Breadwinners: Animation

The earliest animations recorded are argued to be as cave paintings, then later examples are seen from ancient Egypt, Iran and China.  The first animation ever recorded was in 1900 called the Enchanted Drawing and was regarded in those days as black magic and witchcraft.

These days animation is a daily viewing.  It is seen in adverts, children's channels, as adult cartoons and on the big screen.  Breadwinners is a regular animation in my home.  My ten year old enjoys watching it very much and I often hear her laughing...loudly, while watching.

 

 

This animation is screened on Nickelodeon's Nicktoons and it's primary audience are children even though as an adult I enjoy it very much too. James (2014) for the New York Times explains, Breadwinners is a cartoon about two ducks, SwaySway and Bubdeuce who are best friends.  Their job; delivering bread in a rocket fuelled van, comes with mishap and mayhem but stands to deliver an underlying message the they"always deliver and never give up."

 

Animator Gary (Doodles) DiRaffaelle and writer Steve Borst invented Breadwinners in a Studio City apartment dubbed 'The Doodle Chamber' in 2013 and was aired for the first time in February 2014. Milligan (2014) for Animation Magazine states that the animators use 2D animation using digital technology giving it a retro video game experience, producing a fresh new concept in cartooning.

This is a long way away from animations from the past.  If we reflect upon one of the earlier popular cartoons, Mickey Mouse we can see a huge difference in technique and quality.  However in its day it was considered ground-breaking.

 

 

Walt Disney's first animation with sound was Steamboat Willie and was first shown November 18th 1928 and is a primary example of stop motion animation.  You can see just by viewing this cartoon how animation has changed with the invention of new technologies in the past 86 years since this Mickey Mouse animation. Dialogue was minimal when making Steamboat Willie as pairing sound with animation was extremely primitive.  The animation itself was drawn frame by frame to coincide with  the tempo, beat and dialogue and was incorporated onto the film itself and not separately as was the norm; the first sound on film technology of its kind.

 

Walt Disney was argued to have found himself bankrupt having to sell his car to pay for Steamboat Willie to be made and was turned down at first, whereas  DiRaffaelle used technology himself and uploaded his pilot Breadwinners onto You Tube where it was noticed by Nickelodeon; a very different start for both. You can also see that the subject matter is completely different revealing how much the tastes of children and what is allowed to be viewed on television these days is worlds away from each other.  Mickey Mouse can regarded as a wholesome innocent cartoon, however the Breadwinners collect bodily excretions!  But without the work of pioneers like Walt Disney would we have the animation we have today?