Oskar Fischinger was born in Germany
in the early 1900s. He was an animator who spent his whole life working to
perfectly synchronize sounds and movement in his short animations. Despite his drive
to perfectly pair the two medias his only interactions with music were violin lessons
while in school and his apprenticeship at building organs.
Fischinger was more than just an animator and music enthusiast he was also an engineer. He used his skills in that field to build a machine that would revolutionize abstract animation, the wax machine. Early models of this machine had pipe-shaped mixtures of colored wax and clay slowly fed into a slicer with a rotating blade. In front of this device would be a camera that was synchronized with each cut of the blade. You can see the wax veins morph and change in the video I have linked below. Despite his invention being used in amazing films like The Adventures of Prince Achmed, Fischinger didn’t see a cent from the venture since his partner, Ruttmann had legally licensed the wax machine for use in films and commercial work. Fischinger’s bad luck only seemed to continue as he moved to the United States and had big companies like Disney and Paramount discredit him and under pay him for his work.
If you’re a fan of south park, you are familiar with the show’s construction-paper 2D style. While the show now is made using After Effects and 2D scans of the characters, the original pilot for the show was created using traditional cut out animation. The 22-minute-long animation featured multiple shot changes and extensive dialogue. In an interview with The Wired, co-creator of the show Mike Stone referred to the creation of the pilot as hell on earth, and so they came to the conclusion that they needed a better way of creating the show. The documentary film “The Making of South Park: 6 Days to Air” features the shows new production schedule from writing to animation. With a production schedule as crazy as that, the show’s utilization of the modern day animation programs is ideal for the fast-pace turn around. Even on their 23rd season, the shows original creators still remain leading the team, keeping the continuity of the show’s original hand-made style in every episode.
After completing the first project for our course, you might be curious about stop motion as an animation medium. What we know as Claymation today closely corresponds with the stop motion animation style of the 1900’s. One of Claymation’s most talented animators was a man named Will Vinton. In the 1970’s Vinton created his own animation studio he named after himself, Will Vinton Studios, in Portland Oregon. One of the studios most famous animations was the commercial they did for the Caifornia Raisins. The studio later became Laika studios, which has been nominated for four Oscars. The purpose of mentioning Laika is because they are my favorite Stop motion studio. Kubo and the two strings is a masterpiece of story, color, and music that has won the adoration of millions around the world. Even though the film was “ Stop motion”, the film used 3D modeling programs to create many of their assets, including Kubo’s face and the Giant Skeleton. It is interesting to compare the California Raisin ad’s Claymation style to the stop motion style the studio later adopted.
In the first two weeks of class we covered the early years, from animation toys, to the creation of full films with sound and the pioneering of many important animation processes. It’s a lot, though we haven’t even looked at anything Disney yet.
What it made me realize was that animation history was less of a line than a zig-zag: the back and forth process of invention and industrialization, as well as the cross-pollination of animation techniques between Europe and America. All were important factors in the development of the animation as an art form and as an industry.
Early inventions in what we now think of as animation mostly came from Europe. Frenchman Émile Reynaud created the first film projection animations or Théätre Optique in 1888, expanding from earlier toys such as the phenakistocope and zoetrope, attributed to Joseph Plateau (Belgium) and William G. Horner (UK) respectively. As early as the zoetrope however, Americans tapped into industry and manufacturing; American William Ensign Lincoln licensed his version of the zoetrope to the board game company Milton Bradley and Co. in 1865-66.
Of course what interests us is the techniques that have become standard. John Randolph Bray (US) and Raoul Barré (Canada/US) were important in creating both technical processes, such as celluloid [cels] and the hole and peg system, and production processes, i.e. the industrial animation pipeline; all three are still in use in some form or another today, speaking to how influential their inventions were. Interestingly, Barré, with Bill Nolan, was also the first to make animated adverts, and created the first 100% animation focused studio.
Different peg bar systems, from article on the history of the peg bar
The first character driven animation, or perhaps ‘animated cartoon’, was Emile Cohl’s (France/US) Fantoche the Clown in 1908; American cartoons included Krazy Kat (1916), Felix the Cat (Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer 1919), and Fleischer studios’ iconic characters (1920s-30s). And of course later on we’ll meet Mickey Mouse, most iconic of all animated cartoons.
American Winsor McCay is an interesting case; the naturalistic draftsmanship he used from his illustration background elevated animation to a new level. He also pioneered technical animation methods such as inbetweening and cycles/loops as shown in Gertie the Dinosaur (1913), for which John Randolph Bray tried to sue him after patenting those methods. Gertie also carries the legacy of animation as performance and showmanship like with early pioneers Georges Méliès (France) and James Stuart Blackton (US).
A frame from Gertie the Dinosaur – notice the ‘stop here’ instruction, presumably for the assistant (source)
Animation was exclusively in short film form, until the first European feature-length animation films. They include El Apostol (1917) and Peludopolis (1930) by Italian-Argentinian Quirino Cristiani, the second of which was the first with sound, and The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) by German Lotte Reiniger and her team. Achmed in particular seems important to me, as its use of the multiplane glass technique allowed for many-layered backgrounds that further pushed animation towards a truly cinematic look, and was an early version of the multiplane camera, which was used in Disney’s first feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), and allowed it great compositional depth.
We always think of Disney when we think of animation history. In a way, Disney’s Golden Age is kind of an ‘Italian Renaissance’ of animation, because it married both industrial efficiency and artistic height. But without seeing the historical context before and at the time of Disney’s birth, we could easily forget the early origins and all the other milestones that allowed Disney to flourish.
