Animation Timeline

History of Animation

Max Fleischer - Out of the Inkwell - Late 1800’s / Early 1900’s

Max Fleischer is an animator that was born in 1883 in Vienna. Fleischer has said to be one of the pioneers of animation due to his incredible imagination and inventions. Fleischer invented the rotoscope, along-side with his brother in 1915. The rotoscope is a remarkable device because it creates realistic animation such as Betty Boop, Koko the Clown, Popeye, and Superman (Also his character inventions) to theater screens and was also accountable for other technological creations.

Winsor McCay - Gertie the Dinosaur - See on blog for presentation

Pat Sullivan - Felix The Cat - 1910’s / 1920’s

Pat Sullivan is an Australian cartoonist, film producer, and an animator  that was born in 1887, Paddington Australia. Sullivan’s work is best known for Felix the Cat silent cartoons.  Sullivan had a friend named John McCrae, an Australian writer who lived together. John McCrae was told to draw the cartoons whilst Sullivan supplied the ideas for the cartoons. Felix the Cat was one of the longest running cartoons that was ever recorded and a cartoon that was viewed more than 2 generations. In this current day and age, Felix the Cat is ranked 28 on the ‘50 Greatest Cartoon Character of All Time’

Walt Disney - Steamboat Willie - 1920’s / 1930’s

Walt Disney was born in 1901 in Chicago Illinois, US. Disney is a entrepreneur and animator that is known for creating fictional character such as the famous Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. Disney would make the animators and directors come together and discuss how the storyboard would be like and then they’d go off to sketch a rough drawing. Steamboat Willie shows Mickey Mouse on a boat with a few other characters on board. This was also Mickey Mouse’s debut to cartoon life and one of the first synchronised sound along with character sounds and character score. Steamboat Willie included:

• Hand Drawn Cartoon
• Time Limitation
• Black & White
• No Voices
• Basic Animation

Walt Disney received four honorary Academy Awards and won 22 Academy Awards from a total of 59 nominations. Walt Disney is arguably the greatest animator / entrepreneur of all time.

Hannah Barbera - 1940’s / 1960’s

Hannah Barbera’s famous characters:

• The Flinstones
• Yogi Bear
• The Smurfs
• Scooby-Doo

Hanna-Barbera Cartoons Inc., founded by the animation team of Joseph Barbera and William Hanna in 1957, rose to prominence as the first successful producers of cartoons for television. They are perhaps best known for developing a formula for inexpensively-made cartoons, which relied on characterization and topical, verbal humor, rather than fully animated action, as had been common among cartoons produced for theatrical release. By the mid-1960s the company had achieved a string of successes including producing the first animated series to appear on prime-time television, The Flintstones.

Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin - Noggin the Nog & Bagpuss - 1960’s / 1970’s

‘Bagpuss', 'The Clangers', 'Noggin The Nog', 'Ivor The Engine' - just four of the fabulous childrens series conceived and animated by Oliver Postgate and his SmallFilms partner, the camera-shy Peter Firmin. Oliver was the writer and director for most of the films, sharing animation duties with Peter, and narrating them too. Then there were the tie-in books, the TV-Land comic strips and annuals. In all SmallFilms were in production for twenty five years, spanning generations, filling the BBC's 5.30pm slot just before the news, or the  lunch time slot just after it, or repeated during those long Summer Holiday mornings  until the mid-80s, when 'The Powers That Be' deemed them too old-fashioned and out of touch with their modern audience. The clever techniques used for the character was animation that an illustrator drawing each frame and the style were old fashioned.

Nick Park - 1990’s

Nick Park, in full Nicholas Wulstan Park (Born Dec. 6, 1958, Preston, Lancashire, England) is a  British animator and director of stop-motion films that often feature his characters Wallace and Gromit.

Park demonstrated an early ability to draw, and by age 13 he was animating his cartoon creation Walter the Rat with his mother’s standard 8-mm movie camera. When he was 15, one of his homemade films was shown on television as part of the BBC’s Young Animators Film Competition. Nick Park mainly uses claymation in his work. Claymation is a particular type of stop frame animation. Models are made and the scene is captured with a camera. After each picture is taken, the models are moved a tiny bit and eventually, when the images are all viewed together, it can appear that the models are really moving. Aardman Animations are leaders in this field with their Wallace and Gromit series of short and feature-length films

Advanced Technology - 2000 / 2010

As generations pass, we see that animation is much more easier and quicker to produce. The visual effects on modern day animation is far more crisp and the textures is more realistic to look at. Top 5 softwares you can use to make stunning HD and 3D animation is Photoshop, 3D’s Max, Mari 2.0v2, Unity Pro 3, and Premiere Pro CC. As digital technology has improved, both for creating animations and watching them, it has become increasingly popular for use in animation. Toy Story (1995) was the first major animated movie to be made entirely using computer animation, and the trend has continued to develop from that point. Animations which are made for the Internet and computer games are also created using digital programs.