HISTORY OF ANIMATION

Animation: A Brief Introduction

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model
positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due
tothe phenomenon of persistence of vision."Animation" derivated from the Latin anima,
the animating principle, the vital force inside every living creature. It is often used as a
translation for the Greek word psyche, and related to the Christian concept of soul.
"Animation" would be the technique of giving "soul" to inanimate objects, drawings, etc.

Basic Animation Techniques

The 3 basic types of animation are traditional, stop and computer animation.

Traditional Animation

Traditional animation (also called cell animation or hand-drawn animation) was the
process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a
traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, which are first drawn on paper.
To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it.
The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets
called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite
the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one onto
motion picture film against a painted background by a rostrum camera.

 Full animation refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally

animated films, which regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement.
Fully animated films can be done in a variety of styles, from more realistically
animated works such as those produced by the Walt Disney studio.

 Limited animation involves the use of less detailed and/or more stylized
drawings and methods of movement. Pioneered by the artists at the American
studio Productions of America, limited animation can be used as a method of
stylized artistic expression, as in much of the anime produced in Japan.

 Rotoscoping is a technique, patented by Max Fleischer in 1917, where animators

trace live-action movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly
copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings, as in The Lord of the Rings
(US, 1978), used as a basis and inspiration for character animation.
  Live-action/animation is a technique, when combining hand-drawn characters
into live action shots. One of the earlier uses of it was Koko the Clown when
Koko was drawn over live action footage.

Stop Motion Animation

Stop-motion animation is used to describe animation created by physically manipulating

real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the
illusion of movement. There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually
named after the type of media used to create the animation.

 Puppet animation typically involves stop-motion puppet figures interacting with

each other in a constructed environment, in contrast to the real-world interaction
in model animation. The puppets generally have an armature inside of them to
keep them still and steady as well as constraining them to move at particular
joints.

 Clay animation, or Plasticize animation often abbreviated as Claymation, uses

figures made of clay or a similar malleable material to create stop-motion
animation. The figures may have an armature or wire frame inside of them that
can be manipulated in order to pose the figures.

 Cutout animation is a type of stop-motion animation produced by moving 2-

dimensional pieces of material such as paper or cloth.

 Silhouette animation is a variant of cutout animation in which the characters are

backlit and only visible as silhouettes.

 Object animation refers to the use of regular inanimate objects in stop-motion

animation, as opposed to specially created items.

 Pixilation involves the use of live humans as stop motion characters. This allows
for a number of surreal effects, including disappearances and reappearances,
allowing people to appear to slide across the ground, and other such effects.

Computer animation

Computer animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying factor being that
the animation is created digitally on a computer.

 2D animation figures are created and/or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap
graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphics.
  3D animation refers to the work of creating moving pictures in a digital
environment that is three-dimensional. Through the careful manipulation of
objects (3D models) within the 3D software, we can then export picture sequences
which will give the illusion of movement (animation) based on how we
manipulate the objects.

Other animation techniques

 Drawn on film animation is a technique where footage is produced by creating

the images directly on film stock.

 Paint-on-glass animation: a technique for making animated films by

manipulating slow drying oil paints on sheets of glass.

 Sand animation: sand is moved around on a back- or front-lighted piece of glass

to create each frame for an animated film. This creates an interesting effect when
animated because of the light contrast.

 Flip book: A flip book is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from
one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures
appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change. Flip books are
often illustrated books for children, but may also be geared towards adults and
employ a series of photographs rather than drawings.

Pioneers in animation

Phenakistoscope, praxinoscope, zoetrope and the flip book are the early animation
devices, which were invented during the 1800s. All these devices made use of
technological means for the purpose of producing movement from sequential drawings.
However, it was the introduction of motion picture films, in the late 1890s that gave a
boost to the concept of animation. There is no single person who can be credited with the
title of the "Creator" of animation. This is because when animation was developed, many
people were involved in the same thing at the same time.

