Portal:Animation
Main | Categories and topics | Tasks and projects |
Introduction
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...)
Selected article
"Stark Raving Dad" is the first episode of the third season of American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on September 19, 1991. In the episode, main character Homer Simpson is sent to a mental institution, where he shares a room with a large white man named Leon Kompowsky who pretends to be Michael Jackson. Al Jean and Mike Reiss wrote the episode while Rich Moore served as director. Michael Jackson guest starred in the episode as the speaking voice of Leon Kompowsky. For contractual reasons, he was credited as John Jay Smith in the closing credits. Jackson pitched several story ideas for the episode and wrote a song that is featured in the plot. He also stipulated that he would provide Kompowsky's speaking voice, but his singing voice would be performed by a sound-alike (Kipp Lennon) because he wanted to play a joke on his brothers. "Stark Raving Dad" received generally positive reviews from critics, particularly for the writing and Jackson's performance.
Selected image
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that the French animated film The Summit of the Gods is based on a Japanese manga series?
- ... that the Tuca & Bertie episode "The Jelly Lakes" employs a paper-cutout animation that helps to depict abuse in a way that centers the victim's story?
- ... that "Arnold's Christmas", now considered one of the most memorable episodes from the animated series Hey Arnold!, was almost rejected by network executives because it depicted the Vietnam War?
- ... that the stylized animation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was inspired by rough sketches in school notebooks?
- ... that the 1937 Fleischer Studios strike in New York City was the first major labor strike in the animation industry?
- ... that the live-action comedy series Community had a stop motion animated Christmas special?
Selected quote
Selected biography
Zenas Winsor McCay (c. 1867–71 – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip Little Nemo (1905–14; 1924–26) and the animated film Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). From a young age, McCay was a quick, prolific, and technically dextrous artist. He started his professional career making posters and performing for dime museums, and began illustrating newspapers and magazines in 1898. He joined the New York Herald in 1903, where he created popular comic strips such as Little Sammy Sneeze and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. Between 1911 and 1921 McCay self-financed and animated ten films, some of which survive only as fragments. McCay and his assistants worked for twenty-two months on his most ambitious film, The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918), a patriotic recreation of the German torpedoing in 1915 of the RMS Lusitania. In his drawing, McCay made bold, prodigious use of linear perspective, particularly in detailed architecture and cityscapes. He textured his editorial cartoons with fine hatching, and made color a central element in Little Nemo. His comic strip work has influenced generations of cartoonists and illustrators. He pioneered inbetweening, the use of registration marks, cycling, and other animation techniques that later became standard.
Selected list
The Annie Award for Best Animated Video Game is awarded annually by ASIFA-Hollywood, a non-profit organization that honors contributions to animation, to the best animated video game of the year. It is one of the Annie Awards, which are given to the best contributions to animation, including producers, directors, and voice actors. The Annie Award for Best Animated Video Game was created in 2005, and has been awarded yearly since. To be eligible for the award, the game must have been released in the year before the next Annie Awards ceremony, and the developers of the game must send a five-minute DVD that shows the gameplay and graphics of the game to a committee appointed by the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood. As of 2011, the Annie Award for Best Animated Video Game has been awarded to five video games. The video game development company THQ has had six of its games nominated for the Annie Award for Best Animated Video Game, and one of them, Ratatouille, has won the award.
More did you know...
- ...that Toy Story 3 was listed in Time's 25 All-Time Best Animated Films?
- ...that Walt Disney died during the production of his last film, The Jungle Book?
- ...that the scheduled release of the Peanuts movie in 2015 would "commemorate the 65th anniversary of the comic strip and the 50th anniversary of the TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas"?
Anniversaries for March 29
- Films released
- 1933 - Bunnies and Bonnets (United States)
- 1941 - Goofy Groceries (United States)
- 1941 - Porky's Bear Facts (United States)
- 1952 - Little Beau Pepe (United States)
- 1958 - Hare-Way to the Stars (United States)
- 1969 - Fistic Mystic (United States)
Subportals
Related portals
Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus