On March 22nd, william hanna died at his home in northern Hollywood at the age of 90. In the past decades, he has brought many lifelike elves to audiences of all ages. Now he is gone, but the infinite imagination and happiness he brought to people remain in the world.
Unemployment helped him embark on the road of animation.
Hannah was born in a middle-class family in the United States, and spent her childhood and adolescence in a good education and a warm family life. /kloc-at the age of 0/9, Hannah entered the university to study engineering design. Become a construction engineer after graduation. Because of the smooth life and work, Hannah was cheerful and funny in her youth, which created a rare character foundation for him to endow animated characters with cheerful and funny personality in the future.
Until the early 1930s, with the arrival of the Great Depression, Hannah's life was in a shadow-he lost his job. Due to the shortage of funds, many construction projects were abandoned halfway, and many colleagues were forced to find another way out. Hannah also tried to do some other work. According to Hannah's memory, during this time, he found many newspapers and almost blindly submitted resumes to various factories and companies.
Finally, a company wrote back to Hannah. This is a cartoon production company called Pacific Art. At that time, the production of comic books, especially comic films, was still a new industry.
Perhaps out of a hazy hobby, or because animation design is slightly related to her own design major, Hannah decided to report to Pacific Art Company and become an animation designer. This was the beginning of his animation career-but it didn't go well at first-and soon after, the company could not operate and went bankrupt. Hannah had to find another way out. However, although he has only worked here for a few months, he has been fascinated by animation, and has since formed an indissoluble bond with animation.
Cooperate with friends to launch Tom and Jerry.
1930, Hannah contacted another film production company named Harmon Ethan. However, Hannah has never been reused. 1937, 27-year-old Hannah switched to MGM. Here, he met the animation designer Josephine Barbara. Since then, a 60-year-old legend has begun.
Hannah and Barbara cooperated successfully for the first time. MGM released their animated short film Kitten in Boots. The film was welcomed by people and was nominated for the American Academy Award for its originality in artistic design.
Then they made several short films, in which the protagonist was either a naughty but silly kitten or a clever and lively mouse. At this time, an idea tends to mature: why not bring together two natural "enemies", mice and cats, and play a cat-and-mouse game for curious audiences? Thus, a popular animated series Tom and Jerry was born. At the same time, the production combination of Hannah and Barbara also became famous. In the following 10 years, they successively released flintstones, Huckleberry Hound, yogi bear and other cartoons. Almost every movie has produced an animated protagonist with distinctive personality, which is deeply loved by the audience.
Hannah and Barbara became the stars of the animated film industry. Hannah is good at grasping the characteristics of characters and controlling the plot with ease; With natural sensitivity and delicacy, Barbara is very good at using unique language and expressions to give animated characters distinctive personality. Moreover, both of them are very imaginative, and it is their imagination that is both extraordinary and not divorced from life that makes every cartoon popular with the audience.
1957, Hannah and Barbara left MGM to start Hannah Barbara Film and Television Company. Since then, they have entered a period of sustained high yield. Over the past 30 years, Hannah Barbara Film and Television Company has released more than 3,000 films through them, with an average of 10 each year.
The decades of cooperation experience is amazing. Hannah said in her memoirs, "The reason why we can cooperate for a long time is because we are both imaginative and pursue novelty. In this way, we always imagine each other better, and we can always find new things from each other. "