Animation History

Magic Lantern

Mar 17, 1650

The magic lantern is an early predecessor of the modern day projector. It consisted of a translucent oil painting, a simple lens and a candle or oil lamp. In a darkened room, the image would appear projected onto an adjacent flat surface.

Thaumatrope

Mar 17, 1824

A thaumatrope is a small circular disk or card with two different pictures on each side that was attached to a piece of string or a pair of strings running through the centre. When the string is twirled quickly between the fingers, the two pictures appear to combine into a single image.

Phenakistoscope

Mar 17, 1831

was an early animation device. It was invented simultaneously by the Belgian Joseph Plateau and the Austrian Simon von Stampfer. It consists of a disk with a series of images,

Zoetrope

Mar 17, 1834

by William George Horner, and from the 1860s marketed as the zoetrope. It operates on the same principle as the phenakistoscope. It was a cylindrical spinning device with several frames of animation printed on a paper strip placed around the interior circumference.

Flip book

Mar 17, 1868

Patented in 1868 by John Barnes Linnett as the kineograph. A flip book is just a book with particularly springy pages that have an animated series of images printed near the unbound edge.

Praxinoscope

Mar 17, 1877

The first animated projection (screening) was created in France, by Charles-Émile Reynaud, who was a French science teacher. Reynaud created the Praxinoscope in 1877 and the Théâtre Optique in December 1888.

Kinetoscope

Mar 17, 1889

Designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector but introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before the advent of video,

Fantasmagorie

Mar 17, 1908

In Europe, the French artist, Émile Cohl, created the first animated film using what came to be known as traditional animation creation methods.The film largely consisted of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects,

The Production of Short Animated Films

Mar 17, 1910

Typically referred to as "cartoons", became an industry of its own and cartoon shorts were produced for showing in movie theaters.

Cels

Mar 17, 1915

The cel is an important innovation to traditional animation, as it allows some parts of each frame to be repeated from frame to frame, thus saving labor. Invented by Earl Hurd and John Bray