Animation Cels

The Forgotten History of the Animation Cel

In the world of animation, a single, hand-painted production cel from a classic film can fetch thousands of pounds these days. If you were to travel back in time, however to the 1970s or 80s, the animators would have had a different view. To them each cel was just a very small piece of a production. There were so many cels companies simply didn't know what to do with them all!

The story of the animation cel is a fascinating part of film history. The story of what was once seen as a mass-produced industrial component to a highly collectable piece of art.

The Industrial Age of Animation

For decades, animation was an assembly-line process. To create even a few minutes of film, studios had to produce thousands of individual paintings on clear sheets of cellulose acetate, known as Cels. Artists at studios like Disney and Warner Bros. who were using our own Chromacolour Animation Paints, worked at incredible speeds to meet theatrical release dates.

At the end of a production, studios were left with mountains of beautifully painted cels. They were bulky, difficult to store, and, once the final film was completed, they were considered obsolete.

The "Cel Party" Phenomenon

Rumour has it that studios would celebrate the completion of a production with a "Cel Party". The animators, inkers, and painters who had worked so hard on a film would use the studio floor as a playground. Legend has it that at various major studios, animators would take cels, often featuring the very characters they had spent months perfecting and spread them out all over the floor.

Because the triacetate sheets were incredibly slick and slippery they made great slip-and-slide "skating rinks". Animators would have great fun skidding across the cels, destroying wonderful works of art in the process.

Into the Skip: The Great Disposal

Once the parties were over and the studio needed to clear space for the next project, the reality of a lack of storage meant that the majority of cels were distained for landfill.

There was no digital archival process, and renting warehouse space for thousands of sheets of artwork simply wasn't cost-effective for a business model focused on the next theatrical release. Consequently, the vast majority of production cels were unceremoniously binned.

From Waste to Treasure

This systematic disposal is precisely why the few cels that did survive are so incredibly valuable today.

Most of the "vintage" cels you see in galleries or private collections survived only because:

• Generosity: An animator snuck a stack of cels out the back door to give to their children or friends.

• The "Art Corner": Some studios eventually opened "Art Corners" or shops where they sold cels cheaply to tourists, mainly to recoup the cost of the materials.

• Preservationists: A handful of production assistants or archivists recognised the beauty of the work and rescued what they could from the skip.

When you look at a hand-painted cel today, you aren't just looking at a cartoon character. You are looking at a survivor! Each cel is a unique, tangible piece of history that was never meant to last. Thankfully, those that were saved from the skip have been elevated to the status of fine art.