Advent of Computer Animation

S1m0ne  . . . Al Pacino & Rachel Roberts

Before the advent of computer animation, all animation all the frames in an animation film had to be drawn by hand. When considering that each second of animation contains 24 frames (on film), it’s easy to imagine the tremendous amount of work that has to go into creating even the shortest of animated films, even cartoons.

The fact is animation did not just happen in a day. Many people contributed to make animation what it is today, and to make computer animation possible. Many steps had to take place, first to make moving images possible, and then developing techniques for creating animations. Here’s just a few of the major landmarks which made animation a household term:

In 1824 Peter Roget presented a paper “The persistence of vision with regard to moving objects” to the British Royal Society.  By 1831 Dr. Joseph Antoine Plateau and Dr. Simon Rittrer constructed a machine they called a “Phenakitstoscope” which produced the illusion of movement by allowing a viewer to gaze at a rotating disk containing small windows, behind which was another disk containing a series of images; when the disks were rotated at the proper speed, the “Harmonization” of the little window images resulted, therefore creating an animated effect.

Beginning in 1887 Thomas Edison applied his genius to animations future when he started research work into motion pictures in general.  By 1889 Tom Edison announced his “Kinetoscope” which projected a 50ft length of film in approximately 13 seconds. This device though only allowed one person to view the film through a little peephole.

That same year (1889), George Eastman began the manufacture of photographic film strips using a nitro-cellulose base which was a film base that could be used for movies as well as x-rays.

By 1923 Walt Disney was part of the mix when he extended earlier techniques of combining live action with cartoon characters in the film “Alice’s Wonderland”. Then in 1928 Disney created the first cartoon with synchronized sound; he called the film “Mickey Mouse”.

In 1945 Harry Everett Smith produced animation his own way, by drawing directly onto the film. Finally, in 1964 Ken Knowlton, working at Bell Laboratories, started developing computer techniques for producing animated movies.

Taking into account the enormous amount of work that goes into the making of an animation sequence, the bulk of the earlier drawings or paintings were typically done by several individuals and involved drawing or painting every scene or image directly upon each film frame; this process was generally called “Keyframing” so, a new and improved technique was developed, it was called “Cel Animation”.  

With Cel (short for celluloid) Animation, each character is created by drawing on an individual piece of transparent paper. The background is also drawn on a separate piece of “milky” paper. When it comes to shooting the animation, the each individual character is overlaid on top of the background in each frame. This procedure  saves time in that the artists are not required to draw in entire frames, but rather only the parts that need to change such as individual characters; even separate parts of a character’s body are placed on separate pieces of transparency paper; therefore making the process less labor intensive. This technique remained the dominant form of animation in cinema until the advent of computer animation.

These days when someone creates animation via a computer, they customarily do not specify the exact position of any given object on every single frame.  Instead, “Keyframes” are created.  Keyframes are, let’s say, frames that portray characters / images which may change their size, direction, shape or other properties. The computer then “magically” figures out all the in between frames and which saves allot of time for the animator. This process is called “Tweening”.

Many of us undoubtedly recall the 2002 comedy film “S1m0ne” with Al Pacheco as a strong-minded producer and Rachel Roberts as Simone; when Pacheco’s film career is threatened after his star walks out, he decides to digitally create an actress to substitute for the star using a rather sophisticated animation program. Naturally, she becomes an overnight sensation that everyone (including the major film critics) thinks is a real person, in this way Simone is born.

If you’ve not seen this particular flick, you can imagine the hilarious complications that arise when the very best of the Hollywood’s “Talk Show Élites” are unable to schedule a live interview with the new star.

When Viktor Taransky (Al Pacheco) decides the easiest way out of the rather complicated situation is to simply “kill her off”, his problems become even more completed because he cannot bear to admit his fraud to himself or the rest of the world.

OK, so we’re not there yet, but it’s certainly not difficult to recognize the potential demise of many of the overpaid Hollywood “Starlets” and “Tough Guys” that are so common in films being released today.

If you’d like to see YouTube’s Trailer rendition of S1mOne, CLICK HERE!  

Sources:                                                                                                          http://www.edu.pe.ca/threeoaks/Art/Digital%20Arts%20site/unit3/classic/intro.pdf http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/                                                                   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cel_animation                                                          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S1m0ne