History of Animation

One of the earliest examples of animation was in 1831 when Dr.Joseph Antoine and Dr.Simon Rittrer created a machine called the phenakitstoscope. This machine had people stare at a rotating disk. When it rotated at the right speed it looked like the image was moving.

John Barns Linnet patented the flip book in 1868. A simple image was drawn on a piece of paper. Then the next image would be slightly different. a whole series of pictures were bound together and when flipped rapidly by hand the pictures seemed to move. Soon a machine was made to do this by turning a crank.

Thomas Edison invented the kinetoscope in 1889. It was the first example of using film to make a moving image.

1906 was when J. Stuart Blackton made the "Humorous phases of funny faces." It was the first real animated film. He drew funny faces on a blackboard and filmed them. Then he stopped the film, changed the face, and filmed again. He moved step by step through a series of faces and emotions.

In 1914, Winsor McCay created a cartoon called "Gertie, the Trained Dinosaur" which took 10,000 drawings to create.
This is the original poster used to publicize the cartoon.

In 1914 Earl Hurd made a technique of drawing an animation on a clear celluloid sheet. He then photographed it by overlaying it on a painted background. This process was called Cel animation.

Walter and Roy Disney started their company "the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio" in 1923. Disney's first movie was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was filmed in December 21 1937. They became famous for producing very popular short cartoons with interesting characters and also their many feature length animated movies. Some important characters Disney made famous are Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto.

In 1984, the movie The Last Starfighter used computer graphics in place of models. Before this full size or toy size models were filmed using stop action animation techniques and added to the action sequences.

In 1995 Pixar and Walt Disney productions created Toy Story, a huge hit for all ages. It was the first full length movie to use 3D computer imaging. The future now seems to be in computer produced animated movies because it is cheaper than the older hand drawn movies.