Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby are created or manipulated and then played in sequence to create the illusion of moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animation has been recognised as an artistic medium, specifically within the entertainment industry. Many animations are either traditional animations or computer animations made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Stop motion animation, in particular claymation, is also prominent alongside these other forms, albeit to a lesser degree.
Animation is contrasted with live action, although the two do not exist in isolation. Many filmmakers have produced films that are a hybrid of the two. As CGI increasingly approximates photographic imagery, filmmakers can relatively easily composite 3D animated visual effects (VFX) into their film, rather than using practical effects.
General overview Computer animation can be very detailed 3D animation, while 2D computer animation (which may have the look of traditional animation) can be used for stylistic reasons, low bandwidth, or faster real-time renderings. Other common animation methods apply a stop motion technique to two- and three-dimensional objects like paper cutouts, puppets, or clay figures.
An animated cartoon, or simply a cartoon, is an animated film, usually a short film, that features an exaggerated style. This style is often inspired by comic strips, gag cartoons, and other non-animated art forms.
During the late 1980s, the term "cartoon" was shortened to toon, referring to characters in animated productions, or more specifically, cartoonishly-drawn characters. This term gained popularity first in 1988 with the live-action/animated hybrid film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which introduced ToonTown, a world inhabited by various animated cartoon characters. In 1990, Tiny Toon Adventures embraced the classic cartoon spirit, introducing a new generation of cartoon characters. Then, in 1993, Animaniacs followed, featuring the three rubber-hose-styled Warner siblings, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, who are trapped in the 1930s, eventually escaped and found themselves in the Warner Bros. water tower in the 1990s.
The illusion of animation—as in motion pictures in general—has traditionally been attributed to the persistence of vision and later to the phi phenomenon and beta movement, but the exact neurological causes are still uncertain. The illusion of motion caused by a rapid succession of images that minimally differ from each other, with unnoticeable interruptions, is a stroboscopic effect. While animators traditionally used to draw each part of the movements and changes of figures on transparent cels that could be moved over a separate background, computer animation is usually based on programming paths between key frames to maneuver digitally created figures throughout a digitally created environment.
Analog mechanical animation media that rely on the rapid display of sequential images include the phenakistiscope, zoetrope, flip book, praxinoscope, and film. Television and video are popular electronic animation media that originally were analog and now operate digitally. For display on computers, technology such as the animated GIF and Flash animation were developed.
In addition to short films, feature films, television series, animated GIFs, and other media dedicated to the display of moving images, animation is also prevalent in video games, motion graphics, user interfaces, and visual effects.
The physical movement of image parts through simple mechanics—for instance, moving images in magic lantern shows—can also be considered animation. The mechanical manipulation of three-dimensional puppets and objects to emulate living beings has a very long history in automata. Electronic automata were popularised by Disney as animatronics.
Etymology The word animation comes from the Latin word animātiō, meaning 'bestowing of life'. The earlier meaning of the English word is 'liveliness' and has been in use much longer than the meaning of 'moving image medium'.
History
Before cinematography
Long before modern animation began, audiences around the world were captivated by the magic of moving characters. For centuries, master artists and craftsmen have brought puppets, automatons, shadow puppets, and magic lantern projections to life, inspiring the imagination through physically manipulated wonders.
In 1833, Joseph Plateau's phenakistiscope introduced the principle of stroboscopic animation, which would later be applied in the zoetrope (introduced in 1866), the flip book (1868), the praxinoscope (1877) and film. The device features sequential pictures arranged in sectors on a cardboard disc between regularly spaced apertures in its circumference. When the reflection of the spinning disc is viewed in a mirror through the apertures, the interruptions (by the spaces between apertures) obscure the passing of the pictures, which limits motion blur and leave short exposures of successive images at the same spots, so fast that the human visual system can only interpret them as a single image of moving or changing figures.
Émile Reynaud screened hand-painted animations with his Théâtre Optique at the Musée Grévin in Paris between 1892 and 1900, probably inspiring some of the pioneers of cinematographic technologies.
Silent era When cinematography eventually broke through in the 1890s, the wonder of the realistic details in the new medium was seen as its biggest accomplishment. It took years before animation found its way to the cinemas. The successful short The Haunted Hotel (1907) by J. Stuart Blackton popularised stop motion and reportedly inspired Émile Cohl to create Fantasmagorie (1908), regarded as the oldest known example of a complete traditional (hand-drawn) animation on standard cinematographic film. Other great artistic and very influential short films were created by Ladislas Starevich with his puppet animations since 1910 and by Winsor McCay with detailed hand-drawn animation in films such as Little Nemo (1911) and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914).
