Animation Then vs Now

Do you remember your childhood when, some of you maybe, would wake up on Sunday mornings and wait for your favourite cartoons to air, or do you still do it now?

Film animation technology has changed drastically from the early 1900s.

How do you start making an animation?

It all starts from the idea that people would talk in a room, and they would discuss it in a brainstorming session. A full storyboard will be reviewed, and bits of dialogue, although incomplete, would be included in it. Afterwards, this was sent to the music department for the accompanying music, and to be timed with the storyboard.

Afterwards, voice actors would give voice to the characters. At the same time, the director would then pass on the sketches to the artists to complete and fill in the empty panels. These also include people who would decide on the layout, which is where the characters are put on the background and how they would move or interact.

At the same time, there are people who work on exposure sheets. They are sheets that break down the music and the sound so that it would be in sync with the characters. This is for the music and the dialogue.

Early sound films ran at 16 frames per second, and later on it sped up to 24 frames per second.

What about the history? How did animation came to be?

Well, it started with Funny Faces by Stuart Blackton. He was notable in his works in the genre of silent films and issued a short film titled Humorous Phases of Funny Faces in 1906. The animation was a very simple method.

He would draw faces on a blackboard, and erase it. The camera recording after each face is photographed, and this brought forward the term Stop Motion films. This provided a startling effect as the facial expressions changed before the audience's eyes. Other animations of Blackton's include The Haunted Hotel (1906) and The Magic Fountain Pen (1907).

The first American animated cartoon came out in 1913, where Winsor McCay the Renaissance Man and his Dinosaur Gertie appeared. This cartoon ran for approximately 12 minutes. Winsor, in the animation, wore a top hat and tails and had a whip with him. He would have Gertie projected on a screen behind him, and do tricks as he commanded.

rotoscopingMax FleischerThe first  device came to in 1917, where , notable for his works on Betty Boop and Popeye, created his own consisting of a drawing board fitted with a piece of frosted glass, and a motion picture projector underneath it. It helps magnify a single frame of motion picture film onto the glass. Once the figure on one frame is pictured, a crank would help advance the film to the next. Twenty years later, the rotoscope aided in the creation of Snow White. 

1925 was one of Walt Disney 's early years having founded the Disney Brothers Studio in Hollywood. The first animation studio created was called Laugh-O-Grams in Kansas City, where he worked with Ub Iwerks as his partner and Chief Animator. January 1924 was when he rented a lot in the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Rodney Drive for $10/month for a live-action filming of Alice Comedies.

This is a picture of one of its episodes, Alice's Egg Plant.

1930 was the First Talkie for warner Brothers. Having made a hit with The Jazz Singer, their producer Leon Schlesinger brought the first talk-ink cartoon characters. The pilot featured a speaking character, a black boy named Bosco. The test film included all dialogues. Due to the year where racism was prevalent, many executives demanded less ethnicities and Looney Tunes came to.

Have a look at their demo clip right here!

As for now, animation relies heavily on computers. Have a look at the step-by-step process right here.

Comparing animation now and then, it seems like we have gone a very long way. From Funny Faces, to Gertie the Dinosaur, and now we have Frozen. What do you think? Comment your thoughts!

--Nadya