Podcast
Questions and Answers
What major transition occurred in the film industry in the 1950s due to the introduction of Kodak Eastmancolor?
What major transition occurred in the film industry in the 1950s due to the introduction of Kodak Eastmancolor?
Which VFX technique was NOT mentioned as an invention from the Star Wars production?
Which VFX technique was NOT mentioned as an invention from the Star Wars production?
What event primarily hindered the progress of European filmmakers from the 1940s?
What event primarily hindered the progress of European filmmakers from the 1940s?
Which film is cited as a significant influence on visual effects during the Cold War period?
Which film is cited as a significant influence on visual effects during the Cold War period?
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What was one of the key advantages that Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) brought to the film industry?
What was one of the key advantages that Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) brought to the film industry?
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Which technique was invented by Max Fleischer in 1915 that improved the lifelikeness of animation?
Which technique was invented by Max Fleischer in 1915 that improved the lifelikeness of animation?
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What was the first animated film to receive an Academy Award for animation?
What was the first animated film to receive an Academy Award for animation?
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Which animator collaborated with Earl Hurd to patent various animation techniques in 1915?
Which animator collaborated with Earl Hurd to patent various animation techniques in 1915?
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What characteristic was a key part of Walt Disney's business model for animation studios?
What characteristic was a key part of Walt Disney's business model for animation studios?
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Which group of animators is referred to as 'The Nine Old Men'?
Which group of animators is referred to as 'The Nine Old Men'?
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Which strategy was NOT part of Walt Disney's approach to animation?
Which strategy was NOT part of Walt Disney's approach to animation?
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Which of the following was a significant contribution of Walt Disney to the animation industry?
Which of the following was a significant contribution of Walt Disney to the animation industry?
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Which animator is credited with the first puppet-animated film?
Which animator is credited with the first puppet-animated film?
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What animation technique uses human actors instead of models or puppets?
What animation technique uses human actors instead of models or puppets?
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Which of the following is NOT a notable work of Ray Harryhausen?
Which of the following is NOT a notable work of Ray Harryhausen?
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Phil Tippett is best known for his work in which aspect of filmmaking?
Phil Tippett is best known for his work in which aspect of filmmaking?
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Which company was co-founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton?
Which company was co-founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton?
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What major award did Willis Harold O’Brien win in 1950?
What major award did Willis Harold O’Brien win in 1950?
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Which of the following animation techniques involves moving and photographing cut-out drawings frame by frame?
Which of the following animation techniques involves moving and photographing cut-out drawings frame by frame?
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Which animator is recognized for the concept of 'Dynamation'?
Which animator is recognized for the concept of 'Dynamation'?
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What was the focus of Aardman's animation technique?
What was the focus of Aardman's animation technique?
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Which film did NOT feature Ray Harryhausen's work?
Which film did NOT feature Ray Harryhausen's work?
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Which studio is often referred to as 'the British Disney'?
Which studio is often referred to as 'the British Disney'?
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Who was appointed to head the National Film Board of Canada’s animation department in 1941?
Who was appointed to head the National Film Board of Canada’s animation department in 1941?
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Which animation technique involves manipulating objects and photographing them one frame at a time?
Which animation technique involves manipulating objects and photographing them one frame at a time?
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What characterized the development of animation in Russia?
What characterized the development of animation in Russia?
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Which of the following films earned Michaël Dudok de Wit an Academy Award?
Which of the following films earned Michaël Dudok de Wit an Academy Award?
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Which of the following techniques is NOT a type of stop-motion animation?
Which of the following techniques is NOT a type of stop-motion animation?
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Which early animator is known for using dead insects in his work?
Which early animator is known for using dead insects in his work?
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What was the primary goal of the National Film Board of Canada regarding animation?
What was the primary goal of the National Film Board of Canada regarding animation?
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Which of the following directors is associated with Warner Bros Cartoons?
Which of the following directors is associated with Warner Bros Cartoons?
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What significant change did the central government in China implement during the Socialist Market Economy Period regarding animation?
What significant change did the central government in China implement during the Socialist Market Economy Period regarding animation?
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Which production company was the market leader in Taiwan during the 1970s to 1980s?
Which production company was the market leader in Taiwan during the 1970s to 1980s?
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What was the result of the Taiwan dollar appreciating significantly in the 1990s?
What was the result of the Taiwan dollar appreciating significantly in the 1990s?
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What was a significant drawback of the Taiwanese government’s policy on comics and animation?
What was a significant drawback of the Taiwanese government’s policy on comics and animation?
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Which animated feature film is noted as one of the first successful Hong Kong films?
Which animated feature film is noted as one of the first successful Hong Kong films?
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What was a notable trend in television animation minutes from 2003 to 2007 as reported?
What was a notable trend in television animation minutes from 2003 to 2007 as reported?
