Lectures #1-4 - OCPS Teacher Server

* Remember – Images will not appear on the PPT presentation that will be 

posted to the course website

Lecture #1: The Beginnings 

Animation 

Translucent (Translucency) 

Chronophotography (Chronophotographs) 

Persistence of Vision 

Phi Phenomenon 

Afterimage 

Bullet-Time Effect 

When a key term is used in the written elements of a slide it will be highlighted in BLUE 

Not all words will appear in a written form on a presentation slide or they will be 

highlighted in GOLD if they are a main point or idea

Animation (animation): 

1. The act, process, or result of imparting life, interest, spirit, 

motion, or activity. 

2. The quality or condition of being alive, active, spirited, 

or vigorous. 

3. A. The art or process of preparing animated cartoons. 

B. An animated cartoon.

Caves at Altamira – Spain 

Burnt City – Iran

Zoetrope 

180 AD (1834) 

• Earliest version said to have been created by Chinese 

inventor Ting Huan 

• Made from translucent paper hung over the device 

or a lamp 

• As the device spun the images would appear to move 

• Modern zoetrope was created by William George Horner 

(1834) 

• A cylinder with vertical slits containing a series of 

pictures affixed to the inside of the cylinder opposite 

the slits 

• As it spun, the viewer could look through the slits and 

see the images move 

Magic Lantern 

Estimated around 16 th Century (Late 1800s) 

• Translucent oil paintings and a single lamp 

• When put together in a dark room, the light would shine 

through the painting and project an image onto the wall 

• Predecessor of the modern day projector 

• Mechanical elements attached to the device to project limited 

movement on the wall

Thaumatrope 

(1824) 

• Originally designed as a simple children’s toy 

• A small circular disk with two different pictures (one 

on each side) with a string attached to either side 

• When the string is twisted, the two images appear to 

combine into one 

• Phi Phenomenon 

• Optical Illusion of perceiving continuous motion 

between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession 

Phenakistoscope 

(1831) 

• Predecessor of the modern zoetrope 

• Invented simultaneously by Joseph Plateau 

and Simon von Stampfer 

• Large disc containing slits and a series of 

images lining the outside edge 

• When facing a mirror, the disc is mounted 

and spun 

• The viewer can look through the slits to see 

the movement of the images

Flip Book 

(1868) 

• Patented by John Barnes 

Linnet 

• A set of sequential pictures 

flipped at a high side creates 

the illusion of movement 

Mutoscope 

(1894) 

• A flip book in a box with a 

crank handle to flip the pages 

Praxinoscope 

(1877) 

• Invented by Charles-Emile Reynaud 

• Sophisticated version of the zoetrope 

• A strip of images is placed on the 

inside of a spinning cylinder 

• Viewed in a series of small 

mirrors around the inside of 

the cylinder 

• Clearer image and better quality 

• Large version called Theatre Optique

Muybridge & Chronophotography

Lecture #2: The Era of Experimentation 

• Vignettes 

• Pantomime 

• Stop motion (stop frame) 

• Puppet Animation 

• Direct Film (Drawn-on Film / Cameraless Animation) 

• Cel Animation 

• Celluloid 

• Peg / Peg Board 

• Rotoscoping 

• Cutout Animation 

• Multiplane Camera 

• Avant-Garde 

• Abstract Animation 

• Fade In/Out 

• Dissolve 

• Silhouette 

• Movieola 

• Genre 

• Doubles 

• Live Action 

• Vaudeville 

• Pan (Panning) 




• French Magician and owner of the 

Theatre Robert Houdin 

• Inspired by the Lumiere Brothers and 

their Cinematographe in 1895 

• Applied his magician’s art and 

showmanship to his “trick films” 

• Stop-frame Animation 

• Discovered when the camera jammed 

and had to be restarted you could 

stop the film and move or substitute 

objects before continuing the shot 

• Made some of the first true narrative 

films and pioneered the genres of Sci-Fi, 

Fantasy and Horror 

• Pioneered techniques such as fade in/out 

and dissolves 

• Produced crude animations of dancing 

letters 

• Le voyage dans la lune (1902) 

(A Trip to the Moon)

• Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) 

• Similar concept to the vaudeville acts 

called “chalk takes” or “lightning sketches” 

• Letters, words, and faces come to life on a chalkboard 

• The Haunted Hotel (1907) 

• Live-Action movie where a hotel comes to life using 

stop motion animation 

• Fantasmagorie (1908) 

