Development In Animation

WILLIAM HORNER (ZOETROPE)

The zoetrope works with images inside of a spinning cylinder that has vertical slits on the sides. The viewer looks through the slits and as it spins it gives the illusion of animation. the first modern Zoetrope was invented in 1833 by William Horner who named it as The Daedalum, but apparently it was made back in China around 100BC. It was publicly called The Wheel of the Devil and didn’t become popular till the 1860s.

JOHNS BARNES (FLIP BOOK)

The first flipbook was made by John Barnes Linnett and he named it the Kineogragh. It was the first sort of 2D animation that used a linear sequence of images unlike the zoetrope. Its a book with images on each page that changes slightly from one page to page. If it is rapidly turning or being flicked the pages it seems to be animated. This is still greatly used in modern time.

EMILE REYNAUD (PRAXINOSCOPE)

This Praxinoscope was the child to the Zoetrope invented by Emile Reynaud in 1877. It used the same concept as a zoetrope but the slits were removed and there was an inner circle of mirrors were placed making it easier for viewer to look at. This gave a clearer image and also allowed the animation to be more or less stationary when it was spinning.

CINEMA

Most films to present now have some animation or animated sections. Cartoons have a much better  quality on Big Screens (Cinema screens) and many skilled professionals work long into producing these insane projects and feature films to produce the content in which we see in everyday animations today.

EDISON (KINETOSCOPE)

 This was a motion picture device it was made for films and was to be viewed by one person at a time through a tiny hole at the top. It wasn't a projector but was the concept of the projection of video with the idea of illusional animation using a film strip. the idea was presented by Thomas Edison in 1888 and revealed on April 14, 1894. This lead to the creation of video, creating an illusion of movement by conveying a strip of film of continuous images over a light source with a high speed shutter.  It was largely developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson from 1889 to 1892. On April 14th, 1894, the first commercial exhibition of motion pictures in history was shown in New York City, using ten Kinetoscopes. This was the birth of American movie culture, and also the Kinetoscope had a major impact on Europe area.

CEL ANIMATION (CEL ANIMATION)

Cel is abbreviated and means celluloid, celluloid is a  transparent sheet of material where images are drawn on to. First used in 1914 by Earl Hurd where a background image would be drawn onto a sheet for a particular scene and then used on other cells to take less time when producing each scene. The outline of an image on a cell would be on the front and the colour would be on the back. This would hide the brush marks and any bad edges of the colour. The cells can then be put into strips so that a projector can use them.

ROTORSCOPING

This is when animators trace over each frame of footage. This is used in live-action and animated films, it was originally projected on frosted glass and then re-drawn. However this technique has now been replaced digitally. It was made by max Fleischer in 1915  and he used in his series ‘Out of the Inkwell’. Rotorscoping creates a stylised “cartoon” look and creating large areas of colour.