History Of AnimationBy Haydn Hamilton

40,000 BC

7000 BC

Animation Timeline

2000 BC

1660’s

1825

1830

1860

1880

1895

1896

1897

1914

1915

1920

1928

1930’s

1980

1990’s

2009

Now

Ray Harry Hausen

Rooster TeethWillis Obrien

Thousands of years ago in 40,000 BC the cavemen as we call them used mashed pieces of dirt and other compounds to make a paste or paint and used this to make hand prints on the walls.

These markings were found by travellers across the world and are now visited everyday as tourist attractions.

40,000 BC

7000 BC In China at the time using Shadow puppets was a form of

entertainment in the best way to explain a story and Chinese myths and beliefs.

Using a light source projected onto rice paper with a huge canvas the performers were able to use the light as a way to cast shadows and make there characters appear to move with the use of the light.

2000 BC In Greece at the time vases had figures drawn on them in different

poses so they appear to be moving or that it would explain a story. All beautiful painted and valuable to the Greeks. Similar to the Chinese shadow puppetry the vases were used as a source for telling a story or explain Greek myth through the use of figures and pictures detailing the story.

Historians believe this was one source of animation as the pictures appear to move on specific points and that when you rotate the vase all the way it creates a sequence of moving images.

1660s Around this time magic lantern shows were introduced to the

public.

These magic lantern shows were essentially slideshows like what we have today except that the slides where painted onto glass and they were manually changed by the person in charge of the projector.

The slides were mainly used for children as a source of entertainment similar to cartoons that we have today .

1825 Niceephore Niepce produced the first photograph ever.

This revolutionized the media industry as photograph were now physical copies of pictures. That were not painted.

1830s Around this time two new devices were created for the purpose of

animation these were both used as a form as entertainment for the public.

Phenakistoscope-Created by Joseph Plateau- This device works by rotating the disk clockwise causing the pictures on the disc to move. This creates the effect that the pictures are moving upon rotation.

Zoetrope-Created by-Ting Huan-This device was originally created in China. This device is the base of a drum cut in half. Inside the drums are slits and the location of the pictures. Rotating the drum and looking through the slits creates the illusion that the pictures are moving. Both devices are similar to each other in the way the work.

The only difference is scale and positioning.

1860s At this time the device known as the flip book was made.

However this soon changed to becoming another invention in which you pay with a coin to see the animation this device was know as the Mutoscope created by Herman Casler.

How you operate this piece of machinery is that you pay with money once you did this you turn a handle located on the side to start the animation. However later on they found a way to make the device run automatically once you paid for it.

A flip book animation is created by pages with in a book in which on each page is a frame when you hold the pages back and release them creating a motion it allows the images to act as the pictures are moving when in actuality you are simply Turing the page.

1880s At this time the Praxinoscope the successor to the Zoetrope

was created in France by Charles-Émile Reynaud. Acting similar to the Zoetrope the Praxinoscope is smaller to its counter part and is viewed in the same way however this one is different in scale and operation as it has its own light source and its own handle and would mainly be found in the houses of people who have a lot of money.

They were later altered to project images onto a screen in 1882.

1895 William Harbutt created Plasticine/modeling clay by taking

normal clay and smothering it in oil so that it would not set this was later used in Claymation animations years later. On such successors as Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run.

1896 George Melies the official creator of stop-motion animation which

he discovered by accident when he was filming a bus and it vanished into thin air this then creating the illusion of stop motion animation.

This discovery caused him to continue his work as an animator with this new technique that he had invented.

George Melies

1897 On this year Arthur Melbourne Cooper created an animation using

match sticks advertising match sticks for the company to send troops match sticks in the war at the time time a link below will show you the animation.

All this animation was used simply using match sticks with bits of small wire making them look like people and allowing them to move on screen create them as characters when in actuality they were just match sticks being moved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HD9NwzFNLY

1914 At this time Winsor McCay a pioneer animated and produced the

first, proper animated film Gertie the Dinosaur.

