Animated cartoon

An animated cartoon is a moving picture generated by photographing drawings frame-by-frame, as opposed to a normal movie, which is produced by shooting 24 frames a second of actual moving persons or objects.

Technologies

The advent of film technology opened opportunities to develop the art of animation. The basic animation process is decribed in the article Animation , and the classic, hand-drawn technology in Traditional animation .

Related Topics:
Animation - Traditional animation

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At first, animated cartoons were black-and-white and silent. Felix the Cat is a notable example.

Related Topics:
Black-and-white - Felix the Cat

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The first cartoon with synchronized sound is often identified as Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie, starring Mickey Mouse in 1927, but Max Fleischer's 1926 My Old Kentucky Home (movie) is less popularly but more correctly credited with this innovation.

Related Topics:
Synchronized sound - Walt Disney - Steamboat Willie - Mickey Mouse - Max Fleischer - My Old Kentucky Home (movie)

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Disney also produced the first full-color cartoon in Technicolor, "Flowers and Trees", in 1931, although other producers had earlier made films using inferior, 2-color processes instead of the 3-color process offered by Technicolor.

Related Topics:
Technicolor - Flowers and Trees

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Later, other movie technologies were adapted for use in animation, such as stereophonic sound in Disney's Fantasia in 1941, and later, widescreen processes (e.g. CinemaScope), and even 3D.

Related Topics:
Stereophonic sound - Fantasia - CinemaScope - 3D

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Today, animation is commonly produced with computers, giving the animator new tools not available in hand-drawn traditional animation. See Computer animation for further information of the specific technologies.

Related Topics:
Computer - Animator - Computer animation

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Note, however, that some types of animation cannot be called "cartoons", which implies something that resembles a drawing. Clay animation and other forms of stop motion filming, are not cartoons in the strict sense of the word.

Related Topics:
Clay animation - Stop motion

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