The Story Of Menstruation - Walt Disney Productions - [1946]

Source: wiki/The_Story_of_Menstruation

The Story of Menstruation is a 1946 10-minute American animated film produced by Walt Disney Productions.^[3] It was commissioned by the International Cello-Cotton Company (now Kimberly-Clark)^[4] and was shown in a non-theatrical release to approximately 105 million American students in health education classes.^[2]

History

It was part of a 1945 to 1951 series of films that Disney produced for American schools.^[5] Gynecologist Mason Hohn was hired as a consultant to ensure that the film was scientifically accurate.^[4] Hohn was hired to increase the likelihood that school doctors and nurses would allow the film to be shown.^[4] Hohn's involvement led to a stronger emphasis on biology than other marketing by ICCC.^[4] The Story of Menstruation increased its reputation when it received the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.^[2]

It was one of the first commercially sponsored films to be distributed to high schools.^[4] It was distributed with a booklet for teachers and students called Very Personally Yours that featured advertising of the Kotex brand of products, and discouraged the use of tampons, where the market was dominated by the Tampax brand of rivals Procter & Gamble.^[4]

Plot

The film uses animated diagrams to detail the menstrual cycle.^[5] The film's narrator, who is not identified in the credits, informs the viewer that "there is nothing strange or mysterious about menstruation," and it shows women engaged in such activities as bathing, riding a horse and dancing during their menstrual cycles. The film's narration also provides advice to avoid constipation and depression, and to always keep up a fine outward appearance.^[3]

The Story of Menstruation is believed to be the first film to use the word vagina in its screenplay.^[3] Neither sexuality nor reproduction is mentioned in the film, and an emphasis on sanitation makes it, as Disney historian Jim Korkis has suggested, "a hygienic crisis rather than a maturational event."^[6] The menstrual flow was depicted as snow white instead of blood red.^[5]

The film's copyright was renewed by Walt Disney Productions on December 3, 1973.^[7]

See also

• Culture and menstruation
• List of films in the public domain

Instruction: Preston Blair’s Advanced Animation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Blair

http://animationresources.org/instruction-preston-blairs-advanced-animation/

 

Preston Blair (October 24, 1908–April 19, 1995) was an American character animator, most noted for his work at Walt Disney Productions and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation department

A native of Redlands, California, Blair began his animation career in the early 1930s at the Universal studio under Walter Lantz and Bill Nolan. He later moved over to Charles Mintz's Screen Gems studio, and in the late 1930s moved over to the Disney studio. At Disney, Blair animated cartoon short subjects, Mickey Mouse scenes in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" section of Fantasia, and the hippo-alligator dance in Fantasia's "Dance of the Hours" sequence. He also did some work on Walt Disney's Pinocchio and Bambi.

Blair left Disney after the 1941 Disney animator's strike, and was hired to work for Tex Avery's unit at MGM. There, he became particularly noted for animating the titular female character in Red Hot Riding Hood. "Red" later re-appeared in more Avery cartoons, including Swing Shift Cinderella, Little Rural Riding Hood, Uncle Tom's Cabana and the Droopy cartoons The Shooting of Dan McGoo and Wild and Woolfy, with animation by Blair. In the late 1940s, Blair teamed with Avery animatorMichael Lah to direct several Barney Bear cartoons.

Blair continued his career in animation into the 1960s, working on The Flintstones at Hanna-Barbera. He is most noted, however, as an author of animation instructional books for Walter Foster Publishing. His first book, Animation, was published in 1948 and originally included images of the famous MGM & Disney cartoon characters he had animated, who were redrawn to obscure their origins in the second edition of the book. Blair would write many more animation how-to texts over the next forty years, culminating with 1994's Cartoon Animation, a 224-page book which compiles most of the content from all of his books.

Preston Blair was the brother of artist Lee Everett Blair [1] and the brother-in-law of artist and designer Mary Blair. He died on April 19, 1995.

External links

• Preston Blair at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Preston Blair in libraries (WorldCat catalog)