The Old Man and the Sea,
The Hub of Masters
Hamed Zeraatpisheh
UCA Farnham 2008
‘Animating a boat in rotation with a character on a moving sea, and to be able to animate that frame by frame by memory, I mean, it’s just... I don’t know what to say. It’s Petrov'
(Bernard Lajoie, from Animation World Magazine issue 4.12)
‘I have produced simpler films that have turned into nightmares. This one was the most difficult film we have ever undertaken and it was the one that went the most smoothly. I never had so much respect for one individual as I have for Alexander Petrov. He had the pressure of the whole film on his shoulders. At the worst moments, he never lost his nice manners. We ended up as the best friends, which is rare in this business.’
(Pascal Blais, from Animation World Magazine issue 4.12)
Introduction
Petrov’s The Old man and the sea is an interesting option for analysis for a number of reasons: Fist of all it is based on a Nobel Prize winning work of modern literature by Earnest Hemingway and is an Academy Award winner for the best short animated film. Not to forget, of course, that this film is the first Large Format animated film ever made in the history.
Besides it is interesting to study Petrov’s unique animation technique and style, a kind of animation that, due to its complexities, is only mastered by a handful of animators around the world; also it is good to see how a work of literature can be transformed into an emotionally charged, visually intriguing work of animation.
Petrov hand paints his films, frame by frame and his painting style is stylised and personal. Hence his films look like classic paintings that have come to life and
motion! This is why Petrov’s animation is unique and different from any other style1.
The Old Man and the Sea
The story is set in the Gulf Stream off the cost of Havana and is about a four day struggle of an old man (Santiago) against a giant Marlin. Petrov has simplified the details of the original story and wherever appropriate has visually incorporated the descriptions within the scenes. He has also moved the order of events and added extra scenes to strengthen the dramatic effects of the story. In other words Petrov has absorbed the story, personalised it and presented his reading. It is fascinating to see how through Petrov’s personal interpretations Hemingway’s story has been
transformed into an animated short film, retaining its original feeling and strengths (as it is always a challenge to render a written story to a visual one without losing the descriptive qualities).
What is also interesting throughout the film is the cleverly defined fine line between dream and reality. There are scenes in which Santiago (the old man) is day dreaming, recollecting past memories etc. These scenes have been mixed with real world scenes in, adding a surreal effect on the whole film. Sometimes through Santiago’s thoughts and dreams the film takes its spectators beyond the limits of time, place, gravity and logic. The result is a beautiful and poetic film, reminiscent of shaman and Sufism.
The old man’s world view (which is Petrov’s as well) helps create such poetic atmosphere in the film. The old man is close to nature and talks to the beasts, fish, birds, etc; when the old man sees the bird flying over his boat he knows that the bird is going to catch a fish. He is in constant dialogue with the world he lives in; he observes the majesty that lies in nature…. (He calls the fish ‘his true brother’ and joins him in his dreams). The overall feeling of the film therefore is poetic and
inspired by the beauty of nature (the sea, starry dawn etc). Excellent use of dialogues, music and sound effects has also added extra qualities to the piece and helped it a great deal.
Another point is the interesting use of fore-shadowing in the film. For example when the marlin first comes around the bait, the way the fishing rode bends gives an impression that there must be a big fish pulling the bait. Also just before the sharks attack the wind starts changing and dark clouds appear in the horizon giving hints about what is about to happen and the old man is feeling that something is going to go wrong soon.
The film is 20 minutes long and is animated in seven main scenes:
1 when the old man is sleeping and dreaming and the boy wakes him up 2 before dawn when the boy is helping Santiago into his boat
3 when the sun rises and the fish takes the bait...
4 the next day when Santiago is in sleep and the birds fly over his boat.
5 the night when he talks about beasts, the sun, the fish (then he falls sleep and dreams on)
6 the next day, the pull wakes him up and dream fades to reality. He catches the fish, sharks attack …
7 the next day, people are watching the remaining of the fish by the boat, the boy runs to Santiago’s shack and talks to him.
Each of these scenes are made up of hundreds of meticulously hand painted morphing frames, painstakingly prepared and shot over 2 and a half years of intense work (Petrov worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week for this film!).
The number of painted frames per second varies in different scenes of the film. In some scenes it seems that he has painted 2-3 frames in a second whereas in the scenes where there is a lot of action involved, there are many more frames hand painted. But the number of photographs (29000 takes for the whole film) suggests that there have been approximately 24 images taken for each second of the film (20 minutes x 60 seconds x 24 frames = 28800 approx. = 29000 takes). This again uncovers another quality of Petrov’s work, the point being that because the images are hand painted and rich even when they are not moving the scene is fascinating and viewer’s eyes are inclined to follow the brush strokes and enjoy the scene.
