One Hundred and One Dalmations speeded up the drawing process by Xeroxing the drawings instead of getting "pretty girls" to hand ink them. Apparently Walt Disney wasn't happy with this time saving process and felt that the film was loosing some of the magic.
Tron (1982) was an early attempt to bring 3D CGI to feature films, though 2D CGI had been used on Westworld (1973). Toy Story was the first feature length animation in CGI.
Stop motion was used on King Kong in 1933 using puppets of different sizes and groundbreaking cinematography techniques.There are clips from a number of films here and here. Morph was my introduction to claymation and still captivates me.
Hanna-Barbera used cel animation to produce cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo for TV. To keep up with demand they developed a technique called limited animation which recycled sequences and only kept to essential movements required to tell the story. This meant that a 10 minute cartoon could be reduced from 26,000 frames to 1,200. Although this was noticeable even to a child, the stories kept moving so you didn't care, I wonder what the iPad generation of children think when they watch an old cartoon.....
Film makers sometimes mix techniques, for the Curse of the Were Rabbit when the rabbits were in the bun vac it was impossible to have them all in the air at once using claymation so one was scanned and inserted using CGI In the film every time a rabbit leaves the ground you are looking at a CGI version and when they land it goes back to stop motion.
Cutout figures have been used for animation but didn't appear to be very popular. The only use that I and aware of was in the Captain Pugwash children's TV series from the 1960's. If you watch the clip here you can see how the moving cutouts are used. The technique is quite limiting but set against Hanna Barbara's limited animation which was prevalent at the time this didn't look particularly out of place and is quite charming in its simplicity. I do remember being taken to see some of the frames in an exhibition in London somewhere and being fascinated by them.
I don't know what type of animation this is but it's unexpectedly effective. PES has some fantastic ideas. Strangely in animation the more that I can see that it's a handmade item the more I like it so, for me, this and claymation beat CGI everyday.
After I posted this I saw this short film using George Butler's drawings which are gently animated in a way that will be familiar to people who grew up with 1960's TV. His political message is powerful and the subtle use of animation enhances it.
Hanna-Barbera used cel animation to produce cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo for TV. To keep up with demand they developed a technique called limited animation which recycled sequences and only kept to essential movements required to tell the story. This meant that a 10 minute cartoon could be reduced from 26,000 frames to 1,200. Although this was noticeable even to a child, the stories kept moving so you didn't care, I wonder what the iPad generation of children think when they watch an old cartoon.....
Film makers sometimes mix techniques, for the Curse of the Were Rabbit when the rabbits were in the bun vac it was impossible to have them all in the air at once using claymation so one was scanned and inserted using CGI In the film every time a rabbit leaves the ground you are looking at a CGI version and when they land it goes back to stop motion.
Cutout figures have been used for animation but didn't appear to be very popular. The only use that I and aware of was in the Captain Pugwash children's TV series from the 1960's. If you watch the clip here you can see how the moving cutouts are used. The technique is quite limiting but set against Hanna Barbara's limited animation which was prevalent at the time this didn't look particularly out of place and is quite charming in its simplicity. I do remember being taken to see some of the frames in an exhibition in London somewhere and being fascinated by them.
I don't know what type of animation this is but it's unexpectedly effective. PES has some fantastic ideas. Strangely in animation the more that I can see that it's a handmade item the more I like it so, for me, this and claymation beat CGI everyday.
After I posted this I saw this short film using George Butler's drawings which are gently animated in a way that will be familiar to people who grew up with 1960's TV. His political message is powerful and the subtle use of animation enhances it.
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