Animation and Its Innovation

Peter Roget

Apr 7, 1824

Peter Roget presented his paper 'The persistence of vision with regard to moving objects' to the British Royal Society.

Phenakitstoscope

Feb 28, 1831

Dr. Joseph Antoine Plateau (a Belgian scientist) and Dr. Simon Rittrer constructed a machine called a phenakitstoscope. This machine produced an illusion of movement by allowing a viewer to gaze at a rotating disk containing small windows; behind the windows was another disk containing a sequence of images. When the disks were rotated at the correct speed, the synchronization of the windows with the images created an animated effect.

Animals in Motion

Jun 13, 1872

Eadweard Muybridge started his photographic gathering of animals in motion.

Kinetoscope

Aug 15, 1889

Thomas Edison announced his creation of the kinetoscope which projected a 50ft length of film in approximately 13 seconds.

the Theater Optique

Jun 5, 1892

Emile Renynaud, combining his earlier invention of the praxinoscope with a projector, opens the Theatre Optique in the Musee Grevin. It displays an animation of images painted on long strips of celluloid.

Cinematograph

Mar 28, 1895

Louis and Augustine Lumiere issued a patent for a device called a cinematograph capable of projecting moving pictures.

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces

Jan 31, 1906

J. Stuart Blackton made the first animated film which he called "Humorous phases of funny faces." His method was to draw comical faces on a blackboard and film them. He would stop the film, erase one face to draw another, and then film the newly drawn face. The Ôstop-motionÕ provided a starting effect as the facial expressions changed be fore the viewerÕs eyes.

John R. Bray

Nov 22, 1914

John R Bray applies for a patent on numerous techniques for animation. One of the most revolutionary being the process of printing the backgrounds of the animation.

Gertie the Trained Dinosaur

Dec 26, 1914

Winsor McCay produced a cartoon called "Gertie, The Trained Dinosaur" which amazingly consisted of 10,000 drawings.

Felix The Cat

Oct 2, 1919

Pat Sullivan created an American cartoon "Felix the Cat."

Founding of Disney

Mar 12, 1923

Walt and Roy Disney found Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio.

Steam Boat Willie

Apr 26, 1928

Walt Disney created the first cartoon with synchronized sound called "Steam Boat Willie".

Snow White

Dec 21, 1937

Disney productions brought upon the first ever full-length animated film with sound and color

Computer Generated Animation of Faces

Apr 4, 1972

University of Utah, Fred Parke creates first computer generated facial animation. >Ref: F. Parke, "Computer Generated Animation of Faces", Proceedings of the ACM National Conference, 1972. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)

Tron

Jul 25, 1982

Tron, MAGI, movie with CG premise

Jurassic Park

Apr 26, 1993

Jurassic Park use of CG for realistic living creatures

Toy Story

Feb 17, 1995

Toy Story first full-length 3D CG feature film