Civil Outcome

Civil Outcome is my first animation I have ever made. It is on the Civil War, one of my favorite studies. The animation style is Stop-Motion. I constructed this animation while under the influence of “The Brothers Quay” animation techniques. To view this video follow the link provided. Thank You.

http://vimeo.com/user9315269/videos 

Cody Streeter
Research Paper

The Brothers Quay

            The Quay Brothers live in England, they moved there in 1969 and studied at the Royal College of Art in London. The Quay Brothers work began in 1979 and is still being created today.  Most of their animations feature dolls and organic materials. They use a very dark and complex animation style to play with moods and emotions.

Most of their work started out small, commercial size animations, little short story clips. It wasn’t until later that they created many feature films. The Quay brothers were essential to sop motion animation.  All their life they were winning awards at film festivals, but when the street of crocodiles was released, they were given freedom into the world of animation.

Steven and Timothy Quay are twin brothers and the founder of The Brothers Quay. They have been extremely influential to the stop-motion animation field. The Quay Brothers animation style involves a lot of bizarre objects coming to life to acts as if they were completely human. The quay brothers use a “lyrical darkness, their work reflects the dark psychology resulting from a century of industrial warfare, surrealist art and dialectical politics” (Stephen). This made their work very enticing to viewers, even to people who were not interested in animation at all.

The Quay Brothers were very good at making a piece so dark, complex, and mad, into a world of wonder, excitement, and mystery. The 2 brothers successfully made many feature length films and many choreographed stop motion animations. After a street of crocodiles was created they turned to choreographed animations along with ballads, one of there most famous ballads being sandman, which involved a Spanish prima ballerina.  It would be a couple years later in 1965 when they started the production of feature films.

The Quay Brothers were excellent in mastering puppet animation. “The Quay’s nonanthropomorphic objects and machines are produced in the recording process of animation, a process that, in projection, results in a visual demonstration of laws that digress from the natural world” (Bachman).  This is why there single frame animations are so perfect.

The Quay’s most famous animations was the Street of Crocodiles (1986) which is a 21 minute animation based on pre-war Poland. “The Quay Brother’s main message was to remind people the traditions of History” (Faculty) The two brothers worked hard to make there pieces like a lyrical ballad, but one of little t no beauty, they were surrealists.

“Surrealist films aren’t meant to be interpreted in the systematic manner of a foreign language. One reads into them what one will, and, in this case, if one has any knowledge of the source material, what one can”(Vincent). The Quay films have been known to have the power of shocking, personal, and grisly effects involved in their animations.

Works Cited

Buchan, Suzanne. The Quay Brothers: Into a Metaphysical Playroom, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 2011. Print.

Unknown. Stephen Quay and Timothy Quay. The European Graduate     School. 11/16/2011 <http://www.egs.edu/faculty/stephen-timothy-quay/biography/&gt;.

VINCENT, CANBY. “FILM: ‘BROTHERS QUAY,’ ANIMATION.” New York Times 29 Apr. 1987: 19. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.