Reverend W. Awdry

Wilbert Vere Awdry was born on the 15th June 1911 was a railway enthusiast and children's author. He was better known as the Reverend W. Awdry, he was the creator of Thomas the Tank Engine, the main character in his famous Railway Series which had its first broadcast on the ITV network in 1984.

Thomas the Tank Engine is a small fictional steam train in The Railway Series books by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry and his son, Christopher. He became the most popular character in the series, and is the main character in the accompanying television series, Thomas & Friends.
homas the Tank Engine and Friends" is "live action model animation. To create the characters of Thomas, Henry, Percy, Gordon, and the gang, model-makers start with Marklin model train chassis and then modify the bodies to represent the various characters. Under a train's body shell lies the mechanism for moving the engine's eyes -- up, down, sideways, or 'round and 'round -- by radio control. In addition, there is a diaphragm pump and smoke unit to blow the specially formulated "smoke.".

Each character has its own basic face, which is first sculpted in clay. Then a rubber mold is made, and several copies are cast in a mixture of resin and auto-body filler. Each replica is reworked into different expressions, from which a final silicone casting is taken. The characters' faces are changed between shooting sequences and are held in place with nothing more than double-sided adhesive tape. Thomas alone has more than 40 faces cast for him, while the other engines have five or six each.

Thomas the Tank engine and friends is now created completely by CGI.

Thomas the Tank Engine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iGoWBrJpk4

Robert Zemickis

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 fantasy-comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Steven Spielberg and based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?. The film combines the use of traditional animation and live action, with elements of film noir.



VistaVision cameras installed with motion control technology were used to accommodate the split screen photography of animation and live action. Mime artists, puppeteers, mannequins and robotic arms were commonly used during filming to help the actors interact with "open air".

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAnNvnViJpo

Oliver Postgate and Peter Firman

Richard Oliver Postgate was born on the 12th April 1925, he was an English animator, puppeteer and writer. Peter Arthur Firmin was born on the 11 December 1928 and is an English artist and puppet maker. 
Between them they were the creators and writers of some of Britain's most popular children's television programmes. 

Postgate and Firmin mainly focused on stop motion animations; which then caused Noggin the Nog to be created, the first episode was first aired in 1959 and premiered its last episode in 1972. Due to the lack in animation technology The Saga of Noggin the Nog was draw completely by hand.

In 1974 Postgate and Firman created Bagpuss; bagpuss was a stop motion animation, due to the improvements in technology Bagpuss was in colour.

The Saga of Noggin the Nog - King of the Nogs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lmXljbRLyI

Bagpuss - Ship in a bottle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9beAp3TG2E

Walt Disney

Walt Disney – Steamboat Willie

Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago Illinois. Walt Disney was an American motion-picture and television producer and showman, famous as a pioneer of cartoon films and as the creator of Disneyland. Founder of Disney, Early creations were Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and goofy. Steamboat Willie was a 1928 American animated short film it was the debut of Mickey Mouse in 1928 it was the first animation in sync with sound; the old Mickey Mouse had basic animation, time limitation, it was in black and white, no voices and was hand drawn. 

Steamboat Willie (1928)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk-zi1Ue9C4

Pat Sullivan

Pat Sullivan

Australian cartoonist, pioneer animated and a film producer. He is best known for the first Felix the cat silent cartoons. After years or refusing to turn Felix the cat to sound, he finally agreed to and let them add sound to an already created animation. Feline follies (1919) - the Felix film.

Felix the cat was originally a drawn cartoon, each frame was drawn our separately. After drawings are cleaned up they are then photographed on an animation camera, usually on black and white stock. Felix the cat originally started out as a magazine. Pat Sullivan changed the way cartoon were seen. They also sold Felix the cat merchandise. Felix the cat was one of the longest running cartoons there has ever been. 

Feline Follies (1919)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsRullIZs9M

Max Fleischer

Max Fleischer - Out of the Inkwell

Max Fleischer was born 1883 in Vienna, from an early age he had an interest in mechanics. He invented the Rotoscope with his brother in 1915, it is an incredible device which helps to produce realistic animation. He is known for bringing characters such as Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman to the movie screen and was responsible for other technological innovations.

Fleischer’s studio was a major operation in New York under the support of Paramount Studios. When the three-color Technicolor process became available, Paramount vetoed it based on their concerns with economic balance, giving Disney the opportunity to acquire its exclusivity for four years. Two years later, Paramount approved colour production for Fleischer. These colour cartoons were augmented with a Fleischer-patented 3D background effect called “The Stereoptical Process”, this was before Disney’s Multiplane.

Fleischer invented a concept to simplify the process of animating movement by tracing frames of live action film. Extensive use of this technique was made in the Out of the Inkwell series. It starred Koko the Clown and Fitz the dog..

The positives are that it was a quick animation, KoKo the Clown had human movement, and the animation is very impressive for something that was made 94 years ago; there is also diagetic sound which helps to make KoKo’s movements more comical, all in all it was a fantastic use of the rotoscope. The rotoscope bought animation and live action together. However it was very repetitive as it was the same movements just at different locations, the quality was poor as the quality decreased due to changing from animation to live actions.

Out of the Inkwell - Modelling (1921)

https://youtu.be/hyetrAePLTA

Winsor McCay

Winsor McCay – Gertie The Dinosaur

Winsor McCay used an animation technique called ‘key-frame animation’ which allows the animation to move from one point, to the other smoothly. McCay also used the ‘split-system’ that he said he created to carefully lay out and time an entire sequence. By the 1930’s, the ‘split-system’ was known as the breakdown drawing or the passing position.

He then drew his subject midway between his split and an extreme, and continued drawing in this manner until the sequence was finished. McCay’s discussion of drawing for animation ends at this point (Richard Williams The Animators Survival Kit barely begins at this point) and he moves on to discuss his career, achievements and the future of animation.

 Winsor McCay was born in 1867 in Canada. McCay had an interest in drawing from the moment he could hold a pen. In 1888 McCay went to work at the National Printing Company of Chicago to illustrate posters mainly for circuses. In 1890 he moved to Cincinnati, creating advertising posters for the Kohl and Middleton Dime Museum. McCay also picked up additional work as a billboard painter.

In 1903 he produced sort of experimental comic strip entitled "Tales of The Jungle Imps by Felix Fiddle", based on poems by George Chester.

In this period newspaper comic strips were becoming very popular so McCay began experimenting with his own original strips.

While working for Hearst, McCay began experimenting with the idea of using animated pictures as part of his Vaudeville act. His first attempt was made using the popular characters from the "Little Nemo" strip. It was a huge success. He continued his experiments with animation and created "How a Mosquito Operates", which was also a success. Finally, in 1914 McCay created "Gertie The Dinosaur". Gertie was an instant success and is the first original character developed solely for the animated cartoon and not based on a pre-existing comic strip.

Gertie was made into a feature film with a live-action prologue and epilogue and shown around the world. McCay began working purely on animated films. The next film released in 1918 was "The Sinking Of The Lusitania”.

Gertie the Dinosaur - Gertie on tour (1921)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36gqBoUSJ4M