Different Animation Styles

TRADITIONAL CEL ANIMATION

By far the most widely recognised and most popular of the five different animation styles portrayed here, Cel animation has developed and advanced technologically over several decades of films. When the first ever full- length feature film animation (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves) was produced, the animation process was different to today slightly as the frames of the animation were traced onto individual transparent plastic cels to be overlayed onto a backdrop (usually hand painted), then photographed by a camera positioned directly above the backdrop. Nowadays most full- length feature films are produced more on the computer, where the cels and the backgrounds of the older days of animation have been replaced by layers of drawing on the computer screen. However, the premise is much the same as the animator still has to painstakingly draw each frame of animation individually. The computer is used at this stage just to reduce the time on the more laborio...