How Were Animated Movies First Made?
Many people enjoy animated movies, with some even calling them beloved. There are many different styles of animation including Super-hero films, Comedy, Action, Adventure, Horror, etc. What makes an animated movie special is its ability to tell a story through narratively-linking scenes or sequences.
Many actors work in both live action and animated features. Actors who have done so include Robert Redford (The Alligator People), Nicolas Cage (Ghost Rider), Chris Pratt (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) and Tom Hanks (Madagascar).
Not only can they voice their own characters, but they can also direct themselves in their roles! This is very expensive and time consuming, which is why it’s not common. But if you look at the list above, you will see that all these talented individuals succeeded in investing into their craft.
One way to distinguish between animated feature films and other types is by looking at the kind of artists needed for each one. For instance, most comedy films do not require large amounts of animators since jokes are usually funny because of how they are conveyed.
However, stories often contain more dramatic or emotional elements that demand careful attention to detail. These two qualities make it important to have experienced filmmakers working on the project.
Paint on images
Many of the first animated movies were not filmed using film, but paint! By this we mean that everything was drawn onto a surface (canvas, paper, screen) and then painted over and repeated many times.
This is how cartoons like The Lion King and Frozen were made!
The artists would draw all sorts of things; animals, landscapes, people, whatever they wanted to include in their movie. These drawings would be scanned into a computer program, modified maybe slightly, and then painted onto another surface (a canvas or paper, for example) hundreds of times.
Then these two surfaces are put together side by side with one being transparent so you can see what’s behind it. This process is called layering.
The person creating the animation then moves around the layers and makes the characters move and say lines, depending on which layer they are visible through.
Model animation
Before feature length animated films, there were short cartoons or movies that did not use live action models. These animations used instead computer graphics to create the characters and settings. This is now referred to as model animation!
Model animation was much more expensive than using live action filming materials, but it allowed for much higher quality features. Technology has advanced quite a bit since then, so creating elaborate scenes with very fine details is possible today.
For example, many Pixar and Disney movies use a lot of model animation. The company even won an Academy Award for their work in this area! [They won for] Inside Out (2015).
Another famous movie that uses a large amount of model animation is The Lion King (1994)!
The film’s director Rob Reiner said about half of the movie was done completely with digital technology. He also mentioned how hard it was to find animators who knew how to do model animation well!
These days things are different though. Many people have experience doing model animation and some companies offer software packages to help you produce your own!
There are plenty of free resources too! For instance, YouTube offers a program called Anime4Beginners that can be used to make almost any type of anime. You can check it out here!
Heck, even if you aren’t totally skilled yourself you could probably contribute by adding drawings or textures to existing characters! That would still give the artist credit and help them improve their craft.
Flash animation
Before there were feature length animated movies, there were short cartoons or anims as they are called. These early animations used to be drawn frame by frame, which is very labor-intensive!
Each individual frame of an image would take a lot of time to draw, construct, and review before you could move onto the next one. This means that an artist must have enough time to dedicate to the craft to make it work.
With technology advancing at a rapid pace, this no longer seems like a big deal though. You can create your own cartoon videos and upload them online in minutes. Some even offer you easy ways to produce and edit your video stories!
This got the idea for someone to make feature length animated films possible. Instead of drawing each individual frame, people started writing scripts and letting computers animate the movie for you.
Computer animation
One of the most fundamental forms of animated movies is computer animation. Digital artists use computers to create scenes or sequences for films!
Computer animation has been around since at least the 1980s, when it was used in commercials and short cartoons. It did not become popular as an animating style until the 1990s though, where it now accounts for the vast majority of animations.
Digital artists use software like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP to draw pictures or characters. These tools are able to automatically carry out complex calculations to make sure that what you have drawn looks realistic.
These programs can also be programmed to combine different drawings into one scene, which helps save time! Since there are no human actors involved, there is less need to coordinate schedules, which saves money! This means that more jobs can be found for digital artists at movie studios and production companies at lower pay scales than normal.
Traditional animation
Many people consider Disney to be the king of animated movies, but that is not necessarily true. Before The Lion King there was no classic cartoon like that! Way back in 1928, Walt Disney released what many call his first feature length movie called The Mickey Mouse Movie.
The term “feature film” may sound very fancy, but it simply means an extended piece of entertainment that you can watch or repeat which has longer than average length (at least twenty minutes). Feature films are usually made for one specific reason: they give their audience a special experience.
They strive to entertain the viewer, keep them engaged, and/or promote an idea or message. In fact, most major studio movies fall into this category. A lot of people talk about how much The Lion King influenced other animators, but before The Lion King none of us had ever seen anything close to the level of quality that Walt created with features.
Many people also forget just how difficult it used to be for companies to make feature-length animations. Technology has advanced so much now that almost anyone can create an animated movie, but back when The Little Mermaid came out it took years and lots of money to produce a full length film.
That is why we often refer to The Jungle Book as the best example of traditional 2D animation because it is mostly hand drawn artwork with some 3D models here and there.
Stop motion
One of the most fundamental ways that animated movies are made comes down to one simple concept - stop motion filming. This is where individual shots are not filmed, but instead each frame takes longer for it to come together. For example, when shooting a scene with someone walking away, you would take 30 quick photos as they walk off screen. Then these 30 pictures are put together into one continuous video clip.
This way every part of the shot has enough time to fully freeze in place before moving onto the next picture. It is very difficult to do this without using slow shutter speeds or holding the camera still while taking the photo. The more slowly the camera moves, the longer it will take to get all the frames needed to make up the movie!
There are many different types of stop-motion editing, such as dolly zoom (where the camera is advanced forward along a track) or panning (moving side to side). Both require heavy equipment and careful setup which makes it cost prohibitive to create short films.
Three-dimensional modeling
Before CGI, most animated movies were drawn or painted using Photoshop or other drawing software. This process is called traditional animation. Traditional animations are still used today for some films!
Traditional animation is time consuming. Artists must draw every frame by hand. Technology has improved over the years to make this process faster. Software such as Adobe After Effects allows artists to create an animatic, which is like a movie script with scenes broken down into individual frames.
The artist then works on each frame separately before putting them together in order to achieve the final product. This way, they do not have to rework their work too much since it is already mostly finished.
These types of programs also allow you to add special effects such as bubbles, flames, or grass that can be put inside the film.
Realistic effects
For many, it’s just not believable that a stick of butter would bounce off of another piece of butter and hit someone in the eye. It feels like too much of an exaggeration or maybe even fake-looking.
That is totally understandable! And while there are some theories about why this happens, one thing is for sure - it can really hurt very badly.
So, how were animated movies first made? By careful use of special effects you already know about! Let us take a look at two examples of this in action.
1) The Butter Effect
This was probably one of the most famous special effect used in animation. If you have ever seen a movie where characters play with food or drink, then you have witnessed the butter effect in action.
At least, you have if the film maker wanted to be accurate!
The way this works is simple - when something liquid such as milk or water touches solid matter such as fat, the liquids “seize” onto the other material.