Rolf Giesen

There is a lot one could say about animation in Europe, but above all, there is no consistent European animation. It is as disparate as the various countries involved. Audiences will certainly recognize American or Japanese animation, but in Europe, it can range from Czech, Polish, and Hungarian to Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and British. Animation in Europe provides a comprehensive review of the history and current situation of animation in over 20 European countries. It features numerous interviews with artists and producers, including rare documents and firsthand accounts that illustrate the rich history of animation in Europe. Additional features include • An extensive chronology with key events in European animation • A Who’s Who of producers, directors, writers, and animators working in Europe • An examination of the origin of European animation and its influence Animation in Europe is the first book devoted entirely to this topic and, therefore, will be of value for animation buffs as well as practitioners and researchers.

Animation in Europe

Director F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, made in 1921 after the devastating Spanish Flu pandemic, has become the ultimate cult classic among horror film buffs around the world. For years, there was much speculation about the production background, the filmmakers and the star--German actor Max Schreck. This greatly expanded new edition, based upon rare sources and years of dedicated research, tells the complete story of how a group of occultists established a leading film company that would produce a momentous series of horror movies. Along the way, other classic German fantasy silents, such as The Golem, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis, are discussed. Featured in this edition are photographs, documents and interviews, including one with Dacre Stoker, the great-grandnephew of Dracula author Bram Stoker.

The Seminal Horror Film, Its Predecessors and Its Enduring Legacy, 2d ed.

The Nosferatu Story

Hitler and the Nazis saturated their country with many types of propaganda to convince the German citizenry that the Nazi ideology was the only ideology. One type of propaganda that the Nazis relied on heavily was cinematic. This work focuses on Nazi propaganda feature films and feature-length documentaries made in Germany between 1933 and 1945 and released to the public. Some of them were Staatsauftragsfilme, films produced by order of and financed by the Third Reich. The films are arranged by subject and then alphabetically, and complete cast and production credits are provided for each. Short biographies of actors, directors, producers, and other who were involved in the making of Nazi propaganda films are also provided.

A History and Filmography

Nazi Propaganda Films

Nightmares and children’s stories, fairies, witches and warlocks, giants, dragons and talking animals, golems, living statues, doppelgänger, vanishing shadows and the incarnation of the Devil, Nosferatu, the iconic vampire, epitome of the Spanish Flu that followed WW1, robots, alchemists and mad scientists, occultism and stories of the supernatural, miracle weapons, rockets and spaceships, aliens, zombies and post-apocalyptic fiction. Paul Wegener, Conrad Veidt, Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau, Paul Leni, Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, Udo Kier, Roland Emmerich - these are the names usually associated with the German Cinema of the Fantastic. But there are more—many more. This book is the first attempt to chronicle German film fantasy, year by year: birthdays, dying days, special events and film premieres of fairy tales, animation, science fiction, and horror - from its origin till nowadays. DR. ROLF GIESEN has written 60 books, mostly devoted to animation, VFX, horror, fantasy and science fiction. He lectured in Germany and China and amassed a huge collection of movie artifacts stored at Deutsche Kinemathek Berlin and Filmmuseum Dusseldorf.

Golem, Caligari, Nosferatu - A Chronicle of German Film Fantasy

Throughout the course of film history, artists have used matte painting, stop-motion animation, model photography, process cinematography, in-camera effects, travelling mattes, optical printing, physical and floor effects to entertain audiences. These are the special effects artists in this book. The biographical entries provide career synopses and movie credits, spanning the early years of cinematography through the end of the mechanical age of filmmaking, marked by Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park and its combination of conventional effects and computer-generated images. An extensive filmography is then presented. The book contains numerous stills, a glossary, bibliography and index.

A Worldwide Biographical Dictionary of the Pre-digital Era with a Filmography

Special Effects Artists

Juni 1945. Weesow bei Werneuchen, vor den Toren von Berlin. In einem sowjetischen Internierungslager hat sich ein Häftling auf der Toilette erhängt. Karl Neumann, NSDAP-Mitglied seit 1930, war im Dritten Reich der Mann, der Walt Disney Konkurrenz machen und als Betriebsführer der Deutschen Zeichenfilm GmbH eine Trickfilm-Produktion nach amerikanischem Muster aufbauen sollte: keine animierten Propagandafilme, sondern bunte, völlig harmlose Tierfabeln für die ganze Familie. Hitler und Goebbels waren nämlich erklärte Fans disney-animierter Wald-und-Wiesen-Romantik à la SCHNEEWITTCHEN UND DIE SIEBEN ZWERGE - und Goebbels war der Meinung: Was die Amerikaner können, können wir Deutschen ebenso gut oder noch besser. In "Bienenstich und Hakenkreuz" schildert Dr. Rolf Giesen anhand einer Vielzahl von Interviews mit Zeitzeugen die abenteuerlichen Irrwege des deutschen Trickfilms zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus: Der Bombenangriffe auf Berlin wegen lagerte Neumann 1944 einen Teil der Produktion nach Dachau aus, in ein Künstlerheim, nicht weit entfernt vom Konzentrationslager – dort wurden Menschen gequält und vernichtet, hier triumphierte der Edelkitsch um entflogene Kanarienvögel und schniefende Hundewelpen. Millionen wurden in das Projekt gesteckt. Heraus kam nicht viel mehr als heiße Luft. Nur ein Kurzfilm wurde bis Kriegsende fertiggestellt: ARMER HANSI, ein weiterer in Dachau begonnen und nach dem Krieg von der DEFA übernommen: PURZELBAUM INS LEBEN – aber das von Goebbels großspurig initiierte Unternehmen wirkt im deutschen Animationsfilm bis heute nach...

