Animation and Computers

                         How computers/technology helped animation.

Computers have made animation a bit easier. Computer animation technology can help animators fill in “in-betweens”, create a multiple character scene, develop 3D illusion perfectly, simulate lighting setups, simulate materials, integrate virtual images with live action, combine live performances of an actor with an animated character and so much more. Computer generated animation can be two dimensional as well.

Computers also allowed us to use CGI which is included in practically every film. Computers also made it a hell of a lot more affordable for the artist to make a mistake in case they mess up, so if you do make mistake you won't have to start over completely in a sense. 

Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to the art of stop motion animation of 3D models and frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations.

Source links:

computer_animation.htm

http://www.cartoonson.com/how-technology-improved-the-evolution-of-animations.html

Carl Barks

Carl Barks "The Good Duck Artist"

Unlike many other artists working (all anonymously) for the Disney company, Barks did not mindlessly churn out condescending, forgettable stories of a childish nature during his 24-year stint on the Disney Ducks. He consistently produced delightful top-quality material, both in his scripts and in his art as well as in his dialogues, which echoed with deep human resonance.

As the creator of 'Scrooge McDuck', Carl Barks did more than any other comic book artist to widen the popularity of Donald Duck.

Among his many fans were George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg, who were inspired by the adventure comic books.

His stories were constantly reproduced in Disney comics across the globe, after his retirement in 1966.Barks is also in all probability, what with Disney being the world's largest publisher of children's magazines and books.

Barks' approach to creating comics was to never write down to his audience. In the panel above, from 1944's Frozen Gold, 'penicillin' and 'feted' could easily have been 'medicine' and 'honoured,' but Barks didn't feel the need for condescension.

It was Bill Spicer who first discovered that Barks was the "good duck artist" and sent him his first fan letter. He was so used to anonymity, he thought it was a joke. Western had never told him that he regularly got fan mail and that there had even been a reader rebellion in 1950 when his work load forced him to skip several issues of his regular Comics and Stories strips. He never knew he was famous. Anonymous, but famous none the less.

After he was "discovered" in the early 60's, he began to reminisce and socialize with fans. He was awarded the first Shazam in the 'Best Humor Writer in Comic Books' category in 1971. He recreated many of his most famous comic covers in oil for fans in the 1970's until Disney revoked their permission in 1976. He attended a comic convention in Boston in 1976 and was the subject of a major retrospective in the 1977 Comic Book Price Guide.

Barks was an enthusiastic user of Esterbrook pens. He particularly used a Nº 356 model to ink and letter his Donald Duck comic-book pages. 

"... I used a #356 Esterbrook art and drafting pen which could do everything from thin 'fadeaways' to broad accented curve sweeps on foreground circles such as the ducks' forms. The trick of breaking in a new pen, I discovered, is to soak it for several minutes in the ink bottle. Then wipe off the ink and the pen's varnish. For some weird reason most new pens then start out flexible and free-flowing ..."

I grew up watching his cartoons and the art style and the sleek movements and the way the characters acted made them feel like they were alive and that someone made them with a heart and soul in mind.

Source links:
bio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Barks#Professional_artist
barks.htm

Lotte Reiniger

                                      L0TTE REINIGER

Lotte Reiniger was a German animator that was born in 1899 she is widely regarded as Germany's first animator and the only one at the time in Germany to be making Shade or cut out animation in a manner like no other.

She has made over 100 cut outs for one film known as a The Adventure's of Prince Ahmed which is the one she is the most famous for, from there on out she joined a animation company in which she met her husband and has made cut out animations of all kinds of folk to fiction stories, you say animation like cinderella yes she made that without a scratch a animation about Hansel and Gretel did that with her eyes closed she was THAT good.

But what she did that no one else did that even Disney and Pixar films could not, is make her style HERS no one could copy that. Many German advertisers, animators used her style of animation but none matched her style, the smoothness of her animation was on a whole other level. Even when asked about it she refers to her self in the early days as a caveman animator, but in reality her work was the most advanced thing out there.

