History of Animation- Pinocchio

Animation name; Pinocchio
Who made it;Walt Disney Studios
Year of release; 1940

Here is a youtube video from the film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=oEPb6eL_azw

Plot;

The film storyline involves a wooden puppet named Pinocchio who is carved by the lonely wood carver Gepetto. One night Gepetto wishes on a falling star that he had a son which leads to Pinocchio being brought to life by a blue fairy ,who tells him he can become a real boy if he proves himself "brave, truthful, and unselfish". Thus begin the puppet's adventures to become a real boy, which involve many encounters with a host of unsavory characters, along his journey he is accompanied by his consciousness in the form of Jiminy Cricket.

Type of animation:

Pinocchio is a traditional animation, which means it is a hand drawn/cell animation. The individual frames of the film are photographs of drawings, which are first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are then painted on to add colour. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one onto motion picture film against a painted background by a rostrum camera.

Has the type of animation used changed?

Traditional animation has changed a lot since it was used on Pinocchio, today most animations are drawn or scanned directly into a computer. Colouring is also now almost always done on computer. This saves a lot of time and also replicates the look and feel of traditional animation.

Why I like the animation:

Pinocchio is slightly underrated classic which often gets over shadowed when compared against some of Disney’s other films such as Snow White. The reason I believe Pinocchio is so great is because of it s fantastic character animation. The Disney animators have managed to get the movements of the characters such as Stromboli and Pinocchio down to a tee. In particular the scene where Pinocchio sings and dances to the song ‘I’ve got no strings’ stands out as a triumph of well observed animation, the animators actually made a real Pinocchio puppet so they could see how he would move and through their clever observation and knowledge of squash and stretch and anticipation and secondary movement have produced a master class in how to character animate. While not a success at the box office at the time Pinocchio is today rightly regarded as a Disney classic, something I would heartily agree with.