CARTOONING AND ANIMATION By Emma Coleman EMILE

CARTOONING AND ANIMATION By Emma Coleman

EMILE COHL Emile Cohl was a French caricaturist, cartoonist and pioneering animator. Emile started to show an early interest in guignol puppet theatre and political caricature and after several jobs, Cohl began his professional career as a caricaturist under the guidance of well-known caricaturist André Gill. Back in Paris in 1896, Cohl some what abandoned caricature and took up cartooning for many magazines for families and children. He also made comic strips, and ventured into other artistic occupations, such as animation.

In the early 20 th century, he worked on several films for Gaumont, among 'Fantasmagorie', 'les Joyaux Microbes', 'Clair de Lune Espagnol', 'Le Tour Petit Faust' and 'Le Peintre néoimpressionniste'. Fantasmagorie one of Cohls first pieces of work and was created in 1908 using the method know as stop motion. This film consisted of 700 drawings at 12 frames per second and lasted approximately 58 seconds.

J. STUART BLACKTON James Stuart Blackton, usually known as J. Stuart Blackton, was an Anglo-American film producer of the Silent Era, the founder of Vitagraph Studios and among the first filmmakers to use the techniques of stop-motion and drawn animation. A natural talent for drawing found him a place on the staff of the New York World, writing and drawing a regular illustrated feature on personalities in the news. At this time Blackton was making regular stage appearances as a cartoonist in the company of conjurer Albert Smith. J. Stuart Blackton was not only running the Vitagraph studio, but also producing, directing, writing, and even starring in his films. Since profits were constantly increasing, Blackton felt that he could try any idea that sprang to his head. In a series of films, Blackton developed the concepts of animation.

The first of these films is The Enchanted Drawing, with a copyright date of 1900 but probably made at least a year earlier. The "animation" here is of the stop-motion action. In 1906, Blackton directed Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, which uses stop-motion as well as stick puppetry to produce a series of effects. After Blackton's hand draws two faces on a chalkboard, they appear to come to life and engage in antics. Most of the film uses life action effects instead of animation, but nevertheless this film had a huge effect in stimulating the creation of animated films in America, and was probably his most famous piece of work.

PIXAR Possibly one of the most successful animation companies of today. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm before it was acquired by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 1986. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards. Pixar has produced twelve feature films, beginning with Toy Story in 1995, there most famous film. It was followed by A Bug's Life in 1998, Toy Story 2 in 1999, Monsters, Inc. in 2001, Finding Nemo in 2003, The Incredibles in 2004, Cars in 2006, Ratatouille in 2007, WALL-E in 2008, Up in 2009, Toy Story 3 in 2010, and Cars 2 in 2011.

Luxo Jr. is the first film produced in 1986 by Pixar Animation Studios, following its establishment as an independent film studio. It is a computer-animated short film, demonstrating the kind of things the newly-established company was capable of producing. It was the first Pixar short to release within a Pixar film. It is the source of the small hopping desk lamp included in Pixar's corporate logo. In a subsequent rerelease after Pixar became popular, a pretext was added to the film reading, "In 1986 Pixar produced its first film.

UB IWERKS Ub Iwerks, was a two-time Academy Award winning American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, creator of Mickey Mouse, and special effects technician, who was famous for his work for Walt Disney. Iwerks was considered by many to be Walt Disney's oldest friend, and spent most of his career with Disney. He was responsible for the distinctive style of the earliest Disney animated cartoons, and was also responsible for creating Mickey Mouse.

Ub Iwerks got inspiration for Mickey Mouse from an old drawing. In 1925, Hugh Harman drew some sketches of mice around a photograph of Walt Disney. This inspired Ub Iwerks to create the new mouse character for Disney, called Mickey Mouse. Iwerks' most famous work outside creating and animating Mickey Mouse was Flip the Frog for his own studio. Iwerks was known for his fast work at drawing and animation and his wacky sense of humor.

NICK PARK Nicholas Wulstan "Nick" Park is an English filmmaker of stop motion animation best known as the creator of Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of six times, and won four with; Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995), and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005). Nick uses plasticine modeling clay to create his characters and used the stop start motion to create his films know as Claymation. It took Nick Parks 5 years to make one of his films (Wallace and Gromit the curse of the were-rabbit) which includes planning filming and editing.

OTTO MESSMER Otto James Messmer was an American animator, best known for his work on the Felix the Cat cartoons and comic strip produced by the Pat Sullivan studio. The extent of Messmer's role in the creation and popularity of Felix is a matter of ongoing dispute, particularly as he only laid his claim to the character after the death of Sullivan, who until that time had received the credit. However, most prominent comics and animation historians support Messmer's claim, as do the veterans of the Sullivan studio.

Mesmer had great success in the silent film era in the 1920 s. In 1919, he animated the famous black cat Felix for the cartoon 'Feline Follies'. Actually, as early as 1917 Pat Sullivan had made an animation called 'The Tail of Thomas Kat', featuring a prototype of the later Felix. At first, Messmer's Felix was called Master Tom, but from the third cartoon, his name changed to Felix. While being the most popular cartoon character of the silent era, 'Felix the Cat' was also introduced as a newspaper comic in 1923, distributed by King Features.

CARTOONING AND ANIMATION HISTORY AND ORIGINS The word cartoon has various meanings, based on several very different forms of visual art and illustration. The artists who draw cartoons are known as cartoonists. What may be seen as possibly the earliest political cartoon is an anonymous woodcut entitled Le Revers du Jeu des Suysses (The Other Side of the Swiss Game), produced in 1499. The first popular animated character was Felix the cat who was created in 1919 and was the creation of animator Otto Messmer. The last Felix cartoon was released in 1928 when Mickey Mouse was published. Created by Ub Iwers Mickey Mouse is a hugely loved character world wide. Steamboat Willie (1928) was the starting point for all modern day animated films. Other popular cartoons characters’ developed in the 1930’s included Betty Boop, Popeye, and Superman, all created by the Felishcher studio.

The Warner Bros studio began in the early 1930’s and created the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, and between 1930 and 1950 they created characters’ such as Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd the Pink Panther, Road Runner, Wile E Coyote, Tweety Bird (Tweety Pie) and Porky Pig. In 1937 Walt Disney released their first full-length Animated feature film, Snow white and the seven Dwarfs. Although other studios had attempted to make full-length feature films, this was the first successful attempt. Over four years it took $1. 5 million to make the first animated film but grossed a profit of $8 million and became the most successful film release of the year. In 1940 they released Fantasia which was highly experimental and involved animation’s set to classical music, including Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s apprentice.

This was one of the turning points in animation history and when fantasia 2000 was released it finally received the popular acclaim it deserved. During the 1970’s and 1980’s a huge number of cartoons where created becoming popular on Saturday morning television. These included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Thundercats, The Care Bears, My little pony and Transformers. Similar cartoons currently produced include Sponge. Bob Squarepants and Avatar: The last Airbender; however current day cartoons are not produced in the quantities that were seen in the 1980’s.

In 1937 Walt Disney released their first fulllength Animated feature film, Snow white and the seven Dwarfs. Although other studios had attempted to make full-length feature films, this was the first successful attempt. Over four years it took $1. 5 million to make the first animated film but grossed a profit of $8 million and became the most successful film release of the year. In 1940 they released Fantasia which was highly experimental and involved animation’s set to classical music, including Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s apprentice.

Now days Cartoons are not only focusing on younger audiences but also being created for more of a general audience. The Simpsons created by Matt Groening, is the longest running television cartoon series, beginning in 1989, with new episodes still being released.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF ANIMATION (2 D 3 D ECT) Clay animation -Clay animation began shortly after plasticine (a clay-like substance) was invented in 1897, and one of the first films to use it was made in 1902. This type of animation was not very popular until Gumby was invented. Gumby is a green clay humanoid figure who was the subject of a 233 -episode series of American television which spanned over a 35 -year period. He was animated using stop motion clay animation. The invention of Gumby was a big step in the history of clay animation. Now, clay animation has become more popular and easier to do. Clay animations, such as the Wallace and Gromit series of movies, the advertisements that were made for the California Raisin Advisory Board and the Celebrity Deathmatch series have all helped to promote clay animation.

Computer animation - Computer animation has also become increasingly common. Computer animation began about 40 years ago when the first computer drawing system was created. It allows users to view a 3 D model of a car (example) and change the angles and rotation. Some movies that used computer animation are: Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump. A well-known computer animation company is Pixar. They are responsible for making Toy Story, the Incredibles, Monsters Inc. , Finding Nemo, and more.

Cel- shaded animation -Cel- shaded animationis a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make computer graphics appear to be hand-drawn. Cel-shading is often used to mimic the style of a comic book or cartoon. It is a somewhat recent addition to computer graphics, most commonly turning up in video games. However, the end result of cel-shading has a very simplistic feel like that of hand-drawn animation. Some television shows use the celshading style, these shows included Family Guy, Futurama, Fairly Oddparents, Spider-Man, The Simpsons, and many more.

2 D (drwan) animation - Animation began with Winsor Mc. Cay. He did his animations all by himself, and it took him a long time (about a year for a five minute cartoon). But for some, it was ridiculous that they would have to wait so much for so little. Then the modern animation studio came to be. Years later, more people would invent more cartoon characters. Otto Messmer invented the character 'Felix the Cat'. Later on, the Walt Disney Studio created 'Steamboat Willie', which introduced the character Mickey Mouse. Other companies started to make their own cartoons; some of which we can still watch today.

Rotoscoping – rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over liveaction film movements frame by frame for use in animated films. Its used in many films, disney uses the technique quite alot as well as in the films A Scanner Darkly and Waking life.

WELL KNOW CARTOON CHARACTERS Mickey Mouse- Mickey mouse is probably the best know cartoon character of all time; he was created by Ub Iwerks for Disney in 1928. Mickey Mouse’s first appearance was in Steamboat Willie and heinstantly became a character everyone loved. He has been in many television programs, books, films, and comics over the last 80 years with his happy cheerful personality but in 2009 Disney decided to change his personality for a new children’s programme (Mickey Mouse club house) and give him more of a mischievous and adventurous side.

Woody and buzz light-year – Woody and buzz lightyear are Pixar’s most famous characters, they stared in Pixar’s most famous trio of movies, Toy story, and where first created in 1995. The two characters are lively and interesting characters that children everywhere will recognise for their adventures in the 3 movies. Along with their other friends woody and buzz make toy story the epic film it is today. Wallace and Gromit – Wallace and Gromit were created by Nick Park in 1989 using plasticine, and the stop start motion known as claymotion. Wallace and Gromit the cheese loving duo are famous for their strange inventions and memorable adventures. Having stared in four short films and one feature length film the pair are very well know worldwide.

Tom and Jerry - William Hanna and Joseph Barbera Began working in the late 1930’s and released their first cartoon in 1940 about a cat and mouse, more commonly known as Tom and Jerry. Two very lively characters’ centering on a never-ending rivalry between a cat (Tom) and a mouse (Jerry) whose chases and battles often involved comic violence. The lively duo stared in over 100 cartoons and won may Oscars. The Simpsons - the Simpsons was created in 1989 by Matt Groening and is the longest lasting television cartoon series. The series is a satirical parody of a working class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. The family is known for their funny antics and bizarre lifestyle, and just the strange day to day activities they get up to.

Felix the cat –Felix the cat was a cartoon character from the silent era, Felix was a black a white cat who stared in many cartoons. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combine to make Felix one of the most recognized cartoon characters in film history. Me was created by Pat Sullivan on comic strips but was then later turned into an animation by Otto Mesmer

WELL KNOWN ANIMATED FILM STUDIOS Walt Disney pictures - Walt Disney pictures is an American owned film studio who’s main products are feature length films, as well as children’s television programmes. Many of the films Disney created are animation films. Disney is probably the best know Film Company and is famous for many films such as Lion King, Beauty and the beast, and Aladdin. Disney is also a very active film studio with five to six release every year.

Pixar -Pixar Animation Studios, commonly referred to as simply Pixar), is an American computer animation film studio. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6. 3 billion worldwide. Pixar has produced twelve feature films, beginning with Toy Story in 1995 there most famous film. followed by A Bug's Life in 1998, Toy Story 2 in 1999, Monsters, Inc. in 2001, Finding Nemo in 2003, The Incredibles in 2004, Cars in 2006, Ratatouille in 2007, WALL-E in 2008, Up in 2009, Toy Story 3 (to date, the highest-grossing animated film of all-time, grossing over $1 billion worldwide) in 2010, and Cars 2 in 2011.

Feishcher studio –

Warner Bro studios - The Warner Bros studio began in the early 1930’s and created the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. It recruited two great animators Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, and during the period up to the 1950’s they created characters’ such as Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd the Pink Panther, Road Runner, Wile E Coyote, Tweety Bird (Tweety Pie) and Porky Pig.