Animation

1. Animation “Animation offers a medium of story telling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world.” –Walt Disney “Animation is about creating the illusion of life. And you can't create it if you don't have one.” --Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles and Ratatouille

2. Animation is not a genre of film like comedy, Western, or horror. Animation is a technique for creating a film. Animated films can fit into any genre, but they are usually comedies that appeal to children.

3. History • Early animation techniques: • Flip books • Zoetrope

4. zoetrope • In September 1980, an independent filmmaker installed a type of linear zoetrope he called the "Masstransiscope" in an unused subway platform on the New York City Subway. It consists of a wall with 228 slits; behind each slit is a hand-painted panel, and riders of passing trains see a motion picture. After falling into a state of disrepair, the "Masstransiscope" was restored in late 2008.[7] Since then, a variety of artists and advertisers have begun to use subway tunnel walls to produce a zoetrope effect when viewed from moving trains. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC320jyqlKA

5. Early animation • The predecessor of early film animation was the newspaper comic strips of the 1890s. Historically and technically, the first animated film (in other words, the earliest animated film ever made on standard motion-picture film) was Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) by newspaper cartoonist J. Stuart Blackton. It was the earliest surviving example of an animated film. It was the first cartoon to use the single frame method, and was projected at 20 frames per second. In the film, a cartoonist's line drawings of two faces were 'animated' (or came to life) on a blackboard. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGh6maN4l2I

6. Fantasmagorie (1908) • The first FULLY ANIMATED film ever made, Fantasmagorie is a short film by French artist Emile Cohl. • The film largely consists of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There were also sections of live action where the animator’s hands would enter the scene. The main character is drawn by the artist's hand on camera, and the main characters are a clown and a gentleman. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swh448fLd1g

7. Felix the Cat • The first animated character that attained superstar status (and was anthropomorphic—that is, having human qualities) during the silent era was the mischievous Felix the Cat. • Originated by young animator Otto Messmer, who directed and animated more than 175 Felix cartoons in the years 1919 through 1929. Felix was the first character to be widely merchandised. The last Felix the Cat cartoon was due to the advent of the talkies and the success of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse. Messmer continued with his comic strip (begun in 1923) until 1966. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KUY8lja3YA

8. First Animated Feature • The little-known but pioneering, oldest-surviving feature-length animated film that can be verified (with silhouette animation techniques and color tinting) was released by German film-maker and avante-garde artist Lotte Reiniger, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926, Germ.), based on the stories from the Arabian Nights. Reiniger's achievement is often brushed aside, due to the fact that the animations were silhouetted, used paper cut-outs, and they were done in Germany. And the rarely-seen prints that exist have lost much of their original quality. However, the film was very innovative -- it used multi-plane camera techniques and experimented with wax and sand on the film stock. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAgznaw8UZc

9. And then there was Disney • Walt Disney is probably the most famous figure of animation. • His beloved films gave birth to the theme parks and a whole Disney empire. • It all started with Mickey Mouse.

10. The Debut of Mickey Mouse • In 1928, Disney Studios' chief animator developed a new character from a figure known as Mortimer Mouse, a crudely-drawn or sketched, rodent-like 'Mickey Mouse' - slightly similar to Felix the Cat. [Mickey Mouse was never a comic strip character before he became a cartoon star.] The first Mickey Mouse cartoon was  Plane Crazy (1928) in which Mickey, while impressing Minnie, imitated aviator Charles Lindbergh. The second was Steamboat Willie (1928), with Mickey on a river steamer, but without his trademark white gloves. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBgghnQF6E4

11. To help make Mickey stand out from other cartoon characters at the dawn of the talkies, the 7-minuteSteamboat Willie (1928) was re-released on November 18, 1928 with sound and premiered at the 79th Street Colony Theatre in New York - it was the first cartoon with post-produced synchronized soundtrack (of music, dialogue, and sound effects) and is considered Mickey Mouse's screen debut performance and birthdate. Animated star Mickey (with Minnie) was redrawn with shoes and white, four-fingered gloves. It was a landmark film and a big hit - the first sound cartoon to be a major hit - leading to many more Mickey Mouse films during the late 1920s and 1930s. 

12. The Fleischer Brothers • At the same time, serious rivals to Disney's animation production came from the Fleischers (Max, Dave, Joe, and Lou). They were already making technical innovations that would revolutionize the art of animation. In 1915, Max Fleischer invented the rotoscope to streamline the frame-by-frame copying process - it was a device used to overlay drawings on live-action film. The Fleischers were also pioneering the use of 3-D animation landscapes, and produced the hour-long Einstein's Theory of Relativity (1923), the first feature animation (a documentary).

