Hello everybody, this will be just a brief post, as time permits. Fellow ajetologists have alerted me to this video, today's airing of the News show from Czech Television's Déčko channel for children. It confirms something only mentioned in brief so far, that the Countryside series is continuing.
Martin Kublák working on Plot in 2018 (source: pro-miminka.cz)
As I' ve mentioned in a few other posts, a list of animators on the 2018-20 episodes would be useful for future reference, so here it is. These episodes all have the same group animator credits (with all the Czech and Chinese animators listed on every episode), which are annoying when you want to see which people worked on which episode exactly. The credit usually goes:
Animation: Jan Smrčka, Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, Wang Peipei, Xiang Weiwei, Li Xiangyuan, Yu Huagong, Xiao Xieliang
Martin Kublák, seen above, appears in the credits on seven episodes from 2018, but worked on only one of them, Plot. The group credit means that it is impossible to discover anything purposeful about the styles of various animators in the Chinese Steamworks studio. When it comes to style, though, I can see Steamworks' animators mostly tried to copy Jan Smrčka's animation and presumably watched a lot of his Venkovĕ episodes. Steamworks did their jobs well enough that 'ordinary' viewers won't spot many differences between their and Czech works, but we are not ordinary viewers. So, I've produced a list of 'who animated what' on these episodes. Unfortunately, for Steamworks' animators, I can only write the name of the studio, not the animators involved. Of course, this is all guesswork (albeit educated, experienced guesswork based on many instances of watching the episodes), so please report any inaccuracies if you find them. I have already gone through this list with a reader of the blog (Buurman) and none were found, so I am not expecting any. For episodes with multiple known animators, screenshots are included. AMP is short for Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly. The animator credits have been added to my episode list. Thanks to Buurman for all of his help in making this post.
Včely – Steamworks
Sekačka – Steamworks
Krtek – Jan Smrčka, Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, Steamworks; Smrčka does the scenes in front of the fence, while Mensdorff does those on the houses set. Steamworks was given a 20-second sequence inside the workshop.
Just a small post today. As I've said, more behind-the-scenes photos are bound to come from Steamworks Studio, who animated many of the 2018-20 episodes in China, which I talked about in my previous post. These photos come from an article on the Chinese website new.qq.com. I didn't want to just copy every single photo here, so here's a link to the place where I found these and all the rest of them: https://new.qq.com/omn/20200731/20200731A0BSF100.html
Never heard of Steamworks Studio? Neither did I until yesterday, but I am familiar with some of their work, namely many episodes of the last three Pat & Mat series. I've previously written about how I couldn't find any information on the Chinese studio where the newest P&M episodes were (also) filmed. I can now finally stop using substitute, inadequate names such as "Chinese studio" and call them by their proper name, Steamworks Studio.
source: maoyan.com
And how did we finally get to know them? Well, a few months ago, after some heavy searching, I managed to uncover the Chinese name for Pat & Mat, 呆瓜兄弟. I hope somebody from China can offer a fair translation of the name, but online translators variously give it as Dumb brothers and Dolly brothers, which, I guess, sums up the gist of it.Unfortunately, Googling that name turned up almost nothing of importance at the time.
Luckily, Rakso, Pat & Mat fan extraordinaire, thought to search again and hit gold. Nowadays you can find much more posters, videos and advertising material for the characters in Chinese in general and there's good reason for it. Today (July 31) a Pat & Mat feature film will be released in China. It seems to be a significant date from what I've gathered, the reopening of Chinese cinemas for family-friendly movies after the coronavirus lockdown, so it's nice that Pat and Mat will be part of that story. Judging by the trailers, the film is 2018's Pat a Mat znovu v akci or some version of it.
A theatrical release means trailers and an unusual one appeared in China a couple of days ago. The studio filmed a new sequence where Pat and Mat think up of their own dance routine for what I guess is a popular Chinese song. It is a nicely done, pleasant sequence.
The studio also did a making of video to accompany it. Eventually, they also posted it to their Facebook site and by doing so revealed who they are!
