History of Animation

The Techniques and Development of Stop Motion Animation

Pioneers

Joseph Plateau - The Phenakistoscope

Joseph Plateau was a Belgian physicist and was the first person to demonstrate the illusion of a moving image by inventing the Phenakistoscope. In 1829 Joseph submitted his research which contained results into the effect of colours of the retina, intersections of revolving curves and his research towards the invention of the Phenakistoscope by looking into the reconsecration of distorted images through counter revolving discs. 

The Phenakistoscope was invented in 1832 which was the first device to give the illusion of a moving image. The Phenakistoscope used two spinning disks which were attached vertically to a handle. One disk had small equally spaced slits for the viewer to look through and the other had a sequence of pictures of image around the center. When you look through the small slits when the two disks are spinning the images will create an animated effect. This phenaskistoscope creating the illusion of motion later led to the development of cinema. 

William George Horner - The Zoetrope

William George Horner was a British mathematician, schoolmaster, headmaster school keeper. He also invented the Zoetrope in 1834 which closely related to the Phenakistoscope. The Zoetrope is a pre- cinema animation device that produce the illusion of motion by showing a sequence of images showing progressive phases of that motion.




The Zoetrope was a revolving cylinder with vertical slits all the around to look through. Inside the cylinder is a long strip of a sequence of images and much like the Phenakistoscope when the cylinder is spinning the viewer looks through the slits which stop the images from blurring and the sequence of images will move rapidly, creating the illusion of motion.

The Praxinoscope

The Praxinoscope was invented in 1877 by Charles-Emile Reynaud who was a french inventor. He was the first person to project animated cartoons and in December 1888 he projected the first animate film in public, "Pauvre Pierrot."

The Praxinoscope was the successor to the Zoetrope. It was similar to the Zoetrope because it used strips of images which were placed inside the spinning cylinder, however it was improve by replacing the vertical viewing slits with mirrors inside the cylinder. When someone looks at the reflection of the pictures while the wheel is spinning you would see a rapid succession of images.

The Lumiere Brothers

The brothers were credited to be the first filmmakers in history. They panted the Cinematograph to create a motion picture camera superior to Thomas Edison's Kineograph. The Lumiere Brothers are Auguste and Louis Lumiere who are the sons of well known Lysons based portrait painter Antoine Lumiere. Antoine abandoned his art and started a business manufacturing and supplying photographic equipment, while Louis was experimenting with the equipment his father was manufacturing.

Lumiere Brothers were excited by the Kineograph and wanted to create something better so they corrected the flaws to develop a machine with both sharper images and illumination. Two main flaws the brothers identified with the Kineograph was that it was too bulky and heavy and only one person could watch the film at a time. The Cinematograph is a motion picture film camera which also projected film as well as a printer which Thomas Edison's Kineograph could not do. The brothers most important decision the brothers made was to add intermittent movement which was something Edison rejected as he struggled to project perfection using continues movement. They kept the Cinematograph a secret by organizing private screenings.


The Stop-Trick

The Stop-Trick was accidentally developed by George Melies in 1896. George Melies was born in Paris 1861 and was a French illusionist and filmmaker. He was famous for leading many techniques and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema and is sometimes referred to as the first "Cinemagician" because of his ability to manipulate and transform reality through cinematography. He created films using this special effect which includes A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904).

The Stop-Trick is a special effect technique which is when an object or person is filmed then the camera is turned off and the object is moved off camera, then the camera is turned back on and when put together and watched it looks like the object has disappeared. 

The Zoopraxiscope

The Zoopraxiscope was invented by Eadweard Muybridge in 1876 which may be considered the first movie projector. Eadweard Muybridge was an English photographer important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and early work in motion-picture projection.

Muybridge is known for his pioneering work on animal locomotion in 1877 and 1878, which used multiple cameras to capture motion in stop-motion photographs, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures.

Thaumatrope

The Thaumatrope is a disc with a picture of each side of the disc with two pieces of string attached. When the strings are spinned quickly the disc will also rotate quickly causing the two pictures to merge together into one. This invention is credited to either John Ayrton Paris or Peter Mark Roget.

