The History of Animation
Persistence of vision was discovered in the early 1800's. Our eye and brain retain a visual impression for about 1/30th of a second. Persistence of vision prevents us from noticing that a motion picture screen is dark about half the time, and that a television image is just one bright, fast, discrete dot sweeping the screen. Motion pictures show one new frame (still picture of the movie clip) every 1/24th of a second and the same frame is shown three times during this time period (Persistence, 2001). The eye retains the image of each frame long enough, giving an illusion of smooth, continuous motion. Animation uses exactly the same principle to render the idea of motion.
This led to such devices as the zoetrope, or "wheel of life." The zoetrope has a short, fat cylinder, which rotated on its axis of symmetry. Around the inside of the cylinder was a sequence of drawings, each one slightly different from the one next to it. The cylinder had long slits cut into its side in between each of the images so that when the cylinder was spun a slit would allow the eye to see the image on the oppose wall of the cylinder. As the cylinder was spun on its axis, the sequence of slits passing in front of the eye would present a sequence of images to the eye, creating the illusion of motion.
Another low-tech animation piece of equipment was the flipbook. The flipbook was a tablet of paper with an individual drawing on each page so the viewer could flip through them. This was also popular in the 1800s. However, these devices were little more than parlor curiosities used for light entertainment. While studying the early days of conventional animation is interesting in itself, the purpose for presenting an overview here is to gain an appreciation of the technological advances, which drove the progress of animation in the beginning. The earliest hint of using a camera to make lifeless things appear to move was by Meleis in 1890 using simple tricks. The earliest pioneers in film animation were Emile Cohl, a Frenchman who produced several vignettes, J. Stuart lackton, an American, who actually animated 'smoke' in a scene in 1900 and who is credited with the first animated cartoon in 1906, and the first celebrated animator, Winsor McCay, an American best known for his works Little ...
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...umbed down for Saturday morning children. The result is a burst in interest for all things Japanese in animation; the Gundam series being the latest and most current hot trend. This ongoing series of giant robot fighters continues to be one of the hottest properties in Japan and the United States, with the models and videos flying off the shelves faster than they can be stocked. At the same time Pokemon continues to dominate the younger set in both countries, the episodes being dubbed into English at a rapid pace to meet demand. Products imported from Japan sit alongside American versions as the toy makers race to keep up with the demand for the newest and hottest versions of the small creatures and their trainers. As well, animated film features are becoming just as popular. Princess Mononoke, an adaptation of a Japanese folk tale, did well in Japan and the United States, drawing such famous actors as Minnie Driver and Gillian Anderson to lend their voices to the English dubbing; making it more mainstream as ever. In the new century the future seems bright for Japanese animation as it crosses over into American homes and toyboxes; creating a true global village for all its fans.
Technology has had a huge impact on the world, especially the film industry. It has had a long past and as the technology advances, it becomes more and more realistic. It all began with the first machine patented in the United States that showed animated pictures or movies. It was called the “wheel of life” or “zoopraxiscope” and was patented in 1867 by William Lincoln. Moving drawings or photographs were watched through a slit in the zoopraxiscope. However, modern motion picture making began with the invention of the motion picture camera. Frenchman Louis Lumiere is usually credited with the creation of the first motion picture camera in 1895, but several others were invented around the same time. What Lumiere invented was a portable motion picture camera, film processing unit and a projector called the Cinematography, all three functions in one invention. This made motion pictures very popular and it is also known as beginning the motion picture era. In 1895, Lumiere and his brother were the first to present projected, moving, photographic pictures to a paying audience of more than one person. However, they were also not the first to project film. In 1891, the Edison Company successfully demonstrated the Kinetoscope which allowed one person at a time to view moving pictures. Also in 1896, he showed the improved Vitascope projector and it was the first commercially successful projector in the United States.
The 18th century has marked the commencement of the innovation of cinematography. The invention of cinema owes its existence to a few investors and scientists who are broadly known for laying down its foundation. Among those pioneers are the Lumiere brothers who were some of the earliest contributors to cinema, inventing the first real film camera called the "cinematographe", which effectively functioned as a camera, projector and printer all in one (Barnauw, 1993:6). Thus giving rise to the art of film making. Initially, in the early years of cinema since there was no developed structure [or language] to tell cinematic stories, the early Lumiere brother?s films such as Workers leaving the Lumiere factory (1895) and The Arrival of a Train at the Station (1895), were composed of a single shot, no camera movement and only one continuous action from beginning to end (Obalil, 2007).
In society today, we are conditioned to believe certain sets of ideals. We use these ideals to interact and get along with the other people we surround ourselves with. These ideals are often the societal norms that form common ground amongst individuals. However, living life based off these basic and unchanging beliefs is not beneficial to humanity, nor does it make life any easier to live. In fact, holding on to the most accepted beliefs holds back society as a whole. Judith Halberstam, in her essay “Animating Revolt and Revolting Animation” challenges these societal norms through the analysis of animated movies and, in doing so, carves a path for a new way of thinking.
My initial idea for this paper was to focus on the technical aspects of the film—the hybrid of animation and live action. I first saw this technique used in The Three Caballeros (Ferguson & Young, 1944) and was going to research this film, but the amount of literature on t...
