Development In Animation

Most of us only know animation to be in film made by corporate production companies such as Walt Disney, Pixar and Warner Bros. but you might want to know that there was animation before we saw it on a television screen, there was many different types of devices that motion picture could be shown on. These devices would often scare audiences because this art was absent before these 'magical' devices, this amazed every audience member. This would frighten many people at this time as there was nothing ever invented like the ‘magic lantern’ manipulates still images changing them quickly to give the illusion of motion to them. Invented around 1650, the Magic Lantern it is an extremely early version of the first kinds of projectors, it was positioned in a preferably dark room and projected on a flat surface (e.g large wall) using a form of light like a couple of candles. People often judged this device as demonic and frightening, they were even convinced this was a witnessing of the supernatural. The early known magic lanterns are believed to of been created by Christiaan Huygens or Athansius Kricher.

There were many other devices similar to this after the magic lantern, these devices have been created by the pioneers in the animation industry and I doubt they would have thought it could ever be as big as it is now. William George Horner the creator of the ‘Zoetrope’ is among these many pioneers, it is  very similar to another device the Phenakistoscope (I shall explain later), The Zoetrope was created in 1834, it is a circular device that spins on its own axis having several frames of animated prints around the circumference of the circle. Next to each printed image it had a small peep hole type of like slot in the material, this hole was there in order to allow the viewer using this device to be able to see the images through the other side when it is spinning at a rapid speed, creating the illusion of motion. The Phenakistioscope created before the Zoetrope in 1831, it was almost identical to Zoetrope, so as you can see William Horners design for the Zoetrope was defiantly influenced by Joseph Plateau’s Phenakistoscope.    

Another Pioneer for animation would have to be Emile Reynaud from a French origin created the ‘Praxinoscope’ in 1877. This device was also influenced by the Zoetrope combining the circular design of the Zoetrope nevertheless, mirrors were placed around the hand-drawn pictures, this was done to show the drawn images in a clearer way than the previous Zoetrope did. Emile Reynaud then decided to make a much improved version of this, enlarging this device naming it the 'Theatre Optique' which could now be projected onto a screen.

 

 

 

 

A 'Zoopraxiscope' was the name for the next device produced, created by Eadweard Muybridge in 1879. This device was considered the first movie projector. This device consisted of revolving glass disks with hand-painted pictures on them. These disks were moved at a rapid rate to create the illusion of motion through still pictures. A interesting fact about the Zoopraxiscope is the ‘Zoo’ in the name was used within it as it the device mostly premiered pictures of animals in motion.

 

In 1888 animation started to get some recognition as the animation industry started to get competitive, this was because the famous inventor Thomas Edison changed the industry completely decided to generate a device named the Kinetoscope, it was a very early motion picture exhibition device. What this device allowed was for short animation films to be able to be viewed by an individual at one time. This was done by looking through a small window hole. This illusion worked by the movement of conveying a strip of perforated film holding sequential images over a light source with a high speed shutter. This device was much more advanced than the other devices at this time, which made it a breakthrough in the world of animation. Thomas Edison was the inventor of the Phonograph he describes his ideas for this device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear" record and reproduce objects in motion.

There was yet another breakthrough in animation and projection after this. The Lumiere brothers invented and worked out how to project film onto a screen and also created the first motion picture camera in 1895. This would have been the most thrilling moment in cinematography history as no one had ever dreamt something like this could have been created. This projection device made by the Lumiere Brothers had the same affect on it audiences as the magic lantern as no one had ever seen anything like it before. You can see that from this point the cinematography and the animation/film industry has been evolving using previous inventions to improve on there own media devices are now developed up to  a high standard from all of the past inventions from the other pioneers of animation.