Her animations would make anyone feel a certain way, the animations have life, have a feel unlike the ones from Disney and Pixar. They were made with a heart, she loved her work and even when she said herself it would take years just to make a single animation she still loved it and felt happy when it was out and giving people happiness.

1. She was a pioneer of shade/cutout animation, no one could match her. Its said that it started with her and ended with her.

2. She brought life to animation in a way Pixar and Disney always wanted but never could match, she pioneered the section of story telling in a way her animations would be more true than the local media would ever dare to reveal in their paper at the time. 

Walt Disney

                                               Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was born on December 5, 1901, in Hermosa, Illinois. He and his brother Roy co-founded Walt Disney Productions, which became one of the best-known motion-picture production companies in the world. He is also the man responsible for creating the world’s most recognisable mouse, you all saw him at least once in your life. Whether it be a cartoon or a guy dressed as him or even a toy Mickey Mouse is not easily missed.

 In 1919, Disney moved to Kansas City to pursue a career as a newspaper artist. His brother Roy got him a job at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio, where he met cartoonist Ubbe Eert Iwwerks, better known as Ub Iwerks. From there, Disney worked at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cut-out animation. Around this time, Disney began experimenting with a camera, doing hand-drawn cell animation, and decided to open his own animation business.

In fact, during the great depression everyone was in a struggle but they did so well during the great depression they earned almost 1.46 million dollars which during that time was immense.

But the company didn’t last long and he filed for bankruptcy in the very end but then made the very famous Disney animation company that we all love to this day.

Disney was also among the first to use television as an entertainment medium. The Zorro and Davy Crockett series were extremely popular with children, as was The Mickey Mouse Club, a variety show featuring a cast of teenagers known as the Mouseketeers. Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Colour was a popular Sunday night show, which Disney used to begin promoting his new theme park. Disney's last major success that he produced himself was the motion picture Mary Poppins (1964), which mixed live action and animation.

1. Way that he revolutionised the animation industry is by mixing animation and live acting together into one simple thing, Marry Poppins in 1962 is a example of this.

2. Walt looked forward to advancements, even tried making a whole park in the theme of today (modern theme) but he never realised it.

3. Walt wanted to give each animation a story and personality, each film may have a bad guy and good guy but each of them have their unique personalities and qualities the others don't have.

Links:Walt Disney Biography - Biography.com
     https://waltdisney.org/walt-disney#his-work

The Silent Era

THE SILENT ERA

The earliest known/existing cartoon as we know it is the 1908 French short film Phantasmagorie by Emile Cohl.

But in the west, thanks to men like Winsor McCay and not to mention Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer, who both created iconic cartoon star Felix the Cat, the cartoon industry rapidly expanded, with many new cartoon companies with their own cartoon stars and imitators popping up to cash in on the new cartoon craze. 

The film we will be looking at today will be Gertie the Dinosaur.

This version that we have screen shots of is quite possibly the extended version since the original survived but is less common (Link: https://youtu.be/36gqBoUSJ4M )

The animation of Gertie the Dinosaur which was made by Windsor McCay is quite a kid friendly one, looks really goofy and funny in some places but also really well made.The animation it self isn't as much as a film as it is a tiny episode of sorts. In the back you have the traditional piano music and then you have this beautifully hand drawn animation. Gertie the Dinosaur was drawn with black ink on white rice paper (like much of early animation).  Each piece of paper was only a little larger than a 5 X 7 photo (Which is very small).  McCay said it took around 10,000 drawings, although the figure may be closer to 6,000. The animation also had human interaction with it since each time Gertie was with its creator he would tell it to do things like "Do a barrel roll" and Gertie would do them without hesitation if not with just a bit of sass, the clever thing about this is that the animation was animated to do so, so all the creator needed to do is pretend to ask it to do something at a specific moment which the audience at the time loved.

( Information source links: https://silentology.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/gertie-the-dinosaur/ http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheSilentAgeOfAnimation )