Filmography
This is films
Four films were produced from the This is series: This is New York, This is Venice, This is Israel and This is Ireland. All four films were produced by Weston Woods, (now part of Scholastic) who are and were world leaders in the animation of children's books with other titles such as Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. The Sasek films are created using Weston Woods "Iconographic" method, which means that they are not animated exactly, but filmed inventively from the stills to create the illusion of animation:
ICONOGRAPHIC: When Morton Schindel first started making
motion pictures, he realized that it would take a special filming technique
to faithfully transfer the artwork in picture books from page to screen. Since
there was not a suitable method, he developed one. In the ICONOGRAPHIC technique
the camera creates an "illusion of movement" by carefully panning
and zooming over the actual illustrations from the book. Whenever possible
the artist's original illustrations are used, although in most instances the
illustrations must be adapted from copies of the book. This technique, first
developed at Weston Woods, is now used by film producers everywhere.
From Weston
Woods FAQ
I have only seen This is Israel and This is Venice, both faded film transfers courtesy of Owyheesound. There is nothing extra in the films in the way of illustrations, but the Iconographic technique, along with child narrators and some very sweet cartoony music make them lovely little films in their own right. See individual pages for more details and availability.
This is New York (1960)
This is Venice (1961)
This is Israel (1963)
This is Ireland (date unknown)

