Claymation , sometimes called clay animation or plasticine animation , is one of many forms of stop-motion animation . Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay .
85-418: Traditional animation , from cel animation to stop motion, is produced by recording each frame, or still picture, on film or digital media and then playing the recorded frames back in rapid succession before the viewer. These and other moving images, from zoetrope to films and video games , create the illusion of motion by playing back at over ten to twelve frames per second . Each object or character
170-411: A stop motion technique to two- and three-dimensional objects like paper cutouts , puppets , or clay figures . A cartoon in the animation sense is an animated film, usually short, featuring an exaggerated visual style. The style takes inspiration from comic strips , often featuring anthropomorphic animals , superheroes , or the adventures of human protagonists. Especially with animals that form
255-421: A "hot set," then no one is allowed to touch the set or else the shoot would be ruined. Certain scenes must be shot rather quickly. If a scene is left unfinished and the weather is perhaps humid, then the set and characters have an obvious difference. The clay puppets may be deformed from the humidity or the air pressure could have caused the set to shift slightly. These small differences can create an obvious flaw to
340-503: A Staircase , filmed in 1992. Another Vinton animator, Craig Bartlett , developed a technique in which he not only used clay painting but sometimes built up clay images that rose off the plane of the flat support platform toward the camera lens to give a more 3-D stop-motion look to his Hey Arnold! films. Nick Park joined Aardman in 1985. Early in his career, he and Aardman helped make the award-winning animated video for Peter Gabriel 's song " Sledgehammer " in 1986. Park would become
425-433: A bust of Harbutt sculpted by Jane McAdam Freud . In 2009, his hometown of North Shields attempted to commemorate his legacy by commissioning some street furniture to resemble plasticine shapes and colour, made out of concrete. Unfortunately these had to be removed shortly after installation due to complaints from the public, as the street furniture retained pools of water in the seats after rain rendering them unusable or
510-490: A consistent way to whatever style is employed on a particular film. Since the early 1980s, teams of about 500 to 600 people, of whom 50 to 70 are animators, typically have created feature-length animated films. It is relatively easy for two or three artists to match their styles; synchronizing those of dozens of artists is more difficult. This problem is usually solved by having a separate group of visual development artists develop an overall look and palette for each film before
595-422: A dedicated Disneyana Fan Club (since 1984). Disneyland opened in 1955 and features many attractions that were based on Disney's cartoon characters. Its enormous success spawned several other Disney theme parks and resorts . Disney's earnings from the theme parks have relatively often been higher than those from their movies. As with any other form of media, animation has instituted awards for excellence in
680-514: A distinctive visual style. Probably the most spectacular use of model animation for a computer game was for the Virgin Interactive Entertainment Mythos game Magic and Mayhem (1998), for which stop-motion animator and special-effects expert Alan Friswell constructed over 25 monsters and mythological characters utilising both modelling clay and latex rubber, over wire and ball-and-socket skeletons, much like
765-500: A factory was set up at nearby Bathampton to manufacture the product for commercial sale. Harbutt travelled widely to promote the product, and his theories about the teaching of art by allowing children free expression. Harbutt was also a councillor on Bath rural district council and Bathampton parish council . He was a member of Bath New Church Society which followed the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg , He and Bessie had seven children, six of whom survived infancy and worked in
850-506: A flat surface and moved like wet oil paints (as on a traditional artist's canvas) to produce any style of images, but with a clay look to them. A sub variation claymation can be informally called "clay melting". Any kind of heat source can be applied on or near (or below) clay to cause it to melt while an animation camera on a time-lapse setting slowly films the process. For example, consider Vinton's early short clay-animated film Closed Mondays (co produced by animator Bob Gardiner ) at
935-426: A natural predator/prey relationship (e.g. cats and mice, coyotes and birds), the action often centers on violent pratfalls such as falls, collisions, and explosions that would be lethal in real life. A cartoon can also be a still humorous drawing, often with the same elements as animated cartoons but with still versions. The illusion of animation—as in motion pictures in general—has traditionally been attributed to
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#17327904470591020-451: A new life on the small screen and by the end of the 1950s, the production of new animated cartoons started to shift from theatrical releases to TV series. Hanna-Barbera Productions was especially prolific and had huge hit series, such as The Flintstones (1960–1966) (the first prime time animated series), Scooby-Doo (since 1969) and Belgian co-production The Smurfs (1981–1989). The constraints of American television programming and
1105-460: A parody on a boxing match for which Bardin received a Golden Dove award at the 1986 Dok Leipzig . Television commercials have utilized claymation, spawning for instance The California Raisins (1986-1998, Vinton Studios) and the Chevron Cars ads (Aardman). The PJs (1999–2001) was a sitcom featuring the voice of Eddie Murphy , produced by Murphy in collaboration with Ron Howard ,
1190-549: A recognizable character throughout a shot, as in Art Clokey 's and Will Vinton's films. One variation of claymation is strata-cut animation , in which a long bread-like loaf of clay, internally packed tight and loaded with varying imagery, is sliced into thin sheets, with the camera taking a frame of the end of the loaf for each cut, eventually revealing the movement of the internal images within. Pioneered in both clay and blocks of wax by German animator Oskar Fischinger during
1275-520: 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
1360-508: A short sequence. J. Stuart Blackton 's Chew Chew Land; or, The Adventures of Dolly and Jim (1910) features primitive claymation in chewing-gum inspired dream scenes. Walter R. Booth 's Animated Putty (1911) featured clay molding itself into different shapes. Willie Hopkins produced over fifty clay-animated segments entitled Miracles in Mud for the weekly Universal Screen Magazine from 1916 to 1918. He also made artistic modeled titles for
1445-512: A sitting old lady. On 15 February 1908, Porter released the trick film A Sculptor's Welsh Rabbit Dream that featured clay molding itself into three complete busts. No copy of the film has yet been located. It was soon followed by the similar extant film The Sculptor's Nightmare (6 May 1908), directed by Wallace McCutcheon Sr. and photographed by Billy Bitzer with cameo appearances of D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett . The busts are also animated to blink, speak, drink and turn left and right for
1530-450: A true powerhouse of animation production, with its own recognizable and influential anime style of effective limited animation . Animation became very popular on television since the 1950s, when television sets started to become common in most developed countries. Cartoons were mainly programmed for children, on convenient time slots, and especially US youth spent many hours watching Saturday-morning cartoons . Many classic cartoons found
1615-531: A very long history in automata . Electronic automata were popularized by Disney as animatronics . The word animation stems from the Latin animātiōn , stem of 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'. Long before modern animation began, audiences around the world were captivated by
1700-403: A viable animation material where a particular aesthetic is desired. Claymation can take several forms: "Freeform" claymation is an informal term referring to the process in which the shape of the clay changes radically as the animation progresses, such as in the work of Eli Noyes and Ivan Stang 's animated films. Clay can also take the form of "character" claymation, where the clay maintains
1785-525: A well-known miniature portrait artist who exhibited works at the Royal Academy of Art and the Chicago World's Fair , and in 1887, was commissioned by Queen Victoria to produce portraits of herself and her late husband Prince Albert . Harbutt invented Plasticine around 1897 as a non-drying modelling clay for use by his students. In 1899, Harbutt was awarded a trade mark , and in 1900,
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#17327904470591870-409: 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, while Japan became
1955-716: Is a technique combining hand-drawn characters into live action shots or live-action actors into animated shots. One of the earlier uses was in Koko the Clown when Koko was drawn over live-action footage. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created a series of Alice Comedies (1923–1927), in which a live-action girl enters an animated world. Other examples include Allegro Non Troppo (Italy, 1976), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (US, 1988), Volere volare (Italy 1991), Space Jam (US, 1996) and Osmosis Jones (US, 2001). William Harbutt William Harbutt (13 February 1844 – 1 June 1921)
2040-481: Is needed to maintain the illusion of continuity : objects must be consistently placed and lit. Producing a stop-motion animation using clay is extremely laborious. Normal film runs at 24 frames per second (frame/s). With the standard practice of "doubles" or "twos" (double-framing, exposing two frames for each shot), 12 changes are usually made for one second of film movement. Shooting a 30-minute movie would therefore require making approximately 21,600 stops to change
2125-413: Is pointless for a studio to pay the salaries of dozens of animators to spend weeks creating a visually dazzling five-minute scene if that scene fails to effectively advance the plot of the film. Thus, animation studios starting with Disney began the practice in the 1930s of maintaining story departments where storyboard artists develop every single scene through storyboards , then handing the film over to
2210-472: Is sculpted from clay or other such similarly pliable material as plasticine , usually around a wire skeleton, called an armature, and then arranged on the set, where it is photographed once before being slightly moved by hand to prepare it for the next shot, and so on until the animator has achieved the desired amount of film. Upon playback, the viewer perceives the series of slightly changing, rapidly succeeding images as motion. A consistent shooting environment
2295-449: Is that once a film is in the production phase, the marginal cost of one more shot is higher for animated films than live-action films. It is relatively easy for a director to ask for one more take during principal photography of a live-action film, but every take on an animated film must be manually rendered by animators (although the task of rendering slightly different takes has been made less tedious by modern computer animation). It
2380-404: Is the best known and most extreme example. Since first being licensed for a children's writing tablet in 1929, their Mickey Mouse mascot has been depicted on an enormous amount of products , as have many other Disney characters. This may have influenced some pejorative use of Mickey's name , but licensed Disney products sell well, and the so-called Disneyana has many avid collectors, and even
2465-529: Is the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films that regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement, having a smooth animation. Fully animated films can be made in a variety of styles, from more realistically animated works like those produced by the Walt Disney studio ( The Little Mermaid , Beauty and the Beast , Aladdin , The Lion King ) to the more 'cartoon' styles of
2550-432: Is the process that was used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels , which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on
2635-763: The Internet ( web cartoons ). Rotoscoping is a technique patented by Max Fleischer in 1917 where animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings, as in The Lord of the Rings (US, 1978), or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as in Waking Life (US, 2001) and A Scanner Darkly (US, 2006). Some other examples are Fire and Ice (US, 1983), Heavy Metal (1981), and Aku no Hana (Japan, 2013). Live-action/animation
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2720-525: The Warner Bros. animation studio . Many of the Disney animated features are examples of full animation, as are non-Disney works, The Secret of NIMH (US, 1982), The Iron Giant (US, 1999), and Nocturna (Spain, 2007). Fully animated films are often animated on "twos", sometimes on "ones", which means that 12 to 24 drawings are required for a single second of film. Limited animation involves
2805-556: 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
2890-408: The entertainment industry . Many animations are either tradtional animations or computer animations made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Stop motion animation , in particular claymation , has continued to exist alongside these other forms. Animation is contrasted with live-action film , although the two do not exist in isolation. Many moviemakers have produced films that are a hybrid of
2975-462: The flip book (1868), the praxinoscope (1877) and film . 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 popularized stop motion and reportedly inspired Émile Cohl to create Fantasmagorie (1908), regarded as
3060-402: The highest-grossing stop motion animated film in history . Aardman's Flushed Away is a CGI replication of claymation. Alexander Tatarsky managed to get work at Multtelefilm division of Studio Ekran with the help of Eduard Uspensky who wrote the screenplay for Tatarsky's first director's effort — Plasticine Crow (1981), which also happened to be Soviet first claymation film. After
3145-439: 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
3230-411: The 1920s and 1930s, the technique was revived and highly refined in the mid-1990s by David Daniels, an associate of Will Vinton , in his 16-minute short film "Buzz Box". Another clay-animation technique, one that blurs the distinction between stop motion and traditional flat animation, is called clay painting (also a variation of the direct manipulation animation process), wherein clay is placed on
3315-538: The 1960s, and European producers looking for affordable cel animators relatively often started co-productions with Japanese studios, resulting in hit series such as Barbapapa (The Netherlands/Japan/France 1973–1977), Wickie und die starken Männer/小さなバイキング ビッケ (Vicky the Viking) (Austria/Germany/Japan 1974), Maya the Honey Bee (Japan/Germany 1975) and The Jungle Book (Italy/Japan 1989). Computer animation
3400-522: The Beast was the first animated film nominated for Best Picture , in 1991. Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010) also received Best Picture nominations, after the academy expanded the number of nominees from five to ten. The creation of non-trivial animation works (i.e., longer than a few seconds) has developed as a form of filmmaking , with certain unique aspects. Traits common to both live-action and animated feature films are labor intensity and high production costs. The most important difference
3485-637: The Blue (1976 - Italy) and Pingu (1990-2000 - Switzerland, 2003-2006 - U.K.) In 1972, at Marc Chinoy's Cineplast Films Studio in Munich, Germany, André Roche created a set of clay-animated German-language-instruction films (for non-German-speaking children) called Kli-Kla-Klawitter for the Second German TV-Channel; and another one for a traffic education series, Herr Daniel paßt auf ("Mr. Daniel Pays Attention"). Aardman Animations
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3570-712: 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 Fox 's Mighty Mouse (1942), and United Artists ' Pink Panther (1963). In 1917, Italian-Argentine director Quirino Cristiani made
3655-594: The Tramp (1955) failed at the box office. For decades afterward, Disney would be the only American studio to regularly produce animated features, until Ralph Bakshi became the first to also release more than a handful 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
3740-524: 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 realized anthropomorphic animal character in the history of American animation. In 1928, Steamboat Willie , featuring Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse , popularized film-with-synchronized-sound and put Walt Disney 's studio at
3825-834: The Will Vinton Studios and others. Many independent young filmmakers have published claymations online, on such sites as Newgrounds . More adult-oriented claymation shows have been broadcast on Cartoon Network 's Adult Swim lineup, including Robot Chicken (which uses claymation and action figures as stop-motion puppets in conjunction) and Moral Orel . Nickelodeon 's Nick at Nite later developed their own adult show, Glenn Martin, DDS (2009-2011). Several computer games have been produced using claymation, including The Neverhood , ClayFighter , Platypus , Clay Moon (iPhone app), and Primal Rage . The surrealist role-playing video games Hylics (2015) and Hylics 2 (2020) both utilize claymation to achieve
3910-574: The addition of stop tricks , and with early cinematic animation in Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906). A similar form of "lightning sculpting" had been performed live on stage around the turn of the century. Segundo de Chomón 's Sculpteur Moderne was released on 31 January 1908 and features heaps of clay molding themselves into detailed sculptures that are capable of minor movements. The final sculpture depicts an old woman and walks around before it's picked up, squashed and molded back into
3995-469: The animation begins. Character designers on the visual development team draw model sheets to show how each character should look like with different facial expressions, posed in different positions, and viewed from different angles. On traditionally animated projects, maquettes were often sculpted to further help the animators see how characters would look from different angles. Unlike live-action films, animated films were traditionally developed beyond
4080-521: The animators only after the production team is satisfied that all the scenes make sense as a whole. While live-action films are now also storyboarded, they enjoy more latitude to depart from storyboards (i.e., real-time improvisation). Another problem unique to animation is the requirement to maintain a film's consistency from start to finish, even as films have grown longer and teams have grown larger. Animators, like all artists, necessarily have individual styles, but must subordinate their individuality in
4165-508: The cel method became the preferred method for the studio cartoon. Cel animation can be more easily divided into small tasks performed by many workers, like an assembly line. In 1921, claymation appeared in a short sequence in the Out of the Inkwell episode Modeling , a film from the newly formed Fleischer Brothers studio. Modeling included animated clay in eight shots, a novel integration of
4250-714: The demand for an enormous quantity resulted in cheaper and quicker limited animation methods and much more formulaic scripts. Quality dwindled until more daring animation surfaced in the late 1980s and in the early 1990s with hit series, the first cartoon of The Simpsons (1987), which later developed into its own show (in 1989) and SpongeBob SquarePants (since 1999) as part of a "renaissance" of American animation. While US animated series also spawned successes internationally, many other countries produced their own child-oriented programming, relatively often preferring stop motion and puppetry over cel animation. Japanese anime TV series became very successful internationally since