 

 

After the Lumiere brothers brave milestone another man who changed the film and animation industry books was George Pal a film producer of a Hungarian origin. Pal was best known for his creation of his animated shorts called ‘The Puppetoons’ these short cartoons films were pioneering in the way of using the Stop Motion animation technique. The puppetoons cartoons have defiantly developed animation today, they most likely have inspired and influenced the person who pioneered animation for the 20th century it would have been unheard of to create full-length animation films. However Walt Disney must’ve found some inspiration to create his first full-length feature animation film by watching these Puppetoons films, when he made Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Developers

Willis O’Brien was a pioneer for stop motion animation who was recognised for his work in animation, creating films such as ‘The Lost World’ (1925) and the world renowned ‘King Kong’ (1933) Especially in 1933 there was a lack in animation technology and to create such films as these it answers why Willis O’Brien became a pioneer as he was able to create these pictures that shocked audiences gluing them to there seats, it was most likely similar to the feelings that audiences got to the magic lantern from the shock of witnessing something so new and revolutionary its frightening.

Also another animation pioneer has to be Ray Harruasuen who was most famously known for his first colour animation film ‘the 7^th Voyage of Sinbad’ and 'Jason and the Argonauts', which famously contained his scene ‘the fight with the skeleton warriors’ this particular scene was extremely popular as it contained actual moving skeletons having a sword fight with the starring character. This was seen as ground-breaking to audiences as visually the pictures were life-like stop motion characters that had facial expressions and body movements.

 

 

 

Jan Svankmajer born in Prague was fascinated by puppetry, making him into a pioneer of modern animation. Some of his greatest known work is his own film ‘The Last Trick’ (1964) Svankmajer was a pioneer due to his technique in stop motion, He was able to create surreal and humorous work. His work used funny exaggerated sound effects, one of the most noticeable ones was during eating scenes within his productions. Svankmajer's work was usually only made using stop motion, however He rarely also used clay within animation similar to how the famous Aardman studio's in England created (Wallace and Gromit) and other productions.

The last considered pioneer of the modern animation/film industry is Tim Burton. Tim burton was most known for  his specific style of animation with its aesthetical visual appearance. Many of his films such as Corpse Bride and Nightmare Before Christmas these are hugely popular claymation films with cult fan followings. I feel that burton is  a pioneer in the animation industry due to his own style of rather gothic animation. Corpse bride is a very good example of this style sharing attributes with gothic culture. Most animators had ever thought about combining a completely 'off the wall' style to there animations and with Tim Burton doing this he has created a whole new dimension to animation, this style of animation has become popular throughout the world, future generations of animators will look to these pioneers to create there own style of animations that will in-turn create a new dimension to the animation industry.

How Disney Influenced Animation

Within this essay I'm going to explain how Disney has had an enormous impact on the animation industry, influencing basically every animation you watch to this day, and also about how they have highly influenced large animation companies such as Warner Bros. and Pixar.

 
 
 
 

 

Two brothers Walt and Roy Disney created Walt Disney Productions on October 16th 1923. The Disney company are highly regarded within the animation sector, considered to be the pioneers of cartoon animation. In the 1920s there was a miniscule amount of technology world-wide let alone specific technology to create cartoon animations. All Walt and Roy had only basic drawing utensils to created these iconic characters you see today. The Walt Disney Company were also the first animators to create a full length animation movie called, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves", in 1937. This movie to this day it is seen by vast quantity's of people and is known globally as it is an iconic movie that took the world by storm. Making Snow White has had a huge effect on the way people viewed animation as it was now considered a very serious component to the arts specifically the film industry as they work adjacent to each other. This movie has influenced other recognizable companies such as Pixar that have gone on to make global animation movies such as the Toy Story series. The magic to Walt's success is that he targets his movies specifically for children, nevertheless the movies touch not only the children but the adults too, the reason why they are so very successful is because there just isn't anything like a Disney Production and parents are happy to let children view this content, which is very memorable making it into a traditional film to play for youngsters.

Walts most ambitious project making Snow White and the Seven dwarves was the first full-length cel animated feature film that was released in 1937 was a break through as no one had ever attempted before this tiresome accolade, because there wasn't any computer generated animation technology back then it was made up from tens of thousands of drawings, it has been named as the greatest American animation film of all time in 2008. The movie contained speech for the characters which was rather new within the animation 'scene' as it was extremely hard to synchronize in the edit. The sound/speech was created  by people doing voiceovers for characters these tapes of audio were cut into the production without having to use text in speech bubbles to explain the situation. Because of these never before chartered territories in animation with the lack of technology and the costs of an ambitious project like this, it shocked audiences that this could be created, audiences loved this film and audiences today still love it and is a family favourite in most households.

 

However before Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney had already created another milestone in animation making the first animated short to synchronize sound with the relevant action in the frame. This was “Steamboat Willie”, it just like Snow White amazed its global audience, This didn’t have any synchronized voiceovers in it nevertheless it had FX sounds clips (a example of this is: when the iconic Disney character Mickey Mouse is having a tug of war with a goat, a FX sounds has been added so you can hear the sound of something stretching.)

 

Most if not all of The Walt Disney Company's early productions were Cell animations this means that the animation is made up of a extremely high amount of drawn pictures, the way a cell animation works is the same way as a flick book where there are drawn images and they get flick rapidly giving the illusion that there is a fluid motion when really they are just still pictures. To create the professional and polished look Disney animators have done they would draw an image of someone moving slightly over each time on each sheet of paper. As you can imagine this is a very long time consuming process you could say Disney did cut some corners by because to save creating a lot of backgrounds for each individual scene, They only make the characters move to create the illusion of motion throughout each scene as if it were changing. This is an earlier traditional way of animation because of the lack of computers and other technology, but in the current most animation is done with the aid of computer technology to generate characters, scenes etc... Also the editing software on computers today is very advanced and you can make decisive cuts to footage, whereas previous to computer technology editing would of had to of been done by hand editing raw film reels.
 
Another reason why Snow white broke the boundaries'  was also the very first full length animation feature film to have Technicolor technology within it. This was a huge breakthrough in animation  technology and even film in the 1930s, this was I feel a vital part to Walt's success because most of Disney's storylines are based on fantasy and because of this new technology it emphasised the magical new revolutionary side to the brand, which people where happy to buy into.

After The Walt Disney Company released Snow White, they were seen as the pioneers of animation at the top the league, making many others influenced to make animated films such as the Disney productions, witnessing how successful Disney was with Snow White and various other shorts. Warner Brothers  joined in and had a crack at the industry, they started to make cartoon shorts in the 30s known as Looney tunes and Merrie Melodies. Warner Bros were definitely influenced by Disney as Warner released there first Looney Tunes 'cartoon' in 1930 (shortly after Steamboat Willie in 1928), Loony Tunes was also a cel style of animation (created using drawings). Also because Warner Bros. were trying to be a competitor of Walt Disneys, Warner named Loony Tunes, Looney Tunes because it is a variation on Silly Symphonies, the name of Disneys series of music-based short films. Despite Warner being new to the Industry from 1942 until 1969, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were the most popular cartoon shorts in movie theaters, exceeding Disney and other popular competitors. Visually Warner had shown a lot of influence from Disney as it contained similar Disney styles of animation, the sounds for example: when one character starts to play a musical instrument, a tune has been edited in so the instrument starts to play, visually with musical notes coming out of the instrument. Something else we see from this cartoon that seems influenced from Disney’s shorts is that they also have the typical style of story where two main characters chasing each other around with extra background character’s within the story.

Large production houses still find inspiration from these Walt Disneys productions. Although Disney has collaborated with Production companies as well, Disney approached Pixar to make a full-length computer animated film, seeing as how successful the earlier short Tin Toy in 1988, as it won the first Oscar to an animated short. Pixar has achieved a high accolade in them being the first production company to win an Oscar for an animated short. Pixar have definitely been influenced by Disney being the first to make a full-length animation film, Toy Story was Pixar’s first time making a full-length animation film, which has gone on and now there is a series of Toy Story films. By Disney approaching them to make a full-length production, they may have looked at Disney for inspiration on how the generate their ideas for sections of the storyline and also Disney can give guidance to Pixar as Disney has been in the same position creating (Snow White) their first animation film. Disney have definitely inspired Pixar to make their first animated film despite the use of computer to generate it and the different aesthetic to the film visually, Pixar have now been making full length animation films since Toy Story which was a huge success making them both share quite accolades similar of success.        
 
