History of Animation.

 
 
The animation industry is a field many would look over in film-making. 
As far back as I can remember animation was a part of my development 
as a person, be it the Disney animated movies I saw as a kid or Pixar’s 
movies or even Dreamworks’ ‘Shrek’ franchise. I grew up with those all 
around me and it made me want to start animating, so with that in 
mind, where did animation start, when did it become colourful and 
when did we get to know certain voices and companies better than ever 
before. What is the history of animation? 
 
 
The first ‘Era’ of animation is often called ‘Early 
Animation’ as it starts the chain of evolution in the 
field. In 1832 the Phenakistoscope (pictured Left) was 
made, this wheel would spin and the human eye 
would perceive the images on it as one moving 
image. The Zoetrope was also used as both of these 
machines created ‘Persistence of Vision’ which is a 
trick of the eye where we perceive movement. Up 
until the twentieth century not much changed. 
 
Within the realm of ‘pre-animation’ animation, a lot of the influence for 
people such as Willis O’Brien who would later become known as ‘The 
man who made Kong’ as O’Brien’s claim to fame is his style of animation 
and the fact he did all the creature animation for King Kong. O’Brien 
would build rubber puppets and give them ‘bladders’ so they would 
look like they were breathing. This ‘breathing’ was both scary and 
intriguing to viewers. O’Brien would study gorillas for his work on the 
giant ape. He was one of the first animators to use a blue screen to 
merge live-action actors and animated puppets. 
  
 
The second ‘Era’ of animation is known as the ‘Silent Era’ or ‘Silent Age’ 
this would last until the nineteen-twenties. This is when Winsor McCay 
comes into the spotlight with movies such as ‘Gertie the Dinosaur’ and 
‘Little Nemo’ for which McCay also wrote and drew the comics it was 
based on. This ended with the introduction of both colour and voiced 
characters, going on to the ‘Golden Age’ of animation which began with 
‘Steamboat Willie’, the first animated short to have ‘voiced’ characters 
and diegetic sound and had the start of well-known series ‘Popeye’ as 
well as movies such as ‘Dumbo’ and ‘Bambi’. The golden age would end 
in the late 50s when animation in television became mainstream. 

 
 
Another example of an influencer in the field was Ray Harryhausen. 
Harryhausen, inspired by O’Brien’s work to become an animator 
himself, O’Brien would meet Harryhausen when the latter was eighteen. 
Harryhausen would enrol in Art and Anatomy classes in Los Angeles 
and would later enrol in film courses in Southern California. In 1949 
Harryhausen would work with his mentor, O’Brien, on the film ‘Mighty 
Joe Young’ which would achieve an academy award for special effects. 
Harryhausen would work on 1953’s ‘The beast from 20000 Fathoms’ and 
then two years later he would work on ‘It came from beneath the sea’ 
and then 1961’s ‘Mysterious Island’. In 1963 Harryhausen would work on 
his most famous picture ‘Jason and the Argonauts’. 

 
 
The fourth ‘Era’ of animation was the ‘Dark Age’ called such because it 
would see more television animation with lower quality animation rather 
than making higher quality feature-length movies. This era consists of 
‘Flintstones’, ‘Charlie Brown’, ending with the start of the Eighties. In the 
start of the Eighties with the start of the Renaissance, of note, Disney’s 
Renaissance with films such as ‘The Little Mermaid’ and started making 
its way into new mediums, for example, CGI, also known as Computer 
Generated Imagery as seen with movies such as ‘Shrek’ and ‘Toy Story’. 
  
 
With the rise of Computers used specifically for animation also came 
the heavy use of maquettes. Maquettes would be used to see what a 
character looks like in 3D and maquettes would be used to alter what a 
character looks like before the final design, at which point a final 
maquette is made of either the whole body or just the bust of a 
character, a bust being the head down to the bottom of the shoulder of 
the character’s body. 

 
 
Meanwhile, over in Japan, creators such as Hayao Miyazaki and Tatsuo 
Yoshida were rising stars of the animation field. In Japan Animation is 
commonly referred to as ‘Anime’ which stems from a ‘Manga’ art style. 
Manga comics are the predecessors to Anime, hence why both share an 
art style, this is also why Manga comics become Anime series’ and 
movies. Movies such as ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ and ‘Ponyo on the cliff’ 
give insight into common themes running through the work of Studio 
Ghibli, a studio which also created the following movies ‘Spirited Away’, 
‘My Neighbour Totoro’, ‘Princess Mononoke’, and ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ 
to name a few. Common themes within these are young female 
protagonists going on fantastical journeys and creatures not common 
in nature, such as spirits, whatever Totoro and Ponyo are and Howl, 
who isn’t entirely human. 

