As a follow-up to my post about Jan Klos and his uncredited animation work in three episodes (link here), here a few scenes from other ... a je to! episodes which were done by animators "dropping by" to episodes assigned to their colleagues.
Skokani
Credited animator: Jan Klos
Notice anything different? The first scene of the episode was in fact animated by Karel Chocholín or somebody using his puppets (from the credited crew, this could only be assistant animator David Fílcik). The first scene is followed by one with a butterfly Pat notices and then we cut back to the two characters, but the puppets have changed. The rest of the episode is all Jan Klos' work.
I believe the opening scene was added at the end. Perhaps the episode originally opened with the butterfly or with a shorter opening scene and a slower one was deemed necessary. The eventual opening scene was about two days' work, so it would not have been much of a problem to add it.
Jablko
Credited animator: Karel Chocholín
Skokani
Credited animator: Jan Klos
Notice anything different? The first scene of the episode was in fact animated by Karel Chocholín or somebody using his puppets (from the credited crew, this could only be assistant animator David Fílcik). The first scene is followed by one with a butterfly Pat notices and then we cut back to the two characters, but the puppets have changed. The rest of the episode is all Jan Klos' work.
I believe the opening scene was added at the end. Perhaps the episode originally opened with the butterfly or with a shorter opening scene and a slower one was deemed necessary. The eventual opening scene was about two days' work, so it would not have been much of a problem to add it.
Jablko
Credited animator: Karel Chocholín
The following scene is Chocholín's work.
However, then it cuts to scenes made using Jan Klos' puppets (and I believe it's his work).
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| Chocholín's Mat has a much whiter head than this one |
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| this is a great scene |
The following scene is again by Chocholín.
These scenes were definitely not added later as they are integral to the plot. Why did Klos not merit a credit? Maybe the crew thought he didn't do much work or, more likely, they were already fed up with using aliases instead of his name and just omitted it this time. Although the copy isn't of very good quality to be sure, I don't think Klos did any other scenes in this episode.
There's a possibility this kind of thing happened in more episodes as well, but these two were the only ones where I noticed it.
I think you’re right – the shots on the rooftop do look like Klos’s work. It’s a very well animated sequence, with terrific comedy timing. That’s a great bit of observation on your part!
ReplyDeleteThanks. Did you have a chance to look at Tapety?
DeleteI did take a look at Tapety. You’re probably right about how the work was divided up in this episode. From a production point of view, it makes a lot of sense to split an episode into two distinct locations, and allocate the scenes in each location to a different animator. This way, (providing you have duplicate puppets) they can be shot simultaneously to speed up production. The best example of this is probably in Vylet (The Excursion), where Jan Klos clearly animates the whole exterior sequence with packing the car and it eventually exploding, and Chocholín animates the sequence inside the house where Pat and Mat create a fantasy campsite. Also, as you pointed out in Jablko, the two different sets (the rooftop and the yard) allow each animator (Klos and Chocholín) to work independently on their own scenes. Nowhere in the series are two animators’ styles contrasted so noticeably as in Vylet, where the clear division of the locations makes the comparison that much easier to make. Personally, I don’t find the animation on Tapety that interesting – for me (and it’s only my personal opinion), most of the animators (apart from Klos) struggled to different degrees to realize the complicated action and visual humour demanded by the scripts in an elegant way. It’s almost as if Pat and Mat was designed specifically to play to all Klos’s strengths as an animator (I know it probably wasn’t, though I think Beneš worked with Klos before Pat and Mat). Klos’s animation always appears effortless, and he stages very complicated actions clearly, and always with poses that are strong and balanced, whereas many of the other animators get the puppets (at times) into rather awkward poses as they struggle to stage the action. Some of the other animators also seem to struggle with making those extremely rapid exits and entrances that the characters make work well, whereas they seem completely natural in Klos’s episodes (because I think he probably originated that timing, and is therefore more comfortable using it). After the car explodes in Vylet, when Mat runs up and down the stairs inside the building at an unnaturally fast speed, he still slows on the turns to reflect the physical reality of such an action – it isn’t just all one speed. It’s subtle, but it’s what makes Klos’s work great. I haven’t really studied the work of the other animators on the various series closely, as Klos’s work is such a rich area of study, and very rewarding for an animator in terms of the specific techniques that can be learnt and applied to one’s own work.
ReplyDeleteI believe Tapety as an episode is very interesting, not only because it's, I believe, one of the best, but also because it's such an improvement over Kuťáci, which I consider the least interesting episode before the 1990s. Compared with those extreme exits (which have, sadly, slowly been abandoned in recent episodes), the time Pat takes to go from Mat's flat downstairs and return in Kuťáci is an eternity.
DeleteThe location division is also obvious in Hrnčiari (The Potters), where Klos handles all the scenes inside the house and in front of it, while Chocholín does the scenes in the yard, which are mostly Mat's failed attempts at pottery.
As for Beneš working with Klos before - that might not be the case. Beneš directed only four shorts before 1979 and three were animated by Chocholín. In all likelihood, the first one was as well, but there is no credits info online. Klos worked for Pojar during that time.