How Did They Build the Great Pyramid of Giza?: An Animated Introduction

in Animation, Architecture, History | October 21st, 2022

The Great Pyra­mid of Giza is a mir­a­cle of geom­e­try, con­struc­tion, and plan­ning ahead.

Pharaoh Khu­fu’s rel­a­tive — like­ly nephew — Hemienu, was put in charge of the project as soon as Khu­fu suc­ceed­ed his father, Pharaoh Sne­feru cir­ca 2550 B.C.E.

Hemienu, an engi­neer, priest and magi­cian whose hon­orifics includ­ed Mem­ber of the Elite, Vizier, King’s Seal-Bear­er, Priest of Bastet, Priest of Shes­me­tet, High Priest of Thoth, and, most impor­tant­ly, Over­seer of All Con­struc­tion Projects of the King, picked wise­ly when choos­ing the Great Pyra­mid’s site  - a rocky plateau on the Nile’s west bank made for a far stur­dier foun­da­tion than shift­ing sands.

His­to­ri­an Soraya Field Fio­rio’s ani­mat­ed TED-Ed les­son, above, details how the 25,000 work­ers who took 20 years to make Hemienu’s vision a real­i­ty were not enslaved labor, as they have so often been por­trayed — a rumor start­ed by Greek his­to­ri­an Herodotus — but rather, ordi­nary Egypt­ian cit­i­zens ful­fill­ing a peri­od of manda­to­ry gov­ern­ment ser­vice.

Some toiled on the admin­is­tra­tive end or in a sup­port capac­i­ty, while oth­ers got to spend ten hours a day haul­ing lime­stone on mas­sive cedar sleds.

A team of 500 ham­mered out the Pyramid’s gran­ite sup­port beams using dolerite rocks, a task so time con­sum­ing that Hemienu put them to work imme­di­ate­ly, antic­i­pat­ing that it would take them 12 years to pro­duce the nec­es­sary mate­ri­als.

Con­struc­tion sched­ules are always an iffy bet, but Hemienu had the added stress of know­ing that Khu­fu could take his leave well before his glo­ri­ous, gold­en tipped tomb was ready to receive him.

This is why there are three bur­ial cham­bers with­in the Great Pyra­mid. The last and grand­est of these, known as the King’s Cham­ber, is an impres­sive pink gran­ite room at the heart of pyra­mid, where its roof sup­ports over four hun­dred tons of mason­ry. An enor­mous red gran­ite sar­coph­a­gus weigh­ing well over 3 tons is locat­ed in the mid­dle of this cham­ber, but alas, the lid has been ajar for cen­turies.

Khu­fu is not with­in.

What became of him is a mys­tery, but if Scoo­by-Doo taught us any­thing of val­ue in our pre-TED-Ed child­hood, it’s that mys­ter­ies exist to be solved.

Sev­er­al years ago, an inter­na­tion­al team of archi­tects and sci­en­tists Egypt sur­veyed the Great Pyra­mid and its Giza neigh­bors at sun­rise and sun­set, using infrared ther­mog­ra­phy, which seemed to indi­cate the exis­tence of an as yet unex­plored cham­ber.

TED-Ed’s les­son plan directs those inter­est­ed in plumb­ing these and oth­er mys­ter­ies fur­ther to the Nation­al Geo­graph­ic doc­u­men­tary, Unlock­ing the Great Pyra­mid and Egyp­tol­o­gist Bob Brier’s book, The Secret of the Great Pyra­mid: How One Man’s Obses­sion Led to the Solu­tion of Ancient Egypt’s Great­est Mys­tery, both of which are root­ed in the work of French archi­tect Jean-Pierre Houdin, below.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Who Built the Egypt­ian Pyra­mids & How Did They Do It?: New Arche­o­log­i­cal Evi­dence Busts Ancient Myths

Take a 3D Tour Through Ancient Giza, Includ­ing the Great Pyra­mids, the Sphinx & More

What the Great Pyra­mid of Giza Would’ve Looked Like When First Built: It Was Gleam­ing, Reflec­tive White

