mY hObBy :): Animated cartoon

An animated cartoon is a film for the cinema, television or computer screen, which is made using sequential drawings,^{[Note 1]} as opposed to animations in general, which include films made using clay, puppet and other means.

Early years

Early examples of attempts to capture the phenomenon of motion into a still drawing can be found in paleolithic cave paintings, where animals are often depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion.

The phenakistoscope (1832), zoetrope (1834) and praxinoscope (1877), as well as the common flip book, were early animation devices to produce movement from sequential drawings using technological means, but animation did not develop further until the advent of motion picture film.

A horse animated by rotoscopingfrom Eadweard Muybridge's 19th century photos. The animation consists of 8 drawings, which are "looped", i.e. repeated over and over.

Silent era

The first animated projection (screening) was created in France, by Charles-Émile Reynaud, who was a French science teacher. Reynaud created the Praxinoscope in 1877 and the Théâtre Optique in December 1888. On 28 October 1892, he projected the first animation in public, Pauvre Pierrot, at the Musée Grévin in Paris. This film is also notable as the first known instance of film perforations being used. His films were not photographed, but drawn directly onto the transparent strip. In 1900, more than 500,000 people had attended these screenings.

The first (photographed) animated projection was "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" (1906) by newspaper cartoonist J. Stuart Blackton, one of the co-founders of the Vitagraph Company arrived. In the movie, a cartoonist's line drawings of two faces were 'animated' (or came to life) on a blackboard. The two faces smiled and winked, and the cigar-smoking man blew smoke in the lady's face; also, a circus clown led a small dog to jump through a hoop.

The first animated projection in the traditional sense (i.e., on motion picture film) was "Fantasmagorie" by the French director Émile Cohl in 1908. This was followed by two more films, "Le Cauchemar du fantoche" ["The Puppet's Nightmare", now lost] and "Un Drame chez les fantoches" ["A Puppet Drama", called "The Love Affair in Toyland" for American release and "Mystical Love-Making" for British release], all completed in 1908.

One of the very first successful animated cartoons was Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) by Winsor McCay. It is considered the first example of true character animation. At first, animated cartoons were black-and-white and silent. Felix the Cat and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit are notable examples.

"Golden Age"

From the 1930s to 1960s, theatrical cartoons were produced in huge numbers, and usually shown before a feature film in a movie theater. Disney (distributed by United Artists, then RKO, then independentally), Fleischer (distributed by Paramount), Warner Bros., MGM, Walter Lantz (distributed by Universal), and UPA (distributed by Columbia) were the largest studios producing these 5 to 10-minute "shorts". Other studios included Ub Iwerks (distributed by MGM and independently), Charles Mintz Studios (distributed by Columbia), Terrytoons (distributed by 20th Century-Fox) and Van Beuren (distributed by RKO).

The first cartoon to use a soundtrack was in 1926 with Max Fleischer's My Old Kentucky Home. However the Fleischers used a De Forest sound system and the sound was not completely synchronized with the film. Walt Disney's 1928 cartoon Steamboat Willie starring Mickey Mouse was the first to use a click track during the recording session, which produced bettersynchronism. "Mickey Mousing" became a term for any movie action (animated or live action) that was perfectly synchronized with music. The music used is original most of the time, but musical quotation is often employed. Animated characters usually performed the action in "loops", i.e., drawings were repeated over and over.

Although other producers had made films earlier using 2 strip color, Disney produced the first cartoon in 3 strip Technicolor, "Flowers and Trees", in 1932. Technicians at the Fleischer studio invented rotoscoping, in which animators trace live-action in order to make animation look more realistic. However, rotoscoping made the animation look stiff and the technique was later used more for studying human and animal movement, rather than directly tracing and copying filmed movements.^[1]

Later, other movie technologies were adapted for use in animation, such as multiplane cameras with The Old Mill (1937), stereophonic sound in Fantasia (1940), widescreen processes with Lady and the Tramp (1955), and even 3D with Lumber Jack-Rabbit.

Today, traditional animation uses traditional methods, but is aided by computers in certain areas. This gives the animator new tools not available .

Commercial animation

Animation has been very popular in television commercials, both due to its graphic appeal, and the humor it can provide. Some animated characters in commercials have survived for decades, such as Snap, Crackle and Pop in advertisements for Kellogg's cereals.

The legendary animation director Tex Avery was the producer of the first Raid "Kills Bugs Dead" commercials in 1966, which were very successful for the company. The concept has been used in many countries since.