History of animation

Before animation

Animation on goblet

5000 years ago, in the province of the Sistan-o-Balouchestan, in Iran, of the Gobelet S seemed to be used to produce animations. One of those Ci was found representative various stages of the jump of a Chèvre.

Shadow theater

In China since the 6th century the shape of theater similar to animation is presented; the Shadow theater. Marionnette S articulated in skin of Bœuf dried are used to project the shade of a lantern on a fabric, thus representing drawn shades.

Puppets

The puppet theater was made in the tradition of the Indian Cirque, it was brought, in Europe with the tradition of the circus by the gypsy S.

Projected images

At the 18th century, the projection of images using a Magic lantern was a popular distraction. The Belgian Robertson presented phantasmagorias where, hidden behind a screen, it projected images of people, monsters or spirits which gave to the public the feeling of a supernatural appearance.

Beginnings of animation

The history of animation begins, as opposed to what one could believe, well before the beginning of the cinema. At the 19th century, a variety of different optical toys makes their appearances. Among those let us note the Thaumatrope of the English John Ayrton Paris, the Phénakistiscope of the Belgian Joseph Plateau, the Zootrope of the English William George Horner and the Praxinoscope of the French Emile Reynaud.

The optical theater

Emile Reynaud will improve his invention several times until creating the optical Théâtre allowing to project a Cartoon. He is the only one with knowing to make it function so much he is complex. He thus makes him even projections by handling it manually.

He can with this machine make idles, accelerations and flashbacks, which enables him to vary projections according to the mood of the public, like that is usually practiced with the theater.

The film is composed of many images on a film (of gelatin), and which pass from a reel to another via a projector. Clever magnets and other elements make it possible to make sound effects. These films on the other hand dumb, and are accompanied with the piano.

It paints itself the characters on the gelatin, and his wife paints the black around the characters. The set of mirrors of the optical theater already makes it possible automatically to encrust the characters in a decoration as tens of years the technique of the cellulo will allow it later.

Its film of gelatin inserted in paperboard (like slides) and of 70 mm width will be preserved on the other hand very badly. The end of a specimen of Around a cabin was cut out and sent to a cinematographic museum of Prague.

Beginnings of the cinema

The kinetoscope and the kinetograph

Thomas Alva Edison presents in 1891 two of these inventions. The Kinetograph, recording and the Kinetoscope, a viewer. It made patent its invention only in the United States, not seeing the utility to pay for a patent in the rest of the world.

The cinematograph

The error of Edison not to patent its invention in Europe allowed the Frères Lights, then owners of a photographic factory of equipment, at the same time to create starting from the two inventions of Edison only one machine making it possible to record and view, the Cinématographe.

The December 28th 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumière present for the first time of films in front of a public for a certain amount. It is the beginning of the cinema such as one knows it.

At the origins of the cinema of animation

With the invention of the cinema, the idea to animate drawings, cuttings or objects in three dimensions takes form in the imagination of the realizers of the beginning of the XXe century. At the origin of the cinema of animation, one finds several apparatuses of different sources, but which use all this principle of retinal persistence: the Phénakistiscope, the animated books (small booklets to fold and connect oneself), which, when one divides into sheets them at good speed, reproduce a fluid movement), the magic lantern. Filiation with these apparatuses is particularly obvious in the cartoon. The characters and the decorations were drawn on same paper, which obliged to redraw the decoration with each stage of animation. The system of torn paper (slash system) employed in the majority of the cartoons of the Twenties allowed unquestionable economies by carrying out a hole in the decoration and by positioning in lower part the animation of the characters. This technique limited all the same the movements of the character to a completely white zone of the decoration. Then the celluloid came: each of the 24 images a second are drawn separately, but are transferred, on transparent sheets, then piled up and laminated with the inch to check the fluidity and the good sequence of the movements. It is there the characteristic of the cinema of animation, whatever the adopted technique: each image “is photographed” separately by means of a special camera, then inserted in the sequence of a movement. To restore this last most accurately possible belongs to the talent of the organizer-realizer.

At its beginnings, animation was mainly projected in the rooms of Cinéma, in the form of short films. The cartoons were then projected at a speed of 16 images a second for silent films, and then with 24 images a second (tape speed standard of sound film). The first cinematographic cartoon is Fantasmagorie of French Emile Courtet (known as Emile Cohl), projected for the first time the August 17th 1908 with the theater of the gymnasium in Paris. It brings then its techniques to the United States starting from 1912 where it will teach not far from the city New York, with Fort Lee, in the New Jersey.