J. Stuart Blackton

J. Stuart Blackton was born in Sheffield on 5 January 1875; his parents emigrated to the
USA when the boy was ten. A natural talent for drawing found him a place on the staff of
the New York World, writing and drawing a regular illustrated feature on personalities in
the news. At this time Blackton was making regular stage appearances as a cartoonist in
the company of conjurer Albert Smith, and in the summer of 1896 they were performing
at a New York World Sick Baby Fund benefit concert, which was filmed by the Edison
Company. Blackton was the hit of the concert and in August 1896 he was hired to make
three 150-foot films in Edison's Black Maria studio: Humorous Cartoon, Political
Cartoon (caricaturing William McKinley and President Grover Cleveland),
and Sketching Mr Edison, which was also released as Edison Drawn by World Artist. The
romantic story that he went to sketch Thomas Edison for the World and so impressed the
Inventor that he was chosen for filming is untrue. The three films were first shown at
Proctor's Pleasure Palace on 12 September 1896, and the film of Edison in particular
brought Blackton fame and encouraged his entry into the film business.

Blackton returned to cartoon films with The Enchanted Drawing (1906), Humorous
Phases of Funny Faces (1906), Lightning Sketches (1907) and The Magic Fountain
Pen (1909). Each film featured himself on screen as the cartoonist, and used various
animation styles from stop camera techniques to under-cranking. Apart from fathering the
American animated cartoon, in 1897 Blackton co-founded (with Albert Smith) the major
early film production company, Vitagraph (for details see Smith entry), playing the lead
in The Burglar on the Roof (1897) and devising the topical short Tearing Down the
Spanish Flag (1898). He supervised the construction of the first enclosed glass studio in
Flatbush, where he directed such famous titles as Raffles the Amateur Cracksman (1905).
At Vitagraph, which after 1905 became the major American film production company,
Blackton was in the van of serials, series and feature film production, and in the 1920s
returned to Britain to produce and direct the first full colour feature film, The Glorious
Adventure (1922), starring Lady Diana Manners. He died in a motor car accident in
Hollywood in 1941, having lost all of his money in the 1929 stock market crash.

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces: Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is a silent cartoon
by J. Stuart Blackton in the year 1906. It features a cartoonist drawing faces on a
chalkboard, and the faces coming to life. It is generally regarded as the
first animated film. It features movements as where a dog jumps through a hoop, a scene
which actually uses cutout animation made to look like chalk outlines. The film moves at
20 frames per second.

Emile Cohl

Emile Cohl was a French caricaturist, cartoonist and pioneering animator. Born as Émile
Courtet, he grew up in a middle class family in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. He
showed an early interest in guignol puppet theatre and political caricature. After several
jobs, Courtet began his professional career as a caricaturist under the guidance of well-
known caricaturist André Gill. Around this time, he also adapted the name Emile Cohl.

By 1907, the 50-year old Émile Cohl, like everyone else in Paris, had become aware of
motion pictures. The idea for doing animation was born from the huge success of the film
"The Haunted Hotel", released by Vitagraph and directed by J. Stuart Blackton. It
premiered in Paris in April 1907 and immediately there was a demand for more films
using its incredible object animation techniques. Cohl studied the film frame by frame,
and in this way discovered the techniques of animation.

Cohl made "Fantasmagorie" from February to May or June 1908. This is considered the
first fully animated film ever made. It was made up of 700 drawings, each of which was
double-exposed (animated "on twos"), leading to a running time of almost two minutes.
Despite the short running time, the piece was packed with material devised in a "stream
of consciousness" style. It borrowed from Blackton in using a "chalk-line effect" (filming
black lines on white paper, then reversing the negative to make it look like white chalk on
a black chalkboard), having the main character drawn by the artist's hand on camera, and
the main characters of a clown and a gentleman. The film, in all of its wild
transformations, is a direct tribute to the by-then forgotten Incoherent movement. The
title is a reference to the "fantasmograph", a mid-Nineteenth Century variant of the magic
lantern that projected ghostly images that floated across the walls.

"Fantasmagorie" was released on August 17, 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. These
three films are united by their chalk-line style, the stick-figure clown protagonists, and
the constant transformations. Cohl made the plots of these films up as he was filming
them. He would put a drawing on the lightbox, photograph it, trace onto next sheet with
slight changes, photograph that, and so on. This meant that the pictures did not jitter and
the plot was spontaneous. Cohl had to calculate the timing in advance. The process was
demanding and time-consuming, which is probably why he moved away from drawn
animation after "Un Drame chez les fantoches". Cohl died in 1938.