As time and people are continually changing, so is knowledge and information; and in the film industry there are inevitable technological advances necessary to keep the attraction of the public. It is through graphic effects, sounds and visual recordings that all individuals see how we have evolved to present day digital technology; and it is because of the efforts and ideas of the first and latest great innovators of the twentieth century that we have advanced in film and computers.
Bliss, John, Art that Moves: Animation Around the World. Chicago, Illinois: Heinemann Raintree, 2011. Print
Some people may ask what is anime, and how is it different from cartoons. Anime is a term specified for Japanese animation. How has Anime affected history, and how does it influence today's society? Anime covers more serious topics than american cartoons. Cartoons in America are considered a form of entertainment for children. Anime in japan are for people of all ages, anyone can watch anime. Most anime shows and movies are made for children, adolescents, young adults, but there are also anime that are made for the older generation of people. Anime shows are directed for any type of viewer.
“Whenever someone hears the word ‘anime’ they immediately think of Japanese animation or in the very least Asian cartoons. Really, though the word ‘anime’ is derived form the word ‘animation’. And the definition of animation is the making of movies by filming a sequence of slightly varying drawings or models so that they appear to move and change when the sequence is shown.” (par. 1)
Animation played a major role for the advancement of motion film in 1900’s. Before motion picture camera, frame by frame photographs were used to understand animal and human movement. Eventually a series of famous cartoons would be created which would lead to the expansion of animation studios in New York and California. One famous animation studio that opened up was Walt Disney, which would eventually dominate animation for many years. Disney animation brought many spectacular films and entertainment to people of the U.S.A. Disneys was dragged into WWII as it was requested by the government for its talented art and propaganda during WWII. But Disney was able to continue to strive in producing more animated films after its effort for the war. Walt Disney was a cinematographer who took his career into animation.Walt graduated from Kansas City Art Institute, where he met Ub Iwerks, a greatly skilled animator and Walts collaborated partner. Walts career would begin while working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company in Missouri in 1920. They would be the founders of the Laugh-O-gram Films studio working to to produce several cartoons based off fables and fairy tales. Walt Disney created several pilot shorts of a show called Alice in Cartoonland, a film combining both live action and animation. Alice in cartoonland, a comedic show about a young girl who enters another universe
Early 1940s and 50s, john Whitney start the experiment of computer graphics, but early 60s when digital computer graphics come to promising stage. So as the animation didn’t just happen, but with the contribution of many people to see that they build in to the digital age of technology with the 3d animation (computer animation) by using moving image that consist of sketch of scene drawn on a paper that help them in developing techniques using technology for creating the animations, which is developed to what it is today.
During the mid 1890’s, early picture projectors dubbed Kinetoscopes became easily available to the public. Although completely silent, “People enjoyed these and similar machines as technological novelties; one film advertisement, for example, describes the film's excellent documentation of water spraying from a sprinkler” (Halperin.) The 1900’s was when people became interested in plots and characters, and only in the 1910’s and 1920’s when more advanced technology became available did films become highly regarded.
Animation is a visual technique that creates the illusion of motion, rather than recording motion through live action. The technique is used mainly for motion pictures. Animation can be created by illustrators, filmmakers, video makers, and computer specialists. Animation is most popular in creating cartoon movies. Advertisers also employ animation to develop commercials for television. In addition, producers of instructional films may use animation to help explain a difficult idea or one that could not be shown in live action. Animation can also be combined with live action in a movie. Many animators continue to make many drawings by hand. Since the mid-1980's, however, computer assistance combined with hand-drawn animation has become standard in many movie studios. These methods created such feature-length animated films as The Lion King (1994) and The Prince of Egypt (1998).
Then, in 1894, along came another marvelous Edison Company invention in the mid 1890s - the Kinetoscope. It was basically a bulky, coin-operated movie peep show viewer for a single customer, in which the images on a continuous film loop-belt were viewed in motion as they were rotated in front of a shutter and a light. On Saturday, April 14th, 1894, the Holland Brothers opened their original Kinetoscope Parlor at 1155 Broadway in New York City and for the first time, commercially exhibited movies as we know them today. Early spectators in Kinetoscope parlors were amazed by even the most strange moving images in very short films (between 30 and 60 seconds) - an approaching train, a parade, women dancing, dogs terrorizing rats, and other such things. In 1895, Edison exhibited hand-colored movies, i...
Animations are a series of drawings, computer graphics, or photographs of objects, like puppets and models, which are different from each to create a variety of entertainment for the audiences. Animations are what brings excitement and mystery, hooking the audience in through interest. It is a form of some sort of “magic” where things that aren’t real but from the imagination comes to life in front of people who live these mundane, ordinary lives, adding color to the eyes and mind. The creators of such amazing arts and creation are animators.
The first 2D animation was created in by Emile Cohl in 1908 called “Fantasmagorie”. The animated film was 70 seconds made with 700 images and 24 frames per second for making the ending according to Kieran Kane’s presentation “The History of Animation”. In 1928, Walt Disney used 2D animation to create the first Mickey Mouse cartoon “ Steamboat Willie”. The cartoon was also the first animated film to have a sound track in the background according to “ The History of Animation”. After this event, many companies like Walt Disney, Warner Bros, and Hanna-Barbera started creating cartoons and commercials with paper 2D animation in 1930s to 1970s; these were known as the “year of animation”. Now, most animations have the problem of consuming time