• Over 700 drawings shot in doubles 

• Comic vignettes are played in pantomime for 

approximately 2 minutes 

• Drawn in white against a black background 

• Settings materialize and change by metamorphosis 

evolving from one to the next in a continuous flow 

Another notable “animator”: Segundo de Chomon (Spain) 

• El Hotel Electrico (The Electric Hotel) 1905

• Colonel Heeza Liar in Africa (1914) 

• First cartoon to be made as part of a series 

• Innovations in Animation 

• Pioneered the breakdown of labor into different roles 

• Made propaganda films for the government during WWI 

• Created background elements on translucent paper leading to the 

proposed patent for the Celluloid Sheet (Cels) 

• Created graytones instead of just black and white 

• The Debut of Thomas the Cat (1920) 

• Earliest recorded instance of a traditional drawn animation film in color 

• Patented a process of producing the animated characters onto 

a cel or layers of cels keeping the unmoving parts of the drawing 

on a separate level 

• Bobby Bumps (1914) 

• Series of sophisticated shorts with developed stories 

• Gray-toned backgrounds and black and white lined characters 

• Joined forces with JR Bray to created Bray-Hurd Patent Trust 

• Charged fees for anyone using the cel animation processes

“Father of Stop Motion” 

• Russian scientist and entomologist 

• Started out making educational films for a museum 

• Most of his early work featured insects as its stars 

• Some of his most notable works include: 

• Prekrasnaya Lyukanida (1910) 

The Beautiful Leukanida 

• Mest Kinematograficheskogo Operatora (1912) 

The Cameraman’s Revenge 

• The Night Before Christmas (1913) 

• Moved onto include puppet animation 

• Feitche (The Mascot, 1934) 

• Le Roman de Renard (The Tale of the Fox, 1930) 

• El Apostol (The Apostle 1917) 

• No surviving copies 

• Reportedly the first feature length animated film

• Originally a newspaper cartoonist 

• Superb draftsman with the imagination of a master storyteller 

• Perspective and anatomical detail are priorities in his works 

• Little Nemo in Slumberland / Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend 

• First film effort: Little Nemo with J. Stuart Blackton (1911) 

• Worked for 4 years completing 4,000 drawings 

• Hand-colored the 35mm frames 

• No storyline to the film – Characters show a continuous 

parade of movement, metamorphosis, and exaggeration 

• The Story of a Mosquito (1912) 

• Tells the story of a mosquito’s encounter with a drunken man 

• Took only a year to complete 

• Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) 

• 10,000 drawings in the one reel film 

• Inked on rice paper and mounted to cardboard 

• For the first time an artist breathed life into an inanimate 

character and gave her a personality 

• The Centaurs and The Sinking of the Lusitania 

• With the creation of Gertie, an industry was 

born – an industry that McCay wanted not 

part of 

• Drifted away from animation in the early 

1920’s to continue his work with newspapers 

and to work on films at his own pace

Lecture #2: The Era of Experimentation 

• Vignettes 

• Pantomime 

• Stop motion (stop frame) 

• Puppet Animation 

• Direct Film (Drawn-on Film / Cameraless Animation) 

• Cel Animation 

• Celluloid 

• Peg / Peg Board 

• Rotoscoping 

• Cutout Animation 

• Multiplane Camera 

• Avant-Garde 

• Abstract Animation 

• Fade In/Out 

• Dissolve 

• Silhouette 

• Movieola 

• Genre 

• Doubles 

• Live Action 

• Vaudeville 

• Pan (Panning) 




Innovations 

• Peg Bar (Barre, 1914) 

• Used for Drawing Registration 

• Paper was uniformly perforated along either the bottom or the top an then held in 

place by a bar fixed to the drawing board 

• Slash System (Barre, 1914) 

• A method for separating the still background and the animated foreground by cutting 

(or slashing) thepaper between the two areas 

• Panning backgrounds (Nolan, 1914) 

• Long background drawings that are moved along frame by frame under the 

camera to give the illusion of the camera tracking along a path with a character 

• Together established the world’s first commercial animation studio in the Bronx 

Animations 

• The Animated Grouch Chasers (1915) 

• Mutt & Jeff (1916)

• Young cartoonist working as an art editor of Popular Science Monthly 

• Rotoscope (1916) 

• Used his interest in science to create a machine that could capture movement 

and make animated films 

• The device projected film frame-by-frame onto a light table 

where an artist could trace the movements of figures. 

