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. 

A je to: minutiae #3 (Čiklovka: Gramofón, Grill - Jan Klos steps onto the scene)

Gramofón

In 1981, the series moved from the "mother" studio in Bartolomějská to the studio's Čiklovka branch, most likely to save space. Only two people followed the series there: director Luboš Beneš and animator Karel Chocholín. The rest of the crew consisted of Čiklovka members, all new to the series. One of the most important members of the new team was cameraman Vladímir Malík. In Croatian as well as in Czech, there's saying that if you know something thoroughly, you have it in your pinkie finger. Malík could definitely claim that, not only because his surname translates to pinkie, but because he was the best cameraman of the three on the original series. Camera errors (such as shots out of focus) were at a minimum when he was behind the scenes, while his work is also full of intricate details like lush shadows. Since the early 1970s, Ivan Vít, who later returned to the characters in 1989, was his assistant.  Malík had bags of experience at Čiklovka - he was there when directors Břetislav Pojar and Josef Kluge opened the branch in 1959. However, his work on ... a je to! was among his last at Čiklovka, as he was shifted to the main branch in 1982. Here is a wonderful short documentary about his life made in 2011. Malík was born in 1931 and is currently 89 years old, hopefully still going strong. His predecessor in the role, Jiří Šafář, died in 2018 aged 97, so maybe being cameraman on the series is a good omen for a long life.

CHRONICLE OF CINEMATOGRAPHER VLADIMÍR MALÍK from Jaro Waldeck on Vimeo.

And here he is working in the studio (year unknown):

Gramofón is the episode where Malík's imprint is most felt. Remember, ... a je to! was made on a shoestring budget, often with time constraints, so not many innovations and time-consuming methods could be utilized. Still, the crew managed to make this episode look very atmospheric.

In accordance with the new surroundings, the titles got a makeover.

 Pat looks at his shiny gramophone. Unlike some episodes, this one features technology which is a relic of the past. Still, I don't think children would have much problem understanding what a record player does after watching it. The wallpapers and a lot of the props would later be reused in Křížovka, an episode which looks entirely different. Take a look at the detailed windows - to me, the setting looks as if Pat's flat is on a high skyscraper and has a view to lower ones.

A je to: minutiae #2

Hojdacie kreslo

Mat is watching some dog. Unfortunately, it is not Dášeňka.

Edgar Degas' The Dance Class is hanging on the wall. Pat had it in the previous episode.

A je to: minutiae #1

In this series of posts, I will discuss minutiae from the ... a je to! series. One definition of the word minutiae reads as precise details; small or trifling matters and that is what this is all about. Small or not so small details you probably never even noticed or you didn't think about them. The TDK masters made me rewatch the entire series a couple of times, this time in a new light, and these are some interesting bits and pieces a person who has watched these episodes so many times thought it would be nice to share. The screenshots are all raw, as they are on the DVDs, without any editing.

Tapety

No, the title card for Tapety is not green, but grey! The titles on the TDK masters look unusual for the 1979, almost as if they were sourced from different materials than the rest of the films, especially on the next episode.

a bit of a scratch, as if somebody sprayed the frame with gulaš

Mat has so much junk in his kitchen. I wish some other episodes also showed their homes full of items which don't belong there. It doesn't sit well with me when their living spaces are tidy. Previously, I didn't notice how the iconic gulaš can (that is, two cans, but you'll have to wait for another edition of minutiae to see an explanation) has a dark blue, not black outline around the words.

I already mentioned how Mat's living room looks very drab at the beginning, as if the crew did not yet have a sense of how to light up the set and started with too much white light. They gradually dialed it back a bit and introduced warmer colors, even in the same episode.

on the contrary, this shot needs some more light!

gulaš and bread, classic. or is it a croissant?

Maľovanie: three animators, two studios

Maľovanie is one of the most unique episodes of the entire Pat & Mat cannon and also the single most unique episode of the ... a je to! series. It always piqued my interest and I've always felt it somehow didn't match up with all the episodes around it. It turns out there's a great story behind this particular episode.

It is no surprise that Maľovanie ended up being the topic of the first post on this blog which wasn't part of an array of introductory posts concerned with producing a detailed filmography of the series. That short post, which only served as an introduction to a much more comprehensive one about Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, is here. I remember writing practically all of the short post and much of the larger one on my mobile phone on a snowy bus ride from Zagreb to Split in late December. That was more than half a year ago and in that time I've learned so much more about these bumbling handymen than I thought I ever would. For instance, I've learned that a key bit of information in that short post was - wrong.

