Further Extended Animatic

I think I’m starting to add brief parts of the actual animation into the animatic, hence the length in which its taking me to complete it. Oh well, it’ll just make it easier for the actual piece. You know the score.

Animation’s History

(WARNING! Long post, prepare for some serious reading.)

So one little discussion I had during my weekly animation sessions at uni was the history of animation. Now this is a topic I had never really considered before when doing animation, but after our seminar (I think that’s what it’s called) it presented a lot about how animation has grown as a medium and also the grandfathers of animation.

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906)

Although not the first ever animation, it was the first animated film, so it’s a good enough place to start. It was one of the first to accurately portray an animated style, with a running speed of twenty frames per second and over three minutes of play time, it was a revolutionary piece of its time. This animation was done by the artist J Stuart Blackton, who was also one of the founders of the Victograph.

 This was an inspiration to what animation could do, and was soon followed by Fantasmagorie (1908, Fr.), an animation that portrays a clown performing varies acts. Done in the a similar style to the previous animation. The link bellow is an eight minute video, celebrating the 100th (technically 102nd) year of Fantasmagorie, giving it an updated look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVrxk9kc6u8

Without lingering too long about that paragraph, after this came Winsor McCay, who presented Little Nemo in Slumberland (1911) and How a Mosquito Operates (1912), which again was a revolutionary animation. Before this, most animations had only lasted a few minutes each as the shere number of pictures per frame was enormous (at twenty frames a second , the speed in which to generate a smooth animation, was 1200 pictures for every minute). So although it was one of the longer running animation of its time, How a Mosquito Operates had a large number of scenes that would play backwards and forwards several times each just to extend the animation time.

McCay’s next animation was one that is most memorable, Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), which involved an animation of a dinosaur that appeared to interact with Winsor McCay (At the time of animations then, it was usually customary for the animator/artist to stand and present their work to the audience, giving the chance for an interesting outcome with animations such as this one).

This lead to a number of other animations, not by Winsor McCay, but by many other artists that had become amazed, intrigued and inspired by these moving drawings. The first superstar cartoon character was Felix the Cat (1919), by Otto Messmer, who animated Felix continuously until 1929. He soon stopped his animations as at this time Walt Disney’s mickey mouse became world renowned.

Walt Disney began animating experimentally in his own studio in Kansas City and it wasn’t until 1922 when he produced his first two genuine cartoons, LIttle Red Riding Hood and Four Musicians of Bremen. He then went on to producing a series of short cartoons, Alice in Cartoonland and then moved onto Oswald the Lucky Rabbit became Disney’s first animated animal star and was one of his first to be bought as merchandise. This lead to Mickey Mouse (first known as Mortimer) when he was required to give up Oswald to Walter Lantz (who had worked alongside Disney to produce the Oswald cartoons). Disney moved onto Mickey Mouse, which became a successful hit almost immediately with the first cartoon, Steamboat Willi (1928).

Pushing on to a much later period, 1993 was the release of Jurassic Park, an amazing film (in my opinion). in the film, a short animation is featured. this featured the interaction of an animated character and a live person. This was performed almost exactly the same way Gertie the Dinosaur was done. This is an example of how old animations are used as inspiration by even top animators/directors such as Spielberg.

Animations’s history goes far beyond what I have mentioned, but what I have mention has touched upon some of animation’s critical points in its existence. Without animators such as Stuart Blackton, Winsor McCay, Walt Disney etc animation would not be what it is today.

References

http://www.filmsite.org/animatedfilms.html

http://www.animationxpress.com/anex/y2k8/headlines/anex3641.htm#

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboat_Willie