Animated movies released in 2010 run the gamut from classic tales to creative new stories from Disney Pixar and Warner Brothers. Whether you're planning on taking the family out for movie night or want to enjoy a few hours of fun on your own, here are some of the most-anticipated 2010 animated movie releases to look forward to:
Hoodwinked Too!: Hood vs. Evil: Animated Release Scheduled for Jan. 15, 2010
Hoodwinked Too! Is the sequel to the Hoodwinked movie that was released in 2005. The plot involves Red Riding Hood and the Wolf investigating the mysterious disappearance of Hansel and Gretel and features the voices of Joan Cusack, Martin Short, Hayden Panettiere and Glenn Close amongst others. The animated drama is a must-see for any modern-day fairytale fanatics.
Toy Story 2 Digital Edition 3-D: Animated Release Scheduled for Feb. 12, 2010
The Toy Story 2 Digital Edition is a re-release of the Toy Story 2 movie and a teaser for Toy Story 3 3D-movie being released in June 2010. You can head to the movie theater to watch the popular family animated movie with 3D glasses, and also pick up the special edition DVD to watch at home.
How to Train Your Dragon: Animated Release Scheduled for March 26, 2010
Dreamworks Animation brings us a funny fantasy movie based on the children's novel by Cressida Cowell. The plot of this animated movie involves a Viking boy training his scrawny dragon to be big and strong, and features the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrara and Jonah Hill.
Shrek Forever After 3D: Animated Release Scheduled for May 21, 2010
This 3D version of the Shrek movie series the fourth Shrek movie in history and features the voices of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas. If you've experienced the Shrek 4-D ride at Universal Studios, you've already gotten a taste for the storyline and characters. This animated sequel gives us a glimpse of Shrek's life as a married man who gets tricked into signing his life away to a land far from Princess Fiona by the likes of Rumpelstiltskin. Shrek must now find a way to undo the magic and get back to his true love.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Animated movies released in 2010
Saturday, December 27, 2008
History of Animation: Before Disney
A forerunner of today's comic strip can be found in an Egyptian wall decoration circa 2000 B.C. In successive panels it depicts the actions of two wrestlers in a variety of holds. In one of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous illustrations, he shows how the limbs would look in various positions. Giotto's angels seem to take flight in their repetitive motions. The Japanese used scrolls to tell continuous stories.
Since the beginnings of time, human beings have tried to capture a sense of motion in their art. From the eight-legged boar in the Altamira caves of Northern Spain to paintings alongside the remains of long-dead pharoahs, this quest for capturing motion has been a common theme throughout many of mankind's artistic endeavors.
True animation cannot be achieved without first understanding a fundamental principle of the human eye: the persistance of vison. This was first demonstrated in 1828 by Frenchman, Paul Roget, who invented the thaumatrope (left, click to stop). It was a disc with a string or peg attahced to both sides. One side of the disc showed a bird, the other an empty cage. When the disc was twirled, the bird appeared in the cage. This proved that the eye retains images when it is exposed to a series of pictures, one at a time.
Two other inventions helped to further the cause of animation. The phenakistoscope, invented by Joseph Plateau in 1826, was a circular card with slits around the edge. The viewer held the card up to a mirror and peered through the slits as the card whirled. Through a series of drawings around the circumference of the card, the viewer saw a progression of images resulting in a moving object. The same technique applied to the zeotrope. In 1860, Pierre Desvignes, inserted a strip of paper containing drawings on the inside of a drumlike cylinder. The drum twirled on a spindle, and the viewer gazed through slots ot the top of the drum. The figures on the inside magically came to life, endlessly looping in an acrobatic feat.
The development of the motion camera and projector by Thomas A. Edison and others provided the first real practical means of making animation. Even still, the animation was done in the simplest of means. Stuart Blackton, issued a short film in 1906 entitled Humourous Phases of Funny Faces where he drew comical faces on a blackboard, photographed them, and the erased it to draw another stage of the facial expression. This "stop-motion" effect astonished audiences by making drawings comes to life.
In the early twenties, the popularity of the animated cartoon was on the decline, and movie exhibitors were looking elswhere for alternative entertainment media. The public was tired of the old formula of stringing sight gags together without including a story line or any character development. What the art of animation could accomplish was not yet evident in this period, except for in the works of Winsor McCay such as Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914. Mccay's major accomplishment was the fact that he had developed a character in his dinosaur, something that had previously only been seen in Otto Messmer's, Felix the Cat. McCay's piece had a galvanizing effect on audiences. The notion of a dinosaur coming to life on the screen was astonishing. Of all the early animations, Felix the Cat developed the strongest screen personality, but failed to develop any further, relying on crude visual tricks to entertain the audience as opposed to developing a stronger screen persona.
