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Traditional Animation

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Traditional animation



 
 
Traditional animation, also referred to as classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation, is the oldest and historically the most popular form of animation
Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of Motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways....
. In a traditionally-animated cartoon
Animated cartoon

An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the Movie theater, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot . This is distinct from the term "animation" or "animated film", as not all follow the definition....
, each frame is drawn
Drawing

Drawing is a visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, chalk, pastels, marker pens, stylus, or various metals like silverpoint....
 by hand.

itionally-animated productions, just like other forms of animation, usually begin life as a storyboard
Storyboard

Storyboards are graphic organizers such as a series of illustrations or s displayed in sequence for the purpose of previsualizing a motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity....
,
which is a script
Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing works....
 of sorts written with image
Image

An image is an artifact, usually two-dimensional , that has a similar appearance to some subject —usually a physical object or a person....
s as well as word
Word

A word is a unit of language that represents a concept which can be expressively communication with Meaning . A word consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetic value....
s, similar to a giant comic strip
Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings that tells a story.Currently in the Western world, most comic strips are written and drawn by a comics artist or cartoonist, and many such strips are published on a recurring basis in newspapers and on the Internet....
.






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Traditional animation, also referred to as classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation, is the oldest and historically the most popular form of animation
Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of Motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways....
. In a traditionally-animated cartoon
Animated cartoon

An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the Movie theater, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot . This is distinct from the term "animation" or "animated film", as not all follow the definition....
, each frame is drawn
Drawing

Drawing is a visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, chalk, pastels, marker pens, stylus, or various metals like silverpoint....
 by hand.

The traditional animation process


Storyboards

Traditionally-animated productions, just like other forms of animation, usually begin life as a storyboard
Storyboard

Storyboards are graphic organizers such as a series of illustrations or s displayed in sequence for the purpose of previsualizing a motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity....
,
which is a script
Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing works....
 of sorts written with image
Image

An image is an artifact, usually two-dimensional , that has a similar appearance to some subject —usually a physical object or a person....
s as well as word
Word

A word is a unit of language that represents a concept which can be expressively communication with Meaning . A word consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetic value....
s, similar to a giant comic strip
Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings that tells a story.Currently in the Western world, most comic strips are written and drawn by a comics artist or cartoonist, and many such strips are published on a recurring basis in newspapers and on the Internet....
. The images allow the animation team to plan the flow of the plot and the composition of the imagery. The storyboard artists will have regular meetings with the director
Film director

A film director, or filmmaker, is a person who directs the making of a film. A film director visualizes the Screenplay, controlling a film's artistic and dramatic aspects, while guiding the technical crew and actors in the fulfillment of his or her vision....
, and may have to redraw or "re-board" a sequence many times before it meets final approval.

Voice recording

Before true animation begins, a preliminary soundtrack
Soundtrack

The term soundtrack refers to three related concepts: recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; and the physical area of a film that contains the synchronized recorded so...
 or "scratch track" is recorded, so that the animation may be more precisely synchronize
Synchronization

Synchronization or synchronisation is timekeeping which requires the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. The familiar Conducting of an orchestra serves to keep the orchestra in time....
d to the soundtrack. Given the slow, methodical manner in which traditional animation is produced, it is almost always easier to synchronize animation to a pre-existing soundtrack than it is to synchronize a soundtrack to pre-existing animation. A completed cartoon soundtrack will feature music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
, sound effects, and dialogue performed by voice actors. However, the scratch track used during animation typically contains just the voices, any vocal songs that the characters must sing along to, and temporary musical score tracks; the final score and sound effects are added in post-production
Post-production

Post-production occurs in the making of film, television program, radio programs, videos, sound recording and reproduction, photography and digital art....
.

In the case of most pre-1930 sound animated cartoons, the sound was post-synched; that is, the sound track was recorded after the film elements were finished by watching the film and performing the dialogue, music, and sound effects required. Some studios, most notably Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios

Fleischer Studios, Inc. is an United States corporation which originated as an animation studio located at 1600 Broadway , New York City, New York....
, continued to post-synch their cartoons through most of the 1930s, which allowed for the presence of the "muttered ad-libs" present in many Popeye the Sailor and Betty Boop
Betty Boop

Betty Boop is an animation cartoon fictional character designed by Grim Natwick, appearing in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop series of films produced by Max Fleischer and released by Paramount Pictures....
 cartoons. Although virtually all American animation is now pre-synched (and has been since the 1930s), nearly all Japanese animation (anime
Anime

is animation in Japan and considered to be "Japanese animation" in the rest of the world. Anime dates from about 1917.Anime, in addition to manga , is extremely popular in Japan and well known throughout the world....
)
is post-synched.

Animatics

Often, an animatic or story reel is made after the soundtrack is created, but before full animation begins. An animatic typically consists of pictures of the storyboard synchronized with the soundtrack. This allows the animators and directors to work out any script and timing issues that may exist with the current storyboard. The storyboard and soundtrack are amended if necessary, and a new animatic may be created and reviewed with the director until the storyboard is perfected. Editing the film at the animatic stage prevents the animation of scenes that would be edited out of the film; as traditional animation is a very expensive and time-consuming process, creating scenes that will eventually be edited out of the completed cartoon is strictly avoided.

In the mid 1970s, these were known as videomatics and used primarily for test commercial projects.

Advertising agencies today employ the use of animatics to test their commercials before they are made into full up spots. Animatics use drawn artwork, with moving pieces (for example, an arm that reaches for a product, or a head that turns). Video storyboards are similar to animatics, but do not have moving pieces. Photomatic
Photomatic

A Photomatic is a series of still photographs edited together and presented on screen in a sequence.Usually, a voice-over, soundtrack and sound effects are added to the piece to create a presentation to show how a film could be shot and cut together....
s are another option when creating test spots, but instead of using drawn artwork, there is a shoot in which hundreds of digital photographs are taken. The large amount of images to choose from may make the process of creating a test commercial a bit easier, as opposed to creating an animatic, because changes to drawn art take time and money. Photomatics generally cost more than animatics, as they require a shoot and on-camera talent.

