The Early Animated Films 

Walt Disney didn't invent the multiplane camera ! Lotte Reinenger did, Disney perfected the idea

That multiplane camera system is brilliant. Fascinating video as always!

(rotoscoping that sucks) *shows lotr* THEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS

it's weird that the first animation, made by that argentinian guy you refused to say the name, wasn't a kids cartoon or fairy tale, but a political satire

The Fleischer brothers studio did incredible work. They're superman series is not only fun to watch, but artistically it's also a pleasure to look at. And what they did with three dimensional looking backgrounds in some of their Popeye cartoons is genius.

Yes, I know that's not Earl Hurd. My apologies. Dunno how I made that mistake...

The late Roger Ebert once wrote, "Walt Disney did not invent animation, but he nurtured it into an art form that could hold its own against any 'realistic' movie." And I would agree that the medium itself shouldn't be limited to what Walt and his team of artists and successors had been doing and building on since the 1920s.

My personal favourite Animator is Terry Gilliam, even though is technique is simplistic.

"Worldwide" I guess the West is the world. Joke aside, short and sweet summary.

Today with a fraction of this effort and money we can do much better. And we dont.

“Gag reels for younger audiences” Felix committed suicide by drinking gasoline in his first film, and often had alcohol in his cartooms

3:13 That is not Earl Hurd, that is Frank Thomas.

picture of "Earl Hurd" is actually Frank Thomas, one of Disney's nine old men. if you look closely you can see the robin hood drawing

The only thing that itched me was the audible logo at the beginning. Those missed lasso :'(

I have to disagree with you on Bakshi's rotoscoping. If it was meant to achieve the same as Fleischer's rotoscoping, then I think you'd be right, but Bakshi was trying to create something uncanny with LoTR and something intense and gritty with American Pop (Fire and Ice is garbage though, I'll give you that). The technique was appropriate for those instances.

I'd really like it if you did a series on the history of animation. Also can we get a video essay on my boy Ray Harryhausen.

"Do shut up, Andrew." ;-)

Snow White might not have been the first full length animated film, but none that came before it even approached its brilliance.

And now we get garbage like Aladdin 2019 or lion king remake 🤮

You made an error, McCay didn't know what Keyframing or Pose-to-Pose was, he animated everything "Straight Ahead". There is a nice anecdote about it, when McCay thinks he invented Pose-to-Pose but other animators were already using it for a long time

Its like Every Frame A Painting was rasied from the dead. Love your vids man!

Bakshi's LOTR rotoscoping isn't bad. It actually works really well with the theme of the story, which also combines fantastic and realistic elements. Unexaggerated rotoscoping would look bad on Superman, but in Middle Earth it has the perfect, strange "magic realism" effect.

That’s not Earl Hurd at 3:14. That’s Disney Animator Frank Thomas working on Robin Hood in the early 1970’s.

So wait wait wait, why then is Snow White so often credited as the first animated feature film? Is it simply a matter of better marketing, or is there a set of caveats and qualifiers that make that statement true?

Koch How english speaking folk keep pronounching it: Kosh

fantastic video =) altough as a german I have to break it to you: you murderd the pronounciation of "Koch" :D Cheers from Germany =) Sören

3:13 That's not Earl Hurd, that's Frank Thomas.

You completely skipped how the Disney Animators developed the principles of animation and brought believability to the medium, bringing an end to the hated rubber hose style! Walt guided them to made their drawings dynamic and not stiff. Every animator or person interested in animation knows of squash and stretch, anticipation, etc. That completely changed and improved animation! It went from kid distractions to art! Without these Disney techniques, stop motion animators and CGI animators would made the most ugly things on the planet. Please add the creation of good animation into the first animation breakthroughs.

so while Snow White is the 8th Animated Feature Film, it's the First POPULAR One.

Windsor McCay's studio is in my neighborhood in Sheepshead Bay. It's still there as a normal residential house, across the street from a supermarket.

I'm an animator for children's series, and I love your videos that focus on animation! Keep up the wonderful work.

You are blowing my fucking mind with these videos. Keep 'em coming! Can't possibly get enough.

William Randolph Hearst screwed someone over... NNNAAAAWWWHHH

There is a really good episode of the BBC's "Arena" from 1985 that is all about early animation. It's on YT for anyone interested.

This is very nice. Maybe another time go a little slower

Would love a deeper dive into animation!

3:13 actually that's Frank Thomas, one of Disney's Nine Old Men!

Very informative, but I wish you had said a little something about each of the seven animated features that preceded "Snow White."

Very well made and very interesting! Personally, I had always thought that "Fantasmagorie" was the first animated film.

5:23 Take a look at this picture. Everybody remembers Walt Disney as this old tycoon. But that's not what you see in this picture. No, what you see in this picture isn't an old tycoon but a young entrepreneur, full of zest and proud of his creations.

So. Lotte was the first to create the multiplane camera. Disney ripped it off and claimed it as his own.

Dude why don't you have 1 mil subs? The quality of your editing and overall style does not match your sub count.

This sounds like the guy from Every New Frame A Painting.

Also, the claims that Walt Disney was a d*ck are largely overblown, otherwise his friend and collaborator Ub Iwerks wouldn't have voluntarily chosen to come back to work with Walt as his head of Special Effects department. Such ad hominems are typically made by people who are trying to undermine Walt because they are angry that he's the most famous of classic animation directors.

Another amazing and informative video. Support this man on Patreon dammit!

Why is Tony Zhou working here now?? Well It doesn't matter it's another great video

English speaking people guessing german pronunciation. And then he says he thinks he does it well 😂

Content is on point I have to add your channel link to my “Best RU-vid Channels of 2018” video

Great videography,great for today's tragedy

It’s like Christmas morning Everytime royal ocean drops a new video

Would love to hear your research materials,i.e the books,films and readings your went through to make this

very nice! shows that you love doing this stuff....

I'd say Walt turned animation into art. Though the others certainly were art, Walt turned learning animation into something more akin to learning atelier type classical schools that do high end oil painting and portraiture. He (well, more specifically the 9 Old Men) discovered and created the nuances of getting a character to move and act right. Sleeping Beauty characters move completely different than those of Snow White since they learned even more about the craft, even if Snow White's animation was already aiming for the stars

And today everything is replaced by ugly ass CGI....

7:03 what film is this from? Subtitles dont show the title

That was interesting Andrew.

I don't feel like I just watched an 8-minute RU-vid video, I feel like I just watched the first 8 minutes of a two-hour-long documentary. Very wonderfully done.

Ub Iwerks was the genius who developed the camera. Screw Disney.

i really like the way your video essays are going

This is f_cking awesome.

What an incredible video. Informative, entertaining, and well presented. Probably your best one yet.

In your enthusiasm, you've made some serious errors in your presentation. The picture at 1:04 is of Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney's original partner, who later was Head of Special Effects. He was not a Director/Film Maker as you imply, even though he was a celebrated Animator in his time. In your explanation of "Key Framing," you are dealing with Key Drawings, formerly referred to as Extremes. They are drawings or positions, NOT shots. A "shot" is a photographic element of the film, or frame. Having read just about everything on Winsor McCay, including the book by John Canemaker, I never came across that remark made about his not patenting his processes. What he said was he felt the knowledge should be universal much like knowledge of the Medical Field. THAT is what he said as documented in Canemaker's book. McCay's famous "harsh" remark came at the dinner hosted by Max Fleischer to honor McCay. It was at this event that McCay chastised the attendees for making what he envisioned as an art form into a trade. "Bad Luck!" And yes THE SINKING OF THE LUSI (TAY) NIA was his Masterpiece. But from that point on his works ceased to progress and were less interesting. You make a questionable statement about Hearst "screwing over" McCay. But you don't explain in what way. That statement alone is insufficient. You failed to explain that McCay designed his films as Vaudeville acts with him appearing on stage. The issue here was that Hearst would not permit him to tour the nation with his films since he valued his work for the newspaper. To day that Hearst "screwed over" McCay implies he was cheating him, which he was not. But Hearst did stand in the way of McCay touring the country, but this was for business reasons. As a result, all subsequent prints that were distributed had inter titles added that followed McCay's live dialogue. At 3:10 you jump to the making of the Popeye ALADDIN Special, which was made in 1939. This is 15 years later than what you are referring to. But at 3:13 you have THE biggest picture error. That is NOT Earl Hurd. That's Disney Animator, Frank Thomas. You see he is working on a scene from ROBIN HOOD. This is from the 1970s. Hurd died in 1940. At 3:15 you show John R. Bray but don't identify him. And the Bray title at 3:17 is not from the period but a TV title card from 1950. At 3:21, the man on the right is NOT Paul Terry. Included are Max and Dave Fleischer who together formed their studio, not "each" as is suggested. Walter Lantz also should be included. Cel Animation was Patented by both Earl Hurd and John Bray. Hurd's use was the standard use for the animated figures on cels, overlaid with an illustrated background. Bray's concept was for the background drawn on a cel, used as an overlay to the animation drawings inked on paper. Your understanding of Rotoscoping is confused. The desired effect was to obtain realistic movement and capture the nuances of acting and its timing that cannot always be realized through imagination. This is particularly important with dealing with dancing. In your praise of Max and Dave Fleischer as 'The Gods of Animation,' you've slighted them by failing to mention the Stereoptical Process, which was a more elaborate form of Multiplane that was in place three years before Disney's Multiplane. While this is a nice and well intended piece, you need to be more careful in your research. all of which has been well documented with greater accuracy.

