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The Invention of the Praxinoscope
While there are a few arguments that insist that the earliest form of animation was first illustrated by cave mens on walls, the invention of the first technology that allowed for screen projection to play moving animated figures wasn't actually introduced until 1887. On that faithful day, July 20th, 1887, Charles-Émile Reynaud, an engineer based in France, created the first ever device that depicted motion through a series of images using angled mirrors, the Praxinoscope. -
Animation's First Screening
Fast forward a few years then, since Charles-Émile Reynaud's invention of the Praxinoscope, Charles-Émile held the first animated screening on October 28 1892 in the Musée Grévin in Paris for the public to enjoy. The featured film was one directed by the man himself and was entitled, Pauvre Pierrot [https://youtu.be/426mqlB-kAY]. Consisting of a strip of 500 traditionally painted images the short ran for a duration of about 15 minutes. -
The Appearance of Stop Motion Animation
Since the theory of capturing motion through a series of still images, artists began experimenting with this idea through 3D objects rather than traditional 2-dimensional works. This experimentation led to the creation of a whole new branch of animation; stop-motion animation. Despite the controversy about when it was truly discovered J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith are officially recognized to be the first people to use stop-motion in their film, "The Humpty Dumpty Circus," in 1898. -
Fantasmagorie - The Beginning of Cartoons
Since Pauvre Pierrot. animation began integrating itself into the public. Fantasmagorie [https://youtu.be/o1d28X0lkJ4], known as the first animated film drawn by Emile Cohl, was released in August 17, 1908, and had then became the world's first fully animated cartoon. The film is well-known for the nature of it's extremely transformative and versatile characters and drawings, which constantly warped into different shapes and recognizable forms throughout it's run-time of 1 minute and 20 seconds. -
Gertie the Dinosaur - Foundational Animation techniques
Keyframes, registration marks, and animation loops are some of the very basic techniques all animations use. These techniques however, didn't come into existence until an animated film called Gertie the Dinosaur, one of the oldest cartoon film, came out in 1914. Winsor McCay's brilliant sense of movement, artistic talents, and a keen-eye for personality brought Gertie to life in his work and swiftly stole the hearts of the audience. Thus, the dinosaur became the first iconic cartoon figure. -
Flowers and Trees - Animation With Colour
In 1932, animation left their monotonic black and white world and entered a whole new one filled with colour. Part of Disney's Silly Symphonies series, Flowers and Trees [https://youtu.be/gjnzlj5ihkY] is the first recorded animated film to incorporate colour. Although the film used a three-strip technicolour to produce the limited but vibrant tones, this was revolutionary at the time and equally just as expensive. But, the the price was worth it as Disney's film quickly sky-rocketed to the top. -
King Kong - The King of Stop Motion
Making use of J. Stuart Blackton's and Albert E. Smith's techniques, King Kong quickly became regarded as one of the most infamous movie in all of film history. This cinematic masterpiece was greatly revered for the most convincing magic of stop-motion animation after its initial release on March 2, 1933. The colossal gorilla was revolutionary, he smashed through industry standards, and set brand new expectations for its successors to meet; like Godzilla. -
Ed's Hand
While Pixar's Toy Story is often mistaken as the world's first rendered film animation, the title technically goes to a 6.5 minute clip of a hand and a model of a human face made in 1972 [https://youtu.be/T5seU-5U0ms]. They were respectively created by Edwin Catmull and Frederic Parke, who are the true pioneers of 3D animation. The pair combined the idea of animated three-dimensional models with computers, then constructed a mold of Ed's hand with polygons drawn and measured on top of it. -
Toy Story - The Dawn Of A New Era
Years after Catmull's and Parke's experimentations, in 1991, Pixar struck up a deal with Disney and set out to produce a film that was entirely computer generated: Toy Story. Before November 22 1995, movies had only ever used computer generated images (CGI) to replicate and produce images and objects alike that couldn't be done on set. However, Toy Story took this element a step forward, using CGI as the very foundation of its core; this led to a new genre of animation and Pixar's debut. -
Avatar - The Peak Of Modern Animation And More
During the night of December 18 2009, Jame Cameron's Avatar had completely blown its audience away with its top-tier, highly rendered, motion captured animation of people disguised as blue humanoid creatures. This was, hands down, the peak of the CGI part of animation.The crew behind the scenes had masterfully weaved together the illusion of a mythical universe, blending CGI with real-time captured performances and really demonstrated the potential that lies within CGI aspect of animation.