A Drone’s Eye View of the Ancient Pyra­mids of Egypt, Sudan & Mex­i­co

Pyra­mids of Giza: Ancient Egypt­ian Art and Archaeology–a Free Online Course from Har­vard

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Behold the World’s Oldest Animation Made on a Vase in Iran 5,200 Years Ago

in Animation, History | October 13th, 2022

By some accounts, the his­to­ry of ani­ma­tion stretch­es back to the turn of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. Since that time, ani­ma­tors have brought an astound­ing vari­ety of visions to artis­tic life. But looked at anoth­er way, this enter­prise — which has so far cul­mi­nat­ed in fea­ture-film spec­ta­cles by stu­dios like Pixar and Ghi­b­li — actu­al­ly has it roots deep in antiq­ui­ty. In order to find the first work of ani­ma­tion, broad­ly con­ceived, one must go to Shahr‑e Sukhteh, Iran’s famous “Burnt City.” Now a UNESCO World Her­itage site, it dates back more than five mil­len­nia, about four of which it spent under a lay­er of ash and dust, which pre­served a great many arti­facts of inter­est with­in.

Shahr‑e Sukhteh was first exca­vat­ed in 1967. About a decade lat­er, an Ital­ian archae­o­log­i­cal team unearthed the pot­tery ves­sel bear­ing designs now con­sid­ered the ear­li­est exam­ple of ani­ma­tion. “The arti­fact bears five images depict­ing a wild goat jump­ing up to eat the leaves of a tree,” says the web site of the Cir­cle of Ancient Iran­ian Stud­ies. “Sev­er­al years lat­er, Iran­ian archae­ol­o­gist Dr. Mansur Sad­ja­di, who became lat­er appoint­ed as the new direc­tor of the archae­o­log­i­cal team work­ing at the Burnt City dis­cov­ered that the pic­tures formed a relat­ed series.” The ani­mal depict­ed is a mem­ber of Capra aega­grus, “also known as ‘Per­sian desert Ibex’, and since it is an indige­nous ani­mal to the region, it would nat­u­ral­ly appear in the iconog­ra­phy of the Burnt City.”

Image by Eme­sik, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

This amus­ing­ly dec­o­rat­ed gob­let, now on dis­play at the Nation­al Muse­um of Iran, is hard­ly the only find that reflects the sur­pris­ing devel­op­ment of the ear­ly civ­i­liza­tion that pro­duced it. “The world’s first known arti­fi­cial eye­ball, with two holes in both sides and a gold­en thread to hold it in place, has been unearthed from the skele­ton of a woman’s body in Shahr‑e Sukhteh,” says Mehr News. Exca­va­tions have also turned up “the old­est signs of brain surgery,” as well as evi­dence that “the peo­ple of Shahr‑e Sukhteh played backgam­mon,” or at least some kind of table game involv­ing dice. But only the Burnt City’s pio­neer­ing work of flip-book-style art “means that the world’s old­est car­toon char­ac­ter is a goat.” His­to­ri­ans of ani­ma­tion, update your files accord­ing­ly.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Watch Art on Ancient Greek Vas­es Come to Life with 21st-Cen­tu­ry Ani­ma­tion

The Ear­ly Days of Ani­ma­tion Pre­served in UCLA’s Video Archive

Ear­ly Japan­ese Ani­ma­tions: The Ori­gins of Ani­me (1917–1931)

700 Years of Per­sian Man­u­scripts Now Dig­i­tized and Avail­able Online

Was a 32,000-Year-Old Cave Paint­ing the Ear­li­est Form of Cin­e­ma?

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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A Brief History of Dumplings: An Animated Introduction

in Animation, Food & Drink, History, K-12 | August 8th, 2022

Dumplings are so deli­cious and so ven­er­a­ble, it’s under­stand­able why more than one coun­try would want to claim author­ship.

As cul­tur­al food his­to­ri­an Miran­da Brown dis­cov­ers in her TED-Ed ani­ma­tion, dumplings are among the arti­facts found in ancient tombs in west­ern Chi­na, rock hard, but still rec­og­niz­able.

