History of animation

Animation techniques were first seen in Paleolithic cave drawings,

however the history of animation didnt really begin until centuries later;
Joseph Plateau was one of the first people to demonstrate the illusion of
movement with the invention of the Phenakistoscope in 1832. The
phenakistoscope used a spinning disc attached to a handle, arrayed
around the centre were a series of drawings showing phases of the
animation. When the disc was rotated at the correct speed, the
synchronization of the windows with the images created an animated
effect.
Another device that showed early animation was the Zoetrope. The early
version of the Zoetrope which was first invented in 180 AD in China by
Ding Huan. It was developed and changed into the modern Zoetrope
(wheel of life) by William George Horner in 1834.
The Zoetrope is an open cylinder with slits on the side of the cylinder.
Inside the cylinder is a band of frame by frame drawings, when spun the
rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion which lets the
viewer see a small animation.
This is due to the phenomenon known as persistence of vision. Peter
Roget wrote a paper about this effect in 1620 is when a strip of images if
viewed by the human eye at a certain rate at 1/20th of a second after the
image is gone, the viewer will see it as an animation. Images appear and
disappear giving the illusion of movement. Another term used when
talking about animation is the term frame-rate. This means how fast the
set of images moves per second. The optimum speed for frame rates for
film should be 60fps normally. The frame rate can effect the speed of a
film or video game as anything below 24fps will cause video lag.
Later on in the 1860s was the invention of the Praxinoscope by CharlesEmile Reynaud in 1877; it works in a similar mechanism to the Zoetrope
however it improved as instead of narrow slits so that the reflections of
the pictures remained in position as the wheel turned, mirrors are used to
create the illusion of animation with a brighter and less distorted than the
zoetrope.
The Zoopraxinoscope invented in 1879 by photographic pioneer Edward
Muybridge, the Zoopraxiscope an adaption of the zoetrope, projected
images on from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to give the
impression of motion.
This was the inspiration for the Kinetoscope developed by William
Kennedy Dickson and Thomas Edison in 1889, the Kinetoscope was an
early motion-picture animation device, people would able to view
animations through a peephole viewer. It worked by conveying a strip of

perforated film with sequential images over a light source with a high
speed shutter.
Other methods of showing animation were developed as toys for children,
the Thaumatrope developed in the 1820s as made of 2 pieces of paper
and string two images were placed back to back and threaded together as
its spinning the series of quick flashes gives the illusion of combining
images.
One of the first animated films Humorous Phases of Funny Faces in 1906
by Stuart Blackton. The film was made by drawing each frame of the film
on a chalk board and taking an image of it, these images where then
compiled in to one film that lasted for 3 minutes. The film ran at 20
frames a second. Animated films using early forms of hand drawn
animation such as Fantasmagorie was released in 1908 by Emile Cohl, and
is considered one of the earliest forms of hand drawn animation.
Winston Mckay who is known as the father of animation in America
created a cartoon character named Gertie the dinosaur in 1914. Gertie
wasnt the first character in a animated film however the character had
personality and moved in a more naturalistic style than other characters.
After this, a new animation technique called rotoscoping was developed
in1915 by Max Fleischer, called rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is the process of
manually altering film or video footage one frame at a time. The frames
can be painted on arbitrarily to create custom animated effects like
lightning or light-sabres, or traced to create realistic traditional style
animation or to produce hold-out mattes for compositing elements in a
scene. The Fleischer brothers Max and Dave created several famous
cartoon characters Popeye and Betty boop, his first character Koko the
clown was made using rotoscoping techniques.
In 1920, another one of the first animated characters to actually be seen
in mainstream media Felix the cat created by Otto Mesmer.
Cel animation was a new technique in which the frames of a traditionally
animated movie are hand-drawn. The drawings are traced or copied onto
transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are then placed over a
painted background and photographed one by one on a rostrum camera.
This process was developed by Earl Hurd.
With the rise of Cel animation, Walt Disney founds Disney studios in the
1920s and advances Cel animation with the 1928 animated film
Steamboat willie, which featured Mickey Mouse, one of the most popular
characters in animation. This film was an instant success and was the
first film to feature animation and sound. Disney studios became one of

the most influential companies in animation in the world, many of its

famous films are widely known such as the Lion king, Bambi and Snow
white and Seven dwarves, also Pinocchio the first fully animated film.
Another company founded in 1927 by Albert Harry, Sam and Jack Warner.
Warner brothers specialised in animation however a lot of its cartoons and
films had quite mature humour and unlike Disney did not target just young
children with its cartoons, some of its animators, Tex Avery, Leon
Schlesinger created some of the most iconic animated cartoon characters
in history such as Bugs bunny, Daffy duck and the road runner. It
introduced these characters in a series of animated shorts Looney tunes
in 1930.