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What characterized the early 2000s television animation landscape in China?
What characterized the early 2000s television animation landscape in China?
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What thematic shift occurred in original Taiwanese animation productions?
What thematic shift occurred in original Taiwanese animation productions?
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Which government initiative aimed to revitalize Taiwan's animation industry?
Which government initiative aimed to revitalize Taiwan's animation industry?
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What technological advancement began to dominate the animation landscape after the turn of the century?
What technological advancement began to dominate the animation landscape after the turn of the century?
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Study Notes
Mock Exam Information
- Exam duration: 45 minutes
- Put student ID card on table
- Leave notes, books, and phones under chair
Exam Format
- Exam length: 2 hours
- Multiple Choice (10 questions, 20% of total grade)
- Short Questions (4 questions, 50% of total grade)
- Long Question (1 question, 30% of total grade)
Exam Reminders
- Be punctual (arrive at least 15 minutes before start)
- Bring student ID card
- Answer all questions
- Avoid any questionable behavior
- Apply for deferral if unable to attend
What is Animation?
- Animation is the creative interpretation of motion.
- It's a process art where drawings, objects, or characters are filmed frame-by-frame.
- Each frame has a slight alteration of the materials to create the illusion of movement.
Early Animation Pioneers
- Émile Cohl (1857-1938, French): Known as "The Father of the Animated Cartoon," he created a surrealistic cartoon style and produced Fantasmagorie (1908).
- J. Stuart Blackton (1875-1941, American): Made The Enchanted Drawing (1900), and is considered the father of American animation, used stop-motion and drawn animation.
- Winsor McCay (1871-1934, American): Achieved national recognition for his Little Nemo in Slumberland and Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend comic strips, and produced the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur (1913).
- John R. Bray (1879-1978) & Earl Hurd (1880-1940): Invented and patented large background drawings, and camera panning for hand-drawn animation; patented translucent cels & registration peg.
Golden Age of American Animation (1930s-1960s)
- Walt Disney (1901-1966): Pioneer of animation industry; founded Walt Disney Company; notable strategies include investments in advanced technologies, a one-feature-film-per-year model, and character-centric strategy; Flowers & Trees - Silly Symphonies, the first commercially released full-color film.
- The Nine Old Men (Les Clark, Eric Larson, Marc Davis, John Lounsbery, Ollie Johnston, Wolfgang Reitherman, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ward Kimball): Key animators at Disney Studios.
Disney's Legacies
- Established a standard for top-notch animation assembly lines
- Raised the bar for feature animation
- Created many cartoon superstars
- Found the business model for animation studios
- Funded CalArts (and therefore nurtured animation talents)
Max Fleischer
- Inventor of the rotoscope technique (1915)
UPA Limited Animation
- Broadcast medium (theater vs. television)
- Frame per second on twos/threes (limited to 8 frames)
- Horizontal movement (limited perspective)
- Repeated footage (running gag)
- Interesting background music and dialogue
Warner Bros Cartoons
- Staff members: Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson, Tex Avery, Robert Clampett, Frank Tashlin
National Film Board of Canada
- John Grierson: First director of NFB (National Film Board) in 1939
- Norman McLaren: Head of NFB's animation department in 1941
- NFB sought to create a unique Canadian animation style, different from the US mainstream
British Animation
- Halas & Batchelor: British animation studio, often called the "British Disney," created in 1940
- Aardman Animations: Founded in 1972, known for traditional stop-motion animation
Dutch Animation
- George Pal: Hungarian emigré known for puppet animation; established this tradition in the Netherlands
- Michaël Dudok de Wit: Won Academy award for best animated short film Father and Daughter (2000)
French Animation
- Long tradition in cinema, animation and comic books; pioneering days of Charles-Emile Reynaud, Georges Méliés, and Émile Cohl
- Michel Ocelot, Sylvain Chomet: Notable French animation directors
### Russian Animation
- Ladislav Starewicz: Russia's first animator, notable for 1910 stop-motion, using insects and animals.
- Fyodor Khitruk, Yuri Norstein: Russian animation masters
Stop-Motion Animation
- Types: Claymation, Pixillation, Model/Puppet, Cutout
- Stop-motion masters highlighted include: Ladislav Starewicz, Willis Harold O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen, Phil Tippett
Aardman Animation
- Founded in 1972 in Bristol
- Known for stop-motion clay animation
- Nick Park joined in 1985 and created Wallace & Gromit
- Notable works: War Story, Next, Creature Comfort
Laika Entertainment
- Repurposed from Will Vinton Studio in 2002
- Henry Selick joined to produce Coraline
- Other productions highlighted: ParaNorman, Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings
Japanese Pioneers
- Kenzō Masaoka, Masao Kumakawa, Yasuji Mori, Akira Daikubara (UPA), Yasuo Ōtsuka
Osamu Tezuka
- Known as "god of manga."
