2D animation research report by James Cartwright

In todays world, used for a number of things; from logos for adverts, character models in games to even big styled production films. Animation seems to be used all around us, but like many a great invention or creation, the question is: where did it all start from? In this research document we will be looking at the many different stages of 2D animation, from the first form of animation to the more complex methods used in film. The first form of animation was in 1834, where a man called William Horner invented the Zoetrope; a device that played on the illusion of static drawings or images spinning in rapid succession to create movement inside the wheeled creation. Unfortunately it wasnt until the 1860s when it became popular. The pictures were drawn on a strip which could be placed around the bottom third of a metal drum, to which slits were made in the upper part of the drum. It was then mounted on a spindle so then it can be spun, which then viewers could see the image move as a sequence. The word zoetrope means circle of life and was mainly used as a childs entertainment toy. Who knew that from this idea eventually would lead to one of the greatest developments of all time.

In 1917 Max Fleischer invented the Rosterum camera, which could incorporate drawings into live films frame by frame, the film frame would be projected onto a screen that the artist could draw on, he would then trace over the image and draw other images over each frame to give the look of a visual effect on the film. An example of a rosterum effect would be in the music video of take on me where a human being is dragged into a drawn world, nowadays we use techniques like green screening or motion capture to add in effects.

Flipbook animation is a form of animation where a sequence featuring movement would be drawn on separate pieces of paper, and layered together in numerical sequence making a book like look,

to which the viewer then flicks over the side of the booklet creating a flicker effect and giving the illusion of the sequence moving. It was very popular during the 19th century leading into the start of the 20th century as entertainment and cheap toys. Flipbooks were usually bound by staples although nowadays they are usually bound properly. With flipbooks you could alter the speed of the animation based on how fast you ran your thumb over it. They were also a form of invention where you could use anything from still photos to drawings.

Hand painted cells; a cel is a piece of transparent film the the animator draws a frame of animation onto one side (mainly the inkining outline) and on the other side they would paint in the colour part, this was done one frame per cel for the entire film. This was mainly used by Disney studios for a number of their old films including The little mermaid. Cells had been used less and less when the introduction of new computer tech animation, and the fact that the cells they used were highly flammable and very unstable. Generally, the characters are drawn on cells and laid over a static
background drawing. This reduced the number of times an image has to be redrawn and enables studios to split up the production process to different specialised teams. Using this assembly line way to animate had made it possible to produce films much more cost-effectively. This process was starting to be used in 1914-1990.

Walt Disney pencilmations: before Disney went computer animated, in a lot of their earlier films they mainly animated through pencil drawings, films made by pencil animations included a lot of the earlier films, one in particular was steamboat Willie, which was the second Disney mascot (the first being Oswald the Rabbit and first appearance of the now famous Mickey Mouse. Steamboat Willie was an animation set to sync to a short musical tune in 1928. Examples of pencil animated films would be Pinocchio, fantasia, Cinderella, and the fox and the Hound.

Digitally drawn/toon boom: Digitally made 2D cartoons can be made with a variety of animation studio software, one of which is toon boom, where you can draw characters and scenery to create basic but effective animations. Creating characters can be done with either the mouse or using a drawing tablet.