On April 20, foreign media released a heart-wrenching message: The director of 13 "Tom and Jerry", 95-year-old Jean Deich, died unexpectedly in his apartment, but did not disclose more details.
In fact, many people have overlooked that this legendary animation work has buried too many Easter eggs for us, and we have not found them all until today.
As we all know, the Oscar is the highest honor hall of all kinds of films, and Xiao Lizi has been running with the Oscar for more than ten years.
Why is it that in just 7 minutes an episode, the 0-line "Tom and Jerry" can be "effortlessly" nominated 5 times and won awards 7 times?
Because we are all "deceived" by it, when we were young, we only cared about watching the hilarity, and did not see that there were many unknown efforts hidden behind the scenes, just like the saying: you can only look effortless if you work very hard.
Few people know that this god-level animation that has been on fire for more than 80 years was abandoned and hidden in the snow four times in the early stage of creation, the main creators were unemployed in the winter, the copyright was sold several times, and the failed adaptation and other bumpy experiences, the ups and downs in the middle are no less than the absurd plot of cats and mice.
Stunning production details
"Tom and Jerry" is a slang term commonly used by young people in London in the 19th century, meaning "prodigal son who eats, drinks and has fun". It first originated in Pierce Egan's Jerry Hawthorne and His Elegant Friend Collins Tom.
Because there is no dialogue, the progress and development of the plot relies heavily on background music and body movements to present, a smile, every move, all have to be drawn, the workload behind this is far more than people can bear.
In order to draw the most vivid and vivid expressions, animator Irv Spence made various exaggerated expressions in front of the mirror while drawing them.
In order to imitate the actions of the characters, the director stood on a high chair in the script meeting and imitated the movements over and over again regardless of the identity and the image.
Every detail in the animation stands up to scrutiny, down to the layout structure in Jerry and Taffy's residence, the small table lamp, their respective names on the bed, the small carpet, the bed made of cans, the chair made of teacup;
Lace of the curtains, the shadow area of the sunlight shining on the windows sprinkled down;
As large as the variety of mouth-watering food in the refrigerator, all of them are meticulous, delicate and delicate.
The piano score is so accurate to the finger
In addition to the emoticons, the background music is particularly important, not only rendering the atmosphere, but also promoting the development of the plot, emphasizing the inner dynamics of the protagonist, and this animation hides many world-class classic music.
Johann Strauss's "Blue Danube", Chopin's "The Great Round Dance", Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", the Second National Anthem of the United States "Yankee Dudel", the US Navy military song "Anchor March"...
▲ The source of the soundtrack of "Tom and Jerry" compiled by netizens
According to statistics, there are more than fifty classical music pieces that appear in Tom and Jerry, including works by Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Bizet, Johann Strauss Jr. and many other musicians.
Someone said, "Tom and Jerry is my classical music teacher." ”
Even under the influence of "Tom and Jerry", it changed the trajectory of many people's lives.
Lang Lang, a famous pianist in China, has expressed his fate with the piano and the rich body movements when playing, which are derived from "Tom and Jerry" to a large extent.
Lang Lang said: "There is an episode in the cartoon 'Tom and Jerry' called 'Cat Concerto', which left an indelible impression on me and had an indelible impression on me more than 'Kingdom of Music'. Every time that episode was played on TV, I watched it intently. ”
Lang Lang described this in his autobiography "A Journey of a Thousand Miles, My Story":
The episode of "Cat Concerto" mentioned by Lang Lang won the 1947 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Tom as a piano player is about to play, the result of the "wrongdoer" Jerry wants to take the opportunity to spoof Tom ugly, throughout the performance has been making trouble, Tom not only to ensure that the performance is not messed up, but also to clean up the mess that Jerry broke, the whole process is tense and funny.
Years later, when some music-related professionals watched this episode again, they found a surprising secret:
"As a music practitioner, the meticulousness of the piano keys and sheet music in Tom and Jerry is really terrible..."
It turned out that Tom played Liszt's famous song "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2", Tom from the first note to the last note, all the tones in this process are exactly corresponding to the keys of the original song, and most of them are even on the pitch, each note is stepped on the key, and the fingering is accurate;
There is no random playing because the audience does not understand the piano, unlike many film and television dramas now in which the flute is reversed, the guqin guzheng is not divided, and there is no sense of awe, but it is not bad!
And that's not the scariest thing, but don't forget, in 1946, it was completely different from what it is now:
At that time, the first generation of computers had just been born, not to mention the notebook desktop, 3D modeling did not exist at that time, and PS pen tablet drawing technology did not exist.
24 frames of animation in a second is drawn one by one, and the animation production process of that year was far more cumbersome than today.
