Norman McLaren Boogie Doodle (1940)

Boogie Doodle was made in 1940 in New York City, it is a directive film animation where ‘boogie’ was played by Albert Ammons and the ‘doodle’ was drawn by Norman McLaren. Is an artistic abstract animation that includes a combination of primary bright colours such as red and blue, it also has simple shapes such as circles and lines that move to the sound of blues while creating new laboured patterns. However, in this essay it is going to be analysed if this animation is purely artistic and imaginatively using their aesthetic ideas or if there is a meaning why this animation was decided to be in this way or a mathematical process that has been used to create it such as sequences, meaning that many shapes will repeat or even have a pattern in the way they are moving.

First of all, we need to start with the basics to be able to analyse this film. So, what is animation? “Animation draws the elements of its future works from raw material made exclusively of human ideas, those ideas that different animators have about things, living beings and their forms, movement, and meanings. They represent these ideas through images they make with their own hands” (Wells, 1998, p. 7). So, “Understanding animation is, therefore, part history, part theoretical speculation, and part spirited defense of neglected but important film form.” (Wells, 1998, p. 8)

Consequently, Norman McLaren’s piece can be seen as an animation due to the fact that his piece has human forms moving in abstruse ways creating new ones and all of this with the sound of music and following the beat. Animation is also “both art and craft; it is process in which the cartoonist, illustrator, fine artist, screenwriter, musician, camera operator, and motion picture director combine their skills to create a new breed of artists – the animator” (Blair,1994, p.6)

Furthermore, since this is an abstract animation it means that “It fully demonstrates its intrinsic capability of moving non- representational lines and materials which fall outside the orthodox ‘realist’ constructions and agendas” (Wells, 1998, p. 29) and “true abstraction and the true symbol must have an intriguing spirit and integrity of its own, and it must suggest more meanings, various, almost contradictory depths and speculations beyond the surface value” (Moritz,1988, p29)

However, some state that “animation is the process of abstracting the data, operations, and semantics of computer programs, and then creating animated graphical views of those abstractions.” (Stasko, J. T. 1990). So, this short could have been mathematically prepared to go along with the beat and rhythm meaning the shapes appear in a systematically order other than in an artistic way.

Notwithstanding not only is an abstract animation but it is an experiential film. “Experimental film concentrates on its very materiality, i.e. the forms in which it is being made, and the colours, shapes and textures which are being used in the creation of the piece […] evoke certain moods and ideas but, once again, film-makers working in this way are suggesting that these aspects should give pleasure in their own right without having to be attached to a specific meaning or framework” (Wells, 1998, p. 45) so this short should be mainly imaginative, original and improvised.

Per contra, “experimental animation is closely related to philosophic and spiritual concerns and seeks to represent inarticulable personal feelings beyond the orthodoxies of language” (Wells, 1998, p. 45) Therefore, this short is not just only a random cut of patterns and shapes moving according to the beat, as an experimental film it also has a meaning why the artist use those colours, those patterns and that type of motion. In fact, “McLaren's films contain incongruities, conflicts, and apparent inconsistencies” (Dobson, T. 1994) so there shouldn’t be a causality that the animation is made as something spontaneous and following his artistic imaginary instincts.

Moving on, inside this artistic animation there are 3 different narrative strategies that can be detected; metamorphosis, choreography and sound, this are represented throughout the whole animation with the most important one being sound as it what not only gives life to the shapes, but it also gives them a soul. “Metamorphosis is the ability for an image to literally change into another completely different image, for example, through the evolution of the line, the shift in formations of clay, or the manipulation of objects or environment.” (Wells, 1998, p. 69)

In Boogie Doodle there are incredible amounts of shapes that transform into other ones. However, there are very specific recognizable shapes such as strings simulating a double bass which is a blues instrument such as the one played in the song and the shapes move side to side through the strings creating new ones. Blackhearts and blue circles are the main patterns that are seen during the whole animation, black hearts normally represent death or being emotionally cold which is weird to have in this representation due to the upbeat and tempo it has.

Nevertheless, in this case, the black heart could mean black music as the composition is a jazz Afro-American piece and it could be representing the origins of the song. The heart figure molds itself to other “love figures” such as a kiss and it seems like is trying to trap the blue forms all along the animation, not only that but is also acts at some point at the shadow of the blue figure which could be interpretative for slavery since from “1939 to1945 The German Nazi government uses widespread slave labor in farming and industry. Up to nine million people are forced to work to absolute exhaustion—then they are sent to concentration camps.” (FRS, 2000) So, this could be assimilation in what was happening in the world through those dark times.

