Short animated stories for children
Kids Animated Short Stories, Funny Animated Stories for Children in English for Free
Technology has invaded life in such a way that it is but impossible to even imagine a life otherwise. So, what can be better than putting it to good use to develop the reading habit among children. Animated stories are the best entertainment options available for kids to develop their reading habit, while improving their skill in comprehension. Through free animated stories online it is easily available to you and helps in instilling values in the child’s mind. With a judicious combination of graphics, narration, sound effects and background music, kids are attracted to them. There are many funny animated stories as well as animated stories for kindergarten in our collection of selected animated stories in English
Our selection of animated stories that are free to download can help the young minds. It will sow the seed of wisdom which eventually assists them towards growing into better citizens of tomorrow. The language used is simple and hence easily comprehensible. To add to that, the beautiful animation in these stories will be a sure winner with children with each animated story coming with our review on it. When a story is being read or narrated by a person, there is always the risk of the child losing interest at some point. With animated stories it is a totally different scenario. Children get glued to it and will surely watch it to the end as these are custom made animated stories for kids.
Nighty Night Circus
Nighty Night Circus is a bedtime animated story video, a little owl is sleepy and flies to a branch to get ready for bed. The owl is startled by a noise and flies down to find out.
The Sun and the Wind
The Sun and the North Wind is a story from Aesop’s Fables. Different versions of this fable are taught to children all around the world to teach an important lesson on the superiority of persuasion over power.
The Ginger Bread Man
The Ginger Bread Man is a fairy tale about a ginger bread that came to life and his escape from being eaten by many different people. Where does he end up in the end? Read on and find out!
The Disloyal Friend, Tenali Rama
The Disloyal Friend is a moral story that involves Tenali Rama, the court jester of Krishnadevaraya, the Vijayanagar emperor. The story is centered around four friends from Vijaynagar who journey to the town in search of work.
Ali And The Magic Carpet
This fantasy story is a sure-fire tool to entertain your little one. You will be transported to a totally different world with Ali on his magic carpet. The places that you will see through Ali’s eyes will delight you. Make note of the places, my friend. Brace yourself. The wind is strong and so is Ali’s desire to see the world.
Why shouldn’t yours be too? It is magic, so anything could happen. Enjoy this flight with Ali. Watch this animation and see the magic it creates!.
Jack And The Beanstalk
The story of Jack and the Beanstalk is part of the staple diet of fairy tales that we have feasted on as kids. The son of a poor widow, Jack, wants to help his mother. But he foolishly sells their cow for a few bean pods. But the beanstalk that grows out of this leads Jack to an ogre and his immense treasure. How brave Jack gets all that is the story. Being a fairy tale that has entertained children all over the world, it is sure to get your child glued to the screen in its new animated avatar. Just go ahead and watch it in it full glory and enjoy it to the fullest!
Dark, Dark Wood
Fear is present in the minds of children and adults alike. The only difference is that adults learn to hide it.
This animated story leads you through a dark wood through a dark road, to a dark house, and a dark stairs to a dark room and a dark cupboard and a dark shelf on it in which there is a dark box. What is inside the dark box is the surprise. That is a secret you will have to unearth by yourself. I am sure you will be in for a real surprise. Don’t you want to find out? Watch it now!
Goldilocks And The Three Bears
This beautiful story of a little girl, who wanders into the forest, gets lost and finds a house that belongs to a family of bears will definitely win over the hearts of children. Goldilocks, the little girl with hair like golden locks walks into the house of the bears as it is not locked. As she is tired she eats the food laid out for the bear family and sleeps on their bed. Goldilocks goes about the house without a care in the world. Little does she know that the house belongs to the bears While she is asleep the bears return! What will happen to little Goldilocks?
Little Red Riding Hood
The eternally evil wolf works his evil plans to eat Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.
He manages to gobble her grandma but will his wicked ways help him get her too? Clever Little Red Riding Hood is too smart for him. Enjoy this fun-filled animated story with your children. It will teach them a safety lesson too. It will keep them from trusting strangers.