From this short video and the one in the ending credits of Znovu v akci, I can see that the animator is the same person who animated most or all of Schody, so it's not surprising that the handshake at the end of the performance is executed almost identically to the one in the aforementioned episode.
More about the studio can be found on their website. They are based in the Jianggan district of Hangzhou, a city of more than 10 million people. Their full name is listed as Hangzhou Steamworks Creative Co. Ltd and they have been doing stop motion since 2004. The English translation of the studio's website is pretty wonky, so I have been able to find some familiar names (for instance, Wang Peipei, listed as executive director) only on their original site automatically translated to English.
making of Výroba ledu (maoyan.com)
You would think that's all, but not yet! After some more digging, I also uncovered a much more elaborate behind-the-scenes video uploaded only at the beginning of this week. Here we get an insight into the production process of a couple of episodes:
Of course, I can understand Pat & Mat producer Tomáš Eiselt perfectly well, but I wish I could understand what is said in Chinese! If there's somebody from China lurking here (and I have seen a few visits from there pop up), it would be nice if they could offer us a basic translation or maybe show us the video's original 1080p version. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if I managed to miss another video or interesting behind-the-scenes photo, so please comment if you find some. I have a feeling more is to come.
Update, August 3: Check the comments for the 1080p version and the translation. Here's the dance sequence in 1080p:
This post continues my review of individual episodes from the Pat a Mat kutí series. For more on the series as a whole and previous episodes, visit Part I here.
Before I go on, I know there are readers of this blog who would much prefer to read about the old episodes and the history of the series. Don't worry and stay tuned because some very interesting (even exclusive) stuff is on the way...
8. Barbecue
animated in China
I'm not particularly pleased with the three 2020 episodes which were animated in China (8, 10 and 12 on this list). For me, they are mostly average episodes on the whole with some funny moments scattered around. Their pacing is often sluggish and things happen too slowly. It's interesting then that the studio has reedited (or is in the process of doing so) the 39 8-minute new episodes into 5-minute ones for some TV markets. I've only seen Sauna from the Winter series in that format and the result was promising. Do this to some of these episodes (even speed up the animation in some scenes) and I feel they will come out better.
A friend told me this episode reminded him of Grill, but I think it has much more to do with 2003's Opékají špekáčky, with the ending practically being the same. In any case, it's at least easy to identify with Pat and Mat and their barbecue fails in this episode.
9. Potrubní pošta / Tube Post
animated by Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly (interior scenes) & Jan Smrčka (exterior scenes)
I LOVE this episode! When it premiered on YouTube, I watched it and then immediately had to watch it two more times, which didn't happen with other episodes from this series. It's probably my favorite episode from the past decade. In one of my posts, I wrote how viewers looking for a nostalgia trip will rarely find it in these newest episodes. That is definitely not the case here as this episode hits all the right buttons and it's a great one for fans of the original show. There are even appearances of two old friends in the form of props - the original drill from 1976 (how cool is that!) and a jug that appeared in 1980s countryside episodes such as Zahrádka. Experts will recognize some younger props as well, like the green vacuum cleaner which appeared in Patmat's first episode, Puzzle, back in 2002.
Nevertheless, it's not only nostalgia that makes this episode great: it is not the funniest of the episodes, but it never loses focus and feels inspired - I can imagine Marek Beneš, who also wrote it, looking at a tube post system or hearing about it and thinking - this would make a good episode. It shows that the two don't always have to be hilarious to be charming. The pacing is very good and consistent throughout, while the animation is splendid and the animator casting makes the best use of the two animators. This is a great resource for comparing their different styles, which I'll write about in the future. The episode is also very expansive as it takes place on six different sets (the houses and five indoor sets), with the attic rooms appearing for the first time, which adds to the dynamic. All in all, a very pleasant episode with a great atmosphere.
All of the newest Pat & Mat episodes are out, so it's time to take a look at each one of them and the series as a whole. This two-part post will feature my comments about the series, mini reviews and tidbits. All of the episodes will be available on the official YouTube channel by Monday - all episodes have already been aired on Poland's TVP ABC.