Schol­ar Shu Xi sang their prais­es over 1,700 years ago in a poem detail­ing their ingre­di­ents and prepa­ra­tion. He also indi­cat­ed that the dish was not native to Chi­na.

Lamb stuffed dumplings fla­vored with gar­lic, yogurt, and herbs were an Ottoman Empire treat, cir­ca 1300 CE.

The 13th-cen­tu­ry Mon­gol inva­sions of Korea result­ed in mass casu­al­ties , but the sil­ver lin­ing is, they gave the world man­doo.

The Japan­ese Army’s bru­tal occu­pa­tion of Chi­na dur­ing World War II gave them a taste for dumplings that led to the cre­ation of gyoza.

East­ern Euro­pean pel­meni, piero­gi and vareni­ki may seem like vari­a­tions on a theme to the unini­ti­at­ed, but don’t expect a Ukrain­ian or Russ­ian to view it that way.

Is the his­to­ry of dumplings real­ly just a series of bloody con­flicts, punc­tu­at­ed by peri­ods of rel­a­tive har­mo­ny where­in every­one argues over the best dumplings in NYC?

Brown takes some mild pot­shots at cuisines whose dumplings are clos­er to dough balls than “plump pock­ets of per­fec­tion”, but she also knows her audi­ence and wise­ly steers clear of any posi­tions that might lead to play­ground fights.

Relax, kids, how­ev­er your grand­ma makes dumplings, she’s doing it right.

It’s hard to imag­ine sushi mas­ter Naomichi Yasu­da dial­ing his opin­ions down to pre­serve the sta­tus quo.

A purist — and favorite of Antho­ny Bour­dain — Chef Yasu­da is unwa­ver­ing in his con­vic­tions that there is one right way, and many wrong ways to eat and pre­pare sushi.

He’s far from prig­gish, instruct­ing cus­tomer Joseph George, for VICE Asia MUNCHIES in the prop­er han­dling of a sim­ple piece of sushi after it’s been light­ly dipped, fish side down, in soy sauce:

Don’t shake it. Don’t shake it! Shak­ing is just to be fin­ished at the men’s room.

Oth­er take­aways for sushi bar din­ers:

  • Use fin­gers rather than chop­sticks when eat­ing maki rolls.
  • Eat­ing pick­led gin­ger with sushi is “very much bad man­ners”
  • Roll sushi on its side before pick­ing it up with chop­sticks to facil­i­tate dip­ping
  • The tem­per­a­ture inter­play between rice and fish is so del­i­cate that your expe­ri­ence of it will dif­fer depend­ing on whether a wait­er brings it to you at a table or the chef hands it to you across the counter as soon as it’s assem­bled.

Explore TED-Ed’s Brief His­to­ry of Dumplings les­son here.

For a deep­er dumpling dive, read the Oxford Symposium’s Wrapped and Stuffed Foods: Pro­ceed­ings on the Sym­po­sium: Foods and Cook­ery, 2012, avail­able as a free Google Book.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Japan­ese Restau­rants Show You How to Make Tra­di­tion­al Dish­es in Med­i­ta­tive Videos: Soba, Tem­pu­ra, Udon & More

How to Make Sushi: Free Video Lessons from a Mas­ter Sushi Chef

How the Aston­ish­ing Sushi Scene in Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs Was Ani­mat­ed: A Time-Lapse of the Month-Long Shoot

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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What a Disney Version of A Clockwork Orange Would Look Like

in Animation, Film | August 4th, 2022

“Fam­i­ly-friend­ly enter­tain­ment” means dif­fer­ent things to dif­fer­ent peo­ple, despite near­ly a cen­tu­ry of the Walt Dis­ney Com­pa­ny attempt­ing to asso­ciate the con­cept exclu­sive­ly with its own brand. And on the busi­ness lev­el, Dis­ney has become increas­ing­ly iden­ti­fied with enter­tain­ment itself. “With Mar­vel, Star Wars, Pixar, and their princess con­tent tucked safe­ly in their port­fo­lio,” writes Boing Boing’s Devin Nealy, “Dis­ney is only a few stu­dios away from hav­ing a monop­oly on nos­tal­gia. At this point, it’d be eas­i­er to count the IPs that Dis­ney does­n’t own.”