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The other narrative strategy that can be seen is choreography. The choreography is “motion, movement. No matter what it is you’re moving, whether it’s people or objects or drawing: and in what way it’s done, it’s a form of dance”(Bendazzi,1994, p.117) This strategy is not new to Norman McLaren has he also used it in his animation Pas de deux 1967, which is “an abstract ballet, showing the specific movement of two dancers as a set of multiple images” (Wells, 1998, p. 111). In this piece, however, he used patterns to move to create a dance of hunting as the blue plays with the black one transforming into new forms. Even though forms vary throughout the film the choreography is pretty straightforward repeating patterns which are the chasing game between the straight lines that as said before representing the strings of a double bass.

Finally, the last strategy seen is sound which in “experimental animation has a strong relationship to music and, indeed, it may be suggested that if music could be visualized it would look like colours and shapes moving through time with differing rhythms, movements, and speeds.” (Wells, 1998, p. 46) The sound is vital for these types of animations as it gives them life by making them move to the beat of something and expressing feelings more deeply. “Sound principally creates the mood and atmosphere of a film, and also its pace and emphasis, but, most importantly, also creates a vocabulary by which the visual codes of the film are understood.” (Wells, 1998, p. 97). In this particular animation, the sound is important as some figures represent the instruments that are playing in the song and therefore pleasing the audience as an audio-visual experience, not only that but figures also merge and combine into others in the offbeat of the song to make it as they are alive.

Another short that combines all these strategies and is also an abstract animation is

A colour box (1935) by Len Lye which is quite similar to Boogie Doodle since both use the same basic patterns, such as circles and lines. Not only that but they have the same type of music which is jazz, in both of them, they played with off beats and black notes to create a vibrant and allegro rhythm to accompany the drawings. Nevertheless, the patterns shown in A colour box are more basic than the ones in Boogie Doodle creating the doubt that maybe one of them is more inventive and has more originality. Also, both of them have different animation techniques and chromatic range of colours, for example, A colour box has more the primary colours such as red, yellow, blue...etc. but they are more pastel rather than bolder, additionally the short uses more colours making and therefore using simple shapes so the audience does not get confused. However, in Boogie Doodle there are limited colours but much more metamorphosis regarding the patterns. Having fewer colours, in this case, combines perfectly with the amount of the metamorphosis that happens as it makes it more effortless for the viewers to concentrate on the piece.

In conclusion Boogie Doodle, is an artistic abstract animation which is purely original and imaginatively due to all the aleatory forms and patterns it creates, this is due to the patterns that are used due to their complexity and variations throughout the film as their inconstancy of using same figures except for the blue circle and the black heart.

Also due to the choreography was seen there is no doubt this was an experiment as they don’t follow a pattern they just move randomly through the screen from side to side, up and down. However, it follows the rhythm and the beat of the composition so there is some order inside this sequence. As for the sound as stated before it follows the music and plays along with it as any abstract animation will do so it makes honour to its description as for the experimental side is notably throughout all the animation as not only experiments with the shapes used but also with the colours as at some point of the short one can detect that it plays with the black colour as it was the shadow of the blue one and therefore creating the

shapes to become more alive and more humanly just as what animation is described to do.

Bibliography

Blair, P. (1994). Cartoon animation. s.l.:s.n.

Wells, P. (1998). Understanding Animation. 2 park square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN: Routledge.

FRS, 2000. Slavery In History. [Online] Available at: https://www.freetheslaves.net/about-slavery/slavery-in-history/

Bendazzi, G., & Taraboletti-Segre, A. (1994). Cartoons: One hundred years of cinema animation (Vol. 994). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Dobson, T. (1994). The film-work of Norman McLaren.

Moritz, W. (1988). Some observations on non-objective and non-linear animation. Storytelling in Animation: The Art of the Animated Image, 2, 21-32.

Stasko, J. T. (1990). Tango: A framework and system for algorithm animation. ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 21(3), 59-60.

Filmography

Boogie Doodle (1940)

Pas de deux (1967)

A colour box (1935)

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