A je to minutiae #4: a trip to the countryside

Lubomír Beneš at the wheel, circa 1981

Moving on into episodes with 1982 copyright dates, this time we will discuss the final batch of episodes completed at Studio Jiřího Trnky's Čiklovka branch, which consists of the unusual triplet of Sťahovanie, Voda and Záhradka.

These episodes feel interconnected. Although a long way off from being part of a real sequence of episodes, they are still the closest the series has at any point come to follow-up episodes. Even though all three end in complete catastrophes, it is easy to imagine Pat and Mat quickly fixing the mess they made by their moving expedition and continue with managing the water supply the next day. They mess that up as well and move on to gardening another day and so on. The connection is, of course, that all of the episodes take place on the newly-introduced countryside set. A good question to ask is: why not include Skokani? Although that episode is the only spiritual successor to these three, it was not filmed at Čiklovka, but at Wenzigovka (as confirmed by Jan Klos) so I will talk about in the next post. This one is too long as it is.

The upper image shows director Luboš Beneš working on the stone bridge. I've put the image as being shot circa 1981 because it appears to show the set and props in preparation. The 1982 episodes brought a change in the characters' appearance. They now sported thinner eyes and no longer utilized different face expressions. I wrote about how this led to them acting a bit differently back in February. If you take a closer look at the photo, you will notice (apart from it being scanned improperly - I noticed this too late and will fix it when the opportunity arises, sorry) that the puppet still has the old face on. I say 'the puppet' because I can't name it Mat - it is wearing a yellow shirt! All this makes me believe the photo was snapped in the middle of preparation.

The set is the original series' most ambitious. It is a big change from the confined surroundings of a typical flat or, at most, the back yard. Some of the details on this cozy, homey set are marvelous, like the stone walls and bridge, or the tree stumps scattered around, which I only noticed by watching TDK's masters. It is fun how they contrast with the ragged, barely standing chaloupka reused from 1975's Kouzelný dědeček, whose erratic movements are also charming in their own way, or the ridiculously redundant front gate. It is a neat link of the characters' clumsy, but optimistic nature. 

It is interesting to note how both Sťahovanie and Voda feature a solo writing credit for Beneš, while his usual colleague in that section, dramaturge Vendulka Čvančarová, was paired with Vladimír Jiránek for Záhradka. This makes me wonder whether the two episodes were prepared in advance. The 1981 episodes have more things in common with the 1979 episodes and feel like a holdover from that era. 

Then comes Sťahovanie (Stěhování in Czech), the most expansive episode of them all. Sťahovanie is a mini-adventure in itself which takes place in three different locations: the apartment building, the countryside and the road between them. It is not difficult to reimagine it into a feature-length film (let's call it Pat and Mat on the Road) as its sections can easily be expanded upon; for instance, by adding sequences about moving the furniture in or out and more roadside troubles.

Here is the first location and the first appearance of the house number 13, which would be carried over to future locations. A good eye will notice that walls have largely been repurposed from the previously seen back yard.

These episodes have some innovatively framed shots, no doubt the result of a more spacious set. I like the symmetry in these scenes.

However, some limitations of the camera equipment of the time are also noticeable in this episode. Jan Klos animated it - we've already discussed how he had a distinctive way of mixing the animation frame rates: singles (one frame per movement), twos (two frames per movement) and threes. Klos played with them a lot in this episode, but the change in different rates is quite noticeable. Nearly every time the exposure settings change, we can see a line appear near the middle of the frame. It seems as if the camera treats every frame rate change as a change of scene, with the line visibly separating one setting from the other. That way we get the same scene in multiple exposure settings, which produces a flickering appearance. Here are some examples:

Indeed, I have seen the same artifact appear between two shots (two separate scenes), for instance, in Gramofón. If anybody can offer some technological explanations on why this happened, I would like to hear them.

There are many funny poses in this episode. Here's Pat trying to stick to the wall as much as possible.

From this time on, two pairs of puppets were in frequent use, distinguishable by the faces: one pair had bigger, rounder eyes and mouths, while the other had thinner features. Klos is recognizable by the latter pair, as he used it from Skokani onward. I originally thought that he used that pair in this episode as well. That's not correct - entirely. The thinner-faced puppets do appear, but only sporadically. In fact, it's the puppets with the rounder eyes which Klos primarily uses in this episode. I originally thought Chocholín might have helped out, but I don't think that's the case now, as the animation appears to have been done entirely by Klos. Therefore, it seems this is one of those rare episodes in which one animator uses multiple pairs of puppets. The switches to other puppets occur at strange moments. The best reason I can come up with is that the scenes with the thinner-eyed puppets were animated later on, especially as Chocholín uses the thicker-eyed puppets in both Voda and Záhradka. Here's an example of close-up scenes featuring different puppets. I am including two snapshots of the first scene to again demonstrate the difference which occurs when changing frame rates.

