History of Animation
1950’s – Today
Movie Theater History
Stop Motion in the Movies
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Ray Harryhausen’s creation called Dynamotion
o Process involving split screen rear projection to insert the stop motion characters into
the background of live-action plates
Harryhausen produces 16 movies using his Dynamotion from 1949 to 1981
o 1st Movies is Mighty Joe Young in 1949
o Movies such as Jason & the Argonauts, Trog & Clash of the Titans
Harryhausen starts a trend of stop-motion animated movies which starts the Science Fiction
o Warner Brother’s produce The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
o Paramount Studio expands by hiring the employees of the defunked Fleischer Brothers
 Hire a director names George Pal, who is known as the father of screen science
fiction by using cinematography, animation and puppets
 Tom Thumb (1958)
 Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)
 7 Faces of Dr. Leo (1963)
The Downfall of Disney

Disney was still producing animated movies throughout the time where animators were fighting
to be television king.
o Disney continue to rule the theaters
 Cinderella (1950)
 Top Grossing movie that year
 Alice in Wonderland (1951)
 Peter Pan (1953)
 Top Grossing movie that year
 Lady and the Tramp (1955)
 Top Grossing movie that year
 Sleep Beauty (1959)
 101 Dalmatians (1961)
 Top Grossing movie that year
 The Sword and the Stone (1963)
 Mary Poppins (1964)
 Top Grossing movie that year
 The Jungle Book (1967)
 Top Grossing movie that year
 Walt Disney died during the production of this movie

With the death of Walt Disney, the quality of movies coming out of the company faltered
o Artist did what they thought Walt would want and not what they thought was right
History of Animation

1950’s – Today
Movie Theater History
The company was producing disappointing movie after disappointing movie
 The Aristocats (1970)
 Robin Hood (1973)
 The Rescuers (1977)
 The Fox & The Hound (1981)
 The Black Calderon (1985)
 The Great Mouse Detectives (1986)
 Oliver & Company (1988)
Sci-Fi Movie go partial Animation
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As the 70’s ended and the 80’s began, stop action animation picks up
o Sci-Fi movies find its peak
 Star Wars Triology
 Aliens
 Indiana Jones
 Ghostbusters
o Disney got into the mix too
 However Disney is slow to adapt to this new technology of cable television and
VCRs
 Didn’t want to move from animation films, turning down the scripts for ET: the
Extra-Terrestrial and Raiders of the Lost Ark
 Tron (1982) was the 1st PG-rated movie from Disney
 1st film with over 20 minutes of computer animation
 1st film to imaginatively attempt to computer generate a “cyberspace”
o The cyberspace was referred to as “The Matrix”
 This film coined the phrase “hack”
 The movie was disqualified for an academy award
o The academy thought that using a computer to do the work was
cheating
o The academy reconsidered that stance after the Abyss (1989)
 “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (1988)
 The 1988 nomination came from a movie that Disney did with
Touchstone film, which was a cross of live-action and animation- “Who
Framed Roger Rabbit?”
The Resurgences of Disney

In 1985, Disney was given three ideas for animated movies, the first 2 were produced in 1986
and 1988, with the third being held off this till the end of the decade, because of its similarity to
the Tom Hanks movie “Splash” (1984)
o While in production, Disney felt that the movie needed to go back to the musical
numbers of the past and brought in some heavy hitters for the musical numbers.
History of Animation
o
o
o
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1950’s – Today
Movie Theater History
 Disney had won Best Score and Best Song for a movie 4 times before his death
 No Disney movie was even nominated for an Academy Award from his death till
1988
 The movie won 3 Academy Awards and was said to be the kick start to
the uprising of Disney
Disney started in 1986 draw the movie the Little Mermaid
 Opened in November 1989
 $211 million in the theaters worldwide
 Won 2 Academy Awards (Best Score and Best Song)
Disney continued from there, animating old children’s tales, just like they had done in
the early days of Walt Disney
 1991 – Beauty and the Beast
 6 Academy Award nominations
o Won Best Score and Best Song
st
 1 ever Animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture (Lost to
Silence of the Lambs)
o 1 of 3 ever nominated for Best Picture (Toy Story 3 and UP)
 Grossed $377 million in the theaters worldwide
 1992 – Aladdin
 5 Academy Award nominations
o Won Best Score and Best Song
 Grossed $504 million in theaters worldwide
 1994 – Lion King
 3 Academy Award nominations
o Won Best Score
 Grossed $784 million in theaters worldwide
o This amount included the merchandising, which Disney started
before the movie was released
st
 1 Disney movie to have no Humans
Disney produced the first animated movie about a real life person for their next movie
 1995 – Pocahontas
 1 Academy Award nominations
o Won Best Song
Disney continues with well known tales
 1996 – Hunchback of Notre Dame
 1997 – Hercules
 1 Academy Award nominations
 1998 – Mulan
 1999 – Tarzan
 1 Academy Award nominations
o Won Best Song
History of Animation
1950’s – Today
Movie Theater History
Computer Animation and the movies
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1973 movie “Westwood” first to have a computer generated image in the film
The movement doesn’t really get going until 1979, when George Lucas saw a vision for
computer animation in movies
In 1986, a division of LucasArt broke away and was purchased by Apple Computer Steve Jobs
and made into the independent company called Pixar with 44 employees
o Pixar’s first shorts was in Luxo Jr.
o Pixar produced the first CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) character in the animated
short “Tin Toy” (1988)
o Pixar starts using its computer animation to do commercials
 Tropicana Orange Juice
 Life Savers
 Listerine
 Made 15 different commercials in 1991
o In 1991, Pixar signs a deal with Disney for $26 million to produce a 3 computer animated
movie
 1995 –Toy Story hits the big screen
 1st fully computer animated movie
 Highest grossing film in theaters that year
o Making $192 million in the U.S.
o Pixar is constantly updating their animation software to stay ahead of the competition
 Release Geri’s Game with updated software to have more realistic skin on
humans
 Won an Academy Awards for Best Animated Short
o In 1997, Disney and Pixar had a joint agreement to produce 5 more movies and causes
Pixar to expand to a second building, as the company reaches 375 employees
 1998 – Bugs Life
 Grossed $163 million in the U.S.
 1999 – Toy Story 2
 Grossed $245 million in the U.S.
 1st animated film to be created, mastered and digitally enhanced on the
computer
 1st animated sequel to out earn the original
 2001 – Monster, Inc.
 Grossed over $100 million in 9 days
 3rd highest grossing animated movie of the year
 2003 – Finding Nemo
 Grossed on $70.2 million in the opening weekend
 2004 – The Incredibles
 Wins 2 Academy Awards for Best Animated Film and Best Sound Editing
History of Animation

1950’s – Today
Movie Theater History
o After the 5 film deal is over, Disney decides to buy all of Pixar’s stock for $7.4 Billion, in
essence, buying the company
But Pixar was not the only game in town and as Pixar expanded, so did the other companies
o Dreamworks started up in 1993 working on animation in live-action films such as
Terminator 2
 In 1998, Dreamworks release Antz, one month prior to a Bug’s Life
 The movie was pitched to Pixar in 1988 by a then Pixar employee and
was pitched to Dreamworks in 1994, after Pixar fired the same
employee
 Dreamworks was sold to Paramount in 2006, but still operates under the same
name
o Sony’ started producing Computer Animated films in 2001
 Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within was a science-fiction animation based on the
video game and was the second highest grossing animated movie of the year
o Nickelodeon got into the animated movie business in 1998
 First movie was a low budget film based on the television show, the Rugrats
Movie
o The Warner Brothers got back into the game too
 2001 – Osmosis Jones was a combination of live-action and computer animation
 The movie did very poorly in the theaters
Dreamworks versus Disney Feud
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The 1998 computer animated movie that was so similar, started a silent feud between the
companies to out duel the other.
Each Company each year tries to out due the other, though there are some outsiders that throw
their movies in, these two giants go at it year after year.
While Dreamworks is dealing solely in computer animation, Disney is producing computer
animation through Pixar and hand drawn animation and computer animation through the
Disney company
o 1st sole Disney computer animation was produced in 2005, Chicken Little
History of Animation
Sharks Tale
Shrek 2
Madagascar
Over the Hedge
1950’s – Today
Movie Theater History
Disney
Dinosaur
The Emperor’s New Groove*
Monsters, Inc.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire*
Treasurer Planet*
Lilo & Stitch*
Finding Nemo
Brother Bear*
The Incredibles
Home on the Range*
Chicken Little
Cars
2007
Shrek 3
Bee Movie
Ratatouille
Meet the Robinsons
2008
Kung Fu Panda
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Monsters vs. Aliens
Wall-E
Bolt
The Princess and the Frog*
A Christmas Carol
UP
Toy Story 3
Tangled
Year
2000
2001
Dreamworks
Road to El Dorado
Chicken Run
Shrek
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2009
2010
2011
How to Train Your Dragon
Megamind
Shrek Forever After
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
2012
Madagascar 3
2013
The Croods
Turbo
2014
2015
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Penguins of Madagascar
Home
2016
Kung Fu Panda 3
*- means hand drawn
Cars 2
Winnie the Pooh*
Others
#
Titan A.E.
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
Spirited Away
Ice Age
The Polar Express
The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie
Hoodwinked
Curious George
Ice Age 2: The meltdown
Happy Feet
Open Season
Beowulf
Persepolis*
The Simpsons Movie*
Open Season 2
Horton Hears a Who!
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Despicable Me
The Adventures of Tintin
Hoodwinked Too!
Open Season 3
Rio
Brave
Hotel Transylvania
Wreck-it Ralph
The Lorax
Monsters University
Escape from Planet Earth
Frozen
Despicable Me 2
Planes
Cloud with a Chance of Meatballs 2
Free Birds
Big Hero 6
The Lego Movie
Planes: Fire & Rescue
Rio 2
Inside Out
Minions
The Good Dinosaur
Hotel Transylvania 2
The Peanuts Movie
Zootopia
Angry Birds
Finding Dory
Ice Age: Collision Course
Open Season: Scared Silly
Sausage Party
#
– combination of hand drawing and computer animation
History of Animation
1950’s – Today
Movie Theater History
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Beowulf (2007) was the first animated movie to give movie goers the option of watching it in 2D
or non-IMAX 3D
Disney version of A Christmas Carol (2009) was the 1st animated movie exclusively presented in
3D
Sausage Party is the 1st CGI animated movie rated-R