Animation

Article Outline

Introduction; Techniques of Animation; History of Animation

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History of Animation

Precursors of animation include optical toys or devices that involve incremental movement and the appearance of motion. One such device is the thaumatrope, a disk with complementary images (a bird and a cage, for example) printed on each side and two strings that serve as handles; when the disk is spun by twirling the strings, the images converge (the bird would appear to be inside the cage). The thaumatrope, which was developed by English physician John A. Paris in 1825, demonstrates the concept of persistence of vision: Images remain implanted on the eye for a split second after they have moved and, if continuous images appear rapidly enough, they will seem to be connected (overlapped, in the case of the thaumatrope, or in continuous motion, in the case of animated films). Belgian scientist Joseph Plateau developed another early animation device, the phenakistiscope, in 1832. This rotating disk contains successive images that, when viewed properly, give the appearance of motion. In 1877 French inventor Émile Reynaud patented the praxinoscope, a cylinder containing a strip of paper with animated images that can be seen through the use of a mirror (see Motion Pictures, History of: Origins).

Animation has been a part of cinema history from the time the first motion pictures were made in the late 1800s. Some early live-action films, known as trick films, used the animation technique of stop action, in which the camera is stopped and an object is removed or added to a shot before filming is resumed. Some of the pioneers of drawn animation films were well-known newspaper cartoonists, such as French artist Émile Cohl (whose films include Fantasmagorie, 1908), often considered to have been the first true animator, and American artist Winsor McCay (whose films include Little Nemo, 1911; and Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914). Although dimensional animation techniques were used in the early years of filmmaking, American motion-picture studios soon determined that two-dimensional (flat) animation was best suited for the assembly-line techniques they had adopted to make the filmmaking process more efficient.

One of the milestones of efficient animation production was the patenting of a cel animation production process by American animator Earl Hurd in 1914. Because they were clear, cels reduced the number of times an image had to be redrawn; as a result, different drawings of moving parts could be laid over a single static image. Cels were not widely used for some time, largely because of the cost of licensing the process. Most early animators used other timesaving methods. With the slash-and-tear system, for example, an artist would draw moving images (the characters, for example) on one sheet of paper and tear away the excess paper surrounding the images. The remaining portion of the sheet of paper would then be overlaid on another sheet of paper that contained static elements (such as the background), which appeared through torn areas.

Walt Disney

For most of animation’s history, cel animation has been the industry standard, in part because of the worldwide influence of one studio, now known as the Walt Disney Company. The company's founder, Walt Disney, was born in Chicago, Illinois, but grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where he met animator Ub Iwerks and composer Carl Stalling, who were to be important to his future success. Disney began animating films in Kansas City, then moved to California in 1923 to work on a new series he called Alice Comedies. These films, which combined a live-action character with an animated environment, were distributed by Margaret J. Winkler, an important producer in the early film industry who also handled the popular Felix the Cat and Koko the Clown cartoon series.

Other Animation Studios

Other important animation studios of the 1930s and 1940s included Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Terrytoons, the Van Buren Studio, Walter Lantz Productions, and Warner Brothers, as well as studios headed by animators Iwerks (who had left the Walt Disney Company in the 1930s) and Max Fleischer. In most studios the work was divided along gender lines, with men having the most flexibility in occupation and women generally limited to inking and painting or other relatively noncreative tasks. At the Disney studio, for example, it was a general policy that women could work only in the ink and paint departments, although some women, such as artists Sylvia Holland and Mary Blair, in fact profoundly influenced the look of Disney animation. Walter Lantz employee Laverne Harding was one of the few women who actually worked as an animator during American animation's so-called Golden Age in the 1930s and 1940s.

During this period, animation flourished outside the United States as well. In the 1920s and 1930s French experimental artists such as Marcel Duchamp, in Anémic Cinéma (Anemic Cinema, 1927), and Fernand Léger, in Ballet Mécanique (Mechanical Ballet, 1924), were using animation techniques in conjunction with their work in other fine arts. In England, the General Post Office supported films by experimental animators Len Lye and Norman McLaren (who later founded the animation department at the National Film Board of Canada). England was also the home of Hungarian animator John Halas, who in 1940 founded a studio with British animator Joy Batchelor. The Halas and Batchelor studio produced many important films, including Animal Farm (1954). Notable animators working in Germany included abstract artist Oskar Fischinger, who went to the United States in 1936 and later influenced American abstract animators such as Harry Smith, Jordan Belson, James Whitney, and John Whitney. German animator Lotte Reiniger created beautiful animated films using intricately cut-out paper figures silhouetted with backlighting (lighting from behind). Reiniger's most famous film is Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed, 1926), one of the first feature-length animated films.

Although many animation techniques have been used through the years with critical and commercial success, the Disney style of cel animation, known as full animation because it has constant movement and a high ratio of drawings per second of film, has had the strongest influence worldwide. Nonetheless, during the mid-1940s a successful alternate style of cel animation was introduced by another studio, United Productions of America (UPA). UPA was founded by Dave Hilberman, Zachary Schwartz, and Stephen Bosustow, all of whom had left Disney due to a strike in 1941. Interested in modern art and in addressing social issues, these artists were determined to create a new style of animation, both in form and content. Using simplified designs and stylized color, UPA made an impact on the world of advertising and the then-new field of television. UPA’s technique of using fewer drawings in a more stylized way became known as limited animation.

