I didn’t think that drawings made in caves and early wall paintings could be counted as animations but after seeing how they incorporate motion into their works and comparing it to later animations, it’s all animations, regardless of how rudimentary they are.

One of the most interesting parts of animation has to be the early animation devices used to simulate the movement of images, specifically the zoetrope. Before you even told us about the train passing through an underground passage that produced the same effect, it was already in my head. I had seen that a lot growing up and I was always fascinated by it; it made my commute fun and I am always on the lookout for different trains that can show me a similar view.

One of my favorite pieces is Steamboat Willie. Other than the fact that was Mickey Mouse’s debut, it was also a groundbreaking film as it included sound effects that synched up with the animation itself. It’s something that we take for granted now, considering this is standard for all videos and film, but Steamboat Willie was the piece that started all of this and is the reason why we have what we have now. In my head, I imagined this film in black & white with no sounds, black & white with sounds, in color with no sounds, and in color with sounds. Personally, I found that each one gave me different vibes even though they all essentially contained the same content. That goes to show how eventful the addition of sound was back then. The inclusion of color was also an incredibly visually stunning aspect, as you can see with Fantasia.

Logorama also drew my attention which was surprising. I thought I didn’t like those types of animation, but I was so interested in it. Maybe it was the fact that everything was a logo. In every scene, there would be a new logo and I would think “Oh, I recognize that”. It was just very visually appealing to me.

The few pieces that I did NOT enjoy were Op Hop – Hop Op and Mothlight. These were the two pieces that stood out to me the most in a negative way. Both were very “flashy” and it made my eyes hurt. I always try to look deeper and try to understand what the artist might have wanted to say with their work but unfortunately, I could not do that with these 2 animations.