• Fleischer Brothers helped Max by working together to make 

the actual machine as well as pose for the first animation 

created with the technology Koko the Clown 

• Fleischer was soon hired by Bray to make a 

series entitled Out of the Inkwell 

• In the series, Koko the Clown interacts 

with the animator and the 

“real” world around him 

The Fleischer Brothers will 

continue to make animations 

over the next several decades

• Early animation experience consisted of studying Charlie 

Chaplin’s performances and animating Chaplin cartoons 

• Felix the Cat (1919) 

• Largest cartoon star of the 1920s 

• Created and Animated by Otto Messmer / Produced 

by Pat Sullivan 

• Bold and simple style that had a strong design based on 

geometric shapes and a strong silhouette 

• No technology innovations necessarily went into Felix, but his acting, 

performance, and ability to connect to the audience led to his cult status 

• Kansas City Cartoonist 

• Laugh-O-Gram Films (1922) 

• Shorts demonstrated a great sense of storytelling and 

comic timing 

• They were moderately successful, but filed for bankruptcy 

• Alice in Cartoonland (1923) 

• Completed the pilot film prior to filing for bankruptcy 

• Picked up by a distributor, Margaret J. Winkler 

• A series grew entitled the Alice Comedies and combined live action/animation

Filmstudie (1926) 

Ballet Mecanique (1924) 

Lichtspiel Opus 1 (1921) 

Symphonie Diagonale (1924)

• The Lost World (1925) 

• Based on a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle 

• First feature film to include stop frame animation 

combining “lifelike dinosaurs and human actors 

• Inspiration and basis for King Kong 

• Die Abenteuer des Prizen Achmed (1925 – 26) 

(The Adventures of Prince Achmed) 

• Earliest surviving animated feature film 

• Adaptation from Andrew Lang’s 

The Blue Fairy Book 

• Translated Middle Eastern and Asian 

fairytales and folklore into English for the first time 

• Cutout silhouette style resembles traditional Asian 

shadow puppets 

• First film to use a form of multiplane camera

Lecture #3: The Golden Age of Cartoons 

Synchronization 

Short* 

Feature Length* 

Pinscreen 

Anthology 

Lip Sync 

Monochromatic* 

Pencil Test 

Limited Animation 

Animatic 

Armature 

Theme 

Paint and Trace (Ink & Paint) 

Dynamation* 

*Defined on PPT slide or lecture only 




Steamboat Willie (1928) 

• Mickey Mouse pilots a boat while having difficulties 

with Pegleg Pete 

• Large investment in sound equipment – Powers 

Cinephone to create sound synchronization 

• Mickey did appear in a couple earlier cartoons 

that were not distributed – once Steamboat Willie was 

released, sound was added and they were released as follow ups 

Minnie Mouse - Steamboat Willie (1928) 

Pluto - The Chain Gang (1930) 

Goofy (Dippy Dawg) - Mickey’s Revue (1932) 

Donald Duck - The Wise Little Hen (1934) 

Daisy Duck (Donna) – Don Donald (1937) 

(Daisy appears in Mr. Duck Steps Out) 

Golden Age of 

Cartoons Begins

• A series of 75 musical shorts starred cheerful and optimistic 

characters that gave audiences a lift during the Great Depression 

• Some notable cartoons of the series are: 

• Skeleton Dance (1929) 

• First cartoon of the series 

• Unusual cartoon because it was specifically built 

around the music of Carl Stalling and it has no main 

character or star 

• Three Little Pigs (1933) 

• Most successful of the Silly Symphonies 

• One of the most successful short films of all time 

• Characters, although similar, have distinct personalities 

• Followed up by 3 somewhat unsuccessful sequels – 

led to the belief that sequels do not help a studio move forward 

• The Old Mill (1936) 

• Marks the moment when animation moved into the world of 

realism

• Walt Disney’s first feature length film 

• Nicknamed Disney’s Folly 

• Went 6 times over original budget - $1.7 million 

• Highest grossing film of the year 

• 750 – 1000 artists employed 

• Film contains the full emotional spectrum from 

light to dark / good to evil / Happy to Grumpy 

• Film’s colors were muted due to concerns that 

audiences would not be able to sit through the 

usual bright colors for an extended time 

• Paint and trace department women 

actually added their own make up to Snow 

White to bring color to her cheeks 

• Seven Dwarfs were all essentially the same 

character with uniquely different personalities 

In less than a decade 

Disney went from monochromatic rhythmic rubberyness 

to a realistically animated feature in full color

From 1931 – 1939 Walt Disney wins ALL of the Oscars for 

Animated Short Film (Short Subject – Cartoons) 

1939 

Disney receives an 

Special Honorary 

Oscar for his 

achievements with 

Snow White and 

The Seven Dwarves

• Unlike Disney’s short films that were concerned with childlike situations and 

problems, Fleischer cartoons like those of Betty Boop and Popeye were grounded 

in a much more adult kind of world. 

