The First Ever Animation

What was the first ever animation? That is a trickier question than it might appear, because it
depends entirely on what is classified as an animation. Given that animation, at its heart, is
simply the act of creating the illusion of movement through still images, you could argue that
the craft began hundreds of thousands of years ago. Were all familiar with the stereotypical
cave painting imagery which usually depicted hunting in motion. The Victorians also
figured out how to create moving stills to trick the eyes into thinking the image was animated:

The First Animated Feature Film

After a number of pioneers began creating animated shorts in the early 20th century
(1914s Gertie the Dinosaur being a notable example), the very first feature-length animation
created using traditional methods was entitled El Apstol.
Released in 1917 to a South American theatre audience, the 70-minute long movie running
at an impressive 14 frames per second also holds the distinction of being the first
commercially profitable animated movie ever made. According to those who saw it, the
political satire was exceedingly good. Those who didnt catch it the first time round will never
have the chance to find out, however, since the only copy of the film was destroyed in a house
fire.

The Rise of the Mouse House

A few more experimental animation techniques were developed over the next
decade (including methods like rotoscoping), which produced some hit-and-miss results. It was
the opening of a small studio in Los Angeles, however, that changed the game forever.
To many, the word animation begins and ends with Walt Disney. With more innovations and
notable works over the 20th century (and beyond) than we could ever hope to list here,
Disneys studio and tumultuous history set a precedent for the entire animation industry.
Interestingly, Pinto Colvig, famously known as the voice of Disneys Goofy, was an extremely
talented illustrator and is reputed to have made the very first animated feature film himself a
couple of years before El Apstol, but this is now impossible to verify.

As a result, some commenters point to the 1937 release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as the
first feature-length animated film since it was fully hand-drawn and isnt classified as a lost
movie.

The First Computer-Animated Feature Films

If the founding of Disney Studios is the biggest turning point in animation history so far, Pixars
release of Toy Story in 1995 could be deemed the second biggest.
While its amazing that Toy Story still looks incredible two decades later, its undeniable that the
CGI animations released since are following some kind of Moores Law effect: every year the
rate of technological increase is growing exponentially, leading to mind-blowing results which
are light-years ahead of titles released just a couple of years ago.
 1906 J. Stuart Blackton's Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is released. It
is a three-minute short in which Blackton creates animating drawings of
faces and people against a plain blackboard.

1908 The first short comprised solely of animated images, Emile

Cohl's Fantasmagorie, receives its premiere in Paris.

1908 Humpty Dumpty Circus marks the first use of stop-motion animation
on film.

1914 Earl Hurd invents the process of cel animation, which would
revolutionize and dominate the industry for much of the 20th century.

1914 Gertie the Dinosaur is widely considered the first animated short to
feature a distinguishable character, as cartoonist and animator Winsor
McCay brings a walking, dancing dinosaur to life.

1917 The first feature-length animated film, Quirino Cristiani's El apostol, is

released. Unfortunately, he only known copy was destroyed in a fire.

1919 Felix the Cat makes his debut and becomes the first famous animated
cartoon character.

1920 The first color cartoon, John Randolph Bray's The Debut of Thomas
Cat, is released.

1922 Walt Disney animates his first animated short, Little Red Riding Hood.
Though initially thought lost, a copy was found and restored in 1998.

1928 Mickey Mouse makes his debut. Though the first Mickey Mouse
cartoon is technically the six-minute short Plane Crazy, the first Mickey
Mouse short to be distributed is Steamboat Willie, which is also the first
Disney cartoon with synchronized sound.

1929 Disney's iconic line of animated shorts, Silly Symphonies, kicks off its
prolific run with The Skeleton Dance.

1930 Betty Boop debuts as a woman/dog hybrid in the short Dizzy Dishes.

1930 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes makes its debut with Sinkin' in the
Bathtub.

1931 Quirino Cristiani's Peludopolis, which tells the story of a military coup
against a corrupt president, boasts the first instance of sound within a
 feature-length animated film. There are no surviving copies of the movie in
existence.

1932 The first full-color, three-strip Technicolor animated short, Flowers and
Trees, is released. The film wins Disney the first-everAcademy Award for
Animated Short Film

1933 King Kong, which features several stop-motion animated characters, is

released.

1933 After starring in an extremely successful comic strip, Popeye makes

his cartoon debut alongside Betty Boop in the seven-minute short Popeye
the Sailor.

1933 Ub Iwerks invents the multiplane camera, which allows animators to

create a three-dimensional effect within two-dimensional cartoons.

1935 The Russian film The New Gulliver becomes the first full-length feature
to employ stop-motion animation for the bulk of its running time.

1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney's first full-length
animated feature and the first such production to emerge out of the United
States, is released. It becomes a huge box office success and Disney was
awarded an Honorary Academy Award for the achievement.

1938 Bugs Bunny makes his debut in Porky's Hare Hunt, though the
character wasn't named until 1941.

1940 Tom the cat launches his unending pursuit of Jerry the mouse in the
Oscar-nominated short Puss Gets the Boot.

1940 Woody Woodpecker arrives on the scene with a small role in the Andy
Panda cartoon Knock, Knock.

1941 The first full-length animated musical, Mr. Bug Goes to Town, is
released.

1946 Disney's first live-action film, Song of the South, is released and
boasts several animated interludes. Because of its depiction of the African-
American character Uncle Remus, the film has never been released on
home media in the United States.

1949 Prolific stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen makes his debut with
the creation of the title character in Mighty Joe Young.
 1972 Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat is released as the first X-rated animated
feature in cinematic history.

1973 Computer-generated images are used for the very first time in a brief
shot within Westworld.

1975 Revolutionary special-effects company Industrial Light & Magic is

founded by George Lucas.

