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How are cartoons made? |
Who loves to watch cartoons? How about animated movies? Did you know that cartoons, also called animations, are just a series of individual pictures? A whole bunch of single, still drawings are put together and shown sooooooo fast they look like they are moving.
It all starts with a story! Animators put together what is called a “story board” which is a series of big pictures that show what is going to happen in their cartoon. Then they have actors record the words that the animated characters are going to say. It's really important that the sound is recorded first, so that when the animators draw the pictures, the drawings match up with the voices! Otherwise, it would look kind of silly!
After that, they put together all of the individual pictures, add the sound, computers make it all move very fast and a cartoon is created! For every second of a cartoon, there can be up to 24 individual pictures being shown. Now imagine how many pictures it would take to create a whole movie! Wow! Now that's a lot of work!
Pictures Pages!
Now it's time to make your own cartoon with a flip book! Ask an adult for a small notebook or they can help you make one by stapling together some small pieces of paper.
Think of a story and a character you'd like to draw. Starting at the end of the book, draw a picture of your character and then make small changes to each new picture. For example, in the first picture draw a bunny. Next draw the bunny with a carrot, then add a flower and so on. Now flip through the pages from the back to the front and see your story take shape!