 

To conclude this I would have to say that Walt and Roy Disney starting up Walt Disney Productions In the early 1920's has had a huge influence on not only animation but on all of its viewers, personally I couldn't imagine my childhood without a Disney production in it, and I think this is the same for the majority of people. In the early 1900's Walt Disney saw potential in the animation strand of the film industry and Disney was the only production company really attempting to experiment with it, the turning point for animation was when Disney started using film production techniques in their animations such as audio and colour visually, these were both made very apparent in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, let alone the fact that is was the first full-length animation movie. From Walt and Roy Disney's humble origins on a farm they would have never dreamt the empire The Walt Disney Company is today. Disney has also influenced other production company's into making theme parks as Disneyland is a world renowned holiday resort. Disney has created an empire that is a pilgrimage to his initial ideas that are a huge part of western culture, When I say pilgrimage it is very similar to religion, we buy the books and films to get closer and educated on the characters and 'everything Disney', and then followers will go to a Disneyland resort and this is like the pilgrimage you go to this resort to ultimately get closer to everything Disney, but it is a fun experience nonetheless.

Stop Motion Presentation (Guide)

Charity Research

Crisis charity

Research found at the following websites

• http://community.crisis.org.uk/xmasappeal?gclid=CIzYm9uH77QCFe7MtAodXQsAxQ
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_(charity)Who are they and What do they do?

Crisis is a charity that supports the needs from homeless people. This charity was founded in 1967. Crisis offer food, shelter and man other vital services such regarding well being. The main aim that Crisis look towards is to completely transform the lives of homeless people also to keep people from becoming homeless. They believe that "Homelessness won't end overnight or on our own.  But we take a lead, collaborate with others and, together, make change happen" Crisis also work even at Christmas to ensure that everyone homeless has somewhere to sleep and eat.

Why do they do it? 

They believe that they can help make all homelessness end and even stick to their own motto 'Homelessness ends here'

Campaigns

In 2011 Crisis decided to make a campaign called 'No one turned away' this helped ensure that all homeless people had the right to emergency accommodation when they need it. This is because homeless people were not considered a priority when it came to social housing.  Another campaign they introduced was the 'Shared Accommodation Rate' Single people aged under 25 who live in the private rented sector are only entitled to the Shared Accommodation Rate of Housing Benefit, equivalent to the rent for a single room in a shared house rather than the rate for a self-contained one bedroom property. 

My View on the crisis charity 

I think that the Crisis charity are an extremely important organization that do something that is very important to many people. I feel that this organization should be largely publicized as they help many homeless people across the UK not only find them homes but jobs and help them learn trades. This charity is imperative to many people spread across Britain and I think that it deserves much more attention and for this particular reason I shall be creating a stop motion animation piece regarding what this charity does.      

MoodBoard (Animation: Crisis)

Evaluation of Stop Motion Formats

Stop Motion Animation Formats

Claymation

Clay animation is a very effective and simple way of making a stop-motion animation, because of this it is one of the most popular styles of animation to date. The use of clay within animations has been seen in various films and T.V programs, these include; Pingu, Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run and The Corpses Bride. The Land Rover LR2 advert is a good example of claymation, as it has a model replica of the car they are advertising and the enviroment it is made out of clay and the ever changing environment symbolises how the car can handle any terrain. Clay is great for this advert as it can change and mould into different things, giving a textured and eye-catching look to the piece. This advertisement was filmed in the classic stop-motion, where motion is created through still pictures, where you get a series of stills and play them in order to create a sequence. The reason why I think they have marketed this product with the use of Clay animation is to give it a younger, fun and family orientated connection to the product, and also by using this method it makes this advert stand out compared to other live/real-footage ones.