• Production Code (Hays Code) – 1934 

• Controls the content of movies, which forced many changes 

in the tone of the Betty Boop cartoons 

Betty Boop 

• Dizzy Dishes (1930) – First appearance of “Betty Boop” 

• Stopping the Show (1932) – First “Betty Boop Cartoon” 

• Rhythm on the Reservation (1939) – Last Betty Boop Cartoon 

Popeye the Sailor Man 

• Directed by Dave Fleischer 

• Olive Oyl is kidnapped by Bluto causing 

Popeye to eat a can of spinach and goes to 

save his love 

• Lillian Friedman was promoted to the 

position of animator – First woman to hold 

this position professionally in the States

• Curiosity of primates was high in the early 20 th century 

• Other films about primates had been made with little success 

• The character of King Kong was a series of 18 inch models 

made from foam, rubber, and animal skins over metal skeletons 

• Scenes with human actors were shot with life size models 

of the gorilla’s head, hand and foot 

• Considered to be one of the most famous films of all time 

• Known for his adaptations of fairytales 

• Nicknamed the “Soviet Disney” 

• Started out as a mechanical engineer - invented an adding machine 

• Joined Moscow’s Mosfilms as a puppet maker in 1927 

• Made several short films starring a character named Bratsihkin 

• Novyy Gulliver (New Gulliver, 1935) 

• First Russian animated feature film 

• Cast over 3,000 puppets that utilized lip syncing 

• Zolotoy klyuchik (The Golden Key, 1939) 

• Kamennyy tsvetok (Stone Flower, 1946) 

• First Russian film in color

• Left Russia after the October Revolution of 1917 

• Worked as a set designer and book illustrator 

• Pinscreen Animation 

• A device contained hundreds of pins that slid in and 

out of a grid 

• Created an infinitely pliable surface shape which produced relief 

shadow images especially when lit from the side 

• Une nuit sur le mont chauve (Night on Bald Mountain, 1933) 

• Took 18 months to make 

• Based on the Modest Mussorgsky’s short symphony 

• Film avoids cute Halloween-esque images – uses obscure unsettling images 

• Dream-like shadowed smeared quality

• Established by Albert, Harry, Sam, and Jack Warner in 1923 

• Producer Leon Schlesinger established an animation studio on their lot in 1927 

• Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising created the Looney Tunes series in 1930 and 

Merrie Melodies in 1931 

• First character named Bosko – Eventually taken to MGM 

• Animators hired after Harman and Ising left: 

• Chuck Jones / Bob Clampett / Robert Cannon / Tex Avery 

• Schlesinger moved the animators away from the main team and 

moved them into a cabin nicknamed Termite Terrace 

• Some of the characters created include: 

• Porky Pig / Daffy Duck / Bugs Bunny / Speedy Gonzales / 

Wile E. Coyote / Road Runner 

• Significant Cartoons of the 30’s 

• Porky’s Duck Hunt (1937) 

• Daffy Duck is introduced by Tex Avery 

• Daffy Duck and Egghead (1938) 

• Egghead would eventually become Elmer Fudd (Tex Avery) 

• Bob Clampett picks up Daffy then passed to multiple animators 

(Robert McKimson, Friz Freleng, Art Davis, & Chuck Jones) 

• Porky in Wackyland (1938) 

• Porky’s Hare Hunt (1938) 

• Bugs Bunny makes his debut – created by animator Ben “Bugs” Hardaway



Short* 


Pinscreen 

Anthology 

Lip Sync 


Pencil Test 


Animatic 

Armature 

Theme 


Dynamation* 





• Worked for the Bray studios working on the Farmer 

Al Falfa series 

• Established Terrytoons Studio in 1929 

• Studio had the lowest budgets and were the slowest to 

new technologies such as sound 

• Dinner Time (October 1928) 

• First “Synchronized” sound cartoon 

• Did not achieve the fame nor the recognition of 

Steamboat Willie 

• The Mouse of Tomorrow (1942) 