When it comes to extract­ing all pos­si­ble val­ue from IP — that is, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty — no com­pa­ny shows quite as much deter­mi­na­tion as Dis­ney. This goes for the cre­ations it has late­ly acquired as well as those it already owned.

Wit­ness, for instance, its recent spate of live-action remakes: The Jun­gle Book direct­ed by Jon Favreau, Aladdin by Guy Ritchie, Dum­bo by Tim Bur­ton. That these are hard­ly the least plau­si­ble prod­ucts to be put out by Dis­ney Stu­dios in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry sends the imag­i­na­tion toward ever more incon­gru­ous pos­si­bil­i­ties for IP-reusage. What if Dis­ney remade, say, Stan­ley Kubrick­’s A Clock­work Orange?

Such is the premise of the uncan­ny trail­er above, cre­at­ed by Youtu­ber Jaba­Toons. Using audio tak­en straight from Kubrick­’s eclec­ti­cal­ly night­mar­ish vision of Antho­ny Burgess’ dystopi­an nov­el, it also ren­ders a host of its scenes not in the style of the CGI extrav­a­gan­zas Dis­ney puts out today, but the more tra­di­tion­al, two-dimen­sion­al ani­mat­ed pic­tures it still did in the nine­teen-nineties. The trail­er announces the film as “Dis­ney’s 35th ani­mat­ed clas­sic,” a posi­tion occu­pied in real­i­ty by Her­cules: also a hero’s jour­ney, albeit with a much dif­fer­ent tone, to say noth­ing of out­come, than A Clock­work Orange. Alex Delarge may look strange­ly plau­si­ble as a Dis­ney char­ac­ter, but a pro­tag­o­nist with a less fam­i­ly-friend­ly set of inter­ests would be hard to imag­ine.

via Boing Boing

Relat­ed con­tent:

A Lccokrkow Gar­neo: All 245,000 Frames of Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange Ran­dom­ized

Mon­ty Python and the Holy Grail Re-Imag­ined as an Epic, Main­stream Hol­ly­wood Film

The Shin­ing and Oth­er Com­plex Stan­ley Kubrick Films Recut as Sim­ple Hol­ly­wood Movies

Don­ald Duck Dis­cov­ers Glenn Beck: A Remix

Mick­ey Mouse In Viet­nam: The Under­ground Anti-War Ani­ma­tion from 1968, Co-Cre­at­ed by Mil­ton Glaser

When Stan­ley Kubrick Banned His Own Film, A Clock­work Orange: It Was the “Most Effec­tive Cen­sor­ship of a Film in British His­to­ry”

The Mak­ing of Stan­ley Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Watch the Titanic Sink in This Real-Time 3D Animation

in Animation, History | July 11th, 2022

Minute by minute time­lines have become a sta­ple of dis­as­ter report­ing.

Know­ing how the sto­ry ends puts the pub­lic in the posi­tion of help­less bystander, espe­cial­ly at those crit­i­cal junc­tures when some­one in a posi­tion of author­i­ty exer­cised poor judg­ment, result­ing in a larg­er loss of life.

Youtu­ber Phillip W, cre­ator of Titan­ic Ani­ma­tions, allows us to expe­ri­ence the famed lux­u­ry liner’s final two and half hours as a time­stamped hor­ror show, above, with­out resort­ing to the­atrics, or a crowd pleas­ing fic­tion­al romance.

Ver­i­fied crew orders, CQD reports, and vacant lifeboat seats pro­vide ample dra­ma along­side mes­mer­iz­ing CGI recre­ations of the doomed lux­u­ry lin­er, its light­ed port­holes reflect­ed in the dark water.

It took around 2 and a half hours for the Titan­ic to sink, just four days into her maid­en voy­age, after strik­ing an ice­berg around 11:40 pm.

