Independent animation
In America, working independent animators included Mary Ellen Bute,[1] John Whitney,[1] Harry Everett Smith[2][3] and Oskar Fischinger[1] alongside earlier efforts of what would later become UPA.
[20] In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica.
Other animators like Candy Kugel,[34] Jeff Scher,[35] Joanna Priestley, Kathy Rose, Suzan Pitt, Robert Swarthe, Vince Collins, Barrie Nelson, Eli Noyes, Sky David (aka Dennis Pies),[11] Steve Segal, Mike Jittlov,[36] Paul Fierlinger,[37] Adam Beckett, Lillian Schwartz, Larry Cuba and George Griffin also made experimental and personal animation during the mid- to late 1970s through the early- to mid-1980s.
Contemporary independent animators, including Steven Subotnick,[43] Bill Plympton,[44][45] Don Hertzfeldt,[46] Nina Paley[44] and PES[46] have also made work outside of the studio system.
In the late 1990s, an independent animated short film called The Spirit of Christmas was produced for under $2,000 by two artists, Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
and Barnyard[56] and Indiewood director Wes Anderson's first foray into animation territory: his 2009 stop motion adaptation of Roland Dahl's Fantastic Mr.
Annoying Orange, which started off as a series of viral quasi-CGI animated comedy shorts on YouTube, quickly gained a cult following and an excess of 100 million views online.
[72] Other notable animated indie efforts of the 2020s include Marcel the Shell with Shoes On,[73][74][75][76] Ninety-Five Senses,[77] Mad God,[78] War Is Over!
[81] Plum, a bisexual character, first appeared in the animated series, Bravest Warriors, a show which aired on Cartoon Hangover's YouTube channel from 2012 to 2018, as confirmed by her crushes and by writer Kate Leth.
The Rooster Teeth animated web series, RWBY, which began in 2013, features lesbian characters,[85][86][87] and a trans woman named May Marigold, voiced by Kdin Jenzen.
[88][89] Nomad of Nowhere, another RoosterTeeth show, released in 2018, featured a lesbian protagonist named Skout, who had a crush on Captain Toth, her superior.
[99][100] Yssa Badiola of Recorded by Arizal hosted a RTX panel, on September 21, 2020, and stated that there would be LGBTQ characters if a full season was ordered.
[105] Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman's Apprentice (2020), featuring Canadian Inuit characters, won Best Independent Short Film at the Festival Stop Montreal.
[112] The 2016 autobiographical stop-motion short Deer Flower, made by Los Angeles-based filmmaker Kangmin Kim, mines his childhood in South Korea for themes.
[121] Examples of French independent efforts include René Laloux's Cannes-winning Fantastic Planet (1973)[27] and Marjane Satrapi's own 2007 adaptation of her graphic novel Persepolis.
[122] Kōji Yamamura,[123] Masaaki Yuasa,[124][125] Yoji Kuri and Kihachiro Kawamoto have been prominently acclaimed Japanese independent animators known for their artistic qualities.
[132][133] Independent cel animation made in South Korea during the 1980s-90s included Lee Yong-bae's award-winning tale of Sleeping Buddha Wa-Bull (1994) and powerfully political efforts from Choe Jeong-hyeon.
[39] Estonian animator Priit Pärn is known for his crude drawings, dark humor and satirical absurdist tone on such films as Breakfast on the Grass (1988) and 1895 (1995; the latter spoofing cinema's impact on perceptions of history, identity and nationality filled with cinematic references, cultural stereotypes and inside jokes).
[158][159][160] Independent animated efforts from Israel include the aforementioned Waltz with Bashir[122] and Tal Kantor's 2023 Oscar-nominated short Letter to a Pig.
