An Aniform is a two-dimensional cartoon character operated like a puppet, to be displayed to live audiences or in visual media. The concept was invented by Morey Bunin with his spouse Charlotte, Bunin being a puppeteer who had worked with string marionettes and hand puppets. [1] The distinctive feature of an Aniforms character is that it displays a physical form that appears "animated" on a real or simulated television screen. The technique was used in television production.
After forming Aniforms, Inc., Bunin filed for a patent on the process on August 4, 1960, and was granted U.S. Patent 3,070,920 on January 1, 1963. [2]
According to the patent, Aniforms are "open two-dimensional figures…constructed to simulate many objects." The figures are flexible to allow free manipulation, which is accomplished by "rods or wires … attached to the figures" for both support and movement. The controls are arranged or painted to be invisible to the audience. [2]
Bunin later improved the process to take advantage of emerging Chroma key technology. All background and control surfaces were painted blue, and the black-white signal polarity was reversed without altering the color signals. This resulted in a black outline figure on a white background, which could then be superimposed or keyed on another scene without the object background showing through. Bunin filed for a patent on the improved process on January 20, 1975, and was granted U.S. Patent 3,899,848 on August 19, 1975. [3]
The Aniforms process has been used on several television productions:
"Fred" and other Aniforms characters are considered more puppet than animation. [8] Their relatively crude, two-dimensional forms and lack of locomotion was appealing primarily because of the illusion of human interaction in real-time with an animated character.
Adam Reed and Matt Thompson founded Floyd County Productions in 2009 after they closed 70/30 Productions following the cancellation of the company's shows. Floyd County Productions grew from a small eight-person studio into a competitive animation house, which produces the animated TV shows Archer , Unsupervised , Chozen , and Dicktown for FX, in addition to providing animation for various live-action shows.[ citation needed ]
The Late Show host Stephen Colbert and his production company, Spartina Productions, founded Late Night Cartoons, Inc., an animation studio that has collaborated with developers of Adobe Character Animator to produce and provide real-time interactive animations for broadcast. Their topical productions range from a live interview with an animated cartoon version of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016 to several animated series including: Showtime's Our Cartoon President , Paramount+/Comedy Central’s Tooning Out the News , and Comedy Central’s Fairview . Another series, Washingtonia, was announced in October 2021 with a trailer using the process but has not been produced or aired as of May 18, 2023. [9]
The Adobe technology uses motion capture to track hand-drawn characters in real-time. In contrast to Aniforms, which requires only a puppeteer and an optional voice artist, it takes "25 to 30 animators total" to produce a 10-minute episode in the 24-hour turnaround cycle required before airtime for the concept to stay current. [10]
CrazyTalk and CrazyTalk Animator was used by Network studios in their daily production due to short delivery deadlines and used by television shows like Jimmy Kimmel LIVE! to produce real-time animations for broadcast. [11]
Live2D also can be used to generate real-time 2D animations—usually anime-style characters—using layered, continuous parts based on an illustration, without the need of frame-by-frame animation or a 3D model. This enables characters to move using 2.5D movement while maintaining the original illustration.[ citation needed ]
Animation is a filmmaking technique by which still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets (cels) to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animation has been recognized as an artistic medium, specifically within the entertainment industry. Many animations are computer animations made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Stop motion animation, in particular claymation, has continued to exist alongside these other forms.
Animation in the United States in the television era was a period in the history of American animation that slowly set in with the decline of theatrical animated shorts and the popularization of television animation that started in the late 1950s, reached its peak during the 1970s, and ended around the mid-1980s. This era is characterized by low budgets, limited animation, an emphasis on television over the theater, and the general perception of cartoons being primarily for children. Due to the perceived cheap production values, poor animation, and mixed critical and commercial reception, the era is generally looked back upon negatively by critics and animation historians. The television animation of this period is often referred to as the dark age of American animation, while the theatrical animation from the time is sometimes referred as the bronze age.
Robert Emerson Clampett Sr. was an American animator, director, producer and puppeteer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes animated series from Warner Bros. as well as the television shows Time for Beany and Beany and Cecil. He was born and raised not far from Hollywood and, early in life, showed an interest in animation and puppetry. After dropping out of high school in 1931, he joined the team at Harman-Ising Productions and began working on the studio's newest short subjects, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.
ALF is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC from September 22, 1986, to March 24, 1990.
While the history of animation began much earlier, this article is concerned with the development of the medium after the emergence of celluloid film in 1888, as produced for theatrical screenings, television and (non-interactive) home video.
