Animation history 1980-1985

Animation history 1980-1985

Canada

 Gerald Potterton:

Created Heavy Metal (1981), which was an adaptation of an adult comic book. The film contained many psychedelic sci-fi themes that became iconic for the time period. Many of the human characters were rotoscoped.

Richard Condie

created The Big Snit (1985), which featured simple drawings, wobbly lines and a refusal to take things seriously.

Nelvana Studio:

Created Rock and Rule (1983), which had many similar themes to Heavy Metal (mostly the heavy emphasis on music and psychedelia) and was set in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by mutant animals

France

Paul Grimault:

Formed a small animation company with Andre Sarrut, where the The Shepherdess and the Chimneysweep started being made in 1948. When Grimault and Sarrut had a falling out, the film's production was halted, only starting up again when Grimault finally won the rights to the film in 1967. The film was retitled The King and the Mockingbird and finished in 1980 (32 years after production first started)

UK

 Dianne Jackson

 Created The Snowman in 1982, which was nominated for the 1983 Academy Award for best animated short film. The film seems to be traditionally animated using crayon, which still looks good to this day

Cosgrove Hall Productions 

Created The Wind in the Willows (1983), a stop-motion film detailing the lives of various animals in a fictional English location. It's success led to 52 episodes in a TV series and a second film A Tale of Two Toads (1989)

Gerald Scarfe

Created 15 minutes of animation for Pink Floyds The Wall (1982).

UK/USA

 John Halas

Created the short Dilemma (1981), following his work on Autoban (1979), and claims to be the first fully digitised CG film, although it is unclear how much was cel animation made to look like CG and how much was actually CG.

Canada/Germany

 Frederick Back

Made Crac! (1981) the story from the perception of a families' rocking chair, which was an early example of the pastel shaded look that became popular in the 1980s

Czech Republic

 Jan Svankmajer

created Dimensions of Dialogue (1982) and Alice (1988), which often incorporate stop-motion in the most horrifying way possible

UK/Canada

Steve Baron

Made music videos Money for Nothing (1985), which featured some primitive CGI animation, and A-Ha's Take On Me (1985), which features rotoscoped human characters animated in such a way that still holds up to this day.

Hollywood Blockbuster

The 1980's introduced High Concept films, which featured elements such as easily categorised characters, familiar simple plots, stylish and slick production qualities, aimed for broad mass appeal and a strong marketing team, which were responsible for film, video, TV and fast food promotions.

This period also popularised the clearly defined film genres (action, horror, fantasy etc.) as well as endless sequels