I've found a lovely animation from 1977 called Silver Hoof.
It's about a young Orphan girl called Daryonka who was adopted by an old widowed hunter called Kokovanya. Rather than relay the whole of the story in my words, i've found a copy of it online...
Silver Hoof
A long time ago, there was an old widowed hunter named Kokovanya. He was lonely so he adopted Daryonka, a poor little orphan girl. When he took Daryonka into his home with him, he also let her bring her scrawny kitten.
Kokovanya, Daryonka, and the kitten were not rich but they had a good life. While the old man hunted, Daryonka would clean the cottage and cook soup. Her cat kept her company. At night, Kokovanya told wonderful tales, but the girl’s favorite was the one about Silver Hoof, the magical goat. Legend had it that Silver Hoof was a very special goat. Where most goats have two horns, Silver Hoof has antlers with five tines. On his right forefoot he had a silver hoof. When he stamped his foot, a gem would be left there. If he stamped it twice there would be two, but if he pawed the ground there would be a whole pile of gems.
Kokovanya told Daryonka that he had been trying for years to find Silver Hoof and that when Autumn came he would be going into the woods to find him. Daryonka begged the old man to let her go with him, since she would be so lonely in the cottage and because she truly wanted to see Silver Hoof also.
So the old man, the young girl, and the cat headed deep into the woods. By now the cat was a very healthy and hearty cat and could offer them protection. They stayed in a cabin that the old man had there. The hunter hunted many goats, but he never found Silver Hoof. Towards the end of winter, he told Daryonka that he had so many goat skins and meat that he would have to go into town to get a horse to help bring it all home. It would take him several days.
On the 2nd day that Daryonka was by herself in the cabin, she heard a pitter patter outside. It was Silver Hoof! She opened the door and called out to him, but he ran away. On the 3rd day the cat went out to play but did not return. Daryonka was worried so she went outside to find him. There he was in the glade with Silver Hoof. Both were nodding their heads as if they were talking to each other. Then they began to run about in the snow. The goat would run and stamp all around the cabin. Then he jumped upon the roof and stamped some more. Precious stones flashed out like sparks -- red, green, light blue, dark blue, and many other colors.
It was then that Kokovanya returned, but he did not recognize his hut. It was covered in gems and sparkled in the moonlight. Suddenly, Silver Hoof and the cat just disappeared from the roof. They were gone. The old man gathered some of the stones in his hat and then he and Daryonka went in to sleep. They had such wonderful dreams. When they awoke they ran outside to look at the wonder, but all the gems were gone. All they had left were the ones the old man had put in his hat. But that was enough to let them live happily ever after. No one ever saw Silver Hoof or the cat again, but sometimes people still find stones in the glade where the goat played that night.
One thing i've got to say in relation to all the imagery and in the animation - that is no goat! It's quite clearly a Deer. This is something that may have been lost in translation a little.
Speaking of lost in translation, here is another synopsis of the story i've found when researching who the animation was made by...
"On the motives of narration of P.Bazhova which tells us about girl Darenka who dreamed to see magic kid Silver kick and she managed to carry out the dream owing to the kindness, unselfishness, love to the nature."
Haha, well... Somebody's got their paws on a dodgy translator!!! Anyway, safe to say, Silver hoof is not a goat. At least I can trust that the animation was directed by Genady Sokolsky and written by Henry Sapgir.
TAKE A LOOKY HERE! Bit more info about who was involved in making this animation
I've taken some of my favourite stills from the animation. Visually it's beautiful! I love the sound & the strange music whenever Silver Hoof appears. It's brilliant.
00:22
This is a screengrab of the opening credits, I really like the concept of this. The whole look of it is really interesting and captures the sense of folk tales. Russian writing is amazing but obviously impossible for me to translate.
01:41
My, what big eyes you have! This is a really lovely shot of Daryonka with her 'scrawny kitten'. This is at the point of where she's about to be adopted. The whole thing is narrated in Russian, the person who narrates it has a really lovely friendly voice, if i only knew what he were saying! I say that, but having read the story now it's so easy to see what's going on anyway.
02:17
This is a shot of the two main characters together. The Mis-en-scene of the shots inside the orphanage are really cold and capture that it's quite a sad place and that she's really isolated and needs a big lovely friendly dad with a great big bushy beard! He looks like Santa!
03:00
Only at the 3rd minute now and she's been taken from the Orphanage out into the lovely autumnal woodland area with dewy leaves, it just makes me smile the whole thing is cute as a button!
She seems to be looking around with her kitten and her new Dad as if she's never been out into the woods in Autumn. The colours are beautiful. Everything's done beautifully and the transitions between each shot are great. Here a nice shot of them all together, they're stood outside Daryonka's new home.
04:33
There's a fade-in transition from outside the cottage to from inside the cottage, looking out into what now looks like a very cold snowy winters day. Kokovanya looks to be leaving the house to go hunting and pokes Daryonka on the end of her nose. She waves him goodbye and then there's a really nice zoom out establishing shot of the cottage, isolated amongst snowy tree's and hills.
There is then a shot of Deryonka and her cat sat by the fire. There is about 2 seconds of strange music and then a bang. This music is played everytime Silver Hoof appears. I like the idea of allowing the audience to associatie peices of music or sounds, making them aware of something that is about the happen. It's quite a scary peice of music, i think this is due to it being from the 70's, a lot of kids programmes had wierd music!
05:45
Deryonka then see's a deer (not a goat) in the distance... She goes outside but the deer (not goat) is gone. There's a few points of strange music and then she goes back into the house to see her cat. It's almost like there is conversation between the cat and the girl.
These drawings are lovely. They are far too advanced for the kind of work I will be producing. I can have a go at drawing like this but for something much shorted than 10 minutes long... Just to see how long it would take me.
06:36
There are some more funny sound effects and Deryonka hears this and goes to the door, LOW AND BEHOLD! SILVER HOOF (who isn't a goat.)
She holds out her hand to him, and like any other deer, it walks towards her a little bit and then runs away! It's lovely! The way the deer's legs move are really elagant and capture it really well.
06:45
After this is another establishing shot of the cottage amongst all the snow, it fades to a dark blue and the light from inside the cottage is seen in the window. Deryonka falls asleep and her cheeky little cat pops out.
07:27
She then wakes up to that strange sound effect again and silver hoof is at her window!
07:48
This image fades away although it was a dream or something. Outside, the cat and the Deer are seen and look as though they are talking! They then start dancing around after eachother watched by Deryonka.
08:04
From about the 8th minute of the animation, there is this lovely whimsical music playing for the entire end scene. It's much nicer than the weird scary sound effects that play whenever Silverhoof is playing. I probably don't get why they've used this weird noise as it's Russian and over 3 decades old! It is really memorable though and catches the audiences ear!
08:16
The cat appears at Deryonka's feet. She looks down at him and then when she looks back up, Silverhoof is on the roof!
The image zooms in on the deer and he begins the kick his hoofs around on the roof creating colourful, glowing orbs like shapes.
She watches and is then joined by her father, Kokovanya. The deer dissapears but leaves the cottage glowing. There is then a shot zooming right out into the woods as the narrator probably says something lovely at the end.
The End.
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