Zeichentrick aus Dachau - die Deutsche Zeichenfilm GmbH

Bienenstich und Hakenkreuz

Ronald M. Hahn

alles über die dunkle Seite des Kinos : mehr als 1800 Horrorfilme mit Inhaltsangaben, Filmografien und Kritiken

Das neue Lexikon des Horrorfilms

Anna Khan

Animation has a lot to do with acting. That is, character animation, not the standardized, mechanical process of animation. Acting and animation are highly creative processes. This book is divided into two parts: From film history we learn about the importance of actors and the variety of acting that goes into animation; then, we will turn to the actor's point of view to describe the various techniques involved. Through exhaustive research and interviews with people ranging from the late Ray Harryhausen, Jim Danforth, Joe Letteri, and Bruno Bozzetto, this book will be the primary source for animators and animation actors.

The Art of Animated Films, Acting and Visualizing

Acting and Character Animation

Director F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, made in 1921, right after the devastating Spanish Flu pandemic, has become the ultimate cult classic among horror film buffs around the world. For years there was much speculation about the production background, the filmmakers, and their star, the German actor Max Schreck. This book tells the complete story drawing on rare sources. This book tells the complete story, drawing on rare sources. The trail leads to a group of occultists with a plan to establish a leading film company that would produce a momentous series of horror movies. Along the way, the author touches upon other classic German fantasy silents, such as The Golem, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis.

The Seminal Horror Film, Its Predecessors and Its Enduring Legacy

J.P. Storm

Among their many idiosyncrasies, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, remained serious cartoon aficionados throughout their lives. They adored animation and their influence on German animation after World War II continues to this day. This study explores Hitler and Goebbels’ efforts to establish a German cartoon industry to rival Walt Disney’s and their love-hate relationship with American producers, whose films they studied behind locked doors. Despite their ambitious dream, all that remains of their efforts are a few cartoon shorts—advertising and puppet films starring dogs, cats, birds, hedgehogs, insects, Teutonic dwarves, and other fairy-tale ensemble. While these pieces do not hold much propaganda value, they perfectly illustrate Hannah Arendt’s controversial description of those who perpetrated the Holocaust: the banality of evil.

A History of Trickfilm in Nazi Germany, 1933–1945

Animation Under the Swastika

With an output of more than 250,000 minutes annually, and with roughly 5,000 producers and production units, the Chinese are leading the field of animated films. Although it is almost impossible to completely cover 90 years of filmmaking, this book provides a comprehensible introduction to the industry’s infancy, its Golden Age (Shanghai Animation Film Studio) and today’s Chinese animation (in feature films, television series and student films). There are classics such as Princess Iron Fan (made at the time of the Japanese occupation) and the color Havoc in Heaven, both starring the Monkey King Sun Wukong, as well as countless TV stars (Blue Cat, Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf) and many almost unknown works by young filmmakers who are not focusing on an audience of children (like most of the industry output).

A History and Filmography, 1922–2012

Chinese Animation

Director F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, made in 1921, right after the devastating Spanish Flu pandemic, has become the ultimate cult classic among horror film buffs around the world. For years there was much speculation about the production background, the filmmakers, and their star, the German actor Max Schreck. This book tells the complete story drawing on rare sources. This book tells the complete story, drawing on rare sources. The trail leads to a group of occultists with a plan to establish a leading film company that would produce a momentous series of horror movies. Along the way, the author touches upon other classic German fantasy silents, such as The Golem, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis.

There were many who agreed with him like Karl Ritter who introduced Mickey Mouse to German audiences in 1930 and in 1933 began to produce propaganda films like Hitler Youth Quex: “In our cinemas we want to see nothing else than convinced National Socialists!” For a while German film export languished, but with WW2 the Nazis “conquered” cinemas all over Europe and flooded them with their movies, propaganda as well as allegedly “apolitical” entertainment. In the new Germany one can laugh again! the propaganda promised but it was a different way of laughing. It was gallows humor. This book deals not only with Hitler’s personal cinematic likes and dislikes, with the ambitions of Leni Riefenstahl, with the idyllic world of German animation, with film emigration, with anti-Semitic films, Dachau and Auschwitz. There is also a back story to tell about certain German silents like Metropolis and why the way of Teutonic imagery didn’t end with the death of the Nazi leaders in 1945, why their way of “laughing” is still alive on German screens… About the author Rolf Giesen, a film historian, worked for 40 years writing, collecting, supervising, lecturing in Germany and abroad, particularly China. He is one of Europe’s leading experts on animation and VFX.

Rolf Giesen

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