Lecture 6 - Animation Part 2...

This is a follow on from my previous blog post, listing the chronology of animation history...

The Television Age arrived from 1958... This is where companies such as Hanna-Barbera became the centre of attention, with TV series such as "The Flintstones" and "Huckleberry Hound" (1960 onwards).

This is also where Bob Godfrey found his creativity, making "Do it yourself Cartoon Kit" (1961) through to the successful TV series "Roobarb and Custard" (1977) being just highlights of his career.
Then there's films such as "Ersatz (Surogat)" (1961) and Jiri Trnka's "The Hand" (1965) that address the issues of the modern age in subtle ways, which shows that animators were starting to use their skills as ways of sending messages to their audiences.

Ersatz (Surogat)

The Hand

Animators of this time were starting to experiment with different techniques, rather then just drawing in 2D; There was Stan Brakhage, who stuck real insects and leaves to a roll of film to create the piece "Mothlight"; Ray Harryhousen who dominated the stop motion and special effects areas with films such as "Jason and the Argonauts"; and Chuck Jones was one of the first to use only shapes to represent emotions in "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics" (1965).

The Dot and the Line

Jason and the Argonauts

Mothlight

There's also the first signs of Anime, in the series "Astro Boy", from 1963 onwards, telling the story of a robot boy with high intelligence fighting evil.

After Walt Disney's death in 1966, the TV series's and other artists became a lot more dominant with the public, with programmes, films and music videos such as:

The Clangers

Gordan Murray: "Camberwick Green" (1966)
Terry Gilliam: "Monthy Python's Flying Circus" (1966)
Oliver Postgate: "The Clangers" (1969)
Richard Williams: "A Christmas Carol" (1971)
Ivor Caprino's: "The Pinchcliffe Grande Prix" (1975)
Martin Rosen's: "Watership Down" (1979)
Roger Mainwood's: Autobahn music video (1979)
Yuri Norstien's: "Tale of Tales" (1979)
Tim Burton's first film "Vincent" (1982)

The Pinchcliffe Grande Prix

Don Bluth's: "The Secret of Nimh" (1982)
Steven Lisber's: "Tron" (1982)
Gerald Scarfe's: "Pink Floyd The Wall" (1982)

Tale of Tales

From the 1980's onwards, animators carried on refining their talents, and developing new technologies to try new ways of using the old techniques in the modern world; thus came the stages towards the digital age.
Cosgrove Hall's "Wind in the Willows" and Pixar's "Luxo Jr." are good examples of using two different, but advanced techniques to create animation.
Wind in the Willows uses a more detailed stop motion, using anthropomorphised creatures with human voiceovers. Whereas Luxo Jr showed the potential use of 3D Computer Animation, which was groundbreaking at the time.

Then came along Jimmy Murakami, Brothers Quay and Joanna Quinn; again all using different techniques, but are all equally as brilliant and innovative in showing others in the direction of the digital age.

When the Wind Blows - Jimmy Murakami

Street of Crocodiles - Brothers Quay

Girl's Night Out - Joanna Quinn

Jan Svankmajer is a big personality in the animation world. During the 80's he dealt with a range of subject matters using a whole range of techniques in a surreal way. He used a mixture of live action, pixilation, stop motion, and other traditional techniques to experiment and express his thoughts on particular subjects; one of his famous works that was pointed out is "Alice", which was made in 1988.

Alice

Also made in that year was "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" by Disney. It's a combination of live action and animation, which became one of the biggest budget movies of all time, since it used so much technology. Other animations have been made like this, but unlike them, the animation in this responded to the camera movements, rather then the other way round, which gave it a better sense of solid characters.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Then big feature films such as "My Neighbour Totoro", "Beauty and the Beast", and "Jurassic Park" were released between 1988 and 1993. They all use different techniques and were groundbreaking in their own ways.

After this Pixar upped their game and created the first fully computer generated feature film "Toy Story" (1995). This was yet another groundbreaking prospect for everyone to comprehend, as it created so many opportunities in later years.
This technique compared with Aardman using stop motion to create films such as "Wallace and Gromit", are both equally applauded and successful, which proves there are many ways to become successful in this industry!

Toy Story

Wallace and Gromit

Other countries around the world are starting to develop their technologies too; Manga Studios in Japan created big blockbuster movie "Ghost in the Shell" (1995), which combines 2D effects with computer generated graphics.

Ghost in the Shell

A few more shorts and feature length films such as "A Bug's Life" (1998) and Dutch film "Father and Daughter" (2000) bring us through to the 'Naughties'.

The Gorillaz, a music band, have had many successful animated music videos; their style is instantly recognised and it's yet another modern way to use animation.

A series of successful short films came next, using various techniques such as 2D, computer generated, stop motion and rotoscoping:
Narayan Shi's: "Freedom Song" (2000)
Sylvain Chomet's: "Le Triplettes of Belleville" (2003)
Run Wrake's: "Rabbit" (2005)
Pleix's: "Plaid-Itsu" (2006)
Blu's: "Muto" (2007) (using graffiti on walls)
Ari Folman's: "Waltz with Bashir" (2008)

Le Triplettes of Belleville

Waltz with Bashir

Rabbit

Muto

2009 was a year where a lot of stop motion animated feature films were released, including "Coraline", "Fantastic Mr Fox" and "9", all proving that animation is still very popular.


All of these films and many more have appeared throughout history, inspiring many people to showcase their talents to create such wonderful pieces of work. After learning more about when all of these animations are placed within history I have a better idea of what happened and when.