 
 
Modern animated movies and television programming have well-known 
voices for each character, for example, the series ‘Teen Titans’ each 
character has a distinct voice, provided by a highly trained voice actor, 
compare this to the Celebrity voice acting seen in films such as ‘Shrek’ 
and ‘Toy Story’. Voice Actors are the people you never see unless they 
are famous. Actors such as Cameron Diaz are much more widely known 
than Voice Actors like Grey DeLisle. Any person interested in Media will 
know at least one Cameron Diaz movie, yet few will know more than five 
voice actors. 
  
With Voice Acting comes Lip Synching, the two go hand in hand unless 
narration is used. Lip Synching as pictured above, is when certain 
mouth shapes are drawn to match with what the actor or script states, 
every time a character on screen talks and their mouth is visible to the 
audience, their mouth will move with the words. In cases such as 
‘Dubbing’ (the act of dubbing voices on top of animation due to it’s 
broadcasting in a different country, for example, an anime being 
dubbed in English) the lip-synching doesn’t match due to translation 
from the original country to the new language after the show has been 
fully animated. However in Cases of ‘Subbing’ (where subtitles are used 
instead of dubbing over the voices), the lip-synching will match what the 
subtitles are translating. 
  
 
The evolution of animation has been one long transition from paper to 
celluloid to computer graphics. The medium as a whole has also 
transitioned from silence to a full array of both Celebrity and Trained 
Voice Actors. Going from the late 1800s into the 2010s has been a long 
journey of trial, error, failure, success and then a transition into being 
relegated as ‘Children’s Media’ even though, not all animation is for 
children, take ‘The Ren & Stimpy Show’ for example, back in August 1991 
up until October 1996 John Kricfalusi and Bob Camp would write and 
produce one of the weirdest, most outlandish animated shows in 
history, in which Ren, a psychotic Chihuahua, and Stimpy, a dimwitted 
cat (full name Stimpson J. Cat) were the subjects of weird premises such 
as ‘hairballs, filthy litterboxes, sentient farts, jars of spit, outhouses, 
eating dirt’ and other disgusting substances and situations. This is a 
cartoon not meant for kids as the jokes can get political and the 
animation can get very gory and dark. 
  
 
And yet somehow, the animation medium is still regarded as ‘Children’s 
Entertainment’ with the field being so diverse with many different 
studios creating wildly different projects. For example: 
Fuzzy Door Productions, a self-started animation studio from the mind 
of Seth McFarlane creates ‘Family Guy’ and it’s many spin-off series’. 
Rough Draft Studios, founded by Gregg and Nikki Vanzo has three 
different studio locations and worked on projects such as ‘Futurama’. 
South Park Studios in Colorado, produces mainly ‘South Park’ episodes. 
OLM, Inc (formerly Oriental Light and Magic) produces ‘Pokemon’. 
Disney Television Animation produces shows for Disney. 
Illumination Entertainment, best known for the ‘Despicable Me’ 
franchise.  
Williams Street Productions in Atlanta produces ‘Rick and Morty’. 
Blue Sky Studios is best known for the ‘Ice Age’ franchise. 
Sunrise Inc. has created ‘Cowboy Bebop’ and all of ‘Gundam’ both of 
these are successful and well-known anime shows. 
Laika Entertainment is best known for their stop-motion puppetry, as 
are Aardman Animations. 
 
Speaking of Aardman Animations, their history is quite fascinating. 
Peter Lord and David Sproxton became close prior to graduating in the 
early seventies. They registered Aardman Animations and moved to 
Bristol and then in 1982 the show ‘Take Hart’ asked them to produce an 
animated character who would become ‘Morph’. After leaving school in 
1985 Nick Park joined Lord and Sproxton’s team. Aardman worked on 
the video for Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ and the music video work 
would continue for ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’ and ‘Barefootin’’. In the 
late eighties and early nineties, the studio would produce ‘Lip Synch’ a 
commissioned series of shorts for Channel 4. They would win an Oscar 
in 1990, and then a second in 1993 for ‘The Wrong Trousers’ and a third 
in 1995 for ‘A Close Shave’. Aardman continues to make animated 
movies and shorts today. An article from Holly Bentley of The Guardian 
in 2009 stated ‘Wallace & Gromit's feature film debut ... won the Academy 
Award for best-animated ... a Bafta for best British film’. 
 
In Conclusion, through the years (starting in the late 1890s) animation 
has become a much wider field for both experimental filmmakers like 
Laika Entertainment and those who want to reach back and create a 
sense of nostalgia, like Disney. With creators such as Willis O’Brien and 
Ray Harryhausen animation started out strong. It has since then had its 
ups and downs, for example being associated with Children’s 
entertainment alone, instead of being seen as a medium for all ages as 
it should be seen, with creators such as Trey Parker and Matt Stone 
being well known as adult-oriented creators for animation in television. 
It went from silent animation with live-action actors talking in-between 
or over the animated segments, to full-voiced animation. 
 
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