Lecture Notes 6: Chronologies 4: Animation

The Beginning

• Animation is derived from the latin word Animare, meaning "To give Life to"
• Requires one to artificially create a series of images that gives the illusion of movement of an object or form. When played back fast enough, that illusion is created, it is called the "Persistence of Vision"
• For thousands of years, humans have illustrated stories sequentially, on walls, bowls, vases and various other objects (Eg, Egyptian burial chamber mural, 4000 years old, and of course cave paintings)

This reinforces the fact that sequential images and storytelling
are not modern concepts

• The Magic Lantern (Around 1650) was invented by Christian Kuygens, a parabolic mirror at the back focused the light through a hand drawn slide and then through a lens that could be adjusted for clear focus. Due to rather primitive light sources at the time (Candles and oil lamps), the invention was not very efficient
• The Thaumatrope (1824), was invented by John Herschel, but made popular as a toy by John Paris. It was a simple spinning disc that when spun fast enough, created the illusion that both images are there
• The Phenakistoscope (Fee-ner-kiss-though-scope) (1831), was interestingly invented by two different people in two different places at the same time.
• The Zoetrope (1834), similar to the previous invention, the images however were instead placed vertically within a barrel shaped device and has multiple slits for viewing as compared to the Phenakistoscope
• The Kineograph or Flipbook (1868), John Barnes Linnett of London was the first to patent the design even though Pierre-Hubert Desvignes has usually been credited for its invention
• The Praxinoscope Projection (1887) by Charles-Emile Reynaud and publicly exhibited in 1892, these projections will predate Edison's Kinetoscope and the Lumiere Brothers Cinematograph

1900-1927

• When filming finally came to be, many artists were fascinated with the idea of bringing their drawings to life.
• "Animation is not the art of drawing that move but the art of movements that are draw" ~ Norman McLaren (1914-1987)
• Various animations that have influenced contemporary animators from around the world:
• "In order to move forward you need to know where you have come from." ~ Michaela Paviatova (During BAF 2013)

• Georges Melies: A Trip to the Moon (1902), was a combination of live action and stop motion animation. This film has been referenced numerous times by artists, musicians and comedians

• Emile Cohl: Fantasmagorie (1908), known as one of the first 'modern' animations, was drawn in pencil and then photographed onto negative film (Giving it that chalkboard look).

While not his first animation, it was one of his more memorable

• Windsor McCay: Gertie the Dinosaur (1908), was the first film to use keyframes, registrations marks and tracing paper
• Sinking of the Lusitania (1918), depicting the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine during WW1, it was the first dramatic work of animation and the first animation to be used as propaganda, it was the longest animated film at the time of its release took only a week to travel all over the world (1918)

• Lotte Reiniger: The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), oldest surviving piece of animation

1928-1957: The Golden Age of Cartoons

• From 1928, animation had developed enough of a language, both technical, artistically and importantly commercially, it was no longer considered as just high art and something exclusive to the rich, it was mainstream, and was the beginning of the golden age

• Walt Disney started it off with Steamboat Willie (1928) and was the first animation to have synchronized sound (Fleischer's Inkwell studios had tried but were never actually successful) 
• Skeleton Dance (1929), the music was done first before the animation, it might be regarded as the first ever music video

• Aleksander Ptushko's: Novvy (the new) Gulliver (1929), famous for using one really, long continuous tracking shot.
• Lasdislaw Starewicz: The Tale of the Fox (1930), took ten years to make this film, incredibly detailed and was considered a work of art

• Max Fleischer: Dizzy Dishes introduces Betty Boop (1930)
• Popeye (While originally part of the Betty Boop series), was given his own series later on due to his popularity
• Willis O'Brien: King Kong (1933), a defining moment in the history of cinema

• Oskar Fischinger: Komposition in Blau (1935), a more abstract form of animation, Oskay was pursued by the nazis as abstract work were regarded as degenerate art, he had fled from Germany in 1933 and worked with Disney for a short period of time before leaving after learning that some of the works he had done for Fantasia were altered to be more pictorial
• ToyBox: Momotaro Vs Mickey Mouse (1936), a propaganda animation done by the japanese that portrayed the americans as evil demons that they need to fight off
• Len Lye: Color Box (1935-6), a commercial work that is an animation based around sounds, painted directly on the film stock, it is also an example of "Direct Animation" where the actual film stock is directly manipulated. This film inspires other great animators such as Norman McLaren.
• Disney: Snow White (1937), used rotoscoping for some of the characters, it also introduces some very complex layered parallax animation (Which I myself am still trying to get my head around)

