William George Horner was born in 1786 and was a British mathematician who was credited with the modern invention of the zoetrope. The modern zoetrope was invented by British mathematician William Horner and he called it the Daedalum. The zoetrope didn't become popular till the 1860's when it was patented by English and American makers. The American developer William F. Lincoln named it the zoetrope, meaning the wheel of life. At the same time there was similar inventions like the Phenakistoscope and the stroboscope. The zoetrope works on the same principle as the phenakistoscope but pictures were drawn on a strip of paper which was placed around the bottom of the drum. As well as the pictures being positioned differently the slits had also moved to the top of the drum so it didn't need a mirror and could be used by multiple users at the same time. Because the drum was mounted on a spindle it was easy to change the speed of the animation, generally the faster the drum was spun the smoother the animation was.
On the 14th of October, 1801, Joseph Plateau, the inventor of the Phenakistoscope was born. In 1832 Joseph Plateau invented an early stroboscopic device which he called the Phenakistoscope which was the first device to give the illusion of a moving image. It used a spinning disc which was attached vertically to a handle. The disc had a series of printed images of the different phases of the animation as well as a series of equally spaced radial slits which the user looks through into the reflection of the mirror. The slits work as a frame barrier and stops the images merging together.
Eadweard James Muybridge was born in 1830 and was responsible for inspiring Thomas Edison to persue the development of a motion picture system which he later called the Kinetoscope. The idea of the Kinetoscope came around when Edison attended a lecture from Eadweard Muybridge. Edison wanted to create a motion picture system with sound. It was in march 1889 that Edison filled a second caveat to the U.S. Patent Office where he refered to the system as the kinetoscope. The original idea for it was to use small photographs recorded directly on a cylinder/drum, which was made of an opaque material for positive images and glass for negative and coated in flammable solution called collodion. There was also going to be an audio cylinder which was synchronised with the image cylinder which would have been viewed through a microscope like tube.
The inventor of the Praxinoscope, Charles-Émile Reynaud was born in 1844 and was a French pioneer responsible for the first projected animated cartoon. The Praxinoscope was invented by French pioneer Charles-Émile Reynaud and was the successor of the zoetrope. Charles-Émile Reynaud replaced the slits around the top of the drum with and inner circle of mirrors placed in such a way that it made the images seem more of less stationary in position as the wheel turned. Someone that looked at the mirrors would see the illusion of movement, which was brighter and less distorted than that of the zoetrope. Later, in 1880, Charles-Émile Reynaud developed the projection praxinoscope which was another improvement on the praxinoscope. This used a lantern to project images onto a small screen allowing more people to view it. Finally, in 1888, he perfected a large scale projection version of the praxinoscope. This version of it used painted glass plates which were mounted in leather bands, the leather bands were connected by a metal strip which allowed it to locate on a pin on the rotating drum and align the image with the projecting lantern. by mounting the images on a pair of drums he could get a continuous series of moving images.
Thomas Alva Edison was born on the 11th of February 1847. He was responsible for many great inventions, one of which being the Kinetoscope.The idea of the Kinetoscope came around when Edison attended a lecture from Eadweard Muybridge. Edison wanted to create a motion picture system with sound. It was in march 1889 that Edison filled a second caveat to the U.S. Patent Office where he refered to the system as the kinetoscope. The original idea for it was to use small photographs recorded directly on a cylinder/drum, which was made of an opaque material for positive images and glass for negative and coated in flammable solution called collodion. There was also going to be an audio cylinder which was synchronised with the image cylinder which would have been viewed through a microscope like tube.
The Lumière Brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière and Louis Jean Lumière, are the people that have been credited with being the first filmmakers in history and basically inventing modern cinema with the cinematograph which allowed an audience of more than one to view the animation at a time. The invention was patented by the Lumière brothers. The brothers produced their first film in 1894 with the title "Sortie de l'usine Lumière de Lyon" and it is seen as the first real motion picture.
Flick book is one of the simplest forms of animations, it involves drawing a series of images on pieces of paper and then flicking through them. If done correctly it gives the effect of animation.
Leonard Charles Huia "Len" Lye was a New Zealand-born artist known mostly for his experimental films and kinetic sculptures. His films have been archived and stored in many organisations such as the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific Film Archive at University of California, Berkeley. Despite becoming an american citizen in 1950, most of his work went to the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth, New Zealand.