Yet the key to better understanding Petrov’s animation is in studying his technique and medium. Petrov uses slow drying oil paint to animate on sheets of glass that are placed on a source of light. His tools are his fingers, paint brushes and rubber scraper. He paints a frame, shoots it, makes changes to the slow drying paint and shoots the next frame and so on. Each sheet of glass is used to animate a different layer of a frame and there is a certain space between each glass sheet. There are two reasons for this: 1- the oil paint is wet and therefore the sheets must not be placed on top of each other and 2- the space between the sheets allows Petrov to have some form of depth of field in his frames.
This is the method and the process Petrov had used for many years before he decided to create a short film based on Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. The main technical difference of this film with Petrov’s earlier films is that The Old Man and the Sea was created for large format screen (IMAX) making it the first animated film ever made in this format.
The reason for this was not Petrov’s conscious decision. In fact IMAX was
completely unknown to him before The Old Man and the Sea. The reason for using IMAX was because of a condition that the co-funders of the project enforced on him.
The summary of the story is that when Blais Productions agreed to produce Petrov’s film, Lajoie the vice president of the company, started searching for production money and eventually could get IMAGICA, a Japanese corporation to pay for a proportion of the project. The Japanese co-producers, though, enforced one condition in order to secure their financing a portion of the film: it must be done in IMAX. This
changed everything because neither Petrov, nor Blais Productions had any experience in IMAX. For the problem with large format screen is that slightest mistakes would be amplified on the large screen. Both Petrov and Pascal Blais (the founder of the
company), therefore, took a big risk to use this format on their very first attempt!
In order to create the film in large format screen Petrov, who had always used 35mm film had to switch to 70mm film and he also had to paint each frame larger than he normally did. So from painting an area of an A4 size, he had to paint an area of A2 size, which was 4 times larger than he normally did.
To overcome these technical complications Lajoie had to build a completely new animation stand from scratch that could both suit Petrov’s needs for the project and also be appropriate for large format screen. So he started by studying Petrov’s animation style and considering the difficulties and requirements of the project spent 6 months of hard work to create an animation stand that was accurate enough for IMAX and could give Petrov enough freedom to work on different layers of glass at the same time (He made the sheets of glass like drawers so they could be roll in/out).
The World Animation Magazine (2000) further elaborates the technical issues that Petrov and the production team had to assess and consider:
To ease the transformation from 35mm to 70mm, the production team used a video assist so that Petrov was able to see the evolution of the process, therefore easing some of the pressure. “Any registration problem or any problem with the smoothness of the camera movement,” says Lajoie, “can be seen on the screen quite easily. The duration of the shots have to be longer, because there is so much information to grab
from the image. “However, Petrov was accustomed to such technology and would still calculate all the scenes in his head.”
Petrov’s camera assistant was also cautious of the new technology. Blais claims, “Serguei would double check every axis [there are up to seven]. All the calculations of these curves of acceleration and deceleration...he would note them down, re-calculate them and correct them. The computer wasn’t accurate enough for IMAX. It was accurate enough for 35mm, but when it came down to IMAX sometimes it would square off a digit or two. He would change these figures. He was more precise than the actual computer. Sergei’s level of accuracy is unbelievable. His log book is an art work that you could frame and hang in a museum. He took note of every single detail. His nightmare was to have Petrov re-shoot a scene because of one of his mistakes.”
There were a lot of pressures involved with the making of this film. Not only was it a new technology for virtually everyone involved, but it was a much more expensive format. “It’s a lot of risk. It’s a lot a pressure. You spend an awful lot of money before seeing a frame of it. You need reliable people. You need reliable technology,” claims Lajoie. After spending one moth animating 500 feet of film, the exposed stock was then sent to Japan for processing. Petrov was forced to nervously wait the results. “ You can imagine the pressure on [Petrov] not knowing if he was going to lose one month of his life or not, working six days a week, twelve hours a day” (Animation World Magazine, 2000)
Conclusion
The Animated Old man and the Sea proves to be an epic no less significant than the old man’s four day battle against the giant marlin, nor Earnest Hemingway’s world class novella upon which the film is actually based; The Old man and the sea
therefore is a classic tale of dedication and determination of great masters.
As seen from the study, Petrov’s painterly and visually rich animation style requires an unimaginable degree of skill, wit, imagination and dedication. A comprehensive understanding of classic animation is, of course, essential, but certainly not enough for production of such a work. One should also be a painter with photographic memory to be able to deliver a work with such specifications and quality.
Implementing this form of animation is evidently a fascinating idea, however, considering the diversity of skills and technical complexities involved in production of such work, care must be taken and other options not ruled out for important forthcoming projects.
Bibliography
-THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA: behind the scenes feature (2004) [DVD] Quebec:
Pascal Blais
-The Old Man and the Sea: Hands Above The Rest? (2000) [online]. [Accessed on 28/02/2008]. Available from World Wide Web:
<http://www.awn.com/mag/issue4.12/4.12pages/robinsonoldman3.php3>
