Early History of Animation

Brief History of Early Animators

This book will cover a few of the early animators of animation. Animators such as Windsor McCay and Walt Disney.

Windsor McCay was a cartoonist in the early 1900s. Around 1910 he began to create animations with his drawings. Animations were starting to become popular and he found it fun to do.  In 1914 he made an animated move called Gertie the Dinosaur. It was an animation that he would interact with in front of an audience.

In 1918 he finnished a 4 year project called The Sinking of the Lusitania that was about the sinking of a boat during World War I. The animation consisted of 25,000 hand drawn pages to make a 10 minute animated movie.

Walt Disney started as an animator in 1919 working at various jobs until he started Disney Brothers studio in California in 1923. He worked to produce animated movies that could be shown in theatres.

In 1928 the animated short called Steamboat Willie was introduced to audiences. It was the first animation that had animation and sound that was syncronized.

In 1930 Disney continued to introduce new technologies to the animation industry. Flowers and Trees introduced in 1932 was the first animation done in color. The Three Little Pigs followed in 1933.

From 1934 to 1937 the Disney studios were in full production of creating Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This was the first full length color animated film.

Much of what we use in animation can be based on the works of Wlat Disney and Windsor McCay.

If it were not for these two artists that took animation from simple drawings where do you think we would be?

Windsor McCay showed how we could make a simple animation from a flip book to a movie that could provide a message.

Wlat Disney then brought his magic by finding new ways to expand animation.  From adding sound, color, and telling full length stories.

Today we utilize computers to do much of what was done by hand.