Leaping Match
The Leaping Match is a funny story about a kingdom which is not much heard of until the great leaping match is announced. The story starts on January 1st when there is an argument between a flea, a grasshopper and a mudskipper. The argument is about who can jump the highest! They decide to hold a leaping match. The king comes to know of the match and is very interested in it. He announces a great reward for the winner. What could that be? Who wins the match? Now, it is up to you to find out. Watch the animated story. You are sure to be thoroughly entertained by the animation. It is going to be real fun!
My Secret Team
‘My Secret Team’ is an interesting story about a little boy who belongs to a family of soccer fans.
But unfortunately he secretly supported the Boston Rovers while his family supported the Boston Town team. Being different was difficult. He watched matches with his family and cheered along with the family for the team that he did not support. He expressed his real feelings only in the bathroom. Something happens to change the whole scenario. What could that be? Does the change make the little boy and his family happy? Watch the animation to know. The climax of the story is worth the wait. Come on, watch it! Have a bit of solid fun!
The Ugly Duckling - Fairy Tales
This amazing story of the Ugly Duckling who transforms into a beautiful swan is one that has held all readers in awe over many decades. Now in its new animated form it is even more captivating. It says about the journey of a little swan who is mistaken for a baby duck initially and abandoned by the duck family because he is ugly. This little one goes through difficult times but keeps going on and one day joins his own people as the beautiful swan that he actually is.
The story has a message that says that each one of God’s creations has a purpose in life. It is important to not lose patience or one’s heart because of adversities that one may face in life because there is a time and a place for everything. Enjoy this animated version of the famous fairy tale.
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| The Grumpy Tree (animated story) |     | Generosity, nature caring |   | british_english | 8.7 |
| The Mystery of the Missing Coin (animated story) |     | Overcoming shyness |   | british_english | 7. 7 |
| The Cockerel, the Duck, and the Mermaids (animated story) |     | Combat fear of the dark |   | british_english | 9 |
| The Full Warren (animated story) |     | Generosity and friendship |   | british_english | 7.6 |
| The Monster in the Wardrobe (animated story) |     | Bravery and tolerance |   | british_english | 8. 8 |
| The Magic Tree (animated story) |     | Good manners |   | british_english | 8.7 |
| The Tidy Toys (animated story) |     | Tidiness and carefulness |   | british_english | 8.6 |
| The Singing Hippo (animated story) |     | acceptance, avoid envy |   | british_english | 8. 5 |
| The Magic Window (animated story) |     | Friendship and care |   | british_english | 9.2 |
| The Sweet Witch (animated story) |     | Kindness and helping others |   | british_english | 9.2 |
| An Octopus in Trouble (animated story) |     | Gratitude and Bravery |   | british_english | 8. 8 |
| Edward and the Dragon (animated story) |     | Cleverness |   | british_english | 8.1 |
| The Bad Neighbours (animated story) |     | Communication. Do not judge others's intentions. |   | british_english | 8.4 |
| The Drawing That Talked (animated story) |     | Effort and joy |   | british_english | 8. 7 |
| Waking Nightmare (animated story) |     | Self confidence |   | british_english | 8.7 |
| The Outing (animated story) |     | Self acceptance |   | british_english | 8.8 |
| Trouble in the Science Class (animated story) |     | Being calm |   | british_english | 8. 4 |
| The Good Pirate (animated story) |     | Freedom and self guiding |   | british_english | 8.3 |
| The Hair Thief (animated story) |     | Sincerity when talking to children |   | british_english | 9 |
| The Last Dinosaurs (animated story) |     | Adaptability and flexibility |   | british_english | 8. 2 |