Back to Maľovanie: This episode's main distinction is obvious: much of it is animated by Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, who typically did not work on the series, using a pair of  puppets which were never reused in the series. Yet, there are even more differences to be found in the credits: for instance, this is the only post-1979 episode that lists Věra Henzlová as production manager.

In hindsight, a most telling inclusion...

I'm very grateful to have been able to contact some of the people who worked on this great series and, of course, no person more than animator Jan Klos, with whom I've been able to talk about many of the films he worked on, both inside and outside of the Pat & Mat world. One day, Jan remembered an anecdote about his work in animation and sat down to share it with me by "knocking" it into his keyboard. With his usual self-deprecation, he quipped that this was one of those to share "before becoming history". It went like this:

It happened at Pojar's in Čiklova 13A. I finished an ... a je to! episode for Beneš and after a while I was due to start another one. Around that time, I had injured my right hand and had it in plaster (immobilized in large casing). I don't know the name of the episode, but I remember that the hero comes into the picture and carries a chicken that he intends to bake in the oven. He pulls the baking tray out of the cupboard. He finds out that the baking pan is not suitable - it is too small, so he pulls out a larger baking pan that is again not suitable - it is also too small and so on and so on until he is satisfied with the size of the baking pan. I animated these scenes with my left hand.

the headline says ... football competitions

A few words from Jan Klos

Readers of this blog should already be familiar with Czech animation legend Jan Klos and his work on the series in 1981-85. In one of my previous posts, I mentioned how I believe Klos' work on three episodes in 1984 and 1985 was credited with a pseudonym. In its conclusion, I stated: Jan Klos is still with us and, hopefully, somebody will ask him about this peculiarity someday, as there is probably more to this story. I am not one to sit around and wait, so already then I was trying to reach out to Jan myself. In the end, I was able to do so thanks to the great folks from Memory of Nations and the Post Bellum organization, for which Mr Klos had given an interview. I especially must thank A. Poláková, who gave me Klos' e-mail contact in the end.

There are couple of interviews with him online already (for instance, this one, where he talks for three hours), but they mostly concern his life before animation. In my e-mail to Mr Klos then, I presented my posts on the blog and asked him about several things: the altered titles, the way he animated the characters and so on. After about 15 days, responses started coming in.

Jan Klos about 20 days ago in a candid photo made by his son-in-law,
which he included in his e-mail

As you know, Jan Klos is 79 years old, so once again I must say: Thank you very much, sir, for taking the time to write to me! I know Jan will not read this, but in case members of his family do, give my best to Jan yet again. Jan stated that he cannot spend much time at the computer and has to "ram" his thoughts into it (he's, in his own words, a simple, old, too old man), so he provided answers to my questions in the form of chapters chronologically speaking about his work (of course, in Czech) and he didn't mind me sharing them on this blog. He really took the time and effort to write them over a period of a few weeks, so here I present them to you translated into English. You will notice that Jan openly discusses his life and work, often with self-biting irony As he noted: producing "humor and folk entertainment" is an ambition and an ideal profession for me. Unfortunately, it rarely succeeds.

Jan Klos:

CHAPTER 1

By profession a puppeteer, I became an employee of Krátký film Praha in 1973 by a combination of lucky coincidences and I began to animate in the Jiří Trnka Studio (puppet film) in director Břetislav Pojar’s staff. Those were my apprenticeship years in animation. DIFFICULT years - but BALANCED with a good feeling that I can be part of creation ON A CERTAIN LEVEL. The production process, dramaturgy, direction, collaboration with the experienced deaf-mute, ingenious animator Boris Masník, these were standard professional conditions - simply HAPPINESS (the studio's address then was Čiklova 13 A).

Břetislav Pojar in the studio's yard in 1974 (photo: Ivan Vít)

At the beginning of 1982, the management of Krátký film Praha banned Pojar from working (comrade director "was unable to fulfill the production plan") and Pojar's staff was scattered around. In order to be able to continue to animate puppets (it is the simplest and my favorite animation discipline), an average director, a skilful, hardworking man and also an employee of Kr. film Luboš Beneš offered me work on his films in a new four-member team. A space he discovered was adapted for shooting puppet films with cameraman Miler, animator Chocholín and one graphic artist. So I moved to the SECOND DIVISION, and there were five of us (address: Wenzigova 5). We called ourselves "Benešfilm". Here I worked on five or up to seven parts of PAT and MAT (I don't remember anymore), which belonged to the First series - it was 21 parts. Now I remember that the series was then called A JE TO.

