The Complete History and Development of Animation

The technology behind animation has come a very long way since the first creations of basic moving illustrated images. I will be discussing mainly how stop motion came about, and the range of technology and pioneers from the 'early days'.

Firstly, there is the Persistance of Vision. This is basically said to be 'the eye's ability to retain an image for a fraction of a second after the object is gone.' (source)
This overall means that if the eye sees two images a split second after they have happened together, then they are perceived together as one alone picture. It is said that this phenomenon, otherwise known as the 'phi phenomenon', was proved by Max Wertheimer. This was then applied to the cinema in 1916 by Hugo Munsterberg.
Usually in high definition cinema animation nowadays, there can be up to 30 drawings 'frames' per second. But, for an example, the very basic 'bouncing ball' animation (right, above) can be created by drawing 6 basic frames (where the ball has moved slightly each time), and this overall, when the frames are placed together, creates the illusion that the ball in jumping. 

Firstly, the very very first origins of this kind of animation came from an astronomer called Sir John Herschel who created the Thaumatrope. But, by Dr. John A. Paris (a physicist in London) this device was made popular around the time of 1826. The thaumatrope was the first to demonstrate the 'persistence of vision'. The Thaumatrope is basically a round disc attached with pieces of string, and when spun it creates the illusion that the two images on either side of the disc are one. 


An example of a thaumatrope is one I created in lesson, where on one side there were written words and on the other there was a logo, and when spinning the disc this created the illusion that these were joined together and one complete image. Overall, I think this went well although it was sometimes difficult to keep the two images together constantly, but this overall is showing the very first origins of animation and it's very interesting and contrasts greatly with animation nowadays. (source/source)

Next came the Phenakistoscope, created by a Belgian physicist named Joseph Plateau. This device works by spinning a disc and looking through slits while reflecting it in a mirror, showing the image on the inside as one moving piece. This is because the images drawn are altered slightly on each frame, and when spun, because of the 'persistance of vision' theory, they are seen 'together' in a flowing animation.
TThe images created are ones such as in this video (above), and an example of one being used can be seen in another video (below). The bottom video shows the basic principle on how one is used/works.

"...although the persistence of vision was noticed before the invention of the phenakistoscope, this device was really influential at that time, because it was this device that physically showed the theories involved for the first time" (source). 

After the phenakistoscope came the Zoetrope (wheel of life). William Horner, a schoolmaster and mathematician, created basically an 'improvement' of the phenakistoscope in 1833. The zoetrope was an improvement as it removed the need to use a mirror. It is basically a device that creates an illusion of motion as it is spinning at a rapid speed, showing the set of static images as one. The set of static images are placed on the inner surface of a cynlinder, and as it spins the user looks through the slits and is able to see the sequence. This device also able to be enjoyed by more than one person at a time, unlike the phenakistoscope. (source/source)

We were able to create a zoetrope in class and we were given a strip of paper with around 13 frames. We therefore drew 13 images, drawings them slightly different each time while also making sure that the sequence would be able to loop (the start and end frame being the same). This went successfully, and overall more successfully than the thaumatrope. This technique was so successful that even Pixar created their own zoetrope! 



 
Again, more improvements were continuing to be made which lead to the creation of the Praxinoscope, created by Emile Reynaud in 1877. He was born on the 8th of December 1844 and died on the 9th of January 1918, and during his life he was a french science teacher and is also responsible for the first projected animated films.  
This praxinoscope is an improvement of the Zoetrope as it has rectangular mirrors instead of slots, and the mirror are set around a drum which reflected the surrounding images. This device also gave the ability to display movies on a wall for audiences. (source)
The praxinoscope is the device that me and my partner done for our presentation. We were able to find a video, which was about recent use of praxinoscopes for a music video (below).




 












Last is the Kinetiscope, which is one of the most popular and during its time. It is basically a device (one of the first) which allowed people to view motion pictures. On threaded rollers, a series of images are placed and are continually rolled, and then a viewer is able to look through a viewfinder to see the final images together, overall creating something much like a short film.

The video above is a representation on how it would work.
A man called Edward Muybridge created a theory called the 'Horse in Motion' effect. however, an inventor called Thomas Edison has full credit for this actual device- even though he himself didn't create much of it! His assistant William Dickson (a photographer) did. William Dickson apparently performed most of the experiments, while Edison only really conceived the idea. (source/source)

Overall I feel that my own designs were successful and I have learned much about the history and origins of animation and stop motion.  There have been many key developers of stop motion animation over the years and I will now be discussing information about these developers along with their styles and background information. Stop motion is an animation technique that makes objects appear to move on its own, as the illusion of movement is created by moving it in small increments between individually photographed frames.

