Cel Animation

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Gertie the dinosaur, from Winsor McCay's 1914 film of the same name. The earliest widely popular animated short films in the US, it was drawn frame-by-frame entirely by hand on paper.

Celluloid or cel animation is a film-based media form, where transparent individually-created films frames are projected with light sequentially onto a reflective screen, creating an illusion of motion. Although contemporary cinematic animation has been transformed through use of the computer, historically cel animation has been created by hand. Due to this manual quality, traditional cel animation pre-dated the photographic automation that became 20th century cinema.

Cinematic Presence

The word animation derives from the latin verb 'animare,' which means 'to give life to' (Wells, 10).

Historically, cel animation pre-dated traditional cinema

deriving from the latin verb

Outline:

Presence Gumbrecht Example: McCay’s Gertie the dinosaur

Illusion of motion Persistence of vision

Intertwine theory with history: Animation as a system Modularity From simple to complex

Early animation Late animation

History and theory: Manovich Gitelman Crary

Precursors Representation: Magic lantern Seen as mystical Example: picture Photography Mimesis not immediately grasped Especially since exposure time long Example: war photo picture

Time: Phenakistiscope Example animated gif //http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Phenakistoscope_3g07690a.gif// Kinetoscope (film) Example: Edison film boxing match http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiTXye62mAY&feature=channel

Differentiation from film Mixture of live-action and animation Example: Disney’s Alices’ Wonderland Wonders of animation

Representation of space Crary

Abstraction of vision into mechanism Subjective truth and perceptual effects

Example: Disney’s Fantasia

Representation of time Doane and Freud Crary Example: Road Runner Stopping of time

Persistence of vision

Televisionization of animation Economic and cultural changes Example: Scooby Doo Disney’s mid-period “English” films

Future:

Special Effects as supplement Dichotomy Example: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Special Effects as enhancer of verisimilitude: Manovich

Example: Jurassic Park

Digital video, with live-action as a supplement Manovich

Example: Avatar