- Introduced innovative movie techniques to manga
- Expanded audience base to adult readers
- Found way into TV animation market
- Famous Works: Astro Boy (1963)
Tezuka's Approach
- Bank system of storyboards
- Emphasis on storyboards
- Refinement of still images
- Distinctive sound production
Japanese Anime Properties
- Detailed and stylized characters
- Wide variety of age groups and genre
- Heavily influenced by by-products
Important Japanese Anime Works
- 1963 Astro Boy
- 1974 Space Cruiser Yamato
- 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam
- 1982 Macross
- 1984 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
- 1988 Akira
- 1995 Ghost in the Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion
- 1997 Perfect Blue
- 2006 The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Xerox Popularity
- Reduced workload of repetitive tasks in animation production
- Provided new creative alternatives to comic artists & animators
Impact of VHS
- Tape recorders allowed for anime ownership by audiences
- Rise of original video animation (OVA)
- Video replay helped rising animators study masters
Sakuga Artists
- List of artists who helped develop style: Mitsuo Iso, Yoshimichi Kameda, Toshiyuki Inoue, You Yoshinari, Yutaka Nakamura
Conclusion of animation history
- Japanese Anime is closely linked to the culture and a difficult concept to replicate
- Integration of manga, toys, and anime influenced its business model
- But limited the direction of growth
- Diversity of anime genre is unique and forms the basis of global anime fans.
Animation in Greater China
- History of Chinese Animation: The Wan Brothers
The Wan Brothers
- Founders of the Chinese animation industry
- Made Princess Iron Fan(1941), a first Asian animation feature-length film.
- One of their productions Havoc in Heaven, was made during the height of the Chinese animation industry (1960s)
Te Wei
- Influential Chinese animation artist during the golden era
- Supervisor at Shanghai Animation Film Studio since 1957
- Known for Chinese ink and paint series
The 1980s Reform Period
- Animation development stalled in 60s & 70s
- 80s saw a brief recovery with open economy, increase in Japan & US animation imports
- Aesthetic standards of audiences changed
Reform at the Millennium
- 2001 survey: Japanese animation dominates
- SAFS tried to adapt Japanese style anime for Chinese audience
Early 2000s TV Animation
- China's economic rise under the Socialist Market economy
- Central government encouraged local animation in productions.
- TV animation time increased greatly
OEM Animation of Taiwan
- Role of Taiwan in animation
- OEM production drove by demand of Japanese & US productions
1970s-1980s: Taiwan
- After Chiang Kai-shek's death in 1975, Taiwan's creative industries revived
- Demand for Japanese and US production stimulated Taiwan OEM factories, e.g., Wang Film Productions Co.
1990s: Taiwan
- Taiwan economy booms, appreciate significantly and cheap labor became thing of past.
- Taiwan OEM productions move to mainland China
- Wang Film struggles in original feature film
Government Policy
- Taiwan lacks policy for comics & animation industry
- Comics was under Ministry of Culture
- Animation was under Ministry of Commerce
- Taiwanese government tried to rescue industry by introducing patronage programs.
Taiwan Local Productions
- Original animation transitioned to local topics; example: Grandma and Her Ghosts (1998)
Hong Kong Animation
- Successes & failures in Hong Kong Animation Industry
- Early success of Old Master Q (1983), but it was produced in Taiwan
- Computer animation took over after the turn of the 21st century
- Subject choice became increasingly localized
Imagi Studios
- Founded in 2000
- Notable Works: Zentrix, TNMT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Astro Boy
Strengths of Hong Kong Animation Industry
- High amount of creative talents
- Strong tradition in pop cultural products; like film and music
- Hong Kong is an international city where East meets West
Why Did Hong Kong Fail in Animation Productions?
- Extremely small local market
- Marginalization by the Mainland market
- Lack of long-term development
- Lack of mainstream genre
Visual Effects
- Technological breakthroughs: invention of motion pictures, sound, color film, digital; development of cinematographe
- Georges Méliès inventions: jump cut, dissolve, matte
- How Georges Méliès's inventions changed the film industry
Infant Stage of Visual Effects (1900-1945)
- French and German film pioneers developed superior creative and technical approaches
- Sound recording emerged and overtook silent films in the 1930s
- World War II halted European film makers' progress
Schüfftan Process
- Diagram explaining the technique of the process
Post-War Visual Effects (1950s)
- World War II ended, US emerged as dominant film force post-war
- Availability of color film (Kodak Eastmancolor) influenced this boom post-war
- Widescreen epics emerged with advanced visual effects
Post-War Visual Effects (1960s)
- Color TV popularity changed way visual entertainment was consumed.