As the Smith­son­ian Nation­al Muse­um of Amer­i­can His­to­ry recounts:

The berg scraped along the star­board or right side of the hull below the water­line, slic­ing open the hull between five of the adja­cent water­tight com­part­ments. If only one or two of the com­part­ments had been opened, Titan­ic might have stayed afloat, but when so many were sliced open, the water­tight integri­ty of the entire for­ward sec­tion of the hull was fatal­ly breached. 

Titan­ic Ani­ma­tions tracks myr­i­ad crew mem­bers from this moment on, using fac­tu­al titles, light­ly sup­ple­ment­ed with sound effects of ocean nois­es, alarm bells, and peri­od tunes that would’ve been in the reper­toire of the band that famous­ly did (or didn’t) play on. The head bak­er directs staff to car­ry arm­loads of bread to pro­vi­sion the lifeboats. These morsels of infor­ma­tion and the rel­a­tive­ly placid views affords our imag­i­na­tion free rein to fill in the con­fu­sion, pan­ic and mount­ing des­per­a­tion of those aboard.

This real time sink­ing ani­ma­tion is ren­dered with­out human fig­ures, but Titan­ic Animation’s Twit­ter indi­cates that Phillip W has been hard at work on a new project that places crew and pas­sen­gers on deck, a — for­give us — titan­ic under­tak­ing that also finds him striv­ing to recre­ate every riv­et and rip­ple. A sta­tus update from ear­li­er this spring reads, “2.5 months in. 52,035 frames completed.178,364 left to go.”

The orig­i­nal ani­ma­tion, above, took mul­ti­ple years to com­plete:

A friend and I start­ed work­ing on the first ver­sion back in 2012/2013 and it was released in 2015. It’s been updat­ed over the years, and now I’m the only one left after my friend depart­ed after los­ing inter­est. So around 8–9 years, give or take, and about $8000 in research and ren­der­farms to com­plete.


If you’re inclined to mess around with your own Titan­ic ani­ma­tions, Philip W. has shared a Cin­e­mat­ic Film­ing Mod­el of the Titanic’s exte­ri­or, fea­tur­ing accu­rate port­hole place­ments, telegraphs, fun­nels, rig­ging, ven­ti­la­tion equip­ment place­ments, lifeboats, and approx­i­mate­ly 95,000 riv­ets.

Sub­scribe to Titan­ic Ani­ma­tions here. Those with an inter­est in 3D ani­ma­tion will appre­ci­ate archived livestreams that give a peek at the process.

Nav­i­gate to key moments in real time sink­ing ani­ma­tion using the links below.

