| Chinese animation enjoys a history of almost one hundred years. It showed a strong artistic creativity from the very beginning since the Shuzhendong Chinese Typewriter in 1926. Under very difficult conditions where the equipment was obsolete and the technology was blocked, Wan Brothers created the Princess Iron Fan in 1941, which was on a par with the animation of the United States Disney, and became the first overseas animation broadcasted in Japan. With the support of the government, Shanghai Arts and Film Studio was established after the foundation of the P.R.C. where many contemporary big name artists were concentrated in the animation creation, bringing about a number of animation classics, such as Little Tadpole Looks for Mamma, The Proud General, and Havoc in Heaven. The water-and-ink animation of this period won a high honor in the world, and was referred to as the heyday of the "School of Chinese Animation". As the 10 years’ calamity of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese animation almost remained stagnant. After reopening the national college entrance examination in 1978, China began to cultivate animation talents in a large scale. Due to the protection of the "contract for output and sales quota" policy, Shanghai Arts and Film Studio could not resist the impact of foreign animated series, then gradually lost its vitality in the market. The Lotus Lantern in 1999 is a representative of Chinese animated films fully transited to the market. Afterwards, with the model of developing film audiences by animated series, Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf and Boonie Bears respectively broke the Chinese New Year animated film box office records in 2009 and 2014. The Chinese animated film began a full recovery henceforth.With the analysis procedure of combining the animation theory with the creative practice, this article compares and sorts out animation creation in different cultural areas and time backgrounds. It sums up different development stages of Chinese animated film from the beginning, prosperity, weakness, to recovery, longitudinally summarizes the Chinese animated films in different periods, and horizontally compares the animated films from different countries in different cultural backgrounds under the same period of time.The analysis and comparison of animation creation are conducted under the large environment of Culture and history, combining with China’s political system. This article analyzes the differences of animation business, animation education and animation industry in different periods of economic system; makes the research through the intrinsic relations between the animation form and the content; compares the same text creation of Chinese and foreign animated films; compares differences and development between the traditional animation production and the current computer animation production; compares the evolution and development of Chinese and foreign animation education. The new characteristics of the animation, comics and games of the new media in the internet age reflected in movies as well as their influences on the traditional animated films are covered in the studies of this article on Chinese animated films in a comparative perspective.This article also historically sorts out the animation creation theories and the application of animation technologies, and elaborates the theories and genres that have initially developed and made certain influences:for an example the analysis of the origin, foundation and development of the "Chinese animation schools" and the "nationalization" of Chinese animated films, and the analysis of the "relationship between the technology and art" of the animation. Through the analysis of the cause to the weak domestic animation creation, this article explores how to make the Chinese animated films go abroad and get recognized in overseas markets. Combining the animation threads and cultural backgrounds in various stages in the history, this article looks into the future development trend of Chinese animation. |
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