Abstract：American animations are notable with their vast investment, exquisite production, sophisticated marketing skill and enormous attraction. As a result, American animations undoubtedly attain high level of global popularity, which also gain smash hits in box office. Chinese animations considerably pale in comparison, in terms of investment, production and marketing. Content creation further sees the contrast between American and Chinese animations. Firstly, American animations are fairly good at incorporating cultural resources from all around the world. Secondly, American animations’ sense of humour too often lies in the base of much focus on humanity. Thirdly, Amerian animations cover their targeted audiences of different age groups. From American animators’ viewpoint, animations are never merely intended for underage children. Fourthly, characters in American animations usually come with very personalizational and multidimensional traits, which leaves the audience very profound impressions. However, Chinese animations are subject to the restrictions from China’s cultural tradditions, and turn out to be lack of creativity in story telling. What’s more, Chinese animations are almost accustomed to attaching persistent education, which leads up to drains of the huge potential audience. All in all, the content creation of American animations set an excellent example for Chinese animation improvement.  

Keywords: American animations; Chinese animations; creativity; originality; cultural incorporation; characterazition of multidimension

Contents

摘要

Abstract

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

Chapter 2 History of American Animation-3

2.1 Overall View-3

2.2 Animation during the Silent Era (1900s through 1920s)-3

2.3 Animation Golden Age(1920s through 1950s)-3

2.4 Animation in the Television Era(1930s through 1980s)-4

2.5 Modern Animation(1980s through present)-4

Chapter 3 History of Chinese Animation-5

Chapter 4 Advantage in Chinese Animation Content Creation-7

4.1 Advantage from Traditional Culture: Originality-7

4.2 Advantage from Traditional Culture: Thought-7

Chapter 5 Problems in Chinese Animation Content Creation-9

5.1 The Originality Problem-9

5.2 The Incorporation Problem-9

5.3 The Positioning Problem-9

5.4 The Education Problem-10

5.5 The Characterization Problem-10

Chapter 6 What Can We Learn from American Animation Content Creation?-11

6.1 Originality Exploration-11

6.2 Global Incorporation-11

6.3 Audience of Diversity-11

6.4 Themes of Diversity-12

6.5 Character Multidimension-12

Chapter 7 Conclusion-13

References-15

Acknowledgements-16