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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
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
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?
related=1
Accessed January 2015
Ksumatarted, 2012 Animation timeline
Available from:
http://www.slideshare.net/ksumatarted/history-of-animation-basic?related=2