History of Animation: Volume 1

Persistence of vision

Persistence of vision was a theory in the early 19th century that an image would be held in the retina for a 25th of a second before being over written by the next one. Image movement can actually be perceived down to about 10fps, which nullifies the theory but It is still a good thing to have knowledge of to help understand the technology of the time.

Edward Muybridge tested this theory on a racetrack where he took multiple pictures of horses to prove his theory that for a split second a horse wasn't actually on the ground.




Thaumatrope - Peter Mark Roget or John Ayrton Paris

The Thaumatrope was one of the first devices to highlight the persistence of vision as a potentially viable theory (later disproved) it works by showing two images in such rapid succession that they appear to become one. 

It is unclear who invented the Thaumatrope, however it is normally credited to Peter Roget or John Paris.


 
Phenakistoscope - Joseph Plateau

The Phenakistoscope was a device which showed a wheel of images, as well as numerous slits in the circle when you spin the circle the image appears to move.

He designed it 1839 and made it in 1841. Looking at the disk through a mirror you can see the pictures appear to move.  It didn't catch on in the Untied states and England until the 1860's as it had been re branded as the "Zoetrope". 

Zoetrope - William Horner

William Horner born 1786 invented the modern device known as the Zoetrope (At the time called a Daedaleum) in 1834.

The Zoetrope combined multiple moving images like the Phenakistoscope, however there where so many pictures combined that you would be able to see a moving image instead of just a static one.  The moving cylinders of the inner surface and cut slits mean that the image will not blur between pictures.  In the photo to the right you can see what a traditional zoetrope looks like.




In the video you are shown an evolution of a Zoetrope that works on the same mechanism. Here is a 3D Zoetrope used to show the animation in practice.






Praxinoscope - Emile Reynaud

The Praxinoscope is the successor to the Zoetrope it was inventing in 1877, it replaced the narrow slits on the Zoetrope with a inner circle of mirrors that made the picture brighter and smoother to watch.

Later editions of this could be projected  (The two devices at the bottom of the page could both project an unchanging back ground as well as moving characters).

As well as this allowed the advanced mechanism to allow 15 minute films to be played which compromised of around 500 pictures.

His technique was the first use of film spools and sprocket holes.  These things that are still used in analogue projection today.

Kinetoscope - Thomas Edison

The some of the most important devices in this selection are the kinograph and the kinetoscope. These machines were pioneered by American inventor Thomas Edison and W.K Dickinson. These were the first two devices in filmmaking, the kinograph and the kinetoscope revealed in 1891.  The kinetoscope was a one person peephole viewer all contained in a wooden cabinet. Here you can see one of the kinograph pictures shot, a 30 second short called Monkeyshines. There is dispute as to whether this film was made in 1890 or 1889, either way this was what was used to test the kinetoscope.




These machines were a huge success, being exported over to europe in less than five years ( the world was a lot bigger then).  They were situated in kinetocope parlors were many of the machines were lined up as to show a selection of the works together. The films ran on 16 frames a second which is the slowest speed film can be shown before it appears to flicker rather than move.These machines eventually faded out of production in favor of projectors, popularly pioneered by the...

The Lumiere Brothers

The Lumiere Brothers were there first people to make projection a viable option for filmmaking. With a background in photography, Louis and Auguste Lumiere began patenting the rights to certain methods in cinema in 1882.  They bought the film perforations used by Emile Reynaud and the rights to an early motionpicture camera invented by Leon Bouly.  By 1895 they had invented and patented their own invented motion picture camera.

The Cinematograph was a camera, development tool and projector all rolled into one. They used this to commercially shoot dozens of films and toured the world. They are considered some of the earliest filmmakers in the history of cinema.

Here is there first film - workers leaving the factory.

Louis Le Prince - The Father of Cinematography

Born 28th of august 1841; Louis Le Prince was the first, but often forgotten winner of the race to create filmaking.  In 1886 he patented the designs for his first motion picture camera the LPCC Type-16: A 16 fps Cinecamera.  This was 3 years before the first creation of Thomas Edison's Monkeyshines. Here you can see a scene from one of his remaining films. This is dated to 1888 and is recognized by the Guiness Book of World Records as the oldest film ever made. 



Le Princes life ended in mystery.  On a train to Paris in 1890 he disappeared, along with all of his possessions. Although there are theories about what had happened to him (one being a patent assassination by Thomas Edison ) he was declared dead 7 years later.

Reference List 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_and_Louis_Lumi%C3%A8re
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Le_Prince#Late_recognition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR2r__ZgO5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83rDCbxi8NU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-jtp5YXhuAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz3xpLvF3Js
scopplestone117934stopmotionanimation.blogspot.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOLE2OzoIYw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFgxJnvF2Jg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR2r__ZgO5g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEQeIRLxaM4
historyofanimation1.blogspot.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetoscope