95-477: The Snowman is a 1982 British animated television film and symphonic poem based on Raymond Briggs 's 1978 picture book The Snowman . It was directed by Dianne Jackson for Channel 4 . It was first shown on 26 December 1982, and was an immediate success. It was nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 55th Academy Awards and won a BAFTA TV Award . The story is told through pictures, action and music, scored by Howard Blake . It has no dialogue, with
190-411: 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
285-453: A bedtime story. In 1980 he was contacted by producer John Coates from TVC (Television Cartoons) with an idea of adapting the book for an animated film, for which he gave his consent. In March 1982, Coates presented an " animatic " storyboard version with a basic piano track by Howard Blake, including an early version of "Walking in the Air" to commissioning executives at the fledgeling Channel 4,
380-684: A bit corny and twee, dragging in Christmas', as The Snowman had nothing to do with that, but it worked extremely well." The boy's home appears to be located in the South Downs of England, near to Brighton ; he and the snowman fly over the Royal Pavilion and Palace Pier . Raymond Briggs had lived in Sussex since 1961, and the composer Howard Blake was also a native of the county. The production team contacted Howard Blake early in
475-490: 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
570-422: 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
665-673: A grammar school, pursued cartooning from an early age and, despite his father's attempts to discourage him from this unprofitable pursuit, attended the Wimbledon School of Art from 1949 to 1953 to study painting, and Central School of Art to study typography. From 1953 to 1955, he was a National Service conscript in the Royal Corps of Signals at Catterick , where he was made a draughtsman . After this, he returned to study painting at Slade School of Fine Art , graduating in 1957. After briefly pursuing painting, he became
760-426: 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
855-451: 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
950-663: A new public service television company which was due to begin broadcasting in November 1982. The director Dianne Jackson had worked with Coates on The Beatles ' Yellow Submarine and had mainly worked on short animations and commercials; this was her first time directing a longer animated film. As a result, the experienced animator Jimmy T. Murakami was brought in to supervise. The film was produced using traditional animation techniques, consisting of pastels, crayons and other colouring tools drawn on pieces of celluloid, which were traced over hand drawn frames. For continuity purposes,
1045-631: A professional illustrator, and soon began working in children's books. In 1958, he illustrated Peter and the Piskies: Cornish Folk and Fairy Tales , a fairy tale anthology by Ruth Manning-Sanders that was published by Oxford University Press . They would collaborate again for the Hamish Hamilton Book of Magical Beasts ( Hamilton , 1966). In 1961, Briggs began teaching illustration part-time at Brighton School of Art , which he continued until 1986; one of his students
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#17327759188451140-455: A projection of the film or sometimes with a narrator (the version for narrator was first performed by Bernard Cribbins in Summer 1983). In a rural area of Brighton , after a night of heavy snowfall, a young boy named James wakes up and plays in the snow, eventually building a large snowman. At the stroke of midnight, he sneaks downstairs to find the snowman magically comes to life. James shows
1235-520: 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
1330-489: A sequel had been resisted by Raymond Briggs for several years, but he gave his permission for the film in 2012. Howard Blake was one of the few crew members not asked to return; he was allegedly asked to "send a demo", which he refused citing the success of the original score. The new film instead features the song "Light the Night" by former Razorlight drummer Andy Burrows and incidental music by Ilan Eshkeri . The sequel
1425-450: 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
1520-531: 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
1615-409: 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
1710-409: A young Raymond Briggs". The first three important works that Briggs both wrote and illustrated were in comics format rather than the separate text and illustrations typical of children's books; all three were published by Hamish Hamilton . Father Christmas (1973) and its sequel Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (1975); both feature a curmudgeonly Father Christmas who complains incessantly about
1805-729: 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). Raymond Briggs Raymond Redvers Briggs CBE (18 January 1934 – 9 August 2022)
1900-487: Is buried in East Chiltington. Briggs won the 1992 Kurt Maschler Award , or the "Emil", both for writing and for illustrating The Man , a short graphic novel featuring a boy and a homunculus . The award annually recognised one British children's book for integration of text and illustration. His graphic novel Ethel & Ernest , which portrayed his parents' 41-year marriage, won Best Illustrated Book in
1995-413: 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
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#17327759188452090-449: 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
2185-404: 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
2280-527: Is the highest recognition available to a writer or illustrator of children's books. Briggs was one of two runners-up for the illustration award in 1984. He has also won several awards for particular works. The National Portrait Gallery , London, holds several photographic portraits of Briggs in its permanent collection. Briggs was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in
2375-529: 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
2470-432: 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
2565-769: The British Film Institute 's 100 Greatest British Television Programmes , a list drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, based on a vote by industry professionals it was listed as #71. It was voted #4 in UKTV Gold 's Greatest TV Christmas Moments . It came third in Channel 4's poll of 100 Greatest Christmas Moments in 2004. The Snowman was originally released on VHS in 1982 by Palace Video. It has been re-released several times by Palace and later PolyGram Video , and Universal Studios Home Entertainment UK after Palace went out of business. In 1993 it
2660-536: The Financial Times that he wanted to incorporate the lyrics with "a symphony that expressed the complete innocence and beauty that we are all born with." Blake further brought up his religion, stating "It felt as though the idea came from God." Howard Blake's orchestral score was performed in the film by the Sinfonia of London . The song "Walking in the Air" is sung in the film by chorister Peter Auty , who
2755-763: 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
2850-525: 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
2945-556: 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
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3040-408: 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
3135-462: 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
3230-439: 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
3325-612: The "blooming snow". For the former, he won his second Greenaway. Much later they were jointly adapted as a film titled Father Christmas . The third early Hamilton "comics" was Fungus the Bogeyman (1977), featuring a day in the life of a working class bogeyman . The Snowman (Hamilton, 1978) was entirely wordless, and illustrated with only pencil crayons. The work was partly motivated by his previous book; Briggs wrote that "For two years I worked on Fungus , buried amongst muck, slime and words, so... I wanted to do something which
3420-538: 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
3515-643: The 1999 British Book Awards . In 2016, it was turned into a hand-drawn animated film. In 2012, he was the first person to be inducted into the British Comic Awards Hall of Fame. In 2014, Briggs received the Phoenix Picture Book Award from the Children's Literature Association for The Bear (1994). The award committee stated: With surprising page-turns, felicitous pauses, and pitch-perfect dialogue, Briggs renders
3610-641: The 30th anniversary of the original short and of Channel 4, a 25-minute special titled The Snowman and the Snowdog aired on Channel 4 on Christmas Eve 2012. Produced at the London-based animation company Lupus Films, with many of the original team returning, the sequel was made in the same traditional techniques as the first film, and features the Snowman, a new young boy named Billy and a snow dog flying over landmarks and going to another party. The idea of
3705-522: 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
3800-528: The Christmas Show at the Peacock Theatre . As in the book and the film, there are no words, apart from the lyrics of the song "Walking in the Air". The story is told through images and movement. Special effects include the Snowman and boy flying high over the stage (with assistance of wires and harnesses) and 'snow' falling in part of the auditorium. The production has had several revisions –
3895-712: 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
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3990-594: 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
4085-739: The UK. A sequel, The Snowman and the Snowdog , was released in 2012. The Snowman is a wordless children's picture book by Raymond Briggs , first published in 1978 by Hamish Hamilton in the United Kingdom, and published by Random House in the United States in November of the same year. In the United Kingdom, it was the runner-up for the Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association , recognising
4180-524: 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
4275-469: 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
4370-521: 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
4465-477: The background artwork was painted using the same tools. The story was expanded to fill 26 minutes and include a longer flying sequence which takes the boy to the North Pole and a party with Father Christmas which is not present in the picture book. The animators also brought in personal touches – a static sequence with a car is replaced by a motorcycle ride, as one of the animators was a keen motorcyclist and it
4560-419: The boy a card and a scarf with a snowman pattern. The snowman returns home with James before the sun rises and the two bid farewell for the night as the snowman returns to his original position and becomes lifeless again. The following morning, James wakes up to find that the snowman has melted, leaving only his hat, scarf, coal eyes, tangerine nose, and coal buttons in a pile of melted snow. James kneels down by
4655-714: 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
4750-496: The drama and humour of child–adult and child–bear relations, while questioning the nature of imagination and reality. As a picture book presented in graphic novel format, Briggs's work was ground-breaking when first published and remains cutting edge twenty years later in its creative unity of text and picture. The biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award conferred by the International Board on Books for Young People
4845-422: 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
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#17327759188454940-715: The end of his life, Briggs lived in a small house in Westmeston , Sussex. His long-term partner, Liz, died in October 2015 having had Parkinson's disease . Briggs continued to work on writing and illustrating books. Briggs stated that he used to be a staunch supporter of the Labour Party , although he lost faith in the party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn . Briggs died of pneumonia at Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton on 9 August 2022, aged 88. He
5035-626: The exception of the central song, " Walking in the Air ". The orchestral score was performed by the Sinfonia of London and the song was performed by Peter Auty , a St Paul's Cathedral choirboy. The film ranked at number 71 on the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes , a list drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, based on a vote by industry professionals. It was voted number 4 in UKTV Gold 's Greatest TV Christmas Moments . It came third in Channel 4's poll of 100 Greatest Christmas Moments in 2004. Its broadcast, usually on Christmas Eve on Channel 4, has become an annual festive event in
5130-868: 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
5225-473: The film from U.S. networks and for a VHS release. However, he noted that "in the US programmes were sponsored, and to be sponsored you needed a big name". Various names such as Laurence Olivier and Julie Andrews were suggested, but a request for a rock star led to David Bowie being involved. He was a fan of Briggs's story When the Wind Blows and later provided a song for its animated adaptation . In
5320-458: 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,
5415-406: 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
5510-483: The heavy snow left even him unable to fly) as he turns on his TV to watch the film, which the opening segues into. Comedian Mel Smith reprises the role in this opening. This version is also cropped to fit a 16:9 widescreen format. Channel 4 used this opening from 2002 until Mel Smith's death in 2013, after which the Bowie opening was reinstated, which in turn returned the film to its original 4:3 aspect ratio. The film
5605-611: 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
5700-474: The introductions used throughout the film's first 20 years. The film re-entered at No. 14 on the UK Official children’s Video Chart on 11 November 2012, eventually peaking at No. 5 on 16 December 2012 based on sales of DVDs and other physical formats. The Universal DVD The Snowman & Father Christmas (902 030 – 11), released in the United Kingdom in 2000, uses the Bowie opening. To celebrate
5795-435: 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
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#17327759188455890-421: 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),
5985-658: The most extensive happening in 2000, when major changes were made to the second act, introducing new characters: The Ice Princess and Jack Frost. Quicksilva published an official video game in 1984, for the ZX Spectrum , Commodore 64 , and MSX . Animated 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
6080-824: 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
6175-510: 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
6270-650: The page was inspired by a Swiss publisher's miniature version of Father Christmas . This book was turned into a two-handed radio play with Peter Sallis in the male lead role, and subsequently an animated film , featuring John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft . The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman (1984) was a denunciation of the Falklands War . Briggs's wife Jean, who had schizophrenia , died from leukaemia in 1973, two years after his parents' death. They did not have any children. At
6365-408: The production, as they were having difficulties finding the right tone for adapting the wordless picture book. Blake suggested that the film should not feature dialogue, but instead a through-composed orchestral soundtrack. He recalls the song " Walking in the Air " was written some years earlier during a difficult period in his life, and the song formed the main theme for the work. In 2021, Blake told
6460-768: 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
6555-543: The sequence, Bowie was filmed in the attic of 'his' childhood home and discovering, in a drawer, a scarf closely resembling the one given to James towards the end of the film; he then proceeds to narrate over the opening with his own small variation of Briggs' monologue. To celebrate the film's 20th anniversary, Channel 4 created an alternative opening directed by Roger Mainwood , with Raymond Briggs's interpretation of Father Christmas recounting how he met James, before giving his own variation on Briggs' monologue (including how
6650-458: 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
6745-460: The snowman around his house, playing with appliances, toys and other bric-a-brac , all while keeping quiet enough not to wake James' parents. The two find a sheeted-down motorcycle in the house's garden and go for a ride on it through the woods. Its engine heat starts to melt the snowman and he cools off by luxuriating in the garage freezer. Seeing a picture of the Arctic on a packet in the freezer,
6840-470: The snowman is agitated and takes the boy in hand, running through the garden until they take flight. They fly over the South Downs towards the Channel coast, seeing the Royal Pavilion and Brighton Palace Pier , and north along the coast of Norway. They continue through an arctic landscape and into the aurora borealis . They land in a snow-covered forest where they join a party of snowmen. They eventually meet Father Christmas along with his reindeer; he gives
6935-491: The snowman's remains while holding his scarf, mourning the loss of his friend. The original introduction on Channel 4 features Raymond Briggs walking through a field in rural Sussex describing his inspiration for the story, which then transitions into the animated landscape of the film (the idea being that he is doing so in character as an older version of James). The film's executive producer Iain Harvey had received interest in
7030-425: 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)
7125-462: 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
7220-847: 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
7315-565: 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
7410-401: 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,
7505-683: 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
7600-452: The working class trials of Jim and Hilda Bloggs, closely based on his parents. When the Wind Blows (1982) confronted the trusting, optimistic Bloggs couple with the horror of nuclear war , and was praised in the House of Commons for its timeliness and originality. The topic was inspired after Briggs watched a Panorama documentary on nuclear contingency planning, and the dense format of
7695-482: 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
7790-535: The year's best children's book illustration by a British subject . For the 50th anniversary of the Medal (1955–2005), a panel named Father Christmas (1973) one of the top-ten winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation's favourite. For his contribution as a children's illustrator, Briggs was a runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1984. He
7885-521: The year's best children's book illustration by a British writer . In the United States, it was named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list in 1979. Iain Harvey, the film's executive producer and publisher at Hamish Hamilton, recalls that the book had initially sold well, but a second print had been less successful with 50,000 unsold copies sitting in a warehouse, which he attributes to the lack of dialogue preventing it being read as
7980-475: Was Chris Riddell , who went on to win three Greenaway Medals. Briggs was a commended runner-up for the 1964 Kate Greenaway Medal ( Fee Fi Fo Fum , a collection of nursery rhymes) and won the 1966 Medal for illustrating a Hamilton edition of Mother Goose . According to a retrospective presentation by the librarians, The Mother Goose Treasury "is a collection of 408 traditional and well loved poems and nursery rhymes, illustrated with over 800 colour pictures by
8075-629: Was a patron of the Association of Illustrators . Raymond Redvers Briggs was born on 18 January 1934 in Wimbledon , Surrey (now London ), to Ernest Redvers Briggs (1900–1971), a milkman, and Ethel Bowyer (1895–1971), a former lady's maid-turned-housewife, who married in 1930. During the Second World War , he was evacuated to Dorset before returning to London at the end of the war. Briggs attended Rutlish School , at that time
8170-559: Was an English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author. Achieving critical and popular success among adults and children, he is best known in Britain for his 1978 story The Snowman , a book without words whose cartoon adaptation is televised and whose musical adaptation is staged every Christmas. Briggs won the 1966 and 1973 Kate Greenaway Medals from the British Library Association , recognising
8265-502: Was clean, pleasant, fresh and wordless and quick." For that work Briggs was a Highly Commended runner-up for his third Greenaway Medal. An American edition was produced by Random House in the same year, for which Briggs won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award , picture book category. In 1982, it was adapted by British TV channel Channel 4 as an animated cartoon, with a short narrated introduction by David Bowie . It
8360-616: Was dedicated to the memory of producer John Coates , who died in September 2012, during its production. The Snowman has been made into a stage show. It was first produced by Contact Theatre , Manchester in 1986 and was adapted and produced by Anthony Clark. It had a full script and used Howard Blake's music and lyrics. In 1993, Birmingham Repertory Company produced a version, with music and lyrics by Howard Blake, scenario by Blake, with Bill Alexander and choreography by Robert North. Since 1997, Sadler's Wells has presented it every year as
8455-543: 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
8550-756: Was nominated as Best Animated Short Film at the 55th Academy Awards in 1983, but lost to the Polish film Tango by Zbigniew Rybczyński . It won a BAFTA for best Children's Programme (Entertainment/Drama) at the 1983 British Academy Television Awards , and was also nominated for Best Graphics. It won the Grand Prix at the Tampere Film Festival in Finland in 1984. It was named to the ALA Notable Children's Videos list in 1982. In
8645-528: Was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1982, and has since been shown every year on British television (except 1984). On Christmas Eve 2012 the 30th anniversary of the original was marked by the airing of the sequel The Snowman and the Snowdog . Briggs continued to work in a similar format, but with more adult content, in Gentleman Jim (1980), a sombre look at
8740-484: Was not credited in the original version. He was given a credit on the 20th anniversary version. In 1985, "Walking in the Air" was covered by chorister Aled Jones in a single which peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart . Jones is sometimes mistakenly credited with having sung the song in the film. Blake's soundtrack for The Snowman is often performed as a standalone concert work, often accompanying
8835-503: Was noted by Iain Harvey that this sequence kept "the action flowing after all the fun and comedy of the boy and the Snowman exploring the house and forming a friendship – and what could be better than a midnight run in a snowy landscape". Similarly, although the boy in the book is unnamed, in the film he is named "James" on his present tag, added by animator Joanna Harrison as it was the name of her boyfriend (later her husband). Interviewed in 2012, Raymond Briggs recalls that he thought "'It's
8930-474: Was released on VHS in the US by Columbia TriStar Home Video . The Snowman was re-released in 2002 as a DVD special edition and again as a DVD and Blu-ray 30th anniversary edition in the United Kingdom on 5 November 2012 by Universal Studios Home Entertainment UK. The 2002 special edition peaked at No. 3 in the video charts. The 2012 home video release includes four extra features: a "Snow Business" documentary, "The Story of The Snowman ", storyboard, and
9025-418: 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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