            

Sources:
www.youtube.com
en.wikipedia.org
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/zoetrope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_trick
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/zoopraxiscope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaumatrope

Developers

Willis O'Brein

Willis O'Brein was a motion picture special effects and stop motion animation pioneer. O'Brein is most famous for his work in stop motion using the material clay mainly involving dinosaurs as he grew an interest in dinosaurs while working as a guide to paleontologist for example "The Dinosaur and the Missing Link". In his spare time he would take part in sculpting and illustrating which lead him to become a sports cartoonist for Francisco Daily News. The first film he created caught the attention of Thomas Edison who created the Kinetoscope. Thomas Edison employed Willis to animate other films e.g. R.F.D 10,000 B.C. O'Brein was responsible for some of the best images in cinema history and best remembered for his work on The Lost World (1925), King Kong (1933) and animated a brief scene in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963).

Here is an example of Willis O'Brein's first film:

Otmar Gutmann

Otmar Gutmann (1937 - 1993) a German television producer, animator, and director. He is most memorable for creating stop motion animations using clay. His most famous and successful claymation is Pingu. Pingu is a British-swiss stop-motion claymation childrens show produced by The Pygos which first began in 1986. However after Otmar Gutmann passed away in 1993. However in 2001, HiT Entertainment bought the rights to the series, including the 105 episodes, for £15.9 million and later decided to being back the show and produced a further 52 episodes.

Nick Park

"We can do things that we never could before. Stop-motion lets you build tiny little worlds, and computers make that world even more believable"

Nick Park was born in 1958 and is an English director, writer and stop motion artist. Nick grew up with a keen interest in drawing cartoons and made his own film at the age of 13. He he went to National Film and Television School where he started creating his first Wallace and Gromit film, "A Grand day out". Nick Park specialised a most famous for his use in clay and plasticine clay which he used in all of his films. In a quote I found Nick Park said "plasticine was available to me when I was a teenager and you can make whatever you like come out of a blob of platicine" . He wanted to be like Disney and film with plastic cells but it was too expensive. Because of the success of his Wallace and Gromit shorts, Nick earn't the respect to make feature films and began work on claymation action/adventure film Chicken Run making his first big screen debut. Some successful films Nick created include Wallace of Gromit, Shaun the sheep (2007-2010), Chicken Run (2000) and Creature Comfort (2003-2006).

George Pal

Oddly enough, George Pal always began and ended something with the bible. All his pictures had a religious undertone. God was always there, protecting us.

George Pal (1908 - 1980) was a animator and film producer who is most famous for creating animations using puppets also known as puppetoons. George studied at Budapest Academy of Arts where he acquired a degree in Architecture and Advanced drawing skills. George was raised in an artistic background as both his parents were stage entertainers. From 1928 to 1931 he was employed and made films for Hunnia Films and later decided to take his work to his very own studio, Trickfilm-Studio where he patented puppetoons. George had wooden puppets which he gave names and created dozens of puppetoon films for Paramount Pictures. Examples of some puppetoon films George is famous for are "Tulips shall Grow" (1942), "Rhythm in the Ranks (1941)", "Jasper and the Beanstalk" (1945).

Walt Disney

"Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it they will want to come back and see you do it again and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do"

Walt Disney (1901 - 1966) was an American business magnate, cartoonist, filmmaker, philanthropist ("Love of Humanity") and voice actor. Walter Elias "Walt" Disney and his brother Roy O. Disney co founded The Walt Disney Company. During Walt Disney's childhood he developed the love for drawing cartoons. Walt Disney took night courses at Chicago Academy of Fine arts after he finished his day at high school and became the cartoonist for his school newspaper. After having trouble getting hired as an artist and his and Ubbe-Iwerks commercial company failed, Walt decided to work at Kansas City Film Ad Company where he found his love for animation and decided to become an animator. 

Now a days we know Disney for their spectacular computer animated films, for example Frozen, Big hero 6, Tangled, etc. However Disney began and got famous for their drawn animations as Walt Disney was very talented and loved drawing. Famous drawn animated films Walt Disney created was The Lion King which is the highest grossing hand drawn animation in history. Also, Bambi (1942) and Pinocchio (1940) are successful hand drawn animations by Disney.

The Walt Disney Company was founded on October, 16, 1923 and established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before doing live action film productions, television and theme parks. Mickey a well known cartoon character is a primary symbol of the Walt Disney company. Walt Disney's first creation was a short film called Alice's Wonderland which consisted of live action and animation as it featured a child actress interacting with animated characters. In 1934 Disney decided to push the boundaries even further and started production of it's first feature length animated film, Snow White and the Seven dwarfs. Today Walt Disney Company is one of the largest and best known studios in American cinema. 

