Rosanne Suk, age 14, of St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada, for her question:
HOW ARE ANIMATED MOVIES MADE?
Walt Disney released the first full length animated cartoon motion picture ever made. The year was 1937 and the movie was called "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.'' It became one of the world's most popular films. Disney followed it with the popular "Pinocchio " in 1940, "Fantasia" that same year, " Dumbo " in 1941, "Bambi " in 1942, ''Cinderella'' in 1950 and "The Lady and the Tramp'' in 1955.
Animated movies are made by drawing a series of pictures, photographing them and then showing the sequence with a motion picture projector. A full length animated feature motion picture can require as many as a million separate drawings.
After a story is selected often based on a children's favorite fairy tale or classic book an outline is made on what is called a storyboard. Both writers and artists lay out the action of the script and decide how the action of the story will progress. The board looks very much like a gigantic comic strip.
Once the storyboard has been approved by the director and the top production people, the music and the dialogue of the motion picture are recorded. Music is composed to meet the demands of the action of the story.
The animated picture is then broken into scenes and artists and director determine how the settings will look and how each character will act and appear. Layout artists then draw the key elements while background artists and animators go to work in their areas.
Animators must create the exact number of drawings required to picture each word spoken. For a character to say ''cheers,'' for example, might require a total of eight frames. The animator must then make eight drawings in which the mouth moves in sequence to form the spoken word.
After the animator has completed his drawings, other artists trace them onto sheets of transparent celluloid that are called cels. The cels are then sent to artists in the painting department where just the right colors are added on the reverse side of each cel.
The final version of an animated movie that you finally see on a motion picture screen or on TV requires the teamwork of a lot of artistic people.
Completely painted animated cels are gathered into scenes and then sent to the studio's photo department. An exposure sheet tells the photographer just what cels and backgrounds are needed for each frame. After the individual cels are put on motion picture film, the sound track can be added and the movie is ready for viewing.
Nowadays all of this hand labor is accomplished by computers and programs for animation.