Animation; A (brief) History

It was not necessarily difficult to find documents and articles on my topic per se, but researching this topic did prove frustrating when trying to find a FREE source of material. Many of the free academic documents located through resources such as JSTOR were not relevant to the information or topic I was trying to work towards. And the paid material, while looked to be quite relevant based upon the brief summaries I was able to read, were not available to me without a paid account. I’m a broke, newly wed, university student with bills to pay, and being a member of those sites is not on my to-pay list. So I’m working with what I have, some of the sources may not be the most academic sources, but I tried to search and look accordingly.
Happy Reading.

Animation in film and television is not a new idea. In fact, the art of creating motion out of otherwise inanimate or even two-dimensional objects has been around since the 1910’s and 1920’s. Early classics such as Felix the cat, which ran from 1919 through 1929[1] launched the idea of putting pen to paper to create something with movement and life, stop-frame cinematography. In these early days, animations were created using photographs of individual drawing, paintings, or illustrations which were drawn as the step by step, frame by frame process of an action in a film. Each drawing had slight variations to it, whether it be the gradual movement of an arm, or a bee gradually getting ever closer to the main character, these individual images, once photographed and put together on a film strip one after another in quick formation, provide the illusion of movement creating the first legacy of animations.[2] Such other classics created in this style are many of Walt Disney’s first productions, such as Steamboat Willie, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) which used over 160,000 frames to create the first full-feature length animated movies.[3] In creating Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, along with using the stop-frame cinematography, Walt Disney used a multi-plane camera, creating an illusion of depth in the animations, which he had first utilized in his Silly Symphonies short, The Old Mill (1937) and would provide a standards for photographing animation frames for several years to come.[4]from being utilized, Claymation was breaking onto the scene. A short lived excitement, though still scene today on the rare occasion, Claymation was a new breakthrough in animation where animation used hand-made, three-dimensional figures, often made out of sculpted plasticine or clay, to create the environment and characters of a film. These figures would often have dozens, if not hundreds of interchangeable and sculptable parts. The pieces would be arranged onto a “set” where pictures would be taken, the object would be moved slightly, more pictures would be taken, the object would be moved slightly, and so on, and so on. Using a similar technique to the two-dimensional side of stop-frame cinematography the snapped images would be played together on a film strip giving the illusion of consistent motion from the inanimate three-dimensional objects.[6] Claymation’s first notable appearance onto the animation scene was in 1974, when the film Closed Mondays appeared before audiences. Several years after Claymation would continue to grace film and animation with films such as The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985) and would even make way to live-action films such as Return to Oz (1985). Claymation’s most consistent role would be in the introduction of shows such as the Gumby shorts in the mid-1950s and the Wallace and Grommet series (1990s-today).[7] [8] While Claymation hasn’t taken a permanent presence in the animation world, viewers still see it popping up from time to time on televisions and movie theaters, particularly in works by Tim Burton.[9]Other movies that would incorporate both CGI and 3-D imaging through the early 21^st century would range from animated cartoons such as Meet the Robinsons (2007), the hyperReal imaging of Polar Express (2004), stop motion puppetry of The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) [16], and live actions films such as James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), and this is to name a very limited few from the every growing list.

For many years following this breakthrough, any significant advancements in animation would be the additives. Steamboat Willie (1928) would be the first animation to include timed music that played along with the animation on the screen, with groups such as Warner’s Looney Tunes following shortly there-after.[5] Soon after music would come dialogue and spoken word, along with colour and a more vibrant visual experience. Each baby step being a landmark of its time. By the 1950s, animation had been transformed into this dynamic experience for adults and children, capturing audiences and breaking through successfully into televisions and on the large cinematic screens. But the process that animation was created in would not begin to talk any significant changes for several more years.