Winsor McCay also launched out him in the realization of cartoons and presented Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914. It would have made the bet be able to make a cartoon alone with three friends. The cartoon is certainly the branch of the animation which was the largest popular success, which had in particular with some organizers of world famous: Walt Disney, Tex Avery, authors for one of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and for the other of Droopy, Daffy Duck, The Wolf.

In Europe, one also counts excellent authors of cartoons like Julius Pinschewer, Bruno Bozzetto (Linea), Jiří Trnka, John Halas, which took other directions that referred to above Americans, but the always with even technical: catches of sight image by image.

The industrialization of animation

The rule with tenons

The Règle with tenons is an invention of Raoul Barré which revolutionized the world of animation. It is about a simple bar having of extrusions of various forms. It was then enough to insert a sheet perforated into the places or were the tenons in the rule to ensure that each drawing is exactly at the good place by contribution with the precedent.

The cellulo

Emile Reynaud and Emile Courtet had found various means artisanal to superimpose characters and decoration, but these techniques were not adapted for an industrialization of the cinema of animation.

John Randolph Bray (producing) and Earl Hurd invent in 1914 the technique of the cellulo which revolutionizes the industrial cartoon in the Années 1930. By using a transparent acetate sheet on which the animated characters or objects are drawn, then colored, one allows the superposition with the decoration which will remain on paper, saving thus well time. It was used by the majority of the studios since this time until the passage to the numerical composition.

The rotoscope

max Fleischer will also invent a device making it possible to save much time. The Rotoscope is a tool making it possible to post an image at the same time film of catches of real sights under a table provided with a pane. By depositing a sheet on this pane it becomes possible to copy each image and thus capacity quickly to trace the contour of an actor to reproduce a complex movement in animation. This process is named Rotoscopie.

The “System Studio”

It is a little later at the beginning of the 20th century (to be specified, but about 1930), that the “Studio System” is developed in the United States by the Fleischer brothers and John Randolph Bray for the production of cartoons for the American army.

Indeed, following the shipwreck of the Lusitania, run by a German submarine, America engages in the First World War without notice. It thus should very quickly train soldiers with various operations. At this point in time J.R. Bray, with " the patte" Fleischer brothers - undeniable precursors of the techniques of modern animation - with the idea to use animation to accelerate this military formation. It is said that “a drawing is better than a long discourse”, when it is animated, it is even truer. It thus perceives funds of the staff of the army to develop this technique and as soon as possible to implement it.

The principle is simple. To divide work into several independent sections a little with the manner of an assembly line. Thus, instead of making an animation in entirety, each person occupies a precise station. Among those this finds; organizers, “cleaners” for the setting with clean of the drawings, colourists, cameramen, etc

The results are there, and the turn is played. After the war, and even during, the studio Fleischer is born, and will continue the adventure by producing several films and series of animation: Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Popeye the Sailor Man, Superman. They will be even the first to produce a feature-length film - the Gulliver's Travels . This film will leave only in 1939, because private of the rights of exploitation of the Technicolor acquired by Walt Disney for the exit of White-Snow in 1937, Fleischer must use another technology, the Stéréo Color. The synthesis of the colors is less precise, which results in to force the reds towards carmine (limit maroon).

Large American studios and American animation

See the detailed article History of American animation

The explosion of the Japanese production

Voir the detailed article Histoire of animate

Some time after the industrialization of the cinema in America arrived the Japanese series called Anime S (to pronounce: animated), and inspired by the comic strip Manga , with in particular the King Léo and Astro, the small robot of Osamu Tezuka; the techniques of simplified animation create by Hanna Barbera are imported in Japan by Osamu Tezuka which improves them to re-use the drawings more. It is the beginning of the explosion of the Anime which will exceed quickly the American Cartoon in quantity of production with depends on the fluidity of animation. Animates Japanese brings moreover one certain work on the catches of sights very important in the cartoon (animation pseudo 3D, close-ups,…).
Plutôt that short stories, as in the series of Cartoon, some Animates S is built in form of Feuilleton S, like Candy or of the adaptation of famous novels like " Tom Sawyer " or " Without Famille". The arrival of Goldorak changed gives it in 1978 causing the anger of the housewives judging the drawings too violent and which will end up having win with the stop of the Club Dorothée in 1997. Others Animates S like Jeanne & Serge has as a basic screen the sporting medium. The error of target made by the Dorothée Club created a reputation of violence and of bad quality with animate (the " japoniaiseries"). If the production is indeed of unequal quality (the pang of hunger of the readers encourages with a mass production available quickly), there exist series of quality. One of the main difficulties to judge is the cultural shift between Japan and Europe.

