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Animation, contrary to what some humans think, has a long and illustrious history of it is own. Ancient Egyptian excavations disclose that the Egyptians did spacious wall decoration way back in 2000 B.C. Even the Greek, in their ancient paintings and drawings disclose a arousing and attention holding sense of imagination. Leonardo Da Vinci has applied some form of animation in his famous illustrations. The Japanese have used scrolls to tell stories from ancient times. The ideas behind animation are not a recent phenomenon and have existed for centuries now. With the increasing affect of technology, the face of animation has been revolutionized.
It has been mankind’s quest from the beginning of time to capture the sense of motion in art. This gave rise to ancient paintings which could be found in caves. One has heard of such drawings related with various civilizations of the past. A Frenchman named Paul Roget invented something known as the thaumatrope, which was a disc with a string attached to both sides. One side of the disc had the drawing of a bird and the other side an empty cage. When the disc was twirled using the strings, the bird appeared as if it was inside the cage. Such early inventions were forerunners to the present day animation.
Later, an instrument called the henakristoscope was produced by Joseph Plateau, which was a circular card with slits around the edge. The viewer had to hold the card up to a mirror and peer through the slits as the cards whirled. A series of drawings would be present around the circumference of the card. What the viewer would see was the optical illusion of a moving picture. Plateu introduced this to the US in 1826. Decades later, the advent of computers and software in a literal sense changed the way animation was done. Now in a literal sense not one thing is totally unlikely as far as animation goes. Using current animation software, one may manufacture mind boggling animation. Hollywood is full of animation pioneers. In fact, who may forget Walt Disney’s innumerable animated characters, which have become American icons. Animations have become more realistic in the sense that one may almost duplicate real life situations using state-of-the-art animation software.
Hollywood Cartoons American Animation Ebook
In Hollywood Cartoons, Michael Barrier takes us on a glorious guided tour of American animation in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, to meet the legendary artists and enterprisers who developed Bugs Bunny, Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse, Wile E. Coyote, Donald Duck, Tom and Jerry, and a lot of other cartoon favorites.
Beginning with black-and-white silent cartoons, Barrier offers an perceptive account, taking us inside early New York studios and such Hollywood giants as Disney, Warner Bros., and MGM. Barrier excels at illuminating the originative side of animation–revealing how stories are put together, how animators invent a character, how technical inventions heighten the “realism” of cartoons. Here too are colorful portraits of the giants of the field, from Walt and Roy Disney and their animators, to Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Based on hundreds of consultations with veteran animators, Hollywood Cartoons gives us the definitive inside look at this colorful era and at the originative routine behind these marvelous cartoons.
From Publishers WeeklyThe fruit of exhaustive research, from consultations with more than 200 cartoon creators to the unearthing of piles of personal papers, dusty art and even hectographed memos from the 1930s, this long-awaited survey of American animation has taken Barrier (during the 1960s, the editor and publisher of Funnyworld, a periodical consecrated to animation) more than 25 years to write. Barrier has screened thousands of films, including hundreds of silent pictures and “almost all the short sound cartoons developed for theatrical release by the Disney, Harmon-Ising, Schlesinger, Warner Bros., MGM, UPA, and Iwerks studios,” and his command of the material is astounding. He covers everything from originative reputation development to artistic influences, budget limitations, box office returns and technical advances such as the introduction of Xerox copiers to transfer pencil drawings directly as black lines, eliminating the inking stage. In addition to profiles of major talents, Barrier presents glances of Disney’s earliest sketches, the perceptivities of film critics, studio accountants and even psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, as well as innumerable anecdotes, such as one artist’s memory of Disney’s new 1939 air-conditioned Burbank studio, where “any animator could pick up his phone and call the coffee shop and have a soda delivered, or hot coffee, hot chocolate, ice creamAanything. And a waiter would come running down the hall, with service right to your room.” This cartoon cornucopia is both a delightful amusement and a severe study, effortlessly rating as the definitive overview of the animation industry’s accomplishments. In addition to the archival art and rare photos is a nice bonus of various flip-book sequences written into the page corners.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library JournalBased on archival exploration and hundreds of interviews, this volume provides a comprehensive survey of American animation up to the late 1960s. An authority on film cartoons, Barrier traces the development of such studios as Disney, Warner Brothers, and MGM. His cast of characters includes animators like Max Fleischer, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. By extension, it includes Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Porky Pig, Gerald McBoing Boing, and a host of other terrifically creations. Barriers account reveals the interplay amongst studio politics, technical innovation, and the business side of Hollywood. The highly readable result is neither weighted down with scholarly discourse nor demeaned by trivial anecdotes. In much the same way that David A. Cooks A History of Narrative Film (Norton, 1996) covers cinema as a whole, Hollywood Cartoons might well become the frequent survey in it is area. All libraries ought to consider for purchase.Neal Baker, Earlham Coll., Richmond, IN
