Animation

For our recent college project for Steve, we have been asked to look into animation, the first part we have been asked to look at is a person who does animation Seth MacFarlane, he is best known for his series like Family guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show all which have been known to be controversial for being offensive to American audiences before family guy became a hit he wrote scripts for other popular shows like Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, Dexter's Laboratory, I Am Weasel, that was part of his contract with the animation studio called Hanna-Barbera.

With any Seth Macfarlane, cartoon series there is always a big family, you always have the Husband, the wife, the kids, and the pet, in family guy, you have the Griffin family, in American dad you have the smith family, and in The Cleveland show, you have the Cleveland family normally with Family guy there is a plot but the plot gets overshadowed with cutaways that make no sense and often are very funny and it works with the show, some of the topics the show, have made the ratings figures’ for the show rise making the show very popular.

The show has been cancelled by 20^th century fox many times, because they thought the show was too offensive to be shown on TV but the show was put back on the air due to strong DVD sales the show is often compared to South park which is also very popular but been overshadowed in recent years due to family’s guy success in 2005 the creators of South park made an episode called Cartoon Wars which totally ripped family guy apart the creators of south park have always hated family guy saying they hate the way the show is made.

The show creator Seth Macfarlane has always said the show will have offensive and if you get upset easy you should not watch the show, parents always moan the show should not be viewed by children but the show is shown after the 9 0 clock watershed in which anything can be shown and said if the show was shown before 9 I can see why people would moan I think the Simpsons uses the same joke formula like family guy but dumb it down so kids can understand the joke most of the Simpsons is the dad hurting himself.

In more recent times Seth Macfarlane has turned into making feature films his first big budget film was Ted which a massive hit at the box office Ted is about a young boy who has no friends and makes a wish that the teddy bear he had for Christmas comes alive and they be best friends forever his which comes true and they become best friends what follows is a foul mouthed drinking smoking bear the film made audiences around the world cry with laughter after the success of Ted he was asked to host the Oscars which caused controversy.

    

Animation Timeline

1824	Peter Mark Roget, who did research in physiology at the University of London, published "Persistence of Vision with Regard to Moving Objects." This book presented the idea that a succession of still images could create the appearance of motion.
1832	Joseph Plateau (a Belgian scientist) developed the phenakistiscope.
1889	Emile Reynaud (from France) patents the praxinoscope .. a device that used mirrors to project a sequence of images (along with a fixed background) onto a screen. It was sufficiently complex that only he could run it. The infinite length tape changed the medium from a curiosity into entertainment.
1895	The age of movie camera and projector begins .. experimentors discover they can stop the crank and restart it again to obtain special effects. Example: James Stuart Blackton creates "The Enchanted Drawing" in 1900 .. a caricature is drawn with no evidence of an artist.
1907	Emil Cohl (from France) begins a long animation career..
1914	Windsor McCay produces perhaps the first popular animation .. Gertie the Dinosaur, which becomes part of his vaudeville act
1915	John Bray patents the use of clear cels over a background
1917	John Bray patents rotoscoping (developed by Max Fleischer)
1919	Koko the clown (Max Fleischer) appears
1920's	Otto Mesmer creates Felix the Cat
1928	Walt Disney releases "Steamboat Willie" .. an early cartoon w/ sound -- cartoons are now seen as entertainment. Disney innovations over the next 10-20 years include the storyboard, pencil tests, and the multi-plane camera stand (3D effects). Disney also promoted the analysis of real-life motion.
1937	Snow White is released at cost of $1.5M
1930's	Fleischer studios create Betty Boop and Popeye
1930's	Warner Bros .. Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Bugs Bunny appear
1940's	Walter Lantz and Woody Woodpecker, Paul Terry and Mighty Mouse, MGM w/ Tom & Jerry (animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera)
1963	Ivan Sutherland and SKETCHPAD at MIT/Lincoln Labs
1972	University of Utah, Ed Catmull develops an animation scripting language and creates an animation of a smooth shaded hand. Ref: E. Catmull, "A System for Computer Generated Movies", Proceedings of the ACM National Conference, 1972. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
1972	University of Utah, Fred Parke creates first computer generated facial animation. Ref: F. Parke, "Computer Generated Animation of Faces", Proceedings of the ACM National Conference, 1972. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
1974	National Research Council of Canada releases Hunger/La Faim directed by Peter Foldes and featuring Burtnyk and Wein interactive keyframing techniques. Ref: N. Burtnyk and M. Wein, "Interactive Skeleton Techniques for Enhancing Motion Dynamics in Key Frame Animation", Communications of the ACM, 19(10), October 1976. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
1982	Tron, MAGI, movie with CG premise
1983	Bill Reeves at Lucasfilm publishes techniques for modeling particle systems. "Demo" is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. The paper also promotes motion blur. Ref: W. Reeves, "Particle Systems -- A Technique for Modeling a Class of Fuzzy Objects", Computer Graphics, 17(3), July 1983. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
1984	The Last Starfighter, CG is used in place of models
1984	Porter and Duff at Lucusfilm publish paper on digital compositing using an alpha channel. Ref: T. Porter and T. Duff, "Compositing Digital Images", Computer Graphics, 18(3), July 1984. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
1985	Girard and Maciejewski at OSU publish a paper describing the use of inverse kinematics and dynamics for animation. Their techniques are used in the animation "Eurythmy." Ref: M. Girard and A. A. Maciejewski, "Computational Modeling for the Computer Animation of Legged Figures", Computer Graphics, 19(3), July 1985. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
1985	Ken Perlin at NYU publishes a paper on noise functions for textures. He later applied this technique to add realism to character animations. Ref: K. Perlin, "An Image Synthesizer", Computer Graphics, 19(3), July 1985. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
1987	John Lasseter at Pixar publishes a paper describing traditional animation principles. "Demos" are Andre and Wally B and Luxo Jr. Ref: J. Lasseter, "Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation", Computer Graphics, 21(4), July 1987. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
1987	Craig Reynolds then at Symbolics (now at Dreamworks SKG) publishes a paper on self-organizing behavior for groups. "Demos" are Stanley and Stella and Batman Returns. Ref: C. W. Reynolds, "Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model", Computer Graphics, 21(4), July 1987. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
1988	Willow uses morphing in live action film
1992	Beier and Neely, at SGI and PDI respectively publish an algorithm where line correspondences guide morphing between 2D images. "Demo" is Michael Jackson video Black and White. Ref: T. Beier and S. Neely, "Feature-Based Image Metamorphosis", Computer Graphics, 26(2), July 1992. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
1993	Chen and Williams at Apple publish a paper on view interpolation for 3D walkthroughs. Ref: S. E. Chen and L. Williams, "View Interpolation for Image Synthesis", Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, 1993. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)
1993	Jurassic Park use of CG for realistic living creatures
1995	Toy Story first full-length 3D CG feature film

The other two cartoon creators I wanted to talk about were Trey Parker and Matt Stone, they are known for the controversial animated show South Park. The show was controversial because it was kids swearing and the stuff they choose to take the mick out of caused people to react negatively to the show. Despite this it has never been cancelled like Family Guy, the rating figures were always too high for South Park to be taken off the air. In recent times Following its revival, Family guy has become more popular as a lot of people think the creators of South park are running out of ideas.