4335-404: The designs of Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen . Animation Animation is a filmmaking technique by which still images are manipulated to create moving images . In traditional animation , images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets ( cels ) to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animation has been recognized as an artistic medium, specifically within
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#17327904470594420-422: The drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media with digital video . The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators ' work has remained essentially the same over the past 90 years. Some animation producers have used the term "tradigital" (a play on
4505-463: The end of the computer sequence. A similar technique was used in the climax scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark to "melt" the face of one of the antagonists. The term "hot set" is used amongst animators during production. It refers to a set where an animator is filming. The clay characters are set in a perfect position where they can continue shooting where they left off. If an animator calls his set
4590-544: The enormous success Tatarsky was offered to create new opening and closing sequences for the popular children's TV show Good Night, Little Ones! also made of plasticine; they were later included into the Guinness Book of Records by the number of broadcasts. It was followed by two other claymation shorts: New Year's Eve Song by Ded Moroz (1982) and Last Year's Snow Was Falling (1983). Garri Bardin directed several claymation comedy films, including Break! ,
4675-547: The family business. The Harbutt company, owned and run by Harbutt's descendants, continued to manufacture Plasticine in Bathampton until 1983. He died of pneumonia while on a trip to New York City in 1921. He is buried near the old factory in the churchyard at St Nicholas’ Church. The Paradise in Plasticine garden , a creation of journalist and presenter James May displayed at the 2009 Chelsea Flower Show included
4760-868: The field. Many are part of general or regional film award programs, like the China's Golden Rooster Award for Best Animation (since 1981). Awards programs dedicated to animation, with many categories, include ASIFA-Hollywood 's Annie Awards , the Emile Awards in Europe and the Anima Mundi awards in Brazil. Apart from Academy Awards for Best Animated Short Film (since 1932) and Best Animated Feature (since 2002), animated movies have been nominated and rewarded in other categories, relatively often for Best Original Song and Best Original Score . Beauty and
4845-455: The figures for the frames; a full-length (90-minute) movie, 64,800—and possibly many more if some parts were shot with "singles" or "ones" (one frame exposed for each shot). The object must not be altered by accident, slight smudges, dirt, hair, or dust. Feature-length productions have generally switched from clay to rubber silicone and resin cast components: Will Vinton has dubbed one foam-rubber process "Foamation". Nevertheless, clay remains
4930-458: 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. After working on it for three years, Lotte Reiniger released the German feature-length silhouette animation Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed in 1926,
5015-406: 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
5100-611: The humour it can provide. Some animated characters in commercials have survived for decades, such as Snap, Crackle and Pop in advertisements for Kellogg's cereals. Tex Avery was the producer of the first Raid " Kills Bugs Dead " commercials in 1966, which were very successful for the company. Apart from their success in movie theaters and television series, many cartoon characters would also prove lucrative when licensed for all kinds of merchandise and for other media. Animation has traditionally been very closely related to comic books . While many comic book characters found their way to
5185-615: The iconic character Gumby that would feature in segments in Howdy Doody in 1955 and 1956, and afterwards got his own television series (1957-1969, 1987-1989) and a theatrical film (1995). Clokey also produced Davey and Goliath (1960–2004) for the United Lutheran Church in America . Claymation has been popularized on television in children's shows such as Mio Mao (1970-1976, 2002-2007 - Italy), The Red and
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#17327904470595270-435: The late 1980s, in a style similar to traditional cel animation. The so-called 3D style, more often associated with computer animation, became the dominant technique following the success of Pixar's Toy Story (1995), the first computer-animated feature in this style. Most of the cel animation studios switched to producing mostly computer-animated films around the 1990s, as it proved cheaper and more profitable. Not only