I would generally describe Pat a Mat kutí as: okay to good. I stand by my comment that it's the series I enjoyed most from the three produced from 2018 to 2020 and there are several reasons for it. By and large, I was indifferent towards the first series (my opinion has changed for some episodes, though), more pleased with the second and even more pleased with the third. However, I would understand if some people prefered the second or first series because this is the most inconsistent of the three - it often felt like hit-and-miss and it's a mixed bag: there were some episodes I truly enjoyed, some I enjoyed less and some I did not like. Overall and in this context, this variety is to me more interesting than most episodes being on a similar level and not overly ambitious. As always, your opinion in the comments would be appreciated.
The title, Pat a Mat kutí, is basically saying Pat and Mat do handymen stuff. That's understandable as the title is more a placeholder than anything else. The series is just Pat and Mat. However, it's interesting then that this particular series is not that much about DIY at all. A more apt title would have been Pat & Mat: Food (and else) as only five of the episodes don't have anything to do with food or drinks. I don't have a problem with that as long as the episodes are entertaining and for the most part, they are. Conversely, the first series had no episodes explicitly about food.
Pat and Mat making dough
This series had the highest percentage of animation produced in Czechia (6/13 episodes - almost half). That's a big plus for me as even though the Chinese animators (Update, July 2020: Info on the Chinese studio, Steamworks Studio, has come up - click here for details) handled the series mostly OK up to this point, they can't replace two animators who have a combined 55 years of experience on the show. Also, the Czech episodes from this series were visually much more pleasing than those from the first due to their lighting (the Chinese have a distinct purplish hue). The first series definitely looked way too bright and overblown. Compare two pictures from the website, first and third series:
This series features a nicer array of colors that look more balanced, even if the series as a whole still looks, as a friend noticed, sterile compared to pre-2014 episodes, as that's when a drastic change to the lighting was made, presumably due to new equipment. I also found the music in this series to be the most enjoyable. I especially liked Zdeněk Zdeněk's tune that plays near the end of Palačinky, Potrubní pošta and Chleba (and probably some others)when the two think they are approaching a solution. As such, I would rate this series the best in the context of the three 13-part "seasons". Not on the overall level of Pat a Mat na venkově, but continual progress is present.
Back in February, I wrote how DVNR massacred individual frames in some episodes from 2003 and 2004. I had to update that post right now with examples from even more episodes. However, these digital defects are not something I would expect to see in the newest episodes as they are all recorded digitally, so it was an unpleasant surprise to notice a few in the recently released episodes. Rakso 98 caught this one from Létající stroj. Look at Mat's beanie, which goes through deletion phases in a couple of seconds. It is a minor mistake, noticeable only from a really detailed viewing.
Výroba ledu has a much more noticeable defect which I spotted on my second viewing. Look at Mat's hands in front of the tree. An even larger section is deleted here. It's not just these individual frames, but the whole scene.
There's another type of error that appears in a few episodes. I mentioned it when talking about Automyčka (which, interestingly enough, doesn't have that error in the movie version) and here it is in Potrubní pošta. Part of the frame is left unfilled, this time the left corner.
Does anybody want to wager a guess why these mistakes happened? What did the video postproducer try to fix on the images that caused the first type of mistake? Presumably, it's all just a consequence of some bad settings. Let me know if you find more of these.
Today, we'll take a look at what I believe to be the funniest episode from the 3-season, 39-episode batch produced by the Patmat film studio between 2018 and 2020 - Popcorn. I have not yet seen two episodes that still need to be released on the series' official channel, but I suspect they won't be as funny as this one (hopefully, I will be proven wrong!). When all episodes have been uploaded, I will write a post giving some of my views on the other 12. Popcorn is actually not my favorite episode from these seasons - that honor goes to Tube Post (which I will write about in the future), but I believe this one is best suited to the general public.
This episode was, like many others (around 2/3) from the three "seasons", animated in China. Before we take a look at the episode, let's see how this unusually large batch of episodes came to be. It seems it was, in fact, the Chinese who approached the parent studio, not the other way around. Director Marek Beneš was initially skeptical, but the production offer seemed too attractive to decline. It's all explained in this interview with him from aktualne.cz, where he promises that Pat & Mat will not end up like Krtek (The Mole), whose 3D adaptation The Mole and the Panda produced in China was unfavorably reviewed in Czechia.
