Born in Hungary in 1908, Gyӧrgy Marczincsák (aka: George
Pal) initially wanted to train as an architect at the Budapest Academy, but an
administrative blunder resulted in his alternatively being made to take
illustration classes. Pal went on to work at a Budapest advertising company,
where he produced cut-outs for animated commercials. In 1930, he relocated to
Berlin where he worked as a set designer for the UFA (Universum Film, A.G.).
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| George Pal |
After having been driven out of Berlin by the Gestapo, he
attempted to start up his own personal studio in Czechoslovakia, but was unable
to find a camera for the purposes of frame-by-frame shooting. He then proceeded
to form a studio in Paris, and thereafter relocated again to Holland, where he
established another studio for the production of advertisements, along with
business partner Dave Bader. He remained at his Holland studio for five years.
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| Het Aetherschip (1935) |
Pal began producing advertisements for Philips, the
electrical company, and Horlicks malted drink after having signed a contract
with advertising conglomerate J. Walter Thompson. These were essentially
entertainment films but with a subsequent tagline representative of the
sponsor. The first of these was titled Radio
Valve Revolution (1934), which was produced using traditional animation.
The following year, Pal began to develop his own style with the use of animated
puppet films. Highlights include Het
Aetherschip (1935) and On Parade (1936),
a humorous commercial in which a soldier drinks Horlicks to get a decent
night’s sleep to wake up bright and refreshed.
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| Tulips Shall Grow (1942) |
Pal pioneered an unprecedented form of animation in his
series Puppetoons, which utilised
stop-motion techniques as well as a procedure he referred to as “replacement
figure puppetry” (Beck, 2004: 71). A standard eight-minute film involved the
use of between 3000 and 5000 wooden figures. Although the head and limb
attachments were able to be changed and moved, if a character were to speak, it
would require numerous head sculptures. The sets were approximately fifteen
feet wide, and each film took at least one month to produce, at a cost of
roughly $15,000. Pal was then invited to the US in 1939 to produce animated
shorts in his own unique style.
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| Jasper in Olio for Jasper (1945) |
Pal moved to Hollywood to work for Paramount in the early
1940s, where he hired Ray Harryhausen, who later became famous himself for his
stop-motion monster movies. Harryhausen worked on the Puppetoons for around two years. Willis O’Brien, the animator
behind King Kong (1933) also stepped
in but both he and Harryhausen claimed the process was too frustrating.
Regardless, they were successful – the first film to be produced under the Puppetoons label was Dipsy Gypsy (1941), and was swiftly
followed by the Jasper series,
featuring popular characters such as Rusty, and teens Punchy and Judy.
Puppetoons episodes
were nominated for an Academy Award six times, and Pal was awarded an Oscar in
1943 for the unique techniques he employed. He achieved greater success with
live action features. His first was Destination
Moon (1949), and he went on to produce a number of other classic features
such as The War of the Worlds (1953),
The Time Machine (1960) and The Seven Faces of Dr Lao (1964).
In 1980, Pal suffered a heart attack and passed away. A
compilation of his films, titled The
Puppetoon Movie, was released posthumously in 1987.
Sources:
Beck, J. Animation
Art: From Pencil to Pixel, the Illustrated History of Cartoon, Anime and CGI. (2004)
London: Flame Tree Publishing.
Encyclopaedia
Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Pal
The George Pal
Puppetoon Site: http://www.awn.com/heaven_and_hell/PAL/GP12.htm
Image Sources:
The George Pal
Puppetoon Site: http://www.awn.com/heaven_and_hell/PAL/GP12.htm
George Pal – Olio for
Jasper (1946): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCkTDoOyZHU
George Pal – Ship of
Ether (1934): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msbDW1WxE2s
George Pal – Tulips Shall
Grow (1942): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeQ5vmbvgxM&list=PLAtQ0F27vfI54bKfzpZ2-rFxe5GYbNfgm
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