5355-421: The magic of moving characters. For centuries, master artists and craftsmen have brought puppets, automatons , shadow puppets , and fantastical lanterns to life, inspiring the imagination through physically manipulated wonders. In 1833, the stroboscopic disc (better known as the phenakistiscope ) introduced the principle of modern animation, which would also be applied in the zoetrope (introduced in 1866),
5440-701: The most successful claymation director, receiving a total of six Academy Award nominations and winning four with Creature Comforts (1989) (the first Wallace and Gromit film A Grand Day Out was also nominated), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005). Wallace and Gromit spin-off Shaun the Sheep has also proved hugely successful with long-running television series (since 2007), theatrical movies and its own spin-off Timmy Time (since 2009). Aardman's Chicken Run (2000) became
5525-449: The movie Everywoman (1919). New York artist Helena Smith Dayton , possibly the first female animator, had much success with her "Caricatypes" clay statuettes before she began experimenting with claymation. Some of her first resulting short films were screened on 25 March 1917. She released an adaptation of William Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet circa half a year later. Although the films and her technique received much attention from
5610-824: The oldest extant animated feature. 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 as of May 2020 . 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) and Disney's feature films Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Lady and
5695-510: 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). During the 1910s, the production of animated " cartoons " became an industry in
5780-565: The plasticine product would become the favourite product for clay animators, as it did not dry and harden (unlike normal clay) and was much more malleable than its harder and greasier Italian predecessor plasteline. Edwin S. Porter 's Fun in a Bakery Shop (1902) shows a single shot of a baker quickly transforming a patch of dough into different faces. It reflects the vaudeville type of "lightning sketches" that J. Stuart Blackton filmed in The Enchanted Drawing (1902) with
5865-576: The press, it seems she did not continue making films after she returned to New York from managing a YMCA in Paris around 1918. None of her films have yet surfaced, but the extant magazine articles have provided several stills and circa 20 poorly printed frames from two film strips. By the 1920s, drawn animation using either cels or the slash system was firmly established in the U.S. as the dominant mode of animation production. Increasingly, three-dimensional forms such as clay were driven into relative obscurity as
5950-418: The scene. To avoid these disasters, scenes normally have to be shot in one day or less. William Harbutt developed plasticine in 1897. To promote his educational "Plastic Method" he made a handbook that included several photographs that displayed various stages of creative projects. The images suggest phases of motion or change, but the book probably did not have a direct influence on claymation films. Still,
6035-768: The screen (which is often the case in Japan, where many manga are adapted into anime ), original animated characters also commonly appear in comic books and magazines. Somewhat similarly, characters and plots for video games (an interactive form of animation that became its own medium) have been derived from films and vice versa. Some of the original content produced for the screen can be used and marketed in other media. Stories and images can easily be adapted into children's books and other printed media. Songs and music have appeared on records and as streaming media. While very many animation companies commercially exploit their creations outside moving image media, The Walt Disney Company
6120-458: The side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one against a painted background by a rostrum camera onto motion picture film. The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 21st century. In modern traditionally animated films, animators' drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used to color
6205-425: The synopsis stage through the storyboard format; the storyboard artists would then receive credit for writing the film. In the early 1960s, animation studios began hiring professional screenwriters to write screenplays (while also continuing to use story departments) and screenplays had become commonplace for animated films by the late 1980s. Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation)
6290-461: The technique into an existing cartoon series and one of the rare uses of claymation in a theatrical short from the 1920s. The oldest known extant claymation film (with claymation as its main production method) is Long Live the Bull (1926) by Joseph Sunn . Art Clokey 's short student film Gumbasia (1955) featured all kinds of clay objects changing shape and moving to a jazz tune. He also created
