The Traveling Tune

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In a paper doll film, The Traveling Tune shows a composer writing a tune. Thanks to radios and other Philips sound equipment, his music goes around the world. Everyone makes their own version of it. At the end of the film, the composer has a big party going on.

With this film, Joop Geesink's Dollywood caused quite a stir in the media. A new technique in a very recognisable style with cheerful colours forms the basis for this form of puppet film. The puppets are made of paper, which is why this technique is called ‘paperdoll’.

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Animation film has been made with paper figures before. However, this form provided a huge boost to Dollywood studios. The paperdoll film was very enthusiastically received and generated many new commissions. The creator of this technique was Jacques van der Boom. He was not named on the film titles. Geesink preferred to keep the creative collaborators literally out of the picture so as not to reveal their names to the competition.

Whether the idea of the paper doll was now as original as Joop Geesink would have liked us to believe is debatable. A few years earlier, another filmmaker, Han van Gelder had been experimenting with this technique. He did so on behalf of (Marten) Toonder studios. Van Gelder made the paper puppet films ‘Sunken Bells"(1957) and “From Inca time to Blooker Time’ (1958). Han van Gelder also worked (free-lance) for Dollywood. Then Geesink came up with the concept of paperdoll. Artdirector Max Keuris gave an entirely unique style to The Traveling Tune with his colour choices, which would return recognisably in other productions.

Secret

The ‘secret’ of the paper dolls was that they were not produced from paper but from thin sheets of zinc. On the visible side, the front, the figures are plastered with paper. For this, the studio used a type of paper that has a good texture. The parts of the doll: the arms, legs and head were connected at the back by soldered copper wire. This created a structure that had enough rigidity to function as an animated puppet, with enough possibilities for flexible limbs. In some scenes, interchangeable elements are used, such as bulging cheeks.

A consistent style was implemented in sets and props. It cannot be ruled out that static elements in images were produced from cardboard though. Seemingly to the viewer, everything was made of paper. The opening shot of a real hand with scissors and paper deliberately misleads the viewer as does the term paperdoll.

André Popp

The success will also have been partly due to the music of André Popp, who previously produced the soundtrack for Piccolo, Saxo and Co (1958) and “Live is Nothing Without Philips' (1960). This composer has since become a purveyor to Joop Geesink's Dollywood. He is under contract to Philips' record label. As a result, the original sound track of this film may also be available on vinyl.