Caillou is an educational children's television series which aired on Teletoon – with the first episode airing on the former channel on September 15, 1997 – until the fourth season. After that, it moved to Treehouse TV for season five. The series finale aired on October 3, 2010. It also aired on PBS and the PBS Kids Channel.
The Ruff and Reddy Show is an American animated television series produced by H-B Enterprises for NBC. It is one of the earliest Saturday-morning cartoons, and the first series made by Hanna-Barbera. The series follows the adventures of Ruff and Reddy. It was presented by Screen Gems, the television arm of Columbia Pictures. It premiered in December 1957 and ran for 156 episodes until April 1960, comprising three seasons total. It was repeated on NBC Saturday mornings from 1962 to 1963. In the late 1950s, it was sponsored by Post Consumer Brands.
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi is an American animated series created by Sam Register and produced by Renegade Animation and Cartoon Network Studios, which aired on Cartoon Network from 2004 to 2006. The series stars fictionalized and animated versions of the Japanese pop rock group Puffy AmiYumi. The series premiered on November 19, 2004, and ended on June 27, 2006, with a total of three seasons and 39 episodes.
Digital puppetry is the manipulation and performance of digitally animated 2D or 3D figures and objects in a virtual environment that are rendered in real-time by computers. It is most commonly used in filmmaking and television production but has also been used in interactive theme park attractions and live theatre.
An animation studio is a company producing animated media. The broadest such companies conceive of products to produce, own the physical equipment for production, employ operators for that equipment, and hold a major stake in the sales or rentals of the media produced. They also own rights over merchandising and creative rights for characters created/held by the company, much like authors holding copyrights. In some early cases, they also held patent rights over methods of animation used in certain studios that were used for boosting productivity. Overall, they are business concerns and can function as such in legal terms.
Puppetoons is a series of animated puppet films made in Europe (1930s) and in the United States (1940s) by George Pal. They were made using replacement animation: using a series of different hand-carved wooden puppets for each frame in which the puppet moves or changes expression, rather than moving a single puppet, as is the case with most stop motion puppet animation. They were particuarly made from 1932-1948, in both Europe and the US.
Louis Bunin was an American puppeteer, artist, and pioneer of stop-motion animation best known for his 1949 adaption of Alice in Wonderland.
Curiosity Shop is an American children's educational television program produced by ABC. The show was executive produced by Chuck Jones, sponsored by the Kellogg's cereal company and created as a commercial rival to the public television series Sesame Street. Curiosity Shop was broadcast from September 11, 1971 to September 2, 1973. The program featured three inquisitive children who each week visited a shop populated with various puppets and gadgets, discovering interesting things about science, nature and history. Each hour-long show covered a specific theme: clothing, music, dance, weather, the five senses, space, time, rules, flight, dolls, etc.
Paul Fusco is an American puppeteer, actor, television producer, writer and director. He is best known as the puppeteer and voice of the title character on the sitcom ALF, for which he also served as creator, writer, producer, and director. He formed the production company Alien Productions with Tom Patchett and Bernie Brillstein.
Cartoon Network is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is the flagship property of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also oversees Boomerang, Cartoonito, Discovery Family, Adult Swim, and Toonami. The channel is headquartered at 1050 Techwood Drive NW in Atlanta, Georgia.
CrazyTalk is Reallusion's brand name for its 2D animation software. The product series includes CrazyTalk, a 2D facial animation software tool, and CrazyTalk Animator, a face and body 2D animation suite.
Adobe Character Animator is a desktop application software product that combines real-time live motion-capture with a multi-track recording system to control layered 2D puppets based on an illustration drawn in Photoshop or Illustrator. It is automatically installed with Adobe After Effects CC 2015 to 2017 and is also available as a standalone application which one can download separately as part of a Creative Cloud all-apps subscription. It is used to generate real-time 2D animations to produce both live and non-live animation.
Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News (TOTN) is an American live-action/animated satirical news television show created and executive produced by comedian and The Late Show host Stephen Colbert, R. J. Fried, Chris Licht and Tim Luecke. The series premiered on CBS All Access on April 7, 2020. The series has received mixed-to-positive reviews and several accolades, including a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award nomination.
Toon In with Me is an American live-action/animated anthology television series created by Neal Sabin for MeTV, MeTV Plus, and MeTV Toons. A special preview episode aired on January 1, 2021, with the main series officially debuting on January 4, 2021.
CBS Eye Animation Productions is an American animation studio, division of CBS Studios owned by Paramount Global. The studio is closely associated with the Star Trek franchise with its first projects, Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy. CBS reinstated it as an animation division in late 2018 before its re-merger with Viacom in late 2019.