Cartoon and animation Leanne Wibrew

Contents Studios and their creations Different types of animation Well known animated films Well known cartoon characters Animation technology

Aardman studios This was founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton back in 1972. Four years later they then created Morph from the show ‘Take hart’. Peter and David were always interested in attracting an older audience with model animation, so they created a show for Channel 4 called ‘Conversation pieces’. In 1985 Nick Park joint them due to meeting at the National Film and Television School. Then moving on into 1993 they created a world wide winning 30 minute animation called ‘The wrong trousers’. It became the best made animation ever. Over the years they became more well known producing shows such as ‘Shawn the sheep’, ‘Chicken run’ and ‘Angry kid’.

Chuck Jones He joined Leon Schlesinger Productions in 1933 as an assistant animator, the studio were known for producing the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for the Warner Bros. Over the years he started to collaborate with Seuss, in creating an animation based on the book ‘How the Grinch stole Christmas’. In 1953 the Warner Studios closed for a period of time so Jones found work with Walt Disney Pictures, and started work on Sleeping Beauty. He was involved in other shows such as ‘A chipmunk christmas’, ‘Gremlins’, ‘Mrs Doubtfire’, ‘Lilo and Stitch’ and ‘Daffy Duck’. After his death, Daffy Duck for president which was a book by Jones was released in animation in memory of himself. His most famous creation was Bugs Bunny.

Ub Iwerks In 1924 Iwerks joined Disney Brothers productions (Walt Disney) and was put in charge of the animation ‘Oswald the luck rabbit’. He was Disney’s right hand man when it came to creating Mickey mouse. He used the cell animation method just like Chuck Jones. His name was featured on road signs in the cartoon ‘Fairly odd parents’ and a storyline similar to his relationship with Walt Disney was featured in ‘The Simpsons.

Types of animation Rotoscoping Claymation CGI Drawn animation

Rotoscoping An animation technique invented Max Fleischer. The Fleischer brothers used this to create Koko the clown. A strip of live-action footage can be traced and redrawn as a cartoon. This technique was used in their pioneering series Out of the Inkwell in 1919-29. It was used in films such as Beauty and the beast, Snow white, Lord of the rings, Gulliver’s travels, Forrest Gump and Ghostbusters.

Claymation A use of stop-start using clay. Clay models are made and a still picture is taken of each position, it then is played over to make it look like the clay character is moving. Claymation has been around in some form since the invention of plasticine in 1897. Films that were made by this include Wallace and Gromit, Chicken run, Creature comforts and Morph.

CGI This is where the character is created on the computer to make it easy to manipulate. It makes the characters look that little bit more realistic. Some films include Toy story 2, Shrek, Shark tale, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and The Polar Express.

Drawn animation This is where the animations are drawn on a piece of paper and then re-drawn in a different position to make it look like it’s moving. Some programmes are The Simpsons and Family Guy.

Well known animated films Toy story Shrek Avatar Pinocchio Peter Pan Lady and the Tramp The Jungle Book Aladdin The Flinstones Sleeping Beauty Alice in Wonderland Winnie the Pooh The little Mermaid Happy Feet Madagascar

Well known cartoon characters Homer Simpson Popeye Mickey Mouse Garfield Tom & Jerry Fred Flintstone Spiderman Bugs Bunny Superman Felix the cat Casper Woody the Woodpecker

Animation technology Motion capture: For motion capture you use human actors who are dressed in a leotard with integral reflective or magnetic markers. The actor performs the actions that are required, and the digital cameras capture the motion of the reflective markers. A computer processes and converts this motion into a composite figure. The end product gives the effect of an animated character acting directly with human actors. Gollum is a good example of this.