Annotated reference list.

Anime News Network, 2011-06-26,[online] Available at: http://www.animenewsnetwork.co.uk/press-release/2004-01-05/anime-at-the-alamo [Accessed on the 8-th January 2012]Information about anime screening dates at Alamo cinemas.1998-2012 Anime News Network

Buried Treasure, Oct 26th 2006 http://www.animenewsnetwork.co.uk/buried-treasure/2006-10-26 [Accessed on the 8-th January 2012] A great review on " Robot Carnival" by Justin Sevakis. Screenshots ©A.P.P.P. All rights reserved.

ANNCastm, Jan 15th 2010 http://www.animenewsnetwork.co.uk/anncast/2010-01-14 [Accessed on the 8-th January 2012] ANNCast takes a 2 hour long interview with Carl Macek, one of the main promoters of Steamline in 1980. by Zac Bertschy & Justin Sevakis

Research Portfolio:Robot Carnival by Katsuhiro Otomo

Research Portfolio:

Robot Carnival is a Japanese anime anthology film released in 1987. It consists of nine shorts by different directors, many of whom started out as animators with little to no directing experience. This film has gained a small cult following.

Each has a distinctive animation style and story from each director within a steampunk-like setting, as well as ranging from comedic to dramatic.

Directed by Atsuko Fukushima and Katsuhiro Otomo.

The opening takes place in a desert. A boy finds a small "coming soon" poster advertising the Robot Carnival, and becomes frightened and agitated. He warns the people in his village, most likely to escape, when a huge machine with many robots performing in niches on its exterior grinds its way right over the village. Once a magnificent traveling showcase, it is now a decayed, rusted, malfunctioning, engine of destruction.

Franken's Gears:

Directed by Koji Morimoto.

A crazy scientist tries to give life to his robot with lightning, just like Frankenstein. When it comes to life, the robot copies everything the scientist does. Overjoyed, the scientist dances with glee, trips, and falls. Seeing this, the robot dances, trips, and falls on the scientist, killing him.

Deprive:

Directed by Hidetoshi Omori.

This segment features a humanoid robot and an invasion from space.

Presence:

Directed by Yasuomi Umetsu.

This segment (featuring dialogue) tells the story of a man who has an obsession with a robot girl he has been secretly constructing in an attempt to compensate for the lack of any close relationship with his wife and family. The setting seems to be British and of the early twentieth century, but also suggests another planet or a future which has attempted to re-establish a former social structure. When the robot takes on a personality of her own, far beyond what the man had programmed, he smashes her in a fit of panic, and leaves his secret laboratory for what he believes is the last time. Twenty years later, the man has a vision of his robot appearing before him, but then blowing up before he can take her hand. He returns to his shed to find the robot still sitting smashed in a corner, just as she had been left years earlier. Another twenty years elapse, and the robot appears again before the man. This time, he takes her hand and walks into the distance with her, before vanishing in front of his shocked wife. This is the first short that contains intelligible dialogue (characters in Opening speak in gibberish), but little of it is actually spoken on-screen - all but a few lines are given in voice-over, or with the speaker's mouth obscured.

Star Light Angel:

Directed by Hiroyuki Kitazume.

A shōjo story, featuring teenage girls at a robot themed amusement park who are friends. One of the girls finds that her lover is now going out with her friend. Running away in tears she finds her way to a virtual-reality ride. Pleasant at first, her memory cause the ride to summon a giant laser breathing mecha. But one of the park's 'robots' finds himself in the role of knight in shining armor, and allowing her to let go of her darker emotions, and to move forward in her life. While at first confusing, this is deceptive, as many of the elements are logical in hindsight. The visual style of this segment was heavily influenced by the music video for A-Ha's "Take on Me."

Cloud:

Directed by Mao Lamdo.

This short features a robot walking through time, and the evolution of man. The backdrop is animated with clouds that depicts various events of the universe. Such as the modernization of man, to the self destruction of man. Most the events in the backdrops takes place from Rome to present day society. Eventually the same angel who cries for his immortality, makes him human towards the end.

A Tale of Two Robots—Chapter 3: Foreign Invasion:

Directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo.

This is set in the nineteenth century and features two "giant robots" directed from within by a human crew. In the style of a movie serial of the sound era, a Westerner in his giant robot attempts to take over Japan, but is challenged by locals operating a "machine made for the parade" -- a Japanese giant robot. The style of this segment is somewhat reminiscent of a Japanese World War II-era propaganda film. Despite the title of this segment, there is no known prequel or sequel. The voice acting of this piece are a mix of English and Japanese with the Westerner speaking English and the Japanese speaking their language.

Nightmare:

Directed by Takashi Nakamura.

The city of Tokyo is overrun by its machines, as they all come alive for a night of revelry, with only a single, drunken human (Chicken Man) awake to witness it.