Animation production across the Globe
American golden age
During the 1910s, the production of animated "cartoons" became an industry in the US. Successful producer John Randolph Bray and animator Earl Hurd patented the cel animation process that dominated the animation industry for the rest of the century. Felix the Cat, who debuted in 1919, became the first fully realised anthropomorphic animal character in the history of American animation. The characteristics of Felix the cat's physical appearance would come to be the standard model for cartoon character in the following years.
In 1928, Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, popularised film-with-synchronised-sound and put Walt Disney's studio at the forefront of the animation industry. Although Disney Animation's actual output relative to total global animation output has always been very small, the studio has overwhelmingly dominated the "aesthetic norms" of animation ever since.
The enormous success of Mickey Mouse is seen as the start of the golden age of American animation that would last until the 1960s. The United States dominated the world market of animation with a plethora of cel-animated theatrical shorts. Several studios would introduce characters that would become very popular and would have long-lasting careers, including Walt Disney Productions' Goofy (1932) and Donald Duck (1934), Fleischer Studios/Paramount Cartoon Studios' Out of the Inkwell' Koko the Clown (1918), Bimbo and Betty Boop (1930), Popeye (1933) and Casper the Friendly Ghost (1945), Warner Bros. Cartoon Studios' Looney Tunes' Porky Pig (1935), Daffy Duck (1937), Elmer Fudd (1937–1940), Bugs Bunny (1938–1940), Tweety (1942), Sylvester the Cat (1945), Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner (1949), MGM cartoon studio's Tom and Jerry (1940) and Droopy, Universal Cartoon Studios' Woody Woodpecker (1940), Terrytoons/20th Century Studios's Mighty Mouse (1942), and United Artists' Pink Panther (1963).
European History of Animation Production
Polish art student Ladislas Starevitch would employ stop-motion animation creating films such as The Cameraman's Revenge (1912) and The Tale of the Fox (1930).
Pinscreen animation would be developed by Alexandre Alexeïeff in France being used to create films such as A Night on Bald Mountain (1933).
After working on it for three years, Lotte Reiniger released the German feature-length silhouette animation Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed in 1926, the oldest extant animated feature.
Animation Production in China In 1941, Tieshan gonzhu (Princess Iron Fan) would become the first animated feature film in Asia, given the title of "the Chinese version of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". Following in 1944, the animated film Fengzheng (The Kite) would be published combining animation characteristics of Disney shorts of that era called "plasmaticness" and local Chinese folklore.
This era of East Asian animation would last until the mid 1940's, however a plethora of notable animation films would be produced such as Chutian de Beijing (Peking in Spring), Dongya de liming (The dawn in East Asia), Kepa de Huliela (The terrible cholera), Emo de Siyu (The demons' whispers), Tenkū ryokō (1936), Kotori to usage (Birds and Rabbits), Tsuki no Miya no ōjo-sama (Princess of the moon palace, 1934), Mābō no Tōkyō orinpikku taikai (Ma-bo's Tokyo Olympic Games, 1936), Sora no Momtarō (Momotarō's sky adventure, 1931), Saru kani gassen (Monkey and the crabs, 1927), Da duhui (The metropolis, 1941), and Kuala de pengyou(Happy friends, 1942).
Features before CGI
In 1917, Italian-Argentine director Quirino Cristiani made the first feature-length film El Apóstol (now lost), which became a critical and commercial success. It was followed by Cristiani's Sin dejar rastros in 1918, but one day after its premiere, the film was confiscated by the government.
In 1937, Walt Disney Studios premiered their first animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, still one of the highest-grossing traditional animation features .Total prior to 50th anniversary reissue: 1987 and 1993 grosses from North America: The Fleischer studios followed this example in 1939 with Gulliver's Travels with some success. Partly due to foreign markets being cut off by the Second World War, Disney's next features Pinocchio, Fantasia (both 1940), Fleischer Studios' second animated feature Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941–1942) failed at the box office. For several decades, Disney was the only American studio to regularly produce animated features, until Ralph Bakshi became the first to release more than a handful of features. Sullivan-Bluth Studios began to regularly produce animated features starting with An American Tail in 1986.
Although relatively few titles became as successful as Disney's features, other countries developed their own animation industries that produced both short and feature theatrical animations in a wide variety of styles, relatively often including stop motion and cutout animation techniques. Soviet Soyuzmultfilm animation studio, founded in 1936, produced 20 films (including shorts) per year on average and reached 1,582 titles in 2018. China, Czechoslovakia / Czech Republic, Italy, France, and Belgium were other countries that more than occasionally released feature films.
Television