Design and timing

Once the animatic has been approved, it and the storyboards are sent to the design departments. Character designers prepare model sheets for all important characters and props in the film. These model sheets will show how a character or object looks from a variety of angles with a variety of poses and expressions, so that all artists working on the project can deliver consistent work. Sometimes, small statue
Statue

A statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a Bust , and at least close to life-size, or larger....
s known as maquette
Maquette

A maquette is a small scale model or rough draft of an unfinished architectural work or a sculpture. It is used to visualize and test shapes and ideas without incurring the cost and effort of producing a full scale product....
s
may be produced, so that an animator can see what a character looks like in three dimensions. At the same time, the background stylists will do similar work for the settings and locations in the project, and the art director
Art director

The term art director is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film industry and television, the Internet, and video games....
s and color stylists will determine the art style and color schemes to be used.

While design is going on, the timing director (who in many cases will be the main director) takes the animatic and analyzes exactly what poses, drawings, and lip movements will be needed on what frames. An exposure sheet (or X-sheet for short) is created; this is a printed table that breaks down the action, dialogue, and sound frame-by-frame as a guide for the animators. If a film is based more strongly in music, a bar sheet may be prepared in addition to or instead of an X-sheet. Bar sheets show the relationship between the on-screen action, the dialogue, and the actual musical notation
Musical notation

Music notation or musical notation is any system which represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written Modern musical symbols....
 used in the score.

Layout

Layout begins after the designs are completed and approved by the director. The layout process is the same as the blocking out of shots by a cinematographer
Cinematographer

A cinematographer is one photography with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting film crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image....
 on a live-action film. It is here that the background layout artists determine the camera angles, camera paths, lighting, and shading of the scene. Character layout artists will determine the major poses for the characters in the scene, and will make a drawing to indicate each pose. For short films, character layouts are often the responsibility of the director.

The layout drawings are spliced into the animatic, using the X-sheet as a guide. Once the animatic is made up of all layout drawings, it is called a Leica reel
Leica reel

In film, specifically animation, a leica reel is a type of storyboarding device used in the production of potential series or features. Unlike actual storyboards or pitches, leica reels are used later in the development process, usually after voice actors have been hired and recorded, and thus are not used for selling or marketing the projec...
.
The term originates from the Disney Studio
Walt Disney Studios (Burbank)

The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Los Angeles County, California, California, United States, serve as the international headquarters for media conglomerate The Walt Disney Company....
 in the 1930s, from the frame format used by Leica cameras.

Animation

Once the Leica reel is finally approved by the director, animation begins.

In the traditional animation process, animators will begin by drawing sequences of animation on sheets of paper perforated to fit the in their desks, often using colored pencil
Pencil

A pencil is a writing or drawing instrument consisting of a thin stick of pigment and clay, usually encased in a thin wood cylinder, though paper and plastic sheaths are also used....
s, one picture or "frame" at a time. A key animator or lead animator will draw the key drawings
Key frame

A key frame in animation and filmmaking is a drawing which defines the starting and ending points of any Dissolve . They are called "frames" because their position in time is measured in film frames on a strip of film....
 in a scene, using the character layouts as a guide. The key animator draws enough of the frames to get across the major points of the action; in a sequence of a character
Fictional character

A character is any person, persona, identity, or entity that exists in a The arts. The process of conveying information about characters in fiction is called characterisation....
 jumping across a gap, the key animator may draw a frame of the character as he is about to leap, two or more frames as the character is flying through the air, and the frame for the character landing on the other side of the gap.

Timing is important for the animators drawing these frames; each frame must match exactly what is going on in the soundtrack at the moment the frame will appear, or else the discrepancy between sound and visual will be distracting to the audience. For example, in high-budget productions, extensive effort is given in making sure a speaking character's mouth matches in shape the sound that character's actor is producing as he or she speaks.

While working on a scene, a key animator will usually prepare a pencil test of the scene. A pencil test is a preliminary version of the final animated scene; the pencil drawings are quickly photographed or scanned and synced with the necessary soundtracks. This allows the animation to be reviewed and improved upon before passing the work on to his assistant animators, who will go add details and some of the missing frames in the scene. The work of the assistant animators is reviewed, pencil-tested, and corrected until the lead animator is ready to meet with the director and have his scene sweatboxed, or reviewed by the director, producer, and other key creative team members. Similar to the storyboarding stage, an animator may be required to re-do a scene many times before the director will approve it.

In high-budget animated productions, often each major character will have an animator or group of animators solely dedicated to drawing that character. The group will be made up of one supervising animator, a small group of key animators, and a larger group of assistant animators. For scenes where two characters interact, the key animators for both characters will decide which character is "leading" the scene, and that character will be drawn first. The second character will be animated to react to and support the actions of the "leading" character.

Once the key animation is approved, the lead animator forwards the scene on to the clean-up department, made up of the clean-up animators and the inbetweeners. The clean-up animators take the lead and assistant animators' drawings and trace them onto a new sheet of paper, taking care in including all of the details present on the original model sheets, so that it appears that one person animated the entire film. The inbetweeners will draw in whatever frames are still missing in between the other animators' drawings. This procedure is called tweening
Tweening

Inbetweening or tweening is the process of generating intermediate frames between two images to give the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image....
. The resulting drawings are again pencil-tested and sweatboxed until they meet approval.

At each stage during pencil animation, approved artwork is spliced into the Leica reel.

This process is the same for both character animation
Character animation

Character animation is a specialized area of the animation process concerning the animation of one or more characters featured in an animated work....
 and special effects animation, which on most high-budget productions are done in separate departments. Effects animators animate anything that moves and is not a character, including props, vehicles, machine
Machine

A machine is any device that uses energy to perform some activity. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work....
ry and phenomena such as fire
Fire

Fire is the oxidation of a combustion material releasing heat, light, and various Chemical reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water....
, rain
Rain

Rain is liquid precipitation . On Earth, it is the condensation of atmospheric water vapor into droplet heavy enough to fall, often making it to the surface....
, and explosion
Explosion

An explosion is a sudden increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases....
s. Sometimes, instead of drawings, a number of special processes are used to produce special effects in animated films; rain, for example, has been created in Disney
Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney Pictures refers to several different entities associated with The Walt Disney Company:Walt Disney Pictures, the film banner, was found as a designation in 1983, prior to which Disney films since the death of Walt Disney were released under the name of the parent company, then named Walt Disney Productions....
 films since the late-1930s by filming slow-motion footage of water in front of a black background, with the resulting film superimposed over the animation.