• First appearance of Mighty Mouse (as Super Mouse) 

• Popular to some extent with its preliminary cartoons – 

gained larger popularity after the invention of the 

television 

• Heckle & Jeckle (1946) 

• A pair of identical magpies who 

calmly outwit their foes while 

maintaining an aggressively 

mischievous streak 

• Considered to be the best cartoons 

the studio ever made

• Started at the age of 15 working at the William Hearst 

International Studio 

• Ran his own studio from 1929 – 1972 

• Knock Knock (1940) 

• First appearance of Woody Woodpecker in 

an Andy Panda cartoon 

• Woody would continue to be made until Lantz’s retirement in 1972 

• William Hanna and Joseph Barbera worked together at MGM 

• First cartoon made together was Puss gets the Boot in 1940 

• Starred a cat name Jasper who chases an unnamed mouse 

• The two would eventually become known as Tom and Jerry 

and be considered MGM’s most popular characters 

• Paramount encouraged the Fleischer Bros Studio to work with the Superman 

• They were able to pencil test the animation 

• Film Noir stylization came from the camera angles and overall design 

• Did not shy away from the “scary stuff ” 

• Fleischer Bros made 8 Superman episodes before the takeover 

• Studio renamed Famous Studios who created 9 more Superman episodes

• Pinocchio (1940): Financial Failure 

• Fantasia (1941): Financial Failure 

• Started out as a Silly Symphonies Short 

• Wanted to create the ultimate experience with the idea of 

using animation as a form of visual music and raising the idea 

of animation as a respectable art form 

• Dumbo (1941): Disney’s largest grossing film of the 1940s 

• Shortest of Disneys features 

• Bambi (1942): Initial Financial failure – turned a profit after 

its 1947 rerelease 

• B-Movie Type Features 

• “package movies” – or collections of shorter subject packaged 

together (also known as anthology or portmanteau films) 

• Saludos Amigos (1943) 

• Three Caballeros (1945) 

• Song of the South (1946) 

• Uncle Remus Stories by Joel Chandler Harris

• China’s animation pioneers 

• Uproar in the Studio (1924) 

• China’s first animated short 

• Tie Shan gong zhu (Princess Iron Fan, 1941) 

• China’s first animated feature film 

• Based on the Buddhist tale, Journey to the West 

• One of Japan’s animation pioneers 

• Worked as an animator and special effects artist 

• Nicknamed the “Japanese Melies” 

• Chikara to onna no yo no naka (1933) 

• First Japanese animation with sound 

• Chagama Ondo (The Dance of the Chagamas, 1934) 

• First Japanese film made entirely using cel 

animation 

• Kumo to Churippu (The Spider and the Tulip, 1943)

• Fast and Furry-ous (1949) 

• The chaser defeated himself through his own ineptitude 

• Never intended to be part of a series 

• The famous Beep Beep was taken from Paul Julian, a 

background artist, who made the sound as he carried large 

background around the studio 

• The Dover Boys At Pimento University (1942) 

• Jones experimented with a simplified style that would be 

adopted by UPA studios 

• Red Hot Riding Hood (1943) 

• Adaptation of the Red Riding Hood story 

• First film created after arriving at the MGM studios 

• Censors believed the cartoons antics were too 

suggestive and recommended cuts be made 

• Considered to be the most successful of MGM’s 

cartoons to date

• Established by ex-Disney animators Zack Schwartz, David Hilberman, Stephen Bosustow 

• Originally worked under the studio name Industrial Film and Poster Service 

• Founded based on the idea of simple design and limited animation 

• Came under suspicion for “communist leanings” due to their free-thinking ideas 

• However, after the war ended, they were offered a contract with Columbia Pictures 

• Robin Hoodlum (1948) & The Magic Fluke (1949) 

• Featured characters Fox and Crow 

• After the success, UPA was given permission to make their own characters 

• Mr. Magoo 

• A grumpy old man who refuses to admit his chronic near-sightedness 

• Created by John Hubley and based on his uncle and W.C. Fields 

• Ragtime Bear (1949) 

• Magoo’s first cartoon 

• Magoo mistakes a bear for his banjo playing nephew 

• After the first cartoon, Hubey stepped away and the 

series was taken over by Pete Burness

During World War II many studios produced wartime propaganda 

films to support their studios during the rough times 

Walt Disney Studios 

• Commissioned to make 32 propaganda, training, and 

educational shorts between 1941 – 1945 

• Best Known short was Der Fuehrer’s Face (1943) 

