There is a main principle that animation relies upon... the concept of Persistance of Vision. This principle is what makes images appear to move. The retina captures and holds an image for one- tenth of a second before processing the next image.If images are flashed before the eye at at least 10 frames per second, the brain thinks it is seeing a single moving image. The number of frames per second, or FPS, directly correlates to how smooth the movement appears. If the frame rate is too slow, the motion will look awkward and jerky. If the frame rate is too high the motion will blur.
Keeping this in mind, we will look at where animation began...
The first animation was a Thaumatrope - 1824
A toy used in the Victorian era.
It was a disk or card with two different pictures on each side that was attached to two pieces of string.
When the strings were twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image.
CreatorJohn Aryton Paris and Charles Babbage
After the Taumatrope, then came the Zoetrope in 1834
A device which creates the image of a moving picture.
Invented in 1834 by George Horner. The device is basically a cylinder with vertical slits around the sides. Around the inside edge of the cylinder there are a series of pictures on the opposite side to the slits.As the cylinder is spun, the user then looks through the slits producing the illusion of motion.
After the Zoetrope, French scientist Charles-Émile Reynaud developed the Praxinoscope.
It worked on the same principles as the previous invention, but used a cylinder of mirrors in the middle so that the animation could be seen without the slits. It allowed for a clearer picture.
Reynaud took his invention even further. In 1872 he thought to take small panels of glass and attach them together using a flexible strip. People could then paint on the glass and the panels could have light shone through them and therefore project the image onto a larger screen. Up until this concept, all animations were short repetitive images. This concept of Reynaud's allowed a longer animation to be shown and also to show to a larger audience. In 1892 Reynaud showed his first film on his Théâtre Optique system. It had 500 glass panels.
Animation did not move as quickly. There were 2 more inventions prior to Reynauld's debut.
The flip book was created in 1868. The first flip book was patented in 1868 by a John Barnes Linnet.
This was another step closer to the development of animation. Like the Zoetrope, the Flip Book creates the illusion of motion. A set of sequential pictures (pictures in a specific order) seen at a high speed creates the illusion of animtion.
Flip books were then popularized in the early 1900's by the Cracker Jack Company who gave them away for free in packs of Cracker Jacks.
The Mutoscope was a natural extension of the flip book. It came out in 1894.
This invention was commonly used for peep shows!
As animation continued to develop, film began to influence it as well.
The first animation created using standard film was by J. Stuart Blackton in 1906.
So now we are seeing how animations are series of images created and photographed, and then put together at the correct frame rate so that the movement appears fluid. Remember that this relies on Persistance of Vision.
In 1910 this style of animation really blossomed. It required each image to be hand drawn and used at least 12 pictures for every second of film - Imagine the work!! Believe it or not there are approx. 65,000 pictures in an animated feature film!
In 1913 Cellulose Accetate Film was developed and it was a tremendous benefit for animators. Now artists could paint/draw on this transparent film and they could reuse images like backgrounds. This saved a lot of time drawing. It also provided the first opportunity for there to be dimensions to animations. Caracters could move above and behind static parts of a set.
This is where Walt Disney comes in. He was the first animator to add sound to his animations in 1928 with Steamboat Willie.
And then in 1937 Walt Disney produced the first full length feature animated film... Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Imagine the work involved in creating it! All individual hand drawn images!
