Limited animation is a process in the overall technique of traditional animation that reuses frames of character animation.
Limited animation is a process in the overall technique of traditional animation that reuses frames of character animation.
The use of budget-cutting and time-saving animation measures in animation dates back to the earliest commercial animation, including cycled animations, mirror-image and symmetrical drawings, still characters, and other labor-saving methods. In general, the progression was from early productions in which every frame was drawn by hand, independent of each other drawing, toward more limited animation that made use of the same drawings in different ways.
Winsor McCay, a man who put an unprecedented amount of detail into his animations, boasted that in his 1914 film, Gertie the Dinosaur , everything moved, including the rocks and blades of grass in the background. In contrast, his 1918 film The Sinking of the Lusitania progressed to using cels over still backgrounds, while still maintaining a level of detail comparable to that of Gertie. [1]
The 1942 Merrie Melodies cartoon The Dover Boys , directed by Chuck Jones, is one of the earliest Warner Bros. cartoons to extensively employ some of the processes of what would become known as "limited animation", particularly its use of characters that either stand still or move so quickly that the actual motion appears to be a blur. This animation technique has come to be known as the smear frame. [2]
Hanna-Barbera Productions used limited animation throughout its existence. When the company's namesakes, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, separated from the MGM studio in 1957, they opted to take a drastically different approach to animation than they had for their fully animated short films; as television screens were much smaller than theater screens at the time, limited animation, with its emphasis on character close-ups and dialogue-based humor, was a better fit for the more intimate home viewer experience. [3] At the time, most feature films (along with animated shorts, including Hanna and Barbera's own work on Tom and Jerry ) were transitioning to the widescreen CinemaScope process, which made it more difficult to replicate intimacy; The Walt Disney Company, though they continued to use full animation, had also used character close-ups and personality-driven humor in their early films. When Disney produced Lady and the Tramp in CinemaScope, the process made it difficult to replicate that style, [4] a problem that Hanna-Barbera did not have with smaller, more square television screens.
The financial benefits of limited animation led to television animation companies relying on the process extensively in the television era. Jay Ward Productions relied on limited animation for those reasons, [5] compensating with its heavy Cold War satire and a style of deadpan comedy that would become a trademark of the studio's style. [6] One of the frequent users of limited animation was HB's Saturday-morning rival Filmation (makers of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and BraveStarr ) which gave their work a distinct look. [7] Bill Melendez used a form of limited animation to adapt the Peanuts franchise to television and later film; in addition to the cost and time concerns (especially for his first special A Charlie Brown Christmas , which was given only a $76,000 budget and four months to produce 30 minutes of animation), Meléndez also noted that Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz had designed the characters with a flat style well-suited for limited animation. [8] The short-lived Cambria Studios turned out three serials (including Clutch Cargo ) using one of the most inexpensive approaches to animation possible: known as Syncro-Vox, it involved superimposing film of the voice actor's moving lips over a still frame of the character. [9] [10] Disney themselves resorted to some limited animation tricks in an effort to cut its budget during the 1960s, particularly with its usage of xerography in One Hundred and One Dalmatians , which resulted in artwork with heavier, rougher outlines than had previously been seen in Disney films up to that point. [11]
By the 1970s, the usage of limited animation in Saturday morning cartoons had become common. Walter Williams, creator of The Mr. Bill Show , noted that cartoons in the 1970s were so static, he expected the artist's hands to enter the screen at any moment and physically start moving the drawings around. This inspired him to create the "Mr. Hands" character in The Mr. Bill Show, who literally did just that. [12]
Limited animation proved to be particularly popular in Japan, such that the Japanese word for animation, anime , entered the English lexicon as a loanword for the distinctive style of Japanese animation that took root there. [13] Anime features scenes of mouth moving with occasional eye blinks, rendered long shots of detailed backgrounds, a low frame rate (especially in earlier productions) and rare use of 2D fluidity on motion-blur filled action alongside reused drawings, using style conventions from Japanese comic books (manga). It also has the benefit of lower cost productions and stylized content as opposed to realistic animation. [14] [15] As was the case in the United States, television was a major impetus for the growth of anime in Japan; the country's recovery from World War II led to economic prosperity and a boom in Japanese television ownership, and the development of anime allowed Japan to compete in an animation field where they had previously lagged well behind the West. [13]
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.
Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur. McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act; the frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master. McCay's employer William Randolph Hearst curtailed McCay's vaudeville activities, so McCay added a live-action introductory sequence to the film for its theatrical release renamed Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist, and Gertie. McCay abandoned a sequel, Gertie on Tour, after producing about a minute of footage.
United Productions of America, better known as UPA, was an American animation studio and later distribution company founded in 1941 as Industrial Film and Poster Service by former Walt Disney Productions employees. Beginning with industrial and World War II training films, UPA eventually produced theatrical shorts for Columbia Pictures such as the Mr. Magoo series. In 1956, UPA produced a television series for CBS, The Boing-Boing Show, hosted by Gerald McBoing Boing. In the 1960s, UPA produced syndicated Mr. Magoo and Dick Tracy television series and other series and specials, including Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol. UPA also produced two animated features, 1001 Arabian Nights and Gay Purr-ee, and distributed Japanese films from Toho Studios in the 1970s and 1980s.
The golden age of American animation was a period in the history of U.S. animation that began with the popularization of sound synchronized cartoons in 1928 and gradually ended in the 1960s when theatrical animated shorts started to lose popularity to the newer medium of television. Animated media from after the golden age, especially on television, were produced on cheaper budgets and with more limited techniques between the 1960s and 1980s.
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.
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.
The silent age of American animation dates back to at least 1906 when Vitagraph released Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. Although early animations were rudimentary, they rapidly became more sophisticated with such classics as Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914, Felix the Cat, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and Koko the Clown.
Traditional animation is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until the end of the 20th century, when there was a shift to computer animation in the industry, specifically 3D computer animation.
Tom and Jerry is an American animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series centers on the rivalry between the titular characters of a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry. Many shorts also feature several recurring characters.
Warner Bros. Animation Inc. is an American animation studio which is part of the Warner Bros. Television Studios, a division of Warner Bros., which is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery and serves as the animation division and label of Warner Bros.
Joseph Roland Barbera was an American animator and cartoonist, best known as the co-founder of the animation studio Hanna-Barbera.
The Ruff and Reddy Show is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions 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, a smart and steadfast cat; and Reddy, a good-natured and brave dog. 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 in 1962–63. In the late 1950s it was sponsored by Post Consumer Brands.
Iwao Takamoto was a Japanese-American animator, television producer, and film director. He began his career as a production and character designer for Walt Disney Animation Studios films such as Cinderella (1950), Lady and the Tramp (1955), and Sleeping Beauty (1959). Later, he moved to Hanna-Barbera Productions, where he designed a great majority of the characters, including Scooby-Doo and Astro, and eventually became a director and producer.
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.
Ed Benedict was an American animator and layout artist. He is best known for his work with Hanna-Barbera Productions, where he helped design Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear, and Huckleberry Hound.
The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera was a simulator ride at Universal Studios Florida and one of the park's original attractions. The story line tells that Dick Dastardly and Muttley have kidnapped Elroy Jetson. Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo give chase and the audience is in for the ride of their lives. The attraction opened on June 7, 1990 and closed on October 20, 2002.
Irven LeRoy Spence was an American animator. He is best known for his work on MGM's Tom and Jerry animated shorts. Spence has been credited variously as Irven Spence, Irvin Spence, and Irv Spence.
Outsourcing of animation has become widespread. Starting in the late 1950s, the animation for many low-budget American animated productions has been done by animation studios in foreign countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Canada, Mexico, Australia, the Philippines, and India. This is done to lower the cost of animation production.
David Hilberman was an American animator and one of the founders of classic 1940s animation. An innovator in the animation industry, he co-founded United Productions of America (UPA). The studio gave its artists great freedom and pioneered the modern style of animation. As Animator and Professor Tom Sito noted: "Arguably, no studio since Walt Disney exerted such a great influence on world animation." He and Zack Schwartz went on to start Tempo Productions which became an early leader in television animated commercial production. In short, he played an important role in the new directions the art form took in the 1940s and '50s.
Willie Ito is an American animator. He worked for Walt Disney Animation Studios in the 1950s, moved to Warner Bros. Cartoons and Hanna-Barbera Productions as a character designer, and later returned to Disney.
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