A Brief History of Early Animation
During my visit to the George Eastman House Museum, an exhibit on animation caught my eye. Thus, I decided to focus on the history of animation for my presentation.
Since ancient times, humans have been fascinated with the idea of animating stationary images. While primitive, the methods have evolved from drawing multiple sets of legs on an animal on the wall of a cave, to the sophisticated techniques of today. In between, there have been multiple major breakthroughs that I will summarize here.
In the 17th century, Magic Lanterns projected series of images onto walls as a form of entertainment. These were some of the first examples of rudimentary projectors. In 1824, Sir John Herschel created the Thaumatrope. This used persistence of vision to make 2 images seemingly combine when a disk was spun. In 1831, the Phenakistoscope was invented which uses images drawn on the same radius between slits. When spun before a mirror, the images seemingly moved. The next big leap came in 1834 with the Zoetrope. Invented by William George Horner, the Zoetrope used a strip with multiple images, placed within a cylinder with vertical slits to show movement when spun. In 1868, the flipbook was created and closely followed by the Mutoscope which flipped through images with a hand crank and viewed through a viewfinder. In 1877, the Praxinoscope was the first device invented that was capable of projecting an animation. And in 1892, the Cinematograph was invented by Leon Bouly and refined by the Lumiere brothers. This device used water to focus the image being projected , and was an original film projector. With these innovations, the animation and film industry had a solid foundation to march forward to the technology we see today.
References:
"The History of The Discovery of Cinematography." The History of The Discovery of Cinematography --- An Illustrated Chronological History. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2017.
"Animation." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Mar. 2017. Web. 28 Mar. 2017.
Since ancient times, humans have been fascinated with the idea of animating stationary images. While primitive, the methods have evolved from drawing multiple sets of legs on an animal on the wall of a cave, to the sophisticated techniques of today. In between, there have been multiple major breakthroughs that I will summarize here.
In the 17th century, Magic Lanterns projected series of images onto walls as a form of entertainment. These were some of the first examples of rudimentary projectors. In 1824, Sir John Herschel created the Thaumatrope. This used persistence of vision to make 2 images seemingly combine when a disk was spun. In 1831, the Phenakistoscope was invented which uses images drawn on the same radius between slits. When spun before a mirror, the images seemingly moved. The next big leap came in 1834 with the Zoetrope. Invented by William George Horner, the Zoetrope used a strip with multiple images, placed within a cylinder with vertical slits to show movement when spun. In 1868, the flipbook was created and closely followed by the Mutoscope which flipped through images with a hand crank and viewed through a viewfinder. In 1877, the Praxinoscope was the first device invented that was capable of projecting an animation. And in 1892, the Cinematograph was invented by Leon Bouly and refined by the Lumiere brothers. This device used water to focus the image being projected , and was an original film projector. With these innovations, the animation and film industry had a solid foundation to march forward to the technology we see today.
 |
| An example of a Zoetrope |
References:
"The History of The Discovery of Cinematography." The History of The Discovery of Cinematography --- An Illustrated Chronological History. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2017.
"Animation." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Mar. 2017. Web. 28 Mar. 2017.
Comments
Post a Comment