"Plots? We never bothered with plots. They were just a series of gags strung together. And not very funny, I'm afraid." - Dick Huemer, 1957
At this time, many of the animations were based on primitive gags and violence, which is still true of cartoons today. One character would beat another mercilessly, only to have his victim instantly recover and return the favor. Perhaps the hero would swing his sword and reduce the villian to baloney slices, only to have him reappear as if magically rejoined.
A big change came over the industry in the mid twenties: commercialization. Big studios took over the smaller cottage industries and set standards for animation. Animators were given quotas on the number of drawings they had to produce a day. Cartoons now had to manufactured in quantity and cheaply.
The same gags were worked and reworked. Audiences became apathetic as the novelty of seeing drawings come to life wore off. This caused a depression in the animation business that coincided with the depression in the economy of the United States.
Since the beginnings of time, human beings have tried to capture a sense of motion in their art. From the eight-legged boar in the Altamira caves of Northern Spain to paintings alongside the remains of long-dead pharoahs, this quest for capturing motion has been a common theme throughout many of mankind's artistic endeavors.
True animation cannot be achieved without first understanding a fundamental principle of the human eye: the persistance of vison. This was first demonstrated in 1828 by Frenchman, Paul Roget, who invented the thaumatrope (left, click to stop). It was a disc with a string or peg attahced to both sides. One side of the disc showed a bird, the other an empty cage. When the disc was twirled, the bird appeared in the cage. This proved that the eye retains images when it is exposed to a series of pictures, one at a time.
Two other inventions helped to further the cause of animation. The phenakistoscope, invented by Joseph Plateau in 1826, was a circular card with slits around the edge. The viewer held the card up to a mirror and peered through the slits as the card whirled. Through a series of drawings around the circumference of the card, the viewer saw a progression of images resulting in a moving object. The same technique applied to the zeotrope. In 1860, Pierre Desvignes, inserted a strip of paper containing drawings on the inside of a drumlike cylinder. The drum twirled on a spindle, and the viewer gazed through slots ot the top of the drum. The figures on the inside magically came to life, endlessly looping in an acrobatic feat.
The development of the motion camera and projector by Thomas A. Edison and others provided the first real practical means of making animation. Even still, the animation was done in the simplest of means. Stuart Blackton, issued a short film in 1906 entitled Humourous Phases of Funny Faces where he drew comical faces on a blackboard, photographed them, and the erased it to draw another stage of the facial expression. This "stop-motion" effect astonished audiences by making drawings comes to life.
In the early twenties, the popularity of the animated cartoon was on the decline, and movie exhibitors were looking elswhere for alternative entertainment media. The public was tired of the old formula of stringing sight gags together without including a story line or any character development. What the art of animation could accomplish was not yet evident in this period, except for in the works of Winsor McCay such as Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914. Mccay's major accomplishment was the fact that he had developed a character in his dinosaur, something that had previously only been seen in Otto Messmer's, Felix the Cat. McCay's piece had a galvanizing effect on audiences. The notion of a dinosaur coming to life on the screen was astonishing. Of all the early animations, Felix the Cat developed the strongest screen personality, but failed to develop any further, relying on crude visual tricks to entertain the audience as opposed to developing a stronger screen persona.
"Plots? We never bothered with plots. They were just a series of gags strung together. And not very funny, I'm afraid." - Dick Huemer, 1957
At this time, many of the animations were based on primitive gags and violence, which is still true of cartoons today. One character would beat another mercilessly, only to have his victim instantly recover and return the favor. Perhaps the hero would swing his sword and reduce the villian to baloney slices, only to have him reappear as if magically rejoined.
A big change came over the industry in the mid twenties: commercialization. Big studios took over the smaller cottage industries and set standards for animation. Animators were given quotas on the number of drawings they had to produce a day. Cartoons now had to manufactured in quantity and cheaply.
The same gags were worked and reworked. Audiences became apathetic as the novelty of seeing drawings come to life wore off. This caused a depression in the animation business that coincided with the depression in the economy of the United States.
history of animation
Animation is a graphic representation of drawings to show movement within those drawings. A series of drawings are linked together and usually photographed by a camera. The drawings have been slightly changed between individualized frames so when they are played back in rapid succession (24 frames per second) there appears to be seamless movement within the drawings.
Pioneers of animation include Winsor McCay of the United States and Emile Cohl and Georges Melies of France. Some consider McCay's Sinking of the Lusitania from 1918 as the first animated feature film. Early animations, which started appearing before 1910, consisted of simple drawings photographed one at a time. It was extremely labor intensive as there were literally hundreds of drawings per minute of film. The development of celluloid around 1913 quickly made animation easier to manage. Instead of numerous drawings, the animator now could make a complex background and/or foreground and sandwich moving characters in between several other pieces of celluloid, which is transparent except for where drawings are painted on it. This made it unnecessary to repeatedly draw the background as it remained static and only the characters moved. It also created an illusion of depth, especially if foreground elements were placed in the frames.
