Spanish animation

Spanish animation refers to animation made in Spain.

Short films[]

Silent era[]

Segundo de Chomón is considered the pioneer of Spanish animation, with the stop-motion shorts he made in France for Pathé starting with (1907).

An animated sequence within family footage on the First Communion of a child called Mercedes Cura is thought to be the first piece of animation made in Spain. For a long time (, 1917), which was lost, was considered the first Spanish animated production, but nowadays , also lost, is thought to date from 1915, and thus the centenary of Spanish animation was held in 2015.^[1]

They were immediately followed by other shorts, including political satires.^[2] Starting in 1917 with animated sketches were included in newsreels, and that same year Joaquín Xaudaró, the best known Spanish animator from the interwar period, made his first film, , and in 1920 he created the first Spanish sci-fi-themed animated film, .

In 1932 Xaudaró founded , the first animation production company in the country, and the directed its first film, , which turned out to be his last film as he died in 1933. The company outlived him briefly, producing three more films: , and . , a satire of the Second Republic's politics, was left unfinished. By then other cartoonists were experimenting with animation on their own, like José Escobar with .

Stop-motion was introduced in Spanish animation by in 1935, with and Españolada. It seemed to catch on, and three films (, and ) were created by different teams in the following year's first months, but the Civil War's outbreak put a halt to all animated productions.

Feature films[]

Classic era[]

Spain's first animated feature, Garbancito of La Mancha (1945), was the first European cel-animated and non-American color one, using Dufaycolor.^[3] It was a fairy tale where an orphan child loosely based in Don Quixote has to save his friends from a giant with the help of his fairy godmother and goat. Its production company, , made two more features: Happy Vacations (1948) and (1952).

Through the 1950 new companies were created. and produced the main features in subsequent stages of the Francoist era: The Wizard of Dreams (1966) and (1971). , a Moro animator, created his own studio and directed (1973), while Manuel García Ferré, who had moved to , created there features such as The Adventures of Hijitus (1973) and Trapito (1975).

At the later stages of this period underground animation took shape, including the first abstract direct cameraless feature ever, José Antonio Sistiaga's (1970), and during the transition to democracy the first Spanish feature restricted for adults was released: (1979).

Modern era[]

In the 1980s the feature production was diversified under the new autonomous system and films based in the local traditions were produced, such as (, 1985) in Euskadi and (Jordi Amorós, 1990) in Catalonia. "Katy The Caterpillar" (1984) was a coproduction with Mexico and (Cruz Delgado, 1988), spun a popular series, Los Trotamúsicos (1989), was the first animation film prized at the Goya Awards.^[4]

Feature production didn't make an impact for most of the 1990s, and only one Goya award was granted in the first half of the decade, for (Maite Ruiz de Austri, 1993). It was however a period of experimentation: (1997) was the first European CGI animation feature,^[5] and (, 1999) was the first Spanish stop-motion feature.

Production rose in the following years, and in 2000 four films competed for the Goya Award for the first time. (2001) was the first widely distributed CGI feature, but most films were made in traditional animation for the first half of the decade. While most of them were influenced by American animation, Gisaku (, 2005) was branded as the first Spanish anime feature^[6] and released at nearly the same time in Japan and Spain.

Contemporary era[]

From the second half of the 2000s CGI has been the dominating trend in family features. Many of them were co-productions with other countries, such as Great Britain in Kandor Graphics' The Missing Lynx (2008) and Justin and the Knights of Valour (2013). The most ambitious of these co-productions was Planet 51 (2009), with a $70 million budget. At the same time, Spanish animation co-produced foreign films such as Michel Ocelot's Azur and Asmar (2006).

Some of the most ambitious projects in more recent years were produced just in Spain with the backing of television networks, such as Mediaset in 's Tad, the Lost Explorer (2012) and Capture the Flag (2015). Meanwhile live-action directors Juan José Campanella and Javier Fesser entered the CGI animation field with Underdogs (2013) and Mortadelo and Filemon: Mission Implausible (2014) respectively.

Traditional animation is still used in adult projects. Chico and Rita (Fernando Trueba, 2010) won the European Award and was nominated for the Academy Award, while Wrinkles (, 2011) was nominated for the European Award and the Annie Award. Lastly, stop-motion has been used for horror features such as (, 2007) and (, 2012).