• Won the Oscar for Best Animated Short 

• Victory Through Air Power (1943) 

• Feature Length PR push for the need to build 

more war planes 

United Productions of America (UPA) 

• Hell Bent for Election (1944) 

• Depicts a fast modern train, representing Roosevelt 

racing with a broken-down old steam train, 

representing Repubican candidate, Thomas E. Dewey 

• Flat Hatting (1945) 

• Instructional film for the Navy 

• The Brotherhood of Man (1945) 

• Addresses racial integration



Short* 


Pinscreen 

Anthology 

Lip Sync 


Pencil Test 


Animatic 

Armature 

Theme 


Dynamation* 





• Cinderella (1950) – Financial Success 

• Alice in Wonderland (1951) – Poorly Received 

• Peter Pan (1953) 

• These three films lacked chills or evil bad guys causing the stories to be blander 

than the films of the 40s 

• Brilliantly crafted films that lacked innovation, inspiration, or pioneering spirit 

• Walt Disney switched his attentions to theme parks and television docu-films 

• Animations were left in the hands of the Nine Old Men 

• Lady and the Tramp (1955) – Financial Success 

• First Disney feature filmed in widescreen

• Gerald McBoing Boing (1951) 

• Adapted from a story written by Dr. Seuss 

• Story involves a young boy who can only make 

sound effects as he speaks 

• Used only muted flat colors and uses only 

elemental lines 

• Won the Oscar for Animated Short in 1951 

• Other shorts by UPA include: 

• The Oompahs (1952) 

• Georgie and the Dragon (1951) 

• Madeline (1952) 

• Christopher Crumpet (1953) 

• A Unicorn in the Garden (1953) 

• A Tell Tale Heart (1953) 

• A straight ahead horror cartoon 

• John Hubley also directed several pieces that tended 

to be more adult oriented: 

• Rooty Toot Toot (1951) 

• Murder story from different perspectives 

• The Fourposter (1952) 

• Created the animated segments for a live action film

• Created by Alex Anderson and producer Jay Ward 

• First cartoon made specifically for television 

• Limited Animation Style (barely animated at all) 

• Feels like you are watching an animatic 

• Strengths are in the zany writing and the comic-strip 

style stills of the characters 

• 195 5-minute episodes were created / 250 more were made 

• Directed by Chuck Jones 

• Demonstrates that the animator can do absolutely 

anything absolutely easily 

• Proved that its not about reproducing reality, its about 

altering reality and looking at it from a different perspective 

• Trying to show that Daffy as a character transcends a 

cartoon setting and possibly has a soul 

• Listed as 2 nd on the list of 50 Greatest Cartoons

• Inspired by the work of Willis O’Brien 

• Met O’Brien in 1938 who inspired him to take 

art, anatomy, and film classes 

• Worked with O’Brien on Mighty Joe Young (1949) 

• Worked briefly for George Pal on his Puppetoons 

• After serving in WWII – created a a series of nursery 

rhymes entitled Mother Goose Stories (1946) 

using armatured models 

• The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) 

• Directed by Eugene Lourie 

• Ray was responsible for the stop motion 

animations and modeling 

• First film to use the dynamation technique 

where a split screen is used to insert the model 

animation into live action 

• Earned $5 million on a $200,000 

budget 

• The film effects helped to 

inspire a genre of giant 

monster movies – including 

Godzilla

• Handling Ships (1945) 

• First British feature film released as a training film for t 

• he Navy 

• Animal Farm (1954) 

• First British feature film to get a general release 

• Based on George Orwell’s novel 

• Increased realism helps audiences focus on the story 

• Dark colors are used to reflect the somber theme 

• Happy ending – different from the ending of the novel 

• In both the UK and the US, it was described as one of 

the greatest animated feature 

• First animated feature dared to tell a grown-up story 

aimed at an adult audience

Lecture #4: The Television Age 

Character Animation 

Effects Animation (Special Effects / EFX) 

Anime 

Xerox 

Morph (Morphing) 

Anthropomorphization 

Improv (Ad Lib) 

Rendered 

Establishing Shot 

Lo-Fi Animation 

Dubbing 




• 1001 Arabian Nights (1959) - Peter Burness / Jack Kinney 

• Visually well made with a slow moving story 

• Gay Purr-ee (1962) - Abe Levitow 

• Never generated enough revenue – UPA closed in 1964 

• Friz Freleng & David DePatie: DePatie-Freleng Enterprises in 1964 

• Commissioned to create the opening credits for 

The Pink Panther 

• The Pink Phink (1964) 

