Animation Timeline (Under Construction) ...

Fig. 1 The Mascot and the Devil.

1910 - Wladislaw Starewicz, also known as Ladislas Starewicz, first started creating 3D animations in 1910.  The puppets used in these animations were stuffed beetles that he has access to while he worked in a Natural History Museum. David MacFadyen described him as "Russia's very first animator, the half-Polish Wladyslaw Starewicz (1882-1965), had laid the foundation for a potential tradition of invisible sentimentality even in pre-revolutionary silent shorts, a maudlin streak taken sometimes from nineteenth-century fables." (MacFadyen, 2005:37).  The animations he created really have a sense of the dark fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson too.  One example is The Mascot from 1923, here is a protagonist that children can relate to but its journey is surrounded by devils and demons and creatures that are generally not very friendly. Paul Wells believed that "Starewicz's puppet bestiary is located in the brutality and unsentimentality of the fairytale, with a claustrophobic sense of death and decay...the skeletal grotesques in The Mascot (1923) all point to an ambivalent and destructive animality underpinning human conduct." (Wells, 2004:101)  This is supported by the creatures around the protagonist constantly trying to harm or steal from it.  It has to travel through what seems to be the gates of hell in order to get back to help his owner.  The puppets in this section are incredibly skeletal and unsettling whether the story is aimed at children or not.  J.P.Telotte described that "Starewicz's ability to exploit the film frame's spatial possibilities in part speaks to the very nature of stop-motion animation, particularly its ability...to create an uncanny illusion of life or to suggest another world parallel to our own." (Telotte, 2010:39)  It's this uncanniness that makes the animations so unsettling. The space that they move in, the well structured sets, give the puppets a real-world quality and this combined with their decaying appearance makes them very uncanny and disturbing.  Despite this though, the fact that his stop-motion animations today look smooth and charming means that he's clearly a master of his craft and whether the films are 100 years old or 50, they are all still incredible achievements in animation.

Fig. 2 Winsor McCay and Gertie.

1912 - Winsor McCay: http://mollybolder.blogspot.com/2011/03/study-of-winsor-mccay.html

Fig. 4 Image from Cinderella.

1919 - Lotte Reiniger joined a group of male animators in 1919 but it wasn't until 1922 when she created her first fairy tale animations. Carmel Finnan and Christiane Schönfeld described her as being "today considered one of the most innovative pioneers of animation history." (Finnan, Schönfeld,2006:171) and it's clear why she is. Her first animation using silhouettes, Cinderella (1922), is completely silent and it still manages to capture the audience through its imagery. Jack Zipes expressed that she"pioneered the art of silhouette animation... even today the earliest of Reiniger's animations possesses a beauty and fascination that far transcends anything on offer from most animators of that era" (Zipes, 2011:73) The imagery created through her use of silhouettes is almost ethereal, especially when combined with the soft pastel toned background. All that is on the screen from the biggest tree to the smallest bird is beautifully crafted, with simple shapes that say more than a realistic drawing can. Rudolf Arnheim believes that "Everything is caricatured, but with so much sensitivity to the real nature of each creature that the accentuation never becomes a distortion." (Arnheim, 1997:142) This is especially seen with the ugly step sisters. Though they are grotesque in both appearance and personality, they are also very delicately crafted and designed figures.  He goes on to say that "The moveable silhouette charmingly maintains the right balance between the product of art and life; we believe it enough to be enthralled, and we do not believe it enough to get the goose bumps we get when experiencing the supernatural." (Arnheim, 1997:141) There are no creepy uncanny elements to these animations, the audience enjoys them even at their most gory, and it's because of that the animations can be really enjoyed as pieces of art as well as brave visual narratives.

Fig. 5 Image from The Nutcracker Suite in Fantasia.

