‘Growth of a Nation’ is a free ten minute animated movie which depicts the geographic history of the United States from 1789. The oldest known world maps date back to ancient Babylon from the 9th century BC.
Map animation is a sub-set of conceptual animation. Conceptual animation visualizes thoughts. It can be used to augment and facilitate verbal or written language. What character animation is to the fiction film, conceptual animation is to the documentary film. Due to the tremendous labor involved in traditional animation techniques, conceptual animation has a spare history. But the computer is changing this. Through increasingly more powerful computer graphics and animation programs, both in two and three dimensions, it is now economically feasible to incorporate conceptual animation in educational products. With the computer, animation can be a real-time process. The computer has also allowed the development of multimedia, where links can connect material in a variety of ways, allowing the user to explore an area on a path of their own making. The use of geography in map animation is similar to an historical atlas.
The “Growth of a Nation” Narration begins the history lesson, as the original thirteen United States clung to the Atlantic coast. The map boldly follows with depicting glow where in 1803, when President Thomas Jefferson purchased Louisiana from France, doubling the size of the new nation, the location of all the new states of Vermont in New England, Kentucky, and Ohio. Continuing on showing the timeline as well as clearly marking the rivers the Animated Atlas then colorfully expands on The Civil War. Ten minute film was written, produced and narrated by Peter Mays. And they have an enhanced version available for sale. Peter Mays Lives in Santa Monica.
Did you know that the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 completed the territory of the continental United States? See what else you can learn at Animated Atlas.
Image and Flash Animation: Animated Atlas