The time span of this animation was twelve minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY40DHs9vc4

Note some one has added sound to this. The original gertie had no sound.

1915 On this year “cel” or cellulous acetate his is a clear plastic

sheeting that enables drawing to be on layers.

This is the early of rendition in which we now call film that we had in cameras before we switch to digital.

This revolutionized the film industry greatly as this allowed for layers of drawing instead of individual parts.

1920 One of the biggest things to happen for the film and animation

industry was that this year sound was added to films making it more realistic and more accurate rather then creating artificial sound with instruments.

This was the start of a new generation of movies the silent movie period was starting to close as sound is now becoming an essential key element in movies and it sold greatly.

1928 Walt Disney created his first Mickey Mouse animated cartoon.

“Steam Boat Willie” probably one of his best pieces of work and the most know this started the Mickey Mouse franchise which today has become a house hold name one of the most successful cartoon series that became one of the first to inspire so many.

Walt Disney has now become one of the most successful animators in the world if not the most successful and now owns theme parks hotels and his own studios.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBgghnQF6E4

1930s Another animation and film industry milestone occurred at this time this

of course was adding colour to movies which made cartoons become more appealing to the younger generations as the cartoons were brighter and created a happy feeling to young children it also made them more accurate as we see in colour so it made perfect sense.

In 1937 Walt Disney created Snow White which became the first animated film that was a full feature length movie.

A technique Disney used was roto-scoping which is the technique of getting a physical human and asked them to perform the scene while the animators traced all the movements and the implementing this into the cartoon.

Disney as invented the multi-plain camera which is a camera that uses layer to create the effect of foreground and background to create the effects that cartoons can enter both the front and back of the environment.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxpXqcfz_R0

1886-1962 Willis Obrien This man created the lost world of King Kong the original that

has been remade a few times later on.

Which was big influence on one of the next animators I will be talking about.

Ray Harry Hausen This man was one of the most successful model animators to

walk this earth with such amazing movies

Like Jason and the Argonauts and many other successful movies.

This man created the effect of models moving to create the idea of characteristics with in the objects to create the illusion of life.

This made for many movies to become more fantasy based.

1980s “Tron” was one of the first animated movies all created on a

computer another revolutionized idea by Disney this was an experiment that became a huge success in the 80s which encouraged a lot of influence in the 8 bit gaming industry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOzTikUdvuU

1990s The Film “Toy Story” was the first full length computer

generated movie this was the birth of CGI that now has become a key feature in thousands of movies.

And makes movies more breath taking and makes some structures look impossible but the result is always spectacular this takes months of animating with groups of people texturing, modeling and animating.

Although over used in many Hollywood blockbusters and some look more professional then others this created a whole new expectation on the movie franchise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYz2wyBy3kc

2003 In 2003 a group of friends and colleagues worked on a web

series with character models in the First Person Shooter game HALO using XBOX’s and capture software they created movement with the the characters using the controllers and move them accurately and added audio in later to create the effect that these models were talking and create tensions.

Getting cinematic shots of the environment and surrounding areas this then created a movie feel.

This was all filmed in different maps inside one single video game this has been going on for 11 years these friends now own a massively successful web show franchise and have since created music videos, sketches and animated series this company is called RoosterTeeth.

RVB RWBY

2009 This year was the last instance of the traditional animating in

which it is drawn by hand instead of being done on computers. This last project was Disney princess tale the Princess & The Frog.

After this animated movie all of animated movies are done on PC this may change later on but so far there is no indication of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQBy6jqbmlU

NOW Currently at the moment all that is happening is that computers are

the main source of animation and that CGI is over used in thousand of movies.

And for the main source of animated movies is CGI based.

The “Lego Movie” is a CGI based movie with a stop motion look.

All the images and models are created with 3D modeling software then animated by a giant team of animators takes months sometimes years depending on the length of the film its self.

The animators also have to make the mouths of the models move. To make the models mouths in sync with the sound of the vocals previously recorded by the voice actors.

CGI is also used in Hollywood block busters as a form of special effects and scenery.