Michal Večeřa

Born-Doubrava-Macourek: The case study of Czechoslovakian animation screenwriting practice during 1970s and 1980s

Masaryk University, Czech Republic

The creative trio of Adolf Born, Jaroslav Doubrava and Miloš Macourek represented one of the most important workgroups of Czechoslovak animation in the 1970s and 1980s. Together, they produced various types of movies – so called “programmers” intended for cinema distribution (Ze života dětí /1977/; Imago /1984/) or commissioned series for Czechoslovak Television (Mach a Šebestová /1977-1985/; Žofka a její dobrodružství /1988/). At the same time, they also built a permanent team of collaborators with whom they made their films. The scripts that have survived for each film can also serve as a source for answering to several more general questions about contemporary production system which form the structure of this conference paper. After a contextualizing passage introducing the differences in the process of literary preparation of live-action and animated films, I will discuss the specific practice followed by Born, Doubrava and Macourek and its differences from the generally accepted procedure. By using specific examples, the paper will explore the differences in the process for program and commissioned films, where the commissioning body additionally enters the chain of involved agents. Finally, we will look at how the script served to redistribute the work on the films and maintain a stable idea of their future audiovisual form. By exploring the proposed questions, I want to contribute to the overall understanding of the hitherto little-studied issue of screenwriting practices of animated film in Czechoslovakia during the period of nationalised cinema.

Michal Večeřa is the assistant professor in the Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture at Masaryk University in Brno. In his research, he is interested mainly in the economic history of Czech cinema before WW2 and animation during the state-socialist period of cinema. In the past, he was a member of the team that researched the history of the Laterna magika theatre and collaborative international research project called “Animation Studios in Gottwaldov and Lodz (1945/47–1990)”. He published various texts about the economics of Czech silent cinema and its production system, forthcoming is chapter analysing animation production system in volume Lidé-práce-animace.