April 16 - John Halas

Happy Birthday, John Halas! Born today in 1912 as János Halász, this pioneering Hungarian animator, in 1932, co-founded Hungary's first animation studio, Coloriton. 

Halas had founded the company along with Hungarian film director Gyula Macskássy (an acquaintance from Romanian-born Hungarian painter and graphic designer Sándor Bortnyik's Bauhaus art studio, Műhely), and Austrian graphic designer Félix Kassowitz. 

Although the company only existed for four years, it produced high-quality promotion-oriented animations for television and cinema.

Halas had learned his craft under Hungarian-American animator, film director and producer George Pal, but launched his own career in 1934.

Two years later, Halas moved to England, United Kingdom where later, with his wife, English animator, director, screenwriter, and producer Joy Batchelor, founded Halas and Batchelor in 1940.   

  

During the 1940s, Halas co-directed the 1945 British stop motion animation documentary 'Handling Ships'. 

  

The seventy-minute film was created at the request of the British Admiralty, as a training aid for new navigators joining the Royal Navy.  

  

Although never formally released to cinemas because of its small target audience, 'Handling Ships' was an "Official Selection" at the 1st Cannes Film Festival in late September to early October 1946. 

Today, the film is recognised as the first feature-length work, and the first work in Technicolor, in British animation history. 

  

Over the years, Halas and Batchelor made over seventy short subjects during the war, using propaganda from the time.  

Their best-known feature was the 1954 British-American Technicolor animated drama film 'Animal Farm'. 

For the film, Halas co-wrote, co-produced and co-directed alongside his wife. English character actor Maurice Denham provided the voices for all of the animals in the film. 

  

Based off of George Orwell's 1945 allegorical political satire dystopian Roman à clef children's literature fiction novel, this was the first full-length animated film made in Great Britain. 

  

In 1990, Halas received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Festival of Animated Film - Animafest Zagreb. 

Halas had been active from 1936–1995. 

#borntodirect
#borntoanimate 

@halasbatchelor 

@BFI 

@tcm
@Orwell_Society