The emergence of college film programs and increased attention to social issues during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s resulted in a proliferation of animation that explored new themes. Particularly notable was the number of American women who began to create animated films during those decades, including Faith Hubley, Mary Beams, Suzan Pitt, Joanna Priestley, and Joan Gratz. Internationally, animation continued to be pursued as an artistic endeavor, particularly in Eastern Europe, Canada, and other countries with government-supported animation studios.

Animation on Television

At about the time of UPA's emergence, television was gaining prominence in American society, leading to the establishment of new animation studios by Jay Ward—creator of the Bullwinkle series—and the team of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera (see Hanna-Barbera)—creators of Yogi Bear (1961-1963), The Flintstones (1960-1966), and The Jetsons (1962-1963, 1984-1985, 1987-1988). UPA's method of limited animation was embraced by many fledgling studios producing animation for television, as a way to create material economically and quickly. High color contrast and solid color fields were also widely used, since television lacked the resolution of motion pictures and therefore required clearly defined images. However, many of the new television animation studios—which helped fill the market for Saturday morning cartoons developed in the early 1960s—were criticized for producing limited animation that lacked the stylistic refinement of the UPA artwork. Some more recent animated shows, such as the Cartoon Network’s The Powerpuff Girls (1995- ) and Dexter’s Laboratory (1996- ), provide a nostalgic return to that UPA style.

The Flintstones, which ran in the 1960s, was the first animated series to gain popularity with prime-time audiences. Although it spawned many imitators, it was not until the 1990s, with the launch of The Simpsons, that an animated series was to find such success in the evening prime-time slot. Created by American cartoonist Matt Groening in 1990, The Simpsons became the longest-running situation comedy in television history. The comedy series South Park, created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, debuted in prime time on cable TV in 1997 and quickly took off. The iconoclastic series relies on deliberately clumsy animation created from paper cutouts, profanity, and off-color humor.

The Nickelodeon cable network, another major producer of American animation, released a number of original programs for children in the 1990s, including the controversial but very popular series The Ren and Stimpy Show, created in 1990 by Canadian-born artist John Kricfalusi. In 1999 Nickelodeon launched SpongeBob SquarePants, about a lovable, sea-dwelling sponge who gets into one predicament after another. The series, created by Stephen Hillenburg, became one of the most popular animated programs in television history.

Computer Animation

Aside from television, perhaps the largest influence on the style of recent animation worldwide has come from computer technologies. Experiments with electronic animation began in the 1930s, but it was not until the late 1970s that computer animation became viable beyond scientific and government applications, particularly for use by the entertainment industry.

For many years producers of motion-picture and television animation were not very receptive to computer work—in part because until recently it has been more expensive to use a computer system than to pay artists to paint cels. Computer-animated figures presented aesthetic problems, as well, because they tended to be rigid-looking and to lack a sense of weight. Software innovations have enabled animators to create figures more economically and with a more realistic sense of movement. Computer animation has focused more recently on creating realistic simulations of fire, water, fur, natural environments, and other representations.

Computer-animated special effects and techniques to enhance live-action images have become a dominant characteristic of contemporary motion pictures, especially in the action, science fiction, and horror genres. The first film to use computer-generated imagery as a major component was Tron (1982), about a computer programmer who enters the world of his own program. The Disney studio used computers to combine live action and animation in the commercially successful Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), a production company headed by American filmmaker George Lucas, pioneered the use of computer-animation special effects techniques in such films as Star Wars (1977), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2 (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), and The Mask (1994). In recent years motion capture has been used to create amazing special effects in live-action features, including such films as Titanic (1997) and Gladiator (2000). Computer-animation techniques, including motion capture, have also found broad applications in the computer game industry.

The increasing significance of new technologies in the animation industry is exemplified in the work of American animator John Lasseter, who in 1986 began working for Pixar, one of the leading computer animation studios in the United States. Lasseter’s highly acclaimed film Luxo, Jr. (1986) was one of the first computer-animated shorts to depict a character with a very humanlike personality. In 1989 he won an Academy Award for his computer-animated short film Tin Toy (1988), a forerunner of the first completely computer-animated feature film, the Lasseter-directed Toy Story (1995). The release of Toy Story by Disney—which formed a production and distribution deal with Pixar—signaled that three-dimensional computer animation techniques had been fully embraced by commercial animation studios to create feature-length films. Other digitally animated films soon followed and were major hits: A Bug’s Life (1998), Antz (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Dinosaur (2000), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Shrek (2001), Ice Age (2002), and Finding Nemo (2003). In 2001 a new category, “best animated feature,” was created for the Academy Awards, with the Oscar going to Shrek.

During the 1990s and 2000s, the Walt Disney Company released an average of one animated feature-length film per year. These films included such commercial successes as The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), Tarzan (1999), Finding Nemo (2003), and Ratatouille (2007). Their success benefited from extensive promotional tie-ins such as clothing and toys. At the same time other American animation studios also undertook heavy production schedules of feature-length animation and short subjects.

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History of Animation

Walt Disney

Other Animation Studios

Animation on Television

Computer Animation