Lecture 9: The History of Animation

I've already talked about this lecture in great detail as part of my research for a studio brief, so instead of repeating myself and explaining again how Animation has developed over the years, I am simply going to select a couple of Animations that I find to be extremely important in the Animation world.

Windsor McCay 1914 - Gertie the Dinosaur

Gertie the Dinosaur isn't the first ever cartoon despite what some believe, but it definitely was the first to bring a character to life that had such an appealing personality. It was also the first animation to use mechanical processes, such as key framing and registration marks on tracing paper and this animation actually influenced Animators such as the Fleischer Brothers and Walt Disney to animate.

Windsor McCay 1918 - The Sinking of the Lusitania

McCay later went on to produce The Sinking of the Lusitania. The Animation was a staggering 27000 frames long, and was the longest animated film at the time of it's release. The film was also the first serious/dramatic work of animation that depicted the Lusitania sinking during WW1. McCay wonderfully demonstrated animation's potential, and that it could be used to inform and document rather than simply to entertain.

Disney 1929 - The Skeleton Dance

The Skeleton Dance by Disney was a short produced as part of the Silly Symphonies series and it is credited for being the first animation to use non-post-sync sound and is arguably the first ever music video as the animation was developed to fit around a piece of music composed by Carl Stallings.