This features the recent Japanese myth that machines can grow by connecting onto other machines, regardless of the purposes for which they were designed.

Ending:

Directed by Atsuko Fukushima and Katsuhiro Otomo.

The Robot Carnival is stopped by a little hill in the desert. Unable to climb the sandy obstruction, the Carnival stalls at its base. As the sun sets over the traveling relic, flashback stills recall the grandeur of the Carnival at the peak of its existence—an unparalleled engine of mirth that brought timeless joy to the various cities it visited. At sunrise, we see the platform chug forward with a sudden burst of power and crest over the dune in its way. The final push proved to be too much for the aged contraption, and it finally goes to pieces in the desert. The bulk of the film's credits are then shown concluding with an epilogue.

Epilogue: Years later a man discovers an orb among the remains and brings it back to his family. It is a music box featuring a miniature robot ballerina. As it dances, the children applaud. The ballerina finishes its dance with a leap into the air and explodes, blowing up the shack where the family lived, leaving "END" in enormous letters lying in its place as the only survivor, the family's pet llama, struggles to regain its footing.

Here are some of my favourite parts from four of the segments composing the best scenes in my likening.

Robot Carnival Opening

Robot Carnival "Franken's Gears"

Robot Carnival -- Deprive

Presence

Cab Calloway St. James Infirmary by Fleischer

Another absolute master piece. This time an actual JAZZ STAR has been added as an ingredient to give to us the viewers an amazing show to watch. I love the animation method called rotoscoping that lets a person trace a already shot video source of something performing an action and draw on top of it, leading to a very realistic looking animated movement for the output. Rotoscoping was used here in order to give Fleisher Brother's Koko the Clown ghost morph character his unique realistic dance moves. And the voice actor for the character is non other than the great Cab Calloway (singing St. James Infirmary). He just managed to embed the spirit of the 30's in that song so well that once you hear it it does not matter if you like a different style of music, you just can not say NO to that sweet sounding blues.

silly symphony - the skeleton dance 1929

silly symphony - the skeleton dance 1929

When I first saw this thing it felt really scary and creepy, but if one tries to see it as a piece of art and it becomes clear that the use of sound and the ability to synchronise it that well to the video is a pure work of genius. At least for me it is be cause I have had the pleasure of working as a video DJ (Vj) a couple of years ago and to see where it came from is a real gift to me. Makes me want to watch it again and again to analyse it further and sink my teeth in to it. So now I see amazing morphings and crowd animated scenes in it and the use of loops had always seemed to me a bit weird, but it just gives the cartoon the mark of the 1929 quality.

You Tube is really a great place to search for inspiration when you need it. The reason I go to that site is that literally the entire Planet has been shown in all of its aspects with the use of different video formats. People love to share their videos that contain all kinds of emotions and states of the body and mind, and are interested how many people will find those shared materials useful and interesting (via LIKES). I personally use YT for searching a videos that show old and valuable animations and music videos. I am not really a fan of violent or really I don't like to waste my time with 100000 funny videos, so I am looking for ART and SCIENCE tags on there. The most recent ones mere a live musical performance from my favourite electronic music artist Aphex Twin. He greatly inspires me and gives me the will to want to create something new and unheard (in audio ways). As for video formats I enjoy watching Animation festival winners videos in HD. Some people really live in a different place and that makes me feel like I am not alone and gives me inner piece.

A research portfolio

The life of Donyo Donev

45 years in creating animation

Donyo Donev came t

From his teenager years he played at weddings and restaurants. People used to glue good money on his forehead, that's why Donyo needed to keep his head looking upwards. But while he played the accordion, his friends took all the girls he wanted to talk to.o light 78 years ago in Berkovitsa. His father was a railwayman. Donyo was an average student and most of his grades were D's and even F's were . Was not good at drawing or gymnastics or singing. He made a deal with his father that he will get good grades if his dad buys him an accordeon. So he did get on a brand of "Traviata" with a maximum of 32 bass.

№ 1 animator in Bulgaria maintained a sort of "house museum" where he collected different brands of accordions.

He had fun not only playing them but fixing then aswell. The man just had a huge weaknes

an 40 years Donev discovers with great pain that his "fools" are not really his property, but the Cinema Center's. The popular characters were born in a very funny way. The first scenario was Atanas Pavlov's. Then viewers themselves began to suggest stories, and Peter Slabakov gave aliases to the "Fools". s for this instrument. After more th

-"During the creation of one of the series which both fools incubate an egg, from which pops the third fool out, Slabakov exclaimed:" Mityo ... Vatyo ... "La

ter with a smile Petyo told me that my third hero was named .....Donyo.

