Russian Animation Classic "The Snow Queen" on Special Exhibit

In case you didn't know, there was an animated film made in Russia 55 years ago of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. It won awards from all over the world and still has animators and layout artists discussing it today.

 From Haute Living:

Currently on exhibit until Feb. 5 at the Na Solyanke Gallery in Moscow is the “Cold and Beauty: The Snow Queen is 55.”  The exhibit features the work of modern world-renowned artists and animators, the airing of “The Snow Queen” and the original sketches by Alexander Vinokurov to the 1957 Russian award-winning animated film.

The exhibit honors the 1957 Soviet animated film “The Snow Queen” directed by Lev Atamanov -the film is based off of the story with the same name by Hans Christian Andersen- after its release, the film won numerous awards around the world.  It was incredibly popular in the Soviet Union and kids to this day still watch the “Snow Queen.”

To mark the success and impact of Atamanov’s animated rendition of the “Snow Queen,” Na Soyanke Gallery featured works from many artists who created pieces themed after the dreamlike tale.  Some of the pieces include David Birkin’s frozen video portraits of famous Russian athletes and celebrities.  Other artists involved in the exhibit were Andrei Bartenev, Khaik Simonyan and Katya Bochavar.

Although there was no way the curator of the exhibit could have known Disney would revive it's Snow Queen project yet again just recently, the timing for such an exhibit is excellent. If this was showing after Disney's Snow Queen (titled Frozen) started releasing teasers and marketing, I don't think as many people would be as interested. At the very beginning of Frozen is a completely different matter, so I hope it gets the attention it deserves.

 Interested in seeing more stills? Go HERE and enjoy. (Note: there are actually 2 more posts "Snow Queen 2" and "Snow Queen 3" of stills and layouts from the same film at this blog.)

Speaking of Frozen in case there was any question whether or not Disney's revived fairy tale project was to be hand drawn or CG it's definitely CG. And 3D. Sigh. (Note: I did have confirmation of this in my announcement post HERE but a lot of people must have skimmed that little tidbit in the excitement of seeing Snow Queen thawing at Disney once again - not that I blame them!) The current release date for Frozen is a 2013 Winter release on November 23.

First Behind-the-Scenes Photos of "Mirror Mirror"

Lily Collins stands alone in the woods set of Mirror Mirror.

Here is a "first look" at Mirror Mirror, the Snow White film with Julia Roberts and Lily Collins.

It's really more of a "on the set of" set of photos as most of the photos include crew and peeks at the rigging holding the scenery. I love seeing all this, of course, but these particular shots don't give you any more of an idea of the movie than the original trailer did. One thing is for certain though: no matter what's going on with the plot (or the jokes) the visuals promise to be stunning. The design work and cinematography all show a strong and cohesive stylistic signature (as was expected of director Tarsem Singh) and I actually want to see the "making of" featurettes more than the movie itself.

Camera trainee Camille Baduraux crouches next to a fancy snow sled in which Nathan Lane is preparing to act.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Tarsem Singh (Immortals) hopped into the director's chair for the 14-week shoot when Ratner stepped aside, turning the movie into an "all stage" production. Singh crafted the movie's many environments exclusively on soundstages with the help of digital effects and elaborate costumes from Oscar winner Eiko Ishioka (Bram Stoker's Dracula). The result, producers hope, is a whimsical family film with modern sensibility.

"It's an animated movie come to life," says Goldmann. "You can only do that with the greenscreen effect."

Lily Collins stands by as a large clapper board is used to mark the beginning of a scene. (I really like this photo!)

There are 23 behind-the-scenes photos to browse through and you can find them all HERE.

Mirror Mirror now has a release date of March 16th, 2012, instead of June 29th.

Nathan Lane relaxes sans shoes.

Kate Greenaway's "Pied Piper" New eBook with Audio

Disclaimer: I was given free access to this eBook for the purposes of a survey and review. My thanks to Animusia for contacting me with the opportunity.

If you like The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning then you will probably be familiar with Kate Greenaway's lovely illustrations for the poem as well.

New eBook Cover

What's cool is that there's a new, high quality eBook (released December 21, 2011) that not only has beautifully reproduced high quality images that you can enlarge till you can see every detail of Kate Greenaway's lovely illustrations but a very special audio recording that makes the whole poem, and viewing the artwork, fresh again.