1982 Tron marks the first time that computer-generated images are used
extensively in a film.

1986 Pixar's first short, Luxo Jr., is released. It is the first computer-
animated short to receive an Academy Award nomination.

1991 becomes the first fully animated film to receive an Oscar nomination
for Best Picture.

1993 Jurassic Park becomes the first live-action film to feature photorealistic
computer-animated creatures.

1995 The first computer-animated film, , is released to theaters. The

achievement is honored with a Special Achievement Academy Award.

1999 Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace marks the first film to use
computer-generated imagery extensively and pervasively, in terms of its
sets, special effects, and supporting characters.

2002 The Academy creates a Best Animated Feature category, with the first
movie to win the Oscar.

2002 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers features the first photorealistic
motion captured character for a film, with Andy Serkis portraying Gollum.

2004 The Polar Express becomes the first fully-animated film to use motion
capture technology to render all of its characters.

2005 Chicken Little becomes the first computer animated film to be released
in 3D.

2009 James Cameron's groundbreaking Avatar is the first film to feature a

fully CG 3D photorealistic world

1. The First Traditional Animated Short

French artist mile Cohl is credited with the first ever animated film 1908s
Fantasmagorie. The hand drawn film follows a stick figure running into morphing
objects. Cohl made the film by drawing each frame on a piece of paper and
shooting it on film. There are a few scenes in the film where Cohls hands are
visible while taking the photograph.

2. First Synchronized Sound and Dialogue

In 1924, brothers Max and Dave Fleischer released Oh Mabel, a seven minute
animated short that used Phonofilm to sync sound and footage. It was the first
animated film to have a talking character with synced dialogue a dog shouting
Follow the ball, and join in, everybody!

This short was released four years before Walt Disney perfected synchronization in
the infamous 1928 Steamboat Willie cartoon, which introduced the world to Mickey
Mouse.

3. The Multiplane Camera

To break away from the previously one-dimensional work of animation, Walt

Disney (and his team led by William Garity) devised a new machine dubbed
the multiplane camera. The device use a series of glass panes with individual
elements painted on them. A camera was placed high above all the planes of glass
and an image was taken. Then individual panes were moved and another photo
taken. This created a three dimensional world in which elements in the foreground
would move separately from those in the background.

The device was first tested in the 1937 short, The Old Mill. The final product
featured realistic depictions of animals and weather, as well as complex lighting
and color effects. The stunning work earned The Old Mill an Oscar for Best Short
Subject, Cartoons.

The team at Disney made modifications to the machine for work on the first ever
feature length animated film which leads to our next major breakthrough.

4. First Feature Length Cel-Animated Film

You cant write about animation breakthroughs without including the 1937
animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Produced by Walt Disney, the
film was a massive critical and commercial success which is incredible for a film
that so many thought would bankrupt Disney. Using the multiplane camera used
in The Old Mill, Disney and his small crew managed to get the film finished in time.
Late in 1935, when Dad began work on Snow White, he was backing away from
short subjects. They were merely program fillers, so they couldnt be worth all the
money they were costing to produce. Costs kept rising. And it was easy to see that
if cartoon rentals rose enough to meet production costs, theaters would use fewer
and fewer of them. The trend was already. visible. Speaking of this period, Dad told
me, Your Uncle Roy was worrying about our getting our money back with a profit,
and I was worrying about maintaining our quality and keeping production going.
This caused some headbutting between us. To me, the way to get out of the fix we
were in was to start competing in the feature-length field and aim for a big profit on
a large production instead of a small profit on a short subject. Diane Disney
Miller

The bet paid off. What was once referred to as Disneys Folly, Snow White has
stood the test of time and remains one of the most successful and influential
animated films ever made

5. First Primetime Animated Television Show

Hanna-Barbera brought countless characters into audiences homes with

their impressive catalog of television shows. In the 1950s, they earned an Emmy
for their work on The Huckleberry Hound Show, which also led to the Yogi
Bear spinoff. However it was their work in the 1960s that truly changed animation.

From 1960 through 1966, Hanna-Barbera produced The Flintstones for ABC the
first ever primetime animated show. It was the most financially successful animated
franchise until the debut of The Simpsons. The Flintstones had the perfect blend of
stone age comedy and 1960s family life.

Hanna-Barbera would go on to produce a similar primetime series, The Jetsons, as

well as other animated hits like Johnny Quest and Scooby Doo, Where are You!.

6. Xerography

In 1942, Chester Carlson developed an electrophotographic (or dry photocopying)

technique later dubbed Xerography. (The term comes from the Greek xeros dry
and graphia writing).

Disney legend Ub Iwerks adapted the technique for animation first testing its use
during the production of Sleeping Beauty and the short film Goliath II. It would be
the 1961 Disney classic One Hundred and One Dalmations that truly utilized
xerography for the first time in an entire feature length production. Xerography
became the standard animation process at Walt Disney Studios up until 1989.

7. A Computer Animated Hand

In 1972, University of Utah researchers Ed Catmull and Fred Parke developed a
computer animated short of Catmulls left hand. A Computer Animated Hand used
350 triangles and polygons to create a 3D model. The model was then animated in
a program created by Catmull himself.

The work was sensational. Never before had something like this been done.
Catmull would find himself in front of Disney executives pitching his program and
animation technique but the studio had no interest in using computers for
animated films. They asked if Catmull would use his program with Imagineers to
develop Disney World rides like Space Mountain.

Catmull went on to develop the Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute
of Technology, and later developed The Graphics Group at George Lucas
Lucasfilm. That computer division was later sold to Apple Computer and
renamed Pixar.

In 2011, the US Library of Congress dubbed the short animated film culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant adding it to the National Film Registry.