Let's talk about cartoons

For years, America has been inspired by the works of other countries. The Spanish music seen frequently in I Love Lucy stands as a testament to the importance of foreign concepts in American media. However, recently, there has been an increase in many western cartoons in "smoothness", so to speak. Older cartoons like the 1960's Spiderman show were very rigid, and motions were very sudden. This was due to an issue in art that Americans had long since figured out, and basically separates into two key terms: key frames and between frames.

Key frames are the planned poses for a character. For instance, in Titanic, there is a scene where the evil husband-to-be of the heroine flips a table. If someone were to animate that, key frames might include him bending over, his arms moving up to flip the table, and a neutral stance after the table flip is complete. This looks fine in drawings, but in animation this looks kind of jumpy.

The other aspect is in between frames. These occur between the key frames to grant a scene a more smooth appearance. While the key action of flipping a table is in place from the three pictures I have described, it looks kind of chunky, and the action lacks force unless the motion has more in between frames.

Older American shows would either meticulously hand-craft these frames at incredible price (like Snow White) or reduce the number of frames needed by using stiff poses and still frames with moving mouths (like He-Man), but regardless, in between frames are expensive. The answer, many people come to is to outsource the work overseas.

The following is the most entertaining explanation of this process. They are very open about involvement with other countries in the creation of in-between frames. This was published publicly by Disney studios, and produced by Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, two creators of a cartoon known more for its writing than smooth animation, Phineas and Ferb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UaOO7hyb4c

And here is an example of an in between frame. These are small pictures, frequently distorted, that allow characters to move from action to action without looking stiff or unusual.

You would never notice this picture in action, but it is nonetheless important to your subconscious appreciation of the scene, and it's thanks to a Chinese animation company that this is allowed.

The moral of this long-winded story is that even things that people assume are very American frequently aren't. Shouldn't we be excited to let people from countries that have helped shape the lives and entertainment of American children into our country?