Hand-drawn animation is how all cartoons were made before the development of computer generated imagery or as it is called today, computer animation. The animator would use a story board to lay out his drawings before they ever became the animation. You will learn this technique along with others while you are attending the Los Angeles film school.
Do you remember Betty Boop, Popeye, and even Speed Racer? Remember how you would repeat what they said, sing the songs they said, and remember when they would give out advice to children? You can probably remember some of those things even now when you have grown past the cartoon stage. Cartoons have had a large influence on what children learned over the decades. These were all done through hand-drawn animation.
While you are attending an online film school, the history of hand-drawn animation will be one of the subjects you cover. Hand-drawn animation goes all the way back to the beginning of man, in the Paleolithic era where he would draw animals on cave walls. Even in some of the Egyptian figures found on tomb walls show a series of pictures, each different from the one before, intended to convey movement.
The era that cartoons came out with sound is considered the Golden Age of U.S. Animation. These animated creations were shown at the theater, and then later after the television was invented. Disney was probably the forerunner in creating animated cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. He later developed feature length animated movies like Dumbo, Bambi, Pinocchio, and Snow White.
The most widely used technique in hand-drawn animation was the use of drawing the characters and animals on a storyboard. Each picture is different than the one before it. These were then copied or traced to a transparency and painted in. Photos would be taken on movie film by a special camera. When the movie film was placed on the projector and run at the desired speed, it would make the characters look like they were moving in different ways.
While you are working toward your degree at animation school or film school you will study all about hand-drawn animation and actually learn how to do it.