1923 - Disney Studios was first founded in 1923, where the Disney brothers filmed their first live action and animated films.  A few years later Walt Disney moved into a bigger site and expanded their work by employing other animators along with themselves. James W. Roman believes that "He pushed the envelope of technical innovation adding new dimensions to his animated characters and themes" (Roman, 2009:318) This is seen through out his history starting with Steamboat Willie (1928), the first animation with sound. Not long after this the Disney studio released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, the very first feature length animation. One of the most unique examples of Disney's innovation is Fantasia (1940), a two hour long experience that consists of many short animations designed for a piece of classical music.  It's because of this that A. Bowdoin Van Riper explained that "Fantasia, released in 1940, was perhaps the most overtly fantastical of Disney's early animated features." (Van Riper, A. Bowdoin. 2011:4) Fantasia was no ordinary Disney animation, it was beautifully crafted to combine abstract images while keeping the same 'Disney aesthetic'.  It is because of Disney's bold decision to create Fantasia as an animated theatre production that meant he, according to Eric Loren Smoodin,  "came to be perceived as the consummate artist, the perfect combination of the corporate and the creative." (Smoodin, 1994:6). Disney not only orchestrated these stunning visual ideas but he knew how to market them, providing each viewer with a special programme for its release. Sadly though, it wasn't until much more recently that Fantasia won the acclaim it deserved.

Fig. 6 Image from Pas De Deux.

1933 - Norman McLaren is one an incredibly innovative animator, focussing more on creating imagery to match his choice of music than the animations themselves. Jill Nelmes explained that he adopted "a new approach to animation almost with every film; in one painting directly on film-stock itself; in yet another, making a picture evolve through the metamorphoses of pastel chalk sketching; in yet another animating the very soundtrack on the film itself." (Nelmes, 2003:224)  This creativity blends perfectly with the jazz music in Begone Dull Care (1949) where the colours and imagery seem to pulsate and ripple along with beat.  Not only is his use of colour visually stunning but his use of black and white is equally so.  In his 1967 his film Pas De Deux consists of live action white silhouettes of a ballet performance against a black backdrop. Alan Rosenthal divulged that "one is really being treated to is an amazingly graceful study of movements of light and form, with the screen being continuously filled with complex and dense images of tremendous beauty" (Rosenthal, 1972:268) This piece of film is a unique example of how a piece of live action film can be transformed into a stunning animation, allowing the audience to see every frame as they pass through time. Gary Evans expressed that "No other person did more to bring credit to the institution than did this demure, unassuming pacifist Scotsman, who saw himself as a 'civil servant' as much as an artist who used the medium of film." (Evans, 2001:23) Norman McLaren's work still feels incredibly contemporary and is an incredible example of how effective timing is in animation.

Fig. 7 Image from Dimensions of Dialogue.

1964 - Jan Svankmajer, as put by Graeme Harper and Rob Stone, "is one of the most significant living directors of non-mainstream and experimental film animation." (Harper, Stone, 2007:60).  His works, such as Dimensions of Dialogue from 1982, love to feature the uncanny, the use of familiar, everyday objects and situations that become twisted and unnatural. They tend to consist of 'people' or parts of them, and their interactions with each other that are incredibly exaggerated but there can be no dialogue. As Michael Richardson explains "Svankmajer's films might be said to be 'anti-dialogic'...In formal terms, meaning is rarely conveyed by means of dialogue, and many of Svankmajer films are without speech at all...characters rarely speak to one another, more often communicating by means of signs and gestures." (Richardson, 2006:124)  This is all he needs as his puppets say more through their appearance than they cold in a line of dialogue.  It's his use of puppets in his stop-motion animations and their unusual surroundings that make the animations so dark but satisfying to watch.  According to Tony Williams and Steven Jay Schneider "Svankmajer has always rejected advanced "state of the art" animation technologies - including computer animation that is, in most quarters, a very hot area today." (Schneider, Williams, 2005:261) Choosing his gruesome and surreal puppets over anything technology could represent means that his work will always be tangible and easy for the audience to relate to as he will continue to use everyday objects within his animations.  They go on to mention that "The historical detachment, the curious oddity of these objects is well suited to strengthen the atmosphere of subtle horror Svankmajer likes to conjure." (Schneider, Williams, 2005:261)  The audience is never sure of the period of his works as he uses a variety of old and new objects in his work, it is this that unlocks that uncanny fear in the audience and really makes them feel uncomfortable when watching the unnatural interactions on screen.

