Animation is a visual technique that creates the illusion of motion, rather than recording motion through live action. The technique is used mainly for motion pictures and video games. Animation can be created by illustrators, filmmakers, video makers, and computer specialists. Advertisers also employ animation to develop commercials for television. In addition, producers of instructional films may use animation to help explain a difficult idea or one that could not be shown in live action. Animation can also be combined with live action in a movie.
In the past, in making an animated film, a filmmaker would photograph a series of drawings or objects one by one. Each drawing or object takes up one frame of the film. The position of a character or scene changes slightly from frame to frame. When the film is shown through a projector, the pictures appear to move.
Animation can exist with little technology. One simple animation device is the flip book, a group of sketches in sequence placed one on top of the other. When a viewer flips the pages rapidly, the images appear to move.
Since the late 1900’s, however, digital technology has dominated animation. Digital technology includes computers and other types of electronic equipment and applications that use information in the form of numeric code. Digital technology can add to or replace traditional techniques by creating animation partly or entirely using a computer. Computers have become so common in film, video, and animation production that almost every moving image made today is generated on a computer to some extent.
Through the digital revolution, animators have many technical choices available when they create a movie. Digital technology has made possible greater realism, more exciting special effects, and more elaborate fantasy stories. However, technology alone does not attract or entertain audiences. An interesting story and appealing characters will always be necessary.
Loading the player...Cel animation of a puppy
This article will discuss the preliminary steps in creating an animated film, the different paths followed by traditional hand-drawn animation and by computer animation, and the history of animation.
Preliminary steps in animation
The use of computers has brought great changes to animation production. But several processes remain the same in both traditional and digital methods.
The first step in making any animated film is creating a story. After a story has been established, an artist and writer prepare a storyboard, which serves as the film’s script. The storyboard resembles a giant comic strip. It consists of rough sketches that portray the action of the story, with the dialogue accompanying each sketch.
After the director and other key personnel approve the storyboard, performers make a recording of the dialogue and any music that must be synchronized (matched) with the action. The composer and performers carefully follow the storyboard to make sure the music and dialogue match each sequence of the action.
Animators synchronize animation to sound using a guide called an exposure sheet. The sheet indicates the number of frames needed to express each movement and each word of the recorded dialogue. In computer animation, the artist “digitizes” the sounds so they can be played back as well as visually graphed on the computer screen. Material is digitized by translating it from its original form into a format that a computer can read, electric charges representing numbers.
Up to this point, both computer-animated and traditionally drawn animated productions follow a similar path. But now traditional animation and computer animation diverge.
Traditional animation
In traditional animation, layout artists work with the director to determine what settings will be drawn, how each character will act and look, and how the action can best be broken down into scenes. After these decisions have been made, the layout artists prepare drawings to guide two other groups of artists, called background artists and animators.
The background artists draw all the backgrounds for the film—that is, everything that will appear on the screen except the characters. The animators make separate drawings of the characters. Working from the exposure sheet, the animators must create the exact number of drawings required by the action and dialogue. In one episode, for example, a character may answer the telephone by saying “Hello.” The exposure sheet shows that the word “Hello” requires eight frames. The animators thus must make eight drawings in which the character’s mouth moves in sequence to form the word. They must also include all the character’s body movements.
In the past, after the animators completed their drawings, another group of artists traced the drawings onto clear sheets of celluloid acetate called cels. Tens of thousands of separate cels in sequence were required for a feature-length animation movie, and a lesser number were needed for many television cartoons.
A painting department applied colors to the reverse side of the cels. The completed cels were then sent to the camera department, where camera operators photographed the cels frame by frame over the proper background. The exposure sheets told the camera operator which cels and backgrounds were needed for each frame. After the camera operators completed the photography, the sound track was added. Finally, the studio made prints of the film and released it.
Today, most hand-drawn animated productions use photoelectric devices called scanners to translate the drawings from their original form into a format that a computer can read. Artists can then ink and paint the drawings on the computer. The backgrounds are also scanned and painted on the computer and combined with the characters.
Computer animation
The most popular form of animation is called the computer-generated image (CGI) or just computer graphics (CG). Almost every modern film, video, and animation production uses computers to create at least some images. CGI can create the illusion of entire three-dimensional worlds as models inside a computer. These models can include trees, grass, and even weather that interact with believable, but entirely digital, characters.
Generating animation on a computer can be complex. Since the 1980’s, the artists in the computer animation and effects industry have become more specialized. Some artists concentrate on modeling figures on the computer and designing virtual sets—that is, artificial sets created on a computer. Still others concentrate on special effects, such as fire, rain, smoke, and even hair. A computer animator can create such effects by running dynamic simulation software. In a dynamic simulation, software calculates the physics of how objects or characters would move and react in the real world and then turns them into computer animation. For example, in a dynamic simulation of marbles pouring out of a cup, the software would figure out the collisions, bouncing, and rolling of the marbles. Without dynamic simulation, an animator would have to spend many hours determining the movement of each marble.
Modeling.
To create a character using CGI animation, most designers start with a series of detailed sketches, often along with a small-scale physical model known as a maquette. Animators use these aids to study and refine the character from all angles. A CGI artist will then use computer software to create a digital model of the character. This model is not a photograph. It is a three-dimensional computer “sculpture,” made of data, that can be viewed from all sides. The digital modeling process can be relatively quick for simple objects. However, a professional computer modeler can spend three or four months building a single character model for a feature production.
Making the model move.
After the digital character model is approved, it goes to the rigging department. Just as a boat is “rigged” so a sailor can pull ropes to turn and unfurl the sails, a CGI character is rigged so it will move correctly. An artist called a rigger creates a computer model called a skeleton with “bones” connecting pivot points, called joints. The joints are placed wherever the model is expected to rotate or bend. The rigger also sets up a series of restraints on these pivots so the joints move correctly. For example, the fingers on a hand should curl forward, not backward or sideways. The fingers should also stop when they meet the palm of the hand. The rigger often creates dozens of controls to make it easier for the animators to manipulate the character. The skeletons, restraints, and controls are invisible when the final image is generated.
If the character has a speaking part, a rigger poses the face into many different expressions. The rigger labels the expressions (such as “happy” or ”sad”) and then saves them on the computer. Various mouth shapes are saved as well. When people speak, they make many distinct mouth shapes, such as a circle for an “oh” sound or closed lips for an “em.” These shapes correspond to basic sounds of language called phonemes. An animator will then lip-synch, using the library of phonemes and expressions to match the digitized dialogue track. The correct shapes and expressions create a realistic speaking character.
A common method of computer animation called keyframe animation begins when the animator poses the model at different points along a timeline. These poses are known as “key poses” or “keyframes.” Each keyframe pose will take up a single frame in the final animation. The computer then interpolates (inserts) directions for how the character will move between the frames. The interpolation will determine the smoothest path between the two poses. To make an animation look lifelike, a computer animator may rework a sequence of keyframes hundreds of times until the final animation looks right.
Another approach to computer modeling and animation is known as motion capture. Typically, small reflective dots (also called pick ups) are placed along many of a live actor’s joints and other key body parts. The actor then moves within a circle of specialized cameras. These cameras record the actor’s motion by tracking the dots through space and send the information, in digital form, to a computer. The animator applies the motion data to a computer-generated character, who will then move in the same general way as the live actor. Many video game makers use motion capture for character movement. Filmmakers often use the technique for creatures with humanlike facial expressions, such as Gollum in the trilogy “The Lord of the Rings” (2001-2003) and Caesar the chimpanzee in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011). The Polar Express (2004) and The Adventures of Tintin (2011) used motion capture for all of the movies’ characters. 
Lighting and rendering.
The next steps in the computer animation production process are lighting and creating texture. An artist assigns a shader to every object in a computer-generated image. A shader is software code that determines the properties of a surface, such as color, transparency, or reflectivity, or whether it is shiny or dull, smooth or rough. Once the textures are applied to the objects, the frames are lit and rendered. In the rendering process, the computer calculates the effects of light, shadow, and color on each object and generates a digital picture of each frame. Rendering can require a great deal of processing time on the computer. All major CGI animation studios have a network of computers known as render farms that can consist of hundreds of processors, all devoted to rendering. Computers also assist in editing the final images and the sound track.
Compositing.
Computer-animated characters can be combined with live action or with other computer-animated characters and sets in a process known as compositing. In compositing, two or more images are combined on one piece of film by photographic or digital means. Compositing can also be used to combine real actors with computer-generated sets and special effects. To do so, the live actors perform in front of a solid-color green or blue background called a green screen or a blue screen. A computer removes that single color around the silhouette of the actor. The actor can then be composited (placed) onto another background, either a digital set that exists only in a computer or a “real” location. 
Other kinds of animation
There are several kinds of animation besides hand drawn and computer-generated animation. They include (1) stop-motion animation, (2) pixilation, (3) pin screen animation, and (4) drawing on film.
Stop-motion animation,
also called puppet animation, uses three-dimensional figures or objects. To make puppet animation possible, a special camera is stopped after a single frame is photographed. Each time the camera stops, animators make slight adjustments in the positions of the figures or objects. When the frames are projected in rapid succession, the models appear to move. This type of animation is frequently used in making short animated films and sometimes in making feature-length films. Puppet animation also appears in live-action features, such as King Kong (1933) and the Star Wars movies (1977-2005).