Hayao Miyazaki

"We live in an age when it is cheaper to buy the rights to a movies than to make them"

-Hayao Miyazaki 

Hayao is a Japanese film director, animator, manga artist, illustrator, producer and screenwriter and one of Japan's greatest animation directors. Miyazaki is most famous as a manga artist and manga films which are hand drawn.  Hayao aspired to be a Manga author from a very young age. He would read the illustrated stories in magazines and acknowledge the influences of creative artists in magazines. Osamu Tezuka heavily influenced Hayao's work that he would destroy much of his early work as he believed it was "bad form" to copy Tezuka's style because it was hindering his own development as an artist. The film "The Tale of the White Serpant" was the film which sparked his interest in animation.  He began his animation career in 1963, when he joined Toei Animation and worked as an in-between artist for Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon. Hayao didn't find the ending of this film satisfying so he pitched his own ending for the film which became the ending used in the film, gaining him recognition and respect.


Hayao directed his first feature film called Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979) after the success of his second film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Hayao co-founded Studio Ghibli where he produced many feature films. One of his most famous films include Spirited Away (2001) which topped Titanic (1997) at the Japanese Box Office, won Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards and was the first anime film to win an American Academy Award.

Tim Burton

"Drawing is exercise for the restless imagination"
- Tim Burton

Tim Burton is an American film director, producer, artist, writer and animator. Tim is well known and most famous for his dark, gothic, quirky horror and fantasy, stop motion animations using clay. At a young age Burton would make short films in his backyard using stop motion animation techniques. One of the films he created at the age of 13 was called The Island of Doctor Agor (1971). This was his first animate film and adapted by Burton from the H.G. Wells story The Island of Doctor Moreau. At school Burton wasn't a very good student and found pleasure in painting, drawing and watching film. Later he went on to attend California Institute of the Arts to study character animation.

Burton eventually went on to work for Walt Disney Productions Animation Department and worked as an animator, storyboard artist and concept artist on films such as The Fox and the Hound (1981) and Tron (1982). However Burton's personal style clashed with Disney's standards and longed to work on solo projects. This lead on to Burton's creation of the live action short Frankenweenie (1984). After the film was complete Disney fired Burton as they said he was "Spending the company's resources on doing a film that would be too dark and scary for children to see." Tim Burton went on to direct and produce other films such as Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Corpse Bride and Nightmare Before Christmas, etc.

Pixar

"If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better."
-Edwin Catmull

Pixar is an American computer animation film studio in California. Pixar is best known for it's CGI animated feature films. In 2006 the studio was bought by The Walt Disney Company for a value of $7.4 billion. The studio was founded by Edwin Catmull who is a computer scientist, at a young age Edwin found inspiration in Disney films such as Peter Pan and Pinocchio and wanted to become a feature film animator because of them. At University Edwin came across a computer drawing program called Sketchpad and the new field of computer graphics was the future of animation which combined Edwin's love for technology and animation and decided to be part of the revolution wanting to make his own animated film. Edwin's first contribution was an animated version of his hand which was put in the movie Futureworld (1976) the sequel to Westworld which was the first film to use 3D computer graphics. The sequence Edwin created with known as "A Computer Animated Hand" and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in December 2011.


Edwin contributed to many 2D and 3D animations in film and eventually got recognised by George Lucus and LucusFilm and Francis Ford Coppola and in 1979 became the Vice President at the Computer Graphics Division at LucusFilm. In 1986 Steve Jobs bought LucusFilm's Digital Division and founded Pixar. Then in 2006 Disney bought Pixar and Edwin and John Lasseter were put in charge in giving energy to the Disney animated studios. They both later were given control to DisneyToon Studios and supervised three studios for Disney: Pixar, DisneyToon and Disney Animation and Catmull gained the title of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.

Here are a few examples of films worked on by Pixar. They produced it's first feature long film Toy Story (1995) which followed more CGI productions by Pixar like A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc, Cars, WALL-E, Ratatouille and The Incredible's.

Dreamworks

"You Shouldn't Dream your film, you should make it!"
-Steven Spielberg

"What I love most about animation is, it's a team sport, and everything we do is about pure imagination.
- Jeffery Katzenberg

"When we first started DreamWorks, I said to Jeffery, 'We ought to call this new company the SpielBerg Brothers. Anything Steven thinks is important, we want to invest in."
- David Geffen

DreamWorks is an American film production company which produces and develops films, video games and TV programmes. DreamWorks began in 1994 and founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeffery Katzenbery and David Geffen (SKG). In December 2005 Steven, Jeffery and David sold the company to Viacom who is the parent of Paramount Pictures. They later ended this partnership and DreamWorks signed a $1.5 billion deal to produce films with India's Reliance ADA Group and Reliance funded into recreating DreamWorks SKG into DreamWorks Studio an independent entity.

