A Hand in Dlaždice

Rarely do I see frames from Pat & Mat episodes which I have no recollection of seeing. Yet this is exactly what happened a few days ago, when Rakso showed me this:

Yes, you're seeing it right, that's a hand occupying quite a portion of the screen in the 1992 episode Dlaždice. The screenshot comes from this master and is seen in motion on 1:06:

Parkety and Vrata: animation

Continuing from my interview with František Váša, today I will be discussing two episodes made in 1992, Parkety and Vrata, with focus on their animation.

The aiF Studio episodes are somewhat of a mixed bunch. I would say that overall, there is a significant drop-off in quality from the episodes which immediately precede them, those made in 1989-90, as they are more consistent. Still, I have noticed that this era is favorite to many fans of the show, especially those in Poland. I don’t know why exactly, but I would guess that the sort-of homemade feel which resonates from them, where you can sense that they come from a new, private studio slowly figuring out how to do certain things is a contributing factor. Broadcast history also must have played a part in this case.

I have never been a very big fan of the aiF era on the whole. This is also because I first saw these episodes only after I had seen the first 35 to death and although I was too young to articulate it, probably felt that they were not as good. However, maybe it is then easier for me to look at the individual episodes and see which I like the most. The episode Parkety has always been one of my favorites of the bunch. It is an episode which makes me laugh even though I’ve seen it many times. It’s got a fun story which keeps getting funnier as the episode progresses, which is why I feel it is definitely one of the best episodes of the fourteen.

Parkety and Vrata were the only two episodes from aiF co-animated by Marek Beneš. Leaving aside his work as a director and other functions on the series, Marek Beneš was, in my opinion, the weakest of the in-house animators on Pat & Mat, in-house referring to the three major studios which continually produced the series, aiF being the second of them. I would say his best work was also his first, Klíč. His animation’s main problem is that it lacks subtlety and fluency. Perhaps this is best seen by his walk cycles, which Pat and Mat can only undertake at a particular speed, performing extremely large steps. This can be funny at times, but when used all the time becomes a nuisance. His Pat and Mat are also very stiff, often jerkily moving from pose to pose, resulting in scenes which may look nice as individual poses (frames), but which do not look dynamic when seen in succession. A good example of his rigidness is the final handshake in this episode, where literally just the lower parts of the puppets’ hands move.

Váša, on the other hand, was the animator who used the most of the puppets’ body at aiF. His Pat and Mat are therefore the opposite to Beneš’s, often looking bubbly, getting even more energized as the years go on. Váša’s Pat and Mat were especially expressive with their hands – for instance, look at how Mat strokes his face at 1:09. This is where we come to the main topic of this post, the animation breakdowns.

František Váša interview (2020)

František Váša working on B. Pojar's Hiroshi

After a long pause, I'm today finally showing you something very interesting: my interview with František Váša!

What? How? When did this happen? Quite a long time from now, actually, August 21st, 2020. Some months before, I was able to reach Mr Váša by email (big thanks to Dan cz for help) and introduce him to the blog, which he very much enjoyed. He is often difficult to reach by email, though, so I was especially pleased to hear he would be visiting Split, my hometown! This was, in fact, nothing unusual. Dalmatia is often a summer destination for Czechs and his family is no exception. I had a chance to meet him and ask him what I wanted.

Our meeting took place almost in transit. Mr Váša had just arrived to Split and had a ferry to catch to the island of Vis, so we were able to talk only for less than an hour in Split’s center. Our exchanges were a bit comical; Mr Váša speaks little English – I understand Czech well but can only speak half-broken sentences with intrusive Croatian vocabulary. However, I came prepared with translated questions and they quickly set us off. I spent the next 50 or so minutes getting to talk about most of the stuff which went on in the aiF Studio with one of its leaders! In Czech, of course. It was, as you can imagine, an exhilarating experience, only compounded when I accompanied Mr Váša to the ferry, met his lovely wife (who speaks perfect English!) and then got to chat with an even bigger name in Czech stop motion animation, director Jiří Barta, who was also going to Vis! It was wonderful to meet all of them and, hopefully, this was just the first of our encounters. Very much a day to remember!

Still, the interview! I must apologize to my faithful readers for posting it very late, but the delay was caused by multiple factors, from troubles with faithfully translating certain remarks to lack of time, but also not being able to reach Mr Váša afterwards for months at a time. I should also mention that, per his request, I will not be sharing certain small portions of the interview. As you can imagine, aiF’s break-up was not the most idyllic of splits (on the contrary, lawsuits sprung up) and there is no point in possibly opening old wounds with certain people through my blog. I hope you can respect that, as I have. The majority of the story is still here, I can assure you.

Before continuing, I must again thank František Váša not only for agreeing to meet with me and answer my questions, but also for providing some images which have further enriched this post!

 

The interview

MP: How did you react when you first saw that there is a blog devoted to Pat and Mat?

FV: [laughs] Ha, I thought to myself, and forgive me, is it possible that somebody can show this much interest in Pat and Mat, is everything fine with that person? 

MP: Hahaha, well somebody must exist somewhere!