Fig. 8 Image from The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

1978 - Jiri Barta is a wonderful animator, despit their being little known about him and his works.  One animation that is incredibly beautiful though is the 1985 feature-length animation The Pied Piper of Hamelin. François Penz and Maureen Thomas divulged that Jiri "carved 16 puppets and 170 sets in walnut, giving his images the hard-edged, grotesque quality of gothic woodcuts." (Penz, Thomas, 2003:5) This technique worked as this animation truly resembles these woodcuts and it adds to the gothic and nostalgic tone of this well known folk-tale. This gothic tone is reminiscent of the first horror film The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari where the sharp angles and tight spaces create a sense of tight space, that the town we're in is really tiny and overcrowded. Jack Zipes believes that Barta "does not hesitate to prove the dark side of "The Pied Piper"...Barta is much more concerned with revealing the materialism of the entire populace of a medieval town...they are infected by petty greed not by rats." (Zipes, 2011:213) This is indeed supported by the Gothic and claustrophobic aesthetic, much like in German Expressionism, it is used as a metaphor, to draw attention to what's within the characters rather than what can simply be seen.  The only character to be represented as innocent is a beautiful, soft female dressed all in white who is later killed by the greed that surrounds her. Barry Purves believed that "Jiri Barta's extraordinary, dark and viscious animated wood-carving version came along and became perhaps the definitive version of the story" (Purves, 2008:228)

This is possibly true as not only is it an accurate telling of the tale but in its subtext it draws attention to the grotesque effect that greed has and how it can destroy people.

Fig. 9 Image from Street of Crocodiles.

1979 - Brothers Quay are incredibly shy but superbly talented animators.  Their work being as eccentric as it is perfectly formed they can comfortably rest as two of the most inspiring animators currently working.  Their animation Street of Crocodiles (1986) is a delicate balance of the grotesque and the elegant. The uncanny, hollow dolls that seem to worship anything organic combined with the intricately textured sets make a beautifully surreal whole that is unlike anything else.  The brothers explain that "miniature sets and backgrounds are as carefully considered as the characters they portray..'[we] ask our machines and objects to act as much as if not more than the puppets'" (Faber, Walters, 2004) This is clear for the audience to see as tiny parts of this delicate set, such as the miniature screws, begin to spin as if by magic as the characters travel through them. Barry Purves expressed that "The films are shot making great use of focus, picking out the texture in a pile of dust and making it look beautiful and significant, or the focus being sharp on a screw twisting up out of a floorboard, giving and inanimate object such presence, even a character." (Purves, 2008:149)  Their use of camera exceeds anything seen in stop-motion previously. The audience can be moved from watching the protagonist travelling through this uncanny environment and then be shown the tiniest specks of dust as they dance in the light. To see such detail is so stunning in an animation as sets can sometimes become second place to the puppets. John S. Krasner explains that the brothers' "exquisite sense of detail and decor, openness to spontaneity and use of extreme close-ups have enchanted audiences worldwide, and their innovations contributed a unique sense of visual poetry to animated film." (Krasner, 2008:18) Which is definitely true. The audience has fallen down the rabbit hole and into a world where your worst nightmares can become your friends.

Fig. 10 Image from When the Wind Blows

1982 - Raymond Briggs started as an Illustrator in 1958 but progressed into comic strips and then, in 1982, into animation.  One of his most powerful pieces of work is When the Wind Blows (1986), originally a picture book, it portrays an elderly couple that prepare their home for the incoming nuclear fall out and with this the utter futility of all their efforts. Olof G. Lidin explained that "Raymond Briggs' work shows the futility of planning to escape from a nuclear war...everything is just presented as matter-of-fact and the absurdity of the belief in the shelter is given in black pictorial humour." (Lidin, 1991:3) As shown in the image above, the audience can clearly see how useless these wooden doors will be when it comes to protection but they're forced to watch as the elderly couple suffer through it. There was a real fear growing in the 80's of the risk of nuclear war and this film shows exactly how futile the governments fall out advice is.  Raymond Briggs himself divulged that "I am quite pleased with When the Wind Blows because it made such a stupendous impression at the time...There was also a stage play which was at the Whitehall Theatre, just around the corner from old mother Thatcher, and it was in every paper, mentioned in the House of Lords and the House of Commons." (Baker, Briggs, 2006:33)  It really created such a stir politically but also because of its use of real physical sets that the characters were animated on top of.  Howard Beckerman described that "In the film drawings of an average, middle-aged couple move with extreme subtlety among sturdy representations of a house and furniture." (Beckerman, 2003:79)  The illustrations are charming and similar in style to those you often find in children's books and its this in contrast with the utterly devastated house that makes for such a powerful animation.  The audience can't help but feel for the poor couple and as they appreciate the animation they can help but appreciate the magnitude of the message it carries with it.