Clay animation is a type of stop-motion animation that uses figures or objects made of clay or plastic. This technique is often used for commercials and short animated films. The American animator Will Vinton patented a form of the technique under the name Claymation.
Pixilation
is a way of animating live action. When the camera is stopped, the actors slightly alter their positions. Pixilation makes people look cartoonlike in films.
Pin screen animation
is a seldom-used technique that employs a large screen with about 1 million pinholes. Animators place headless pins into the holes and light the screen from the side so that shadows cast by the pins create images. Animators move the pins to change the images. After each change, they photograph the screen to produce a series of frames.
Drawing on film
is an inexpensive technique that requires little equipment. The animator draws, paints, stencils, or scratches the sequence of images directly on the film stock, instead of photographing them.
History
Early animation.
The first examples of animation were toys developed in the 1800’s. One of the earliest devices was the phenakistoscope, invented by the Belgian scientist Joseph Antoine Plateau in 1832. It was a notched wheel attached to a handle. One side of the wheel had a series of drawings. The viewer held the wheel up to a mirror, with the drawings facing the mirror. When the viewer spun the wheel and looked though the notches on the blank side of the wheel, the images appeared to move. The phenakistoscope and similar devices contributed to the invention of motion pictures.
Arthur Melbourne-Cooper of England was one of the first to make motion pictures using animation. In 1899, Melbourne-Cooper moved matchsticks in different sequences and photographed them frame by frame to produce an advertisement called Matches: An Appeal.
J. Stuart Blackton, a British-born American newspaper cartoonist, was the first person to film drawings frame by frame. In 1906, Blackton made Humorous Phases of Funny Faces by filming a series of faces drawn on a blackboard.
Emile Cohl of France was another important early animator. Cohl made about 250 short animated films from 1908 to 1918.
Pioneers of American animation.
Winsor McCay exhibited his first animated film, Little Nemo, in 1911 in New York City. McCay produced films that featured cartoon characters with graceful movements and distinct personality traits. He established the techniques and visual approaches that set the standard for character animation. McCay’s work became influential because of its fluid motion, high-quality draftsmanship, and feeling of weight. McCay’s most famous animated short film was Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), a story about a trained dinosaur. Loading the player...
Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)
In 1914, the American animator John Randolph Bray began streamlining the production processes involved in animation. Under Bray, studios hired large staffs and operated like assembly lines, making cartoons cheaper and faster to produce. Bray collaborated with the animator Earl Hurd, who had patented the cel technique. Together they revolutionized the animation process. Before cels were used, animators had to completely redraw both the characters and the background for each frame in a scene. With cels, however, animators draw the background only once, saving work.
About 1915, American movie studios began to create cartoon characters who appeared regularly in series of animated films. The Felix the Cat series, which debuted in 1919, was produced by cartoonist Pat Sullivan. Felix was the first internationally popular animated character. Animator Otto Messmer created and directed about 175 short Felix films during the 1920’s.
Max Fleischer, a former newspaper cartoonist, and his brother Dave produced animated series featuring Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, and Popeye the Sailor. Other well-known cartoon characters of the early 1900’s included Krazy Kat and Mutt and Jeff. Some of the characters first appeared in newspaper comic strips.
Animation in Europe.
While animators in the United States concentrated on developing cartoon characters, animators in Europe experimented with creative techniques. From 1910 through the 1920’s, for example, the Polish-born artist Ladislas Starevitch (also spelled Wladyslaw Starewicz) used puppet animation. Germany’s Lotte Reiniger produced short animated films with black silhouettes and created the first feature-length animated film, Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926).
Some European artists experimented with abstract animation. The German artists Walter Ruttmann and Oskar Fischinger created animated short films with abstract geometric shapes. In France, Russian-born Alexandre Alexeieff and American-born Claire Parker—developed pin screen animation in the early 1930’s.
Walt Disney
became the most famous producer of animated films. He created such popular cartoon characters as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto. Disney produced Steamboat Willie, starring Mickey Mouse, in 1928. It was the first animated cartoon with a synchronized sound track that creatively integrated music, voices, and sound effects. From 1928 to 1939, Disney perfected the character animation film, mainly through his popular cartoon series called “Silly Symphonies.”
In 1937, Disney issued Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, his first full-length animated film. It became one of the most popular films in movie history. Disney died in 1966, but his influence on animated storytelling, design, and artistic theory continues to be felt throughout the animation industry.
Animation in the mid-1900’s.
Along with Disney, several other major film studios dominated the animation industry from the 1930’s to the early 1950’s. At Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), William Hanna and Joseph Barbera made short animated features starring Tom and Jerry, a cat and mouse team. Walter Lantz of Universal Studios produced animated shorts featuring Oswald the Rabbit and later Woody Woodpecker. At Warner Bros., Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, and Friz Freleng directed animated shorts starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and Porky Pig. 