Here's a particularly strange set of switches from the second half of the film. Thinner Mat:

cut to thicker Pat:

thinner Mat, next scene:

thicker Pat continued:

in the next scene, thicker Mat now appears!

thicker Pat continued and joined by thinner(?) Mat - it is hard to tell:

this wider shot appears to feature both puppets in the thinner-eyed variants. Pay close attention to the books in the car:

as their placing changes in the close-up shot and it seems the puppet does as well, meaning the scenes were not filmed at the same time:

A quick word on the props: as we know, when an opportunity to reuse a prop came about, it was taken. Beneš must have kept his somewhere handy. Here are the chairs you saw two images ago appearing in his first puppet film, Račte prominout (1974):

that chest next to them? Here it is in his Akorát (1977)

    Where are Pat and Mat going anyway? I haven't been able to decipher the signposts. Maybe Czech readers can help out.

The background does not move in this scene, so I presume the scene was done in an efficient and economical way by moving the stones and the tree in front and behind the car while the car itself remained in the same position. The same technique was used in some later episodes.

As mentioned, Jan Klos animated this episode and, as always, makes everything more entertaining. I think his Pat and Mat become just a bit more guarded after Grill, although the breakneck speed and vivacity they displayed previously does show up in certain scenes, especially these near the end, when the two again take things too far away.

Klos continues experimenting with the caps. Here is Pat's bemused expression.

and his cap going up in shock.

What don't you see in the above framegrabs? The holes on the soles! Pat and Mat's feet always have two holes which are used to fix the puppets to the tables. By watching some newest episodes (like Potrubní pošta) I noticed that the holes are usually masked (another sole is applied with glue) when the feet show up on the screen for an extended period of the time. Here are some examples of both unmasked and masked soles:

I've written about Klos extensively in the last post. Here are some frames which show the different devices he used in trying to provide that extra something. I like how many of these are funny or interesting on their own even though they were never meant to be seen in isolation.

most animators would not have bent Mat so much and would not have needed to pin him down

It appears here that Pat is standing on a bar tied to the car.

Pat falling over and getting up again is one of those complex scenes worth seeing frame-by-frame. The fall is intentionally photographed with blur. I guess they used some kind of multiple exposure back then.

I've tried to capture everything I could from the hopping action, which includes Pat being suspended from a rig above the set.

And here's the ending.

Reassembling this many props must have been exhausting.

The closing titles are almost the same as before. The letters were traced once more before being reshot.

Voda

I believe the first scene in this episode was actually animated by Jan Klos. Not only does the animation look more like his work, but the opening shot is framed practically identically to one in the previous episode, so maybe they were filmed back-to-back. Karel Chocholín definitely animated the scene after this one (Mat stopping with the car), though.

Here's a shot from the previous episode.

Here is maybe the most bizarre case of unwanted objects on the set. What appears to be a car part shows up for a single frame. You really can't miss it as it takes up quite a bit of space. There's something next to the back wheel as well, which remains for another frame. I often wonder how these props ended up on the set in the first place, especially when they seemed to have been noticed right away. The animator was probably focused on doing the next movement and forgetting the range of the frame.

Before watching the superior copies from TDK, I never noticed how the soil really gets replaced between shots...

... and how the puppets leave footprints in the "plowed" earth.

a work of postmodern art.

Look at the beautiful tree stumps in this great composition.

The pen was seen in many ... a je to! episodes, but it's older than the series. It is also there in Akorát:

Chocholín's Pat and Mat are often so reckless. Here's Pat casually discarding the hammer, which goes out of the frame.

The picket had to be suspended from the rig.

Another look at the (un)masked soles.

And here's one of the holes being used to fix Pat to the set. It is very brief, completely unnoticeable in regular viewing.

Another stump!

The end of the episode features one of those great catastrophic conclusions. How was this filmed? I don't know, but I can have a guess. Maybe they placed a tank of water between the camera and the set (or installed it to the camera) and slowly moved the camera upwards. You can see that the portion of the frame consumed by water remains identical. If you can think of an alternate solution, please comment. (There are some in the comments, I'm adding.)

Záhradka 

A charming addition to the cottage unnoticeable on a low-quality copy: a lantern, and a working one, too. It is turned off by Pat when he hears the alarm clock.

It can be seen here in another intriguing shot by Vladimír Malík, along with some jugs which haven't been seen in other episodes...

... unlike some other props. Here are images from 1979:

1982:

... and 2020!

Here's another nice shot by Malík in his last work on the series and one of his last works at Čiklovka.

Here's another instance of something unwanted appearing on the set for a bit. Unnoticeable on a tightly-cropped version.

The bottles could have genuine labels. One is some sort of Speciál and another appears to be a Staropramen, a popular beer even today. I think I have one in the fridge right now. The Czechs could again help out with the labels here.

Douane - the garden gnome came from outside of Czechoslovakia. Very expensive move for 1982!

Notice how something is in the camera's way in the lower right corner (in several frames). The enormous box had to be suspended with two rigs. ..

... which makes this scene even funnier. After all the trials and tribulations of getting it to the garden, it appears Pat can actually hold it in his hands!

Somebody rearranged the brushes in the middle of this scene.

Some dust is lodged in the camera and awkwardly appears in several scenes towards the end.

... and that's it for this post!