You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘commerical’ tag.
Director: Norman McLaren
Release date: 1961
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘New York Lightboard’ is a direct-on-film animation film that was never meant for the cinema. Instead, it was a commercial film commissioned by the Canadian Governmental Tourism Office to be projected in an endless loop on a big screen on Times Square in New York City.
The film is both in black and white and silent, but McLaren makes the commercial a very playful one, with letters bouncing and playing with each other, and metamorphosis running wild (we watch. e.g. the letters Canada change into a fish, which turns into a bird, which becomes a smiling sun, etc.).
Most of the film is pretty abstract, but there’s also some fine animation of swimming fish, a galloping horse, a man in a canoe and of Hamlet and Laertes fighting. Apart from the words Canada and ‘Dial PL 7-4917’ (for more information), the most recurring elements are animated fireworks.
The whole film seems a little too playful and too experimental for a general audience, but it certainly must have drawn attention. There’s also a short equally silent documentary called ‘New York Lightboard Record’ in which we watch the film on a screen on Times Square, and some of the responses of the audience watching it.
Watch ‘New York Lightboard’ & ‘New York Lightboard Record’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘New York Lightboard’ and ‘New York Lightboard Record’ are available on the DVD-box ‘Norman McLaren – The Master’s Edition’
Director: Cy Young
Release Date: 1930
Rating: ★
Review:
‘A Desert Dilemma’ is a short commercial for a car insurance, made by Cy Young (misspelled as Sy Young in the opening titles).
The cartoon is still rooted in the 1920s: its animation is from the silent era, and the designs are old-fashioned. The story is rather incomprehensible, and one wonders whether this commercial has ever been a success. However, it has a lively jazzy score to enjoy.
Nothing in this film indicates a rare talent, but a year later Cy Young would make a very early color short called ‘Mendelssohn’s Spring Serenade’, which is miles ahead from this short. Soon after he was hired by Walt Disney, and became a star effects animator at the Disney studio, providing stunning special effects for the studio’s first five features. Young left Disney in 1941, after the strike, and worked for the US Air Force. He ended his own life in 1964.
‘A Desert Dilemma’ is available on the DVD ‘Cultoons! Rare, Lost and Strange Cartoons! Volume 2: Animated Education’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 