Cel animation is a traditional animation technique where the character, scene or background etc. is drawn on sheet of celluloid, hence the name cel animation. The invention of cel animation is credited to Earl Hurd who patented the process in 1914. Using this technique can rapidly speed up the production of the animation as any thing that doesn't move in the shot wont be replaced.
Norman Mclaren was a Scottish born, Canadian animator, film director and producer. He is best known for his for the National Film Board of Canada. He is seen as a pioneer in the animation and film making sectors due to his excelled skills in drawn on film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixelation and graphical sound. He picked up many awards for the work that he had produced including; an Oscar for the best documentary in 1952 for his film Neighbours, a Silver Bear for best short documentary in 1956 and BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film for Pas de deux in 1969.
Rotoscoping is a traditional 2D animation technique where by the animator traces over footage frame by frame to produce the animation.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc is an American film, television and music entertainment producer founded by the four Warner brothers (Albert, Harry, Sam and Jack) in 1923. The company was the first to really synchronize animation and sound together. The company released 'Lights of New York' in 1928 which is thought the be the film behind the movie industry changing over to synchronized sound. The company is most famous for its cartoons such as 'Bugs Bunny', 'Looney Tunes' and 'Merrie Melodies'.
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney and his brother Roy O. Disney founded Walt Disney Productions, one of the most well known motion picture companies in the world, now known as The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney and his staff produced some of the most well know fictional characters, the most well known being Mickey Mouse who was originally voiced by Walt himself. Over his lifetime Walter won many awards including, four honorary Academy Awards, 22 Academy Awards from 59 nominations, which included a record four in one year. Disney also won seven Emmy Awards.
Vector graphics work by the use of points, lines, curves and shapes to build up an image, this is good because it means that the image can be scaled up infinitely without any loss of quality.
Hanna-Barbera Productions was founded in 1957 and was responsible for such TV shows as; Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo and The Smurfs, earning them 8 Emmy awards, a golden globe award and even a star on the the Hollywood walk of fame. The studios success started to fall during the 80's before being bought by Turner Broadcasting System in 1991 where the company used Hanna-Barbera's back catalogue of productions to create a new channel known as Cartoon Network. Hanna-Barbera's productions were made using cell animation which is where each individual image is drawn by hand making production a long process often consisting of 1000's of pictures just for a short film.
Yellow Submarine was a full-feature animation based on the Beatles, released in 1968. The Beatles never provided their voices for their personas, instead they had actors provide them instead. The Beatles didnt actually appear in the animation until the last scene and providing the music.
Monty Python are a surreal comedy group from the UK, they are the group behind Monty Python's Flying Circus. The show first aired on October 5th 1969. The animation within the show was between each sketch and was done by Terry Gilliam.
A Scanner Darkly is an animated sci-fi thriller based on the book written by Philip K. Dick. The novel was sent in 1994 (the then future) and is a semi-biographical story about drug culture and use (both recreational and abusive). The film was released in 2006 and used a technique called interpolated rotocscoping to produce the animation, this is where the animator draw over the original image frame by frame.
Bitmap images work by mapping each pixels colour within an image, because of this they rely on an images resolution therefore making hard to re-size an image. If the image is scaled up using a software's re-size prompt the software has to guess the colour values of new pixels which leads to a loss of quality.
Toon Boom Studio is an animation software developed by Canadian based company Toon Boom Animation Inc. The software is used for creating storyboards and animations for various projects such as games, videos, web and mobile animation as well as others. It lets you choose from various techniques to create the animations, these include; stop-motion, traditional/digital/paper animation, rotoscoping, cut-out and bones animation among other techniques. There are many different studios such as DisneyToon studios who produced films such as; The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, Recess: School's Out, 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure and The Jungle Book 2 as well as many, many others. The current software is Toon Boom Studio 8 which got released on August 8th 2013.
Flash is a piece of animation software that can used to produce an animation or games. Flash has been around since 1996. Flash primarily uses vector images for its animations, because of this it gives a very cartoony look to it but it does mean it will always be at a high quality no matter the resolution.
Music videos aren't often animated other than text effects. The group Gorillaz use animated gorilla personas created using traditional 2D techniques with some more modern digital ones.
Persepolis is a French-American animated film about a young girl coming of age during the Iranian revolution and is based on the novel of the same name, the name is a reference to the city of the same name. The film was first shown at the Cannes film festival and was co-winner of the Jury prize
Mobiles phones now use animations for most tasks, whether its making the UI slightly more interesting or the use within an app. One of the earliest examples of animation on a phone was the game Snake which was very simplistic in the animation.
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