history of Animation

History of animation

Silent era

Animation has evolved from the early days of traditional animation, and is now used in many areas of the media, from advertising to entertainment. In 1906 J. Staurt Blackton made the first animated film, called “humorous phases of funny faces”. Soon after this many other aspiring animators experimented with animations of their own, in 1914 Winsor McCay produced a cartoon called “Gertie the dinosaur”, this would prove to very popular with animators for years to come. Other famous animations from this era were koko the clown and Felix the cat. Like the movies at this time when the animations were played in a theatre, and organist would play a musical score to accompany the animation.

Laugh-O-gram Studio

Walt Disney in 1922 founded laugh-O-gram studios. One of the animators that Disney had hired was Ub Iwerks, an animation pioneer. They were given $11,000 to produce six fairy tale cartoons. The company struggled to make ends meet and in 1923 the studio declared bankruptcy.

Introduction Of sound

With the introduction of sound to motion pictures, the animation industry really took off. The first animated shorts to use synchronised dialogue were max fleischers ‘my old Kentucky home’ and Walt Disney’s ‘Steamboat Willie’.

Golden age of animation

Animation during this era was booming, especially peaking during the 1930s and 40s. Many memorable characters emerged during this time such as Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse and many others. During this time many new studios were founded, influenced by the success of both Walt Disney and Max Fleischer. In 1932 Walt Disney produced ‘Flowers and Trees’ which was a fully animated film, in Technicolor. Walt Disney was always moving forward with innovations in animation, this is what made him stand out more from the other animators of this time. In America during the 1930s it was the great depression, animation was booming during this era as people went to watch animations to escape the real life world.

Animation post world War

The animation Industry changed a lot the years after World War 2, with televisions becoming an instant phenomenon the movie theatre industry suffered slightly as people were staying at home watching TV. Many Studios gave up on the big budget, theatre short animations that thrived during the late 1930s. New television studios thrived based on the economy. One of the first animation studios to produce animations exclusively for television was Hanna Barbera, their first show was called ‘the ruff and ready show’, it wasn’t until the 1960s that the studio hit its peak with the tv series ‘The Flintstones’ which aired during prime time, when all the family would have been watching the TV.

The major difference with producing animation for television compared to film animation is that it is very time consuming and a labour intensive process, with studios demanding 10-20 half an hour episodes per year. There was limited use of animation to save time and get the shows out on time each week.

During the 1970’s and early 1980’s animation somewhat declined, however in the late 1980s many large companies reformed and reinvigorated the animation department, with shows such as the Simpsons. Walt Disney films during the 1970s declined after Walt Disney’s death, however in the 1980s the Disney channel aired which was a success. Also in the late 80’s early 90’s Disney had many feature films that were successful such as the lion king in 1994.

The Use of CGI, 3D animation

Toy story, the first film animated entirely using CGI (computer generated imagery). This was a massive success and started a new trend among other studios. Walt Disney studios believed this was the way to go and decided to stop the traditional animation after their film ‘Home on the range’ and went with CGI on their next film ‘Chicken Little’. Since then Disney has returned back to the traditional 2D animation with the 2009 release of ‘The princess and the frog’.