Heroes of Animation: Then and Now

Terry Gilliam (Pre- Digital era)

Terry Gilliam was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota United States in 1940. 
In 1952 Gilliam's family moved to Los Angeles, neighbourhood of Panorama City and he attended Birmingham high school where h was class president and he also achieved straight A's.
In 1962 he graduated from Occidental College with Bachelor of Art in Political Science.

In his twenties he worked on a British TV comedy show called Monty Pythons flying circus and since then he has directed huge films like the fisher king (1991), fear and loathing in, Las Vegas (1998) and Brazil (1985).

Many of the Monty Pythons flying circus sketches were linked together by cut out animations of Terry Gilliam's, he combined high art with images cut out from old catalogues and magazines. 

Terry Gilliam's key distinctive features of his animation is that he use his own art in his animations e.g. foot squash, jointed bodies and jointed mouth. 

This is one clip of Terry Gilliam's animations:

The Miracle of Flight (1974)

In this clip starts off with birds flying around and ever since a Man first saw it, he had a desire to fly.

After we see several attempts of people attempting to fly themselves. A shepherd attempts flying by flapping his wings, only to land on top of his sheep. Another man constructs a suit shaped like a bird to fly, only to crash upon leaping off a cliff. Two more try and also fall off the cliff (one has himself covered in tar and bird feathers, and another flattens his arms, so he can merely glide)

A man uses seagulls to lift him up into the air. From below, people watch in astonishment, while one elderly woman throws bread crumbs on the pavement, muttering, "Naughty birdies." This ends the man's flight, as the gulls dive to the ground.

300 years later, a man invents the airline ticket. Other people invent various items essential to air travel, such as stewardesses, in-flight movies, and the air terminal.

The last scene shows a man goes through the airport check-in, handing his boarding pass to a stewardess, and heads off on his flight... which is getting kicked off the same high cliff where the king kicked off all his scientists several years ago. The short ends with the line "Nope. Still not got it."

Tim Burton (Post digital)

Tim Burton was born in Burbank, California, United States in 1958.
As a pre-teen Burton would make short films in his backyard, using stop motion animation techniques (one of his oldest known films is The Island of Doctor Agor, that he made when he was 13 years old). 
He studied at Burbank High School and after graduating from there he attended the California Institute of the Art in Valencia, California, to study character animation. As a student he made the shorts Stalk of the Celey Monster and King and Octopous. 

Stalk of the Celery Monster attracted the attention of Walt Disney Productions' animation department, which offered Burton an animator's apprenticeship at the studio.He worked as an animator, storyboard artist and concept artist on films such as The Fox and the Hound (1981), The Black Cauldron and Tron but his concept art never made it into the finished films. At Disney in 1982, Burton made his first short, Vincent, a six-minute black-and-white.

Tim Burton's key distinctive features of his animation are:

• Monsters-  thing that goes bump in the night. Hardly ever the main character or real menace, these monsters are built to threaten
•  Punky Rebellious Young Lady- misunderstood ladies trapped in a world of their own
• Skittish Outcast- he has built his entire career on the twitchy outcast

This is a clip of Tim Burton''s movie animations

Corpse Bride (2005)

In this movie it starts off in an unspecified Victorian-era village. Victor Van Dortand Victoria Everglot, are preparing for their arranged marriage. After Victor ruins the wedding rehearsal, he runs away and practices his wedding vows in the nearby forest, placing the wedding ring on a nearby upturned tree root. The root turns out to be the finger of a murdered woman in a tattered bridal gown, who rises from the grave claiming that she is now Victor's wife. 

In order for their marriage to become valid, Victor must repeat his vows drink the Wine of Ages (a poison). 

Victoria follows them to the church. Emily notices Victoria and as Victor prepares to drink the cup of poison to kill himself, Emily stops him and reunites him with Victoria.

She sets Victor free of his vow to marry her, giving the wedding ring back to Victor and her wedding bouquet to Victoria before exiting the church finding peace. As Victor and Victoria look on wrapped in each other's embrace.