Lecture 9: A History Of Animation

In this lecture we were given a not so brief, brief history into animation, which included its origins and its journey through the decades until today. With me being on an animation course I really enjoyed this lecture and found it extremely useful and beneficial, as it gave me an insight into how animation has developed over time and how it was done before we were introduced to technology.

It does well to remember that sequential storytelling isn't a modern concept, but rather a concept that has been around since and before the Egyptian's, who used to create burial chamber murals that depicted detailed sequential stories. However, it wasn't until the 1600s that people began to play around with the idea of persistence of vision. In approximately 1650 Christian Huygens created the first tool to be used to create animation, the Magic Lantern. The contraption involved placing a glass slide behind a magnifying lens and turning the lens to flip between the two different images to create the illusion of movement. This idea was developed further to create the Thaumatrope, which was created in the same way, however it was projected through a lens it was simply a card with two different images on either side and if it was spun quick enough the images would mere and you'd get a constant image because of persistence of vision.

Thaumatrope

Continuing with the development of the original Magic Lantern, the Phenakistoscope was created by two different men independently of each other. At this point, what we know as traditional animation was becoming more apparent in the way these mechanisms were made, as the Phenakistoscope would be made of a series of sequential images that when spun would merge together to create a moving sequence rather than a transition between just two images. This was then further developed into the Zoetrope and again into the Flipbook, which are both still used to create animations in today's society.

Phenakistoscope

With the advent of film, artists were able to record a sequence of images to create a moving image. This allowed for the creation of traditional animation and it was from here that animation really began to take off and would continue to do so throughout the decades. A great example of how this technique was being used to create fun, entertaining little moving shows is Émile Cohl's Fantasmogrie (1908), which was regarded as one of the first modern animations. To create this animation, Cohl used pencil to draw the initial images and then printed them onto negative film. Although animations like this lacked a clear story line, it is evident of the influence this has short animation has had on animation as a whole throughout the years. It opened eyes to the full potential of animation and the creative possibilities that could be found in this technique.

By 1928 the Golden Age of animation was upon us in which animation had developed its own 'language' and was on a commercial rise. Animation wasn't just seen as an art form anymore but as a tool for money making. With animators such as Fleischer Brothers, Reynaud and Starewicz portraying that animation could be used for entertainment purposes and could actually be very funny to watch, it allowed big name animators such as Walt Disney to charge forward into the Golden Age of animation and morph the future of animation. During this period many animations were being created worldwide that used significantly influential techniques such as stop motion animation and Pixilation. However, it was Disney that had possibly the most impact on how aesthetics were dealt with in animation with his release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in which different animation techniques were combined to create the longest running animation of its time.

In 1957 the Golden Age of animation came to end as TV was becoming more popular and the Television Age began. By this time broadcasters were demanding large quantities of programming on low budgets, which proved to be difficult for the animation industry and led to many changes being made to previous techniques and processes. Things such a walk cycles and backgrounds were recycled many times in order to keep up with the demand of the creating a large amount of animation on such a low budget and small time frame. Because of this pressure that was being placed on the industry to create animation in mass, the quality of animation was decreasing rapidly and feature length animations were being over taken by much cheaper mass produced animations such as the Flintstones. 

The Flintstones

Due to the time and budget restrictions placed upon animation, the industry turned towards a more experimental form and often combined animation with other methods such as live film. In the UK, the industry had decided to focus upon creating animations using stop motion, which turned out to be extremely popular. Towards the end of the Television Age, more animators were experimenting with digital animation and by 1985 the Digital Age of animation had begun. 

In 1986 John Lasseter and Steve Jobs showed the world the full potential of 3D animation with the production of Luxo Jr., which was ground breaking and completely changed the way animation was seen. From here there has been a new rise in animation and it has developed alongside today's technology to create animations that contain strong, moving story lines and that break the boundaries of combing techniques and methods to create animations not only for entertainment but for artistic purposes too.