Winsor McCay

Winsor McCay was born Zenas Winsor McKay in 1867, probably in Canada. He was
raised in Michigan, where he commenced drawing at a prodigiously early age. At the age
of 13 he drew a picture of shipwreck on the school blackboard and it was photographed
and copies sold. His attention to detail was amazing. At the age of 19, his father enrolled
Winsor in a business school in order to learn a real trade. One of the normal forms of
entertainment of the day was the Dime Museum. These establishments were designed to
separate people from their money. Part circus, part amusement park and part vaudeville,
they featured both transient and permanent acts and exhibits. McCay's first job that
earned him money from his art was at Wonderland in Detroit where he was hired to draw
portraits of the customers for 25¢ each. His facility for observation and his amazingly
ability to draw quickly made him a popular 'attraction.' It also brought out his intense
desire to please with his art. He really needed to draw, but even more he needed the
approbation. He got some from the customers, but more importantly, he took some
extracurricular drawing lessons from a local instructor who thought highly of his work.
The teacher's forte was perspective and McCay had to have been the star pupil judging
from the good use to which he put the lessons later in life.

McCay left Michigan for Chicago in 1889 where he worked for a printer and roomed
with Jules Guerin. In 1891 he moved to Cincinnati. There he settled into the only type of
work he knew - he went to work as a staff artist for a local dime museum. He married,
had two children, and took on extra work painting signs and, eventually, making
drawings for a local newspaper. It was there that he first developed his skill with a pen -
everything up to that point had been crafted with pencil and brush. He also supplemented
his income by submitting drawings to the humor magazine, Life, beginning in 1899.

An invitation to take a job at the New York Herald prompted McCay to find out. In late
1903, he relocated and began the most prolific chapter of his cartooning life. From 1904-
1911, McCay produced a string of comic strips that have overridden many of his other
accomplishments. In early 1904, there were three abortive attempts at newspaper
strips: Mr. Goodenough, Sister's Little Sister's Beau, and The Phurious Phinish of
Phoolish Philipe Phunny Phrolics. The real explosion of effort began, appropriately
enough, with Little Sammy Sneeze. Little Sammy sneezed every Sunday from July 24,
1904 to December 9, 1906.

Each strip was exactly six panels with the last reserved for Sammy's comeuppance, so
pacing was everything. And it worked for 2½ years. Not content to do just one strip, he
began Dream of the Rarebit Fiend on September 10, 1904. His most successful strip, this
ran until June 25, 1911. It was for a different paper and signed "Silas". Dream was a
thoroughly adult strip devoted to adult nightmares and phobias - all caused by
overindulging in Welsh rarebit (or cheese pie) just before bed. At right, it's the size of the
new hat and the husband's imagined reaction that disrupts the wife's sleep.

On October 15, 1905, McCay created his masterpiece Little Nemo in Slumberland .
Simply put, Little Nemo revolutionized the comic strip. At 38, McCay was at the very
peak of his talent and the New York Herald had the most talented and creative color
printing staff in the business. Together they crafted a weekly fantasy that week by week
revealed Slumberland to be the most magical one. Nemo was published in the New York
Herald until July 23, 1911. The strips have been reprinted many times.

1905 was heyday of vaudeville and a frequent feature was the chalk-talk artist - an artist
who could stand in front of an audience and draw on a chalk board. Nemo was an
immediate hit and McCay, who liked nothing better than to draw (and never seemed to
have enough money, no matter how much he made), took to the boards on June 11, 1906.
He was a hit, there, too. As his bookings along the east coast increased, so did the
logistical difficulties of producing three weekly comic strips and other drawings for the
papers. Many strips from this period were drawn in backstage dressing rooms and in
hotels as he toured with his act. When Little Nemo made it to Broadway in 1908, McCay
was performing his chalk-talk across the street and had to miss a portion of opening
night. The approbation of the live audience was just as crucial to him as the regard of
those watching the musical based on his work. Within five years of arriving in New
York, McCay had become one of the top artists and performers in the city. Both his
comic strips and his vaudeville act were based on pacing and movement. He was about to
combine all of these elements into one new art - the animated cartoon.