00:00:00 — Intro

00:05:00 — Ice­berg Col­li­sion

00:10:00 — 10 Degree List to Star­board

00:11:00 — Steam begins to escape the Fun­nels

00:15:45 — Mail Room begins to flood

00:25:00 — Mid­night

00:30:00 — Squash Court begins to flood

00:37:15 — Lifeboats ordered to be read­ied

00:42:00 — Band Begins Play­ing

00:49:40 — Thomas Andrews relays news to Capt. Smith

00:51:40 — First Dis­tress Call is Sent

01:01:18 — Dis­tress Coor­di­nates are Cor­rect­ed

01:01:38 — Carpathia Makes Con­tact

01:04:00 — Boat 7 (First Boat) is Launched

01:06:00 — The Straus’ Refuse Entry to Boat 8

01:07:00 — Grand Stair­case F‑Deck Begins Flood­ing

01:08:10 — Boat 5 is Launched

01:10:00 — Box­hall & Smith spot Carpathia

01:12:10 — 1st Dis­tress Rock­et Fired

01:15:00 — Grand Stair­case E‑Deck Begins Flood­ing

01:20:00 — Boat 3 is Launched

01:21:00 — Titan­ic Begins Send­ing SOS

01:25:00 — 1AM Boat 8 is Launched

01:30:00 — Boat 1 is Launched

01:35:00 — Boat 6 is Launched

01:35:15 — Boil­er Room 5 Floods

01:40:00 — Water Climbs Grand Stair­case

01:44:30 — Boil­er Room 4 is Aban­doned

01:45:00 — Boat 16 is Launched

01:50:00 — Boat 14 is Launched

01:55:15 — Boats 9 and 12 are Launched

02:00:00 — Boat 11 is Launched

02:04:00 — Titan­ic lists to Port

02:05:00 — Boat 13 is Launched

02:06:00 — Boat 15 is Launched

02:09:00 — D‑deck Recep­tion Room Floods

02:10:00 — Boat 2 is Launched

02:12:00 — Well Deck is Awash

02:14:00 — D‑Deck Recep­tion Room Goes

02:15:00 — Boat 10 is Launched

02:15:10 — Boat 4 is Launched

02:25:00 — 2AM Boat C is Launched

02:26:10 -  Pow­er Begins to Fade

02:29:00 — Boat D is Launched

02:37:15 — Near­er My God to Thee

02:40:00 — Final Plunge

02:42:00 — Breakup

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Titan­ic Sur­vivor Inter­views: What It Was Like to Flee the Sink­ing Lux­u­ry Lin­er

The Titan­ic: Rare Footage of the Ship Before Dis­as­ter Strikes (1911–1912)

How the Titan­ic Sank: James Cameron’s New CGI Ani­ma­tion

“Titan­ic Sink­ing; No Lives Lost” and Oth­er Ter­ri­bly Inac­cu­rate News Reports from April 15, 1912

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro Is Getting Adapted for the Stage by The Royal Shakespeare Company & Jim Henson’s Creature Shop

in Animation, Film, Theatre | July 1st, 2022

The films of Hayao Miyaza­k­i’s Stu­dio Ghi­b­li have won immense world­wide acclaim, in large part because they so ful­ly inhab­it their medi­um. Their char­ac­ters, their sto­ries, their worlds: all can come ful­ly to life only in ani­ma­tion. Still, it’s true that some of their mate­r­i­al did orig­i­nate in oth­er forms. The pre-Ghi­b­li break­out fea­ture Nau­si­caä of the Val­ley of the Wind, for instance, began as a com­ic book writ­ten and drawn by Miyaza­ki (who at first laid down the con­di­tion that it not be adapt­ed for the screen). Four years lat­er, by the time of My Neigh­bor Totoro, the nature of Ghi­b­li’s visions had become insep­a­ra­ble from that of ani­ma­tion itself.

Now, almost three and a half decades after Totoro’s orig­i­nal release, the pro­duc­tion of a stage ver­sion is well under­way. Play­bill’s Raven Brun­ner reports that the show “will open in Lon­don’s West End at The Bar­bi­can the­atre for a 15-week engage­ment Octo­ber 8‑January 21, 2023.

The pro­duc­tion will be pre­sent­ed by the Roy­al Shake­speare Com­pa­ny and exec­u­tive pro­duc­er Joe Hisaishi.” Japan’s most famous film com­pos­er, Hisaishi scored Totoro as well as all of Miyaza­k­i’s oth­er Ghi­b­li films so far, includ­ing Por­co Rosso, Princess Mononoke, and Spir­it­ed Away (itself adapt­ed for the stage in Japan ear­li­er this year).

As you can see in the video just above, the RSC pro­duc­tion of Totoro also involves Jim Hen­son’s Crea­ture Shop. “The pup­pets being built at Crea­ture Shop are based on designs cre­at­ed by Basil Twist, one of the UK’s most inno­v­a­tive pup­peteers,” writes Dead­line’s Baz Bamigboye, and they’ll be sup­ple­ment­ed by the work of anoth­er mas­ter, “Mervyn Mil­lar, of Britain’s cut­ting-edge Sig­nif­i­cant Object pup­pet stu­dio.” Even such an assem­bly of pup­pet-mak­ing exper­tise will find it a for­mi­da­ble chal­lenge to re-cre­ate the denizens of the enchant­ed coun­try­side in which Totoro’s young pro­tag­o­nists find them­selves — to say noth­ing of the tit­u­lar wood spir­it him­self, with all his mass, mis­chief, and over­all benev­o­lence. As for how they’re rig­ging up the cat bus, Ghi­b­li fans will have to wait until next year to find out.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Films of Hayao Miyaza­ki Cel­e­brat­ed in a Glo­ri­ous Con­cert Arranged by Film Com­pos­er Joe Hisaishi

Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Pro­duc­er Toshio Suzu­ki Teach­es You How to Draw Totoro in Two Min­utes

Jim Hen­son Teach­es You How to Make Pup­pets in Vin­tage Primer From 1969

Build Your Own Minia­ture Sets from Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Films: My Neigh­bor Totoro, Kiki’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice & More

Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Releas­es Tan­ta­liz­ing Con­cept Art for Its New Theme Park, Open­ing in Japan in 2022

Hayao Miyaza­ki, The Mind of a Mas­ter: A Thought­ful Video Essay Reveals the Dri­ving Forces Behind the Animator’s Incred­i­ble Body of Work

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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How the Byzantine Empire Rose, Fell, and Created the Glorious Hagia Sophia: A History in Ten Animated Minutes

in Animation, Architecture, History | June 1st, 2022

If you only know one fact about the Roman Empire, it’s that it declined and fell. If you know anoth­er, it’s that the Roman Empire gave way to the Europe we know today — in the full­ness of time, at least. A good deal of his­to­ry lies between our twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry and the fall of Rome, which in any case would­n’t have seemed like such a deci­sive break when it hap­pened. “Most his­to­ry books will tell you that the Roman Empire fell in the fifth cen­tu­ry CE,” says the nar­ra­tor of the ani­mat­ed TED-Ed les­son above. “This would’ve come as a great sur­prise to the mil­lions of peo­ple who lived in the Roman Empire up through the Mid­dle Ages.”

This medieval Roman Empire, bet­ter known as the Byzan­tine Empire, began in the year 330. “That’s when Con­stan­tine, the first Chris­t­ian emper­or, moved the cap­i­tal of the Roman Empire to a new city called Con­stan­tino­ple, which he found­ed on the site of the ancient Greek city Byzan­tium.” Not only did Con­stan­tino­ple sur­vive the bar­bar­ian inva­sions of the Empire’s west­ern provinces, it remained the seat of pow­er for eleven cen­turies.

It thus remained a pre­serve of Roman civ­i­liza­tion, aston­ish­ing vis­i­tors with its art, archi­tec­ture, dress, law, and intel­lec­tu­al enter­pris­es. Alas, many of those glo­ries per­ished in the ear­ly thir­teenth cen­tu­ry, when the city was torched by the dis­grun­tled army of deposed ruler Alex­ios Ange­los.

Among the sur­viv­ing struc­tures was the jew­el in Con­stan­tino­ple’s crown Hagia Sophia, about which you can learn more about it in the Ted-ED les­son just above. The long con­ti­nu­ity of the holy build­ing’s loca­tion belies its own trou­bled his­to­ry: first built in the fourth cen­tu­ry, it was destroyed in a riot not long there­after, then rebuilt in 415 and destroyed again when more riots broke out in 532. But just five years lat­er, it was replaced by the Hagia Sophia we know today, which has since been a Byzan­tine Chris­t­ian cathe­dral, a Latin Catholic cathe­dral, a mosque, a muse­um (at the behest of sec­u­lar reformer Mustafa Kemal Atatürk), and most recently a mosque again. The Byzan­tine Empire may be long gone, but the end of the sto­ry told by Hagia Sophia is nowhere in sight.

Relat­ed con­tent:

An Intro­duc­tion to Hagia Sophia: After 85 Years as a Muse­um, It’s Set to Become a Mosque Again

360 Degree Vir­tu­al Tours of the Hagia Sophia

Hear the Hagia Sophia’s Awe-Inspir­ing Acoustics Get Recre­at­ed with Com­put­er Sim­u­la­tions, and Let Your­self Get Trans­port­ed Back to the Mid­dle Ages

Hear the Sound of the Hagia Sophia Recre­at­ed in Authen­tic Byzan­tine Chant

French Illus­tra­tor Revives the Byzan­tine Empire with Mag­nif­i­cent­ly Detailed Draw­ings of Its Mon­u­ments & Build­ings: Hagia Sophia, Great Palace & More

