How Animation is made

There are a number of different techniques you can use to create animation. Pixilation, Cell based and model animation are the most successful techniques used.
Model animation usually consists of creating 3D models usually from plastercine, paper or plastic objects. In order to use this un-movable objects to create a moving picture you first must bring the objects to life, how else than by using stop motion.
Stop motion with model based animation works by placing the object in the desired area/scene and photographing it before moving it slightly by hand to photograph again. By doing this a number of time you will eventually mimic the illusion of movement. When playing the animation back the human mind perceives the photographs of slightly changed objects to actually appear that the object is alive and moving on its own.


                                                 Model based stop motion animation 

amateur model animation

One of the most famous model animators known is a man called Art Clokey. In the 1930-1950's animation was becoming increasingly popular with walt disney creating full length animated films with competitors the fleicher brothers doing similar projects. Clokey decided to make his animation from plastercine. In 1955-1982 he created a character called Gumby. 

                                                 Art Clokey first animation gumbasia

Gumby

Plastercine isn't the only substance that can be used to make 3D models another popular material is wood. using wooden characters as models for animation has been very popular with students and amateur film makers using these characters is believed to be easier and more realistic as it represents a human and can move with the same joints like real people do.

                                                         example of wooden animation

Although model animation is effective and gives excellent results when used properly we have adapted to that style of animation and now create amazing styles of coloured cartoon animations such as Walt Disney films. This is called cell based animation.

WHAT IS CELL BASED ANIMATION?

"A traditional form of animation used in the production of cartoons or animated movies where each frame of the scene is dran by hand. A full-length feature film produced using cel animation would often require a million or more drawings to complete" - http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/cel_animation.html

Cell based animation because very popular 1930's and was most famously seen with the Walt Disney film Snow white. Windsor McCkay demonstrated the same style on cell based animation but this was before plastic was created so his animation was shown on paper. The process of using cell based animation is firstly a story board is made by all the animator and directors coming together to discus the entire film. Once they are made the storyboards are presented as the story, after it has been laid out the dialogue is recorded. This tends to be done before animation that that the animators know exactly what the characters will say. Once the dialogue is recorded the animator make rough sketches of the characters they are usually rather messy with no colour or background. Once the entire film has been drawn out on paper they are transported to the inking department where the inkers copy the animation drawings on clear celluloid acetate these days known as plastic. After the inking department have outlines the characters the unfinished cells go into the painting department where the painters flip the cel over and paint all the colours needed to created the characters characteristics on the back, they do this so that the character appears crisp with an outline.Before the cels get photographed a background image must be added, as the cel is clear with only a character on once a background is created it can be placed directly underneath the character. Usually the backgrounds are painted with water colour paint, in some Disney productions the backgrounds were painted on glass with glass painted backgrounds to create the illusion of extreme movement. With all the combined elements the images can now be photographed. Although the final product is not filmed with a normal projector or camera, but with a lens mounted facing down onto a table top which is covered with the cels that have been created. they cover them in a large piece of glass and then the images are photographes. Once the drawings are filmed the dialogue is added and occasionally the film is edited at this step the animation is now complete.

                                                  artist drawing characters to be animated

                                              short film that was created using cel animation

If that isn't enough explanation a well known example to demonstrate how cell based animation is created is stick men drawings drawn in a flip book. Many people do this during childhood and it is perfect to demonstrate just how cel based animation works.

                                      

During class i decided to create my own animation using plastercine i played around with different models for a while and then decided to create an apple falling from a tree. enjoy.

Animation in the 60's and 70's

television was invented in the 1920's with only 1 channel to show, when world war 2 was going on the television was shut off until around the 1950's around this time america was creating television animation. Hanna Barbera was the first major animator for american tv. she started out only providing animations for her own production company Hanna-barbera productions but when MGM closed the company down in 1957 she began producing for television only.

Some of the well known shows that she created were things such as the Ruff and Reddy show and the first run syndication entry the Huckleberry Hound show. in the 1960's the studio hit a stride with the first half an hour animated sitcom the Flintstones. The Flintstones were the first of several animated sitcoms along side The Jetsons, Topcat, and Johnny Quest.

Hanna-Barbera was also the genius behind the very successful Scooby-Doo series which was produced in 1969 to present day. In 1986 Scooby-Doo was cancelled and only aired the spin off of the characters as children in  ' a pup named scooby-doo'.

Most of the animations that were created took there audience ideas from Disneys success with children as the audience although a few cartoons still attracted the older audience with there hidden messages and political references such as the magic round-a-bout and the Flintstones which started out with an adult audience until later aiming towards children.

In 1990's cartoon network a cable tv channel aimed at children created a new channel called 'Boomerang'. The idea of this network was to air re-created animations from the 60's-70's which is why many young people still know of the old animation and have a lot of love towards them. Some of them were also re-created as films such as the magic roundabout. As well as animation being made into films some animations were made into realistic films such as Scooby-Doo and the Flintstone which had a hit with actors such as  John Goodman and Rick Moranis and Sarah Geller and Mr Bean Star Rowan Atkinson.

1930s-1950s Animation

Disney

Disney was at its prime with short animations but when the 1930's came Walt Disney had an idea. He wanted to create a full length film made of animation. The film itself would take 3-4 years to make and that film was snow white and the seven dwarfs. The animation was made up of 362,919 frames of coloured pictures, and took more than 1,500,000 individual ink drawings to create.

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/the-making-of-snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs/

After snow white was such a success and received oscars for best animation Disney wanted to create more animated films. The film that astonished everyone was 'Dumbo' from one specific scene where Dumbo gets drunk and starts to hallucinate about pink elephants. The use of bright colours and exciting use of cinematic animation.

Fleicher

While Disney were making their short animation they had competition from another group of animators called the fleicher brothers. The fleicher brothers are different style of animation compared to Disney, where Disney is animation for children Fleicher created for a more adult audience, which characters such as sex symbol Betty Boop and agressive sailor Popeye. The characters that we more commonly know are not the same characters that the Fleicher brothers created as they went bankrupt after trying to compete againsts Disney by creating there own animated film called "Mr bug goes to town" although the film is known for having better animation to Disney the company Sold off their Cartoons to different companies and never animated again.

Art Clokey

while most animation was created using cell animation the process of drawing onto plastic, a man called Art Clokey decided to make animation from plastercine. He created the character Gumby in 1955 till 1982.  Clokeys first animation called 'Gumbasia' lasted 3 minutes long and was made up of strange lumps of clay moving around to the Disney music fantasia.

TV cartoons in the 1950's

The 1950's was a very exciting time for animation, with animation making films it was now time for TV to introduce animation. Many well known cartoons that we have watched in our childhood were some of the first shows shown in the 50's. Foghorn Leghorn, Looney Tunes, Woody Woodpecker and Merry Melody.

The Beginning Of Animation

George Melies

George Melies was a illusion magician he saw his first moving picture in 1895 and later the began creating his own. Melies is one of the most memorable animators still known to this day, By accident he discovered that he could use stop motion photography to render trick effects. He created special effects not by using electrical effects but instead using cut outs to manipulate futuristic effects within his animations.

The most famous of his work is a moving picture called "a trip to the moon" which was created in 1902 which portrayed his idea of what the future world would be like and how it would be for man to take a trip to the moon.
                                                  "a trip to the moon- George Melies"

Aswell as his unique style of moving pictures Melies was also the first to use movie techniques such as fading in and out and the dissolve to create the first real narrative film.

Winsor McCay

Winsor McCay is well known as being the first great cartoon animator, he is mostly known for the creation of Gertie the dinosaur where he created moving cartoon images of a dinosaur. When McCay's children were born, a son in 1896 and a daughter in 97 this prompted him to take up a new job to support his family as a cartoonist/reporter for Cincinnati Commercial tribune. while working here he did a lot of freelance work for magazines which involved creating comic strips, at this time comic strips were extremely popular this prompted McCay to start creating his own ideas like "little Sammy sneeze" and "rarebit fiend" he did these two pieces for the New York telegram. McCay's popularity increased and he began performing on Vaudeville doing speed drawings of various characters including the two he created. After a few years McCay left his job at the tribune to take up a new job oportunity with Hearst a New York newspaper. During his time here he began to experiment with the idea of using animated pictures as part of his speed drawing act his first attempt was with a character called "little Nemo" it was a success and this led to the development of Gertie the Dinosaur, Which was to become a feature film.

     

Lotte Reiniger

Compared to the previous animator Lotte Reiniger a German animator had a different way of producing moving images for animation. Where the other two used either people or cartoons, Reiniger used silhouette paper cut outs with certain limbs able to move to bring the illusion to life.
The style of animation had never been seen before which made Reiniger extremely popular. Her unique style which stood out to the eye was astounding. Each individual character that she created was hand cut.
  

"The art of Lotte Reiniger"  

Reiniger created many childhood fairytales that are still told today stories such as Cinderella, Jack and the beanstalk, Hansel and gretle, the from prince and many many more. 
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0718201/

 

 

 

 

Walt disney

Walt Disney is the most known animator in the entire world. He was born in 1901 in Chicago Illinois. He attended McKinley high school during the day but when night came attended the Academy of fine arts.

"His talents were first used in a silent cartoon entitled Plane Crazy. However, before the cartoon could be released, sound was introduced upon the motion picture industry. Thus, Mickey Mouse made his screen debut in Steamboat Willie, the world's first synchronized sound cartoon, which premiered at the Colony Theater in New York on November 18, 1928." - http://www.justdisney.com/walt_disney/biography/long_bio.html

 

      Steamboat Willie.

 

Disney has grew and grew and is still growing from re-creations of old fairytales and new stories created by Disney. Disney later opend a TV channel called 'Disney channel' which can be viewed on satalite TV. Aswell as this they also opened up a Disney Land theme park In Orlando Florida and Paris. You can stay at the Disney trademark castle, cast members dress as characted from films and books and ride the Disney themed rides at the park itself.

 

 

                                       "Halloween advertisment for Disney Land themepark'

 

 

 

 

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