Film Adventurer Karel Zeman
This documentary explores the creative nature of the great Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman. A story arc through the feature involves film students from Tomas Bata University in Zlín attempting to duplicat…
Film Adventurer Karel Zeman
This documentary explores the creative nature of the great Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman. A story arc through the feature involves film students from Tomas Bata University in Zlín attempting to duplicate scenes from three of his films using only techniques and technology available to Zeman - one from Journey to the Beginning of Time, one from Invention for Destruction, and one from The Fabulous Baron Munchausen. Zeman's daughter Ludmila plus a host of other filmmakers and actors give interviews about the various aspects of Zeman's work. Zeman was born in Ostromer in 1910. His father died at the start of World War I. This prompted his mother to remarry in order to keep the family going. Zeman began to read the adventure tales of Jules Verne at an early age. He also showed an avid interest in puppet theater. His teachers recommended to his parents that he attend art school, but his step-father insisted he get a business degree. His business acumen helped later on the management of film budgets. Zeman took business courses as long as he could stand them before leaving for Paris to study art design. He also did some boxing there. In France he attracted a job offer in Marseilles to shoot short advertisements for a soap company. At this point Zeman borrowed cartoon films of Felix the Cat so that he could study how to do animation. In 1930, he returned to Czechoslovakia to fulfill his obligation for military service as a member of the cavalry. Having satisfied this requirement, he traveled throughout Europe and even to Egypt. A stint as a car salesman helped him acquire experience with motors that transferred into understanding the mechanics of movie cameras. A significant turn of events happened when he accepted a job in Brno A display man at Bat'a, a large manufacturer of shoes. He set up a studio to produce instructional and promotional films for the company. The steady work allowed him to use a camera from France to produce homemade puppet movies with stop-motion animation. In 1942, Zeman won a window display competition. Czech film director Elmar Klos comes from his studio in Zlín to shoot a piece on Zeman. Zeman is able to show him his puppet films. Klos immediately offers him a job with his studios. Karel Hutecka, production manager at Zeman Films was impressed at Zeman's decision to give up a lucrative position with Bat'a for an uncertain future in film. Hermína Týrlová was close to finishing A Christmas Dream when a fire destroyed all of her film. Karel took on the painstaking task of redoing all of the animation sequences while his brother Borivoj took on the live segments. The final version of their work won the best animated film award at the first Cannes Film Festival. Zeman began to study nature films to understand details of how birds fly and horses trot so that he could more realistically create their movement in animated settings. With the uptick in World War II, film industry employees were sheltered in Zlín from the Third Reich. Later, most of them went to Prague. Zeman stayed behind in Zlín to save the studios there. In 1946, he made Podkova pro stestí (A Horseshoe for Luck) in which he introduced his popular character, the puppet Mr. Prokouk. It encouraged the public to help industry collect waste for recycling. With Inspirace (Inspiration), Karel pushed the boundaries of stop-motion animation. His characters were glass figures. He had to work with glassblowers to make exacting versions that varied just slightly from the others that could be posed for sequences. This was much different from puppets who had metal armatures that could easily be tweaked as needed from frame to frame. Koji Yamamura, Japanese film director and animator, claims that no one else has ever tried to animate glass subjects. It is no wonder that Zeman dedicated the film to "Czech glassmakers". Terry Gilliam, filmmaker and collage animator, introduces Zeman's film Král Lávra (King Lavra) with a remark that Zeman's skill was so good that no dialog was really needed. Zeman's first full-length feature film was released in 1952 Poklad ptacího ostrova (The Treasure of Bird Island). The studio was not fond of the step from short to longer films. They refused to provide him with film stock for shooting. Local photo labs helped out in supplying him with the needed resources. Some of his films featured wire-controlled models. The woolly mammoth in Journey to the Beginning of Time was one of these. It was about 3 feet tall. A painted background of hills was placed carefully about 2 yards in front of the camera. He worked very hard to combine animation elements with live action footage. He made a Mr. Prokouk film about this particular challenge. Film critic Kamil Fila mentions that the Communist regime was not fond of Mr. Prokouk, deeming his films utopianism and kitsch. Journey was more acceptable because it was educational as well as entertaining. One of the scenes the Tomas Bata University student try to recreate