Animation History

This is a beautiful, and very quick, potted history of stop motion animation. There are some key points in the history of stop motion and some key figures too, look out for them. The simple backgrounds and cut outs are quite straightforward to do.




So, more into the history of Animation. This is a slightly longer version of the history of animation. The guy reading it does a decent job, but you might want to put a bit of music on just to help his voice along. This is good for the history basics and shows lots of the early animations.



And look, I worked out how to embed code!

LETS GO FURTHER BACK.

Lets go right back to the place where one man discovered you fool the eyes, and make them believe they were watching a moving image. Joesph Plateau, a scientist, discovered this using a phenakistoscope.

To do this he used counter rotating disks with repeating drawn images in small increments of motion on one and regularly spaced slits in the other.

Here's one, modern day version, but you get the idea.



Another early technique worth nothing is the thaumatrope.



Here's someone using the same principle in a very nice and simple way.



PERSISTENCE OF VISION

This is a short video which explains what persistence of vision is and why it is important to animators and filmmakers alike.

I suppose I wonder what can young filmmakers actually learn from looking at this historical stuff, from looking at the development of the medium they're being asked to work in.

No-one can answer that for you.  Personally I find it interesting and it also sparks my imagination to watch the old, early animations.  Even with the most simpliest technologies they still managed to tell interesting stories, usually without any dialogue, which in a sense makes them a purer form of animation - or so you could argue.

That's one benefit then, looking at the stories they created from nothing, and at the birth of the medium. 

Another one is the type of stories they told.  Although animation has become more complex, these pioneers teach us that simple is best. 

One error, the device the man is using is not a zoetrope, but a thaumatrope!



Modern day use of persistence of vision.

This is class. This guy designed a device which, using persistence of vision, makes 3D objects.

Give him a minute or so to get into it, to wait to see hows it done.



The Big Hitters

James Stewart Blackton. Go look up his history. It makes for interesting reading. His first film, inspired by Edison's Projector and first films, is a development of a technique he had tried for theatre, but failed.

The enchanted drawing is considered one of the first 'stop frame' films in the history of animation and stop motion animation.




His next film, Humorous phases of funny faces, uses more stop motion (as well as just basic camera effects) to make the characters move.

Even in the early days, the different techniques of stop motion where being exploited. In this 1909 film, the Automatic Moving Company, used what might be called 'found objects' to electric effect.