Pioneers of animation
Joseph Plateau (1801-1883)
was a Belgian physicist. He was inspired by the work of Faraday and Roget and
developed their ideas further to create the Phenakistoscope. He drew multiple
progressive images onto counter rotating disks to give the impression that the
images were moving. When spun and viewed in a mirror the impression of movement
was given. To prevent the images from blurring together he added splits in the card
so the image appeared to be a single moving picture.
William Horner (1786-1837), a British mathematician, was another animation pioneer who created the Zoetrope in 1834. The Zoetrope was far more practical because more than one person could view the images at a time. The Zoetrope was in the shape of a drum with an open top with hand drawn sequenced pictures on a strip of paper placed in the inner bottom of the drum. The slots are cut at equal distances around the outside of the drum. to create an illusion of motion the drum is spun so the images are moving. The Zoetrope is an improvement on the Phenakistoscope (No mirror was needed and allowed several people to view at once).
Charles-Émile
Reynaud (1844-1918) was
a French inventor, responsible for the first projected animated cartoons. He
invented the Praxinoscope, patented in
1877, it was an adaptation of the Zoetrope. Instead of narrow viewing slits it
used a prism of mirrors to reflect and
create clearer images, resulting in perfect animation without the loss in
luminosity in movement. He then went on to adapt this device so that the
animations could be projected, replacing the opaque drawings with transparent
drawings meaning that light could be shone through them.This light was then
reflected by the mirror prism and focused onto a screen through a lens.
In 1872 Reynaud developed his idea further to become
theatrical entertainment. He devised a way of painting a series of pictures on
small glass plates which were then joined together in a single flexible strip.
The animated characters were then projected onto a screen from behind. This
effect was successful but very jerky and slow and because hand drawn his films
could not easily be reproduced. Known as
Reynaud theatre optique it was a very
early version of cinema, all that was lacking was the addition of photography.
Eadward Muybridge( 1830-1904)(known
as the father of motion) was an important British photographer who secured at
least two British patents for his inventions. His large photographs of
Yosemite
Valley made him world famous. Having sparked considerable scientific
interest, Eadweard took his work to the University of Pennslyvania. Developing
a new multi-lens camera, he produced a celebrated high-speed study into the
movement of both animals and humans, published in eleven volumes as Animal
Locomotion: An electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of
animal movement (1887). His
Zoopraxiscope (considered the first movie projector), was
a device for projecting
motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible
perforated film strip used in
cinematography.
He influenced
visual artists and the developing fields of
scientific and industrial photography.The Zoopraxiscope projected images from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to give the impression of motion. The stop-motion images were initially painted onto the glass, as silhouettes. A second series of discs, made in 1892–94, used outline drawings printed onto the discs photographically, then colored by hand
The Lumière brothers(Auguste
1862- 1954,Louis: 1864-1948)(were the first film makers in history. They
patented the Cinematograph, which was far more practical than the Kinetoscope
because more than one person could view at a time, much like current cinema.
The brothers thought that "the cinema is an invention without any future" and declined to sell
their camera to other filmmakers because of this, their role in the history of
film was very brief. They turned their attentions to colour photography and in
1903 they patented a colour photography process, the "Autochrome Lumière", launched on the market
in 1907.