is the mammoth scene from Journey. Film set designer Zdenek Ostrcil tells of Zeman hiring puppeteers to assist him. He also hired a special artist who was an expert at painting skies. Several of the childhood actors that appeared in Journey return for documentary interviews, Zdenek Husták and Petr Herrmann. They admitted to being four unruly boys who had to be supervised while Zeman worked on the stop-motion aspects of the scenes they were filming. Special effects artist Bovis Masník talks about Zeman's use of split-screen technology. In Vynález zkázy (Invention for Destruction), he would use a black mask at the top of the camera view while filming live action footage of boats below. Later, he would mask the bottom of the frames while he filmed a matte painting at the top of the camera view. To get locomotives with emissions pouring out of the stacks, he used smoke trays behind them. As Professor Paul Wells, Director of the Animation Academy at Loughborough University, points out that the story arc in Invention is typical of many post-Hiroshima films, namely, technology in the hands of the wrong people can lead to terrible consequences. Zeman's fondness for the illustrations in the classic Verne publications led to his stylizing Invention to mimic them. He would go to the library in Brno to photograph engravings in old books. He strove to use engraving-like lines everywhere - on the sky, on the sea, on the set backgrounds, even on the characters costumes. He made rollers so that they could easily be applied where needed. His daughter Ludmila was pressed into service for this. The Tomas Bata students set out to recreate one of the underwater scenes from Invention. They use panels of rippled Plexiglas to create the blurry waves that overlay the underwater scenes. Miniature divers are built as models to use in stop-motion animation. Zeman introduced a factual error here in that there are no shifts in scenery while underwater such as are introduced by waves when looking through a surface. After Invention was shown at the Toho Theater in Tokyo, novelist Kobo Abe remarked, "This is true cinema!" Invention was a big hit. At the film festival in Brussels, it won many awards. Financially, it was an international success. It won higher accolades than the contemporary Verne offering from Hollywood, Around the World in Eighty Days. Zeman had to keep thinking ahead to his next film so that he could keep his people employed. His next film, Baron Prásil (The Fabulous Baron Munchausen), was to be in color. The stiffness of the Cold War was melting a bit. This allowed Zeman to pursue his fantasies with less interference. The Tomas Bata students were going to recreate the gap jumping scene when the Baron and Tonik are fleeing with the rescued princess. For Baron, Zeman used a bipack camera, one in which both a positive and negative strip of film simultaneously move. To generate billowing clouds of color, he dropped dye into a water tank and shot its dispersion through a camera on the side. Zeman spent his whole film career in Zlín. He was never part of the New Wave filmmaking movement in Prague. His next film was Bláznova kronika (A Jester's Tale), a feverish version of the Thirty Year's War. Then followed Ukradená vzducholod (The Stolen Airship), a very popular film among Japanese film critics and included on a list of the top 12 animated films at that point in time. One of the child actors in the film, Michal Pospísil, gives an interview about his experiences making the picture. Based on the movie's success, Rock Demmers, Director of the Montreal World Film Festival, invited Zeman as a special guest for the 1967 Expo. He watched five minutes of the film and knew it was one of his selections for his festival. Shortly after this, Russian soldiers invaded the sets of Zeman's Na komete (On the Comet) that was then under production. This incident is recounted by both Karel Smyczek , Zeman's assistant, and Magda Vásáryová, the female lead. The invasion of the Warsaw Pact forces was followed by normalization. Jobs all went to Communist Party members and the borders were closed. By 1970, Zeman shut down the production of his animation/live action blends. He no longer wanted to compete with the ascension of Hollywood blockbusters like 2001, Star Wars and Planet of the Apes. "I can't make that style of films anymore." His final films were strictly animated. Otfried Preußler, author of Krabat, claimed that Karel's film version of it, Carodejuv ucen (The Sorcerer's Apprentice), was better than his book. Another of Zeman's works was, Pohádka o Honzíkovi a Marence (The Tale of John and Mary). Soon, there were on three crew members left to assist him. Most employees had left to work in television which paid higher salaries. The roof of his office at the studios leaked such that water ran down the walls that were covered in awards . Zeman still had scripts and ideas, but no team with which to produce them. He asked his friends to help him celebrate his 80th birthday, even though he was on 78 at the time. That April, he died suddenly. The Tomas Bata students show each other their recreated scenes. Everyone agrees that Zeman was a master of fanciful filmmaking, similar to Georges Méliès with a stylized look to his productions.
