Cel Animation

An example of Cel-based animation
[Looney Toons - Bugs Bunny]

Cel-based Animation

Cel-based animation is where each cell is reproduced and variations are made to the next cell. This continues until there is a series of cells. Each cell is slightly different from the previous. It gives the appearance of movement, thus animation. Cel animation is incredibly time consuming and requires incredible organisation and attention to detail.

After you think of your idea, a storyboard is now created to visually communicate the story to your production team. An animatic is then created to see how the film's timing will work out. Once both the story and timing is approved, the artists then go to work to create backgrounds and characters that they think fit 'the look' they're going for. The actors then record their lines and the animators use the vocal track to sync the lip movements of the characters in the film. The director uses the sound track and animatic to work the timing of the movement, sounds and scenes out.

Each frame is normally drawn by hand or the animator can draw main frames and then another person can draw the 'in-betweens'. 

The advantages of cel-animation is that lots of people still enjoy watching them because majority of people grew up watching films/TV shows which are based around cel-animation such as Disney Classic films, Betty Boop, Pop-Eye etc. The people who grow up watching these kind of cel-animation based movies/TV shows will then show their children/grandchildren and everyone will enjoy watching them because they are old time classics that will never get old.
 Another advantage would be the outcome of the animation. It can look more crisp and clean than other types of animation and they can also look more detailed than others as well.

However, a disadvantage for cel-animation would be the fact that creating a film or a TV show would be very time consuming. This is due to the huge amount of frames and drawings needed for this kind of animation. Because of cel-animation being so time consuming this will mean that it is more expensive to produce cel-animation.
If you are making a film with cel-animation you would also need a lot of animators because it can take years to create a film, for example, it took Disney 5 years to create the animation for Sleeping Beauty which would have been very expensive.

Examples of Cel Animation:

Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty [1959]:

Sleeping Beauty was released in 1959 and was produced by Walt Disney. It was the 16th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classic series. Sleeping Beauty spent nearly the entire decade of the 1950s in production and then the story work began in 1951, voices were recorded in 1952, animation production took from 1953 until 1958. 

This film was the last animated film to use hand-inked cels. 

Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo, Where are you! [1969]:

Hanna-Barbera was one of the first animation studios that successfully produced cartoons, especially for television. One of their successful TV shows was Scooby-Doo, Where are you! This was created in 1969 and it was a CBS program which was a blend of the elements of Hanna-Barbera comedy programs, action shows and live-action sitcom. The series would about 4 teenagers and their dog, Scooby and they would go round solving supernatural mysteries.

Max Fliescher's Popeye the Sailor [1933] & Betty Boop (Banned for drug use) [1934]:

Popeye the sailor is a 1933 animated short that was produced by Fleischer Studios. During this short film, Betty Boop makes a short appearance. This was Popeye's first animated appearance. Popeye was first created in 1929 as a cartoon fictional character. 

Betty Boop was the first female cartoon star, and she made her debut in 1930. She was the girlfriend of an unpopular character named Bimbo who starred in Dizzy Dashes. Soon after Dizzy Dashes, Betty Boop had her own series.

The video is an example of one of the episodes of Betty Boop's series. This clip was later banned because it had the use of drugs in the clip such as laughing gas. This episode was also starring a character called Koko the clown who was Betty Boop's regular sidekick.