Redesigning Animation: United Productions of America by Cinzia Bottini tells the story about how the animation studio United Productions of America (UPA) was able to challenge Disney supremacy in the 1950s entertainment market by creating cutting-edge animated cartoons.
UPA films express a simplified audiovisual language consisting of stylized layout designs, asymmetrical compositions, colors applied flatly and in contrast with each other, limited animation, and a minimalist use of sound effects. UPA artists developed this innovative style by assimilating those aesthetic features already expressed by Modern painters, graphic designers, and advertisers. This book considers UPA films as Modern animations, because they synthesize a common minimalist tendency that was occurring in US animation during the 1940s and 1950s. It examines the conditions under which UPA studio flourished and the figure of its executive producer Stephen Bosustow. The influence of Modernist stylistic features of painting, graphic design, and poster advertising on UPA animations and UPA animated cartoons as case studies of a simplified audiovisual language that influenced 1950s-1960s international productions.
Introduction
UPA Within the Historical and Cultural Framework of Cold War America
The UPA Production System
The Birth of Style: Modern Art, Graphics Design, Advertising and Animation in the '30s and '50s
UPA Films as Simplified Visual Language in Animation
The UPA Formula
Conclusion
Appendix
Learn about the production methods of UPA and its lasting graphic contribution to animation history
Discover how UPA audiovisual styles were born from the assimilation of Modern paintings, graphic art, and poster advertising
Explores how UPA influenced animation in other parts of the world, including Romania, Russia, and Japan
Highlights the impact UPA had on styles with famous international legends like Dušan Vukotić, Fyodor Khitruk, and Osamu Tezuka