| Fleabags (animated story) |     | Teamwork |   | british_english | 8.5 |
| Boobuan monkeys (animated story) |     | Avoid consumerism |   | british_english | 8.9 |
| The Pleaseometer (animated story) |     | Avoid to feel envy |   | british_english | 8. 2 |
| The Incompetent Genie (animated story) |     | cleanliness and order |   | british_english | 8.5 |
| Chocolate Tears (animated story) |     | Friendship |   | british_english | 8.7 |
| The Photographic Elephant (animated story) |     | Effort and perseverance |   | british_english | 8. 1 |
| Batbird (animated story) |     | endurance |   | british_english | 8 |
| The Stepmother (animated story) |     | Avoid prejudice and being judgmental |   | british_english | 7.5 |
| Bula, the traveller (animated story) |     | Generosity and sacrifice. Avoid materialism |   | british_english | 9.1 |
| The Grumpy Tree (animated story) |     | Generosity, nature caring |   | american_english | 8.7 |
| The Mystery of the Missing Coin (animated story) |     | Overcoming shyness |   | american_english | 7. 7 |
| The Cockerel, the Duck, and the Mermaids (animated story) |     | Combat fear of the dark |   | american_english | 9 |
| The Full Warren (animated story) |     | Generosity and friendship |   | american_english | 7.6 |
| The Monster in the Wardrobe (animated story) |     | Bravery and tolerance |   | american_english | 8. 8 |
| The Tidy Toys (animated story) |     | Tidiness and carefulness |   | american_english | 8.6 |
| The Singing Hippo (animated story) |     | acceptance, avoid envy |   | american_english | 8.5 |
| The Magic Window (animated story) |     | Friendship and care |   | american_english | 9. 2 |
| An Octopus in Trouble (animated story) |     | Gratitude and Bravery |   | american_english | 8.8 |
| Edward and the Dragon (animated story) |     | Cleverness |   | american_english | 8.1 |
| The Bad Neighbours (animated story) |     | Communication. Do not judge others's intentions. |   | american_english | 8.4 |
| The Drawing That Talked (animated story) |     | Effort and joy |   | american_english | 8.7 |
| Waking Nightmare (animated story) |     | Self confidence |   | american_english | 8. 7 |
| The Outing (animated story) |     | Self acceptance |   | american_english | 8.8 |
| Trouble in the Science Class (animated story) |     | Being calm |   | american_english | 8.4 |
| The Good Pirate (animated story) |     | Freedom and self guiding |   | american_english | 8. 3 |
| The Hair Thief (animated story) |     | Sincerity when talking to children |   | american_english | 9 |
| The Last Dinosaurs (animated story) |     | Adaptability and flexibility |   | american_english | 8.2 |
| Fleabags (animated story) |     | Teamwork |   | american_english | 8. 5 |
| Boobuan monkeys (animated story) |     | Avoid consumerism |   | american_english | 8.9 |
| The Pleaseometer (animated story) |     | Avoid to feel envy |   | american_english | 8.2 |
English for children, animated stories with Russian and English subtitles and interactive transcript
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- Category: Learn English
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Developing English classes.
Short animated stories with Russian and English subtitles and interactive transcript. nineLook Out!
Watch out!
No, You Can't!
No, you can't!
Out You Go!
Get out!
The Pajama Party
Pajama Party
Red, Yellow Socks
Red, yellow socks
Reaching the Sky
Reaching the sky
Time for Sleep!
Sleep time!
Snap!
Closed!
Snap! Splat!
Click! Slap!
Speak Up!
Speak! Stepping Stones0017
Uncle Buncle's House
The Weather Chart
Weather Chart
Where Is My Bone?
Where is my bone?
Who Loves Getting Wet?
Who likes to get wet?
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Funny Pictures: A Brief History of Animation
Who was the very first animator, it is not correct to argue: there were many first ones. Even primitive people can argue for the right to be considered the pioneers of animation, because it was they who first fixed the phases of movement of schematically depicted drawn figures with charcoal on the wall.
