Portal:Animation

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Introduction

The bouncing ball animation above consists of these six frames repeated indefinitely.

Animation is a filmmaking technique by which still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets (cels) to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animation has been recognized as an artistic medium, specifically within the entertainment industry. Many animations are computer animations made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Stop motion animation, in particular claymation, has continued to exist alongside these other forms.

Animation is contrasted with live-action film, although the two do not exist in isolation. Many moviemakers have produced films that are a hybrid of the two. As CGI increasingly approximates photographic imagery, filmmakers can easily composite 3D animations into their film rather than using practical effects for showy visual effects (VFX). (Full article...)

Outline of animation

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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi (pictured), creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. It was the first photorealistic computer animated feature film and also holds the record for the most expensive video game-inspired film ever made. It features the voices of Ming-Na, Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, James Woods, Ving Rhames, Peri Gilpin and Steve Buscemi. The Spirits Within follows scientists Aki Ross and Doctor Sid in their efforts to free a post-apocalyptic Earth from a mysterious and deadly alien race known as the Phantoms, which has driven the remnants of humanity into "barrier cities". They must compete against General Hein, who wishes to use more violent means to end the conflict. Square Pictures rendered the film using some of the most advanced processing capabilities available for film animating at the time. A render farm consisting of 960 workstations was tasked with rendering each of the film's 141,964 frames. It took a staff of 200 and some four years to complete the film. Square intended to make the character of Aki Ross into the world's first photorealistic computer-animated actress, with plans for appearances in multiple films in different roles. The Spirits Within debuted to mixed critical reception, but was widely praised for the realism of the computer-animated characters. Due to rising costs, the film greatly exceeded its original budget towards the end of production, reaching a final cost of $137 million, of which it made back only $85 million at the box office. The film has been called a box office bomb, and is blamed for the demise of Square Pictures.

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Phenakistiscope

Credit: Thomas Mann Baynes; animated by Basile Morin

The phenakistiscope was the first widespread animation device that created a fluent illusion of motion. A series of pictures showing sequential phases of the animation are seen through small slots spaced evenly around the rim of a disc. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the images reflected in a mirror, seeing a rapid succession of images that appear to be a single moving picture. This animation shows one such phenakistiscope disc, entitled Running rats, created by Thomas Mann Baynes in 1833.

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... that the Pakistani film Shehr e Tabassum was the first animated cyberpunk film to be made by an Urdu development team?
... that the French animated film The Summit of the Gods is based on a Japanese manga series?
... that at age 12, Shaylee Mansfield became the first deaf actor to be credited alongside the voice actors for a signed performance in an animated production?
... that Encanto's Isabela Madrigal was animated to be aware that she is "always on stage"?
... that the animated film The Exigency took thirteen years to make?
... that the stylized animation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was inspired by rough sketches in school notebooks?

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Yes, we worry about what the critics say. Yes, we worry about what the opening box office is going to be. Yes, we worry about what the final box office is going to be. But really, the whole point why we do what we do is to entertain our audiences. The greatest joy I get as a filmmaker is to slip into an audience for one of our movies anonymously, and watch people watch our film. Because people are 100 percent honest when they're watching a movie. And to see the joy on people's faces, to see people really get into our films...to me is the greatest reward I could possibly get.

— John Lasseter, reflecting on the impact of the film, Toy Story

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Yeardley Smith (/ˈjɑːrdliː/; born Martha Maria Yeardley Smith on July 3, 1964) is a French-born American actress, voice actress, writer and painter. She is best known for her long-running role as Lisa Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons. She was born in Paris and moved with her family to Washington, D.C. in 1966. As a child, Smith was often mocked because of her voice and unusual first name. She became a professional actress in 1982 after graduating from drama school and moved to New York City in 1984 where she appeared in the Broadway production of The Real Thing. She made her film debut in 1985's Heaven Help Us, followed by roles in The Legend of Billie Jean and Maximum Overdrive. She moved to Los Angeles, California in 1986 and received a recurring role in the television series Brothers. In 1987, she auditioned for a role in a series of animated shorts about a dysfunctional family on The Tracey Ullman Show. Smith intended to audition for the role of Bart Simpson, but the casting director felt her voice was too high, so she was given the role of Lisa instead. She voiced Lisa for three seasons on The Tracey Ullman Show, and in 1989, the shorts were spun off into their own half-hour show, The Simpsons. For her work as the character, Smith received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in 1992.

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The Simpsons' first season originally aired between December 17, 1989 and May 13, 1990, beginning with the Christmas special "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". The showrunners for the first production season were Matt Groening (pictured), James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon. The series was originally set to debut in late 1989 with the episode "Some Enchanted Evening", which was meant to introduce the main characters; during the first screening of the episode, the producers discovered that the animation was so appalling that 70% of the episode needed to be redone. The producers considered aborting the series if the next episode turned out as bad, but it only suffered from easily fixable problems. The producers convinced Fox to move the debut to December 17, and aired "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" as the first episode of the series. The first season won one Emmy Award, and received four additional nominations. The DVD boxset was released on September 25, 2001 in Region 1 and September 24, 2001 in both Region 2 and Region 4.

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More did you know...

....that the South Park episode "The Coon" spoofs such dark comic book movies as The Dark Knight, The Spirit and Watchmen?
...that the 1999 anime series Digimon Adventure was first seen as an imitation of Nintendo's Pokémon franchise when its episodes first aired in North America?
...that the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends special "Destination: Imagination" won the Primetime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming One Hour or More)" in 2009?