While he wasn't the first person to make an animated cartoon, he was the man who
defined the industry. The quality of his cartoons would not be matched for another 25
years. His pacing and understanding of the medium was far ahead of his time. And he
drew all of the 4,000 cels of his first film, Little Nemo, himself! This while he was still
drawing his three strips and performing his vaudeville act. The Little Nemo film was
released to theater and used in his act, as was his second. How a Mosquito Operates -
this 6,000 drawings long. When these films were released into wider distribution,
McCay's fame spread, especially to the fledgling animation community.

When the Herald rejected his request to take some time off to go perform in Europe,
McCay waited until his contract was up and jumped over to the Hearst paper, The
American, in July of 1911. The Herald lost its star of three strips, and McCay lost his
freedom. All McCay wanted to do was draw. All Hearst wanted was someone who did as
he was told. Drawing meant performing to McCay and it meant expanding his knowledge
of animation. Nemo was published in the Hearst papers under the title In the Land of
Wonderful Dreams, since the Herald owned the Nemo name. The coloring was less than
what he was used to and he was devoting most of his energy to his next animated
film, Gertie the Dinosaur. The lack of attention showed, especially in blandness of the
27 daily strips he created for Hearst from 1911 to 1913. His editorial cartoons were
masterpieces of pen work, and that's where Hearst decided to relegate his talents.

On December 13, 1913, he was told by his employer that he was to give up his comic
strips and do "serious" editorial work. In February of 1914, Gertie debuted to stunning
reviews. McCay projected the film on his white sketch pad and in a carefully
choreographed sequence interacted with the animated dinosaur and actually joins her on
screen for the finale.

McCay's east coast vaudeville bookings began to dry up as Hearst made it known to the
proprietors that he would 'prefer' that they not engage McCay. In 1914, McCay signed a
contract with Hearst not to appear outside of New York City. Now all McCay had to look
forward to each day was a compulsory appearance at the newspaper office and making
pen & ink editorial cartoons that stretched across all eight columns of the editorial page.
These large drawings needed lots of visual interest since most of the editorial stances they
illustrated were fairly simplistic. A world war was coming and Hearst was against it.
His last major animated film was a recreation of the sinking of the Lusitania and
amounted to a call to arms. The lack of humor in all of these drawings must have been
depressing, too. But the drawings, themselves, were magnificent.

In 1924 he left Hearst and returned to the now Herald Tribune and tried to revive Little
Nemo. It lasted for two years, but proved to be out of touch with the public. He died in
1934 after spending his last eight years back at the American drawing editorial cartoons
for Arthur Brisbane. McCay wanted animation to be an art. He wanted newspaper strips
to appeal to the eye and the soul. He wanted to draw. No matter how many barriers stood
in his way, he managed to accomplish that. Still, he's best remembered for one strip he
drew for only six years. That alone would have been a magnificent legacy.

Otto Messmer

Animation pioneer Otto Messmer was born on August 16, 1892 in West Hoboken, New
Jersey. He would become best known for his work on the Felix the Cat cartoons and
comic strip produced by the Pat Sullivan studio. As a youngster Messmer attended Holy
Family parochial school, and had a love of vaudeville and the entertainment industry
instilled in him by his parents and teachers, beginning at a young age. He attended the
Thomas School of Art in New York City from 1911 to 1913, and participated in a work-
study program with the Acme Agency, where he did illustrations for fashion catalogs.

Messmer's first love, however, was cartooning. Inspired by Winsor McCay's animated
films, such as How a Mosquito Operates, he began creating his own comics for local
newspapers in 1912, the same year he met Anne Mason, who became his wife in 1934.
One of his comics, Fun, ran as part of the Sunday comics' page for the New York World.
He signed a deal with Jack Cohn of Universal Studios in 1915 to produce a test film of a
character Messmer created called Motor Mat. It was never released, but drew the interest
of animator Pat Sullivan, though Messmer instead decided to go to work with Henry
"Hy" Mayer, a well-known cartoonist. Mayer and Messmer collaborated on the
successful animated series The Travels of Teddy, which was based on the life of Teddy
Roosevelt. Messmer would subsequently work for Sullivan, who handled the business
side of the work, with Messmer handling creative responsibilities. However, even early
on in their relationship, Sullivan was already starting to show his true stripes a s shifty
businessman. When Sullivan served a nine-month prison sentence in 1917, Messmer
briefly returned to work with Mayer, until Messmer was drafted into World War I.