13. You may recognize some of their creations . . . The first Superman short, Superman (1941), introduced the terms "faster than a speeding bullet" and "Look, up in the sky!"

14. The First Full-Length Animated Film (using traditional cel animation) • The earliest animated films that most people remember seeing are the later, more sophisticated Disney feature films that contain exquisite detail, flowing movements, gorgeous and rich color, enchanting characters, lovely musical songs and tunes, and stories drawn with magical or mythological plots. The first, full-length animated film was Disney's classic  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) , which took four years to make and cost $1.5 million dollars. It was 1938's top moneymaker at $8 million. • Although dubbed "Disney's Folly" during the three-four year production of the musical animation, Disney realized that he had to expand and alter the format of cartoons. He used a multi-plane camera to create an illusion of depth and movement. Disney's risk-taking paid off when the film became a financial and critical success.

15. Snow White: the one that started it all • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xm2m-EvsP8 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiKn2Z1cGoY

16. How Disney animation is done • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKMMTDyYI18 • Those transparent single-frame drawings are called cels. • They are very collectible and expensive!

18. Claymation • Claymation is a type of animation that uses hand-crafted, sculpted plasticine or clay. This form of stop-motion animation was first associated with director Art Clokey's clay-hero character named Gumby for children's TV in the 1950s.

19. Who Framed Roger Rabbit • Another exceptional film was the Oscar-winning Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), a remarkable blend of animated imagery and live-action human characters. It was filmed as a tribute to the entire pantheon of cartoon characters from Disney, Warner Bros., and MGM, and other studios in the 1940s. Its animation was revolutionary in a number of ways: (1) it used light and shadows in new ways to produce remarkably realistic, 3-D effects; (2) it extensively panned and moved the camera to reduce a static look; and (3) it had the cartoon characters interact flawlessly with real-world objects and flesh-and-blood people as much as possible. • Watch a clip: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIXAT6fGUw4

20. Warner Bros.' Space Jam (1996) also featured Looney Tunes characters within a live-action film with basketball superstar Michael Jordan.

21. Japanimation or Anime • These humanistic-oriented animations from the 1980s -- painstakingly detailed traditional cel animation during an era of CGI films -- were generally filled with magical and/or mythical settings, rich and fantastic characters (usually a young heroine), imaginative and visual renderings, fairy-tale motifs and plots with moral lessons, tales of the struggle between the strong and the weak, and environmental concerns.

22. One of the most revered is Spirited Away, which was the Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature Film (it was the first anime feature film to win an Academy Award Oscar, awarded in 2002), and became the highest grossing Japanese film ever made.

23. And then along came Pixar . . . • A division of Lucasfilm, created in 1979 and known as the Graphics Group, was purchased by Apple Computer's Steve Jobs for $5 million, renamed Pixar Animation Studios, and made an independent company in 1986. • Pixar Studios (and director John Lasseter) and Disney, in a 1991 deal, created the first completely computer-generated animated feature film - the landmark Toy Story (1995) - Pixar's feature debut film, and everything evolved from there. The visuals were entirely generated from computers, creating a wonderfully-realistic 3-D world with lighting, shading, and textures, that included real toys in supporting roles.

24. The tale also referenced the historical change in genre emphasis in the 50s when westerns were supplanted by science-fiction films. • It scored three Oscar nominations: Best Original Score, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Original Song ("You've Got a Friend"), and at the box-office totaled $192 million (domestic) and $362 million (worldwide). • How it’s done: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fytHjRvkn-U

25. Types of Animation: Review • Traditional—Each frame is drawn by hand, then transferred to cels (transparent sheets made out of acetate, a plastic-like material), colored, and layered. The drawings in each frame differ slightly, so when seen in sequential order, they create something referred to as persistence of vision, giving the illusion of movement. • Most animated films of the 20th century are traditional. Traditional animation is not as common/popular since the advent of CGI (computer generated image) animation.

27. Computer animation—This type of animated film is created entirely on a computer. • 2-D animation examples: SpongeBob • 3-D example: Toy Story, Frozen

28. Stop Motion—Illusion of movement created by moving and photographing physical objects • Claymation examples: Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run • Pixilation example: Fresh Guacamole • Puppet animation: The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Fantastic Mr. Fox • Cut paper animation: South Park • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQFrthyb-Wc

29. Title • Tim Burton and Henry Selick working on the set of Nightmare Before Christmas • Watch the making of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLw-Fo8uhis

30. Director Wes Anderson on set Bill Murray on the set of The Fantastic Mr. Fox

31. Fantastic Mr. Fox • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nakekkxvi-k • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5pQvytHIEE • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0drdslGnUE