Redesigning Animation

5The UPA FormulaFrom Direct Influences to Concurrent Examples of Modernism in Animation

This had always been the objective of modernism: to flatten out, to bring to the surface, in order to make the base show itself for what it is.

Esther Leslie1

UPA’s influence is extensive. During the 1950s and 1960s, both in the U.S. and internationally, animation turned toward more streamlined characters and backgrounds, limited animation, non-objective designs and an expressionistic use of colors. Some studios and some artists were directly influenced by UPA, especially in the U.S.; others, particularly those belonging to the Eastern European countries, developed a new simplified audiovisual language from their own traditions. The result was internationally ...