Animation Historian

While the history of animation began much earlier, this article is concerned with the development of the medium after the emergence of celluloid film in 1888, as produced for theatrical screenings, television and (non-interactive) home entertainment.

Between 1895 and 1920, during the rise of the cinematic industry, several different animation techniques were re-invented or newly developed, including stop-motion with objects, puppets, clay or cutouts, and drawn or painted animation. Hand-drawn animation, mostly animation painted on cels, was the dominant technique throughout most of the 20th century and became known as traditional animation.

Around the turn of the millennium, computer animation became the dominant animation technique in most regions (while Japanese anime and European hand-drawn productions continue to be very popular). Computer animation is mostly associated with a three-dimensional appearance with detailed shading, although many different animation styles have been generated or simulated with computers. Some productions may be recognized as Flash animation, but in practice, computer animation with a relatively two-dimensional appearance, stark outlines and little shading, will generally be considered "traditional animation". For instance, the first feature movie made on computers, without a camera, is ''The Rescuers Down Under'' (1990), but its style can hardly be distinguished from cel animation.

Influence of predecessors

Animated movies are part of ancient traditions in storytelling, visual arts and theatre. Popular techniques with moving images before film include shadow play, mechanical slides, and mobile projectors in magic lantern shows (especially phantasmagoria). Techniques with similarly fanciful three-dimensional moving figures include masks and costumes, puppetry and automata. Illustrated children's books, caricature, political cartoons and especially comic strips are closely related to animation, with much influence on visual styles and types of humour.

The technical principles of modern animation are based on the stroboscopic illusion of motion that was introduced in 1833 with stroboscopic discs (better known as the phenakistiscope). These animated discs with an average of about 8 to 16 images were usually designed as endless loops (like many GIF animations), for home use as a hand-operated "philosophical toy". Although several pioneers hoped it could be applied to longer scenes for theatrical use, throughout the 19th century further development of the technique mostly concentrated on combinations with the stereoscope (introduced in 1838) and photography (introduced in 1839). The breakthrough of cinematography partly depended on the novelty of a technique that was able to record and reproduce reality in life-like motion pictures. During the first years, drawing animated pictures seemed an archaic technique, until some artists produced popular and influential animated shorts and producers embraced cheap techniques to turn popular comic strips into animated cartoons.

1888–1909: Earliest animations on film

Théâtre Optique

Charles-Émile Reynaud developed his projection praxinoscope into the Théâtre Optique with transparent hand-painted colorful pictures in a long perforated strip wound between two spools, patented in December 1888. From 28 October 1892 to March 1900 Reynaud gave over 12,800 shows to a total of over 500,000 visitors at the Musée Grévin in Paris. His ''Pantomimes Lumineuses'' series of animated films each contained 300 to 700 frames manipulated back and forth to last 10 to 15 minutes per film. A background scene was projected separately. Piano music, song and some dialogue were performed live, while some sound effects were synchronized with an electromagnet. The first program included three cartoons: '' Pauvre Pierrot'' (created in 1892), ''Un bon bock'' (created in 1892, now lost), and ''Le Clown et ses chiens'' (created in 1892, now lost). Later on the titles ''Autour d'une cabine '' (created in 1894) and ''A rêve au coin du feu'' (created in 1894) would be part of the performances.

Standard picture film

Despite the success of Raynaud's films, it took some time before animation was adapted in the film industry that came about after the introduction of Lumiere's Cinematograph in 1895. Georges Méliès' early fantasy and trick films (released between 1896 and 1913) occasionally contain elements that somewhat resemble animation, including painted props or painted creatures that were moved in front of painted backgrounds (mostly using wires), and film colorization by hand. Méliès also popularized the stop trick, with a single change made to the scene in between shots, that had already been used in Edison's '' The Execution of Mary Stuart'' in 1895 and probably led to the development of stop-motion animation some years later. It seems to have lasted until 1906 before proper animated films appeared in cinemas. The dating of some presumed earlier films with animation is contested, while other early films that may have used stop motion or other animation techniques are lost or unidentified, and thus can't be checked.

Printed animation film

By 1897, German toy manufacturer Gebrüder Bing had a first prototype of their toy "kinematograph", which they eventually presented at a toy convention in Leipzig in November 1898. Soon after, other toy manufacturers in Germany and France, including Ernst Plank, Georges Carette, and Lapierre, started selling similar devices. The toy cinematographs were basically traditional toy magic lanterns, adapted with one or two small spools that used standard "Edison perforation" 35mm film, a crank, and a shutter. These projectors were intended for the same type of "home entertainment" toy market that most of the manufacturers already provided with praxinoscopes and magic lanterns. Apart from relatively expensive live-action films, the manufacturers produced many cheaper films by printing lithographed drawings. These animations were probably made in black-and-white from around 1898 or 1899, but at the latest by 1902 they were made in color. The pictures were often traced from live-action films (much like the later rotoscoping technique). These very short films typically depicted a simple repetitive action and most were designed to be projected as a loop - playing endlessly with the film ends put together. The lithograph process and the loop format follow the tradition that was set by the stroboscopic disc, zoetrope and praxinoscope.

'' Katsudō Shashin'' (between 1907 and 1912), speculated to be the oldest work of animation in Japan, was probably made in imitation of similar Western printed film strips.

