Leland Stanford, one-time Governor of California and the man who founded Stanford University, was an avid horse breeder and racer. In 1872, he made a sizeable bet with a horseracing rival, basically contending that, at some point during a horse's gallop, all four of its hooves left the ground. Stanford needed hard evidence to win his bet, so he turned to English photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who, at the time, was working for a US government agency. In the process of proving the bet, Muybridge revealed a completely new perspective on nature and the world that was to have a profound effect on the 20th century.
He set up 24 cameras side-by-side alongside a racetrack, each connected with a wire that ran across a horse's path. As the horse galloped down the track, its hooves broke the wire and tripped a shutter, exposing one phase of movement. After successfully taking the still photos, he realised he could resynthesise the movement of the horse by mounting the pictures on a revolving wheel and projecting them with a magic lantern, a type of slide projector. The resulting "moving pictures" contributed to a fundamental change in human consciousness, as well as winning Stanford the $25,000 bet.
His work, shown worldwide, fostered the ideas that led to the development of motion picture technology. But it was quickly realised that the pictures in motion needn't be photographs; they could also be drawings. The principle (known as "Persistence of Vision") that 24 still pictures, shown to an audience in quick succession, would create the impression of movement, seemed perfectly suited to the artist, and thus animation was born.
Possibly its first practitioner was France's Emile Cohl, who, in 1908, depicted matchstick men on a black background. Around the same time, an American, Walt Disney, was realising how sophisticated the medium could be. His experimentation culminated in 1928 with the first cartoon "talkie", Steamboat Willie, starring Mickey Mouse. Later that year, he began a series called Silly Symphonies, featuring all manner of anthropomorphic ducks and dogs.
Along with Mickey and his pals, the century has been replete with animated classics a la Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies - it is hard to imagine a child living in the last 80 years who has not savoured the antics of characters such as Goofy, Pluto, Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, Road Runner and Coyote, Speedy Gonzales, Pepe le Phew, Sylvester and Tweety, and Dastardly and Mutley. In fact, looking at that list, it seems possible to argue that cartoons were the most pervasive art form of the 20th century. Decades later, by the time television had taken a hold of the western world, cartoons were being watched by millions of children every day of the week. But animation was not solely concerned with the three-minute tale. Throughout his career, Disney produced animated features. Beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, he remained largely unrivalled for much of the century, but it was a one-time Disney animator who eventually became the biggest rival to his total dominance of the market.
After the second of his two Disney stints, animator Don Bluth (reputedly a direct descendant of Pocahontas) set up his own production company in the early 1970s and, before long, was actually competing with his old boss. After teaming up with the businessman and classical animation buff, Morris Sullivan, he managed to consolidate with the help of Steven Spielberg, who became executive producer on An American Tail (1986), for which much work was done in Dublin. Keen to use Irish talent again, the Sullivan Bluth company set up a studio in Dublin which went on to produce (though not exclusively) a number of features, including The Land Before Time and All Dogs Go To Heaven. Ultimately, the Dublin studio was bought out in 1996 by Rupert Murdoch, who was in the process of setting up the Fox studios in the US.
During its time in Dublin, however, the Sullivan Bluth studio did much to further the cause of animation in Ireland, supporting the animation programme at Ballyfermot Senior College with a mentor-style system, providing resources, investment and expertise. A number of graduates from the college went on to work for the company. And when the company was sold to Murdoch, much of its remaining equipment was sold cheap, enabling a new generation of animators to get their hands on much-needed resources.
One such company was Brown Bag Films, based in Dublin's city centre, and set up around the time Sullivan Bluth was pulling out. Cathal Gaffney, the company' s producer, remembers getting a Steenbeck editing suite for "next to nothing" for his fledgling company. Since making its name with productions for RTE - such as the seven-part series Peig (a re-telling of the infamous Irish woman's life), Why?, a series for pre-school children, and a 36-episode series based on Aesop's Fables - Brown Bag has moved more into the international realm. Having developed links with a post-production company in Beirut, as well as with US studio Warner Bros and Poland's Atomic Television, the company is realising the potential of the international market.
Gaffney was one of those involved with setting up the Republic's first animation festival back in 1995, and he sees its continuance as a really positive thing for Irish animation in general: "Five years ago, there was practically no forum for young animators to showcase their work. We had returned from the Annecy Festival in France, and we were really enthusiastic about the idea of a similar thing being done in Ireland," he says. He has since moved on, but sees the festival as a great way of putting people in touch with the possibilities of the medium. Also, the development of technology has made the world of animation far more accessible to beginners. Gaffney says that when he set up Brown Bag in the mid-1990s, good animation software could cost anything up to £20,000, whereas now computer programmes such as Shockwave and Flash cost mere hundreds.
Magma Films is another company working in the international realm. Based in Galway, it was set up in 1994 by established German producer Ralph Christians and is now the most successful animation production company in Ireland. Despite being responsible for a number of successful children's shows on TV3 and TG4, Christians describes the company's output as being for "big kids" and adults. This approach is typified by one of Magma's upcoming productions, 68 Woodstock Avenue, which centres on the daily lives of a houseful of hippies. Another series in production is Pigs Next Door, for the Fox family in the US, which will be distributed worldwide. Starring the voices of such luminaries as John Goodman, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Ratzenburger (the postman from Cheers) and Jennifer Tilly, Magma Films' output is an indicator of how successful adult animation shows can be these days.
IN the past decade, as attitudes to animation have changed, many animated shows aimed at "big kids" have been phenomenal success stories. Though puerile and little else, Beavis and Butthead was a TV phenomenon in the early 1990s, culminating in a smash-hit movie.
Other major successes include King of the Hill, from the Beavis and Butthead creator, Mike Judge; The PJs, featuring Eddie Murphy; and Futurama, from Matt Groening, creator of perhaps the most popular TV show on the planet, The Simpsons.
There is now an implicit acknowledgement that when kids watch telly, adults are usually nearby. As many parents will attest, Rugrats is sophisticated and well-written, while most students will admit to being fans of Animaniacs.
The cartoons-for-the-kids and live-action-for-adults distinction exists no more for either viewer or producer. With a keen and receptive market, the future definitely looks bright for the world of animation.