When Messmer returned home from the war in 1919, he visited Sullivan's studio, where
he was hired by director Earl Hurd of Paramount Screen Magazine for a cartoon short
that would accompany a feature film. Sullivan let Messmer run the project, and the end
result was Feline Follies, which featured Master Tom, a black cat that brought good luck
to people in trouble - an obvious prototype to Messmer's future Felix character.
Before Master Tom was released, however, Messmer created and developed Felix, which
was released first. It became a licensed, mass merchandised character, and after those few
years of hard work, it looked like the young cartoonist was now on his way to the top.

. Felix the Cat starred in over 150 cartoons until 1931, when animation studios began
converting to sound films. The popularity of the character also gave rise to a Felix
newspaper strip.

By the early 1960s, Felix had been reinvented for yet another medium - television. The
person running the Felix the Cat TV show was Messmer's longtime assistant Joe Oriolo
(creator of Casper the Friendly Ghost), who made sure that Messmer was at long last
given his rightful onscreen credit as the true creator of Felix the Cat. Messmer continued
working on the character until he died of a heart attack at 91, in the Holy Name Medical
Center in Teaneck, New Jersey on October 28, 1983.

And so, although it took a few decades, and he didn't end up as rich as he should have,
Messmer finally got the last laugh. Today his fabulous creation of Felix is still seen in
syndication in more than 250 newspapers, TV reruns, films and countless DVD videos all
over the world.

Max Fleischer

Max Fleischer was born into a family of inventors on July 17, 1883, in Vienna, Austria.
His mother immigrated with him to the United States when he was four years old, and he
was raised on the Lower East Side of New York City. Fleischer was one of five sons.
Animator Dave Fleischer was his younger brother. Fleischer didn't finish high school, but
attended numerous trade schools and art programs in his youth. He worked for
the Brooklyn Daily Eagle as a cartoonist, photographer, and photo-engraver before
becoming art director for the magazine Popular Science. Fleischer's animation career
began at Joseph Randolph Bray's studio, where he made instructional films during a short
World War I commission.

Fleischer were granted a patent in 1917 for the rotoscoping, a mechanism used for
transferring live action film into animated cartoon through tracing. Still used in modern
animation and video game production, this process involves the projection of single
frames of film onto a drawing surface for tracing. Re-photographing the sequence of
drawings results in very lifelike animation. This invention was prompted by Fleischer's
frustration with cel animation, which didn't allow a realistic enough product. Creating
their first rotoscoped cartoon character, the Fleischer brothers shot a normal filmstrip of a
body in motion. Dressed as a clown, Dave was the body. Using the rotoscope, the
Fleischers then magnified each frame of the filmstrip onto a piece of glass. The next step
involved tracing Dave's changing positions onto celluloid frame by frame, changing his
features into those of their new character, Koko the Clown. The final stage was
photographing each piece of celluloid onto a single frame of motion picture film. The
finished product was the first Koko the Clown filmstrip, in which the star's body reflected
all of the subtle changes made by a moving human form. The brothers' invention caught
the attention of animator John R. Bray, who hired them to work in Paramount's New
York studios.

Fleischer and his brother, Dave, founded Out of the Inkwell Films, Inc. in 1921. They
renamed the business Fleischer Studios in 1928. Their "Out of the Inkwell" cartoon
series, featuring Koko the Clown, was their first series of films and was produced through
1929. Fleischer continued to experiment with cartoon mechanics and soon developed the
rotograph. Using this method the animators could draw characters in real-world settings.
A live action film was projected to the underside of the artist's table, and Koko the Clown
was drawn into each frame. This system was a trailblazer for films like Mary
Poppins (1964) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).