A great example of a successful claymation brand is Wallace and Gromit, this iconically British duo started in 1989 with the first of many claymation movies which are still going today with there most resent in 2005 with,'The curse of the were-rabbit', but there latest endevour has been a TV series called, 'Wallace & Gromits world of invention'. Wallace and Gromit is aimed at children for family viewing, so it appeals mostly to children but older people will still get enjoyment out of it as well. This is made in the same way as the Land Rover advert, Aardman studios make clay models and armatures  these are used as the 'actors' so they need motion so they will be slowly, carefully and most important accurately moved, whilst the camera will sometimes slowly sometimes rapidly take many stills pictures, these will be played in order and will give the illusion of motion.

A good example of paper-cut out animation would be Captain Pugwash. Captain Pugwash was a paper-cut out animation aimed at children which was first published in 1950 but in 1957 the BBC commissioned a short series of short cartoon films. Originally shot in black and white but quickly getting transferred to colour with the advances of film technology around that time period. Captain Pugwash was produced using the paper-cut out technique, this is basically drawing the character on paper then cutting it out, this is a very time consuming technique. The show doesn't run anymore but later on after it generated mass popularity with the children of U.K, the BBC started to generate the cartoon with computers, this made it a lot easier and less time consuming to produce.

There is a lot of interesting ways people have used stop motion animation to depict a story, it is quite popular to use lego for stop motion as it isn't particularly messy and is extremely easy and quick to use, this is because the armatures are already constructed and ready to use, also just using lego to build backdrops/backgrounds is quick and simple to do as well. On popular video websites I've been able to view some advertisements for Lego using the stop motion technique, these are aimed at children because thats the target audience for this product.




Conclusion
In my opinion if I had to use one of these formats for filming a stop motion animation I'd defiantly me more incline to using Lego as it is a lot easy to handle and doesn't create to much mess, nevertheless I'd still consider claymation, as I feel it gives a much more textured look to the animation and I do like that its so malleable, but in saying this I don't like that its very messy by leaving oily stains/marks on surfaces and also that it takes a long time to mould in your hands because it has to be warmer to shape/mould.

Animation Timeline

We know animation today as the likes of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Spongebob Squarepants, but if we look back to the past we can see the pioneers of animation, and how different it was back in the past then to present day. If it wasn’t for these pioneers of animation, the future of animation might have been a completely different.

Magic Lantern

The Magic Lantern was the first instrument in animation to, it worked just like a projector and it was ‘the first projector’, developed in the 17^th century. The magic lantern works by having a concave mirror in the front and there is a light source behind it (Would have been a candle), and this mirror gathers light and projects it through a slide with and image printed onto it. The light rays cross an aperture and then hits the lens. The lens projects an enlarged picture of the little original one on the slide, on to a large screen.

Thaumatrope(1824)

A Thaumatrope started off as toy in Victorian times, because of its simplicity and ease of making/constructing. The Thaumatrope uses persistence of vision to work, this is because it’s a disk or card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to marry into a single image.

Phenakistoscope (1832)

Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau (1801-1883) is physicist from Belgium. He is a pioneer of animation because he invented the Phenakistoscope. He was the first person in history to demonstrate the illusion of a moving image. He done this by using two counter rotating disks with repeating drawn images in small increments of motion on one and regularly spaced slits in the other.

Zoetrope (1833)

William Horner (1786-1837) was a British Mathematician, who was also a Headmaster of a school, but most importantly he was the inventor of the Zoetrope. A Zoetrope is a device that creates the illusion of motion from a fast succession of static images. The Zoetrope was made up of a cylinder with vertical slits cut into the sides. The internal part of the Zoetrope

The Flip Book (1868)

The Flip Book or Flick Book uses persistence of vision through its rapid motion, a flip book is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change.

Praxinoscope (1877)

Emile Reynaud invented the Praxinoscope, the Praxinoscope is the successor of the zoetrope. Just like the zoetrope, using a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder. The praxinoscope improved on the zoetrope by replacing its narrow observatory slits with an inner circle of mirrors, placed so the reflections appeared more or less stationary as the wheel turned. Someone looking in the mirrors would therefore see a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion.