- Cold War’s space race led to works about space fantasies
Star Wars (1977-1983)
- Landmark film trilogy revolutionized visual effects
- VFX powerhouse: LucasFilm, Industrial Light & Magic, Skywalker Studio
- VFX Legends: John Dykstra, Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, Phil Tippet, Joe Johnston
Star Wars' Inventions
- Revolutionary use of miniatures
- Ground-breaking stop-motion
- Motion control cameras (Dykstraflex)
- Lightsaber rotoscoping
- Gigantic matte painting
- Multi-head optical printer.
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)
- Reinvented visual effects techniques: motion control, chroma-keying, realistic miniatures
- Monopoly on awards, revolutionized CGI
VFX Techniques
- Practical Effects (e.g., scale models, special props, make-ups, motion-control camera, physical effects)
- Optical Effects (e.g., jump cut, multi-exposure, matte painting, rear-projection, chroma-key, rotoscoping)
- Digital Effects (e.g., digital backlot, motion-tracking, dynamic simulation, crowd animation, pre-visualization, motion-capture)
Advantages of Digital Effects
- Infinite image layers
- More realistic composites
- Time and cost savings in certain film genres
- Revolutionized film distribution
Digital Backlot
- A motion picture set not based on a real location or physical set
- Shooting occurs on a stage with a green screen background; the background is replaced during post-production.
Motion-tracking
- Allows computer graphics to be inserted into live-action footage with correct positioning, scaling, orientation and movement
- Uses motion control cameras or tracking software.
Dynamic Simulation
- Computer programs model systems' behaviors (e.g., hair, cloth, liquid, fire, particles).
Crowds Animation
- Uses simulation techniques to populate scenes with large numbers of non-individual characters, animals and vehicles, to deliver compelling performance
Pre-Visualization (Pre-Viz)
- Process to visualize complex scenes in script before filming to allow experimentation with lighting, cameras, placement and stage direction.
Motion Capture Advantages
- Saves time and cost in real-time capture
- Creates realistic and lifelike movements
- Allows interaction with creative professionals
Disadvantages of Motion-Capture
- Uncanny valley effect
- Significant amount of editing needed for captured movements
- Caricaturing real life with life-plus animation is essential
Computer Animation
- IBM role: Created the IBM 360 series of mainframe computers, first disk drive. Employed John Whitney Sr to create art with computers
- AT&T Bell Labs role: First fax machine, development of “C” language; taught an IBM 7094 computer to sing Daisy.
- Xerox PARC: Invented the photocopier, Xerox created new facilities (the Palo Alto Research Center) for developing the next generation of computers; developed the Ethernet, the computer mouse, WYSIWYG system, and the GUI.
Academia Development
- US universities like MIT, Stanford, Cornell and UCLA established computer science departments
- Charles Csuri created the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) at Ohio State University
- Utah State University: Dave Evans and Ivan Sutherland established a computer science department focusing on graphics, developed Defense Department's flight simulator.
Utah Graduates
- Alan Kay (laptop computer), Alan Ashton (WordPerfect), Nolan Bushnell (Atari Games), John Warnock (Adobe Systems), Jim Clark (Silicon Graphics & Netscape), Ed Catmull (Pixar)
Other Utah Alumni
- Henri Gouraud (shading 3D objects), Bui Tuong Phong (Phong Shading), Jim Blinn ("bump-mapping")
University of Montreal
- Philippe Bergeron and Daniel Langlois secretly made 7-minute film Tony de Peltrie (1985)
Tony de Peltrie
- Pioneered character acting, thinking and expressing real emotions in animation.
- Philippe Bergeron became a successful film maker in Hollywood
- Daniel Langlois left the Centre d'animatique and founded Softimage.
Nation Film Board of Canada
- NFB was pioneer in computer animation; created Metadata (1971) and Oscar-nominated Hunger (1974)
- Centre d'animatique (1980) tasked with developing new CGI technologies
Robert Abel and Associates
- Robert Abel's commercial art internship
- Brilliance (The Sexy Robot): landmark achievement, 1985.
Rhythm and Hue
- Rhythm & Hue was found by CG pioneers helping develop Wavefront (predecessor to Maya)
- VFX powerhouse for 30 years and won numerous awards.
Advantages of Computer Animation
- Realistic rendering compared to traditional animation
- Works with diverse digital production techniques
- Scalable with computing power
- Less labor-intensive
- Shorter learning curve
- Infinite production potential (with AI).
CG Effects in Star Wars
- Targeting diagrams on X-wings and TIE fighters
- Computer motion controls on miniatures
- Rebel Alliance briefing schematic of Luke Skywalker's bomb into the Death Star's intake duct.
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Description
Test your knowledge on the major transitions and innovations in the film industry and animation from the 1950s to the Cold War era. This quiz explores key figures, techniques, and events that shaped visual effects and animation history. Dive into the contributions of pioneers like Walt Disney and Max Fleischer.