Beneš was approached by a couple of Chinese studios that would like to make a new series about the two klutzes. Although the author is personally more against it, the company's sales department does not oppose any cooperation with China. "In Asia, whether it is in Korea or China, they want hundred episodes for the series. We shot 90 of them so far, but they were made in 40 years, "Beneš describes. The Chinese came up with an offer to shoot 39 parts in two years with significantly lower costs, of course. "Today, one episode costs us about three Škoda cars. The Chinese would be able to do it for about half of this amount," Beneš adds.
The main attraction is speed. Today, four people take part in filming: a director, an artist, a cameraman and an animator. They work on one episode for three months, eight hours a day, while a Chinese studio could arrange several such shoots at once. "I say that it will not work, that it is a typical Czech environment, that it has to be done by the creators, and it is, for me, untransferable with such a distance. We also had reservations about how the episodes were made in Zlín, and it was the Czechs who worked on those,“ Beneš describes. However, he admits that there is contact between the studios about the cooperation. "There has already been a suggestion that we remake the episodes with slanted [Monolid] eyes," Beneš says.
In another interview with Beneš, the negotiations were said to be "at an advanced stage", but that one was published only in November 2017. So, it seems production probably started by the beginning of 2018, while the first movie, Pat & Mat in Action Again, was in cinemas in June of that year already - all 13 episodes premiered on ČT by September. Interestingly, Krtek's Chinese series consisted of 52 episodes (standard practice; one episode per week), so an extra "season". Patmat film had already produced Pat & Mat in the Countryside, which explains while one "season" less was ordered. In the end, the parent studio provided the storyboards and received animation work daily.
Are the Chinese productions a success? I would say - yes. Average viewers won't suspect that the episodes were not animated outside of Czechia, let alone as far away as China. The Chinese animators copied the animation style of the series good enough for it to go unnoticed. The animation seems to have gone a bit downhill for Chinese episodes with a 2020 copyright date (presumably those were rushed), but that's a topic for my other post.
A new episode, the first of 13 from the new series Pat a Mat kutí (Pat & Mat do DIY - there's no official translation yet), was released on March 5. It is episode 33 (meaning ep. 7/13 in the series) and was posted on Attraction Distribution's (one of the worldwide distributors of the series) Vimeo profile (link here), but the video posted there is slowed down, so here's a link to a corrected version from a dedicated Polish fan. The title is Automyčka, or Car Wash:
I thought this was a funny and satisfying episode, not a bad way to open the new series. The previous 6 episodes were released on December 17 last year and are officially available free of charge on this link: https://www.televizeseznam.cz/porad/pat-mat
UPDATE, March 11: The titles for the next 13 episodes with screenshots have just been announced on Patmat film's website. Click the following links for Czech or English lists.
I haven't had a chance to cover the newest episodes on this blog yet, so this is an occasion to air out some opinions and criticisms of them.
This episode is one of 39 episodes split into three 13-part series: Pat a Mat nás baví (Pat & Mat Entertain Us), Pat a Mat v zimě (Pat & Mat in Winter) and the new series, which is basically the first series renamed. Although the episodes are still technically on a high level and were made the same way as older episodes (the only
difference being digitization: they are now shot digitally in 4K), the newest episodes generally can't hold a candle to older episodes. It can
be said that the newest episodes are all decent, but not much else. There are not
(m)any stand-out episodes and there aren't many really bad ones.
The first series, Pat a Mat nás baví, was
especially disappointing. It was the first series with
these characters that I didn't really enjoy overall and I consider it a step down from Pat & Mat in the Countryside (Pat a Mat na venkově), the series that preceded it. The winter series was an improvement, so I hope the third one will be as well. Don't get me wrong, I am definitely not
against making new episodes, but I am against making 39 of them in 3
years, numbers which were not reached even when three studios produced episodes at the same time. I'm afraid that is just hyperproduction. Although we can all agree that the heights of ...a je to! will never be reached again, there is always potential for good adventures with these characters if we tread carefully.