The diversity of the techniques in the world

Whereas the studios of the United States and Japan concentrate on the industrialization of animation, in Canada, in South America, Europe and in the remainder of Asia, the development and the innovations of the artisanal and artistic techniques of animation continue.

Norman McLaren

The Canadian Norman McLaren continues the innovations of his French predecessors by making experimental cinema of animation. He develops in particular techniques of scraping or painting on film making it possible to create sound effects. Its innovations relate to many fields and techniques of animation.

Series for television

Shortly after the development of the Television, some series made their appearance; and it was the explosion of the industry of the series of cartoon for child, as series of American Hanna Barbera.

In France, the majority of the production of cartoon film for children used other techniques then as the puppets (It is the Animation in volume): (Chapi Chapo, Aglaé and Sidonie, the magic Horse-gear, Collargol, etc).

Development

The American production was quickly very important in volume and in diversity, grace in particular to the cartoons of the studios Hanna Barbera. Europe also has with its credit several outstanding series such as Colargol or Shadoks . The series production animated thereafter experienced a spectacular development in Asia in the Années 1970 with the first steps of what was going to become the wave Manga, with titles such as the King Léo , Goldorak , Albator or Candy .

Widening of the public

In the Years 1990, the production started to seek to widen the audience of these cartoons while being addressed more only to the children, but also to the teenagers and to the adults. The success emblematic of this step is the American series Simpson which is a success without precedent in the history of the televised cartoon. Indeed, in 2006, it reaches 17 years of existence, which constitutes a record. Other series will follow its example, even will straightforwardly give up the “target” of the children, like the series South Park or King off the Hill . It is necessary to also announce the unexpected case of a series specifically intended for the children who, by the quality of his production and his humor, largely exceeded the awaited audience and counts on average a third of adults among its spectators: Bob the sponge .

The numerical one

Recently, the contribution of numerical work revolutionized the work of the cartoon, so much on the level of the 2D, with the gouachage which is systematically made by computer and the assistance with the line test , that on the level of the Synthèse of image S in 3D, which makes it possible to obtain one returned near to that one could easily obtain on cellulos. This work on computer also made it possible to release a little the pallet and the details used for the characters who were always limited to some colors for reasons of production of identical color, and of some levels of shade. The numerical one lowered the production costs also considerably, and the home studio of the cartoon started to make its appearance. Today several professional cartoons are carried out with a material budget and Logiciel very low, in particular, thanks to the very low price of the numerical cameras and the scanners. Vectorial software like Flash, but also, of the tools intended for the base with illustration (like The GIMP or Photoshop), also allows the compositing of image. A derivative of GIMP, called Filmgimp then CinePaint, besides was developed and is used by some of the largest studios of animation (Rhythm' do not hoot, Sony…). It specialized in the compositing of animation and allows a work with a highher degree of accuracy the level of the colors than GIMP or Photoshop; moreover, it is available free, since it keeps the free license of GIMP.

The numerical tool, a general-purpose tool

Work on computer can intervene at various levels.

the artist can draw on paper or Cellulo then to digitize its work via a scanner or a numerical Camera. It also can, to draw directly on its computer by using a Graphics tablet.

the artist can put his work color via the Computer graphics, or modify the existing colors by numerical calibration.

the artist can also model his work in three dimensions, and apply filter S (standard Concealment-shading ) to obtain one returned nearer to the traditional cartoon.

the work of composition makes it possible to use elements of different sources (e.g. Personnage in 3 dimensions in decorations in 2 dimensions).

animation can be realized by the juxtaposition of drawn images or the synthesis of the images of a sequence (Returned of a Animation 3D, animation Vectoriel it, Morphage, etc)

the computer makes it possible to carry out the stage of the Montage audio-video, and all the Post production (special Effets, Doublage)

the network Internet can be used to diffuse a work as a Récit on numerical support

See too

Liste of the feature-length films of animation (chronological)
Russian Animation
Histoire of animate

References

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