Film Adventurer Karel Zeman
Biography,Documentary
Film Details
This documentary explores the creative nature of the great Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman. A story arc through the feature involves film students from Tomas Bata University in Zlín attempting to duplicate scenes from three of his films using only techniques and technology available to Zeman - one from Journey to the Beginning of Time, one from Invention for Destruction, and one from The Fabulous Baron Munchausen. Zeman's daughter Ludmila plus a host of other filmmakers and actors give interviews about the various aspects of Zeman's work.
Zeman was born in Ostromer in 1910. His father died at the start of World War I. This prompted his mother to remarry in order to keep the family going.
Zeman began to read the adventure tales of Jules Verne at an early age. He also showed an avid interest in puppet theater. His teachers recommended to his parents that he attend art school, but his step-father insisted he get a business degree.
His business acumen helped later on the management of film budgets. Zeman took business courses as long as he could stand them before leaving for Paris to study art design. He also did some boxing there.
In France he attracted a job offer in Marseilles to shoot short advertisements for a soap company. At this point Zeman borrowed cartoon films of Felix the Cat so that he could study how to do animation. In 1930, he returned to Czechoslovakia to fulfill his obligation for military service as a member of the cavalry.
Having satisfied this requirement, he traveled throughout Europe and even to Egypt. A stint as a car salesman helped him acquire experience with motors that transferred into understanding the mechanics of movie cameras. A significant turn of events happened when he accepted a job in Brno A display man at Bat'a, a large manufacturer of shoes.
He set up a studio to produce instructional and promotional films for the company. The steady work allowed him to use a camera from France to produce homemade puppet movies with stop-motion animation. In 1942, Zeman won a window display competition.
Czech film director Elmar Klos comes from his studio in Zlín to shoot a piece on Zeman. Zeman is able to show him his puppet films. Klos immediately offers him a job with his studios.
Karel Hutecka, production manager at Zeman Films was impressed at Zeman's decision to give up a lucrative position with Bat'a for an uncertain future in film. Hermína Týrlová was close to finishing A Christmas Dream when a fire destroyed all of her film. Karel took on the painstaking task of redoing all of the animation sequences while his brother Borivoj took on the live segments.
The final version of their work won the best animated film award at the first Cannes Film Festival. Zeman began to study nature films to understand details of how birds fly and horses trot so that he could more realistically create their movement in animated settings. With the uptick in World War II, film industry employees were sheltered in Zlín from the Third Reich.
Later, most of them went to Prague. Zeman stayed behind in Zlín to save the studios there. In 1946, he made Podkova pro stestí (A Horseshoe for Luck) in which he introduced his popular character, the puppet Mr.
Prokouk. It encouraged the public to help industry collect waste for recycling. With Inspirace (Inspiration), Karel pushed the boundaries of stop-motion animation.
His characters were glass figures. He had to work with glassblowers to make exacting versions that varied just slightly from the others that could be posed for sequences. This was much different from puppets who had metal armatures that could easily be tweaked as needed from frame to frame.
Koji Yamamura, Japanese film director and animator, claims that no one else has ever tried to animate glass subjects. It is no wonder that Zeman dedicated the film to "Czech glassmakers". Terry Gilliam, filmmaker and collage animator, introduces Zeman's film Král Lávra (King Lavra) with a remark that Zeman's skill was so good that no dialog was really needed.
Zeman's first full-length feature film was released in 1952 Poklad ptacího ostrova (The Treasure of Bird Island). The studio was not fond of the step from short to longer films. They refused to provide him with film stock for shooting.
Local photo labs helped out in supplying him with the needed resources. Some of his films featured wire-controlled models. The woolly mammoth in Journey to the Beginning of Time was one of these.
It was about 3 feet tall. A painted background of hills was placed carefully about 2 yards in front of the camera. He worked very hard to combine animation elements with live action footage.
He made a Mr. Prokouk film about this particular challenge. Film critic Kamil Fila mentions that the Communist regime was not fond of Mr.
Prokouk, deeming his films utopianism and kitsch. Journey was more acceptable because it was educational as well as entertaining. One of the scenes the Tomas Bata University student try to recreate is the mammoth scene from Journey.
Film set designer Zdenek Ostrcil tells of Zeman hiring puppeteers to assist him. He also hired a special artist who was an expert at painting skies. Several of the childhood actors that appeared in Journey return for documentary interviews, Zdenek Husták and Petr Herrmann.
