Origins
Winsor McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) is often considered the very first example of true character animation. Later, Otto Messmer imbued Felix the Cat with an instantly recognizable personality during the 1920s.
In the 1930s Walt Disney made character animation a particular focus of his animation studio, best showcased in productions such as Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Dumbo. Disney animation artists such as Bill Tytla, Ub Iwerks, Grim Natwick, Fred Moore, Ward Kimball, Les Clark, John Sibley, Marc Davis, Wolfgang Reitherman, Hal King, Hamilton Luske, Norm Ferguson, Eric Larson, John Lounsbery, Milt Kahl, Joe Ranft, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston all became masters of the technique.
Frank and Ollie, as they were affectionately known by their protégés, taught that the thoughts and emotions behind the character were primary to the creation of every scene. Out of all the Nine Old Men, Frank and Ollie were the most known for their mentor/apprentice relationships, and the sharing of their knowledge about creating characters, most notably as transcribed through Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life. This book relays the 12 basic principles of animation, and is informally considered to be the 'animation bible' for any student of animation.
Other notable figures in character animation include the Schlesinger/Warner Bros. directors (Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Bill Melendez, Frank Tashlin, Robert McKimson, and Friz Freleng), cartoon animators Max Fleischer and Walter Lantz, pioneering animators Hanna-Barbera, former Disney animator Don Bluth, independent animator Richard Williams, John Lasseter at Pixar, and latter-day Disney animators Andreas Deja and Glen Keane. Character animation is not limited to Hollywood studios, however. Some of the finest examples of character animation can be found in the work of Nick Park of Aardman Animations and Russian independent animator Yuri Norstein.
Read more about this topic: Character Animation
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)