The car wash contraption from the episode
Director Marek Beneš has stated that finding new ideas for the episodes is really
tough. This was painfully obvious in the often boring and monotonous first series and prompted the studio
to hire new writers, specifically Štěpán Gajdoš, who was born in 1997, just
like the author of this blog. Interestingly, the story credit for this
episode is the first ever given to Kees Prins, the voice of Pat in Dutch
dubbings. In this interview from 2018, Prins said:
Well, they did approach us to maybe think about ideas for episodes, because they are now - I believe - making 36 of them, with a master plan of 81 in total. So, they also need feedback from other people, and, of course, it is very nice that they have asked us. I said: first, let me think. Then, I made three stories and sent them to the studio. And they have already chosen one of those three, it still has to be made, but it is already in the pipeline.
Other interesting story shouts are Ladislav Pálka, the Ateliery Bonton Zlín director
from 2003-04 (maybe an unused script from that time) and this episode's animator's son.
Even though it was fun, I feel this episode would have been even better if it was condensed into a 7-minute episode with the action sped up. Pacing is problematic in the new series. The action often feels overdrawn; there is a sense that not much (or rather not enough) is happening, which wasn't the case with Countryside. A further hindrance is that all episodes are timed to exactly 8:00, which leaves no room for improvisation during filming. In 2003-04, the episodes were timed to 7:00. The slowing down might also be connected to the target audience: as promotional leaflets say, the new series is marketed to children aged 3-8.
Mensdorff-Pouilly working on a yet unreleased episode (volskrant.nl)
"I did not want to spend the next 15 years animating 30-odd episodes with one animator", Beneš said in an interview, referring to the 2011-15 episodes, where Jan Smrčka worked as the sole animator. Now, seven animators, two Czech and five Chinese, get to do the work. Without much guessing, I can say that Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly animated this episode in its entirety. His handprint is all over it: the fluid, but unique way the characters move (notice their wobbly walk cycle), and Mat's appearance cannot be missed. However, I noticed a certain stiffness in some scenes of the episode, which is probably a result of the fast production schedule. The stiffness can especially be noticed in episodes animated in an unnamed Chinese studio, where young animators work to get these episodes out faster. I've tried to find out the name of the studio, but it has never been mentioned in any interview. Googling the Chinese names listed in the credits also doesn't turn up any results. Beneš criticized the studio in this 2019 interview, saying they finished the episodes later than Patmat film was originally told. These delays meant the studio had to ask for an extension of their 2-year deal with Czech Television. Yet another evidence of a the production being quite hectic is that post-production mistakes occur here and there: look at this scene from the episode, where part of the frame is left unused.
Countryside, the series preceding these three new series, had a much more nostalgic atmosphere and was overall more enjoyable. An important factor in that was also Petr Skoumal's music. Skoumal sadly passed away in 2014 and the last four Countryside episodes had to be completed with music he composed for previous episodes. The new composer is Zdeněk Zdeněk, who possesses years of experience in composing animated series. Skoumal's shoes are very tough to fill after 90 episodes and Zdeněk was only partially successful - I was often annoyed with his music in the first series as I thought there was a certain overload in that department. He improved during the winter series, but there is one major objection I have regardinv his scores - not counting titles, he has never utilized the Pat & Mat theme in any way. As Skoumal used it in practically every 2000s episode, this is a step away from tradition. Older viewers would be pleased to hear the old theme here and there.
Marek Beneš, Zdeněk Zdeněk (patmat.cz)
One of the reasons older viewers still tune into Pat & Mat is that they are given a nostalgia trip, something which, I believe, they can't quite get from these episodes. Before writing this post, I talked with some older viewers and consulted Czech reviews; most of them say that a certain magic and charm of the series has been lost. To paraphrase an old title, you could hear them say: ... and that's not it!
our heroes
Maybe that's a bit too harsh. The new episodes still remain a unique programme. They are surely interesting to children audiences even though they won't be an older fan's cup of tea. No matter what, it is still Pat & Mat. This blog will therefore continue to keep track of new episodes as they start to appear in the future. Patmat film is currently preparing production of further new episodes, which will start next year.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the newest episodes in the comments below.
