Traditional animation

Traditional animation, also known as cel animation, is a 2D animation production method in which characters and moving objects are inked and painted on transparent sheets called cels, which are layered over painted backgrounds and photographed one frame at a time.

Technique

The transparency of the cel, patented in 1914, let artists redraw only the moving elements of a scene rather than the entire frame, sharply reducing labor costs and allowing the method to scale from short cartoons to feature films. A typical production workflow involved storyboarding and timing, key animation drawn on paper, in-betweening by assistant animators, transfer of drawings to acetate cels, reverse-side painting in opaque gouache, registration over a painted background, and single-frame photography under a rostrum camera.

History

Walt Disney's studio industrialized cel animation into a factory-style production model, proving the viability of feature-length animation with Snow White in 1937 and pioneering the multiplane camera for added depth. United Productions of America (UPA) later popularized "limited animation" — using fewer unique drawings as a deliberate stylistic choice rather than purely to cut costs — which went on to influence American television cartoons and much of Japanese anime production, where weekly broadcast schedules made limited animation a practical necessity even as studios such as Studio Ghibli maintained higher-cost, fuller animation for theatrical releases.

Modern status

Physical cel production is now rare outside of art preservation and restoration work, but the underlying cel animation methodology survives as digital ink-and-paint workflows used throughout contemporary animation and advertising production.

See also

• Walt Disney
• Studio Ghibli
• UPA