Pioneers of animation

Joseph Plateau
(1801-1883)
Joseph was a Belgium physicist who first demonstrated the moving image illusion
He graduated in physical and mathematical sciences in 1829.
He was interested by experiments involving the retina, he stared at the sun for 25
secondshe ended up losing his eyesight after that.
He created the phenakistoscope; two disks with slits between repeating image.
This was one of the first stroboscopic devices as when both disks spun they would create a
moving image.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3d2HBo_gZ8

William Horner (1786-1837)
William was a British mathematician who spent his career in school.
Horner who is credited as the inventor of the zoetrope designed the device as if it was an updated
phenakistoscope.
The zoetrope was a cylindrical device the had a strip of paper with images placed inside it.
There were slits placed in the device so when it spun you could see into it and the images would blur
together and appear as one due to the illusion of movement.

Charles-mile Reynaud
(1844-1918)
Reynaud the inventor of the praxinoscope.
He created some of the first animated cartoons.
In his later life he created a device that was outdated by the cinematograph.
The praxinoscope was a successor to the zoetrope with a more advanced set up.
Similar to the zoetrope it used a stripe of images however mirrors where placed in the centre of the
device.
This created a brighter and less strobe-like image.

Eadweard Muybridge
(1830-1904)
Muybridge created one of the first stop-motion animations
As he was tasked with seeing if a horse lifted all 4 legs off the ground when running.
He used multiple cameras to capture the horse running along the track.
He played all 12 images in quick succession on his invention the zoopraxiscope (which was used to
project pictures in motion).

Thomas Edison
(1847- 1931)
A famous inventor for many things, he created the kinetoscope.
The kinetoscope was an early motion picture machine that was designed to be viewed by one
person at a time.
The device created the illusion of motion as the viewer would look through a hole.
The device used a light, film and a shutter that would move frequently the illusion of movement.

Lumiere brothers

Auguste and Louis co-invented the cinematograph. They were inspired by Edisons by kinetoscope
and challenged by their father to improve on it.
They are credited with creating the first film.
They paved the way for future film.

George Pal
(1908-1980)
An animator with an Hungarian-American background.
One of his most famous pieces was an animations called the Puppetoons.
He is also known for working on films such as The war of the worlds, the power and time machine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvrYPXFnWA4 this link is to a clip of on of Georges animations.