• The success of the pink panther took off and led to 

other series: The Inspector & The Ant and the Aardvark 

• The Dot and the Line (1965) 

• Created during his time at MGM 

• The Phantom Tollbooth (1970) 

• Directed by Chuck Jones & Abe Levitow 

• MGM’s animation department was closed soon after this 

production and did not fund another animated film until 1982

• The Adventures of an * (1957) 

• Used double exposures to produce 

overlaid images and filming the layers 

half-exposed to make them semi-transparent 

• Moonbird (1959) 

• Funded by the Guggenheim Museum 

• Based on improvised play of their children 

• Soundtrack consisted of improvised unscripted play talk 

• Colored the image with wax crayons and black ink 

• Eggs (1970) 

• Loose spontaneous visual narrative style – grittier drawings 

• A more serious heavy handed topic of overpopulation 

• Mothlight (1963) 

• Direct Cinema – No camera was used 

• Found objects of insects wings, beetles legs, and 

leaves were glued between two strips of film 

• Scratched, painted, and pressed natural objects directly 

onto the film stock

Sleeping Beauty (1959) 

• Released in widescreen & stereophonic sound 

101 Dalmations (1961) 

• 1 st Disney film to use Xerox process 

The Sword in the Stone (1963) 

Mary Poppins (1964) 

The Jungle Book (1967) 

• 1 st time character movements and acting were based on the 

personalities and filmed movements of the voice actors 

• Encouraged Voice Actor Improv (Ad Lib) 

The Aristocats (1970) 

• Last film to be greenlit by Disney 

Robin Hood (1973) 

Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) (Anthology Style) 

The Rescuers (1977) 

• Opening weekend animation box office grossing record 

The Fox and the Hound (1981) 

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

• Ex-Disney Animators: Don Bluth, Gary 

Goldman, & John Pomeroy established 

Don Bluth Productions (1979) 

• Banjo the Woodpile Cat (1979) 

• Sold directly to television 

• Secret of NIMH (1982) 

• Rejected by Disney for being too dark 

• Techniques used: color Xerography / split 

exposure / diffusion to create shadows, 

translucency and reflections 

• An American Tail (1986) 

• Produced by Steven Speilberg 

• Highest grossing animated film until 1988 

• The Land Before Time (1988) 

• All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

• A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) 

• Directed by Bill Melendez 

• Funded by the Coca-Cola Company 

• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) 

• Directed by Chuck Jones 

• Rankin/Bass Stop Motion TV Specials 

• Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (1964) 

• Santa Claus is Coming to Town (1970) 

• The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) 

• The Snowman (1982) - UK 

• Directed by Dianne Jackson 

• Silent except for the score 

• Hand-rendered in pastel colors for the 

characters and the background 

• A Christmas Carol (1971) 

• Directed by Richard Williams 

• Originally created as a made-for 

tv short – Oscar winner 

• Inventive traveling 

establishing shots 

• Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962)

• MGM’s animation unit closed in 1957 – 

Hanna & Barbera created their own studio 

• The Ruff & Reddy Show (1957) 

• The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958) 

• Show had a minimalistic quality 

similar to the limited style of UPA 

• Flintstones (1960-1966) 

• First animated sitcom and the only 

cartoon to successfully fill a primetime 

slot until The Simpsons 

• Animation was cheap to produce yet 

managed to maintain a funny and 

memorable watch-ability due to the writing, 

characters, and catchy tunes

Lecture #4: The Television Age 

Character Animation 

Effects Animation (Special Effects / EFX) 

Anime 

Xerox 

Morph (Morphing) 

Anthropomorphization 

Improv (Ad Lib) 

Rendered 

Establishing Shot 

Lo-Fi Animation 

Dubbing 




• Storytime 

• Lo-Fi Animation Style using cutout photos, 

Victorian imagery, surreal machines, and 

bizarre illustrations 

• Monty Python’s Flying Circus 

• Provided integral transitions throughout the 

show as well as in the feature films Monty 

Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and 

Life of Brian (1979) 

• John Hubley originally hired as director, but left after 

completing the opening scene 

• Martin Rosen stepped in as director 

• Originally marketed as a family friendly film 

• Considered to have one of the goriest scene in 

an animated film 

• Stayed away from anthropomorphic characters and 

stuck to realistic and nonidealized characters

• The Yellow Submarine (1968) 

