Lögberg-Heimskringla - 06.12.1985, Page 6

6-WINNIPEG, FOSTUDAGUR 6. DESEMBER 1985
Animation Central
Continued from page 3.
all of the young animators in the city
their start. Kenn Perkins is primarily
a commercial house, famous for its
K-Tel animation but equally adept
and inventive with other products,
with NFB vignettes, and with
children's animation.
CBCs involvement in animation
comes from the children's program
Sesame Street. For the past thirteen
years the CBC has not just rebroad-
cast the American show but created
a Canadian version of it. The heav-
ily urban, New York City-oriented,
and Spanish language segments of
the program have been excised in
favour of twenty minutes per day of
Canadian content: French 'lessons'
instead of Spanish, 'zeds' instead of
'zees’ in the alphabet, Winnipeg,
Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver
locations instead of New York, Cana-
dian folklore and ethnics instead of
American. Winnipeg has provided
upwards of forty animation spots per
year to Sesame Street, varying in
length from about twenty seconds to
as much as two minutes and rebroad-
cast twice per year.
Pat Kent is in charge of the Sesame
Street work done in Winnipeg and
has been for the past six years. She
has been ably supported by Dave
Strang, animator and graphic
designer, and Dave Jandrisch, free-
lance musical director. Strang, whose
brightly coloured and fanciful
characters and frisky geometric
shapes have become distinctive, has
eleven segments to complete this
year. Given the simplicity and sharp-
ness of design and story in his pre-
vious work, his segment on Interna-
tional Symbols (road signs, etc.) is
sure to be a stand-out.
Seventeen other segments have
been assigned to five freelance ani-
mators from the area. The most
Gwen
Continued from page 5.
marked his face or his steel-grey hair.
Besides he seemed to be well off. At
least he owned a house. Perhaps, she
thought, that she should not resist
him too much, but then she was not
prepared to make it easy for the old
codger.
They had three children, two girls
and a boy. Those were busy days for
Guðný, preparing meals for Gus
and looking after his four children,
and their younger family of three.
She had less time for Gus and he
began to feel neglected.
More and more he began to meet
with the boys at the saloon, even
coming home drunk. He was fast
becoming alcoholic. He was devel-
oping abusive attitudes towards
Guðneý, berating her for his bad
luck. More and more she had to
scream at him for the household
money. It was becoming intolerable,
the moment of decision had come.
She found a part-time job, house
cleaning for a well-established fam-
ily in Kenora. Once a week she
would secretly go and earn fifty
cents. Carefully, she saved her quar-
ters, and after six months she was
able to buy train fare for herself and
her children. Secretly, she boarded
the train. When Gus arrived home
late that night, he fell asleep in the
dining room chair. Next morning in
a sober haze he seemed to sense that
she was gone.
The train slowly came to a halt as
the squealing steel brake shoes
brought the wheels to rest.
After the train pulled away,
Guðneý began to look around, assess-
ing her circumstances. Her eyes
fastened onto a well-dressed,
kindly-looking man, reaching middle
age. His wing collar, derby hat and
walrus moustache, lent dignity to his
above-average stature.
She approached him with her three
children and asked, "Do you know
where I can contact an Icelander?"
His reply was, "I am an Icelander,
what can I do for you?" Patiently, he
listened to her and took her to his
home. Her prayers had been ans-
wered, for fate had led her to a kind
and generous man, Arinbjörn Bárdal.
He and his wife set her up in their
old house beside the new one they
had just built.
Life became pleasant again. She
had found a haven that was to be a
life-long anchor in her frugal path
through life. She found jobs as a char-
woman, to be rewarded by her
children as they reached adulthood.
Old Gus began to feel sorry for
himself. He felt deserted. In his mind
he decided he would bring her back
from wherever she might be. Reason-
ing told him that she must have gone
to Winnipeg and sought refuge with
Icelanders. It did not take long to
track her down.
Arriving at her doorstep, he in-
sisted that she return, but Arinbjörn
convinced Gus to leave her alone and
hightail back to Rat Portage. During
the last days of his life he sought and
found refuge with Guðneý and her
grown-up children. There he died a
peaceful death.
There is no picture of Guðný. It
is only by chance that the bare facts
of her life are known. She did not
wield a high status in life. It was
rather the other way around. Even
her name is unknown let alone a pic-
ture. Yet she had a greatness. She
was a good mother.
Each time we pick up Logberg-
Heimskringla and look at the adver-
tisement of Neil Bardal, we see the
face of A.S. Bardal at the back of the
threesome generations. A reminder
of this generous humanitarian and
his kindness toward those in need.
experienced of them, and the one
who seems to be the most versatile
at cel animation, is Neil Mclnnes. His
work this year includes illustrating
the letters A (from automobile to air-
port to astronaut to the planet "A")
and M, counting in French with
eleven pies, telling the time of day
with different kinds of clocks, and
identifying various animals' tails. An-
drew Schultz is best at fast action and
sports motifs, but he is getting more
inventive in his characters and idear.
His six assignments this year range
from trying to find things that bounce
(to illustrate the letter "B") to using
French and English activities and
events to distinguish the months of
the year. He also has three identifica-
tion segments: identifying food by
having ants cart it away from a pic-
nic, identifying stores by having a hot
dog go into several of them looking
for condiments, and identifying dif-
ferent uniforms. Barbara Hicks
works with creatures and designs
made from cutouts from pieces of felt
material. She has two sequences this
year: identifying animals in a jungle
and on a farm by the noises they
make. Connie Steiner uses images
that are softer and more painterly;
her animation relies more on panning
over and dissolving between im-
ages rather than frame-by-frame
articulation. She has one story to do
this year — about haircuts and ears.
The rookie of the crew, Patrick
Lowe, also has just one assignment:
using a car and its wheels to differ-
entiate between circles and rectan-
gles. He got it on the strength of an
amusing animated short, done in
super-8, on the creationist-evolution
conflict, called Going Ape.
Sesame Street's value to the ani-
mation community lies in the fact
that it offers beginners like Patrick
Lowe a chance to test themselves and
develop their craft while also allow-
ing more experienced animators the
opportunity to experiment within a
limited framework and keep busv be-
tween other commitments. While the
best Sesame Street segments are
often thought-provoking and artful
even to adults, like commercials they
can rarely stand alone; they need the
context of the rest of the program to
sustain them. This is not to belittle
them as either trivial or childish.
Many of them quite obviously are
not, in either design or execution. It
is only to point out that the distance
between a thirty to sixty second seg-
ment and a cartoon of even six to ten
minutes duration is a distance not
easily traversed.
Sesame Street animation is simple
concept animation. It places a
premium on two dimensions and
screen centre, in brevity, spareness,
clarity, and ease of identification.
There is a progress to them but no
amplification, no complication; they
are anecdotal rather than incremen-
tal; they rely on caricature rather
than characterization. But there are
few people who have mastered the
form with the ease that Dave Strang
Continued on page 7.
MESSUBOÐ
Fyrsta Lúterska
Kirkja
JOHN V. ARVIDSON
PASTOR
10:30 a.m. The Service followcd
by Sunday School & coffee hour.
BARDAL
FCJNERAL HOME
AND CREMATORIOM
\A/innipeg's original Bardal Funeral Home has
V Vbeen serving the citg's needs since 1894.
Bardal Funeral Homes offers a wide uarietu of
traditional and modern seruices forall faiths.
For consultation contact Dauid Pritchard or
Jack C. Farrell.
CALL 774-7474
24 Hours a Day
843 Sherbrook Street
EINAR ARNASON