While having a high quality copy of the illustrations is worth the price in my opinion, it's the new audio presentation that takes this ebook from good to excellent and will keep you coming back to it. The poem is read beautifully by Stella Arman, a singer and vocal trainer, and it's possibly the best I've ever heard Robert Browning's Pied Piper read and presented. The music, Gordon Jacob’s Pied Piper suite for flute and piccolo, complements it perfectly. 

The combination of the reading, music and illustrations kept both my young son and I turning the pages right till the end. Frankly, I was surprised my son was initially so interested but he said it was really pretty to listen to. When the animation began with the children moving through the streets to the Piper's music he lit up and started asking questions about where they were going.

Unfortunately I don't have an e-reader of my own and was only able to borrow an iTouch to view it on but I imagine the experience would have been even better on iPad. On the iTouch the animation was a little jittery and there were initial download issues but that may just be because we didn't have the latest gadget available, even though we upgraded the software to enable the download in the first place.


We didn't use the text highlighting option but I think it would have been excellent if we'd had an iPad (ie a much larger screen) to view it with, as the audio appealed to my son so much I think it would have encouraged him to try reading along (he's just starting to recognize words and sound out new one).

I only have two issues with the eBook:


1) You have to go through iTunes to get it and I'm not a fan of iTunes for multiple reasons.
2) When you enlarge images, although the detail and quality is, indeed, excellent, the nature of the enlargement, in which you lose your view of the rest of the illustration, takes away from the experience. The one time my son lost interest is when we started enlarging things and he couldn't see the whole picture anymore. 



Children are big fans of details in illustrations - something Kate Greenaway specifically included in her Pied Piper illustrations on Ruskin's advice. When you're looking at details in a book the rest of the "magic" of the picture is still maintained and unfortunately this is lost in most eBooks I've seen, including this one. I know that's the nature of enlarging things in general but I have to wonder if maybe a magnifying bubble or similar enlarging tool that keeps the rest of the illustration visible in the background, might not be a better option, especially when sharing with children. 







Overall I was surprised I enjoyed this eBook as it takes something special for me to recommend one. I'm not won over (at least not yet) by most of the eBook technology available but this new eBook helped me take the reading experience one step beyond a book for my son with the addition of the beautiful audio and I can see us reading it again. For that it has my thumbs up.



If you'd like to add this to your library the current price is $7.99 (I suggest you take into account the excellent recording when you compare prices with other eBooks) and the link is HERE.

The Joy of Books

From Maria Tatar's blog and many other places today...

As soon as I saw this, I simply had to share. (Email subscribers: I don't think the mail service includes embedded videos. You'll want to check out this one out on the blog.)

For all my book-loving friends everywhere and for fans of hand-made animation. Magical stuff!



You can find out more about the creator, Sean Ohlenkamp, in an interview HERE about this project that's gone viral in just one day.

If you want to see other creations of his (not all animation) you can check out his portfolio HERE.

What About Little Snow White?

Little Snow White by Yvonne Gilbert

Finding and sourcing Snow White illustrations is a big job - big because it must be one of the most illustrated fairy tales ever (for centuries now!) and no matter how often I look I'm always finding both newly made illustrations and much older works I've been missing all along. What I find interesting is that despite this, it's quite difficult to find more than a handful of Snow White illustrations where Snow is clearly a child, that is, not a teen or even a young teen, but a child of seven, as she was in the Grimm telling.

If you read it a little more closely you realize Snow White is called "Little Snow White" for much of the tale, right up until the end where her coffin is being carried, the apple dislodges and she wakes up. It's at this point the preifx of "Little" is dropped and, although it's not clear how much time has passed (though it's substantial) or how much she's matured she's just "Snow White" when she consents to marriage.

Walt Disney was aware Grimm's Snow White was seven years old but reportedly felt audiences would find that too hard to take so he made a conscious decision to shift the focus instead chose a young woman of fourteen for his first feature heroine (note that she very subtly ages during her time in the coffin to look a bit closer to eighteen when the prince finds her again and swoops her off to get married).

Of all the illustrations I've seen (which numbers in the many hundreds) Trina Schart Hyman's Snow White remains possibly my favorite of all versions everywhere but even her youngest Snow is closer to pre-teen than child. Yvonne Gilbert's lovely drawing at the head of the post clearly shows Snow as a child but unfortunately it's a stand alone piece.

