The gifts of Hans FischerkoesenHans Fischerkoesen's short films, although they were made in a dark time and place like WWII Germany World War, were very uplifting and warm. They weren't much different from American cartoons, like Disney or Fleischer, in terms of plot or style. You would think that the German animator had a very philanthropic point of view based on the humanity he gave to his characters, even when their situations were bad. Few of Fischerkoesen's short films, including advertisements for the company's products, involved conflicting storylines, but for the most part they simply showed characters having fun. Sometimes his animations didn't even need to have a plot. It would be nice to just observe how his drawings would act and react. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"?Get the original essay If there was one commonality in Fischerkoesen's animations, it would primarily be their symbolisms of nature. Cartoons like “Der Schneemann” (The Snowman) and “Die Verwitterte Melodie” (Weather-beaten Melodie) are also set in a quiet countryside or meadow, rather than in a bustling city, where flowers and animals abound. Humans are rarely present and the roles of the characters are instead taken up by anthropomorphized animals and insects, or by personified objects (such as trees or snowmen). Sometimes these characters are metaphors for nature, such as the Handmaids of the Stars, the Handmaids of the Clouds, and the Sun Queen in Fischerkoesen's advertisement for Philips light bulbs. It was there that Fischerkoesen showed his talent for character design. A common activity of Fischerkoesen's characters is dancing to music. Whether the music playing is pleasant ragtime or classic orchestral pieces, the protagonists seem to have a thing for moving to the beat and sometimes use dancing to interact with their friends who appear along the way. In “Weather-Beaten Melody,” an abandoned record player seems to gather all the insects nearby and move happily to the beat of the melody. In “The Snowman,” the main character enjoys skating on a frozen lake for quite a while. Even in the tobacco advertisement “Schall und Rauch” (Smoke and Mirrors), Hans animates the smoke into graceful ballerina figures that glide through the circles of smoke from the man's cigar. Another smoking advertisement shows a cigarette dancing to the music of the Blue Danube. Whenever Fischerkoesen had a plot in his cartoon, the main characters were a necessary element to entertain not only the audience, but the other characters as well. The protagonists are always kind and curious. They have an adventurous and playful personality, which pushes them to discover and interact with new things, which can have good or bad consequences. Minor characters (if there are any) don't have quite the same values, and may even look down on major characters because they are different. Otherwise, they will celebrate discovering something new, safe and fun. In “Melody,” a bee finds an abandoned music player and uses its stinger to play a happy song. Soon after, each insect hears it and comes down to dance with the bee, because she was curious enough to try something new. In “Das Dumme Gaslein” (Silly Gosling), however, the main character experiences a different reaction. The goose isfascinated by the city lifestyle, which then has an effect on her personality. She likes to strut around, dressing up in fancy clothes made from cobwebs and hay, and prefers not to bond with a partner. The other animals on the farm find her exotic behavior disruptive and disrupting the peace of the farm (even though she took advantage of the farm to make her clothes). His odd point of view is not welcome among the barnyard community. In "Snowman", the snowman's curiosity only affects his own outcome, rather than his choices being judged by someone else. After playing pranks and antics in the winter snow, he wishes I could walk among the July flowers. He sits in a cooler until summer arrives, then makes his dream come true, only to melt a few minutes later. Fischerkoesen also demonstrates good use of technology in his shorts. He uses all kinds of tools to show depth, dimension and angularity. In “Melody,” the multiplane camera is used not only to show depth going from left to right, but also front to back. The camera combined with rotoscoping successfully created the illusion of the protagonist bee flying around the entire record player. Even with backgrounds that look like drawings, the camera at one point manages to show a transition from a front shot to a vertical shot, showing the sky, convincingly giving the impression that the viewer raises his head to look up. In "Snowman", the very first establishing shot is a zoom in on a miniature live-action background, after which hand-drawn cels are used to place the characters on these backgrounds. There is also a scene where the snowman finds a house and wants to enter it. He walks around the fence, but as he does so, the camera circles around the house in three dimensions until the snowman reaches the door. It's amazing how Fischerkoesen created believable depth without using modern computer-generated imagery. There is a short film that seems to show a darker side of Fischerkoesen than his friendly-looking cartoons. One of his advertisements for an alcoholic drink, “Durch Nacht zum Licht” (Through the night into the light), has a very nightmarish style. A sleeping woman has dark and frightening visions of rats, ghosts, demons, chased by skeletons and even falling from great heights. When he wakes up, the only suitable remedy seems to be Underberg's bitter. It's surprising that this was even allowed to be released as a commercial, since it looks more like a deleted scene from Rosemary's Baby. This was one of the few times Hans used what looked like stop-motion animation in his work, mainly when the skeleton was chasing the woman. This was also one of Hans' works where he used live action references (for the woman). Stop-motion can be used to make real objects move in very scary ways, like a Tim Burton animation, especially if the animation isn't smooth enough. If there was anything to criticize about Fischerkoesen's animations, it would be the morality of the stories he told. his cartoons, notably in “Gosling” and “The Snowman”. The protagonists are like “fish out of water” characters because they have a point of view that goes against what nature intended or what others think. In “Gosling,” the goose grows up with a different personality than his siblings. Only afterward did a fox cleverly lure the goose away from the farm to eat it.