Sources
- CS777 Notes from 2002 (only ones I can find from my previous lectures) – mainly reproduced here.
- Dan’ McLaghlin’s History of Animation
- Library of Congress Web Page about Edison’s early motion pictures
- Library of Congress Web Page about Early Animation
- Wikipedia (history of film, Lumiere, etc.)
Why talk about the history of film/animation?
- Because I am REALLY interested in it
- Because its a setup to talk about animation principles, and in the past we ended up spending our time on this preliminary stuff
- Because the historical development really parallels computer animation
- Because its an interesting story of art, tech, patents, … – that seems remarkably modern
What is Animation
“Animation can Explain What the Mind Can Conceive”
Walt Disney
To animate: to bring to life.
Animation is about storytelling by bringing things to life (making them move)
What kinds of stories to tell?
Scientific Visualization, Entertainment, …
What is different/unique about animation?
- Unprecedented control!
- Anything can happen
- control over how things look
- control over how things move
- What do you do with all of this control?
History
Pre – 1880, 1880s
Magic Lanterns – move the image that gets projected
Flipbooks, other devices
Phenakistoscope (1840) – disc with slits – look at through mirror
1872 Stanford hired Muybridge to settle horse debate (all legs in air)
1878 Horse in motion studies made
1878 Numerous cameras with trip triggers
1879 Zoopaxiscope (early movie projector)
1882 Horse in motion published
1883-1886 Muybridge stop-motion studies (clockwork triggers for cameras)
1880s Marey (French) does similar thing to Muybridge
1882 Marey’s photographic gun
1888 Muybrudge visits Edison
1888 Edison visits patent office
- 1893s – Edison’s Kinetsocope.
- Dickson (Edison told him to invent
)
Edison probably was involved
One viewer at a time. (not projected, although Edison had projectors)
No intermittent mechanism.
1891 patent
both camera and “peep hole viewer”
had ideas of 2 spools of film
1892 device
sproket with continuous feed
horizontal feed
late: shutter in front of eye
first public demonstration 1893 - Kinetoscope’s were profitable (despite being single viewer)
Dickson starts a rival company
Vitascope – early projector (like Kinetoscope, but with a projector) - 1894 -Lois Lumiere invents the cinematograph
- irony – Lumiere means light
Brothers – father ran a film factory
Louis = physicist, invented still photography things
Auguste – manager of film factory - 1892 – father retires, brothers start to think about motion pictures
perforations in film (patented, although may not have been first) - Cinematograph – might have been invented by Bouly in 1892
Lumiere definitely refined
combination camera -projector – printer,
it was the first machine to show movies successfully on a screen
used a claw movement and perforated film that
synced to an intermittent shutter movement.
16 pounds, hand cranked (much easier to use than Edison’s)
- 1895 – first projected film – in Paris
Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory) - 1896 – Lumeire sends cameras around the world to record
- 1895 – Méliès sees a cinematograph and buys one
- stage magician
invented special effects
multiple exposures
one of the first to assemble multiple shots
1896 The Vanishing Lady
1896 Un Nuit Terrible (giant insect, first horror film)
1898 Most popular filmmaker (according to Wikipedia) – because his films were longer - 1902 Melies Trip to the Moon
- Evolution
- 1899 first stop motion “animated” pieces (Matches: An Appeal, Fun in a Bakery Shop)
- 1899-1900 appearance of continuity editing
1903 evolution of basics of continuity - 1910(ish) Edison film patents start to expire
Film industry moves to the west coast to escape Edison - 1900 – Blackton’s Enchanted Drawing (video)
- working with Edison
first animation - 1906 – Blackton’s Humorous Faces
- Basic animation common
1907 Porter, 1908 Europeans, …
Fantasmagorie (1908 film) - 1911 – Winsor McKay start’s animating
- First real character animation
Any idiot that wants to make a couple of thousand drawings for a hundred feet of film is welcome to join the club.
- 1914 – Bray and Hurd animation patents
- Hurd – cell animation
Bray – lots of other patents, partners with Hurd
Patents give a virtual monopoly - 1914 – Gertie the Dinosaur
- Often thought to be the first animated character
- 1915 – Fleischer’s rotoscope
- 1916 – Lots of animation
- Krazy Kat, Bobby Bump, …
Bray basically has a monopoly as he buys more patents - 1918 – McKay’s Sinking of the Lusitania
already the end of the war, 3 years after the event - 1920 – A big year…
- Lutz’s book Animated Cartoons
Disney gets first animation job (after reading Lutz’s book)
Felix the cat debuts (first “personality” – merchandise, …) - First color cartoon (custom, 2 layer process)
- 1924 – Disney’s first studio goes bankrupt
- moves from Kansas to LA
- 1927 – Disney starts making Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
- $2500 per episode
1927 was also Jazz Singer - 1928 – Disney loses Oswald
- distributor decides that he can do it cheaper
steals Disney’s staff
does Oswalk on the cheap - (disney asked for raise $2700 to $2750, someone else offered $1800)
- 1928 – Disney creates Mickey Mouse
- owns character (didn’t own Oswald)
had to compete on quality Felix was the only popular cartoon of this period, and even he was considered a filler before a movie, not a real character. This would all change in 1928. Winkler decided to squeeze Disney out of the production of the “Oswald” cartoons by cutting his payments and stealing his animators. Disney had to come up with something different. Which he did, resulting in the birth of Mickey Mouse. However, the first Mickey short “Plane Crazy” was a failure. This short was silent and very much like an “Oswald” short. Why buy an imitation Oswald when you could have the real thing? Disney had to come up with something else fast.
Plane Crazy – first Mickey Mouse short
The Steamboat Willie Tests – fake sound sync, find audiences loved it
November, Steamboat Willie released - 1929 – Skelleton Dance (Silly Symphony #1) (Disney)
- First tight synchronization of music and animation
- 1930 – Looney Toons as a competitor
1931 – Disney starts animation school - First use of story boards by disney
- 1932 – Disney Flowers and Trees – Technicolor (3 strip), Academy Award, …
- 1933 – Disney’s three little Pigs
- Second academy award !
Disney realizes that there’s no money in shorts - SNOW White – for next time…
- 1935 – Don Graham begins teaching at Disney Studios
- 1936 – Disney develops multi-plane camera
- key technical innovation
first films to use it appear in 1937 - 1937 – Snow White
From: Stephane Blardone Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 12:45:27 -0600 To: gleicher@cs.wisc.edu it seems that the very first technicolor movie was "La Cucaracha" in 1934 and the first feature length three-strip technicolor production was "Becky Sharp" in 1935. I understand that they were acouple other 'color' movies before then (1922) but these movies only used a two-strip technology (red and green) which did not reproduce colors very faithfully (we can certainly argue that three-strip didn't either) From what I understand "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) and "Gone With The Wind" (1939) were filmed around the same time new technology came up that reduced the cost of color movies and reduced the amount of light that was needed but were not the first color feature length movies. Disney signed a contract with technicolor in 1931. The first color cartoon by disney was "Flowers and Trees" for wich they won an oscar (best cartoon)
