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.
NOTE: In case you haven't read them yet, I started my discussion of these DVDs in two previous posts. Here's a post about the different masters of the same episode over the years which showcases just how much better TDK's masters are. In my most recent post (link), we saw how the Japanese audience experienced Pat & Mat in cinemas from 1999 to 2001, which must have been a big incentive to produce a DVD collection of the episodes.
This is an overview of five Pat & Mat DVDs released in 2001 by TDK Deep Impression. First of all, I have to yet again thank Jürg Schaeppi, without whom I would never get to know about these DVDs.
So, after a couple of years of theatrical shows, the time came for the series to receive a DVD release. This was one of the earliest, if not the earliest (I don't have data on South Korean DVDs) release of episodes produced prior to the 1990s on DVD. As this lovely promo found on eiga-chirashi.jp shows, the DVDs (and VHS tapes, as the collection was also issued in that format) were released on November 29, 2001, a week after a similarly high-profile release of another classic series from the same studio, Pojďte pane, budeme si hrát, which you should definitely check out.
Japan has often been mentioned as one of those countries where Pat and Mat have achieved unexpected, even enormous success. However, little of that success seems to be found on online platforms. When you type in パットとマット (the Japanese name for the series, which translates just as Pat and Mat), not many results show up. Google can muster only a couple pages of images and very few YouTube videos uploaded from Japan. This was always strange to me - were Pat and Mat not as popular in Japan as is often claimed? The truth is that I don't know and it's hard to tell. Maybe they were more popular with older generations which don't have as much of a presence on social media. Maybe Google's algorithms just aren't that powerful when it comes to Japanese sites? That argument doesn't hold up for South Korea, where a ton of material related to the series is easily accessible online. In any case, Czech animation (particularly people deemed to be auteurs like Jan Švankmajer) seems to be very successful in Japan, so the success of Pat and Mat can be seen as an extension tof that. I would love it if someone from the country (or someone who is more knowledgeable) could provide us with some more info - when were our beloved handymen shown on TV in Japan, how popular and known the series has been etc. Going by the available data, it seems unusual that undoubtedly the best DVD collection (unless some are hiding in places like Zimbabwe!) of the series was released in Japan.
Nonetheless, a clear backstory for the collection can be constructed thanks to Wayback Machine's archives, which saved many of TDK's web pages from the early 2000s. From my rummaging through these auto-translated sites, I gathered that TDK Deep Impression (or Deep Impression TDK) owned or were close associates of RandomでEvolvingなNetwork, or REN Corporation for short. REN, in turn, founded Open Cinema Network to release both domestic and foreign films in Japanese cinemas. After a successful festival of Czech animation in 1997, another one followed in 1999. By 1999, Pat and Mat's stock was quite high as they were awarded a couple of prizes at the World Animation Celebration in the USA in 1997. They were the 1999 festival's main attraction. This is the poster for the Czech Festival of Cartoons and Puppet Films '99 and its reverse side (source: page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/):
I know what you're thinking - Karty in Japan?! Well, by all official records, no. It doesn't seem Karty was actually shown on the festival even though a promotional shot from the episode was omnipresent. My guess is that maybe Karty was originally supposed to be featured, but copyright disputes didn't allow for it to happen. The promo photo was even featured on the festival's website and, ironically, was the only one on the index page saved by Wayback Machine:
The festival's website contained specific information about which films were going to be shown in three "programmes", A, B and C, which were to be presented around Japan from August 1999 to February 2001. Each programme featured five Pat & Mat films together with classics from authors such as Švankmajer, Trnka, Barta and Jiránek. The programmes premiered at the Nakano Musashino Hall in Tokyo, with A being shown August 14-August 27, B August 28-September 10 and C shown September 14-September 24. The featured films (it's sounds wrong to call them episodes in this sense) were, by programme:
As you can see, most 1989-90 and aiF episodes, the most recently produced at that time, were shown. I am quite jealous of the people who got to experience these on a cinema screen. It must have been a special feeling and, of course, copies made to show the episodes must have been of highest possible quality - you would never screen a cheap TV master tape in a cinema, especially for such a long period of time. The festival traveled all around Japan. The screenings continued next year: this is the schedule for 2000 taken from the site (apologies for errors in names due to auto-translation):
Saturday, April 29-Tuesday, May 16 Kichijoji Baus Theate
May 30 (Tue)-June 4 (Sun) Shiga Kaikan Cinema Hall
July 8th (Sat)-July 14th (Fri) Matsuyama Cinema Lunatic
Saturday, July 29-Monday, July 31 Oita Prefectural Cultural Center
Next to the promo image for Kabriolet, you can (barely) see a photo of Beneš and Jiránek. Although the 2000 festival featured six programmes, only the first two contained Pat & Mat episodes and, this time, it was the rest of the episodes from the aiF and Krátký film packages:
A: Kuťáci, Sekačka, Vrata
B: Okap, Živý plot, Blatník
The inclusion of aiF episodes is interesting. Although they were already in distribution limbo by 2001 (probably by 2000), maybe the disputes around aiF's legacy weren't valid in Japan or weren't important for theatrical rights. In any case, ... a je to! episodes were not yet shown at any date. That finally changed in 2001:
In 2001, the festival's headline was Hey Mister, Let's Play, or Pojďte pane, budeme si hrát, after the eponymous 1960s series which was the star of that year's festival. However, there was time for 12 Pat & Mat, or should I say, ... a je to! episodes. They were, in order of programme:
A:Veľké pranie, Telocvičňa, Vinári, Výlet
B: Gramofón, Korčule, Hrnčiari, Raňajky v tráve
C: Krížovka, Dážď, Jablko, Porucha
Again, the programmes premiered at Nakano Musashino Hall, from Saturday, July 7 to Friday, August 17. The 2001 festival was, it seems, the last (not counting a festival of new Czech animation in 2002). Even though there were future screenings of classic Czech animation, they weren't billed as "festivals". It seems that Pat and Mat weren't part of future screenings, but it's not impossible that I missed something on various iterations of REN's website. In any case, future screenings are not important for our story. By 2001, Pat and Mat had amassed a large enough audience in Japan and it was time for a DVD/VHS collection of their films! Read about them in my next post...
Here's a blast from the past: a VHS tape! Some of you have surely already forgotten this relic of the past. I still used VHSs about ten years ago, mostly to record cartoons. Nowadays, my VCR is, although still completely usable, retired. I have had this tape for many, many years, since around 2003. It was part of a 7-casette collection which included the first 35 episodes of the series. Let's see its covers:
I am sure you recognized the promotional photo as being from Střecha. Indeed, that's the final episode on this VHS. It is preceded by, in order, Obraz, Záhradka, Dážď and Hrnčiari. However, this is not a post about this VHS or my VHS collection, for that matter. The topic of this post concerns the second episode featured on the VHS, Záhradka(or Zahrádka in Czech - or The Garden in English). In fact, what I will be talking about today is how this episode has been presented on home video and other official releases throughout the decades.
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:
