ANIMATION ANIMATION AGES AGES

Written by: Felicia Low (3 1), Tan Sheena (3 8), Goh Zhi En (2 8)

What is Animation?

Anime, animated cartoons, or as animation – you have probably seen at least one film which features these. Yet what exactly is ‘animation’? By definition, animation is a sequence of images that when pieced together show a fluid movement. However, that barely describes the heart and soul of animation. In this article, we will delve into the lesserknown history of animation and explore its origins, discovering how its industry flourished to become the widespread media form it is today.

1900s- 1920s: The dawn of animation

Animation as we have come to know it first appeared in the early to mid-1800s. This came in the form of creations such as the Zoetrope - a cylinder with slits which produces a scene made up of sequenced images when it rotates quickly. Yet it was only in the 1920s when animation techniques were invented that the art form truly began to develop. During this era, the style of ‘rubber hose animation’ was widely used and could be seen featured in world-renowned characters such as the design of Mickey Mouse in the 1928 animation ‘Steamboat Willie’. This is the earliest form of an inkblot animation style, showcasing heavy use of black inks on white backgrounds and exaggerated facial expressions.

1930s-1980s: The Golden Age of Animation and the American Television Era

In 1930, animation now featured sounds and even colour in cartoons, giving birth to countless unforgettable classics such as Betty Boop, Tom & Jerry and even the first animated series Superman. The golden age of animation shows how the popularity of animation skyrocketed, with Walt Disney using more realistic animation styles compared to his earlier works utilising rubber-hose animation. One notable example of this would be Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) which secured an Honorary Oscar! On the other hand, the American television era highlights how animation on television gained traction during the late 1950s, ending around the mid to late 1980s.

The inner-workings of animation

Up till this point, animation was done by meticulously drawing each frame by hand, referred to nowadays as 'traditional animation' or 'cel animation', the latter term was derived from the word ‘cellulose’, the thin sheet of plastic material post-1915 animators would draw on. Artists would draw different elements such as the background or characters on sheets of cel (or paper, before cel was invented), each drawing slightly different from the previous to give the illusion of movement Each frame was then photographed individually.

Although most frames were replicated wholesale two to three times to make motion smoother (animating ‘on twos’ or ‘on threes’ respectively), the number of frames still added up to a whole 24 frames per second. Imagine the sheer amount of effort it would take to animate an entire 2-hour long movie that way! The transparent nature of cels meant each element could be drawn separately and non-moving elements need not be replicated. However, animators were still very much restricted by whatever they could easily replicate thousands of times by hand.