Thread 02 History of animation
A line moves. A character breathes. An imagined world begins to feel real.
Two starting points in a much larger history: Walt Disney and Hayao Miyazaki. Follow their lives into the films, and the films into new ways of seeing.
011920s–1960s
What makes us believe that a drawing feels?
Timing, gesture, sound and an enormous amount of craft. Walt Disney’s studio brought these together in characters whose desires an audience could recognise. Follow the films from Snow White to Sleeping Beauty, and watch the language change.
Begin with Fantasia for an experiment in music and movement, or Pinocchio for the expressive possibilities of character animation.
Explore the films021960s–2020s
What if the landscape has a life of its own?
In Miyazaki’s films, a forest, a building or a passing breeze can feel as present as a protagonist. The adventure asks its travellers to pay attention. Wonder grows from ordinary work as well as impossible creatures.
Begin with My Neighbor Totoro for a small, attentive adventure, or Spirited Away for a world that reveals itself through its rules.
Explore the filmsThe thread is beginning
These are two doorways, not the whole history. Animators, directors, background artists, composers and earlier pioneers will give this thread its next branches.
Find another threadFollow a different kind of imagination.