Uncredited animation scenes in ... a je to!

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.

Jan Klos: seized credits?

As most readers of this blog have figured out by now, I love identifying animators and comparing their work on different Pat & Mat episodes. Each and every one of them brought their own interpretation of how the characters should move and act, sometimes probably unconsciously. In my previous post, I mentioned how Jan Klos is probably the best animator of them all when it comes to scenes where the character and personality is most important.

Jan Klos working in 1976 (photo: Ivan Vít)

This post, however, deals with strange animation credits on ... a je to! episodes from 1984 and 1985. Pat & Mat series usually had two animators handling most of the episodes; in the aiF era, those two were František Váša and Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly. In 1979, the two animators were Karel Chocholín and Xenie Vavrečková. In 1981-1983, it was Karel Chocholín again and Jan Klos. However, an unusal discrepancy in the credits happened in 1984 and 1985. Instead of Jan Klos, Ján Keks was credited for animation on Korčule and Hrnčiari, while Karel Klos was credited for Porucha. Interestingly, the Jan Klos credit was replaced with Ján Keks very noticeably ― you can literally see the smudges left by someone erasing L and O and replacing them with E and K.

1982

1984

1984

1985

Here also is the animation credit for Porucha, this time redone completely:

 

This is something that I always found strange. I've seen these episodes so many times and in the end arrived to the following conclusion: I believe that Keks and Karel Klos are in fact the same person - Jan Klos. Of course, my intuition is not enough to sell that statement. Here then are some other arguments for my case: 

Building character(s)

When reading articles about Pat & Mat, you will often find a sentence reading something like this: "It was in the first TV episode Tapety where they got their definitive look." On the face of it (pun intended), that's a mostly correct statement. However, I would say that the final important change to Pat and Mat's look is a subtle one which happened in 1982, specifically in the first of that year's episodes, Sťahovanie. That change would the last one to shape the characters into the ones we know and love today.

The handymen before and after 1982 were identical ― except for their faces. The faces were redesigned at that point; the eyes became thinner, their shape going from thick ovals to either an almost rectangular shape or a small circles, depending on the puppets used. The mouths were also changed. Before, different expressions were used to convey the two's emotions, with a circle representing shock or surprise and :( representing what it usually does, sadness and disappointment.

Mat going from sad...

... to confused in a matter of frames

the duo shocked at the end of Grill

Even though they were possibly made to conserve time, these changes brought about several fresh ways to handle the characters and imbued them with more comedic potential. When their eyes became smaller, Pat and Mat became less goofy, a bit more aware of what they were doing. This gave their DIY failures an even bigger punch as the "heroes" could be held even more responsible for their complete failures.

Repurposed sets

Pat & Mat's 1984-85 cottage on exhibition - or is it? (source: unknown)

Constructing the scale models used in filming of stop motion animation, as well as making all the props, is an elaborate and time-consuming process. The drill Pat & Mat use, as we've already mentioned, is as old as the characters themselves. If it works and looks good, there's no need to change it. As such, some of the sets used for the series are actually repurposed sets from other shorts or series.

A certain part of Lubomír Beneš's Král a skřítek (The King and the Goblin), his version of the King Midas tale, revolves around a fountain with a golden dragon on top. Here's what it looks like in that 1980 short:

Four years later, the fountain resurfaced in a short scene from the opening of Klavír, ...a je to! episode #25. This time, the top was changed to a statue of Mat (?) ― yes, I don't really understand it either.

Interestingly, an iconic set of the 1979-85 series had also been repurposed.

an intruder at the house?

Animator switch: Mal'ovanie

Mal'ovanie is one of the best episodes of this stop motion series. Although its plot is essentially a re-hash of Tapety, it combines good action and timing with probably the greatest slapstick humor of the series. This was aided by Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, a great animator whose only outing on the original series was this episode. More on him will follow in the next post.

This post shows an interesting production detail which rarely shows up. Although the vast majority of the episode was animated by Mensdorff-Pouilly, the first few scenes were handled by Karel Chocholín, most likely to save time.  Update: These scenes were, in fact, animated by Jan Klos, for reasons explained here. They also take place on a different set (the kitchen).

Apart from the animators' different styles, the switch after the first three shots is easy to notice because the puppets are different as well. See the differences for yourself:

There were other episodes animated by two animators, for example, Tapety, Výlet or Parkety, but I don't believe that any had such an easily observed switch which happened at the beginning of the episode. I will cover some of these later on.