Animation: Where It Began and Where It Is Today

Tully Scott

10/9/06

Mrs. Yunker

Broadcast Video

Animation: Where it began and where it is today

The first examples of trying to capture motion into a drawing can be found in Paleolithic cave paintings. Early man drew animals that had multiple legs, clearly attempting to depict a sense of motion. Shadow Puppetry was also an animation ancestor found in Indonesia around 900 A.D. Shadow puppetry involved an animated puppet called Wayang, which put on shows for poorer audiences. The first animated film was created by Frenchman Йmile Reynaud. He invented the praxinoscope, an animation system using loops of 12 pictures that played a slideshow. On October 28, 1892 at a museum in France, he exhibited animations consisting of loops of about 500 frames. He used a system similar in principle to a modern film projector. The first animation on standard picture film was Humorous Phases of Funny Faces by J. Stuart Blackton in 1906. It featured a cartoonist drawing faces on a chalkboard, and the faces coming to life. Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first animated film to use Technicolor and the first to become successful within the English-speaking world.

Animation has come a long way since the early 1900's. Today, the animation industry is one of the largest in the world. With more than ten television networks in the U.S. dedicated almost solely to the broadcasting of cartoons and animation, it is no wonder that the industry has grown so quickly. There are multiple different jobs available in the animation field. Some examples are: graphic design, cartooning, painting, illustrating, special effects, film editing, voice acting, and many more. Many critics believe that the popularity of animation came and went with the 90's, but there has been an increase in the demand of animation related jobs lately. It had long been thought that Disney dominated the world of animation, but in the last decade Steven Spielberg and other producers have put their own animation to the test. Today, the animation industry has branched out to meet the needs of many different cultures. Many cartoons and animation aired at night has a more adult oriented audience, while the cartoons in the mornings tend to be more child oriented.