Fig. 11 Image from The Tune

1983 - Bill Plympton is one of the most popular contemporary animators working at the moment.  His animations, known as the Plymptoons, are incredibly surreal and full of a mixture of slapstick and black comedy. David B. Levy described that "indy hero Bill Plympton remains one of the few examples of an independent animator building up an impressive roster of feature productions." (Levy, 2006:113) His choice of hand drawn animation over those digitally created allows his animations to have a really textural appearance. As the images sit and boil due to the the audience are forced to watch and wait as the characters quickly change and do something completely random and usually very funny. Rida Queiroz and  Julius Wiedemann believe that "He is adored in cinema festivals, on the public music channel MTV and by those who love irreverence." (Queiroz, Wiedemann, 2004:55) He's often employed by others as his style is associated with contemporary animation. For example, he was popular with MTV but he's also been employed by others such as Kanye West to animate his music video Heard 'em Say.  Yoram Allon, Del Cullen and Hannah Patterson explain that Bill Plympton "combines the physical excesses of Tex Avery cartoons, the Dali-esque incongruities of form, the sense of absence and the presence in the work of Margritte, the 'trip' sensibility of Robert Crumb, and the independent off-centre preoccupations of Jim Jarmusch." (Allon, Cullen, Patterson, 2002:424)  His work is definitely a mish-mash of those that have come before but far from being a replication of it, he's managed to create a style that is something unique and innovative from all of those past influences.



Fig. 13 Image of curious Wall-E.

1984 - Pixar is the first animated film company to create computer generated feature length films.  The very first was as early as 1984 called Andre and Wally B.  The most amazing thing about this animation, and what is still true today, is how they manage to put such personality and humour into these completely virtual characters. Robert Velarde believes that Pixar "calls our attention back to the almost forgotten world of virtue.  We sympathise and perhaps even empathise with the characters in Pixar films because we relate to their struggles." (Velarde, 2010:10)  One of the most convincing characters that does this is the adorable Wall-E in the 2008 film of the same name. It's a small robot that compacts rubbish into cubes and yet its given a personality and even a gender without it ever using conventional dialogue.  This film not only has beautiful characters but the soundtrack is also important, M. Keith Booker explains "Hello, Dolly!, of course, is important to the overall feel of WALL-E, serving as a perfect symbol of the film's postmodern nostalgia." (Booker, 2010:106) Wall-e has been left all alone on earth to clear this garbage and he is constantly gathering remains of what civilisation once was.  The music is from a film that, to the present audience, feels nostalgic so they are feeling exactly how Wall-E must be.  Not only is Pixar's characterisation amazing but their work ethic is equally so.  Matthias Nuoffer reveals "The way Pixar wants people to see it is that there is always something you do not know yet but you can learn." (Nuoffer, 2010:6)  Their films are always improving whether it's visually of emotionally and this holds great things for them in the future.

Fig. 12 Image from The Illusionist.



1998 - Sylvain Chomet's animations are incredibly elegant and their stories contain matters from real life.  One of the most prominent features of his films though, is despite the use of almost no dialogue the characters still ooze their own personality and emotions. Chris Barsanti, while talking about The Triplets of Belleville (2003) by Chomet, explains  "There is little dialogue throughout Chomet's film, but with a storytelling style that harkens back to early Walt Disney films and the silent cinema, none is needed." (Barsanti, 2011:82) This is true, the films he makes are so full of beauty and grace that no words are actually needed. Jerry Beck mentions that "Chomet describes his style as being based on mime and character acting, an being influenced by live camerawork to animation." (Beck, 2005:292) This is clear within all of his films. There are stunning camera shots that mimic reality but the scene they're showing is in fact a beautifully crafted CG and hand drawn set that is more glorious than real life. The characters are placed in these amazing environments and though you would think that maybe they would be lost within it, their character design is so fantastic that they can stand confidently within it.  Their silhouettes, as soon as you see them, give away the personality and lifestyle of that character, without any explanation. Chomet explained: "I think the characters are quite convincing because of their shape and also probably because they have lives on their own. They have a story and they are just like us - they live, they suffer, they exist, they can get hurt, and they are so natural." (Alexander, Schumer, Sullivan, 2008:106)  The Illusionist (2010) is a wonderful example of this as the characters are all unique but realisitc. Their situations are ones that the audience can relate to, their struggles are more than common and it's this grounding in reality that makes Chomet's pieces of art so important.



