Over the next few months we are going to be producing a series of videos on the history
of computer animation.
In the last video we looked at the early experiments of John Whitney, as well as the work of Ivan
Sutherland and the staff at Bell Labs.
In this video we will follow these pioneers to Hollywood and meet others that would revolutionize
an industry.
Since the invention of the telephone, Bell System had been at the forefront of technological
innovation.
In 1925, they established Bell Labs, a research facility in Murray Hill, New Jersey.
The discoveries made here have shaped the way we communicate, from the transistor to
the computer languages UNIX and C++.
In the early 1960s they began experimenting with “computer graphics”, a term generally
attributed to Boeing employee William Fetter.
Fetter was a graphic designer who was instrumental in the development of wireframe 3D modelling.
He was the first to create a human figure, known as the Boeing Man, and his Aircraft
Carrier Landing is one of the earliest examples of computer animation.
Fetter was called to a meeting at Bell Labs in 1965.
Also in attendance was Ed Zajac, who we covered in the last video, as well as Kenneth Knowlton.
In 1963, Knowlton had developed BEFLIX, the first programming language specifically for
animation.
BEFLIX was a set of commands that could be written out on punch cards and fed into a
computer.
The computer would process these and output them onto magnetic tape that would be fed
back into a computer and converted into small squares of light with varying intensity, with
a film camera capturing the resulting patterns.
The patterns BEFLIX was capable of producing included basic shapes, lines and letters.
The processed film came out grey though colour could be added through standard photographic
methods.
Bell Labs was interested in what this technology could do in the hands of an artist.
They reached out to visual artists like Fetter to collaborate with their scientists to create
experimental films.
This meeting of logic and expression produced several films over the course of the decade.
Michael Noll’s A Computer-Generated Ballet is an early example.
Using BEFLIX, Noll was able to render stick-figures against a black background, or “stage”,
and program them to “dance.”
Ken Knowlton’s collaboration with artist Stan VanDerBeek began in 1964.
VanDerBeek was a filmmaker whose surreal work incorporated aspects of animation and modern
dance.
He created several exhibits using projectors and even designed and built his own theatre,
the Movie Drome, out of a grain silo, to screen these experiments.
Knowlton and VanDerBeek’s partnership lasted three years, during which they produced the
8-part series Poem Field.
In 1968, Knowlton began collaborating with Lillian Schwartz.
More than anyone, Schwartz is responsible for bringing computer animation into the realm
of fine art, with her work being among the first to be exhibited as such.
She legitimized the new medium and the films produced with Knowlton pushed the limits of
what BEFLIX could do.
When put next the work of Noll or VanDerBeek, we can see the range of creative possibilities
this primitive programming was capable of.
Even with the limited technology, each artist’s style is distinct, though because of these
limitations they were still confined to the abstract.
The push towards computer-generated cartoons began when Nikolai Konstantinov led a group
of Soviet physicists to the creation of an animated cat walking, using mathematical equations.
A computer program would solve these equations and print out sheets of paper containing several
alphabet symbols that when filmed sequentially depicted the cat in motion.
In America, computer animation would be introduced to the mainstream through Scanimation, an
analog process used mainly for commercial purposes.
Developed in 1969, it was prominent throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s thanks to its ability
to create animation in real time.
Countless television commercials and openings featured animation made on Scanimate systems.
I find there is very something warm about Scanimation and given the popularity of Vapourware,
I don’t think I’m alone.
But even with advancements and exposure, to many, the idea of a “computer film” was
still novel.
Technology had not caught up with traditional animation in terms of story-telling, though
a major strive would be made with Peter Foldes’ 1974 short, Hunger.
Produced for the NFB, Hunger built upon Foldes’ previous film, Metadata, and its use of interpolation.
Interpolating, or morphing, is the act of animating the frames in-between key frames
to create a smooth transition.
In Hunger, Foldes uses this technique to transform a man consumed by gluttony.
The technology and minds responsible for the computer animation of today were developed
in the unlikely hub of Salt Lake City, Utah.
In 1965, David Evans founded the computer science department at the University of Utah
and in 1968 convinced Ivan Sutherland to join him there.
The two formed the computer firm Evans & Sutherland, and released Picture System, the first commercial
framebuffer, in 1974.
The firm’s staff was comprised of former students including Jim Clark, founder of Silicon
Graphics, Adobe co-founder John Warnock, and Edwin Catmull.
Like most of us, Ed Catmull was raised on the films of Walt Disney.
He aspired to be an animator but choose to pursue an education in science, believing
he didn’t have what it takes to make it in the entertainment industry.
While he was attending graduate school in Utah he studied under Sutherland and was introduced
to his Sketchpad program.
In this, Catmull saw the possibility of computer animated films similar to the ones he’d
grown up watching.
Over the next couple years he dedicated himself to creating a film.
Teaming up with Fred Parke, he would produce A Computer Animated Hand in 1972.
The film was made by mapping polygons on a plaster mold of Edwin’s left hand.
This information was inputed into a computer and outputted as lines.
This 3D model would be animated and shown three times during the film, first as wireframe,
then halftone and finally with smooth shading added in a precursor to another Catmull innovation,
texture mapping.
The hand went on to appear in the film Futureworld, becoming the first use of 3D computer graphics
in movies.
This is fitting, as the first use of computer animation had appeared in the prequel, Westworld
three years earlier.
Computers had been used to create film effects as early as John Whitney’s work on 2001:
A Space Odyssey.
Though no CGI was used, his motion control and slit-scan photography techniques made
the famous Star Gate sequence possible.
But the first film to fully embrace computer generated animation was George Lucas’
Star Wars.
In 1975 Lucas founded Industrial Light & Magic with a small team of artists and engineers
whose role was to create special effects for the film.
The success of Star Wars lead Lucas to expand the computer animation division within ILM
as he intended to increase its use in the sequel.
He contacted Triple-I, the team behind the effects for both Westworld and Futureworld,
who created this test reel of X-Wings flying in formation.
While impressive, this outsourcing proved to be too expensive and so he began searching
for people who could create similar work in-house.
His search lead him to the New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Laboratory.
NYIT had established the lab in 1974 with state of the art technology and employed industry
experts to run it.
Among them was Ed Catmull, who was offered and accepted a job with Lucasfilm in 1979.
In 1976, animator Steven Lisberger got an idea when he saw the video game Pong.
He imagined a warrior whose world was contained within the game.
This idea would become the film Tron.
Originally intended to be an animated film, computer scientist and Utah alumni Alan Kay
convinced Lisberger to instead use computer animation.
They enlisted the help of Triple-I and approached Disney with their test animations.
Disney had long been opposed to computer animation and were apprehensive about funding such an
ambitious project.
They would finance a test reel and agreed to produce after seeing the results.
The final look of Tron was a combination of live-action, back-lit and computer animation
that is still impressive today.
It was accomplished by filming in high-contrast black and white film with the actors acting
against a black background.
This footage was then placed over a light table and re-filmed several times frame by
frame using different colour filters, with the computer animation matted in.
The amount of work and resources that went into this is staggering.
Tron is a landmark in computer animation and the same could be said for everything we’ve
seen in this video.
This period very much feels like the breakthrough, the acceptance of computer animation by mainstream
audiences.
These are first steps towards a fully computer animated narrative and heights Edwin dreamt of.
If you enjoyed this video give us a thumbs up, please subscribe, and if you haven’t
go back and check out Part 1.
We also recently produced a video on the Hubleys if you’re looking for something a bit softer.
So check that out too.
As always I will post links to relevant material in the description and of course, thanks for
watching.