Pencils to Pixels

Pencils to Pixels details the history of classical cel animation all the way up to digital animation and even 3D animation pioneered by Pixar. One of the earliest animation's was Walter McKay's Gertie the Dinosaur in which Walter McKay himself intereacted with the moving animation of his dinosaur Gertie. McKay would talk to Gertie calling her over to him and offering her an apple that was thrown onto the screen. After Gertie the Dinosaur came the first animated superstar Felix the Cat who inspired a generations worth of animated characters. Felix was also the first animated character to be anthropomorphized, by which an animal was given human characteristics. Animation improved in leaps and bounds Walt Disney's Steam Boat Willie, the first animation with recorded sound rather than live music being played in time with the animation, inspired Walt Disney to create the first full length animated film Snow White in 1936. The project took four years to complete, with 600 animators working on the 83 minutes film. The work was so intense that some animators booked themselves into hospital in time for the end of filming. Disney followed the Success of Snow White with Bambi in 1942, and continued to make cel animated films for years. But in 1995 a new form of animation was discovered. Pixar animation studios was bought from Lucas Arts for $10 million by Steve Jobs, head of Apple, John Lasseter took Computer Animation which was largely developed as a science rather than an art form and applied the prinicples of animation to his work, the result was the short Luxo Lamp. This short was very successful and it allowed Pixar to work on their first feature length animation Toy Story, Pixar made the largest change to animation in 60 years and like Disney had completely revolutionised the art form. Film makers Dreamworks have criticized Cel animation claiming that the art form is dead, but with Disney returning to the Cel roots on thier next feature length film and studios such as Studio Gihbli making animations such as Spirited Away, Princess Monoko a new benchmark has been raised for the Cel Animation industry and it looks that for many years it is anything but dead.