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A Brief History Of Animation
From the earliest known drawings by prehistoric man, depicting a series of pictures showing movement, to the ancient Greek and Roman soldier with a series of images around the rims of their shields, it is evident that man has been ever willing to make drawings come ‘alive’ and move.
The earliest ‘animation’ so to speak, is often recalled a being from an age of 30’000 BC, drawn on a cave wall. It consisted of a series of images, drawn side by side, normally showing either a creature, or a prehistoric man, walking. Many believe these, although not strictly classed as animations, to be the forefront of modern day animations. These types of drawings are also visible on many Egyptian walls, decorating the tombs of the deceased in 2’000 BC.
It is also believed that some 20’000 years later, Greek and Roman soldiers would paint silhouette figures around the rim of their shields, which, when the shield was spun, gave the impression of movement. Crowds would gather, and the soldiers would show the audience, who would stare at a fixed point, their ‘animations’.
It was many years before animation would become a popular art form though, inspired by Paul Roget’s thaumatrope in 1828. Roget, a Frenchman, used a theory known as ‘persistence of vision’ to ‘capture’ a bird within a cage. Although the concept of a circular piece of card, one side showing a bird, the other showing a cage, attached to two pieces of string and then spun may seem simple by today’s standards, it was this basis that helped push animation to the stage it is at now.
The first filmed animation came via Stuart Blackton, a 20th century animated who drew face on a black board, which he would film, then erase and replace with another face. This technique, which involves the camera to be stopped whilst the face is changed, is known as ‘stop motion’.
Animation was yet again pushed forward in 1914, when Windsor McCay produced Gertie the Dinosaur, who is worldly recognised as the first cartoon character, along with Otto Messmer’s Felix the Cat, who is still running after nearly a century.
Walt Disney yet again expanded possibilities by introducing sound into his animation Steamboat Willie in 1928, which he followed with the first full length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937. Sound had never before been seen on an animation before.
More recently computer designed animations have taken over, meaning instead of months of hard labour, drawing an image multiple times to ensure just a few seconds of smooth motion, now the artist can simply input the image into a computer, and manipulate in on numerous programs available for such a task.
Many films are using this type of animation, usually taken over by big companies with the sole purpose of computer animation. Films like Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and Antz are all good examples of the computers ability for animations.
Bibliography
http://www-viz.tamu.edu/courses/viza615/97spring/pjames/history/main.html
http://www.fi.edu/fellows/fellow5/may99/History/history.html
Film Animation Techniques, Betterway Publications Inc., 1992