Something similar can be seen on ancient Greek vases. True, it was only in the 19th century that they thought of combining such images into a tape launched at a certain speed and forcing all the pictures to merge into one changing frame. Popular amusements of that time were phenakistoscope, zoitrope, praxinoscope and other primitive prototypes of a modern movie camera, which, however, were not capable of anything more than a short drawn “loopback” clip. Although the inventor of the praxinoscope, Jean-Emile Renault, went a little further than his colleagues: his projector no longer worked with rotating disks, but with a transparent film equipped with perforations. But his brainchild still lacked the element of filming: Renault painted images on film by hand, without the participation of a photo process. nine0012
The true potential of hand-drawn animation (called animation in the USSR in consonance with the application) was revealed already after the Lumiere brothers demonstrated the wide possibilities of film in 1895, and inspired by this directors Blackton and Smith released the first film in the stop technology -motion "Circus of Lilliputians".
Not stopping at experiments with wooden toys, the same Jay Stuart Blackton a couple of years later, in 1900, presented to the public "The Enchanted Drawing" - a tape with animated inserts (it is believed that the first attempt at a full-fledged hand-drawn animation filmed frame by frame) . In this, as in Blackton's subsequent works, there was still no plot - a coherent cartoon story loomed on the horizon only at 1908th, when the first European multiplier Emil Kohl became active; the French cartoonist released the cartoon Phantasmagoria, which, in addition to the plot, was also endowed with a recognizable character (however, he cut out his figure from paper - moving it inside the frame was easier than constantly redrawing it).
Six years later, in 1914, his overseas cartoonist colleague Winsor McKay, who drew inspiration from comics, took over the baton, launching the first series with a regular protagonist, Gertie the dinosaur (he would later come up with Felix the Cat). For the first issue, the "father of American animation" painstakingly drew thousands of pictures.
It turned out to be very troublesome to draw each frame, but in the same year, the invention of Earl Hurd, who worked at John Bay Studios, greatly simplified the technology: now the background was drawn once, and only characters drawn on transparent celluloid sheets and superimposed on top changed from frame to frame (respectively work was also divided: different people were now engaged in drawing characters and drawing "backs"). At 19On the 18th, cartoons ceased to be short films - the Argentine "full meter" "Apostle" appeared. During this time, by trial and error, it was found that in order for the image to remain smooth and not twitch, the picture should change at least 10-12 times per second, although the more the better.
Then... then came Walt Disney, dividing the history of world animation into "pre-Disney" and everything that came after.
What did Disney do? He saw deep commercial potential in animation and bet on it. At 1928, Disney released the first sound cartoon "Steamboat Willie", which featured Mickey Mouse, to this day one of the most famous cartoon characters in the world.
In 1931, Walt made the first color cartoon "Flowers and Trees", which brought him an Oscar, and in 1937, the first Disney sound feature "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was released, which had an unprecedented financial success - it began the "golden age" » studio, whose stock skyrocketed. In addition, Walt improved the technique of celluloid transfers and introduced many other innovations to the process, later taken for granted by other majors. nine0012
Disney begins to set the tone for animation, in pursuit of its success, competing studios launch their own animated series (like Looney Toons from Warner Bros. and Tom and Jerry from the Hanna-Barber duo). True, they prefer to draw short cartoons that are convenient to show in the cinema before the main session. This is not enough for Disney: he crushes the “full-length” market under himself. No one draws cartoons alone anymore, this stage has been passed - now hundreds of people are simultaneously working on the movements of cartoon characters.
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On Disney projects, before starting work on each scene, storyboards are drawn, like in a big movie: the work of artists is too expensive to improvise, make mistakes and then spend time reworking, so the whole team must immediately clearly understand whether the visual solution of this or another frame is successful. If dozens of artists work on a project, they have to unify their authoring styles so that the cartoon looks whole - for this they are provided with images of characters in different poses and with different facial expressions, sometimes they even sculpt their sculptures. In the 60s, when each “full meter” already meant hundreds of jobs and there was no room for trial and error at all, professional screenwriters began to be invited to full-length projects, prescribing the plot from A to Z (before that, the process looked different: artists drew storyboards scenes by which the investor judged the future tape, and after the allocation of the budget, the storyboarders were instructed to compose a full-fledged story).