Backgrounds

While the animation is being done, the background artist
Background artist

A background artist or sometimes called a background stylist or background painter is one who is involved in the process of animation who establishes the color, style, and mood of a scene drawn by an animation layout artist....
s
will paint
Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting....
 the sets over which the action of each animated sequence will take place. These backgrounds are generally done in gouache
Gouache

Gouache , the name of which derives from the Italian language guazzo, "water paint, splash" or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water....
 or acrylic paint
Acrylic paint

File:Pyrrole Red Dab.JPGAcrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspended in an Wiktionary:acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry....
, although some animated productions have used backgrounds done in watercolor, oil paint
Oil paint

Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint consisting of small pigment particles suspended in a drying oil. Oil paints have been used in England as early as the 13th century for simple decoration, but were not widely adopted for artistic purposes until the 15th century....
, or even crayon
Crayon

A crayon is a stick of colored wax, charcoal, chalk, or other materials used for writing and drawing. A crayon made of oiled chalk is called an oil pastel; when made of pigment with a dry binder, it is simply a pastel....
. Background artists follow very closely the work of the background layout artists and color stylists (which is usually compiled into a workbook for their use), so that the resulting backgrounds are harmonious in tone with the character designs.

Traditional ink-and-paint and camera

Once the clean-ups and in between drawings for a sequence are completed, they are prepared for photography, a process known as ink-and-paint. Each drawing is then transferred from paper to a thin, clear sheet of plastic called a cel
Cel

A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn traditional animation. Celluloid was used for animation and film production up until the late 20th century, however, it burned easily and suffered from spontaneous decomposition, and was largely replaced by cellulose acetate p...
,
so called because they were once made out of cellulose nitrate (cellulose acetate
Cellulose acetate

Cellulose acetate, first prepared in 1865, is the acetate ester of cellulose. Cellulose acetate is used as a film base in photography, and as a component in some adhesives; it is also used as a synthetic fiber....
 is now used). The outline of the drawing is inked or photocopied onto the cel, and gouache or a similar type of paint is used on the reverse sides of the cels to add colors in the appropriate shades. In many cases, characters will have more than one color palette assigned to them; the usage of each one depends upon the mood and lighting of each scene. The transparent quality of the cel allows for each character or object in a frame to be animated on different cels, as the cel of one character can be seen underneath the cel of another; and the opaque background will be seen beneath all of the cels.

When an entire sequence has been transferred to cels, the photography process begins. Each cel involved in a frame of a sequence is laid on top of each other, with the background at the bottom of the stack. A piece of glass is lowered onto the artwork in order to flatten any irregularities, and the composite image is then photographed by a special animation camera
Animation camera

An animation camera, a type of rostrum camera, is a movie camera specially adapted for frame shooting animation or stop motion. It consists of a camera body with lens and film magazines, a stand that allows the camera to be raised and lowered, and a table, often with both top and underneath lighting....
, also called rostrum camera
Rostrum camera

A rostrum camera is a specially adapted Movie camera used in television and film to animate a still picture or object. It consists of a moving lower platform on which the article to be filmed is placed, while the camera is placed above on a column....
. The cels are removed, and the process repeats for the next frame until each frame in the sequence has been photographed. Each cel has registration holes, small holes along the top or bottom edge of the cel, which allow the cel to be placed on corresponding before the camera to ensure that each cel aligns with the one before it; if the cels are not aligned in such a manner, the animation, when played at full speed, will appear "jittery." Sometimes, frames may need to be photographed more than once, in order to implement superimpositions and other camera effects. Pans are created by either moving the cels or backgrounds one step at a time over a succession of frames (the camera does not pan; it only zooms in and out).

Animationcamera
As the scenes come out of final photography, they are spliced into the Leica reel, taking the place of the pencil animation. Once every sequence in the production has been photographed, the final film is sent for development and processing, while the final music and sound effects are added to the soundtrack. Again, editing in the traditional live-action sense is generally not done in animation, but if it is required it is done at this time, before the final print of the film is ready for duplication or broadcast.

Among the most common types of animation rostrum cameras was the Oxberry. Such cameras were always made of black anodized aluminum, and commonly had 2 pegbars, one at the top and one at the bottom of the lightbox. The Oxberry Master Series had four pegbars, two above and two below, and sometimes used a "floating pegbar" as well. The height of the column on which the camera was mounted determined the amount of zoom achievable on a piece of artwork. Such cameras were massive mechanical affairs which might weight close to a ton and take hours to break down or set up.

In the later years of the animation rostrum camera, stepper motors controlled by computers were attached to the various axes of movement of the camera, thus saving many hours of hand cranking by human operators. A notable early use of computer cameras was in Star Wars (1977), using the Dykstra system at Lucas' Sun Valley facility. Gradually, motion control techniques were adopted throughout the industry. While several computer camera software packages became available in the early 1980s, the Tondreau System became one of the most widely adopted.

So called "raster graphics" (computer animation) gradually made these traditional animation techniques and equipment obsolete.

Digital ink and paint

The current process, termed "digital ink and paint," is the same as traditional ink and paint until after the animation drawings are completed; instead of being transferred to cels, the animators' drawings are scanned
Image scanner

In computing, a scanner is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting, or an object, and converts it to a digital image. Common examples found in offices are variations of the desktop scanner where the document is placed on a glass window for scanning....
 into a computer
Computer

A computer is a machine that manipulates Data according to a list of Code .The first devices that resemble modern computers date to the mid-20th century , although the computer concept and various machines similar to computers existed earlier....
, where they are colored and processed using one or more of a variety of software packages. The resulting drawings are composited in the computer over their respective backgrounds, which have also been scanned into the computer (if not digitally painted), and the computer outputs the final film by either exporting a digital video
Video

Video is the technology of electronics Videography, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing Scene in motion....
 file, using a video cassette recorder, or printing to film
Film

Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the film industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects....
 using a high-resolution output device. Use of computers allows for easier exchange of artwork between departments, studios, and even countries and continents (in most low-budget animated productions, the bulk of the animation is actually done by animators working in other countries, including Korea
Korea

Korea is a geographic area composed of two sovereign countries, a civilization, and a former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia....
, Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
, Singapore
Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country microstate located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It lies 137 kilometres north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands....
, Mexico
Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
, and India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
).