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George Melies, a French illusionist and filmmaker born in 1861, was overall famous for leading on early developments of the cinema. The reason he links to animation is because his work began the use of special effects and stop motion techniques.
At the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris he showed an extreme interest in puppetry and stage design and he continued his studies abroad in London, where he then developed an interest in stage conjury. In 1888, he purchased the famous Theatre Robert Houdin, and he worked as a "theatrical showman whose performances revolved around magic and illusionist techniques" (source). From that point on, he created the basics of special effects, produced his own films (directing them, devising the narratives, designing the props, costumes and sets etc.) and ended up creating over 500 pieces, his 'magic tricks' being recognised as 'special effects'. An example of his work in named 'The Haunted Castle' (above), where it is said that the sudden cuts were made by accident when the filming was accidentally stopped and they had to resume filming later, and when put together this caused the illusion. This overall started the basics of stop motion.

Willis O'Brien is noted and most famous for his work with miniature models, usually human or animals. He was born in Oakland, California in 1886, and left home at just 11 years old. He had many hobbies such as sculpting and illustrating, and this lead him on to realise that, just like drawn animation, he could build a model and then move parts of it one frame at a time, to make it 'come to life'. After being sure that this idea would work, he

created some test reels to try and sell to producers, and was overall successful! He received $5000 dollars, and this lead him on to begin creating films. His first was named The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy, as he was also very interested in prehistoric creatures. As he continued on to make films, he had many hits such as King Kong and The Lost World. 

Next is Ray Harryhausen, who was born on the 29th June 1920 in Los Angeles, California. He is famous for working on special effects especially from the film Jason and the Argonauts (below). 

He had a passion, much like Willis O'Brien, for dinosaurs (and also anything fantasy). While at grammar school, it is said that he learned how to make a model miniature set which then lead him on to create three dimensional figures and his very own creations of prehistorical creatures. When he was 18 years old, around March/April 1938, he entered a competition called The Junior Museum Hobby Show at the County Museum where he was very

successful and ended up winning first prize. From that point on, he went on to recreate works such as Willis O'Brien's King Kong and researched more on stop-motion itself and after finding out more, he began an ambitious project named Evolution of the World, but sadly it didn't get too far. Later on, he got some courage to show his creations, which influenced him to make his creatures to move more fluid and natural and he began to look around for work as an animator. After being unnsuccessfuly a few times, with the help of his parents, he eventually made the Mother Goose Series which became very popular as it involved tales such as Humpty Dumpty and Little Miss Muffet. 

He is also famous for creating a type of stop motion animation named "Dynamation". Dynamation is when stop motion is mixed with live action (picture above), which was used in a famous film named Jason and the Argonauts. It is also the process of filming the background first, then filming the action and then putting them together. 

 

George Pal is next, and his work influenced many of the current stop motion artists today.

He is most noted for his work with special effects and is leading in the science-fiction genre. He was born in Austria-Hungary in 1908 and at the age of 20 he graduated from the Budapest Academy of Arts, and he also went on to make films for Hunnia Films of Budapest. After a while he moved to Berlin, where he found work at the famous UFA studio, and within 60 days he had made a cartoon production named the Puppetoons. "George Pal's Puppetoons average eight minutes in length, requiring some 30,000 single frames and 9,000 individually hand-carved wood figures for each frame of film." (source)
From there, he also created other works such as Jasper and the Haunted House and Tulips Shall Grow. 


Phil Tippett was born in 1951 and his current occupation is a film producer/director. He is famous for his work involving creature design and character animation. (source)
He was incredibly inspired by Ray Harryhausen's work as a child, and as a kid he was always drawing, sculpting and making animations himself. This helped him to complete a bachelors degree in the arts at the University of California, Irvine later in life. From here, he went to work at an animation studio named Cascade Pictures in Los Angeles. The turning point in his career was when he was hired by George Lucas to take part in creating to stop motion for Star Wars: A New Hope, and from that moment he continued on, and eventually took part and won awards for Jurassic Park, Robo Cop and more Star Wars too. He also went on to be the founder of Tippett Studios.


The Brothers Quay (Stephen and Timothy Quay) are known for their unique, surreal and often dark style stop motion animation as it mainly consists of puppets and dolls coming to life. They are identical twins that were born on June 17th 1947, and they are said to be two of the worlds most original films makers. They were born in Pennsylvania, where they firstly studied illustration, before moving on to the Royal College of Art in London. From the early 70s they began producing animated shorts, and they are now currently screenwriters, cinematographers, directors and, of course, animators (source). Some of their notable works include Street of the Crocodiles, The Dream That One Calls Human Life and The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes. 

Tim Burton was born in 1958 in California, and as a child he would create his own short films in his backyard, also creating many twisted but imaginative drawings.This helped him begin his interest in stop motion, as he began by using  crude animation techniques and filming projects without sound. He is famous for his dark gothic style, using many of his drawings from his childhood as inspiration and making them into puppets and using this style of animation. He is a big fan of Vincent Price and Edward Gorey, where his inspiration comes from also. (source)

Henry Selick was born in 1952 in New Jersey, and is currently a stop motion director, producer and writer. He is famous for a lot of his stop motion work with puppets and just like Tim Burton, he drew a lot as a child and his fascination with animation came at a young age. He eventually studied art colleges he eventually went to CalArts to study animation, where some of his works were nominated for Student Academy Awards. (source)

Both of them worked on A Nightmare Before Christmas which is noted as one of their most famous films.

Otmar Gutman is a German television animator, producer and director. The type of animation that he worked on was mainly with clay models. 

He was born in 1937, and he is most memorably known for his creation of animated character Pingu and being the founder of the Pygos group (1986). Pingu (below) is a Bafta Award-Winning stop motion clay mated children's television series which ran for 6 seasons. Each character/individual in the show is identified by a seperate noise/sound and the reason for it's success is parrty because there is no real spoken language. 

Nick Park, born in 1958, is an English stop motion animator and filmmaker and his best known work is Wallace and Gromit, Creature Comforts and also Shaun the Sheep and his majority of work including clay models. His inspirations came from his childhood, from animations such as Dennis the Menace and Lord Snooty. He copied their adventures for hours on end and this overall made him pick up a pen and animate for himself. He ended up studying at the National Film and Television School, and this is actually where his first ideas for Wallace and Gromit began. He has gone on to win over 6 Academy Awards, and he is now the main animator at Aardman Animators! (their website)


Last is Adam Shaheen, who is also a British animator, and also a producer and screenwriter, born in 1964. His works seem to involve many puppets and dolls but also sometime clay-mation too. 
He is the original founder of Cuppa Coffee studios, which is Canada's oldest privately owned animation studio. He firstly gained a BA in Photography, and then continued on and studied at the London College of Printing. He also animates using clay animation and sometimes plasticine, and overall, his creations and films are aimed at a more teenage audience unlike Otmar Gutmann which is more aimed at young children. He has been very successful as he has produced over 200 commercials and won over 150 International awards. Some of his work includes JoJo's Circus, Celebrity Deathmatch and Tigga and Togga. (source)

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For this final part I have been asked to research some existing stop motion media products. A lot of stop motion is made with puppets or clay. There are many varieties of media products and I will now be showing some examples.

TV PROGRAMME

The Flumps, 1976. Created by David Yates. 
 
 

The Herbs, 1968. Created by Michael Bond.

The two examples here are stop motion model animation. This is where the creators use puppet-like models, and there is no computer animation used (apart from the titles). The reason why I think stop motion has been used here is because computer animation hadn't fully been developed to a good quality. I believe that the majority of shows around this time were stop motion, because of this sole reason. Both these shows are childrens shows and at the time they would have been enjoyed by young children. Even though the creation is difficult, aspects such as: only one person does the voice, and the length of the show as a whole shows it's simplicity or children. If these shows were to show on TV now, I believe they wouldn't be as popular as the quality of CG animation has improved in comparison. 

FILM
 

Coraline, 2009. Produced by Laika.

 

 

Paranorman, 2012. Produced by Laika.

There are very few stop motion animated films around now, however these are two of my favouites. Unlike the TV shows, they have mixed in CG animation and special effects along with the stop motion models themselves. I believe they decided to use stop motion for these films because it fits the genre of the films more than CG would. They are more close to horror than comedy, and in my opinion, using stop motion makes the atmosphere more creepy. It is also mentioned that for Coraline the creators wanted it to be 'apart from the recent rush of CG animated films', (source) again linking to the fact they wanted it to be more unique. I think the audience for these are generally older than CG animated films (around 12 years old), because of the overall genre and how adding the special effects makes it more atmospheric, but also because as CG animation is becoming more popular, stop motion is becoming less popular. 

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John Lewis Home Insurance, 2013.



MUSIC VIDEO
 

トクマルシューゴ (Shugo Tokumaru) - Katachi, 2013.

I think that this stop motion video is made for older people, as it is a lot more complicated for the audience to understand. However, I do think that the bright colours would appeal to younger people. Also, of course, a lot of the audience would also be fans of the band/singer itself. The overall audience for music videos is wider than TV shows and movies in comparison, because of the way that movies are targeted specifically at certain groups. This is a stop motion piece which uses many layers of paper to build up a sort of fun 'trail'. The general meaning of the songs title is 'form' and 'shape' so I believe that stop motion has been used because it relates to the fact that stop motion can show many different forms in a unique way. There is also a range of different shapes made out of the paper. 

CHANNEL IDENT
 

'Hotel Room', E4. 

I think the audience for this ident would depend on the channel that it is being shown on. Since this is for the channel E4, the overall audience would be late teens to people in their early twenties. This is stop motion which uses everyday objects. Many pictures are taken and when put together it seems like the objects are moving. 

I personally think that stop motion is intentionally made for families to enjoy, with a huge majority of these TV programmes aiming at young children whereas films, music videos etc. aim to a older, possible teenage audience. I think that there is a mix of audience overall, but the main is young children as the style of stop motion seems to be fun to look at and therefore would be more enjoyable than perhaps a 3D CG animation.
In my opinion, stop motion is already becoming less popular in the animation industry, but I believe that it will continue to live on for a while. However, with advancing technology in 3D animation etc., I believe that this will be a huge competition and it will be hard to be sure whether there will definitely be a strong future with this technique.