List of Illustrations

Figure 1. The Mascot (1933) The Mascot and the Devil. At: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/cteq/starewicz_mascot/ (Accessed on: 19.03.11)


Figure 2. Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) Winsor McCay and Gertie. At: http://de.academic.ru/dic.nsf/dewiki/515163 (Accessed on: 19.03.11)


Figure 4. Cinderella (1922) Image from Cinderella. At: http://d.imagehost.org/0709/cinderellahand.png (Accessed on: 17.03.11)

Figure 5. Fantasia (1940)  Image from The Nutcracker Suite in Fantasia. At: http://www.cornel1801.com/video/AN03FA01/mo02.jpg (Accessed on: 17.03.11)

Figure 6. Pas De Deux (1968) Image from Pas De Deux.At: http://themoviedoc.tumblr.com/post/1264268219/pasdedeux (Accessed on: 19.03.11)

Figure 7. Dimension of Dialogue (1982) At: http://www.listal.com/viewimage/170754 (Accessed on: 19.03.11)

Figure 8.The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1985) Image from The Pied Piper of Hamelin. At: http://www.filmwalrus.com/2008/05/review-of-pied-piper-of-hamelin-1985.html (Accessed on 24.03.11)

Figure 9. Street of Crocodiles (1986) Image from Street of Crocodiles. At: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/phantommuseums.php (Accessed on 24.03.11)

Figure 10. When the Wind Blows (1986) Image from When the Wind Blows. At: http://www.dvdactive.com/reviews/dvd/when-the-wind-blows.html (Accessed on: 27.03.11)

Figure 11. The Tune (1992) Image from The Tune. At: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/ten_animated_films_even_more_gloriously_weird_than_rango/  (Accessed on: 27.03.11)

Figure 12. The Illusionist (2010) Image from The Illusionist. At: http://www.themovieadvocate.com/2011/02/illusionist.html (Accessed on: 07.04.11)

Figure 13. Wall-E (2008)  Image of curious Wall-E. At: http://thebrandbuilder.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/walle_20080626112252.jpg (Accessed on: 07.04.11)



Bibliography

Alexander, Gary, Schumer, Kate, Sullivan, Karen (2008) Ideas for the animated short: finding and building stories. Oxford: Focal Press


Allon, Yoram, Cullen, Del, Patterson, Hannah (2002) Contemporary North American film directors: a Wallflower critical guide. London: Wallflower Press.

Arnheim, Rudolf (1997) Film essays and criticism. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.

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Barsanti, Chris (2011) Filmology. USA: Adams Media.

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Beckerman, Howard (2003) Animation: the whole story. New York: Allworth Press.

Booker, M. Keith (2010) Disney, Pixar, and the hidden messages of children's films. California: ABC-CLIO
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Evans, Gary (2001) In the national interest: a chronicle of the National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to 1989. Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Faber, Liz Walters, Helen (2004) Animation unlimited: innovative short films since 1940. London: Laurence King Publishing.

Finnan, Carmel, Schönfeld, Christiane (2006) Practicing modernity: female creativity in the Weimar Republic. Germany: Königshausen & Neumann

Harper, Graeme, Stone, Rob (2007) The unsilvered screen: surrealism on film. London: Wallflower Press.

Krasner, Jon S. (2008) Motion graphic design: applied history and aesthetics. Oxford: Focal Press.

MacFadyen, David (2005) Yellow crocodiles and blue oranges: Russian animated film since World War Two. Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press.

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Nuoffer, Matthias (2010) The Way They Do Things Around There: An Analysis of the ‘Pixar Culture’. Norderstedt: GRIN
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Purves, Barry (2008) Stop motion: passion, process and performance. Oxford: Focal Press.

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Richardson, Michael (2006) Surrealism and cinema. New York: Berg

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Rosenthal, Alan (1972) The new documentary in action: a casebook in film making. California: University of California Press

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Zipes, Jack (2011) The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films. NewYork: Routledge.

History of Disney Studios: http://studioservices.go.com/disneystudios/history.html