Animation Timeline

40,000BC

Within this time period cave paintings were established usually on the roof or the walls inside a cave. Cave paintings were famously originated within the area of France, Chauvet Cave.

7,000BC

Shadow puppets is an old entertainment factor in which parchment paper would be used in order to tell a story. It uses flat articulated figures to create the impression of moving human’s.

2,000BCFrom the agriculture of Greece, the Greek would paint figures on vases for suitable reasons.

1660’sWithin this time period magic lanterns were created. They used a mirror behind the back of the light source to direct as much of the light as possible through the small sheet of glass, on which was the painted or photographic image which would be projected and onto the lens at the front.

1825

Nicéphore Niépce produced the first ever photograph, this was an image which was taken looking out from a window which included in the image was the roofs of other houses/buildings outside. This was influential on the animation scene as it showed images can be captured leading to the creation of stop motion

Victoria parlour Games1830’s

The first Parlor games are invented showing invention of moving images within the home, phenakistocope and zoetrope both displayed the movement of images which shown a couple of seconds of footage. Both machines had small slots in the side of the machine to look in, which you could see the animation.

1860’s

Barnes Linnett invented the flip book which is a book of images on different pieces of paper which is then flipped by the human hand to create a short animation. Through out the book each drawing was slightly different to give the illusion that the images are all moving when flipped, they would all carry on from the one previous which would then provide you with a short animated story. The images themselves are usually hand drawn. A couple of years later Herman Casler created the Mutoscope which was a mechanical version of the flipbook by using an admission charge of a penny in which you would look into holes which you would see a short animation.

Eadweard MuybridgeEadweard Muybridge was a pioneer in stop motion, although he was not the formal creator he help establish this theory. As he wanted to prove that an image could be taken of a horse whilst all four limbs off the ground, he set up a series of cameras in lines on the ground so when the horse trotted past it would trigger the cameras which they would then take the image.

1880’s – Émile Reynaud (8 December 1844 – 9 January 1918) was a French pioneer and invented the Praxinoscope which was basically a spinning drum and was the successor of the Zoetrope. The Praxinoscope was invented in 1877. It still used a strip of photographs placed on the inside. In 1889 Reynaud developed the Théâtre Optique, an improved version capable of projecting the images onto a screen from a longer roll of pictures, and this allowed him to show drawn animated cartoon to larger audiences.

1880’s

1895

William Harbutt invented plastacine. After this discovery he then further went onto model animation which was Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit. He created these characters with plastacine throughout the majority of the film.

Lumieres

Lumieres further then went onto holding their first ever private screening of projected motion pictures in Paris 1845. An admission charge was also added due to it being the first ever private screening.

1896-Georges Méliès

Georges Méliès (8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938). Was the creator of special effects, he was one of the first. He discovered in by accident when his camera broke down, and when he had the film developed the bus had disappeared. And he thought that if you freeze the camera, you can move something.

1897- Arthur Melbourne

Arthur Melbourne-Cooper is the creator of the oldest existing animation, the animation was for Birds Custard and this was the first recorded use of animation in advertising. He also created the ‘match advert’ in which as all animated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HD9NwzFNLY

1915Cellulouse Actete was developed within this time period, this entails clear plastic which enables drawings to be made in layers so the images used look much more realistic. It would further enable depth for the film.

Winsor McCay who was an animator, produced the first proper animated film for the cinemas which was Gertie the Dinosaur. He would show realism through this animation as when the dinosaur got closer to the screen he would make it bigger which in real life, this happens. He also made it eat the tree and a boulder.

1914

1920’s

Within the 1920’s, sound was then further added onto films. The sound was then synchronized onto movies. This made films a lot more successful as individuals could then also watch and listen to what was going on, feelings of characters could then be further expressed through speech.

http://www.hollywoodmoviememories.com/articles/silent-films-articles/1920s-films-early-production.php

1928

‘Steamboat Willie’ was the first ever film with synchronized sound, Disney were the creators of this as it was a Mickey Mouse animation. This was the most successful animated film.

1930In the 1930’s color was added to film. In 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the first full length animated feature film to be released in color. This was one of the first films to use Rotoscoping, a process of tracing real life people and then turning it into animation. So the movements of the body are more realistic, than if they were just to be drawn by hand, they were capturing the motion. For the time it was like CGI.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIwa9sPFT5I

Ray Harryhausen was an outstanding visual effects creator, writer and producer and the creator of 3D motion model animation know as Dynamation working on major films through a 60 year career. Working on major blockbuster such the original King Kong and Clash of the Titans. He traditionally worked on the film such as Jason and the Argonauts.

Ray Harryhausen

1962

Willis O’Brien was an American motion picture special effects and a stop motion animation pioneer. He created the dinosaur and animated them for The Lost World and King Kong.

1980’s‘Tron’ the first ever animated film made by computer technology, this meant that the use of hand made/hand drawn images and features would not be useful. It was released by Walt Disney productions.

1990’s

The first ever Toy Story film was created in 1995, it was the first full-length all-computer-generated animated film up to this period. It was also the first ever film produced by Pixar. The full film was produced by computer technology which led to hand drawn images not being need anymore for filming, this is how computer technology taken over and dominated.

2009

The Princess and the Frog is the last traditional animated film Disney ever made before using CGI to make their animated films. This means all the films in which they make would be all computer designed. The traditional animation is using hand drawn images to create the frames the next slightly different from the previous whereas now it is all computerized.