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Otherwise, regardless of the budget and the number of people involved in the work, until the end of the 20th century, the process of hand-drawn animation remained practically unchanged: having outlined the plan of each scene using storyboard sketches, the artist works at a special table with bright illumination of the workspace, methodically overlaying a fixed background, layers of transparent celluloid with characters drawn on them in different phases of movement, photographs the resulting “sandwich” twice with a special camera (for a demonstration at a speed of 24 frames per second, thus, 12 pictures per second of animation are needed). And so day after day - the production of cartoons takes months and years. nine0012
Of course, animation, which flourished in the 20th century, also knew other techniques - puppet, plasticine, sand, silhouette, rotoscopic (when a movie image shot on camera with real actors was carefully drawn by the artist frame by frame, turning into a cartoon), etc.
Different countries have developed their own characteristic styles - for example, in the USSR of Stalin's time, the state order for the film adaptation of folk tales with a naturalistic depiction of characters (that is, no caricature or hypertrophy, all bodily proportions within the framework of the anatomical atlas) dominated. In Japan, after the introduction of TV, the “anime” style appeared: in order to quickly fill the TV channels with animated series, to save time, local animators animated only part of the image (hence the dominance of characteristic static frames, in which only the character’s mouth moves). Experiments were practiced on the introduction of cartoon characters into the cinema world, where they interacted with live actors - many people remember the tapes “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, “The Last Action Hero”, “Cold World” or “Space Jam”. At the same time, stop-motion animation has become one of the most important tools for cinematic special effects masters (the protagonist's battle with the skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts remains one of the strongest experiences for many older viewers to this day).
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The era of computers has dramatically changed the face of animation. Pixar, which began with the production of special effects for Star Wars and TV commercials, came up with a revolutionary feature-length project in 1995 - Toy Story, made using 3D modeling technology. The film was an incredible success, and Pixar quickly became the flagship of the world of animation and was eventually bought by Disney. It is believed that it was "Toy Story" that hammered the first nails into the coffin of hand-drawn animation, although in fact, Disney artists began to depart from the classical tradition in the mid-80s, having learned to program their cameras to "hover", as well as to zoom in, zoom in and out. other things previously inaccessible to animators. The last fully hand-drawn cartoon was The Little Mermaid (1988), after which the Disney people switched to CAPS technology: they began to sketch only the outlines of the characters by hand, and then they were scanned and painted on a computer.
So Pixar and the Dreamworks studio, which joined in the "shattering of the canons", only brought the process to its logical conclusion, completely reorienting Hollywood towards tapes with a "volumetric" picture, which the classical 2D approach could not give. The revolutionary tapes "Terminator 2" and "Jurassic Park" also contributed to the progress, after which no one had any doubts about the power of computer technology. The success of competitors and the decline of its own popularity after a wave of hits forced Disney to turn away from classic animation, which brought less and less money - the studio switched to CGI graphics, and in the middle of the 2000s, in order to strengthen its position, it also bought Pixar. nine0012
But there was a catch, codenamed uncanny valley. Its meaning is that any animal drawn on a computer is perceived by the viewer without pretensions - for him, all bears "have the same face", and few people will pay attention if the bear's ears are larger than they should be or the eyes are not the right shape.
The caricature of a person also does not cause any complaints. But attempts at accurate photographic reproduction of a human face produce a repulsive impression and cause subconscious disgust: this is how the human brain reacts to being fooled (perhaps the fact is that perfectly symmetrical human faces that a computer creates are extremely rare in real life). ). An animated object of this kind only enhances the unpleasant sensation. Therefore, today's robots are not made to look like people, and they do not try to turn mannequins into high-precision figures from Madame Tussauds. So it’s not at all surprising that Pixar, when drawing people, prefers a caricature presentation: human facial expressions are too complex to be calculated and reproduced naturally even by the most powerful computer, so it’s better not to disgrace yourself. Sylvain Chomet, an adherent of the "old school", said in this regard: "Computer graphics are good for depicting toys and robots, but not people." However, computer technologies, if they claim to conquer the world, cannot do without human faces! How to give computer homo sapiens realism? nine0012
In the struggle for realism, a curious experiment took shape: starting from the mid-2000s, Robert Zemeckis, who once made friends with the animated Roger Rabbit and film actor Bob Hoskins, for several years tried to instill human traits in flat cartoon characters: he filmed the game of live actors, whom he then transformed into cartoon characters (with the preservation of facial resemblance), and received the output of three-dimensional cartoons, in which not only voices, but also facial expressions and movements belonged to real movie stars.