The last major feature film to use traditional ink and paint was Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke
Princess Mononoke

is a 1997 in film anime historical fantasy feature film Screenwriter and Film director by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. It was first released in Japan on July 12, 1997 and in the United States on October 29, 1999 in select cities and on November 26, 1999 in Canada....
 (1997); the last major animation production to use the traditional process is Cartoon Network's series Ed Edd n Eddy (1999-present). Minor productions such as Hair High
Hair High

Hair High is a 2004 in film Animation comedy film-horror film-romance film by United States filmmaker Bill Plympton....
 (2004) by Bill Plympton
Bill Plympton

Bill Plympton is an United States Animation best known for his 1987 Academy Awards-nominated animated short Your Face ....
 have used traditional cels long after the introduction of digital techniques. Digital ink and paint has been in use at Walt Disney Feature Animation
Walt Disney Feature Animation

Walt Disney Animation Studios is a key element of The Walt Disney Company, and the oldest existing animation studio in the world. The feature animation studio was an integrated part of Walt Disney Productions from 1934 until 1986, when, during the corporate restructuring to create The Walt Disney Company, it officially became a subsidiary of...
 since 1989, where it was used for the final rainbow shot in The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid (1989 film)

The Little Mermaid is a 1989 in film animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation with a pencil test beginning on September 23, 1988 and its first release on November 17, 1989 distributed by Walt Disney Pictures....
.
All subsequent Disney animated features were digitally inked-and-painted, using Disney's proprietary CAPS (Computer Animation Production System) technology, developed primarily by Pixar
Pixar

Pixar Animation Studios is a CGI animation production company based in Emeryville, California, United States. To date, the studio has earned twenty-two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, and three Grammy, among many other awards, acknowledgments and achievements....
 (the last Disney feature using CAPS was Home on the Range
Home on the Range (film)

Home on the Range is a 2004 United States animated musical feature film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on April 2, 2004, and was named after the popular country music song "Home on the Range"....
). Most other studios use one of a number of other high-end software packages such as Toonz, Animo, and even consumer-level applications such as Macromedia Flash and Toon Boom Studio.

Computers and video cameras

Computers and video cameras in traditional cel animation can also be used as tools without affecting the film directly, assisting the animators in their work and making the whole process faster and easier. Doing the layouts on a computer is much more effective than doing it the old original way. Additionally, video cameras give the opportunity to see a "sneak preview" of the scenes and how they will look when finished, enabling the animators to correct and improve them without having to complete them first. This can be considered a digital form of pencil testing.

Techniques


The cel & limited animation

Animation Cells
The cel is an important innovation to traditional animation, as it allows some parts of each frame to be repeated from frame to frame, thus saving labor. A simple example would be a scene with two characters on screen, one of which is talking and the other standing silently. Since the latter character is not moving, it can be displayed in this scene using only one drawing, on one cel, while multiple drawings on multiple cels will be used to animate the speaking character.

For a more complex example, consider, a sequence in which a girl sets a plate upon a table. The table will stay still for the entire sequence, so it can be drawn as part of the background. The plate can be drawn along with the character as the character places it on the table. However, after the plate is on the table, the plate will no longer move, although the girl will continue to move as she draws her arm away from the plate. In this example, after the girl puts the plate down, the plate can then be drawn on a separate cel from the girl. Further frames will feature new cels of the girl, but the plate does not have to be redrawn as it is not moving; the same cel of the plate can be used in each remaining frame that it is still upon the table. The cel paints were actually manufactured in shaded versions of each color to compensate for the extra layer of cel added between the image and the camera, in this example the still plate would be painted slightly brighter to compensate for being moved one layer down.

In very early cartoons made before the use of the cel, such as Gertie the Dinosaur
Gertie the Dinosaur

Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 in film short animation by Winsor McCay.Although not the first animated film, as is sometimes thought, it was the first cartoon to feature a character with an appealing personality....
 (1914), the entire frame, including the background and all characters and items, were drawn on a single sheet of paper, then photographed. Everything had to be redrawn for each frame containing movements. This led to a "jittery" appearance; imagine seeing a sequence of drawings of a mountain, each one slightly different from the one proceeding it. The pre-cel animation was later improved by using techniques like the slash and tear system invented by Raoul Barre
Raoul Barré

Raoul Barr? was a Canada and United States cartoonist, animator of the silent film era, and artist.Barr? was born in Montreal, Quebec, the only artistic child of an importer of communion wine....
; the background and the animated objects were drawn on separate papers. A frame was made by removing all the blank parts of the papers where the objects were drawn before being placed on top of the backgrounds and finally photographed. The cel animation process was invented by Earl Hurd
Earl Hurd

Earl Hurd was a pioneering USA animator and film director. He is noted for creating and producing the silent film Bobby Bumps animated short subject series for early animation producer J.R....
 and John Bray in 1915.

In lower-budget productions, this "shortcut" is used in a greater capacity. For example, in a scene in which a man is sitting in a chair and talking, the chair and the body of the man may be the same in every frame; only his head is redrawn, or perhaps even his head stays the same while only his mouth moves. This is known as limited animation
Limited animation

Limited animation is a process of making animated cartoons that do not follow a "realistic" approach. One of its major trademarks is the stylized design in all forms and shapes, which in the early days was referred to as modern design....
.
The process was popularized in theatrical cartoons by UPA
UPA

UPA may refer to:* Uganda People's Army, a rebel group active from 1987-1992* Ukrainian Insurgent Army , a Ukrainian nationalist partisan organization during and after World War II...
 and used in most television
Television

Television is a widely used telecommunication mass-media for transmitting and receiving moving , either monochrome or color, usually accompanied by sound....
 animation, especially that of Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera

Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. , was an American List of animation studios that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century....
. The end result does not look very lifelike, but is inexpensive to produce, and therefore allows cartoons to be made on small television budgets.

"Shooting on twos"


Moving characters are often shot "on twos", that is to say, one drawing is shown for every two frames of film (which usually runs at 24 frames per second), meaning there are only 12 drawings per second. Even though the image update rate is low, the fluidity is satisfactory for most subjects. However, when a character is required to perform a quick movement, it is usually necessary to revert to animating "on ones", as "twos" are too slow to convey the motion adequately. A blend of the two techniques keeps the eye fooled without unnecessary production cost.

Animation for television is usually produced on tight budgets. In addition to the use of limited animation techniques, television animation may be shot on "threes", or even "fours", i.e. three or four frames per drawing. This translates to only eight or six drawings per second.

Animation loops

Animhorse
Creating animation loops or animation cycles is a labor-saving technique for animating repetitive motions, such as a character walking or a breeze blowing through the trees. In the case of walking, the character is animated taking a step with their right foot, then a step with their left foot. The loop is created so that, when the sequence repeats, the motion is seamless. However, since an animation loop essentially uses the same bit of animation over and over again, they are easily detected and can in fact become distracting to an audience. In general, they are used only sparingly by productions with moderate or high budgets.

