The Beginnings of a New Art Form - Part 2

Animation from 1937-1995

Walt Disney Studios became the dominant force in animation after the success of the Mickey Mouse series, and it wasn't long until Walt turned his eye towards feature films. Not only did he create films with widespread popularity, him and his team also improved on animation technique. He wasn't alone though, and between 1937 and 1995 animation was being pushed forward by many different studios until the eventual acceptance of 3D animation into the feature film industry. Below is a timeline detailing prominent events in animation from 1937 to 1995.




Sources:

Pollard, N. (1998, September 25). Animation timeline. Retrieved from http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs229/animTimeline.html

Nusair, D. (n.d.). Animated film timeline. Retrieved from http://movies.about.com/od/animatedmovies/a/history-animated-films.htm

Miyao, D. (2002). Japan forum. Before anime: animation and the Pure Film Movement in pre-war Japan.,
14(2), 191-209. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.utdallas.edu/ehost/detail?sid=4ef1c519-e90c-4d6c-bbd6-2277c37167ce@sessionmgr10&vid=4&hid=9&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==

Connelly, J., & Connelly, M. (2011). Tech trends. History of Animation, 55(3), 6. Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com.libproxy.utdallas.edu/content/3405846h66w55212/

Telotte, J. P. (2008). Journal of popular film & television. The Stereoscopic Mickey: Space, Animation, and the Mouse.,
36(3), 133-140. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.utdallas.edu/ehost/detail?sid=1fb7da6f-2322-4556-97ca-d415989d8688@sessionmgr15&vid=6&hid=9&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==

The Beginings of a New Art Form

The creation of animation can't be attributed to any single person or film; rather it was developed over several years during the early 1900s by people building on those before them as they inched closer and closer to what we now understand as animation today. Today I will cover some of the early milestones of animation that led it to become a mainstream industry. 

1900: One of the earliest steps towards animation was the short video The Enchanted Drawing created by cartoonist J. Stuart Blackton where he uses stop-camera tricks to give the appearance of him interacting with a cartoon man. Although the film is not considered true animation it is an important milestone towards the development of later films.

1906: After other artists expanded on his techniques, J. Stuart Blackton came back to create what is commonly considered the first animated film titled Humorous Phases of Funny Faces which uses chalk drawings and cut out pieces of paper to achieve true animation. 

1914: After Blackton's work in 1906, many other artists began experimenting with animation. One of the most notable is Winsor McCay who created the Gertie the Dinosaur series which helped bring animation into mainstream view. In this work you can see how animation had been refined in the 8 years since it's inception from choppy and rigid movement into something more believable for the audience.

1920-1930s: By this time animation had developed into a fledgling industry producing gag animations, but it wasn't until Walt Disney brought his passion for pushing the limits and furthering animation as a serious art form that it was brought into the mainstream. Walt Disney started his studio in Hollywood, California working on the Alice Comedies which featured a young girl going on various adventures. It wasn't until 1928 with the short film Steamboat Willie that Walt enjoyed his first major commercial success. Not only was Steamboat Willie the first public introduction of Mickey Mouse, though not the first animation to feature him, it was also the first animation to have a full post-produced soundtrack. Mickey Mouse's popularity would later skyrocket in the 1930s, bringing Walt Disney's studio to the forefront of animation both in popularity and technique.

Walt Disney and his team of animators eventually went on to create some of the most successful animated films of all time. In the next blog post I will cover what is known as The Golden Age of animation up to the introduction of 3D animation into the feature film industry.



Sources

Simmon, S. (1999, March 31). Notes on the origins of american animation, 1900-1921. Retrieved from http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/oahtml/oapres.html

Thomas, F., & Johnston, O. (1981). The illusion of life: Disney animation. New York, NY: Walt Disney Productions.

Introduction to blog

  The Evolution of Animation

     During the past 100 years, animation has grown from a niche art form by a handful of small studios into the major industry that animation is today. How did it get there? What innovations were needed to bring animation into the mainstream media? Recovering the roots of animation and its principles is beneficial for young animators to understand both how to apply them and why they are so important. Knowing the history and development of animation is key to knowing not just how it's done in modern studios by why it's done the way it is. Because of this I decided to take it upon myself to fill that gap and educate those interested in

animation through this blog.

     This blog will cover how animation has evolved since the first animated film in 1899 to become the giant international industry that it is today. The blog will be primarily focused on contributions made by past animators and films and how they relate to modern animation. The blog will discuss both important past animations during the 1900s and modern ones that building towards the future of animations. I will also cover the origins and development of the 12 principles of animation, the problems they solved in early animation, and how they are used by animation studios today. Special interest will be given to the early years of Disney and the animators there who developed many of the major techniques and showed the world how to bring life into drawings.

Topics covered

• The foundation of the 12 principles of animation and the problems they were developed to solve.
• Landmark animations and historically important animators.
• How animation was shaped over time to be what it is today.
• Where the industry is today and where it is going.
• Disney and its impact on the animation industry. 

This blog isn't only for aspiring animators, it's for people of all ages with an interest in animation and a love for animated films produced by the industry.

This is for you if...

•  You are an animator interested in knowing why animation is done the way it is. 
•  You enjoy animated films and want to learn more about them. 
•  You want to learn more about the principles of animation. 
•  You love Disney and want to know how it was brought to the forefront of animation.

I'll start off by introducing the 12 principles of animation used in the industry today.

1. Squash and Stretch
2. Anticipation
3. Staging
4. Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose
5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action
6. Slow In and Slow Out
7. Arcs
8. Secondary Action
9. Timing
10. Exaggeration
11. Solid Drawing
12. Appeal

 I will use future blog posts to go through each of these in more detail in order to explain both why they are used and where they came from.