HISTORY OF ANIMATION

12'000 years - paleolithic cave paintings showing showing multi-legged animals,clearly trying to depict images of the movement.

An example of a early cave painting of an animal

The history of animation started in the early 19th century and has been inextricably linked with the development of still photography. Early animations were made from a series of still images shown in sequential order, most commonly the 24 frame_per second of projected film. which were still images which appear to move because of a  phenomenon known as persistence of vision, in which the eye refrains the projected image for a fraction of a second before it is replaced by the next one. the brain is then tricked into seeing the rapid sequences in the way most familiar to it. 

      

An Example of  24 frames per Second

                                  

The earliest example of moving pictures started to appear in the 19th century,which was created from a belgian physicist joseph plateau who created the device called the Phenkakistiscope, this was a disk with a sequence of eight drawings that were viewed through slots and reflected in the mirror. The phenkakistiscope was made in 1832 also during the the 19 century. 

                                                                                          

                          

Example of a Phenkakistiscope

Next step was the Zoetrape invented by Britons "william George Horner". This too used images viewed through slots, except this time they were drawn on the inside of a spining drum. the sequences were short and repetive, but still managed to captivate viewers. it made its first apearance in china 180 AD.

  

Example of a Zoetrape




The Praxinoscope was invented by french scientist Charles-Emile Reynaud , it combines the cylindrical design of the Zoetrope with the viewing mirror of the Phenakistoscope. the mirrors are mounted still in the centre of the spinning ring of slots and drawings so that the image can be more clearly seen no matter what the device's radius are.

Example of a Praxinoscope




The Kinetoscope was made in 1984, which was an early motion picture exhibition device. the Kinetoscope was designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of he device, its creates illusions of movements by passing on a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over the light source with a high-speed shutter.

Example of a Kinetoscope

The Mutoscope was an early motion picture device, patented by Herman Casler on 1884, the mutoscope doesn't project on a screen, and provided viewing to only one person at a time,what i like about it is that it also works with same principles as a flip book.

Example of a mutoscope

Vitascope

The Vita-scope was an early film projector first demonstrated in 895 by Charles Francis Jenkins, They had made modifications to Jenkins patented "Phantoscope", which cast images of film & electric light onto a wall or screen.

Phi Phenomenon

The Phi Phenomenon is the optical illusion of perceiving continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession.

beta movement

The beta movement is a optical that is fixed images seem to move, even though of course the image does not change. it might be considered similar to the effects of animation.

Optic nerve registers light at 10 cycles per second 

Persistence of vision - physical eye function

Persistence of motion - mental brain function

Silent Era

Example of both fantasmagorie on the left and humpty dumpty circus on the right

lumiere brothers

Charles-Emile Reynaud's Theatre Optique is the earliest known example of projected animation. It predates even photographic video devices such as Thomas Edison's 1883 invention, the Kinetoscope, and the 'Lumiere brothers' 1884 invention, the cinematograph. Reynaud exhibited three of his animations on October 28, 1892 at Musée Grévin in Paris, France. The only surviving example of these three is Pauvre Pierrot which was 500 frames long.

After the cinematograph popularized the motion picture, the endless possibilities of animation began to be explored in much greater depth. A short stop-motion animation was produced in 1908 by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton called The Humpty Dumpty Circus.Stop motion is a video technique in which real objects are moved around in the time between their images being recorded so that when the images are viewed as a video, they appear to be moving by some invisible force.

Fantasmagorie, by the French director Emile Courtet, is also noteworthy. It was screened for the first time on August 17, 1908 at Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris. Cohl later went to Fort Lee,New Jersey near New York City in 1912, where he worked for French studio Éclair and spread its animation technique to the US.

The Golden Age of Animation

In 1923 a studio called Laugh-O-Grams went bankrupt and its owner Walt Disney opened a new studio in Los Angeles. Disney's first project was the Alice Comedies Series which featured a live action girl who interacted with numerous cartoon characters. Some of the first animated sound films with recorded sound synchronized with the animation were the Song Car-Tunes films 1924-1927 and Dinner Time 1928. The earliest sound Song Car-Tunes films were Oh Mabel May 1924 and Mother, mother pin and A Rose on Me and  Goodbye my lady love both from June 1924. Disney's first notable breakthrough was 1928's Steamboat Willie , the third of the Mickey Mouse series, which was the first cartoon to include a fully post-produced soundtrack, featuring voice and sound effects printed on the film itself "sound on film . The short film showed an anthropomorphic mouse named Mickey neglecting his work on a steamboat to instead make music using the animals aboard the boat. 

The Television Era

Terrytoons, Tom terrific and the Flintstones

Colour television was introduced to the US Market in 1951. In 1958 Hanna-Barbera released Huckleberry Hound, the first half-hour television program to feature only animation. Terrytoons release Tom Terrific the same year. In 1960 Hanna - Barbera released another monumental animated television show, The Flintstones, which was the first animated series on prime time television. Television significantly decreased public attention to the animated shorts being shown theatres. 

 What i liked about these eras, is that it was very similar to stop motion animation and filming, in terms of how music,picture,sound were all linked together from old to new age. They were created drawing on layered see through paper , in modern days some people yous animation software's, like flash, anime studio etc.