• Wan Brothers: Princess Iron Fan, known for being the first chinese animated feature film, it took 70 artists and 16 months to complete it, a mixture of traditional animation, drawing, rotoscoping and metamorphosis

During World War II

• Disney produced a number of films during this time to support the war effort(It was also through these animations that showed Disney's own political views)
• Education for Death: the Raising of a Nazi might have appeared strange to viewers especially since such a serious subject matter was presented in Disney's usual goofy animation style and narrative
• Victory through Air Power (1943), was a feature length push commissioned by the USAF to get more resources to build more aircrafts (Disney's are evident in this one, he had even gone so far to use some of his own money to fund this project)

• UPA Films: The Brotherhood of Man (1945) articulates a progressive view of racial integration in American in the 40s and that all men should be seen as equals regardless of where they come from, it was nominated for an Oscar in 1943
• UPA: Gerald McBoing Boing (1951), an adaptation of a Dr Seuss story, it was a nice minimalistic styled animation with endearing characters
• Norman McLaren: Neighbours (1952), a pixilation animation that was an allegory for the cold war that developed as a result of end of WW2 and nuclear proliferation in the 1950s

• Chuck Jones: Duck Amuck (1953), animation genius (Oh yeah! <3), Daffy breaks the forth wall in this episode by addressing the animator to fix the animation (This one gets a clip since its one of my favorites), only to be constantly tortured

• Saul Bass: The Man with the Golden Arm (1954) a highly stylish graphic title sequence that lead Bass to work on many more narratively driven title sequences such as Anatomy of a Murderer (1959)

1958-1985: The Television Age (The Silver Age)

• The golden age ended in the late 50s-early 60s, rise in popularity of TV meant that broadcasters demanded large quantities of programming on low budgets, so there were considerable amounts of cut backs such as reusing the same backgrounds and simplifying them, reusing walk cycles and talking mouths, leaving to the slow decline of  'quality' feature animations that were replaced by much cheaper mass produced shorts.

The time of Hanna Barbera begins here

• Bob Godfrey: Do it Yourself Cartoon Kit (1961), supposedly pokes at the cheaper quality of animations at that time by showing that anyone can make an animation with a minimal amount of supplies
• Zagreb Film: Ersatz (Surogat) (1961), piece of modernist animation about the absurdities of the modern age
• Stan Brakhage: Mothlight (1963), scanned in real objects (Like insects and plants), pretty abstract
• Ray Harryhausen: Jason and the Argonauts (1963), developed lots of techniques when animating the iconic skeleton fight
• Osamu Tezuka: Astro Boy (1963) was one of the earliest examples of anime (Interestingly enough was inspired by the story of Pinocchio)
• Jiri Trnka: The Hand (1965) was an allegory for a cry against repression and a totalitarian state

• Chuck Jones: The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (1965), a beautiful modernist piece of animation that tells the story of a love one holds for the other and how far he goes to change himself for her (This one also gets a video, just because)
• 1966: Walt Disney dies
• Terry Gilliam: Monty Python's Flying Circus, cut out animation (1966) his animations were integral to the success of the identity and success of the series
• Richard Williams: A Christmas Carol (1971), had wanted to remain faithful to the original source as compared to more light hearted interpretations seen in the past, quotes that it was never meant to be a children's film after all
• Ivor Caprino: The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix (1975), uses animatronics for the first time, it holds the Norwegian record for the longest running screening of any film and was shown for 28 years

• Martin Rosen: Watership Down (1979), an animation that focuses on the cruelty of both man and nature as a colony of rabbits journey to find a new home for themselves, also if you think this to be a family friendly animation, you were lied to (The epitome of "DAMN NATURE YOU SCARY!")
• Roger Mainwood: Autobahn Music Video (1979), first attempts at computer animation (1979) despite the limitations of technology, Halas and Batchelor and Mainwood embraced the usage of it