Snow White by Charles Santore

The only picture book example I could find of Snow White as an obviously-young girl for most of the story, as per the Grimm text, is by Charles Santore, published in 1996. Although it's a beautiful, beautiful book (you can see all the illustrations from the book HERE to remind you), it's the only example I've found of a real child in the role instead of a pre-teen or teen and I think it's well overdue that we see another Snow White picture book with a child heroine.

Thinking about a seven year old going through Snow's experiences gives you a whole different way of looking at the tale, and at seven year old girls too. If I knew someone with a daughter approaching seven years old, a "Snow White as child" book is something I'd want her to have, both for herself and to read with her daughter. Growing girls are tricky creatures and mothers of girls, however well meaning, almost always have a tough run of it somewhere along the line. Various cultures around the world would suggest that age seven is a key developmental milestone, a time where all things are about to change for the child (and her parents) and mark the first of her steps toward womanhood. Looking back on my girlhood, I completely understand this not-yet-woman-but-knows-I-will-be-one-someday phase. Looking around me at seven year old girls with this in mind is daunting but also makes me protective of them too. If I had a girl I know I'd want a heads-up from Little Snow White's story. I think all girls, and their mothers, deserve that.

Snow White by Charles Santore

Source for Yvonne Gilbert's illustration HERE.

*Yvonne Gilbert has done a lot of fairy tale illustration. You may be familiar with her gorgeous and highly recommended award winning book "The Wild Swans" among other lovely works which you can see on her portfolio HERE.

Courage In Fairy Tales

 Below is a random comment I found on searching for recent web posts mentioning Baba Yaga. I loved it so much I had to share (warning: coarse language ahead so I inserted stars where necessary):

My current Russian fairytale reading is starting to significantly piss me off, largely because of heroines and their descriptions. The reason these girls are ‘likeable’ (i.e. why their evil stepmothers/sisters hate them) is because they’re prettier and more skilful and kinder and more obedient etc. etc. etc. And… no. Because the best and most likeable things about these girls (who do some pretty awesome sh*t) is that they are brave, determined and loyal to a f***ing fault.

There’s a reason that East of the Sun is my favourite, because however stockholm syndrome-y, however much it blames her lack of obedience and however much she wins by… cleaning, I will never not love the recurring motif. “Are you afraid?” “No.” Of course she afraid, she’s being taken to the castle of a polar bear in the arctic or is about to ride the North wind, but she’s not about to tell anyone that or let it stop her. Courage is what I took away from Baba Yaga, East of the Sun, Jack Frost and The Little Scarlet Flower, not being submissive (though that was definitely an aspect).

Which is why fairytales are better when you look at what their characters do and not what we’re told about them. (Emphasis by InkGypsy)

 See why I had to share?

Having been largely absent online the past year I'm out of the loop with regard to how Tumblr accounts really work so the best I can do with credit is to send you to the page I found HERE. Clicking on atticus-finches sends you to an eclectic blog in which, if you like art and art history, you should find some fun little posts

The beautiful art dolls and sculpture are by the amazing Forest Rogers whose blog and gallery have me in complete awe. Find yourself a few free minutes to go browse HERE - you can thank me later after you pick your jaw up off the ground. :)

Time Again for Once Upon A Time...

New episodes start again tonight on ABC... in case you'd forgotten... ;)

Image source HERE.

Musings on Maleficent & Green Skin'd Witches

Ever since the first rumor linking Angelina Jolie and the movie Maleficent there have been mock-ups of Ms. Jolie's face in "costume" for the leading role. Now that there's finally a director attached (as announced less than a couple of days ago), no doubt we'll see many more takes on Ms. Jolie as evil-fairy since she remains confirmed for the title role. The fan effort at the head of the post is my favorite version from the pickings at the moment.

I'm actually really looking forward to this movie. Reading Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen by Serena Valentino a couple of years ago I was pleasantly surprised to see that Disney was OK with Snow White's Evil Queen getting re-envisioned so thoroughly and so (chillingly) believably. (It's a wonderful, well written and beautiful book - highly recommended!) I also know Ms. Valentino had been considering the angle she would take if she were asked to re-write Disney's Sleeping Beauty from Maleficent's point of view, back when Fairest of All was published, and am curious as to her ideas. I wish she was a consultant for the story development but with Linda Woolverton (who wrote the screenplay for Disney's Beauty & the Beast and co-wrote on The Lion King) at the script's helm it's unlikely. I do know that if real complexities are being written into the role (which is supposed to be the whole point of the movie) that Angelina Jolie without doubt has the acting chops to pull it off and is probably about the right age now to be believable too.

But will they turn her green?

I find it interesting that in the majority of mock-up pictures Ms. Jolie is given the Wicked treatment. If you look at Disney's Sleeping Beauty Maleficent does have a greenness about her skin but I never really thought of her as "green" like the Oz movie's Wicked Witch of the West or Elphaba in Wicked. Instead I assumed she was somewhat pasty from avoiding sunshine (and all other good things), from messing around with vile substances and potions and that perhaps she had a sense of decay about her as well (I guess zombies are often portrayed as green too but I don't think Maleficent is in the zombie category). I also always thought of Maleficent as a sorcerous fairy rather than a witch as well so why did she get green around the gills* for the Disney animated feature?

Considering Baum never described the Wicked Witch of the West as green and the illustrations for his story never suggested it either, where did this association of witch/evil woman = green come from? Wasn't green always considered a fairy color, no matter which side they were on? Was the decision to make the WWof theW green-skinned based in anything historical to do with witches at all or was it a make-the-most-of-technicolor decision like the changing Baum's silver slippers to ruby was?

Luckily the internet hive mind has some interesting and plausible ideas on this.

From this Wizard of Oz forum HERE:

Regarding your question on Oz message board about origin of green-skinned witches -- I am pretty sure that there are none prior to the 1939 WofO movie. And the reason the movie had one probably has more to do with showing off the capabilities of the technicolor process than with any precedent in folklore. I'd make a guess that there might have been some influence from the discovery (late in the 18th century, with popularity all through the 19th century in dyes for wallpaper, paint, and fabrics) of copper arsenate as a bright green color that was cheap and easy to manufacture. The dye was poisonous, based as it was on arsenic and in a lot of 19th (and early 20th) century fiction you can find references to arsenic green or even just bright green as a poisonous color. There might be a further association of green with poisons and with magic-working because the drink absinthe (notorious in late 19th/early 20th century culture as a poisonous-but-intoxicating-and-poetically-inspiring drink -- the poisonous and the inspirational elements of its reputation seem to have been a good deal exaggerated) usually had enough chlorophyll in its manufacture to come out green in color, and absinthe was nicknamed "la fee verte" (the green fairy -- should have an acute accent-mark on the first e).

And a couple of other ideas that repeat all over the web (with these excerpts being the best summaries that seemed to make at least a good amount of sense - source HERE):

1) The stereotype of the green-faced witch with the crooked nose stems from the so-called "burning times" or the Inquisition. Women were persecuted and beaten severely and tortured to "confess" to witchcraft before being burned, hanged or beheaded. These women were paraded through the town before execution and looked frightful due to the beatings and torture. Their faces were horrible shades of green from the bruises, their noses and teeth were usually broken, among other things. This is the last sight people saw of the accused and "convicted" witch before her death.Pretty messed up, eh?
2) The "green" witch has some roots in Celtic Mythology. Sometimes, witches were depicted with green skin or red hair. Both green and red are colors associated in Celtic tradition with fairies. There has always been a connection between fairies and witches, both being thought of as being not quite of this world. An old description in Britain for a fairy or a human being who was thought to have psychic abilities was "greensleeve" or "green jacket". The association of green with the otherworld was so strong that at one time it was considered unlucky to wear green because it might incur the wrath of the fairies who considered it their own color. 

My two cents (which probably has nothing to do with influencing anything at Disney - or MGM - BUT does tap into fairy tales and myths at large and does pre-date Sleeping Beauty by a number of years) is to mention C.S. Lewis' Lady of the Green Kirtle/ Green Witch/Emerald Witch/Queen of Underland from his Narnia stories with "poison colored skin" (in The Silver Chair) also transforms to a giant snake/dragon-like creature. Considering the source, you know the use of green for this formidable and evil woman is most likely to have been based in mythic traditions. But then maybe he saw The Wizard of Oz too!

The only clear thing seems to be that once MGM released The Wizard of Oz with Dorothy's green-skinned nemesis, green witches began to appear everywhere and anyone green-skinned from then on was almost always equated with "bad". I'm guessing that had at least an unconscious effect on Maleficent's skin color for Disney's Sleeping Beauty and I have to wonder: will a live-action movie be able to pull off a green-skinned Maleficent/Angelina Jolie, will they go for more human tones or will they try something completely different?

(Amazing what one picture will get me thinking!)
__________________________________________________________________________________

*Or did she? This blogger HERE did quite a bit of research trying to determine the real color of Maleficent's skin according to Disney but it turns out if wasn't easy to do.

