Traditional animation materials include
clay,
foam,
puppets,
cut-outs, and
pen drawings, and now we have impressively depicted
computer generated animations which push the very precincts of
make believe; we have
virtual worlds coming ever closer to representing that which we call
reality.
The word animation comes from the latin "animare", which literally means "to give life to."
All humans may be accused of doing this on some level. There is even more magic than in film, to seeing the unvarying, the inorganic, the never ever alive, take on a certain vivacity! And if we must say it, to take on the appearance of life itself!
Animation involves the capture and training of motion itself.
The forms in animated pieces can be absolutely imaginary in nature, and fantastical, and must involve that certain Frankenstein-ian level of enthrallment and investment.
The genesis of animation can be traced all the way back to the Paleolithic times. Cave art was essentially a diagrammatic narrative, what was almost certainly the first pictorial expression of human thought and emotion.
There is evidence of a machine as early as 70 B.C. that projected hand drawn images in succession.
The first animator in this modern era was Emile Cohl. Emile Cohl created "Fantasmagoria" in 1908 by shooting 700 drawings frame by frame in a sequential order. The film has no real plot to speak of, but it does follow a train of events which are linked through metamorphosizing forms, for example an elephant transmogrifying into a house.
There are painstaking labours involved in traditional cel animation. It takes 24 entire frames to make one second of moving film.
I like anything by Walt Disney. I like the Simpsons. I like Mr Punch.
I also love Japanese anime.