The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-07-19
'pUpPETOONS' ! RESENT TRADE
 COMP ARSON
nY Ep RAR1oW


 Hollywood. July lo-UP)-Hol nyW06ds only wooden-headed Aca. eenny Award winner became highly Indignant when I suggested ht might soFneday surpass Pinocchio.
 who's this character pistacchioi Never heard of himl Who starred { aaim and what'd he do?" Jasper and his crow-packin' friend the Scare crow were really mad now.
 'Well-uh-he was . puppet, you zee, and he wanted to lose hii strings, and uh-that is" !. well, sho huff, boy, do you see any strings on me anyhow" the gcarecrow was yielding an over- sized razor so agreed he was ab- eolutely stringless.
 when I had assured them they made Pinocchio . piker, the stars ot George Pals "Puppetoons" sat down and gave me their life histories.
 Seems there is-are-thousands of Jasper. Just as animated car- koons use . separate drawing on relluloid for each movement, Paul builds . separate wooden figure or plppet. Twenty-eight leading la Eiies are needed for one complete wink of an eye.
 ig Every figure and all the scenery, :, props and settings are turned out by hand. It is the third-dimen- sional effect thus created that won Pal . special Oscar"
 Script writing and composition Df music are the first steps in one of these productions. Then minia- bure sets are created, exact in every detail by skilled craftsmen.
 .sTelNm about the paint, the paint, the paint" squeaked the bobbing crow. Seems the paint room is . nerve-center of the Pal studios.
 .eYawsuh, all of me is gotta be painted exactly the same way with all them lines in just the same place or ah jumps around like ah had strings" commented Jasper.
 Arms and legs are made of Hex able materials and animated by men who have developed a skill for maintaining registration with every movement.
 All the tricks of stage lighting and color can be employed in the technicolor "puppetoons, since eV- eyything is ttree-dimensional.
 ''Whatchyal mean with this here tanird-digressional hocus-polukus. l ain't no digressional scarecrow. ] k . Democrat"
 Music, dialogue and sound effects are recorded in advance and the actien inserted later to insure per feet synchronisation in the fnisneo film.
 aCawt, eawt, camera. Look at chat hunk of junk, willya?"
 The camera isn't the regular &nree-strip technicolor affair, but a specially designed job. Ex- posures are made on & single neg akivs through varicolored filters oy means of . color wheel on the ca- snere. A special attachment per- rnits variation of length of expo xure on each screen frame, and the eOl0e records are separated in a spe- cial printer and made into the t1n- ished product.
 asnnall lens apertures. mlch as used in still photography. aid III creating depth of field and the ex- txa dimension effect.
 There y'all go with the disres- gion stuff again"
 paups stars really should speak with a Dutch accent, since they rot their start in Eindhoven, Hol- land. where the Puppetoon idea got IF start under sponsorship of large advertisers.
 Pal. an architecture graduate and artist, trained . large staff Of spe- cialists in Holland and soon had the largest animation studio outside the United States.
 Then he was brought to Holly wood by Paramount. ..
 one part of the Pal studio IS hlccked off nowadays, with . sign rroclaiming 1t the business Of Un- cle Sam only. Some Of Jaspers distant cousins are being used m Army training and educational films bearing top hush-hush rat fnss. ,, x.. ueanutsio or whoever not to go a. fxiflin' around in our territory or We'u splinter him like toothpick- yah heah us?"