Study of Christmas animation

1. How did they do the animation?

2. How effective is the use of colour and sound?

3. What stereotypes were used and are they acceptable?



Mog's Christmas


Santa's Workshop

Walt Disney animated it using pen to sketch out each frame. Then using Technicolour to colour in the frames. For the time this was very advanced. The colours are somewhat muted compared to modern day animation, the lip-synch was out due to the way it was animated and produced. They recycled several scenes and sound clips probably to keep the budget down. There was quite a few stereotypes such as one of the toys (who was black) stamped the OK stamp without Santa doing it for him. This symbolises for the time doing something without being asked.

The Night Before Christmas

They drew the characters and the backgrounds separately and overlaid it. They also used pen to sketch out each character and setting. There was not as much sound effects as the first one for example when Santa fell down the chimney and brushed off the soot there was no sound effect for that.

Santa Claus Is Coming

The animation was done using probably Flash because the lines were too smooth and intricate to be done using hand-drawn methods. The sound of this animation was good because before she saw Santa it was a typical Christmas backing track then when she actually saw Santa they twisted and sped up an alternative Christmas backing track. In all of these animations, the main character is always Caucasian which is the typical stereotypical view of the Christmas main character. I think this is down to being Victorian Christmas views.

Christmas Comes But Once A Year

I think the 3D animation segments at the start and the end with early stop-motion and a physical model.