In 2004 DreamWorks Animation SKG was created which is an American animation studio that creates animated films, TV programmes and online virtual worlds. The studio has released a total of 30 feature films some of these films include Madagascar, the Shrek franchise, How to Train your Dragon, Antz and The Prince of Egypt.

The Quay Brothers


"What happens in the shadow, in the grey regions, also interest us - all that is elusive and fugitive, all that can be said in those beautiful half tones, or in whispers, in deep shade."
- The Quay Brothers

The Quay Brothers are American identical twins called Stephen and Timothy Quay. They are both stop motion animators and Directors. They're famous for their stop motion work and creepy style in their films as they animate strange dolls, objects and create and animate their own characters out of lots of different items such as light bulbs, screws and other work tools. Most of The Quay's work often have esoteric influences and most of the animations featuring puppets made of doll parts and other organic materials. There films also have a dark, moody atmosphere to them and very little of their work contain dialogue, if any at all.

Their best known work is Street of Crocodiles based on the novel by Polish Author Bruno Schulz which is about a puppet that comes to life and explores the darkened room around him as the camera shows how unfulfilling the surroundings actually are. Other Animations they created include In Absentia and The Piano Turner of EarthQuakes. They also created Music Videos for His Name is Alive, Micheal Penn and 16 Horsepower.

The Street of Crocodiles (1986):

Animated Music Video 

This music video uses stop motion animation. I think this music video is aimed at adults more than children as the colours are dull and not very appealing to children to look it causing them to lose interest. The song is also quite slow and boring about how people live their lives as "sleepers" not really grabbing the attention of Children. The stop motion itself uses clothes and the bed which aren't very interesting to children. If it used toys or puppets in the animation which children are actually interested in, it would appeal more to them than adults.

Animated TV Advert



The animation used in this Snickers advert is computer animation. I think this advert is aimed at young to middle aged males as advert has giant animated monsters/robots playing rugby which is a manly sport in a deserted airbase which is action packed. It could appeal to young males as when the protagonist eats the snickers he turns into a robot transformer making the younger audience want to get the product because they want to be a hero like that.



Film




The film Tangled is computer animated. I think this film is aimed at children both males, females and families as it's a fairy tale film with a princess who is shown as a strong female character in the trailer. Young females will look up to this character as she is a princess which is every girls dream as a child who is strong and beautiful. The film also contains action and the male protagonist will appeal to males, and the silly comedy with a typical fairy tail ending makes it a great, fun film for families to watch.

TV Show

  

Beavis and Butthead is a drawn animation aimed at males teenagers and adults from 16 to 35 as it's contains rude and crude adult humor. I think it's more appealing to teenage males as the two protagonist are teenagers boys who are reckless, causing trouble and doing what they want and show females as sex symbols in the animation.

Who is stop motion animation made for?

I believe stop motion animation is aimed at anyone and everyone, it just depends on what attracts someone to see a stop motion such as the genre, story or characters etc, just like any ordinary film out there would. However I feel the majority of stop motion films appeal to and are made for a younger audience and families such as films like Nightmare before Christmas, Wallace and Gromit, Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer and James and the Giant Peach. 

What does the future hold for stop motion animation?

I feel like stop motion is becoming less and less popular as the years go than when it was in the past as technology improves. You don't see as many films making stop motion animation as we have computerized animation or CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) now which has cast a huge shadow over stop motion animation and put it in the background. Computer animation looks better as its 3D and can do/create much more than stop motion. However Stop motion animation isn't dead and I don't think it will ever be, I believe there will always be a place for stop motion as it was the beginning of film and for that it will always be respected in the film industry. Directors still make stop motion animation today for example we've recently had The Boxtrolls, and upcoming stop motion films such as Shaun the Sheep, Grass Roots and Pinnocchio.

Sources: 
www.youtube.com
en.wikipedia.org
www.imdb.com
http://biography.yourdictionary.com/willis-o-brien
http://pingu.wikia.com/wiki/Otmar_Gutmann
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/stephen-timothy-quay/biography/
http://www.biography.com/people/walt-disney-9275533