A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.
Three tiny boys, WYNKEN, BLYNKEN & NOD, set sail in a wooden shoe, off on a river of crystal light, into a sea of dew. They attempt to catch the little star fish swarming in the sky and encounter both a comet & a blustery storm before returning home.
This cartoon, based on the classic Eugene Field poem, is a real dazzler. Disney made lavish use of its new multi-plane camera, which gave scenes of astonishing depth & beauty - most particularly to the opening sequence. Extremely expensive & complicated to use, Disney would subsequently use the camera primarily for the animation features. Notice also the colorful effects of the comet's passage.
The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most interesting of series in the field of animation. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.
Three tiny boys, WYNKEN, BLYNKEN & NOD, set sail in a wooden shoe, off on a river of crystal light, into a sea of dew. They attempt to catch the little star fish swarming in the sky and encounter both a comet & a blustery storm before returning home.
This cartoon, based on the classic Eugene Field poem, is a real dazzler. Disney made lavish use of its new multi-plane camera, which gave scenes of astonishing depth & beauty - most particularly to the opening sequence. Extremely expensive & complicated to use, Disney would subsequently use the camera primarily for the animation features. Notice also the colorful effects of the comet's passage.
The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most interesting of series in the field of animation. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.