Walt Disney took animation to a new level. He was the first animator to add sound to his movie cartoons with the premiere of Steamboat Willie in 1928. In 1937, he produced the first full length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. With the introduction of computers, animation took on a whole new meaning. Many feature films of today had animation incorporated into them for special effects. A film like Star Wars by George Lucas would rely heavily on computer animation for many of its special effects. Toy Story, produced by Walt Disney Productions and Pixar Animation Studios, became the first full length feature film animated entirely on computers when it was released in 1995. With the advent of personal computers, it has now become possible for the average person to create animations.
Pioneers of animation include Winsor McCay of the United States and Emile Cohl and Georges Melies of France. Some consider McCay's Sinking of the Lusitania from 1918 as the first animated feature film. Early animations, which started appearing before 1910, consisted of simple drawings photographed one at a time. It was extremely labor intensive as there were literally hundreds of drawings per minute of film. The development of celluloid around 1913 quickly made animation easier to manage. Instead of numerous drawings, the animator now could make a complex background and/or foreground and sandwich moving characters in between several other pieces of celluloid, which is transparent except for where drawings are painted on it. This made it unnecessary to repeatedly draw the background as it remained static and only the characters moved. It also created an illusion of depth, especially if foreground elements were placed in the frames.
Walt Disney took animation to a new level. He was the first animator to add sound to his movie cartoons with the premiere of Steamboat Willie in 1928. In 1937, he produced the first full length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. With the introduction of computers, animation took on a whole new meaning. Many feature films of today had animation incorporated into them for special effects. A film like Star Wars by George Lucas would rely heavily on computer animation for many of its special effects. Toy Story, produced by Walt Disney Productions and Pixar Animation Studios, became the first full length feature film animated entirely on computers when it was released in 1995. With the advent of personal computers, it has now become possible for the average person to create animations.
The Future of 3d Animation and Video Games
The video game and animation industry is about to take another leap forward in the development quality realistic images and animation. The current crop of video games tend to utilize low poly models in the gaming environment. In the near future, more advanced video cards will allow the use of more high poly models. The differences will be astounding. Other major innovations are underway which will allow artists to create visual simulations that will become a true virtual reality to the users. One such technology is used in the popular graphics software Maya.
In Maya, the artist can use a plugin called Blast Code, by FerReel Animation Labs, Inc. to create realistic explosions within the CG realm. The program actually allows the artist to devastate and deform actual geometry on the fly. This has not been previously possible, and all the explosions in video games have been canned. Other technologies that support these new innovations abound. Realflow is another technology that speeds up realism in CG. Here, liquid states and gelataneous states of matter are simulated in a most convenient way. When you think of how much of the natural environment is immersed in liquids, and interracts with them, it is no wonder why this technology had to be developed. Most people have played a video game and have said to themselves: "Wow, that character is realistic!" Imagine doing that when the character has natural looking tears and droplets of sweat emitting from pores in their CG skin.The technology for advanced gaming is tied directly to the innovations that are occurring in the field of animation. The motion picture industry will spend as much money on one animated movied as the US government will spend on AIDS research during a given year. This vast amount of money is allowing companies like Alias, XSI, Discreet, and Newtek to spend large amounts of capital on research and development. This driving force is behind many of the innovations that have made movies like "Finding Nemo" and "Shrek" staples for shildren everywhere.New movies with even more advanced and arguably better animation quality are enroute. Pixar's new movie "Cars", which is set for a 2006 release date, may be a frontrunner to display many fo these new technologies and techniques. The trailer sure does it justice. Another fascinating movie that is being made is called "Delgo". It is being made by Fathom studios, a rather small studio on the East coast. This may indicate that one of the major innovations of animation technology, is the new ability of smaller oranizations, and even eventually individuals to make feature link films. Some aspiring individuals and groups are already putting this theory into practice. Many of these films are available on the internet and are free to view and enjoy. Many sites have these films posted. A site for all types of films is http://www.ifilm.com Thsi is a huge site with alot of different films that you can watch. Another one, that is more specific to animation, is http://www.3dexcellence.com Both of these sites will have examples of the innovation that exists out there. When you look at some of these films and video game sequences, you will see that the new crop is tending to have more and more elaborate textures and models. The lighting is becoming more reactive and realistic. The models are nto yet high poly in video games, but they are tending to be in animation. Soon we will all have some very nice entertainment to look forward to. I look to the day when John Wayne will again take to the silver screen and say "saddle up"
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