What is animation? According to Dictionary.com, animation is defined as “a dynamic visual medium produced from static drawings, models, or objects posed in a series of incremental movements that are then rapidly sequenced to give the illusion of lifelike motion.” Animation is an art form, essentially, that involves moving pictures and colors that work together to tell a story. Animation started almost 200 years ago, but it has evolved a lot since then, having new forms and methods of storytelling.

Early Animation

Early animation started in the late 1800s, and experimenters were “working to create conversation pieces for Victorian parlours or new sensations for the touring magic-lantern shows, which were a popular form of entertainment, discovered the principle of persistence of vision,” according to Britannica. Some of the earliest forms include a zoetrope, a cylinder with slits to see through, and interchangeable images placed between the slits which the eye perceives as something moving. Traditional animation, also known as hand drawn animation or cel animation, was first made in the early 1900s by a French artist named ​​Émile Cohl.  The animation consists of a stick figure interacting with morphing objects, for example when an elephant turns into a building. In 1928, the first animated film featuring Mickey Mouse, called “Steamboat Willie'' was created by Walt Disney, and it included synchronized sound, revolutionary to the previously made silent animations and quickly became popular. Generally, characters and moving objects are drawn on a cel, overlaid on the background, reducing the amount of times animators have to redraw an image. Now, cel animation is quite rare, because it is a very time-consuming, expensive process.  Cel animation was mainly used in the mid 1900s, and then most studios switched to computer animation around the 1990s. Animation studios such as Cartoon Network and Ghibli still use hand-drawn animation to this day. 

Computer Animation

When we think of computer animation, we often think of Pixar and Dreamworks, with their animated movies. Computer animation is very broad–it’s animation through the use of digital tools. However, Almost all animation is done this way today, so when we talk about computer-animations, we often are thinking about 3D computer animation. 3D animation can add extra depth and detail to a film. Some early forms of 3D animation include claymation, which is essentially using clay to make scenes, and then moving different characters in those scenes little by little, taking pictures each time, so that when you string it all together, it will look like those scenes are moving. The first full-length 3D animation film was Pixar’s Toy Story, released in 1995. Following the success of Toy Story (which grossed more than 370 million dollars), Pixar continued to produce 3D animated movies, most met with commercial success, such as A Bug’s Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), and Monsters, Inc. (2001).

When you watch an action film set in a fictional place, or an animated film with a lot of camera movement, there is a high chance that CGI is being used. CGI stands for computer-generated imagery. It is also used in video games, engineering, architecture and advertising. CGI is also called 3D-imaging and 3D-rendering, but can also produce 2D effects. The first CGI film was created in 1950 where a computer was used to make patterns onto the animation cels. In 1972, Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke made the first animated hand by drawing 350 triangles and polygons onto the hand and animated it on a 3D animation which Catmull programmed. CGI was then used in high grossing films and are now used in almost everything you see in media. 

Japanese animation, also known as anime, has exploded in popularity these past few years. Before, a large majority of anime were hand-drawn, but is now mostly computer-generated animation. Anime has been created since 1917, and by the 1930s, it was used as an alternative for live action film. Some of the most famous studios include Studio Ghibli, most well known for Spirited Away (2001), Kyoto Animation, with one of its notable works being A Silent Voice (2016) and Toei Animation, which has animated series such as Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon.

The American animation industry has had many notable companies, including Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks. Disney was the first major company to dabble in animation, having their roots laid down in the 1920s, with many short animated features leading up to Disney’s first full-length feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarves(1937). 

In the end, animation has changed a lot over time, and is a very varied and creative form of art that has changed the way we watch movies. Animation has become a medium through which to portray emotions and tell powerful stories.