In 1945, a group of former Disney animation artists established United Productions of America (UPA). This group broke away from Disney’s emphasis on realism. Instead, they stressed a bold, flat, modernist style. Famous UPA cartoon characters included Gerald McBoing Boing and Mr. Magoo. UPA also popularized a technique called limited animation that differed from the full-figure animation done by Disney. In limited animation, only certain simple movements of a character are animated, allowing portions of the figure to be reused.
The UPA style proved less expensive than full-figure animation and influenced many other studios. The low cost of limited animation made it popular for children’s television cartoons, such as “The Flintstones” and “Yogi Bear” by Hanna-Barbera Productions. In 1960, “The Flintstones” became the first animated series to appear on prime-time television.
Over time, some animators left UPA to form their own production companies. Among the most talented was John Hubley. He and his wife, Faith, created films whose playful images and sense of fantasy expanded the content and style of character animation. The Hubleys produced cartoons for the “Sesame Street” TV series and won three Academy Awards for their animated shorts Moonbird (1959), The Hole (1962), and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature (1966).
During the mid-1950’s, the Scottish-born animator Norman McLaren made acclaimed animated films for the National Film Board of Canada. McLaren became known for his technique of drawing directly on film in such productions as Blinkity Blank (1955).
The animation revival.
Production of feature-length animated cartoons declined from the mid-1950’s through the 1960’s, partly because of the rising popularity of television. However, a revival of feature-length cartoons began during the 1970’s. The American filmmaker Steven Spielberg released his first animated cartoon feature, An American Tail, in 1986. The Disney and Spielberg studios jointly produced Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), which combined live action and animation. Disney followed with several creative and popular features, including Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994). In 2001, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences created a new category for feature-length animated films to receive an Academy Award.
The computer revolution.
Computer scientists and artists had begun to experiment with computer visualization in the 1960’s. In the early 1970’s, a few academic institutions, such as the University of Utah, animated simple shapes with computers. Disney’s TRON (1982) was the first feature film to use significant amounts of CGI animation. The film was a major technical achievement that proved computers could be used to create imagery.
The science-fiction film Jurassic Park (1993), directed by Spielberg, expanded the use of computer animation. The film combined dinosaurs created by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) with actual actors and sets. The computer-generated dinosaurs moved across the screen as realistically as live animals. Jurassic Park was a breakthrough event in the entertainment industry. It proved that computer animation could help filmmakers achieve almost any effect.
In 1995, John Lasseter and Pixar Animation Studios produced an all-CGI feature film, Toy Story. The film became a blockbuster hit and elevated CGI from a tool for creating special effects to a unique artistic medium. Toy Story was followed by several successful sequels. Pixar produced many other box-office hits, including A Bug’s Life (1998); Monsters, Inc. (2001); Finding Nemo (2003) and its sequel, Finding Dory (2016); The Incredibles (2004); Ratatouille (2007); WALL·E (2008); and Up (2009).
New diversity.
In the 1990’s and 2000’s, animators used a great variety of methods and styles of animation. Two-dimensional animation continued to thrive, especially on television. Although earlier animation was aimed mainly at children, new animated TV series proved popular with older viewers. Such series as “The Simpsons,” which began in 1989, and “King of the Hill” (1997-2010) gained high audience ratings.
A Japanese style of two-dimensional animation called anime also became popular. Anime uses some of the traditions of limited animation, such as characters who speak by moving only their mouths. Many anime characters have distinctively large, saucerlike eyes. In 2003, the Japanese film Spirited Away became the first anime production to win the Academy Award as best animated feature film.
A new studio, DreamWorks SKG, began releasing animated features that employed both traditional methods and CGI. DreamWorks issued such popular films as Antz and The Prince of Egypt (both 1998), Shrek (2001) and its sequel Shrek 2 (2004), and Over the Hedge (2006). Aardman Animations, a British studio, produced feature-length films in the clay puppet animation style, including Chicken Run (2000). DreamWorks and Aardman collaborated on Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and Flushed Away (2006). The American director Tim Burton used stop-motion animation in making The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Corpse Bride (2005).
International cooperation increased among animation studios in different countries. An example of such cooperation was The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (2004), based on a popular TV series. Filmmakers in the United States created storyboards and layouts for the film. They then sent them to South Korea, where artists animated the characters by hand. The film returned to the United States for digital coloring and compositing.
Animation today.
Thousands of artists work in animation houses in such countries as South Korea and Japan. They turn out feature-length films as well as cartoons and commercials for television. Many Canadian, U.S., and Russian animators operate smaller studios.
Many movie theaters today have digital projectors that allow a feature to be shot and screened without using film. Many filmmakers choose to shoot their features using high-end digital cameras. They use all digital production to create a feature without developing any film. This enables them to streamline production and better integrate digital sets and characters.