We had watched a lot of animations during classes and I think The Adventures of Prince Achmed is one of the most entertaining film. Although it is longer than an hour and it doesn’t have any voice acting or colourful image, I still enjoyed and liked it very much. Somehow I felt the story plot is a combination of different folk tale, such as Aladdin from Middle East and Cowherd and Weaving Girl from China, and this must be an innovative creation at that time. Besides, it was glad to know that such marvellous narrative art was made by a female creator, Lotte Reiniger. As far as I know, women usually would not be such important role in their workplace and their social status was lower than men at that time. However, here we came a great female director! And her animation is a very first full-length animation which is so interesting and beautiful! I reckon that Lotte Reiniger is a strong evidence of the existence of many nameless female animators who were contributing the industry at that time. Love and respect her!
I bought a few art books of the Walt Disney Animation Studio such as The Illusion of Life. I never read it because there’s lots of content about the history of animation which I think it might be boring. I always love animation but I never wonder how does it exist. And how it develops to the animation we see today. However, studying in this class widen my horizons. I learnt that animation is the concept of persistence of vision which means our eyes seeing moving sequences of image. The Optical theatre that Emile Reynaud created in 1888 amazed me. It required a long band containing 500 hand painted slides drawn on a transparent gelatin in a large wheel, and rotating at the same speed as the 36 mirrors. It took a hard work to make it. I am really thankful for animator in the past because their hard works and patience built the future of animation.
My favourite animation that we watched in class is the Bigger Picture created by Daisy Jacobs in 2014. Big Bang Big Boom is a successful work as the animation is so smooth, however, I am a bit confused and shock by the story.
The Early Years of Animation around the 1920’s, changed the face of characters to more round-about cartoons, focusing on character development and facial expressions. Such as characters like “Felix the Cat”, “Betty Boop”, “Bimbo the Dog”, and “Koko the Clown”. Compared to the use of realistic human-like animated characters, first experimented by Emile Reynaud, taught in the class previously. The characters are amusing to watch as they defy the laws of reality. There is always an unexpected turn of events that keeps the audience entranced.
While learning about the process, and the different artists invested into cutout animations, it gave me a sense of respect for them. The amount of time and precision it takes to cut out each frame, can be assumed as time consuming and requires a lot of patience. Watching Lotte Reiniger’s Prince Achmed (1926), was inspiring. Her film was detailed and were all black cutouts, which can become tricky when trying to best express the intended action, without them resembling like a blob. She changed the game for women in the industry, becoming a stepping stone for women today.
On the first day of class, one of the animations that caught my interest were the works of David O’Reilly. He creates really interesting concepts for his animations. Particularly, “Please Say Something” was visually compelling and had little easter eggs or hints that add to the storytelling. The art style had reminded me of something that I’ve seen before. He uses a low poly style that I can really appreciate and could vibe with. The low poly style is one of my favorites in 3D.
However, the works presented in class weren’t my first exposure to his works. My first experience with his work was when he worked on an episode for the Cartoon Network show, “Adventure Time.” He wrote, directed and animated the episode “A Glitch is a Glitch.” It has the same animation style and his iconic glitch effects. The concept, while still being very ‘David O’Reilly’, for this episode really fits the world of Adventure Time.
Before these history of animation lessons, I barely knew anything about its origin as it never caught my immediate interest. The most I knew would be from watching Tarzan; who had a scene of the Praxinoscope by Reynaud, and seeing glimpses of Disney’s old Mickey Mouse. Therefore, I’m entirely grateful and consciously appreciative of being able to watch animation from the very beginning, even if the early animations are very slow and unappealing – I feel very privileged to learn about its roots and grateful to the people who took the time to innovate techniques and systems, such as the optical theatre, peg system, slash system and the cel-animation technique that enabled us to be where we are today.
In terms of genre, seeing how most of the early animations were generally very quirky yet dark, showed a glimpse of the mindset of that time. I thought it is very amazing how a short clip can carry so many other aspects, such as culture, mannerisms and lifestyle.
It is also very interesting how a lot of the ‘business men’ created shorts with the theme of ‘work’, for example in the “Felix the cat” shorts. They lead the idea of how art and entertainment can come together to make money – which opened even more opportunities for creatives to make a living in the future.
When we think of famous animators I bet we all jump talented and influential names like Don Bluth, Walk Disney, Glen Kean, James Baxter, and of course Richard Williams. But I doubt you can name as many female animators. I always knew there were women working in the animation industry way back in the 20s but I never saw them doing more than just coloring cells or painting backgrounds. So, when the Professor mentioned a female animator who wasn’t just a names-less colorist but a creator with full artistic responsibility over an animation I perked up.
This woman
was none other than Lotte Reiniger. A German woman who fled Nazi Germany for
the safety of England in the 1935. She was an artist fully influenced by
pre-WWII Berlin Germany. She was credited for making and contributing over
sixty films in her life time but she was best known for her pioneering
silhouette animations. Examples of her work are found in films like The Adventures
of Prince Achmed and The Beautiful Princess of China and The Lost
Shadow. Although, her works were awe-inspiring and critically acclaimed by
audiences she had difficulty getting funding for her projects through most of
her career. So, in order to fund her projects she worked for Julius Pinschewer,
an early producer of advertising. It is said that two of the four ads she
created for them have survived to this day (one of which I included a link to below).
In the
end, learning about Reiniger and all the hard work she put into her craft was inspiring
and made me wonder how many other unknown female pioneers of animation are
there out there.
ANIM223 - HISTORY OF ANIMATION - FALL 2019 