List of productions[]

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										Prized	Nomin.
Title	Release	R. time	Technique	Main animation studio	Director	Co-producers	Rating	Budget	Box office	Awards
										Goya	Euro	Oscar	Annie
Garbancito of La Mancha	1945-11-23	98 min.	Traditional		, A. Moreno			P3.1 million	P3 million
Happy Holidays	1948-12-27	73 min.	Traditional		, A. Moreno			P3 million	P1.3 million
	1950	75 min.	Traditional					P4 million
	1952-12-22		Traditional		,
The Wizard of Dreams	1966-12-16	70 min.	Traditional
	1969	80 min.	Traditional						P2.2 million
	1970	85 min.	Traditional						P2.5 million
	1970	75 min.	Drawn-on-film		José Antonio Sistiaga
	1971	78 min.	Traditional						P40 million
	1973-09-06	69 min.	Traditional
	1978	75 min.	Traditional
	1979-04-16	88 min.	Traditional
	1983-12-17	82 min.	Traditional					P100 million
	1985-07-15	69 min.	Traditional		,			P80 million
	1985-07-29	96 min.	Traditional
	1985	90 min.	Traditional
	1989-06-26	86 min.	Traditional						P20 million
Peraustrinia 2004	1990-04-06	75 min.	Traditional
	1990-12-05	75 min.	Traditional
	1992	69 min.	Traditional		, M. Ruiz de Austri,			P150 million
	1993	72 min.	Traditional		Maite Ruiz de Austri
	1997-12-19	85 min.	CG animation		,
	1998-06	68 min.	Traditional
	1998-09-04	69 min.	Traditional		Maite Ruiz de Austri
Goomer	1999-07-09	75 min.	Traditional		,
	1999-10	74 min.	Stop-motion					P48 million
	1999-12-15	70 min.	CG animation					P130 million
	2000-10-02	68 min.	Traditional		,			P130 million
	2000-12-01	78 min.	Traditional		,
	2001-08-03	82 min.	CG animation	Dygra	,			€3 million	€2 million
	2001-08-17	85 min.	Traditional
	2001-11-16	90 min.	Traditional		Luis Eduardo Aute
	2001-12-21	70 min.	Traditional		Maite Ruiz de Austri			P200 million
	2002-06-21	95 min.	Trad. / CG / live-action		,
	2002-08-14	80 min.	CG animation		Jesús M. Montané
	2002-11-29	80 min.	Traditional
	2002-12-20	80 min.	Traditional					€3 million
	2002	67 min.	CG animation
	2003-07-04	89 min.	Traditional					€1.2 million
	2003-10-31	71 min.	CG animation
El Cid: The Legend	2003-12-19	90 min.	Traditional					€8 million	€2.6 million
	2003-12-19	76 min.	Traditional	Animagic				€7.2 million	€2.3 million
Pinocchio 3000	2004-02-09	79 min.	CG animation	CinéGroupe				$12 million	$15 million
	2004-03-19	88 min.	CG animation
	2004-04-02	73 min.	Traditional		,			€1.2 million
	2004-12-01	79 min.	CG animation		,			€1.2 million
	2005	85 min.	Traditional	El Jueves
Gisaku	2005-03-04	81 min.	Traditional					€4 million	€133,000
	2005-03-09	80 min.	Traditional	BRB	Claudio Biern Boyd
Midsummer Dream	2005-07-01	98 min.	CG animation	Dygra	,			€6 million	€1.5 million
	2005-12-23	82 min.	CG animation					€1.3 million
	2006-04-07	90 min.	CG animation					€2.3 million [7]
	2006-12-29	70 min.	Traditional
	2007-01-19	75 min.	Traditional		Miguelanxo Prado			€1.5 million [8]

Television animation[]

Classic era[]

Animation first appeared at the Spanish television in commercials and spots. The most famous one was 's (1964), which was used to tell children it was time to go to bed. Its characters went on to star in the 1966 The Wizard of Dreams feature.

In 1968 former Estudios Moro animator created for TVE the first Spanish animated series, .^[9] One year before émigré animator Manuel García Ferré had created in Argentina the Hijitus series.

Modern era[]

Cruz Delgado's (1979–81) was the first large success in Spanish TV animation, which boosted in the following years. Co-productions were set, with Nippon Animation creating the animation for BRB Internacional's Ruy, the Little Cid (1979), Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (1981) and Around the World with Willy Fog (1984), while The World of David the Gnome (1985) was an international success.

References[]