10/27/2022 0 Comments Serial images![]() ![]() #Serial images serialWith the growth of television, the serial was living on borrowed time. Heroes also suffered as casting choices were made to match stuntmen on the studio payroll, leading to a legion of hopelessly dull heroes. For example, action scenes from Jungle Girl and The Phantom were reused over ten years later in Panther Girl of the Congo and The Adventures of Captain Africa, respectively. Heroes and heroines wore costumes that matched those used in earlier serials, allowing the same action scenes and cliffhangers to be recycled. As moviemaking costs soared, serial budgets were slashed, necessitating extensive use of stock footage. Studios then considered the serials to be a luxury (along with shorts and B movies). But instead, the serial was treated as simply an assembly line product with pieces that could be mixed and matched.Īlso contributing to the problem, an anti-trust court ruling in the late '40s forced the studios to divest themselves of their theaters. Maybe if the serial had evolved along different lines-giving us chapter endings that pointed toward new story developments, instead of emphasizing the stunts-the serial could have survived. The work of great stunt men such as Yakima Canutt, David Sharpe, and others shouldn't be underestimated however, with the emphasis on death-defying stunts, serials became increasingly mechanical, predictable, and uninventive. As serial makers strove to place heroes and heroines in mortal danger at the end of each episode, the serials emphasized the work of stunt men and de-emphasized stories and characters. Part of the problem may also have been the nature of chapter endings. Imagination rarely crept into cliffhanger resolutions as the '50s approached. Heroes were frequently knocked out and placed in dire peril-a car speeding toward a cliff, a burning warehouse, a conveyor belt headed toward a buzz saw-and every time the solution to the cliffhanger would have the hero simply wake up and roll out of the way. Brannon frequently degenerate into slugfests (as in Secret Service in Darkest Africa, which features an average of three fist fights per episode!). Serials directed by Spencer Gordon Bennett and Fred C. Heroes would regularly get the drop on the villain's henchmen only for a brawl to suddenly break out at the slightest provocation (a flicker of the lights, for example). Whew!)īy the late '40s, the serial had begun to repeat itself, using the same stock situations in serial after serial. Not to mention Prince Barin, who secretly loves Aura. It overflows with sexual innuendo: Flash loves Dale, and Dale loves Flash, but Ming the Merciless lusts for Dale, and Ming's daughter, Princess Aura, lusts for Flash. ( Flash Gordon, however, is a welcome exception. ![]() As such the studios provided what they thought the audience wanted-namely fist fights, car chases, and gun battles-and eliminated anything that wouldn't contribute to the action-such as love interest or dramatic entanglements. And the perception of that audience was set in stone by the mid '30s-8 to 14 years old and largely male. They produced a product, with a definite audience in mind. The major serial producers-Republic, Columbia, and Universal-had no pretensions that they were creating art. cat.Kane Richmond (center) struggles for control John Coplans supplied a critical approach in an exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1968. used with permission, This poem may be copied if authorship is included and used for educational purposes only) This was a common practice for Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and most of the other classical artists although most of their studies and sketches did not survive. It is seen in classical art whenever studies were made and used to produce a finished work. It was used by Francisco Goya with his La maja desnuda and La maja vestida (1797-1800). Some say the Impressionists and their contemporaries were the first to use it, but this is not the case. It is also used in literature, especially poetry. It is common in photography where multiple exposures at varies angles are taken with different lenses etc. ![]() The same subject may also be rendered in different mediums, and in different poses, thus, the practice of underpainting may be considered a form of serial imagery even if the image is lost in the completed work. Another type is where the same subject is painted at different times of day or seasons of the year for example Claude Monet in his Poplars, Haystacks. A portrait can painted in differing hues and backgrounds with subtle changes to the subject as in Van Gogh's L'Arlésienne and Claude Monet’s Rouen Cathedral. It is a central idea in modern and contemporary art. Serial imagery is the repeating of one image in many variations or forms. ![]()
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