Ryan Larkin
Ryan Larkin

Ryan Larkin was a Canada animator, artist, and sculptor who rose to fame with the psychedelic 1969 in film Academy Award-nominated short Walking and the acclaimed Street Musique who was the subject of the Oscar-winning film Ryan ....
's 1969 Academy Award
Academy Award for Animated Short Film

The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present....
 nominated National Film Board of Canada
National Film Board of Canada

The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes innovative, socially relevant documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions....
 short Walking makes creative use of loops. In addition, a promotional music video featuring the Soul Coughing
Soul Coughing

Soul Coughing is a New York City-based alternative rock band . The band found modest mainstream success during the mid-to-late 90's. Soul Coughing developed a devout fanbase and have garnered largely positive response from critics....
 song "Circles" poked fun at animation loops as they are often seen in The Flintstones
The Flintstones

The Flintstones is an animated American television sitcom that ran from 1960 to 1966 on American Broadcasting Company.Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions , The Flintstones is about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next door neighbor and best friend....
,
in which Fred and Barney, supposedly walking in a house, wonder why they keep passing the same table and vase over and over again.

Multiplane camera

The multiplane camera is a tool used to add depth to scenes in 2D animated movies, called the multiplane effect. This visual phenomenon is also called the parallax process. The art are placed on different layers of glass plates; in this way, realistic backgrounds and foregrounds can be made. The panorama views in Pinocchio
Pinocchio (1940 film)

Pinocchio is the second animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. It was produced by Walt Disney and was originally released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on February 7, 1940....
 are examples of the effects a multiplane camera can achieve. Different versions of the camera have been made through time, but the most famous is the one used by the Walt Disney Studio. Another one, called a tabletop, was made by Fleischer Studios. Miniature sets made of paper cutouts were placed in front of the camera, and the cels between them, creating visually realistic scenes. Others who made their own multiplane camera include Ub Iwerks
Ub Iwerks

Ub Iwerks, A.S.C. was a two-time Academy Awards winning United States animator, cartoonist and special effects technician, who was famous for his work for Walt Disney....
 and Don Bluth
Don Bluth

Donald Virgil Bluth is an United States animator and independent studio owner....
.

Ink & Paint


Originally, cels were inked by hand. Specialized artists known as inkers laid blank cels over the animation drawings and traced the outlines of the artwork onto the cels, often using different colors for different ink lines. With the invention of xerography (below), hand inking was no longer needed, and this was reflected by the animation's visual style.

Xerography


Applied to animation by Ub Iwerks
Ub Iwerks

Ub Iwerks, A.S.C. was a two-time Academy Awards winning United States animator, cartoonist and special effects technician, who was famous for his work for Walt Disney....
 at the Walt Disney studio during the late 1950s, the electrostatic copying technique called xerography
Xerography

Xerography is a photocopying technique developed by Chester Carlson in 1938 and patented on October 6, 1942. He received for his invention. Although dry electrostatic printing processes had been invented as far back as 1778 by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Carlson's innovation combined electrostatic printing with photography....
 allowed the drawings to be copied directly onto the cels, leaving only the coloring to the inkers. This saved time and money, and it also made it possible to put in more details and to control the size of the xeroxed objects and characters (this replaced the little known, and seldom used, photographic lines technique at Disney, used to reduce the size of animation when needed). At first it resulted in a more sketchy look, but the method was improved later. Instead of using black lines only, cels with lines in different colors were also possible, using colored toner powder.

The xerographic method was first used by Disney in the short film Goliath II
Goliath II

Goliath II is an animation short film, produced by The Walt Disney Company and was released on January 21, 1960. Sterling Holloway narrates this cartoon film, starring Kevin Corcoran....
, while the first feature using this process was One Hundred and One Dalmatians
One Hundred and One Dalmatians

One Hundred and One Dalmatians is the seventeenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon.It was made and produced by Walt Disney, and it was originally released to theaters on January 25, 1961 by Buena Vista Distribution....
 (1961). The graphic style of this film was strongly influenced by the process. Some hand inking was still used together with xerography in this and subsequent films when distinct colored lines were needed. Later, colored toner
Toner

File:Toner-container-black-0a.jpgToner is a Powder used in laser printers and photocopiers to form the printed text and images on the paper....
s became available, and several distinct line colors could be used, even simultaneously. For instance, in The Rescuers
The Rescuers

The Rescuers is a 1977 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Productions and first released on June 22, 1977. The twenty-third film in the Disney animated features canon, the film is about the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization, headquartered in New York City and shadowing the United Nations, dedicated to helping a...
 the characters outlines are gray. White and blue toners were used for special effects, such as snow and water.

Cel overlay

A cel overlay is a cel with inanimate objects used to give the impression of a foreground when laid on top of a ready frame. This creates the illusion of depth, but not as much as a multiplane camera would. A special version of cel overlay is called line overlay, made to complete the background instead of making the foreground, and was invented to deal with the sketchy appearance of xeroxed drawings. The background was first painted as shapes and figures in flat colors, containing rather few details. Next, a cel with detailed black lines was laid directly over it, each line drawn to add more information to the underlaying shape or figure and give the background the complexity it needed. In this way, the visual style of the background will match that of the xeroxed character cels. As the xerographic process evolved, line overlay was left behind.

The APT process

Invented by Dave Spencer for the 1985 Disney film The Black Cauldron
The Black Cauldron (film)

The Black Cauldron is the twenty-fifth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. It was produced by Walt Disney Pictures, and originally released to theatres on July 24, 1985 by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution....
, the APT (Animation Photo Transfer) process was a new breakthrough in how to transfer the animators' art onto cels. Compared to Xerography, it looked visually better. Basically, the process was a modification of a repro-photographic process; the artists' work were photographed on high-contrast "litho" film, and the image on the resulting negative was then transferred to a cel
Cel

A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn traditional animation. Celluloid was used for animation and film production up until the late 20th century, however, it burned easily and suffered from spontaneous decomposition, and was largely replaced by cellulose acetate p...
 covered with a layer of light sensitive dye by making a "sandwich" of the negative and the cel and expose the negative to light. The layer of dye was sandwiched between the other two elements and exposed to the light through the transparent areas of the negative. Because it was actually divided into thinner layers of dye, each in a different color and sensitive to a specific wavelength of light, it was exposed to the relevant wavelengths one at the time. The light caused it to harden and fuse to the surface of the cel, and chemicals were then used to remove the unexposed portion, leaving the drawings in a variety of colors (photo emulsion
Photo emulsion

Photo emulsion is a commonly used misnomer for a photosensitive substance used in screen printing that hardens when subjected to ultraviolet light....
). Small and delicate details were still inked by hand if needed. Spencer received a Technical award from the Motion Picture Academy for developing this process.

