It was 1928 when it was shown to the world Fantasmagorie, the very first cartoon. It was a silent film, in fact, the sound arrived 20 years later in a Mickey Mouse short.
However, the real Golden Age of cartoons started at the beginning of the ’30s with Warner Bros shorts and their silly and funny Looney Tunes.
In 1937, there was a turning point in Animation history: Snowwhite and the seven dwarves by Walt Disney, the first animated film in technicolor, animated frame by frame, won a special Oscar and obtained a star on the Walk of Fame.
Fluid, innovative, and a pleasure for the eyes thank its bright colors and the dubbing, this film signed a new era of cartoons and paved the way for the next 50 years.
In 1995, Toy Story launched computer animation.
What about now?
2021 is an interesting period for all aspiring animators.
First of all, thank the new technologies and tools it’s possible now even for a single creator, as we have seen in the previous articles, to make real their animated dreams all by themselves.
There are many animation software and devices that will help you to create a cartoon with a low budget but with high qualities results. All you need is your imagination.
Are you still a beginner? No worries.
You will find online courses, labs in every city, Youtube tutorials that will help you to improve your skills.
But especially, there are several social networks to make you known and raise funds, and also a social background that makes the standards less Hollywoodian and more inclusive, sensitive, and real.
It’s a sector more and more oriented to adults, with complex narrations and emotive issues.
However, the most important suggestion that we want to give you is not to miss festivals.
Festivals are essential if you want to be part of this sector since they give immediate knowledge, increase curiosity, allow you to discover mostly unknown works, and meet professionals, staff members, and other animation lovers.
Through festivals, you can get a sense of the trends and ideas, a sense of how it works the animation world, and also you can receive some good advice on how to be supported. But the most important thing that you will find at a festival is the inspiration and the desire to be better.
Hence, the Sardinia Film Festival 2021 is the ideal place where you can find all of these things at the same time. The Festival has a partnership with the main companies in the sector (PAFF of Udine, CARTOON Italia, Animayo Spain, Czech Republic Institute of Culture, Polish Institute in Rome, Fondazione di Sardegna, Fondazione Sardegna Film Commission), and during its days you will see niche works and meeting with renowned authors.
ph. A scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), by Walt Disney.