Stop motion
Stop motion animation was a new form of animation which involved
manipulating specific objects to appear to move independently. Various
forms of stop motion animation are Claymation, toymation,
Pixilation/cutouts and puppetry.
One of the first stop motion films like George Melieres Trip to the moon in
1906.
Later on filmmakers such as Willis OBrien and Ray Harryhausen used
various techniques such as Puppetry and claymation in their films such as
King Kong (Obrien), Jason and the Argonauts (1953) and The Lost world.
Another film that Harryhausen worked on independently was Clash of the
titans in 1981.
Later in the 1980s Jan Svankjmayer used stop-motion specifically
claymation and pixilation in his films such as Alice in wonderland. In the
1980s and 90s the Quay brothers used puppetry and cut-out animation,
their films include Anamorphosis (1983) and Street of crocodiles (1989).
Towards the end of the 20th century Stop motion animation was being
phased out in favour of 3D CGI animation which was cheaper to produce,
however many studios still use 3d stop motion in their films, such as Laika
studios founded in 2005 has made several films using many different
techniques of stop motion, one of their directors Henry Selick in 2009
helped create Coraline, they have also created many others such as
Paranorman and the Corpse bride which was directed by Tim Burton a key
figure in stop-motion animation
Techniques
Pixillation is a form of animation which simulates live-action film, but uses
stop motion techniques. In stop motion, one takes still images of

inanimate objects, from a stationary camera. By moving the objects

slightly with each picture and streaming the pictures together, one can
give the illusion that the object is moving on it's own. Norman Maclaren
was inspired by the films of Sergei Eisenstein to employ pixilation
techniques, One of his famous films which was nominated for an Oscar
was the 1952 film Neighbors.
Claymation a technique where each object is sculpted in clay or a similarly
pliable material such as Plasticine, usually around a wire skeleton called
an armature. It is one of the most time-consuming forms of animation as
about 12 changes are needed for 1 second of film movement. Aardman
animations founded in 1972 uses Claymation in their animated films such
as Wallace and Gromit created by Nick Park. Another example of this
technique is Will Vintons work such as Closed Mondays.
Puppetry is used in making short films and animations, digital puppetry is
the manipulation of digitally animated 2d or 3d figures, objects in a virtual
environment that are rendered by computers. Some examples of puppetry
used in film is Novya Gulliver in 1935 made in the USSR.
Toymation is when the animator uses a lego or action figure as the model
used for animation. Some examples of Toymation used in TV was the
Belgian animated short Town called Panic. However it is not that
frequently used in stop motion animation due to some animators not
thinking it of a proper art form.
Cutout animation is a stop motion technique in which the animation is
produced using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut out from
materials such as cardboard. An example of cutout animation in TV is the
animated cartoon South Park.
Forms
Stopmotion animation is used in many different forms of media such as in
TV advertising such as Evian. music videos, video games and films, an
example of its use in TV would be some of the idents of various TV
networks such as Cartoon network or Channel 4. Also, some tv shows
made use of Claymation such as Gumby (1973) and Morel Orel.
Some of the first video games to use stop motion animation was Magic
and mayhem in 1998, the creatures in game were created by Alan Friswell
and inspired by the stop motion animations of Willis Obrien and Ray
Harryhausen.

Bibliography:
M. Zagzoug, 2001, The history of anime and manga Available from:
http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/evans/his135/Events/Anime62/Anime62.htm
l
Accessed January 2015
J Tharmson 2011, History of animation
http://www.slideshare.net/JefferyThamsorn/history-of-animation-7618431?
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Accessed January 2015
Ksumatarted, 2012 Animation timeline
Available from:
http://www.slideshare.net/ksumatarted/history-of-animation-basic?related=2

Accessed January 2015