Why bother with programming facial expressions (the most complicated process, controlled by a huge amount of muscles!), If you can just scan it from a real face? The visual result was impressive, but the box office was not. Unfortunately, both The Mystery of the Red Planet and Zemeckis' other works in this direction turned out to be too financially costly and did not pay off at the box office, so the director was forced to return to feature films. But the technology of motion capture (or “motion capture”), which he first demonstrated in The Polar Express, attracted the attention of James Cameron - he rethought it in the film Avatar and handed it over to Peter Jackson, who continued the theme with the Tintin movie comic. With three sequels already announced for Avatar, it looks like this is the area where we'll see most of the film experiments in the coming years. And yes, thanks to motion capture, the facial expressions of movie characters have improved, although this has not yet affected the development of animation as such: “motion capture” is more popular today in films than in cartoons, and leading animation studios stubbornly continue to sculpt caricature faces.
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There is an explanation for this. Over the millennia of the existence of the human race, people have greatly trained their imagination, having learned to see a mammoth hunting scene in crookedly scrawled rock lines, sunflowers in lurid spots of paint on a canvas, and a mouse named Mickey in a humanoid creature with a black nose. No one has seen in real life talking upright mice that would wear pants and boots, but animation, as the heiress of the classical fine arts, reserves the right to conditionality of presentation, which the viewer does not try to challenge. To enjoy the cartoon, the exact portrait resemblance of the character to someone seen by the viewer in real life is not necessary. The audience is indulgent even to the series "South Park", whose characters are drawn very badly, and are not outraged that blue and green cats act in "Oggy and the Cuckoo" - all because animation lovers sucked in with their mother's milk that the cartoon has the right to an abstract, simplified, schematic presentation.
Cinematography is a completely different matter. He competes with reality, claims to be appropriate realism, and therefore has no right to "simplify". He needs motion capture, if you think about it, much more. By the way, attempts to draw people were nevertheless made - for example, in the computer film "Final Fantasy", but it was not successful with the audience - either due to the imperfection of technology, or because the audience was too accustomed to caricature characters. nine0012
How are cartoons drawn today? Studios use 3D Max, Maya, Softimage and Mudbox from Autodesk, Cinema 4D from Maxon, Z Brush from Pixologic, Modo from Luxology. Everyone who works in the industry notes that the cost of production is many times lower compared to the analog era. Previously, the creation of cartoons was the lot of the elite, but today any talent who has scraped together money for a computer and programs has the opportunity to speak in this form. Even the creator of The Adventures of Fritz the Cat, non-conformist Ralph Bakshi, whose whole life is connected with hand-drawn animation, states: “The computer is a great thing.
This is the best thing that could happen to an animator! Forty years ago, if you didn't have $15 million, you didn't even have to try to make a feature film. Computers have changed everything and I can't tell you how good that is." According to the master, once the selection of paint alone took a lot of time, and today there are 16 million colors at the service of the draftsman, just lend a hand. On the other hand, given the general cost reduction of production, the money that a “feature film” requires can now be raised through crowdfunding, which opens up opportunities for creators with risky or too “non-commercial” ideas that any major studio would kick off. That is, such unusual people as Bakshi have the opportunity to "stay in business" precisely thanks to computers. nine0012
Since Disney enriched the multiprocess with the participation of screenwriters, sound in animation has become primary: video is attached to ready-made dialogues, and not vice versa. « At the initial stage, we draw a storyboard, which we edit to music and dialogue, says Pixar co-creator Ed Catmull.
We call it a story reel. The first versions are very crude, but they give an idea of the difficulties and challenges to be solved. Then we make changes, and with each new version, the story gets better.” Specific recording methods may vary: some directors try to bring the entire cast to the studio so that the crowded dialogues sound as lively as possible, on other projects the actors work in pairs, locking themselves together in a soundproof booth with a microphone, but most often the actors come to the studio one by one and record their lines based on the commands given by the director. Adding any sounds in post-production, if it happens, is purely cosmetic in nature and, according to Disney experts, does not exceed 1% of the total work. nine0012
Large teams are difficult to manage. “That's why two-man collaboration is so important in leadership,” says Catmull, sharing insights into how a Pixar kitchen works. – Director and producer should become strong partners. They not only strive to make a great film, but also keep track of deadlines, budgets and people.
Each person should be given the opportunity to contribute their own, even a small, idea or solution. If something goes wrong with the tape, a brainstorming group consisting of 8 Pixar directors is assembled at the table, they watch a half-finished film and express their thoughts - often these tips help to quickly fix the problem. An extremely democratic and creative atmosphere reigns in the studio itself: workplaces can be designed to your liking, free time can be spent in the cafeteria or yoga classes, and different departments can make corrections to each other's work through the heads of managers who only find out about it at meetings, – it is even surprising how the Disney studio, which has always been famous for its tough management style, agreed with such an organization of work. Moreover, the head of Pixar, John Lasseter, is now allowed to make key decisions on new projects of the House of Mouse, so we will not be surprised if, over time, all Disney animation divisions begin to work this way.
Anyone who wants to stay on top needs to be able to learn from best practices and trust the instincts of professionals. nine0012
Despite the apparent upheaval that has taken place in the industry, Disney, represented by Lasseter, still denies the death of hand-drawn animation (they say that the choice of style is always up to the directors, and they are temporarily carried away by new technologies). According to Lasseter, the old masters continue to advise young artists, and their knowledge and techniques are applied in experimental Disney shorts that mix 2D and 3D technologies together. At the same time, over the past 10 years, Disney has released only one “drawn” full-length cartoon - “The Princess and the Frog”, and it was already drawn without any celluloid, right on the computer, that is, only the visual style of the “flat” image remained from the “old school” , and the time-lapse technology that provided it before was sent to the museum. And it doesn’t look like the House of Mouse is going to repeat this experiment: animating characters on a computer is both easier and faster.
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Other animators also cannot do without digital technologies: whether they draw their flat characters directly on the monitor or use paper drawings, which are then scanned, the assembly of the film somehow ends up on the computer. Across the world, classics enthusiasts like Sylvain Chaumet, author of the Belleville Trio, or Hayao Miyazaki, the patriarch of Japanese hand-drawn animation, remain loyal to the classics, using the computer to save time and resources, but staying true to the hand-drawn style and keeping their characters flat, animating them frame by frame. However, Miyazaki is far from young and recently announced his imminent retirement, and the Frenchman Chomet, despite the mountain of won festival prizes, dreams of moving into feature films: according to him, life is short, it is becoming more and more difficult to beat budgets, and hand-drawn pictures themselves take away too much time. The creator of The Hedgehog in the Fog, Yuri Norshtein, has been drawing The Overcoat based on Gogol for several decades, but it is not known whether he will ever finish it: absolutely brilliant, according to a few insiders, the picture cannot find a worthy patron who would finally allow the project to be completed to the finish.