Kinetoscope (1888)

The Kinetoscope was a break through early motion picture device. Only one person at a time could view the action of the Kinetoscope because it only had one ‘peephole’ to observe from. The Kinetoscope creates the illusion of motion from a strip of film displaying sequential images over a light source with a high speed shutter.

35mm Filmstrip 1894-1895

The Edison production of butterfly dance with the 35mm filmstrip, this invention set the path of a modern-day format for still motion picture photography around the globe.

Cinematograph 1892

A Cinematograph is a device that’s a film camera but also a film projector as well. There is confusion about who invented it but, Léon Bouly was the inventor and unfortunately he couldn’t afford the patent for this device in the second year and then the Lumière brothers bought the license for the Cinematograph.

Gertie the Dinosaur 1914

Gertie the Dinosaur is an American animated short film created by Windsor McCay.

The film was the first ever film to be created using key frame animation, although not the first ever animated film, as sometimes it is thought to be, however it was the first ever cartoon to feature a character which showcased an interesting and appealing personality. Having a true main character distinguished it from earlier animated films referred to as, “trick films”.

El Apóstol 1917

The world first animated feature film, which used a cutout style of animation. This film was well received by critics and went on for commercial success. El Apóstol was directed by Quirino Cristiani, the running time of the film is 70 minutes and interestingly there were 14 frames per second, so overall there was 58,000 frames throughout the 70 minutes.

Walt Disney's Alice Comedies 1925 

Walt Disney is a pioneer of modern-day animation and this was his first attempt at animation. The 'Alice Comedies' are a series of animated cartoons created in the 1920's by Walt Disney, a live action little girl (played by Virginia Davis) named Alice and an animated cat called Julius have long quests and adventures in an animated environment/landscape.

Walt Disney's 1928 Steamboat Willie

Steamboat Willie is consider to be the debut of Mickey Mouse, and his girlfriend Minnie, which are icons still running today, Steamboat Willie was the third of Mickey's films to be produced, however this was the first to be distributed. This film is a hit a new stage in the development of animation as it was one of the first cartoons with synchronized sound, it was still produced in black and white, created in The Walt Disney Studio.   

Warner Bros 1930 Loony Tunes

Warner Bros released, 'Sinkin in the bathtub', which was the first series on Loony Tunes, it was a theatrical cartoon short, made in 1930 was produced and directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. It was the debut of Bosko the 'Talk-ink kid', Bosko was Warner Bros first star character, which was later taken by Porky Pig and Daffy Duck.

Walt Disney's 1932 Silly Symphonies, 'Flowers and Trees'

Walt Disney commercially released this film in 1932, it is the first animation to be produced in the full-colour three-strip Technicolor process, after several years of two-colour Technicolor films (black and white).

Walt Disney's 1937 Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs

This is the first cel animated feature to be full-length in motion picture history, and the first one in colour, it is in Walt Disney's Animated Classic series.

Released by RKO Radio Pictures, based on the German fairy tale by the Brother Grimm.

Yellow Submarine 1968 The Beatles

Directed by George Dunning,  and produced by United Artists (UA) and King Features Syndicate. The Beatles' animated personas were based on their appearance in the promotional film for the song "Strawberry Fields Forever". This animation stands out in its industry because in 1968 it competed against Disney Animations productions which have always been the leaders in the industry, and the Yellow Submarine was very well received by the public and critics.

James and the Giant Peach 1996

This British-American fantasy animation, directed by Henry Selick, based on the 1961 novel by Roald Dahl. Produced by Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi the film features a mixture of live action and stop-motion animation. This film was recieved positivley by a wide range of critics,  for example; the New York Times, Janet Maslin said the film is, "a technological marvel, arch and innovative with a daringly offbeat visual conception" and "a strenuously artful film with a macabre edge."

Chicken Run (2000)

Chicken run is a British animation film, made by the Aardman Animations studios and directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park. It was filmed in a stop-motion style, so all the characters were hand made moulded pieces of clay, It was the first feature-length film by Aardman. Aardman Studios are known globally as masters in claymation stop-motion, crafting productions like; Wallace & Gromit and Pingu.