Analysis of the cartoon:
OH, WHAT A KNIGHT of Paul Driessen
SYNOPSIS
It’s a short cartoon about a gallant knight who braves various dangers in order to rescue a damsel in distress. Will she realize who the real saviour is?
SCRIPT
There is a knight and his horse. The horse is pooping while patiently waiting with his knight. After a while a female voice is calling for help. The knight moves immediately ahead to rescue the women in distress. He’s riding the horse.
There is storm with thunderbolts that seem to follow the knight and smashes up everything on his way to the goal. That probably scares the horse, which shakes the knight off and leaves. From now on must the knight rely just on himself. And here appears the first opponent – a huge, green monster with three heads. But the fearless knight begins to cut the monsters heads and easily defeats him. Suddenly appears another head of the mentioned monster and pulls the knight inside the cage. The knight checks quickly where he is and moves on tiptoe ahead. In the same moment appears another monster and the knight jumps to a big kettle.
The monster ladles out his soup together with the tiny knight (compared to the opponent), who defeats him by smashing up his eyes and runs away. On the way to his goal emerges from nowhere another monster, which has been trickily defeated by the clever knight. With the aid of the hanging rope (or this what remains after the monster) the brave knight moves to the edge of a mountain, to his final destination.
The knight finally sees the damsel captured by a little monster that holding a dagger above her head. He suddenly hit upon a brilliant idea to rescue her. He leaves his armour and slips down (escapes anyone’s notice) to move along the edge. In this way he gets around the mountain to ambush and defeat the monster. And so do he.
The knight rescues the damsel who thanks but doesn’t take him serious. It escapes her notice that the tiny men, who just killed the monster is the knight to who belongs the empty armour. So she falls in love with the armour, runs to kiss it and together with it falls down the gaping void and dies. The knight looks disappointed and angry.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS (TOONS)
A KNIGHT
In the analysed cartoon is he the main character whose face and the shape of his body is shown just at the end of the short film. Most of the time we see him hidden inside armour that is few times bigger than the medium-sized knight self. The most important attribute of the grotesque steel armour is its mobility – the knight can change his/its shape very easily and whenever it’s necessary, what brings immediately an association with his indestructibility and great power. The main task of the knight in this short film is fighting and annihilation monsters standing on his way to rescue a damsel in distress.
A DAMSEL
The mentioned damsel is rather a passive character in this animation. Her only activity seems to be calling on anyone who can rescue her in distress. She has red hair and wears dress with a conic cap, both in pastel shade. Probably is external appearance more important for her than extraordinary feats and merits. And that is the reason she finally dies.
MONSTERS
They all look the same. Some of them are huge, some of them - chubby, some of them have more than one head etc. but all of them are dark green, have big yellow eyes, acute white teeth and are trying to kill the damsel and disturb the knight in his mission to rescue her.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
THE KNIGHT…
…is waiting. Sitting on his horse (which is by the way pooping in the meanwhile) and looking down into the gaping void. After he hears someone’s calling for help, he moves immediately ahead on horseback and rides no matter what paths he crosses. Being left by his horse, he has to make a stand against the first monster. And from now on he tangles with several different monsters that he meets on the way and defeats them by fighting with them or using his imagination and cleverness. In the final scene, after he defeats the last opponent and set the damsel free, he feels disappointed and angry of her choice and stupidity.
THE DAMSEL
Right in the beginning of the presented story we can hear only her voice calling for help. Then few times (while the saviour is fighting the opponents to rescue her) we see her frightened face, still calling for help. In the very last scene, after the damsel has been set free, she thanks very superficially to her saviour. Falling in love with the standing in front of her armour she runs towards “the knight” and kisses “him”. Accidentally she falls together with her “knight” into the gaping void and, as well disappointed as the knight self, dies.
EDITING
SCENE 1
The knight sitting on his horseback and not moving. The pooping horse. The credits are displayed.
SCENE 2
Zooming in the main character and his horse.
SCENE 3
The knight riding through obstacles on a straight way.
SCENE 4
Running back of the horse and falling tree.
SCENE 5
The horse shaking the knight off and leaving.
SCENE 6
Zooming in the first monster and the back of the knight.
SCENE 7
Screaming face (zoomed in) of the damsel.
SCENE 8
Little knight against a big 3-heads monster.
SCENE 9
A sword cutting a head of the opponent.
SCENE 10
A head of a monster spitting with fire.
SCENE 11
The knight swiping with his sword.
SCENE 12
The sword cutting the long throat of a monster.
SCENE 13
The last head of the opponent pulling the knight inside him/a cage (?)
SCENE 14
The knight looking around. Another monster standing up/raising.
SCENE 15
Screaming face (zoomed in) of the damsel.
SCENE 16
Jumping knight.
SCENE 17
A kettle with boiling liquid. A monster staying behind and ladle out the (probably) soup.
SCENE 18
A monster tasting the soup. The knight showing up on the spoon and hurting the monster’s eye.
SCENE 19
Waving/flying hands of the monster.
SCENE 20
The knight falling down and running ahead.
SCENE 21
Another monster appears in front of the knight.
SCENE 22
Screaming face of the damsel.
SCENE 23
The knight visible from behind with a monster hanging in front of him. The knight swings on the rope to the damsel.
SCENE 24
The knight standing on the edge of a rock. In front of him the damsel and another monster holding her. The knight leaves sneaky his armour and moves along the edge.
SCENE 25
The knight getting around the mountain. Riding cars below.
SCENE 26
The front of the armour standing on the edge. The monster and the damsel visible from behind. The knight watching them from above and jumping on the opponent.
