History of British animation

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As in many areas of industry and culture a lot of British developments in animation have been employed around the world. This has always been balanced by an influx of talent to the UK, renowned animators like Len Lye (New Zealand), Lotte Reiniger (Germany), John Halas (Hungary), George Dunning and Richard Williams (Canada), Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton (USA) have all worked in the UK at various stages of their careers.

Animation is based on the phenomenon of 'persistence of vision', first identified in a paper by Peter Roget in 1824 for The British Royal Society called ‘The persistence of vision with regard to moving objects’.

In 1872, English San Francisco based photographer Eadward Muybridge started his series of sequential photographs of animals in motion. Books of his work are still widely used for reference by artists and animators.

In 1899 what many consider to be the first animation in film was made by Arthur Melbourne-Cooper of St Albans for the Bryant May match company. In ‘Matches Appeal’ stop frame puppets made of matches were filmed frame by frame as they wrote on a blackboard, six or seven years ahead of the animation pioneers in France and America.

By the 1930’s, as commercial animation was established in the USA, in the UK the creation of Government public information films from the GPO (Post Office) unit and later wartime and post-war information films allowed for greater experimentation than the more market driven work across the Atlantic. These short films led to an industry of animators with eye catching design styles and an ability to get a message across efficiently. Subsequently with the arrival of commercial television in the 1950’s the UK became one of the world’s leaders in animated commercials.

The later impact of the music and film industries as London became the heart of the ‘swinging sixties’ meant that pop culture created other markets and areas of influence for UK animation.

The 1980’s saw the emergence of Channel 4 on British television as one of the great supporters of animation, in its first fifteen years of existence at least. The channel gave great support to many animators working on the fringes, as well as global mainstream hits, and again boosted the idea of Britain as a centre for innovation in the form.

In the 1990’s Britain’s instinct for invention saw the emergence of the UK video games industry as one of the world’s largest and helped to establish its place in the forefront of the digital revolution. By the turn of the century the UK had become a world leader in digital animation and computer graphics.

The UK’s ability to consistently produce innovative and globally popular work in all main areas of the popular culture; pop music, television, film, fashion and interactive media, has helped UK animation stay at the cutting edge.