6375-462: The two . As CGI increasingly approximates photographic imagery , filmmakers can easily composite 3D animations into their film rather than using practical effects for showy visual effects (VFX). 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
6460-847: The use of less detailed or more stylized drawings and methods of movement usually a choppy or "skippy" movement animation. Limited animation uses fewer drawings per second, thereby limiting the fluidity of the animation. This is a more economic technique. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions of America , limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression, as in Gerald McBoing-Boing (US, 1951), Yellow Submarine (UK, 1968), and certain anime produced in Japan. Its primary use, however, has been in producing cost-effective animated content for media for television (the work of Hanna-Barbera, Filmation , and other TV animation studios ) and later
6545-488: The user getting wet. In addition, they were not comfortable or practical and very problematic for elderly or infirm members of the public to get in to and up from. The 'plasticine' chairs were relocated throughout the region to less commercial areas including to the grounds of a local sixth form college and repainted from the plain plasticine colours to various colour schemes and designs. These remain in place (if rarely used or occupied). Traditional metal street furniture replaced
6630-565: The value had increased to an estimated US$ 370 billion. Animated feature-length films returned the highest gross margins (around 52%) of all film genres between 2004 and 2013. Animation as an art and industry continues to thrive as of the early 2020s. The clarity of animation makes it a powerful tool for instruction, while its total malleability also allows exaggeration that can be employed to convey strong emotions and to thwart reality. It has therefore been widely used for other purposes than mere entertainment. During World War II, animation
6715-401: The very popular 3D animation style was generated with computers, but also most of the films and series with a more traditional hand-crafted appearance, in which the charming characteristics of cel animation could be emulated with software, while new digital tools helped developing new styles and effects. In 2010, the animation market was estimated to be worth circa US$ 80 billion. By 2021,
6800-683: The words "traditional" and "digital") to describe cel animation that uses significant computer technology. Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940), Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), Lucky and Zorba (Italy, 1998), and The Illusionist (British-French, 2010). Traditionally animated films produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994), Anastasia (US, 1997), The Prince of Egypt (US, 1998), Akira (Japan, 1988), Spirited Away (Japan, 2001), The Triplets of Belleville (France, 2003), and The Secret of Kells (Irish-French-Belgian, 2009). Full animation
6885-427: 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
6970-868: Was an English artist and the inventor of Plasticine . Born in North Shields , England , the son of Thomas Harbutt (5 August 1803 – 1880) and Elizabeth Whitehouse Jefcoate (27 June 1804 – 1883), Harbutt studied at the National Art Training School in London , and eventually became an associate of the Royal College of Art . He was headmaster of the Bath School of Art and Design from 1874 to 1877, and then opened his own art school at The Paragon Art Studio, 15 Bladud Buildings, Bath with his wife Elizabeth "Bessie" Harbutt ,
7055-605: Was founded in 1972. In its early years, the studio mainly produced segments for television shows, with for instance the popular character Morph (appearing since 1977). Claymation has been used in Academy Award -winning short films such as Closed Mondays (Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner, 1974) and The Sand Castle (1977). Pioneering the clay painting technique was one-time Will Vinton Studios animator Joan Gratz , first in her Oscar-nominated film The Creation (1980), and then in her Oscar-winning Mona Lisa Descending
7140-543: Was gradually developed since the 1940s. 3D wireframe animation started popping up in the mainstream in the 1970s, with an early (short) appearance in the sci-fi thriller Futureworld (1976). The Rescuers Down Under was the first feature film to be completely created digitally without a camera. It was produced using the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS), developed by Pixar in collaboration with The Walt Disney Company in
7225-482: Was widely exploited for propaganda. Many American studios , including Warner Bros. and Disney, lent their talents and their cartoon characters to convey to the public certain war values. Some countries, including China, Japan and the United Kingdom, produced their first feature-length animation for their war efforts. Animation has been very popular in television commercials, both due to its graphic appeal, and
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