Computers and traditional animation

The methods so far describes the techniques of an animation process who originally depended on cels in its final stages, but painted cels are rare today as the computer
Computer

A computer is a machine that manipulates Data according to a list of Code .The first devices that resemble modern computers date to the mid-20th century , although the computer concept and various machines similar to computers existed earlier....
 moves into the animation studio, and the outline drawings are usually scanned into the computer and filled with digital paint instead of being transferred to cels and then colored by hand. The drawings are composited in a computer program on many transparent "layers" much the same way as they are with cels, and made into a sequence of images which may then be transferred onto film or converted to a digital video
Digital video

Digital video is a type of video recording system that works by using a digital rather than an analog signal video signal.The terms camera, video camera, and camcorder are used interchangeably in this article....
 format.
It is now also possible for animators to draw directly into a computer using a graphics tablet
Graphics tablet

A graphics tablet is a computer input device that allows one to hand-draw images and graphics, similar to the way one draws images with a pencil and paper....
, cintiq or a similar device, where the outline drawings are done in a similar manner as they would be on paper. The development of paperless handdrawn animation is likely to replace the traditional pencil and paper not too far into the future, just as cels and traditional paint were replaced when digital ink and paint was fully introduced in the 90's. For instance the Goofy
Goofy

Goofy is an animated cartoon character from the Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse universe. He is an anthropomorphic dog and is one of Mickey Mouse's best friends....
 short How To Hook Up Your Home Theater
How to Hook Up Your Home Theater

How to Hook Up Your Home Theater is a 2007 in film theatrical animated cartoon from Walt Disney Pictures, directed by Kevin Deters and co-directed by Stevie Wermers-Skelton....
 represents Disney's first project based on the paperless technology available today. Some of the advantages are the possibility and potential of controlling the size of the drawings while working on them, drawing directly on a multiplane background and eliminating the need of photographing line tests and scanning.

Though traditional animation is now commonly done with computers, it is important to differentiate computer-assisted traditional animation from 3D computer animation
3D computer graphics

3D computer graphics are graphics that use a Cartesian coordinate system#Three-dimensional coordinate system representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images....
, such as Toy Story
Toy Story

Toy Story is a 1995 in film Cinema of the United States computer animation family film, directed by John Lasseter and starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen....
 and ReBoot
ReBoot

ReBoot is a Canada Computer-generated imagery-animated series action-adventure television series that originally aired from 1994 to 2001. It was produced by Vancouver-based production company Mainframe Entertainment, and created by Gavin Blair, Ian Pearson, Phil Mitchell and John Grace, with the visuals designed by Brendan McCarthy after...
.
However, often traditional animation and 3D computer animation will be used together, as in Don Bluth
Don Bluth

Donald Virgil Bluth is an United States animator and independent studio owner....
's Titan A.E.
Titan A.E.

Titan A.E. is a 2000 in film animation post-apocalyptic science fiction film adventure film directed by both Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. The title refers to the fictional spacecraft that is central to the plot, with A.E. meaning "After Earth."...
 and Disney
The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company is the largest media and entertainment corporation in the world. Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O....
's Tarzan
Tarzan (1999 film)

Tarzan is a 1999 United States animated feature film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on June 18, 1999....
 and Treasure Planet
Treasure Planet

Treasure Planet is a 2002 in film United States animated feature film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and released by Walt Disney Pictures on November 27, 2002....
.
Most anime
Anime

is animation in Japan and considered to be "Japanese animation" in the rest of the world. Anime dates from about 1917.Anime, in addition to manga , is extremely popular in Japan and well known throughout the world....
 still use traditional animation today. DreamWorks
DreamWorks

DreamWorks, LLC, also known as DreamWorks Pictures, DreamWorks SKG or DreamWorks Studios, is a major film studios United States film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games, and television programming....
 executive Jeffrey Katzenberg
Jeffrey Katzenberg

Jeffrey Katzenberg is an United States film producer and CEO of DreamWorks Animation. He is perhaps most famous for his period as studio chairman at The Walt Disney Company, and for producing the DreamWorks animated films Shrek , Shark Tale, Madagascar , Over the Hedge , Bee Movie, and Kung Fu Panda....
 coined the term "tradigital animation" to describe films produced by his studio which incorporated elements of traditional and computer animation equally, such as Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is a 2002 Animation film that was released by DreamWorks Pictures. It follows the adventures of a young stallion who is nameless until the end of the movie....
 and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is a 2003 in film animated film produced by DreamWorks SKG with voices of characters from Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Joseph Fiennes....
.

Interestingly, many modern video games such as Viewtiful Joe
Viewtiful Joe

is a video game developed by Capcom's Production Studio 4 for the Nintendo Nintendo GameCube. It was originally released in 2003 as a part of the Capcom Five under director Hideki Kamiya and producer Atsushi Inaba....
, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, known in Japan as , is an action-adventure game and the tenth installment in The Legend of Zelda . It was released for the Nintendo GameCube in Japan on December 13, 2002, in North America on March 24, 2003, in Europe on May 3, 2003, and in Australia on May 7, 2003....
 and others
List of cel-shaded video games

This is a list of video games that use the technique of Cel-shaded animation, organised alphabetically by name. See Lists of video games for related lists....
 use "cel-shading
Cel-shaded animation

Cel-shaded animation is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make computer graphics appear to be hand-drawn. Cel-Shader is often used to mimic the style of a comic book or cartoon....
" animation filters to make their full 3D animation appear as though it were drawn in a traditional cel style. This technique was also used in the animated movie Appleseed
Appleseed

is a science fiction manga authored by Masamune Shirow. The series follows the adventures of ESWAT members Deunan Knute and Briareos Hecatonchires in Olympus....
,
and was integrated with cel animation in the FOX
Fox

A fox is an animal belonging to any one of about 27 species of small to medium-sized Canidae, characterized by possessing a long, narrow snout, and a bushy tail, or brush....
 animated series Futurama.