• Yuri Norstein: Tale of Tales (1979) is a somewhat confusing (Due to how the stories are not exactly organized, like distant memories and dreams) but nonetheless beautiful animation that uses a range of processes and techniques such as basic cut out animation to complex multiplane animation

• Don Bluth: The Secret of NIMH (1982), has all the hallmarks of a traditional disney animation (Seeing that Bluth had worked with Disney for 10 years prior), it has excellent character animation and made use of techniques such as multiplane filming and Xerox (Photocopying)
• Steven Lisberger: Tron (1982), originally meant to be an animation with some live action, it instead became a live action film with 20 minutes animation in it, with even less CGI used, still it was pretty ahead of its time (It got a bigger fangirl base for its sequel at least)

1985 Onwards

• Pixar (1986): Luxo Jr. showed the potential that 3D Computer Animation had and was regarded as groundbreaking at the time, the rest was history
• Joanna Quinn: Girls Night Out (1987), her loose drawn animation makes this a memorable animation

• Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), advanced compositing was used for this, animation had to realistically respond to the movement of the cameras, giving a real sense of solid characters (I think most of us still wish something like this was actually possible in real life… y'know, cartoon characters coming to life)
• Akira, regarded as the piece of Manga that opened the world's eyes to what Japan had to offer in animation terms
• Disney: Beauty and the Beast (1991) one of first animations to use 3D animated backgrounds with traditional animation, an incredibly beautiful animation with great lighting and colors
• Barry Purves: Screenplay (1992) a very smoothly animation stop motion with creatively gorgeous lighting, has won many prizes and gained a cult following

• Steven Spielberg: Jurassic Park (1993), a combination of CGI and animatronics, the stampede scenes used 3D CG to simulate dinosaurs running along the planes
• John Lasseter: Toy Story (1995), the first fully computer animated feature film, Lasseter was clever enough to choose a story that focuses around toys (Due to how plastic and cartoony they can look) instead of humans, taking into consideration that they were still after all starting to familiarize themselves with 3D animation tech
• Aardman: A Close Shave (1995) goes back to traditional techniques unlike Pixar that was moving forward with 3D digital animation
• Mamoru Oshii: Ghost in the Shell (1995) mixes 2D effects with CGI
• Lasseter and Stanton: A Bug's Life (1998) despite the debate about whether Antz stole its idea and vice versa since they both came out at the same time, aside the fact that these two animations had ants as their main characters, both films were actually pretty different from one another (I prefer Antz though)

• Michael Dudok de Wit: Father and Daughter (2000), produced using traditional animation processes, it was influenced by Eastern European Animation and Tintin, a beautiful piece of heartbreaking animation that makes excellent use of light, shadow and silhouette
• Narayan Shi: Freedom Song (2000) combines 2D and 3D animation to produce a vibrantly cute short
• Jamie Hewlett: Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood (2001), notable for going along with the times as the characters are animated in 2D before switching to 3D later on

• Sylvain Chomet: Triplets of Belleville (2003), a virtually dialogue free comedy, beautifully drawn with CG elements that were carefully created with deteriorated lines to make it fit with the hand drawn works. It was also an internationally project that included animators discussing their work through the internet instead of all staying in one studio to work together
• Semiconductor: Magnetic Movie (2007), an interesting piece that visualizes invisible magnetic files in the Nato Space Science Laboratory
• Marjane Satrapi: Persepolis (2007), an animation that was nicely translated from the original graphic novel it was based on (Even sticking to the monochromatic coloring instead of fully coloring it)
• Ari Folman: Waltz with Bashir (2008) combines rotoscoping, flash and frame by frame drawings, giving off a rather jilter, jerky feeling that matches the horror and disorientation of what took place during the 1982 Lebanon War
• Henry Selick: Coraline (2009) along with several other stop motion animations at the time proved that animation is as popular as ever (Book is still scarier though)
• James Cameron: Avatar (2009), it was said that no animators were involved during its making, which is questionable as motion captured date requires cleaning up and animators are pretty much the only ones that can do that.

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight