared to some other animators, maybe even too much in some of his latest work. An interesting quirk of his animations are characters making somewhat of tilt while moving, for instance moving all of their body to the side when only the hands are expected to move, characters tilting their head when raising their arms and such.

title card

In Mal'ovanie, he handles some complex slapstick scenes to great comedic effect. I would single out Mat trying to reach the ceiling from his rocking chair and falling into the paint bucket (2:56), Mat destroying everything, including Pat, with ladders (4:25) and the two trying to climb them (5:15).

Unfortunately, that was the only episode he worked on before the move to aiF Studio. However, even that episode showed an interesting distinguishing feature when it comes to his animation, as I also explained here. Mensdorff-Pouilly is one of the few animators whose animation can also be identified by the character's look alone. Specifically, his Mat is different from everybody else's. Before starting this blog I always thought this animator worked with puppets which had bulkier heads than usual. However, now I see that the heads are the same, but there are other differences: Mat wears his hat higher, so more of his head is shown and also, his eyes closer to the nose and to one another. The difference from other Mats can nicely be seen in Vrata, which was mostly animated by Marek Beneš, with just a few scenes by Mensdorff-Pouilly. Update April 1: I've taken another look at the episode and I have to apologize, as now I see that Mensdorff actually did more work on this episode than Beneš, even using the puppets on the first picture down below. It seems that in 1992 the animators used whatever puppets were available, changing from one to the other even in the same episode. The bottom comparison still stands, however.

Marek Beneš's Mat

Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly's Mat

His interpretation of the character has remained the same to this day.

Mensdorff Mat

non-Mensdorff Mat

Here's a video of Alfons working on the short animations which appeared between episode sections in the 2018 feature film Pat a Mat znovu v akci. It was the first time that Patmat film tried to give voices to Pat & Mat.

Patmat film. presumably for contractual reasons, does not give out animation credits for individual episodes anymore, but rather for the whole series. The credits are then the same for every episode and that way it's very hard to figure out who animated on a certain episode, but Mensdorff-Pouilly's animation usually sticks out if not for its great movement, then for his peculiar portrayal of Mat. Hopefully he will continue to do even more work as a true Pat & Mat great.