Rotoscoping

Rotoscoping
Rotoscope

File:US patent 1242674 figure 3.pngRotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films....
 is a method of traditional animation invented by Max Fleischer
Max Fleischer

File:MaxFleischerPDUS.JPGMax Fleischer was an important Jewish-American pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon who served as the head of Fleischer Studios....
 in 1915, in which animation is "traced" over actual film footage of actors and scenery. Traditionally, the live action will be printed out frame by frame and registered. Another piece of paper is then placed over the live action printouts and the action is traced frame by frame using a lightbox. The end result still looks hand drawn but the motion will be remarkably lifelike. Waking Life
Waking Life

Waking Life is a digitally enhanced live action Rotoscoping film, directed by Richard Linklater and made in 2001 in film. The entire film was shot using digital video and then a team of artists using computers drew stylized lines and colors over each frame....
 is a full-length, rotoscoped animated movie, as is American Pop
American pop

American pop is a vague and nebulous term, applied generally to whatever form of music is most popular among mainstream United States adolescent audiences....
 by Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi is an American director of animation and live-action films. As the American animation industry fell into decline during the 1960s and 1970s, Bakshi tried to establish an alternative to mainstream animation through independent animation and adult animation-oriented productions....
. The popular music video
Music video

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a pop music or rock music song with lyrics. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings....
 for A-ha
A-ha

a-ha is a band from Norway. They initially rose to fame during the 1980s and have had continued success in the 1990s and 2000s.a-ha achieved their biggest success with their debut album and single in 1985....
's song "Take On Me" also featured rotoscoped animation, along with live action. In most cases, rotoscoping is mainly used as a guide to aid the animation of realistically rendered human beings, as in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American film based on the Snow White by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full length animation feature film to be produced by Walt Disney, and the first American animated feature film in movie history....
,
Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty (1959 film)

Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 animated feature produced by Walt Disney and originally released to theatres on January 29, 1959, by Buena Vista Distribution....
,
Pocahontas
Pocahontas (1995 film)

Pocahontas is the thirty-third animated feature in the List of Disney animated features. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation in April 15, 1994 and was originally released to selected theaters on June 16, 1995 by Walt Disney Pictures....
,
and Anastasia.

A method that is related to conventional rotoscoping was later invented. If the movie was supposed to contain inanimate objects like a car or a boat, a small live action model of the object(s) was built and painted white, while the edges of the model were painted with thin black lines. In the next stage the object was filmed like it was supposed to move in the animated scene, either by moving the model or filming it while the camera was sweeping over or around it, or using a combination of both. The film frames were then printed on paper, showing a model made up of the painted black lines. After the artists had added details to the object not present in the live action version of the model, it was xeroxed onto cels. (A notable example is Cruella's car in One Hundred and One Dalmatians.) The process of transferring 3D objects to cels was greatly improved when computer graphics advanced enough to allow the creation of three dimensional computer generated objects (wire frame model
Wire frame model

A wire frame model is a visual presentation of an electronic representation of a three dimensional or physical object used in 3D computer graphics....
s) that could be manipulated in any way the animators wanted, and then print the outlines on paper before being copied onto cels using Xerography or the APT process. Even if the use of cels has been left by the majority of animators, computer animated objects in traditional animation has come to stay.

Related to rotoscoping are the methods of vectorizing
Vector graphics

Vector graphics is the use of geometrical Primitive s such as point s, line , curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based upon mathematical equations, to represent s in computer graphics....
 live-action footage, in order to achieve a very graphical look, like in Richard Linklater
Richard Linklater

Richard Stuart Linklater is an Academy Award-nominated United States film director and screenwriter....
's film A Scanner Darkly
A Scanner Darkly (film)

A Scanner Darkly is a 2006 in film directed by Richard Linklater based on the A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick. The film tells the story of identity and deception in a near-future dystopia constantly monitored by intensive high-technology police surveillance in the midst of a drug addiction epidemic....
; and motion-capturing
Motion capture

Motion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording motion and translating that movement onto a digital model....
 actor's movements to use the data in 3D-animation, as in Robert Zemeckis
Robert Zemeckis

Robert Lee "Bob" Zemeckis is an Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning American film director, Film producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future trilogy films as well as the live-action/animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit , though in t...
's 2004 film The Polar Express
The Polar Express (film)

The Polar Express is a 2004 in film Academy Awards-nominated film based on the The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg.The film, written, produced, and directed by Robert Zemeckis, is entirely live action using performance capture technology, which incorporates the movements of live actors into animated characters....
.

Live-action hybrids

Similar to the computer animation and traditional animation hybrids described above, occasionally a production will marry both live-action and animated footage. The live-action parts of these productions are usually filmed first, the actors pretending that they are interacting with the animated characters, props, or scenery; animation will then be added into the footage later to make it appear as if it has always been there. Like rotoscoping, this method is rarely used, but when it is, it can be done to terrific effect, immersing the audience in a fantasy world where human
Human

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....
s and cartoons co-exist. Early examples include the silent Out of the Inkwell
Out of the Inkwell

Out of the Inkwell was a major animated series of the silent era produced by Max Fleischer from 1919 to 1929.The series was the result of three short experimental films that Max Fleischer independently produced in the period of 1914-1916 to demonstrate his invention, the Rotoscope, which was a device consisting of a film projector and...
 (begun in 1919) cartoons by Max Fleischer
Max Fleischer

File:MaxFleischerPDUS.JPGMax Fleischer was an important Jewish-American pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon who served as the head of Fleischer Studios....
 and Walt Disney
Walt Disney

Walter Elias Disney was a multiple Academy Award-winning American film producer, film director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur and philanthropist....
's Alice Comedies
Alice Comedies

The "Alice Comedies" are a series of animated cartoonscreated by Walt Disney in the 1920s, in which a live action little girl named Alice and an animated cat named Julius have adventures in an animated landscape....
 (begun in 1923). Live-action and animation were later combined to successful effect in features such as The Three Caballeros
The Three Caballeros

The Three Caballeros is a 1944 animated feature film, produced by Walt Disney and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. The seventh animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, that plots an adventure through parts of Latin America, combining live-action and traditional animation....
 (1944), Anchors Aweigh
Anchors Aweigh (film)

Anchors Aweigh is a 1945 musical comedy film, directed by George Sidney in which two sailors go on a four-day shore leave in Hollywood, accompanied by music and song, meet an aspiring young singer and try to help her get an audition at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer....
 (1945), Song of the South
Song of the South

Song of the South is a feature film produced by Walt Disney, released on November 12, 1946, by RKO Pictures and based on the Uncle Remus cycle of stories by Joel Chandler Harris....
 (1946), Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins (film)