Fleischer created a number of firsts with his brother, including the "bouncing-ball" sing
along cartoons, which were silent but synchronized to the cinema orchestras. His cartoon
"Song Car-Tune" was the first cartoon with a soundtrack, and was produced in
1924. Betty Boop was the first female cartoon star, making her debut in 1930. She was
the girlfriend of an unpopular character named Bimbo, who starred in Dizzy Dishes, and
she soon had her own series. The Fleischer brothers' creation was a sexy woman in the
form of a cartoon character.

Max and Dave Fleischer followed up their Betty Boop success with another popular
character's introduction in 1933. Popeye was a result of stiff competition among
animation studios. A key part of the studios' business strategies was the development of
cartoon characters whose popularity would guarantee bookings by major theater chains.
Disney's Donald Duck and Goofy were developed from smaller roles in Mickey Mouse
cartoons, and Warner Bros. created Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck after their initial
success in films featuring other animated animals. E.C. Segar created a comic strip called
"Thimble Theater" in 1919. He introduced Popeye into the strip as a temporary character,
but when Segar attempted to write Popeye out, fans complained and he returned as Olive
Oyl's love interest. Max Fleischer requested the right to use Popeye from Hearst's King
Features Syndicate and was granted permission two years after Betty Boop's debut.
Due to the very satisfying quality of the first Popeye production, the agreement between
Fleischer and King Features was extended to a five-year term even before the film's
release. The movie, entitled Betty Boop Presents Popeye the Sailor, marked the
beginning of Popeye's highly successful series. Within five years, Popeye was the most
popular American cartoon character. Fleischer was so confident, he attempted to
convince film distributor Paramount to back a feature-length Popeye movie, but the
shorts they created were the most profitable Popeye productions.
Disney moved into feature films in 1937 with the success of Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs, forcing the Fleischers into entering this new arena. They produced the feature-
length cartoons Gulliver's Travels and Mr. Bug Goes To Town in 1938 and 1941, both of
which bombed. Their expansion, which involved enlarging their staff to produce the
features, proved unsuccessful. In 1942 Paramount forced the brothers out of their own
studio. Amidst this disappointment, the Fleischers premiered the first Superman short in
1941. After Paramount bought his studio, Fleischer worked for that company as
production chief of cartooning until he retired in the 1960s. Fleischer died of heart failure
on September 11, 1972, in Woodland Hills, California.

John Bray

Bray was born on August 25, 1879, in Addison, Michigan, a small farming town where
his father served as a minister. He entered Alma College in Michigan in 1895, but the
following year abandoned his formal studies. In 1901 he became a reporter for the
Detroit Evening News. During his two-year stint in Detroit, Bray's assignments included
examining corpses at the morgue in order to recreate sensational accident reports. In 1903
he moved to New York to join the staff of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle as a cartoonist.
During his time with the Daily Eagle, Bray met and married Margaret Till, a German
immigrant working as a translator at Columbia University. From the start of their
marriage, Margaret was a dynamic force behind Bray's success. Desiring to venture into
full-time freelancing as a cartoonist, Bray sought his wife's counsel. She readily agreed to
maintain a job until Bray could establish his freelance career. As a result, Bray left
the Daily Eagle and began offering his services as an illustrator and cartoonist around
New York.

Bray's first important break came in 1906 when Judge accepted his one-panel animal
cartoons for publication. The following year Judge began publishing Bray's comic strip
"Little Johnny and His Teddy Bears." The full-page strip consisted of six panels with
rhyming captions. Created out of the teddy bear craze instigated by Teddy Roosevelt, the
bears were accompanied by a typical boy-hero named Johnny. The comic strip, which
received wholeheartedly positive reviews, ran for the next three years.

Succeeding in gaining financial security, Bray moved out of the city to a farm in
Highland Falls. Although his cartoon work continued to be well received, the frequency
of appearances of his work in publications was declining by the early 1910s, apparently
due to Bray's increasing fascination with animation. Around 1910 he began
experimenting with the development of an original animated cartoon. He was apparently
influenced by Porter's The Teddy Bears, released in 1907, which was created by using
stop motion photography of real teddy bears.
Bray's first completed cartoon animation was released in 1913. Accepted and released by
well-known producer Charles Pathe, The Artist's Dream (or The Dachshund and the
Sausage) portrayed an artist drawing a chest of drawers with a dog sleeping next to it. As
the artist completes a drawing of a bowl of sausages on the chest of drawers, his wife
enters and calls him away. After the artist leaves, the drawing comes to life: The dog
jumps up, climbs up the drawers, and wolfs down the sausages until ultimately it
explodes. The venture resulted in a contract with Pathe for six more films in six months,
with a new film to be released each month. Considering it had taken Bray at least six
months to create The Artist's Dream, the contract provided a challenge that Bray would
be unable to meet. However, even though production times had to be extended, the need
for streamlined production forced Bray to find creative solutions to the problem of how to
make animated cartoons financially successful.

To eliminate the time-consuming task of completely redrawing the entire cartoon for each
frame, Bray came up with the idea of using a printed background. Using zinc etching,
hundreds of identical background scenes with the center left blank were printed on
tracing paper. Bray then added the moving components of the cartoon to the blank center,
thus drastically reducing the time and the number of skilled artists needed to complete an
animated cartoon. The new technique was considered an improvement over fellow
cartoon animator Winsor McCay's method of retracing all the lines in each frame, which
often would appear to wiggle and wobble when cast on the film screen.

Bray's stronghold on the animation industry began to wane during the early 1930s when
his patents ran out. Also with the introduction of sound film, the entire film business was
moving in a new direction, leaving Bray's era of silent animation behind for good. Bray's
ability to shift gears and take on new projects and directions in business allowed him to
maintain a respectable business well beyond the life of the silent animated cartoon. His
push for technological advances along with the organization of the process went a long
way in transforming animation from an art form into a profitable business endeavor. Bray
remained active in his company well into his eighties. In 1963 he removed himself as
president of Bray Studios, but remained as chair of the board. Having turned his company
over to his grandson, he moved into a nursing home in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the
late 1960s where he died in October 1978, just a few months before his 100th birthday.

Animal Logic
Animal Logic has been making movie magic for many years. Founded in 1991, it
began with work in advertising and then expanded into feature films on titles such
as "Babe" and "The Matrix." The studio is comprised of three divisions, Animal
Logic Animation, Animal Logic VFX and Animal Logic Entertainment, which
together span creative work in visual effects, animation and film development.
Locations: Sydney, Australia; Burbank, California, U.S.; Vancouver, Canada
Specialty: Visual effects, commercial advertising, feature animation
Notable Achievement:

 2006 Academy Award: Best Animated Feature for "Happy Feet"

 2014 BAFTA Award: Best Animated Film for "The LEGO Movie"
Films:

 "Happy Feet"
 "The LEGO Movie"
 "300"

Blue Sky Studios (Fox)

Blue Sky Studios was founded in 1986 by six people who began with few
resources but diverse talent and a drive to break ground in computer-generated
animation.

Their advances in the field set new bars in the CGI field, eventually drawing
Hollywood's attention in 1996.

In 1998, Blue Sky produced its first animated short film, "Bunny," earning the
studio the 1998 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Blue Sky became
part of Twentieth Century Fox in 1999.

The studio has continued to grow and produce popular feature films.

Location: Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S.

Specialty: Feature animation
Notable achievements:

 1998 Academy Award: Best Animated Short Film for "Bunny"

 Nomination 2002 Academy Award: Best Animated Feature for "Ice Age"
 Nomination 2015 Golden Globe: Best Animated Feature for "The Peanuts
Movie"

Films include:

 "Ice Age" movies

 "Rio" movies
 "Epic"

DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks SKG was founded in 1994 by the three media giants Steven
Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, who brought together talent
from across the film and music industries. In 2001, the studio released the
enormous hit "Shrek," which earned the Academy Award for Best Animated
Feature Film.
In 2004, DreamWorks Animation SKG was spun off into its own company headed
by Katzenberg. The studio has created many well-known animated features,
earning accolades in the industry.
Location: Glendale, California, U.S.
Specialty: Feature and television animation, online virtual games
Notable achievements:

 2001 Academy Award: Best Animated Feature for "Shrek"

 2005 Academy Award: Best Animated Feature for "Wallace & Gromit: The
Curse of the Were-Rabbit"
 Numerous other Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations

Film includes:

 "Trolls"
 "Shrek" movies
 "How to Train Your Dragon" movies

Industrial Light & Magic

It's impossible to overstate the importance of Industrial Light & Magic, or ILM, to
the visual effects and animation industry. ILM was founded in 1975 by George
Lucas as part of his production company, Lucasfilm. You may have heard of a
little movie they worked on called "Star Wars." Their groundbreaking work spans
decades of film history, including movies like "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and
"Jurassic Park." ILM has earned industry awards and accolades galore.
In 2012, Lucasfilm and ILM were acquired by the Walt Disney Company.
Location: Presidio of San Francisco, California, U.S.
Specialty: Visual effects, feature animation
Notable achievements:

 Earned more than a dozen visual effects (VFX) Academy Awards

 Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations too numerous to count

Films include:

 "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"

 "Captain America: Civil War"
 "Pirates of the Carribean" movies

Pixar Animation Studios

The computer-animated feature film industry owes much to Pixar Animation
Studios. Pixar sprang from a group of talented creators who would help open up
the field of computer-generated animation. Its short and feature films have been
nominated for and earned many awards.
Pixar's RenderMan software has become a film industry standard for computer
graphics rendering.
Location: Emeryville, California, U.S.
Specialty: Feature Animation
Notable achievements:

 1988 Academy Award: Best Animated Short Film for "Tin Toy" – the first
computer-animated film to win an Oscar
 "Toy Story" is the world's first computer-animated feature film
 Numerous awards for advances in technology in the film industry

Films include:

 "Toy Story" movies

 "The Incredibles"
 "Finding Nemo"

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Walt Disney is another animation studio with a long and important history in film,
beginning with the first fully-animated feature film "Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs" in 1937. The studio is responsible for some of the biggest animated films
ever, including "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "Frozen" and "The Lion King."
Location: Burbank, California, U.S.
Specialty: Feature Animation
Notable achievements:

 "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" regarded as the first animated
feature film with Technicolor and sound
 2012 Academy Award: Best Animated Short Film for "Paperman"
 2013 Academy Award: Best Animated Feature for "Frozen"

Film include:

 "The Lion King"

 "Zootopia"
 "Frozen"

Weta Digital
Weta Digital was founded in 1993 by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor and Jamie
Selkirk. Based in New Zealand, the studio established itself as an innovator in
animation with its trilogy of films "The Lord of the Rings," "The Two Towers" and
"Return of the King" based on based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkein.
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Specialty: Visual Effects, Performance Capture
Notable achievements:

 Groundbreaking crowd simulation system

 Multiple visual effects Academy Awards, including those for "The Lord of
the Rings" trilogy and "Avatar."

Films include:

 "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy of films

 "Avatar"
 "King Kong"

Sony Pictures Animation

Sony Pictures Animation was founded in 2002. The studio works closely with its
sister studio, Sony Pictures Imageworks. Its first feature film was the animated
"Open Season" in 2006, and it has developed several successful franchises
since then, including "The Smurfs" and "Hotel Transylvania."
Location: Culver City, California, U.S.
Specialty: Feature animation
Notable achievements:

 2002 Academy Award: Best Animated Short Film for "The ChubbChubbs!"
 Oscar nomination in 2007 for Best Animated Feature for "Surf's Up"

Films include:

 "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs"

 "Hotel Transylvania"

 "The Smurfs"

Sony Pictures Imageworks

Part of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, Imageworks has provided visual
effects for a wide range of companies and films, including "Men in Black 3,"
"Suicide Squad" and "The Amazing Spider-Man." It has been nominated for
many awards for its VFX work.
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Specialty: Visual effects
Notable achievements:

 2002 Academy Award: Best Animated Short Film: "The ChubbChubbs!"

 2004 Academy Award: Best Visual Effects for "Spider-Man 2"
Films include:

 "Angry Birds Movie"

 "Spider-Man 2"
 "Alice in Wonderland"