Boris Pavlovich Stepantsev (; 7 December 1929 — 21 May 1983) was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and Russian

animation director An animation director is the director in charge of all aspects of the animation process during the production of an animated or television film, or an animated segment for a live-action film or television show. Alternatively, the animation direct ...

, animator, artist and book illustrator, as well as a vice-president of

ASIFA The International Animated Film Association (French: ''Association Internationale du Film d'Animation'', ASIFA) is an international non-profit organization founded in 1960 in Annecy, France by well-known animation artists including Canadian an ...

(1972–1982) and creative director of the Multtelefilm animation department of the Studio Ekran (1980–1983). Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1972).''

Giannalberto Bendazzi Giannalberto Bendazzi (17 July 1946 – 13 December 2021) was an Italian animation historian, author, and professor. Life and career Born in Ravenna, Italy, and raised in Milan, Bendazzi started his career as a journalist and at the same time a ...

(2016)''
Animation: A World History: Volume II: The Birth of a Style - The Three Markets
at

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

, p. 287, 77''Sergei Kapkov (2006)''. Encyclopedia of Domestic Animation. — Moscow: Algorithm, p. 615—616

Biography

As a child Boris Stepantsev (born Stepantsov) fell in love with animated films "because there was nothing funnier in the whole world"''Sergei Asenin (1983)''. The Wisdom of Fiction: Masters of Animation about Themselves and Their Art. — Moscow: Iskusstvo, p. 155-159 and decided to dedicate his life to comedy animation. He graduated from the Moscow Art School and in 1946, right after the end of

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

, joined animation courses at Soyuzmultfilm where he watched many "trophy" movies, including films by

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

that served as a major inspiration for him. Between 1947 and 1949 Stepantsev worked as animator on a number of films, including the award-winning ''Grey Neck'' (1948) by Leonid Amalrik and Vladimir Polkovnikov. He spent the next five years serving in the

Soviet Navy The Soviet Navy was the naval warfare Military, uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with t ...

, and on his return entered the

Moscow State University of Printing Arts Moscow State University of Printing Arts of Ivan Fedorov (MSUPA (MGUP in Russian); former name: Moscow Polygraphic Institute, Moscow State Academy of Printing) is Russia's largest university in the field of preparing specialists in printing and pu ...

while continuing his animation career. In 1954 he co-directed his first short ''A Villain with a Label'' (together with Vsevolod Shcherbakov) which also became one of the first Soviet post-war

stop motion Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...

animated films produced at the newly founded puppet division of Soyuzmultfilm. Stamp of Russia 2012 No 1655 Vovka in a Faraway Kingdom

Starting with 1955 Stepanstev worked with Anatoly Savchenko, an art director and his regular collaborator on the majority of his animated and art projects that included book illustrations and

filmstrip The filmstrip is a form of still image instructional Media (communication), media, once widely used by educators in primary and secondary schools (K–12) and for corporate presentations (e.g., sales training and new product introductions). ...

s produced for the Diafilm studio. (in Russian) In 1958 they produced ''Petya and the Little Red Riding Hood'', a postmodern comedy based on the fairy tale by Vladimir Suteev about a pioneer Petya who sneaked into the

Little Red Riding Hood "Little Red Riding Hood" () is a fairy tale by Charles Perrault about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. Its origins can be traced back to several pre-17th-century European Fable, folk tales. It was later retold in the 19th-century by the Broth ...

movie in order to save the girl from the Big Bad Wolf. The film was co-directed by Evgeny Raykovsky and drew inspiration from Disney and

Tex Avery Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery (; February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an American animator, cartoonist, animation director, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of America ...

in contrast to the majority of "realistic" movies of that time that used rotoscopy. It turned very popular and won a prize at the 1960

Annecy International Animation Film Festival The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (, officially abbreviated in English as the Annecy Festival, or simply Annecy) was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of June in the town of Annecy, France. Initially occurring ever ...

. In 1962 they made a sequel of sorts — a half-hour

live-action animated film Live-action animation is a film genre that combines live-action filmmaking with animation. Projects that are both live-action and computer animation tend to have fictional characters or figures represented and characterized by cast members throu ...

''Not Just Now'' where Petya, played by a real-life child actor, traveled through time and interacted with hand-drawn environment.widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratio (image), aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ...

Biography

Filmography

Director

Animator

See also

References

External links