Well, this was interesting. It seems pretty weird that animators come up with these ground breaking ideas, but winds up treating their coworkers like "mit!"

And now boss baby is nominated for an oscar in the animated category

I want you to know that I watch many different RU-vid channels dedicated to video essays on the art of film; but your channel is by far the best put together, and the most entertaining. I love your work, keep it up!

Since when was Earl Hurd and Frank Thomas the same dude? O_O Aside from that, good documentary.

Easily one of the best of the channel... and also one of the best of the year, and 2018 is only beginning.

What about Pauvre Pierrot from 1894?

At the first Chicago Comic Con in 1975 (my first, anyway), one night was devoted to animation - and I do mean one night: something like 10-12 hours of rare animated films, provided mainly by private collectors who shared their precious reels with fans. Many of us were youngsters who had never even dreamed of the existence of films that digitizing has made so accessible, and we were pinned to our seats for hours, drunk on moving pictures.I remember seeing so many "banned" WB toons, Disney's WW2 training films and other propaganda, and intricate stop-motion films from around the world. But my favorites were the works of Fleischer Brothers, Ub Iwerks, and especially Windsor McCay, whose Gertie became a kind of meme among my friends.

@4.36 this is exactly what happened with 2019 lion king remake

I recommend Understanding Animation to anybody who is interested in learning more about animation history. Often, history of animation is limited to understanding it through it's technological achievements, Wells offers a more nuanced vision of animation as an art form and the sort of themes, subjects and ideas that emerged from the medium, not just what fancy cameras they got.

I miss traditional animation

---king music spoils the whole of a good film. was repulsed by 3 mins in. sad.

3:13 Umm, that man is NOT Earl Hurd. 😂😂

I know this is an old video, but as an aspiring animator, this channel is so interesting and motivating! 💞 Please never stop making videos!

Ralph Bakshi doesn't suck :((((

I’ve been really into animation lately and this taught me soooo much. Great video!! I loved it.

"rotoscoping that sucks" (text on the bottom of some really cool looking video)

I appreciate how often you talk about animation on your channel! more often, I'd have to find an animation-specific channel for these kind of videos, but I'm so glad you give it the same ammount of attention and care as your essays on live-action film

Correct, 'Snow White...' was not the first animated film. It was, however, the film animated *feature* film, as opposed to a short subject..

So when this video shows the Bakshi LOTR clip with the caption "rotoscoping that sucks", the first half isn't even rotoscoping- It's high contrast photocopies of filmed action on acetate that are colored in on the back in the same manner that animation cells are. This was done for all the crowd and battle scenes. The next shot of the Hobbits is finely crafted animation based on the movements of pre-shot actors, just like Disney used for virtually all of their human or bi-pedal characters from Snow White on. Neither bit of the clip shown is traced, and neither bit sucks. Rather, whoever produced this video sucks for feigning authority on the subject, not doing their homework and misrepresenting a classic work of animated art. Shame. Shame. Shame.

there is an earlier film than all these. It's "un bon bock" from france in 1888 by emile reynaud. Also by him is "pauvre pierott" from 1891. the later one is on u-tube.

If you’re interested in rotoscoping done artistically and with stylistic intent, check out the adult animation master Ralph Backshi. His film Wizards is on RU-vid and is my favorite film of his

I wish this was at least three times as long. Great work on what's presented though!

Great video Andrew. I found this fascinating and couldn’t believe how soon it ended

so instead of saying, "Snow white was the first animated movie" to be more efficient. I instead have to say, "Snow white is the first feature length fully animated movie." edit: We don't know if el apostle is fully animated, the others didn't survive, Le Roman De Renard is not Fully animated, and I don't know how to search for the other one with the poster that has the boy staring into my soul

Some Medieval religous texts have little flickbook characters at the bottom corner of the page.

This was dope to watch

I can understand why you might describe the rotoscoping present in some of the films of Bakshi as that which 'sucks', but honestly I think Bakshi is going for something a little different in his animation...also, the monetary constraints which seemed to plague his films...

YAAAS I'm so glad you've done this! Thank you! I'm currently working on a detailed timeline of animation history as a hobby, and this is really valuable info for me.

This channel has a lot of great vids but this is my favorite I've seen. Clean presentation for some wonderful information. Thanks for making this.

Was waiting to hear some Ub Iwerks praise, dude was a genius when it came to character animation

This guy needs more subscribers. Dang.

Gulliver loks like a cel shaded motion capture job.

I understand that talking about animation history other than Disney is important. No doubt. But I can't help but feel that people inadvertently overcompensate in the other direction and try to minimize their impact.

I'd have liked to see an animated satire of Hipolito Yrigoyen

Lusy-Tania you could have looked up the pronounciation of the ship

I appreciate the Richard Williams diagram

The Lino King remake is 3D that sucks.

I love the rotoscoping in lord of the rings