Context of Practice Lecture 6

Animation

Derived from the Latin word 'animare' meaning 'to give life to'.
Animation is the act of creating a series of images that create the illusion of movement using the persistence of vision.
Humans have created image sequences for thousands of years decorating vases, walls, bowls and lots more.
4,000 years ago Egyptians were drawing on walls. Then came the magic lantern by Christian Huygens in 1650. It was a projector that when it revolves, produces different images. There are only two images but its still creating movement.
Next came the Phenakistoscope designed by Plateau and Von Stampfer. This was a disk with a series of images drawn on evenly around the centre of the disk they are all put at different distances from the centre. There was also slots in the disc so you can put it in front of a mirror and look through it and spin the wheel and it would look like the image was moving from the inside out.


I think this is so clever for its time! I love the effect.

Next was the Zoeatrope- 1834. This is a cylinder with slots cut out of the sides and a series of images stuck inside so when you look through a hole and spin it, the images appear to move!
 
Then came flipbooks in 1868 by Piere- Hubert Devignes.

'Animation is not the art of drawing but the art of making movements that are drawn' Norman McLaren 1949

I particularly like an original animation by Windsor McCay called Gertie the Dinosaur.  It's lovely and a huge step in its time, combining a human with animation and they seem to interact. It was also the first to use key frames, registration marks and tracing paper.
1928-1957 was the golden age of animation. Beginning with Walt Disney. This started out with steam boat Willie which had a synchronised sound track. He went on to do a number of 'silly symphonies'
In 1937 Snow white was made costing $1.7 million. Silly symphonies was then re done as 'Fantasia' in bright colour and so much better than the old ones. I remember this to be fabulous.

Then came the television age 1958-1985.Things like the Flintstones from 1960.
Then toward the digital age there was wind in the willows in 1983 and Pixars Luxo jr. in 1986 using 3D animation software. After that the first 3D animated feature film toy story was made in 1995. This made way for lots of new things.