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Of course, TV series remain: anime in Japan, The Simpsons in America, Oggy and the Cuckoos in France, but they are all drawn on a computer and live mainly due to the fan base accumulated over decades. The sword of Damocles of TV ratings hangs over all of them: there will be no ratings, there will be no new seasons. In the credits, you can increasingly see lists of Vietnamese or North Korean surnames: today, drawing each frame on your own is a long and financially unprofitable enterprise, because studio-producers draw only every fourth or fifth frame, and outsourcers from poor countries do the intermediate movements of characters for them on the cheap other hemisphere. There is no reason to assert that in 10 years drawn cartoons will remain competitive: young people, who are actively accustomed to 3D characters, which are so interesting to look at through 3D glasses, already today perceive flat animation only as one of the world's techniques, curious, but no more. The outflow of people from the profession is already evident: the same Shomet complains that it is becoming more and more difficult to recruit a team for each new project: most of the specialists work for 3D, and hand-drawn animation requires much more skills than computer animation.
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The puppet animation, which gave a "three-dimensional" image long before the advent of computers, feels somewhat better: young people still like both The Nightmare Before Christmas and Wallace and Gromit with Shaun the Sheep from the studio Aardman. Computer animation is called by some the direct successor of puppet animation: the only difference is that “dolls” are not molded from plasticine or other materials, but are simulated virtually. However, this comparison is true only to a certain extent: natural technical limitations will never allow dolls or plasticine to bypass Pixar's heroes in plasticity and freedom of movement (another question is whether this is necessary). Yes, and the death of the film as a carrier of information has forever changed the classic filming process: instead of a movie camera, such tapes are now shot on a digital camera. nine0012
Is the old technology dead? Of course: the film is dead, and there is no alternative to the computer today. But is flat animation as we know it dead? There is no definite answer to this question.
Hand-drawn animation beckons independent animators with its accessibility and simplicity, it is widely used in advertising and educational programs, it also sprouted the seeds of gif-animation and flash-animation (in particular, which gave birth to such popular online series as Happy Tree Friends). She laid the foundation for computer games, half of which are still flat, and sprouted into other areas of everyday life - for example, an animated prompt in the form of a smart paper clip, a bespectacled puppy, or some other friendly creature that facilitates communication is always ready to jump out of the depths of the Windows operating system. with a soulless machine. Why not animation? nine0012
In addition, the animation tradition established by Disney's contemporaries continues to influence the perception of new techniques. For example, only relatively recently a flaw was discovered in computer-generated tapes that actively interferes with the viewer: the background in such tapes is too bright and detailed, and the characters are lost against it.
Therefore, today artists have changed their approach and are trying to gently shade the backdrop, bringing back to life the effect of classical animation, which traditionally separated the hero from the background.
The "old school" artists are still in demand by the industry: replacing pencil and paper with a computer tablet for drawing, they, as in the days of Snow White, create concept art, sketches and storyboards. Without a doubt, computer Hollywood still has a lot to learn from the masters of celluloid. But it is also true that the defining role of hand-drawn animation is a thing of the past. Since the Oscar committee introduced the award for animated feature film in 2001, it has been Disney and Pixar who have taken most of the prizes in this category - a fact that leaves no illusions. This revolution took place not only in America, it covered the whole world. Even those who still consider Nu, Pogodi and Vacation in Prostokvashino to be the best cartoons in the world, and the Russian school of animation as the custodian of traditions, will be very surprised when they look at outdoor DVD layouts somewhere in the Southeast in search of Russian products.
East Asia: the three-dimensional series "Masha and the Bear" is there, "Smeshariki" too (they are known to the Western audience as KikOriki), but the good old "Prostokvashino" is missing. A new day dictates new formats to the world. nine0012
Many people think that nothing has changed globally: cartoons are still drawn by artists and voiced by actors, and the difference in styles is nothing more than a matter of taste. And our children and grandchildren are unlikely to understand at all what the spears were breaking here: 2D cartoons will be as far from them as vinyl records and cartridges for 8-bit consoles, and they will definitely be sure that three-dimensional tapes are “more beautiful” (at least because of the photorealistic textures and detailed rendering of every little thing). We ourselves have already forgotten the last time we watched Bambi or There Once Was a Dog, but we are well versed in Cartoon Network products and Pixar characters - and we rest, apparently, purely out of nostalgia.
