Animation drawings frequently repeat of course, and in the case of walk-cycles, or other cycle actions, the drawings repeat often. Quite frequently there were more numbers on the animation paper than there was drawing! And routinely, when there were corrections, the sheets became further filled with crossed out numbers, or inserted series of numbers when action had to be extended. All of the corrected numbers had to be carefully traced onto the cels by the inkers. It seemed totally bizarre to me. I saw many cells that had only eye-dots drawn on them, but enough numbers to look like an algebraic conundrum.

Even more maddening was in their format and framing system. We based our film layout practice on the Acme, and later the Oxberry, system of camera field formats, with the smallest possible format being the 1-field (rarely, if ever used), and progressing outward numerically, each field being numbered according to its width in inches. The Czechs labeled their largest format number-1, and used larger numbers for progressively smaller field sizes! And whereas we calculate all of our camera moves from the center of the fields, which remain constant no matter how we may move in or out, the Czechs perversely measured their camera moves from the lower, left-hand corner of the fields.

Then there was layout. Forget "Production Design," as we so elegantly labeled it in the old UPA days, the Prague studio had no category at all for layout. Layout and scene-planning were still my specialty, and I wanted to develop assistants to do this work. But the Czechoslovak Socialist bureaucracy had not created a layout category for the studio, so Zdenka had no way of paying anyone to do layouts. We had to label the work differently, but gradually a few young people took to it, and today they are the major directors in the studio.

The Silver Lining
So why in the world did I even want to cope with such problems for over 40 years? The fact is that I fell in love with the dynamic little production manager, with Prague, and with the possibility to do the kind of films I had been denied doing by my ouster from Terrytoons. I decided to learn their system, to teach them mine, and to try to get the twain to meet.

As much as I felt their system to be an illogical and cockeyed way to go about animation, I realized that what got onto the screen was all that really mattered. They did make great films. Their system did work, so if they were used to it, and it worked, well God bless them! The important thing was that they were good animators, and animation filmmaking was in their bones; it was a strong tradition in the country. In an earlier chapter, I hypothesized that the first "animation shows" took place in caves, 35,000 years ago. That is my opinion, but a fact is that the tradition that produced animation in this country really does go back that far! I'll explain…

One of the first things I noticed about the way they worked, is how they related to the figures they were animating; they referred to them in just that way, that they were animating figures. An American animator is far more likely to say, "I'm animating Mickey," or "Bugs," or whomever. An American animator's goal was traditionally to create an illusion of life, and we think of our characters as real personalities. We almost always use lip-sync -- our characters must appear to be really speaking. The Czechs had a diametrically opposite approach. The mouths did not move as they spoke dialog and the eyes did not really look. There was no great consideration to weight or the laws of physics. There was no real development of character. All of those things were secondary to a symbolic approach to storytelling. They felt that American animation left nothing to the imagination; that we "shoveled it to 'em.” They preferred to suggest, to mime. And that is where their ancient tradition came in. The same Alexander Marshack who had told me about the cave paintings, invited me to an exhibit of artifacts he had installed at the New York Museum of Natural history, objects he had found in his archaeological work. Among the objects on display was the oldest articulated puppet ever found. It was 35,000 years old and was found in the territory of today's Czech Republic! That ancient tradition of puppetry eventually evolved into the Czech animation style.

I respected their way, but yet there I was, with the task of producing animation movies for my American client, who (heaven forbid!), had no wish that our films would reveal their Czechoslovak origin. They had to look like "American cartoons."

Willy-nilly, I had to teach the Czechs the American style of animation. Amazingly, they were eager to learn. But of all the technical problems I mentioned, the one that was the greatest block of all to communication was still something else: "You say tom-ah-to, and I say tom-ay-to" is one thing, but what if you say "metrage," and I say "footage?" As the world is “globalized" the confusion over the array of electrical plugs, the range of voltages, PAL, SECAM or NTSC TV standards, region-limited DVD players, pounds and kilograms, miles and kilometers, inches and centimeters... Well animation footage/meters may not be the most earth-shaking of problems, but one of many disjoints that must come together if we are to live in a truly global village.

To find out more on Gene's career in the world of animation, read his book How To Succeed In Animation (Don't Let A Little Thing Like Failure Stop You!). An AWN exclusive.

Gene Deitch is one of the last surviving members of the original Hollywood UPA studio of 1946 and the instigator of the CBS-Terrytoon "renaissance" of 1956-1958. He was also: Animation Department Chief of the Detroit Jam Handy Organization, 1949-1951, Creative Chief of UPA-New York, 1951-1954, Director at John Hubley's Storyboard, Inc. New York, 1955, President of Gene Deitch Associates, Inc. New York, 1958-1960, Creative Director for Rembrandt Films, 1960-1968, and star director for Weston Woods Studios, Inc., Weston, Connecticut, 1968-1993. He has worked for over 40 years with the Prague animation studio, "Bratri v Triku."