To confuse the issue a little further, there was a (very!) limited line of cosmetics released by Mac and Disney called Venomous Villains this year in which Maleficent had a whole cosmetic line of her own. See HERE for pictures of all the products and descriptions, along with directions on how the stores should display them, which is fun to look at when you think about it being put on an actual human (including, of course, Ms. Jolie). See HERE for an excellent description of the colors used (about half way down the page for Maleficent). Why am I even bothering telling you this? Because, and here's the quote:

Jennifer Balbier, the vice president of product development for M.A.C Cosmetics, said about the line: "Disney gave us the colors used when these characters were drawn throughout their history."

I pity the make-up designer their job if they have to include all the Disneyland and product data on Maleficent's "official colors" for their final decision.

"The Zen of Oz" Illustrations by Cathy Pavia

As promised, here are Cathy Pavia's illustrations for the book The Zen of Oz: Ten Spiritual Lessons from Over the Rainbow by Joey Green. I was so pleased to find these, especially as it was completely by chance (I don't usually research Wizard of Oz material). This book is not new - just new to me. I had heard of it but it was published during a trend of the Zen of "insert character/famous story/person here" so it barely blipped my radar. I obviously didn't see the illustrations back then though, so I'm sharing in case you, like me, heard the tile and let it slide on by without taking a look.

I'm showing the images in extra large size so you can better see the gorgeous details as I really don't like the current image viewer blogger uses. You can see them full size if you right-click (or control-click) and choose "view image".

There is this fascinating tidbit of information in a review on Amazon, from someone who visited Baum's great-grandson and had a discussion about The Wizard of Oz and specifically this book The Zen of Oz:

On one of my recent journeys through the Land of Oz, the Ozarks, I visited with my friend Roger S. Baum, the great-grandson of L. Frank Baum-the author of the "Wizard of Oz". I asked him what he thought about the theory of his great-grandfather being a Zen Master. He admitted he really didn't know. That he hadn't read "The Zen of Oz". That it has been his experience that such things were only done by people that saw an opportunity to make money off Great Grandfather's work. After I explained the gist of Joey Green's premise I did notice a slow smile take over Roger's face. He was intrigued. Though he would not corroborate Joey's claims he did state that Great Grandfather would probably not turn over in his grave if he knew about "The Zen of Oz". The one caveat Roger then mentioned was that first and foremost the Oz Series is a collection of fantasies for the young at heart. Meant to be taken with sincerity but not too seriously. The rest of our conversation was private.  

I have not read this book and this is not my review of the content - just an appreciation of the artwork which is done in Japanese print block style so beautifully and a sharing of an extra dimension I found to Baum's work and thinking. 

In case you're interested, here's the official book blurb:

Does The Wizard of Oz touch a spiritual chord in each one of us because it has a certain Zen to it? Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, is clearly a Zen Master. She sets Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road to spiritual enlightenment. When Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion let go of their conscious yearning and free their minds to function spontaneously and inharmony with the cosmos, brains, heart, and courage flow easily and effortlessly. Ultimately, Dorothy attains satori, the Zen experience of "awakening." She finds her true Self, her higher consciousness, her ultimate Oneness with the cosmos--and her home.

The Amazon link for the book is HERE.

I really liked the cultural variation on such familiar scenes. It really did add to the whole experience and made me think about the story in a fresh way for the first time in quite a while. Always a good thing!

Cathy Pavia's portfolio and website are HERE.

Illustrations by Rosie Lauren Smith

East of Sun West of Moon

These beautiful illustrations you see here are by Rosie Lauren Smith, yet another artist I found through deviantArt this year. I then realized I had also seen her work in New Fairy Tales Magazine as well.

Fairy Ouroboros

Into the Woods 

Mabon 

The Fire Boy (for New Fairy Tales Magazine) 

The Red Bird (for New Fairy Tales Magazine)

The Snow Children (for New Fairy Tales Magazine)

Troll Princess (older work done in the style of John Bauer)

My favorite would have to be the East of Sun West of Moon illustration. Beautiful.

Rosie Lauren Smith has a lovely blog HERE and her deviantArt gallery is HERE.

New Fairy Tales Magazine - which is always recommended, despite being on hiatus during 2011 - can still be found HERE. Ms. Sith's illustrations are featured in Issue 6 (current issue as of this writing) for the story The River of the Fire of Life by Francesca Forrest.