J. Stuart Blackton

J. Stuart Blackton was a British-American filmmaker, co-founder of the Vitagraph Studios and one of the first to use animation in his films. His '' The Enchanted Drawing'' (1900) can be regarded as the first theatrical film recorded on standard picture film that included animated elements, although this concerns just a few frames of changes in drawings. It shows Blackton doing "lightning sketches" of a face, cigars, a bottle of wine and a glass. The face changes expression when Blackton pours wine into the face's mouth and when Blackton takes his cigar. The technique used in this film was basically the stop trick: the single change to the scenes was the replacement of a drawing by a similar drawing with a different facial expression. In some scenes, a drawn bottle and glass were replaced by real objects. Blackton had possibly used the same technique in a lost 1896 lightning sketch film.

Blackton's 1906 film '' Humorous Phases of Funny Faces'' is often regarded as the oldest known hand-drawn animation on standard film. It features a sequence made with blackboard drawings that are changed between frames to show two faces changing expressions and some billowing cigar smoke, as well as two sequences that feature cutout animation with a similar look for more fluid motion.

Alexander Shiryaev

Alexander Shiryaev was a Russian ballet dancer, ballet master and choreographer who served at the Mariinsky Theatre who is credited with the independent invention of stop motion animation. From 1906-1909, created the earliest known animated films made in Russia, using puppet animation, drawn animation, and mixed techniques. While some were made as experiments (for example, a 20-minute drawn animation showing the flight of birds in a continuous line), most of them were made for educational purpose of showing the ballet dancers what their choreography should look like. The puppet animations ranged in length from just over a minute to 10 minutes long. Shiryaev's films were only screened within the Mariinsky Theatre for the performers, not publicly, and were generally unknown until 2003, when Russian documentarist and ballet historian Viktor Bocharov released a one-hour movie titled ''A Belated Premiere'' which included fragments of the various films.

Segundo de Chomón

Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón made many trick films for French film company Pathé. By 1906, he used stop motion in several short films, including '' La maison ensorcelée'' and ''Le théâtre de Bob'' (both released in the USA in April 1906). Blackton's ''The Haunted Hotel'' (23 February 1907) contains stop motion elements that are very similar to those in ''La maison ensorcelée''. If the release dates are correct (and if translated titles have not been mixed up), Blackton must have been inspired by De Chomón's work rather than vice versa, but it has been believed that ''The Haunted Hotel'' was a big hit in France and other European countries, and would have been the film that inspired local filmmakers, including Émile Cohl, to start working with the innovative animation technique. De Chomon also made the related short film '' Hôtel électrique'' (1908), which includes a short scene with pixilation.

Émile Cohl

In 1907, the French artist Émile Cohl started his filmmaking career with ''Japon de faintasie'', with imaginative use of stop motion techniques. His next short can be regarded as the first animated film using what came to be known as traditional animation methods: the 1908 '' Fantasmagorie''. The film largely consists of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There are also sections of live action where the animator's hands enters the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look. Cohl later went to Fort Lee, New Jersey near New York City in 1912, where he worked for French studio Éclair and spread its animation technique to the US.

1910s: From original artists to "assembly-line" production studios

During the 1910s larger-scale animation studios began to come into being. From then onwards, solo artists faded from the public eye. The first known professional female animator, Bessie Mae Kelley, began her career in 1917.

Winsor McCay

Starting with a short 1911 film of his most popular character ''Little Nemo'', successful newspaper cartoonist Winsor McCay gave much more detail to his hand-drawn animations than any animation previously seen in cinemas. His 1914 film '' Gertie the Dinosaur'' featured an early example of character development in drawn animation. It was also the first film to combine live-action footage with animation. Originally, McCay used the film in his vaudeville act: he would stand next to the screen and speak to Gertie who would respond with a series of gestures. At the end of the film McCay would walk behind the projection screen, seamlessly being replaced with a prerecorded image of himself entering the screen, getting on the cartoon dinosaur's back and riding out of frame. McCay personally hand-drew almost every one of the thousands of drawings for his films. Other noteworthy titles by McCay are '' How a Mosquito Operates'' (1912) and '' The Sinking of the Lusitania'' (1918).

Cartoon Film Company – Buxton and Dyer

Between 1915 and 1916 Dudley Buxton, and Anson Dyer produced a series of 26 topical cartoons, during WWI, utilising mainly cutout animation, released as the John Brown's animated sketchbook, The episodes included the shelling of Scarborough by German battleships, and The Sinking of the Lusitania, No.4 (June 1915).

Barré Studio

Around 1913 Raoul Barré developed the peg system that made it easier to align drawings by perforating two holes below each drawing and placing them on two fixed pins. He also used a "slash and tear" technique to not have to draw the complete background or other motionless parts for every frame. The parts where something needed to be changed for the next frame were carefully cut away from the drawing and filled in with the required change on the sheet below. After Barré had started his career in animation at Edison Studios, he founded one of the first film studios dedicated to animation in 1914 (initially together with Bill Nolan). Barré Studio had success with the production of the adaptation of the popular comic strip ''Mutt and Jeff'' (1916–1926). The studio employed several animators who would have notable careers in animation, including Frank Moser, Gregory La Cava, Vernon Stallings, Tom Norton and Pat Sullivan.

Bray Productions

In 1914, John Bray opened John Bray Studios, which revolutionized the way animation was created. Earl Hurd, one of Bray's employees, patented the cel technique. This involved animating moving objects on transparent celluloid sheets. Animators photographed the sheets over a stationary background image to generate the sequence of images. This, as well as Bray's innovative use of the assembly-line method, allowed John Bray Studios to create Colonel Heeza Liar, the first animated series. Many aspiring cartoonists started their careers at Bray, including Paul Terry (later of Heckle and Jeckle fame), Max Fleischer (later of Betty Boop and Popeye (later of Woody Woodpecker fame). The cartoon studio operated from circa 1914 until 1928. Some of the first cartoon stars from the Bray studios were Farmer Alfalfa

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