SCENE 27
The back of the armour and in the middle the damsel watching her saviour who is defeating the monster. Winning knight. The damsel thanks him.
SCENE 28
The damsel running direction armour and falling down the gaping void. The knight watching frightened. After she dies he turns around and looks angry.
TIMING
The movements in this animation are very fluent or maybe another term is better to specify what I mean, namely runny, like honey or scrambled eggs. Everything looks a bit like a dance seen in slow motion. We don’t see at all the weight of the steel armour in movements of the knight. Or we have impression that he’s so brave because there is in his movements no even little hesitation implied fear. But…
…it’s visible that the sword is sharp or that the knight is not only brave but also strong/powerful, that the huge monsters are heavier than the knight, who (in this case) moves faster and that the damsel is scared and a bit nervous. So there actually are differences in timing; differences that shows the weight or scale properties of the characters or even emotions.
FRAMEWORK AND COMPOSITION
The cartoon contains pictures that are clear in reception according the rule: what you see what you get. Driessen is a very spare person what concerns the selection of pictures he used in this animation. He emphasises or the background or the action/characters on the foreground, depends on what he wants the watcher to focus on. He is playing with the close up as well. All scenes, where pure action has place (e.g. fighting the monsters, frightened damsel etc.) are shown from very close distance to make it more dynamic and keep the spectators eyes focused on, the rest we see is typical registration. In this way we see exactly this what we need to see to get the point. Driessen’s drawings are more like photos than drawings. He uses the Rule of Third very conscious and consequent and probably that makes this cartoon so absorbing.
SOUND
There is no typical music or voice sound used in this cartoon, except for few screaming/vowing of the damsel (aaaaaaa!!!), hoarse sound of the yelling monsters and the ‘aauuuuuu!!! sound’ of a crying injured monster. The sound what gives an appropriate character to this animation is almost totally based on Foley sound, which I described below =>
FOLEY SOUND: birds singing, cow’s mooing, xylophone, bells, light wind, bouncing ball, sheep, smoking pipe, gallop of the horse, lightning, an armour falling into pieces, fire, hiss, clang/rattle of the steel armour, dropping water, splash, boiling water, sipping, swallowing, breathing, different kind of rustle, sound of traffic (cars), throwing down a heavy fabric, throwing cutlery, wheeze, dusting off the hands, sighing.
GRAPHICAL CHARACTER
The cartoon is drawn with very simple bar – looks almost childish, albeit is not so. Some of the drawings/scenes are surely meant to be drawn for adults. The colours grey, green, black and yellow are dominant but not the only, Driessen uses also different colours but rather in pastel shades. The background looks like drawn with a child hand, however the conscious choice of gradient and shadows shows high professionalism of Driessen’s style. The background by the way differs in structure from the first plan; however are the characters fully filled in with colours, the background remains drawn with bars.
CREDITS
MAKER – Paul Driessen
CAMERA – Toon de Wit
SOUND – Ronald Nadory and Marcel de Vre
PRODUCENT – Nico Crama
WITH THANKS TO – Karen Alfred
SHORT BIO OF THE ANIMATOR
Paul Driessen (born in Nijmegen in 1940) is a Dutch film director, animator and writer. His short films have won more than fifty prizes all over the world, including the Life Achievement Awards at both Ottawa and Zagreb animation festivals, and a Academy Award nomination for “3 MISSES”.
After studying graphic design and illustration at the Art Academy in Utrecht, Driessen began animating TV-commercials in Holland in the 1960, although he had no training in that art at all. When George Dunning, in search for talent, found Driessen at the Cine Cartoon Centre in Hilversum, he hired him as an animator for his feature animation film YELLOW SUBMARINE (1968). He also helped Driessen to emigrate to Canada where he became a member of the National Film Board of Canada in 1972.
Driessen’s unique style can be easily recognized by the delicate quality of his ever-moving and wiggling lines, as well as by the fluid but awkward movements of his characters. His storytelling sometimes splits up the screen into three or even six different parts, with all actions nicely woven into each other.
In the 1980’s Driessen taught animation at the University of Kassel, Germany, after Jan Lenica. Two of his student’s films, “BALANCE” by Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein, and “QUEST” by Tyron Montgomery and Thomas Stellmach, won Academy Awards.
PERSONAL FILM CRITICISM
I’m a huge fan of animations, but till now I didn’t realize how much time must be expended to make one minute of a well-done cartoon. And Driessen is a master in his profession. After “OH, WHAT A KNIGHT” I had to watch the rest of his work and I find his personal style not only incredible funny but above all very unique.
I love this cartoon for its simplicity and minimalism of colour, structure and shape. The choice of hue in this animation makes it so special in reception, because it’s so close to my own interests. The shape and the structure of the background for example, make me thinking that the simplest is also the best. All characters look perfect… puerile – we take a quick look at and we know who they are or what is their role in the story. A similar impression I have while watching drawings drawn by little children where is no place for abstraction or indistinct message.
Oh, …what funny and grotesque is this cartoon: the huge monsters that sound so ridiculous, or the pooping horse, or the knight self, who defeats monsters not only with sword but also with the aid of his clever and funny tricks. I was laughing like crazy while watching it for the very first time. The ostensibly simple story contains a lot of surprising details that make it so incredibly appealing and funny. Anyway, everything that was already written in this analyse is how I do experience this animation and, I’m sure, it will help me in the future with making my own.
SOURCE STATEMENT
OH, WHAT A KNIGHT (cartoon)
http://www.every10mins.com/video/1538_oh_what_a_knight.html
BIO AND ACTIVITY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Driessen_(animator)
http://www.niaf.nl/niaf2006/nl/actueel/interviews/interview_driessen.htm