They admitted to being four unruly boys who had to be supervised while Zeman worked on the stop-motion aspects of the scenes they were filming. Special effects artist Bovis Masník talks about Zeman's use of split-screen technology. In Vynález zkázy (Invention for Destruction), he would use a black mask at the top of the camera view while filming live action footage of boats below.
Later, he would mask the bottom of the frames while he filmed a matte painting at the top of the camera view. To get locomotives with emissions pouring out of the stacks, he used smoke trays behind them. As Professor Paul Wells, Director of the Animation Academy at Loughborough University, points out that the story arc in Invention is typical of many post-Hiroshima films, namely, technology in the hands of the wrong people can lead to terrible consequences.
Zeman's fondness for the illustrations in the classic Verne publications led to his stylizing Invention to mimic them. He would go to the library in Brno to photograph engravings in old books. He strove to use engraving-like lines everywhere - on the sky, on the sea, on the set backgrounds, even on the characters costumes.
He made rollers so that they could easily be applied where needed. His daughter Ludmila was pressed into service for this. The Tomas Bata students set out to recreate one of the underwater scenes from Invention.
They use panels of rippled Plexiglas to create the blurry waves that overlay the underwater scenes. Miniature divers are built as models to use in stop-motion animation. Zeman introduced a factual error here in that there are no shifts in scenery while underwater such as are introduced by waves when looking through a surface.
After Invention was shown at the Toho Theater in Tokyo, novelist Kobo Abe remarked, "This is true cinema!" Invention was a big hit. At the film festival in Brussels, it won many awards. Financially, it was an international success.
It won higher accolades than the contemporary Verne offering from Hollywood, Around the World in Eighty Days. Zeman had to keep thinking ahead to his next film so that he could keep his people employed. His next film, Baron Prásil (The Fabulous Baron Munchausen), was to be in color.
The stiffness of the Cold War was melting a bit. This allowed Zeman to pursue his fantasies with less interference. The Tomas Bata students were going to recreate the gap jumping scene when the Baron and Tonik are fleeing with the rescued princess.
For Baron, Zeman used a bipack camera, one in which both a positive and negative strip of film simultaneously move. To generate billowing clouds of color, he dropped dye into a water tank and shot its dispersion through a camera on the side. Zeman spent his whole film career in Zlín.
He was never part of the New Wave filmmaking movement in Prague. His next film was Bláznova kronika (A Jester's Tale), a feverish version of the Thirty Year's War. Then followed Ukradená vzducholod (The Stolen Airship), a very popular film among Japanese film critics and included on a list of the top 12 animated films at that point in time.
One of the child actors in the film, Michal Pospísil, gives an interview about his experiences making the picture. Based on the movie's success, Rock Demmers, Director of the Montreal World Film Festival, invited Zeman as a special guest for the 1967 Expo. He watched five minutes of the film and knew it was one of his selections for his festival.
Shortly after this, Russian soldiers invaded the sets of Zeman's Na komete (On the Comet) that was then under production. This incident is recounted by both Karel Smyczek , Zeman's assistant, and Magda Vásáryová, the female lead. The invasion of the Warsaw Pact forces was followed by normalization.
Jobs all went to Communist Party members and the borders were closed. By 1970, Zeman shut down the production of his animation/live action blends. He no longer wanted to compete with the ascension of Hollywood blockbusters like 2001, Star Wars and Planet of the Apes.
"I can't make that style of films anymore." His final films were strictly animated. Otfried Preußler, author of Krabat, claimed that Karel's film version of it, Carodejuv ucen (The Sorcerer's Apprentice), was better than his book. Another of Zeman's works was, Pohádka o Honzíkovi a Marence (The Tale of John and Mary).
Soon, there were on three crew members left to assist him. Most employees had left to work in television which paid higher salaries. The roof of his office at the studios leaked such that water ran down the walls that were covered in awards .
Zeman still had scripts and ideas, but no team with which to produce them. He asked his friends to help him celebrate his 80th birthday, even though he was on 78 at the time. That April, he died suddenly.
The Tomas Bata students show each other their recreated scenes. Everyone agrees that Zeman was a master of fanciful filmmaking, similar to Georges Méliès with a stylized look to his productions..