Skip to main content

BSA106 The golden age of American Animation.

Disney, founded in 1923, is still to this day one of the most well known companies for animation.

Steamboat Willie (1928) was initially intended as a silent short but ended up a sound film. It is credited for the introduction of Mickey Mouse, one of the most well-known Disney characters. It was received well and after it's success all disney animations were made with sound.


The skeleton Dance (1929) was the first of a series of shorts named "The silly symphonies". It was also recieved well as the optimistic characters offered people a lift during the depression.

Three Little pigs (1933) was the most successful of the silly symphonies, so much so that it won an oscar for the best short film. The song "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf" became a song of resilience in the harsh economic climate in America.

The Wise little hen (1934) featured the first appearance of Donald duck (who would come to overtake Mickey mouse as disney's most popular character).

The Old Mill (1936) was a short that was basically used to test out techniques. It began the beginning of the Disney's striving for more realism. The short shows more realistic animals and also has more realistic sound effects when compared to the shorts that had come before it.
Along with the short films Disney made, they also realeased feature length films during this period, including;
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Pinocchio (1940)
Dumbo (1941)
Bambi (1942)
Cinderella (1950)
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Peter Pan (1953)

Thanks to the invention of the rotoscope technique that had been created by Max Fleischer, animators could trace over live-action to create a more realistic animation.
Max Fleischer was also an animator himself. He created one of the most well known characters, Betty Boop. Originally designed as an anthropomorphic poodle, she was later re-modeled to appear a human. She was the first cartoon sex symbol with many of the films she appeared in having sexual references. She was popular with adult audiences, although with the introduction of the Hays code, her sexuality was toned down. She was designed with longer skirts and given a boyfriend along with other changes to make her seem more publically acceptable. She was then marketed to a younger audience, however, this led to her waning popularity and the last Betty Boop cartoon ended in 1939.

Popeye the sailor (1933) was another Fleischer creation. He started as a comic strip, introduced on screen alongside Betty Boop. He soon grew more popular among audiences than Betty Boop herself and in 1935 beat Mickey mouse in popularity polls.

Gulliver's travels (1939) was another animation from the period that used the rotoscope technique. However, the technique worked with only moderate success, receiving criticism because the cartoon characters contrasted with the realistic human characters.

In Superman (1941) Fleischer studios gave superman power of flight instead of just having the extra powerful leaping abilities that he had been given previously. The power of flight stuck and Superman now flies always. Thug Life.

Meanwhile, Warner Brothers was also creating their own well known characters and series.
One such character was Daffy Duck, created by Tex Avery. Avery preferred his other character, Egghead and dropped Daffy. Bob Clampett later picked up Daffy and redesigned him. Throughout the years daffy was modified by different animators.

Bugs bunny was another well known creation from this time created by Ben Hardaway, and named because of Hardaway's nickname "bugs".

Tom and Jerry was a series of shorts created in 1940 by Hanna-Barbera. It is a well known comedy of a cat chasing a mouse... constantly.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

BSA106 German Expressionism.

German Expressionism in film came about after WW1, after Germany lost the war. Germany wanted to revitalise the film industry and to create a better impression for the country. The German government subsidised the UFA (Universum-film AG), whose studios were the largest and best equipped in Europe. This became Germans golden age of cinema. German Expressionist film lasted from 1919 to 1933 when Adolf Hitler came into power. Unlike other Western films of that period that focused more so on creating realism, German Expressionism distorts reality to create an emotional effect. Expressionism films employed stylised set design, elaborate costuming, shadowy lighting that emphasises bold contrasts of dark and bright highlights and unnatural make-up. The settings are typically distorted and exaggerated, with key themes being madness, criminality and fracturing of identity. German Expressionism was a huge influence in developing the horror genre. They began to tell the story

BSA126 Animation Character - Tim Lockwood, Cloudy with a Chance of meatballs.

Tim Lockwood Tim Lockwood is Flint's father in 'Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs'. I picked him because I think he is interesting because he doesn't have any eyes that we can see but the animators are able to show us his emotions purely by his eyebrow movements. Structurally, Tim's face is made up of very simple shapes, His eyebrows are a simple rectangle shape that has been given a hair-like texture design to show they are very bushy. His nose is also a rectangular shape with little realistic design apart from the flat rectangular shape. His mustache is similar to his eyebrows, only a slight curve to show gravity and to make his face seem more realistic. It also doubles as a mouth shape in many ways, similar to how his uni-brow doubles as eyes. The head shape itself is basically a conical shape with curving lines which indicates a chin. Tim Lockwood's personality is quite bland and conventional. Therefore, the shirt he wears is a pale, greyish b

BSA206 Animation History 1990s

Due to the success of The Simpsons , more experimental TV animation began emerging. The Tick was a 1994 animation that was based on Ben Edlund's absurdist superhero comic and adapted into an animated series by Fox. The Critic (1994) was created by The Simpsons writers. It is about a critic who hates contemporary films. Duckman  (1994) was created by Everett Peck and it was based on characters from his comic. It was aimed at an adult audience and Duckman was voiced by Jason Alexander from Sienfeld . The Big Story  depicts an argument between young Kirk Douglas and old Kirk Douglas. Quentin Tarantino liked it so much that he requested it to be played before Pulp Fiction screenings. The Big Story is a 1994 stop motion film that was nominated for an Oscar. It was created by Tim Watts and David Stoten who went on work on other films including working on the storyboards for Tim Burton's Corpse Bride . In 1995 Dave Brothwick created The Secret Adventures of T