Online Encyclopedia
Animation
This animation moves at 10 frames per second.
This animation moves at 2 frames per second. At this rate, the individual frames should be discernable.
Animation refers to the process in which each frame of a film or movie is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed at a speed of 16 or more frames per second, there is an illusion of continuous movement (due to the persistence of vision). Generating such a film is very labour intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.
Graphics file formats like GIF, MNG and Flash allow animation to be viewed on a computer or over the Internet.
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Overview
Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry.
Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered by UPA and popularized (some say exploited) by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television. It is also the basis of anime.
History of animation
Main article: History of animation
The history of film animation begins with the earliest days of silent film and continues through the present day. The first animated cartoon was from Frenchman Émile Reynaud, who created praxinoscope, animation system of 12 pictures, and films of about 500~600 pictures, projected on its own théatre optique , system near from modern film projector, at Musée Grévin in Paris, France, the october 28, 1892.
The first animated cartoon on modern picture film projector was Fantasmagorie by the French director Émile Courtet (also called Émile Cohl), projected for the first time August 17, 1908 at 'Théâtre du Gymnase ', in Paris. Émile Courtet went to Fort Lee, New York near New York City in 1912, where he worked for French studio Éclair and spread its technique in the US.
The first animated feature-length film was El Apóstol (1917) from Argentine Quirino Cristiani, shown in Argentina. Because the history of animation as an art form has undergone many changes in its hundred-year history, it is examined in detail in the History of animation series.
Famous names in animation
Famous names of the past
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Famous names of the present day
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Animation studios
Animation studios of the past
- Bray Productions
- DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
- Filmation
- Fleischer Studio
- Grantray-Lawrence Animation
- Hanna-Barbera Productions
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- Rankin-Bass
- Termite Terrace
- UPA
- Van Beuren Studios
- Walter Lantz Studio
- Warner Brothers
Animation studios of the present era
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Styles of animation
- Traditional animation
- Rotoscoping
- Computer animation
- Cutout animation
- Analog computer animation
- Motion capture
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Stop-motion animation
- claymation
- Pixilation
- Puppet animation
- Limited animation
- Pinscreen animation
- Drawn on film animation
See also: Animated series, Anime (Japanese animation), List of movie genres
Techniques
External links
- Animation Nation - a forum for professional animators http://www.animationnation.com
- Chronology of Animation http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rllew/chronint.html
- Animation links collection http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rllew/animelinks.html
- Zagreb Film http://www.fh-wuerzburg.de/petzke/zagreb.html
- SAF http://www.safcakovec.com/ , Čakovec school of animation
- Animation Directory http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Animation/
- Don Markenstein's Toonopedia http://www.toonopedia.com
- Big Cartoon Database http://www.bcdb.com/
- Golden Age of Cartoons http://www.goldenagecartoons.com/