Mary Poppins is a 1964 in film musical film starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke and produced by Walt Disney, based on the Mary Poppins children's literature by P....
 (1964), Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a 1971 musical film produced by Walt Disney Productions which combines live action and animation; it premiered on October 7 1971....
 (1971), Heavy Traffic
Heavy Traffic

Heavy Traffic is a 1973 in film American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film, which begins, ends, and occasionally combines with live-action, explores the often surreal fantasy of a young New York City cartoonist named Michael Corleone, using pinball imagery as a metaphor for Inner city life....
 (1973), Coonskin
Coonskin

Coonskin can be:* The skin of a Raccoon* coonskin cap, a type of hat* Coonskin , a 1975 animated film by Ralph Bakshi...
 (1975) Pete's Dragon
Pete's Dragon

Pete's Dragon is a live-action/animated film musical film feature film from Walt Disney Productions. It is a live-action film but its title character, a european dragon named Elliott, is animation....
 (1977), Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 fantasy film comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Steven Spielberg and based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?....
 (1988), Rock-a-Doodle
Rock-A-Doodle

Rock-a-Doodle is a 1991 in film animation of Geoffry Chaucer's The Nun's Priest's Tale and Edmond Rostand's comedy, Chantecler with a plot similar to that of Grease and American Graffiti....
 (1992), Cool World
Cool World

Cool World is a 1992 in film live-action/animated film directed by Ralph Bakshi, and starring Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne, and Brad Pitt. It tells the story of a cartoonist who finds himself in the animated world he created, and is seduced by one of his characters, a comic strip vamp who wants to be real....
 (1993), The Pagemaster
The Pagemaster

The Pagemaster, a live action/animated film released by 20th Century Fox on November 23, 1994 is based on an illustrative book of the same name by David Kirschner and Ernie Contreras....
 (1994) and Space Jam
Space Jam

Space Jam is a 1996 in film United States live-action/animated film starring Michael Jordan, Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes characters....
 (1996). Other significant live-action hybrids include the music video for Paula Abdul
Paula Abdul

Paula Julie Abdul is an United States Pop music singer, dancer, choreographer, actress and television personality.In the 1980s, Abdul rose from being a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers to being a sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era, then to being a pop music-Contemporary R&B singer with a string of hits in...
's hit song "Opposites Attract" and numerous television commercials, including those for cereal
Cereal

Cereals, or cereal grains, are mostly Poaceae cultivated for their edible brans or fruit seeds . Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more energy worldwide than any other type of crop; they are therefore staple foods....
s such as Honey Nut Cheerios
Honey Nut Cheerios

Honey Nut Cheerios is a variation of Cheerios breakfast cereal, introduced in 1978 by General Mills. As the first variation from Cheerios, it is sweeter than the original, with a honey and almond flavor....
, Trix
Trix (cereal)

Trix is a brand of cereal made by General Mills for the North American and by Nestl? for the European, South American and Asian markets. The cereal consists of fruit-flavored, sweetened, ground-maize pieces....
, and Rice Krispies
Rice Krispies

Rice Krispies is a breakfast cereal that was created by Eugene McKay for the Kellogg company, and later marketed by Kellogg Company in 1927 and released to the public in 1928....
.

Special effects animation

Besides traditional animated characters, objects and backgrounds, many other techniques are used to create special elements such as smoke, lightning and "magic", and to give the animation in general a distinct visual appearance.

Notable examples can be found in movies such as Fantasia
Fantasia (film)

Fantasia is a 1940 in film List of animated feature-length films produced by Walt Disney, and is the third film in the List of Disney theatrical animated features#official canon....
, Wizards
Wizards (film)

Wizards is an animation post-apocalyptic science fiction/fantasy film about the battle between two wizards, one representing the forces of magic and one representing the forces of technology....
, The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 in film animation fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It is an adaptation of the first half of J....
, The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid (1989 film)

The Little Mermaid is a 1989 in film animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation with a pencil test beginning on September 23, 1988 and its first release on November 17, 1989 distributed by Walt Disney Pictures....
 
and The Secret of NIMH
The Secret of NIMH

The Secret of NIMH is a 1982 in film animation film adaptation of the Newbery Medal-winning book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH , written by United States author Robert C....
. Today the special effects are mostly done with computers, but earlier they had to be done by hand. To produce these effects, the animators used different techniques, such as drybrush
Drybrush

Drybrush is a painting technique in which a brush that is relatively dry, but still holds paint, is used. Load is applied to a dry support such as paper or primer canvas....
, airbrush
Airbrush

An airbrush is a small, Pneumatics tool that sprays various media including ink and dye, but most often paint by a process of nebulization. Spray guns developed from the airbrush and are still considered a type of airbrush....
, charcoal, grease pencil
Grease pencil

The grease pencil, a wax writing tool also known as a wax pencil, china marker, or, in the United Kingdom, chinagraph pencil, is made of colored hardened wax and is useful for marking on hard, glossy non-porous surfaces such as porcelain, glass, polished stone, plastic, Ceramic and other glazed, lacquered or polished surfac...
, backlit animation or, during shooting, the cameraman used multiple exposures with diffusing screens, filters or gels. For instance, the Nutcracker Suite segment in Fantasia has a fairy sequence where stippled cels are used, creating a soft pastel look.

See also

  • Animation
    Animation

    Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of Motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways....
  • Computer animation
    Computer animation

    Computer animation is the art of creating moving images with the use of computers. It is a subfield of computer graphics and animation....
  • Computer generated imagery
  • Limited animation
    Limited animation

    Limited animation is a process of making animated cartoons that do not follow a "realistic" approach. One of its major trademarks is the stylized design in all forms and shapes, which in the early days was referred to as modern design....
  • Rotoscoping
  • Rubber hose animation
    Rubber hose animation

    Rubber hose animation was the first animation style that became standardized in the American animation industry.In the early days of the hand drawn animation in the 1920s, the studios' main areas were not Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, but New York City....
  • Storyboard
    Storyboard

    Storyboards are graphic organizers such as a series of illustrations or s displayed in sequence for the purpose of previsualizing a motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity....
  • Rilezu
    Rilezu

    Traditional animation uses sequences of individual cel paintings on acetate, which are rapidly shown in succession to animate the sequence. In the past cels were each hand painted, a tedious process that involved sketching, transferring the sketch to acetate, then painting each cel individually....


External links

  • - Various essays on the animation process