You may remember watching wide-eyed as cowboy Woody and space-ranger Buzz Lightyear fell into the hands of toy-hating Sid Phillips in Toy Story. Or maybe many of you were super-excited when Marlin reunited with his son Nemo in the funny movie, Finding Nemo. These films, known as animation movies, have a long history going back to the 1890s!
The first animations to enter the film industry were very simple and consisted of a series of pictures that showed an action from beginning to end.
These pictures were then run in a ‘loop so they appeared to be moving. They were also mostly in black and white, and featured cartoon characters like Koko the Clown and Felix the Cat.
Walt Disney Studios was one of the first companies to introduce colour animation characters in the 1932 movie, Flowers and Trees. Then, in 1937, it produced the very first animation movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was almost the length of a feature film and a huge success. After Disney, Hanna-Barbera Enterprises, Inc, another American animation studio, changed the way cartoon shows were done by introducing highly creative works like The Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, The Yogi Bear Show, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, and The Smurfs.
But in the 1980s, traditional animation began to lose popularity with the birth of computer animations. More and more movie companies wanted to create moving images with computers. The process came to be known as CGI — computer-generated imagery or computer-generated imaging.
Now, almost all animated movies show animal characters, cartoon-like humans and even machines very realistically.
In fact, these movies are being taken so seriously that huge amounts of money are being spent on them, and they are winning international awards that were once only given to non-animated films.
Here is a must-see list of popular animated movies:
1. Finding Nemo
2. Ice Age
3. Over the Hedge
4. Shrek
5. Monsters Inc.
6. Cars
7. Robots
8. WALL-E
9. The Incredibles
10. Meet the Robinsons
Watch animation films closely. You may soon want to learn animation yourself! -Annie Besant Jon
Teacher’s Corner
Organize a movie trip once a year from school. Or hire a movie to watch in school. Age-old favourites like Gandhi can accompany your history textbook very well. The Nativity Story will make a perfect ending for your Christmas term.
Back in school, get each child to write a movie review or an essay highlighting what they liked and did not like about the movie. You could offer a prize of two movie tickets for the best essay!
Also read: Our pick of the 10 best Christmas themed animated movies