• Directed by George Dunning 

• Each song was animated in a different style 

• Considered on of the great rock movies 

• Pink Floyd’s The Wall (1982) 

• Designed and Directed by satirical cartoonist 

Gerald Scarfe 

• Wild and aggressive ink splattered designs 

• Explores the feelings of isolation and alienation 

• The “magic” of animation comes from the morphing 

of objects from one thing to another 

• Doves to vultures to war planes 

• A-ha: Take on Me (1985) 

• Directed by Steven Barron / Animated by Michael 

Patterson 

• Features the singer of the band coming alive from a 

comic’s page in the form of a rotoscoped animated 

character

• Taiji Yabushita – Hakuja Den (The Tale of the White Serpent, 1958) 

• First full length animated feature in color 

• Based on special effects and spectacle rather than character animation 

• Osamu Tezuka – Astro Boy (1963) 

• Created the manga as well as the cartoon 

• Credited as the series that introduced the anime style to the world 

• Remade in color in the 1980s and 2003 – CG film in 2009 

• Toei Doga – Cyborg 009 

• Kaitei Shonen Marin – Marine Boy 

• Originally releases as Dolphin Prince in 1967 and cancelled almost immediately 

• Rereleased as Marine Boy (78 episodes) 

• 1 st successful anime in the UK 

• Hiroshi Sasagawa – MACH GO GO GO (Speed Racer, 1967) 

• Sazae-san (Fuji Television) 1969 

• Based on Machiko Hasewaga manga featured in newspapers from 

1946 – 1974 

• World’s longest running animation series 

• Renzo & Sayoko Kinoshita 

• Helped to establish the Hiroshima International Film Festival 

• Nippon Seizou (Made in Japan, 1972) 

• Pica-don (1972) 

• One of the most harrowing and disturbing animation shorts of 

all time

• Akira (1988) 

• Combination of digital and cel animation 

• Credited for breaking open the market for 

anime in the West 

• Most significant Japanese adult-aimed animation 

• The first Japanese film to use the standard western 

technique of recording the sound before the pictures 

• Usual practice in Japan was to dub the sound over 

the picture 

• Other projects include: 

• Rojin Z (Old man Z, 1991) – animator 

• Warudo apatomento hora 

(World Apartment Horror, 1991) – writer 

• Memories (1995) – director 

• Metropolis (2001) – producer 

• Steamboy (2004) – director

• Taiyo No Oji: Horus No Daiboken 

(Prince of the Sun: The Adventure of Horus, 1968) 

• Takahata’s debut feature 

• Arupusu no shojo Haiji (Heidi, 1974) 

• Television series adapted from the book Heidi 

• Dubbed in 19 different languages 

• Rupan Sansei: Kariosutoro no shiro 

(Castle of Cagliostro, 1979) 

• Miyazaki directorial debut 

• STUDIO GHIBLI ESTABLISHED IN 1985 

• Primarily focused on traditionally drawn 

animation 

Studio Ghibli

• Followed UPA’s style of limited animation 

• The Duga Film studio 

• Produced Croatia’s first animated film The Big 

Meeting in 1951 

• Former members of Duga Film formed Zagreb 

Film in 1956 

• Aimed to produce experimental and creative 

animation 

• Samac (Alone, 1958) 

• Dialog-free short that initiated several 

existential films that question and comment 

on the human condition 

• Surogat (Ersatz, 1961) 

• Oscar for animated short film went out of 

the US for the first time 

• Professor Balthazar (1967) 

• 52 episodes featured an eccentric old inventor 

• The Masque of the Red Death (1969) 

• Considered one of the greatest horror shorts 

• Satiemania (1978)

• Flaklypa Grand Prix (The Pinchcliffe Grand Pix, 1975) 

• Directed by Ivo Caprino 

• Created an early form of animatronics in order to 

manipulated his puppets in real time 

• Shown daily in certain theaters for 28 years 

• Dot and the Kangaroo (1977) 

• Directed by Yoram Gross 

• Laid characters over photographic backgrounds 

• Led to 7 sequels 

• La flute a six schtroumpfs (The Smurfs 

and the Magic Flute, 1976) 

• Originally created by cartoonist 

Peyo in 1958 

• Hanna-Barbera began producing 

the US Smurfs series in 1981 

• The Smurfs and the Magic Flute 

was released in the US in 1983

Lectures #1-4 - OCPS Teacher Server

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