"Fool № 1 of the republic" was a victim of street beatings three times. Some guys attacked him in front of the church "St. George" and broke his jaw. Few millimeters - and the impact was going to sent him to the other world. Then he got beat in the City Park. Finally sprayed with spray and miraculously did not get blind, but for some time one of his eyes was closed. On several occasions, thieves stole things from his apartment in Sofia. Hijacking 500 BGN and one of his briefcases, inside of wich the

​​Donyo Donev really hated frawd. During his time there were a lot of his fellow animators that gained credit using someone else's works as their own. So he became an agent in the DS named Mr. Toshev. With that name he signed 11 documents that led to the firing of those who got some gold out of other peo

ple's backs. For that agent Toshev was rewarded with a 60 BGN rase of salary and was known as "the deserving artist".re were only drawings, two leva and one lev paper bill. Not much really.

His first cartoon as an artist is "Hulled and Grushko" (1957), but with "Duet" (1961) he made ​​his debut as screenwriter and

director. He has worked as an artist in the "Evening News" (1954-1956), artist and director in the Department of cartoons in SIF (1956-1970) and the SAF "Sofia" (1970-1993), where he was the head of a creative team.

Working on the

animation series "Three Stooges" from 1970 to 1990. Donev is the main editor of the newspaper "Three Stooges" (1989-1997), and the "Four Fools" (1997) and the magazine "bang."

In 1998 he was an actor in the movie "Wagner."

As a cartoonist he was presented in many exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad.

Donyo Donev was a professor at the NATFIZ animation accademy in Sofia and used to taught animation directing there.

Donyo Donev is an artist, writer and director of over 100 cartoons. Among the most popular ones are:

"Go back to Sorrento"

"Ekograma";

'Cause perduta ";

"Target";

"We called th

em and Kapuleti Montecchi";

"Serenade";

'Three Stooges' "Three Stooges - hunters" (1972);

"Three Stooges and the car" (1973);

"Three Stooges and the cow" (1974);

"Three Stooges - hunters";

"Three Stooges and the tree" (1977);

"Three fools and stupid" (1978);

"Three Stooges - athletes" (1979);

"Three Stooges - te

achers" (1980);

"Three Stooges - fishermen" (1982);

"Three Stooges in the restaurant" (1988);

"Three Stooges non-stop" (1990);

"Three fools in life and sport" (1993);

"Smart Village"

;

"Hamlet";

"Happy End";

"Joke";

"Diagnosis" (2000).

I personally had the extreme pleasure of not only seing him live, but talking to him about the path of the animator.

It hapened in the year of 2003 i think and i was a student in the National School for fine arts in Sofia Bulgaria then. So we had this drawing competition and i drew his 3 fools characters, not having the slightest idea that Mr. Donev was one of the jury. So the time for us came to stop drawing and we wai

ted for the jury to got rough each one of us and make a decision on a winner. Before i knew it Donyo was next to me and paprazi startew to take photos of him look

ing at my "stolen" idea. I was shaking and verry excited and afraid of what he might say to me about using his work as mine.

But my fears went away as soon as i saw him smiling and even starting to laugh. He said:

-"Boy, you have found the way of the Bulgarian animation at that age ?"

After that he t

In an interview Donyo Donev explained why he finds his 3 fools characters so interesting and unique.ook a photo with me and i was on the next day's newspaper next to the legend. I still have the page cut out somewhere at home and that memory really warms my heart and makes me go on with the path i have chosen.

"Self-irony is a

n important characteristic of the Bulgarian people, which rarely occurs in other nations, and I have developed it to its most clear and simple perfection. I am just the same fool as my painte

d characters. Because by being a bigger fool you can get rid of the real fools. If you show a fool that you are a bigger fool than him, you do is you tickle his pride and you manage to lose his attention. Fools love to look very smart and are very happy to make you a fool. Give them some fun and they will cease to annoy and bother you - you're so stupid in their eyes that they can safely leave you be- which is a real gift for you to be left alone with your own foolishness".

Self-irony is also a way to not go beyond your self. Many people, rising in their career or social status imagine that they are greater than others and that are special and deserve more. At such times, the abilit

y to see how stupid you are, helps to get your self back on the ground and in the reality as it is.

When Donyo joined the Academy of Fine Arts he had a band that used to play in pubs, weddings, christenings. He did not have time for his lectures and that drove him to be absences. He re-applied and entered the Academy for a second time. Elijah Beshkov once summoned him secretly in a corn

er: "Boy,choose one. Brush or accordion! Donyo suffered three days of dilemma - should he become a musician artist or a drawing artist?He started working in the" Evening News "as a cartoonist. After a month Todor Dinov, the father of Bulgarian animation visited the studio and showed him the art of making still images come to life. After that Donyo spent 45 years of his

life in the field of animation.

Sadly he died on

November 28, 2007 in Sofia.