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From BooklistAs animation scholar Barrier notes, the delights found in the best Hollywood cartoons appeal more to adults than to children. With great skillfulness and insight, he identifies and explains those delectations in an informative chronicle of the cartoon industry: it is early black-and-white and silent days in New York, it is move to Hollywood and sound, the pioneering feature films of Disney, and it is decline in the face of altering studio economics and the rise of television. He is particularly perceptive in regards to the cartoons of the 1940s, the genre’s golden age, when it is creators perfected the amalgam of story, character, and technique in landmark films. The fact that Barrier draws on almost three decades’ worth of consultations (200) with directors, animators, and other industry figures attests to the collaborative nature of cartoon filmmaking. Considering the colorful anecdotes he elicits from his subjects, Barrier’s prose is many times breathtakingly prosaic. And scholarly tome or not, more illustrations would have been welcome. Even so, and even though Leonard Maltin’s Of Mice and Magic (1980) covers much the same ground in breezier fashion, libraries desiring more exhaustive and authorized coverage ought to find Barrier’s effort the definitive history of the field. Gordon Flagg
Hollywood Cartoons American Animation Ebook Picture
Hollywood Cartoons American Animation Ebook Image
Hollywood Cartoons American Animation Ebook Image
Hollywood Cartoons American Animation Ebook Image
Most helpful client reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
 Comprehensive look at a dying artform
By Wayne Klein
Covering much of the same ground as Leonard Maltin’s Of Mice and Magic, Hollywood Cartoons is packed with interesting perceptivities and remarks from both the author and those that participated in the creation of an American art form. Michael Barrier’s exhaustively researched book covers the Golden Age of Hollywood animation and the movers and shakers that had an affect on the art form.
At almost 650 pages Barrier’s book takes a reasonable balanced look at Disney, Warner Bros., Fleischer and other subscribers to this dying art form. It’s in truth a perfective associate piece to the newely freed boxed set of Warner Bros. Looney Tunes classics. Barrier wards off the Disney worship that marred other books of this type and, like Maltin’s marvelous but less indepth book, he manages to point out the key contributions of the most necessary animation directors/producers of the era.
While it does overlook or give only a cursory overview of a lot of essential figures in the industry, Barrier’s scholarly aproach manages to recognize the merits and flaws of each studio, their scheme and directors. Although not as well illustrated as Maltin’s book, the pictures do provide a glimpse of galore of the necessary classics that impacted the art of animation. Since much of the documentation for the creation of a lot of of the early Warner classics are long gone, Barrier has to rely on galore of the same roots and pictures as other authors. The book could have been bettered if he had gone more to private collectors for rare animation cels, production photos, model drawings and notes. I also would have liked some of these illustrations to be reproduced in color. Seeing them in dark black and white illustrations does little justice to the artistry of these pioneers.
Maltin’s book was without doubt or question the work of an informed fan; his approach focalized on the creation of a lot of of the crucial classics but didn’t lose track of the fun in the finished product. Barrier’s scholarly approach is a bit drier and doesn’t rather commune the excessively affected emotionally of Maltin’s less authoriative book on the same subject. It’s still an crucial look at the pioneers of animation’s Golden Age and, as such, must be read by those who love the shorts from the respective eras examined here.
9 of 9 persons found the following review helpful.
Fine survey of the greats, but what with regards to the runners-up?
By John McWhorter
This book is a marvelous accomplishment but I’m not sure it is title is appropriate. Barrier is concerned with charting the development of excellence, and as such his perspective appears to be “hats off to Disney, kudos to Warner Brothers and Tex Avery, and polite nods to every one else”. The rating is unexceptionable, and the coverage of Disney and Warners’ is rich and incisive. But surely a survey of “Hollywood Cartoons” would ideally have more than a few pages each on Terrytoons, Walter Lantz, Popeye and Betty Boop. Especially the latter three, while evidently not pinnacles of the art, have more than their share of moments worth examination, which a book honing so closely to linear development will have to leave aside. Obviously a book giving more equivalent coverage to the well-loved also-rans would be an daunting doorstop, but one closely wishes Barrier had written one book on Disney and another on the other cartoons. However, Barrier is a sterling scholar and analyst; I repeatedly found myself initial shaken by his criticisms of cartoons I have long kept sacrosanct, only to normally agree with him in the end.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
 The most authorized book on the subject
By A
As an animator with more than a mild interest in the subject, I found the book to go beyond the history. It’s the firstborn book regarding animation to in truth delve into the ART of the medium. We see how the inventors of the medium are overtaken by the artists who are overtaken by the financiers. It’s a splendid book with sheer precision in it is source material backed up by more than the frequent number of interviews. It’s not another promotional book for ANY studio. The coverage of Disney is more outstanding because the focus is on the amount of time when Disney built the medium. Anyone fascinated in the medium must read this.
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