Eventually animation techniques began to move away from the two-dimensional planes of pen and paper, and began to take three-dimensional shape. While three-dimensional graphic design was years

The first introduction to a computer-generated, complete cyberspace world would be the release of Disney’s TRON (1982). This live action film would come to include over 20 minutes of computer animation to create a world of virtual reality and cyber influence.[10] But the true taking off of CGI (computer-graphics imaging) wouldn’t take off until the 1990s. Batman: The Animated Movie (1993) would include an animated opening to the film, The Matrix (1999) would echo TRON’s legacy in using CGI to create a virtual world, and PIXAR would emerge onto the scene with Toy Story (1995) being one of the earliest examples of a fully CGI “cartoon” full-feature film.[11] PIXAR would create one of the newstandards in three-dimensional CGI cartoons and films, continuing the track with films such as A Bug’s Life (1998) and Toy Story 2 (1999). [12]

Enter the turn of the century and CGI was taking off. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) would be one of the earliest examples of fully-realized hyperreal or photo-realistic computer animation, creating an entirely unique world with entirely unique characters and settings.[13] Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001), Shrek (2001), Monsters Inc. (2001), Treasure Planet (2002), Ice Age (2002), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (2006) are just a few of the early fully CGI films released during the early 2000s.[14] [15]

One of the most recent advancements in animation would be 3D imaging and graphics. No longer are characters created as three-dimensionally molded creates viewed in a two-dimensional flat view. With the advancements of 3D technology, it is not uncommon anymore to see films render in both 2D and 3D format for the big screen. In 2003 Spy Kids 3-D had an exclusively 3D release, probably the first of its kind to do so, when it entered theaters. Using CGI and 3D technology, along with the overwhelming 3D glasses that everyone has come to know and love, every audience member was invited to participate in the deadly virtual world gaming environment of the Spy Kids 3-D movie.

Animation has taken many roads from the humble stop-frame cinematography days of its youth. And though many felt the art of animation was doomed to fail when it took its early beginnings, it is safe to say that animation is certainly not a dying art, but a continuously evolving one.

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[1] www.felixthecat.com. Felix the Cat Official Website. (retrieved October 7, 2015).

[2] http://www.filmsite.org/animatedfilms.html . Dirks, Tim. Animated Films. Film Site. (retrieved October 6, 2015).

[3] http://news.moviefone.com/2013/02/07/snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs-trivia/. Susman, Gary. ‘Snow White And the Seven Dwarves’: 25 things You Didn’t Know About The Disney Cartoon. Moviefone. (retrieved October 6, 2015).

[4] http://www.filmsite.org/animatedfilms.html . Dirks, Tim. Animated Films. Film Site. (retrieved October 6, 2015).

[5] http://www.filmsite.org/animatedfilms.html . Dirks, Tim. Animated Films. Film Site. (retrieved October 6, 2015).

[6]http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs294-7/sp04/sp_04_presentations/Claymation_History.pdf. What is Claymation. Berkeley.edu. (Retrieved October 7, 2015).

[7] http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs294-7/sp04/sp_04_presentations/Claymation_History.pdf. What is Claymation. Berkeley.edu. (Retrieved October 7, 2015).

[8] http://www.filmsite.org/animatedfilms.html . Dirks, Tim. Animated Films. Film Site. (retrieved October 6, 2015).

[9] *salute to such brilliance*

[10] http://www.filmsite.org/animatedfilms.html . Dirks, Tim. Animated Films. Film Site. (retrieved October 6, 2015).

[11] http://www.fiveorama.com/2010/03/big-cgi-films-of-90s.html. Big CGI Films of the 90s. Five-O-Rama. March 3, 2010. (retrieved October 7, 2015).

[12] http://www.pixar.com/about/Our-Story. Our Story. PIXAR. (retrieved October 5, 2015).

[13] http://www.filmsite.org/animatedfilms.html . Dirks, Tim. Animated Films. Film Site. (retrieved October 6, 2015).

[14] http://www.pixar.com/features_films. Feature Films. PIXAR. (retrieved October 5, 2015).

[15] Dixon, Wheeler W. 21^st-Century Hollywood: Movies in the Era of Transformation. (United States of America: British Library, 2011).

[16] http://www.filmsite.org/animatedfilms.html . Dirks, Tim. Animated Films. Film Site. (retrieved October 6, 2015).