Istan­bul Cap­tured in Beau­ti­ful Col­or Images from 1890: The Hagia Sophia, Top­ka­ki Palace’s Impe­r­i­al Gate & More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Hayao Miyazaki, The Mind of a Master: A Thoughtful Video Essay Reveals the Driving Forces Behind the Animator’s Incredible Body of Work

in Animation, Film | May 9th, 2022

“If the cin­e­ma, by some twist of fate, were to be deprived overnight of the sound track and to become once again the art of silent cin­e­matog­ra­phy that it was between 1895 and 1930, I tru­ly believe most of the direc­tors in the field would be com­pelled to take up some new line of work.” So wrote François Truf­faut in the nine­teen-six­ties, argu­ing that, of film­mak­ers then liv­ing, only Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Alfred Hitch­cock could sur­vive such a return to silence. Alas, Truf­faut died in 1984, the very same year that saw the release of Nau­si­caä of the Val­ley of the Wind, the first ani­mat­ed fea­ture by what would become Stu­dio Ghi­b­li. Had he lived longer, he would cer­tain­ly have had to grant its mas­ter­mind Hayao Miyaza­ki pride of place in his small cat­a­log of mas­ter visu­al sto­ry­tellers.

“He does­n’t actu­al­ly write a script,” says Any-Mation Youtu­ber Cole Delaney in “Hayao Miyaza­ki: The Mind of a Mas­ter,” the video essay above. “He might write an out­line with his plan for a fea­ture, but gen­er­al­ly he draws an image and works from there.”

My Neigh­bor Totoro, for instance, began with only the image of a young girl and the tit­u­lar for­est crea­ture stand­ing at a bus stop; from that artis­tic seed every­thing else grew, like the enor­mous tree that Totoro and the chil­dren make grow in the film itself. Delaney also explores oth­er essen­tial aspects of Miyaza­k­i’s process, includ­ing the cre­ation of full worlds with dis­tinc­tive funi­ki, or ambi­ence; the incor­po­ra­tion of Ozu-style “pil­low shots” to shape a film’s space and rhythm; and the cre­ation of pro­tag­o­nists whose strong will trans­lates direct­ly into phys­i­cal motion.

“What dri­ves the ani­ma­tion is the will of the char­ac­ters,” says Miyaza­ki him­self, in a clip Delaney bor­rows from the NHK doc­u­men­tary 10 Years with Hayao Miyaza­ki. “You don’t depict fate, you depict will.” The mas­ter makes oth­er obser­va­tions on his work and life itself, which one sens­es he regards as one and the same. “I want to make a film that won’t shame me,” he says by way of explain­ing his noto­ri­ous per­fec­tion­ism. “I want to stay grumpy,” he says by way of explain­ing his equal­ly noto­ri­ous demeanor in the Ghi­b­li office. As for “the notion that one’s goal in life is to be hap­py, that your own hap­pi­ness is the goal… I just don’t buy it.” Rather, peo­ple must  “live their lives ful­ly, with all their might, with­in their giv­en bound­aries, in their own era.” The sur­pass­ing vital­i­ty of his films reflects his own: “Like it or not,” he says, “a film is a reflec­tion of its direc­tor,” and in these words Truf­faut would sure­ly rec­og­nize a fel­low auteurist-auteur.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Phi­los­o­phy of Hayao Miyaza­ki: A Video Essay on How the Tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese Reli­gion Shin­to Suf­fus­es Miyazaki’s Films

Watch Hayao Miyaza­ki Ani­mate the Final Shot of His Final Fea­ture Film, The Wind Ris­es

What Made Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Ani­ma­tor Isao Taka­ha­ta (RIP) a Mas­ter: Two Video Essays

How Mas­ter Japan­ese Ani­ma­tor Satoshi Kon Pushed the Bound­aries of Mak­ing Ani­me: A Video Essay

The Aes­thet­ic of Ani­me: A New Video Essay Explores a Rich Tra­di­tion of Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion

Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion Direc­tor Hayao Miyaza­ki Shows Us How to Make Instant Ramen

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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