But even when the technology was immature, the entire production team never made excuses and never cut corners:
The characters can speak and even sing when they sing, and in the short film "The Universal Conductor", Tom's conducting actions are consistent with the real conductor. Whether it is the expression of the characters or the background, they are all depicted in detail.
The production process of Tom and Jerry is all hand-drawn frame by frame, and the entire music should be planned before drawing, and Tom should be aimed at each frame to play, and an average of 15,000 middle drawings are required for an animation.
▲ Tom and Jerry manuscripts
After the painting is completed, these must be continuously connected one by one, and then uniformly colored with celluloid until it is determined that all the details are fine.
This animation detail table is an outline of the action, sound effects, and music in the animation. With this chart, every frame of action and dialogue is synchronized with the music in a thousandth of a second.
Because Tom only has four fingers to play, it is very important to play the piano, the need to redistribute the fingers, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty of the work;
And in such a difficult production environment, it is also possible to make Tom and Jerry's fight, the mood of the characters, perfectly integrated into the music, and there is no hint of abruptness, plus various details checked and adjusted, how difficult this episode is to imagine.
In the early days of Tom and Jerry, the original drawing was drawn on paper and then transferred to film, and the price of film at that time was very high, so it could only produce one episode per year, and in order to produce this episode, the team of 150 people took a full 18 months to complete.
From 1939 to the present, "Tom and Jerry" has done more than 160 episodes, an episode of 7 minutes of animation, and the longest production cycle of one episode has reached 18 months;
Even the fewer episodes take 2 to 3 months to produce, and on average each episode takes half a year to complete, which is extremely careful.
In the 80 years since its inception, the image of the protagonist has changed 14 times
A total of 116 characters appeared
This animation, which began in 1939, has been 80 years since this year, and in the past hundred years, Tom's image has changed 14 versions:
In addition to these two protagonists, the images of the supporting characters in the animation are also flexible, vivid and vivid, wearing diapers of Q Meng's little nephew Tai Fei;
Sexy beautiful white cat;
Fierce but protective bulldog;
A total of 116 animated characters appeared in the entire animation, and 2-3 characters were selected in each episode, matched with different personalities, and with the nature of cat and mouse, a comedy was staged that was both funny and warm and touching.
This is also an anime for adults
There are too many life principles in it
Someone said, "A story is a metaphor for life." You can find yourself in stories, vent emotions, and even find a different possibility. After a hearty laugh or a cry, regain your confidence, pack your bags and set foot on the road of life again. ”
You think it's just a cartoon for kids? Then you are wrong, many people's life principles have long been explained thoroughly, but we did not understand it at that time. When I was a child, I laughed and laughed when I grew up, and I cried.
Children should never use inflammable and explosive dangerous items:
Even if you are deeply in love, don't lose your self-esteem, don't become humble;
Bear children cannot be allowed to make mistakes because they urinate;
One of the episodes, "The Peace Treaty", is even more inhumane, And tom, Jerry and Spike the Big Dog are tired of chasing and fighting all day long, and they draw up a "peace treaty" for the purpose of "armistice".
In the early days, they were also happy and peaceful, friendly and mutually helpful, but when they encountered a piece of fat meat, all three of them wanted to share more, and all the selfish ambitions were exposed, and the ugliness was exposed, and the "peace treaty" was just a piece of waste paper in the face of interests.
Sure enough, as Churchill said: There are no eternal friends, no eternal enemies, only eternal interests.
Write at the end
In this cartoon, we see Tom and Jerry falling in love and killing each other, they are natural enemies, but they are friends, they are not at peace all the time, but they accompany each other and rely on each other;
Maybe it's not that Tom can't catch Jerry, it's just that Tom can't catch Jerry, because Jerry, his life can become more exciting and fun.
Exaggerated action creativity, imaginative plot, high-level classical music, delicate production methods, impeccable details processing;
After 80 years of animation, it still seems to be no less impressive today, and when you watch it, you will still be impressed by the craftsmanship spirit and the humanistic care in it.
In that environment, but always the pursuit of perfection, adhere to the faith, uphold the spirit of craftsmanship of the persistence, such a rigorous attitude of ingenuity, in the animation production technology is getting better and better today, more and more difficult to see.
And that's why it's so popular today, that's the power of classics.
No wonder netizens praised it:
"Has always been imitated, never surpassed";
"Accompanied me throughout my childhood, how many times I watched it is not tired."
Over the past eight decades, Tom and Jerry has constantly changed and innovated, and each episode of animation has brought us a lot of emotions, teaching us to know right from wrong, distinguishing between good and evil.
In fact, what we miss is not cartoons, but childhood that cannot go back, thanks for companionship, and tribute to classics. (From the Internet, invasion and deletion)