Cel Animation - Text 6
There is much to say, however, about the choice of celluloid (the two inventors point out that any transparent material could be used), knowing that the earliest forays were made with nitrocellulose, the base material for films, before opting for cellulose triacetate,[4] a less inflammable material which also replaced nitrocellulose in film production (giving rise to safety film in 1934). Once again, however, this choice, which no doubt demonstrates in part a certain cinemacentric orientation, was initially not at all made for this reason, and constitutes a new illustration of how industrial methods chosen only for their profitability and practicality were adopted.
This invention also came out of an ever-increasing desire to divide up production tasks, as evidenced in the patent application:
the work of tracing the unchanging portions of the movable objects, as well as that of painting in the body of the objects within the contour sketched by the artist with opaque colors, may be done by an assistant since it does not require the originality, skill, or ability of the artist.[5]
One couldn’t be clearer about the ideological dimension presiding over these inventions, which privileged the mechanisation of production procedures to the detriment of any kind of artistry, reduced to its limited share (the work of the head animators). What is truly being aimed at is a form of gradual automatisation of animated drawing production, this time echoing, perhaps incidentally, the mechanical dimension of the camera. The choice of celluloid was an attempt to extend to animation the camera’s cold (and immediate) capturing of reality.
