The Development Of Animation Technology

Chronological development of animation technology:

Phenakistoscope (Joseph Plateau, 1832)

Phenakistoscope is a disc that was first tried out by Joseph Plateau in 1832 where he realised that it was illusion of movement. The disc has to be hand moved to get the illusion of movement working and get the animation film completed. This was a first early animation device this will create an illusion of movement in that year, since then the technology has improved. The benefit of having phenakistoscope was that you can produce an animation film in that year. So this is a benefit because they could produce films with animation in 1832. A drawback would be that it had to be hand moved by the producer so it was a lot of effort to make a film with this. So it would be very time consuming for a very little reward to making an animation film with this type of equipment in 1832.

Zoetrope (William Horner, 1834)

Zoetrope is an animation formed device that is used with a drum that they use animation strips that they have produced. After putting the animation strip in the drum they turn the drum then look through the gap and it the animation images looks alive, moving. This is called illusion of movement this was first tried out by William Horner in 1893.  The benefit of the zoetrope for animation is that it is easier to use rather than the Phenakistoscope as you do not have to use a mirror you just use a drum to make the animation the illusion of movement. A drawback that the zoetrope is very time consuming and takes a lot of effort to make an illusion of movement with animation.

Praxinoscope (Emile Raynaud, 1877)

Praxinoscope has improved a lot since the phenakistoscope and zoetrope this is because it have had a lot of years to come up with a better piece to use for animation. Praxinoscope was first tried out by Emile Raynaud in 1877. Praxinoscope is a kind of the same thing as the zoetrope but it has became better for the quality. They use a mirror instead of looking through the gap to look at the animations, so that it reflects in the middle of the spinning cylinder a drum to make an image at the side of the drum to look like its moving from the image. The benefits of praxinoscope is that as its reflects in the middle of the drum, more than one person can watch the animation at once rather than the zoetrope only being able to watch one person at a time because you had to look in the gap. A drawback that the praxinoscope has is that the viewers have to hand spin the drum to get the animations working on a praxinoscope.

Zoopraxinoscope (Eadweard Muybridge, 1878)

Zoopraxinoscope was first tried out by Eadweard Muybridge in 1878. They use a glass device disk that they move to see the animation moving as a still image. It’s a rotating disk that is making the animation move on the disk. The benefits of a zoopraxinoscope are that the animations can be viewed accurately so that it can be seen properly and clearly. The drawbacks of the zoopraxinoscope are that it’s the same as the phenakistoscope time consuming to use. It will take time to get the animations moving but may take time it will be quicker than the phenakistoscope.

Kinetoscope (Thomas Edison, 1894)

Kinetoscope was first tried out by Thomas Edison in 1894. This piece of machine was first created to be able to view film in the early 1894. For this machine it can only be viewed one person at a time.  This is viewed by a person that can view an animation through a peephole. So the benefit is that it is easy to use and the image was clear. The drawback of this piece of equipment is that the kinetoscope is that it can only be viewed by one person at a time not by lots of people at a time.

Cinematograph (Lumiere brothers, 1897)

Cinematograph was first tried out by the Lumiere brothers in the 1897, they was influenced by Thomas Edison in 1894 to make new equipment that is better.  This equipment is being used from a camera that will record the movement for the animation. To get the equipment to work better they also use a printer on the cinematograph as well as the camera. This piece of equipment was the first equipment that could show movies on a screen and get a good quality of the film to work. This is produced to make the animations better quality for the people who watch it. The benefits of the cinematograph are that it was the first equipment to be able to show the movie on a screen and it could be viewed by more target audience at once. The drawback of this cinematograph is that the equipment looks quite complicated to use so there will be only people that would know how to work this to show the movies on the screen.

Translucent paper

Translucent paper was first used for to trace the animations they wanted to use to create a film. When they were using this technique they had to change the position of the tracing paper to make the animation look like they were walking. This used to be a traditional way to be able to create animation in the early years of producing animation. The benefit of translucent paper is that the animations will be accurate and will be the same size throughout the film. The drawbacks of translucent paper is that it will be very time consuming to make and the person who was producing the animations would have to make sure that they get the drawing accurate. This is to make the animations be at a good quality and make them be accurate to get the drawing be like the animation be walking rather than be stood still.

Sound in animation (Steamboat Willie) (Disney, 1928)

In the films and animations the film that they did not have any sounds at the start of the producers are making. They then produced this over time to start the film by adding music and orchestra this is because all the equipment that was getting produced was getting better other the years. After this so many years later they produced films with sound in the animations this was to improve the sound and by getting sound in the films. In 1928 they released a film that was the first to have sound on the animation. This film was called Steamboat Willie; this film was a success to the sound for the animations. This film was produced in black and white and then the quality in films improved to create colour on the animation years later. The benefits of sound in animation are that it makes the film so much better and it will gain more people to watch them. The drawbacks for sound in animation are that they have to make the sound accurate to the film they are producing and making it sound good with the animation.

Standardisation of films

The standard of films is that the producers have all decided to do all the films they produce in a frame rate of 24 per seconds. This is because they use have tried out the difference of frame rates and choose to use the best quality of these. So they choose to use this frame rates per seconds so that it is a standard that producers have to use when producing films. However, when producers are making different products they will use different frame rates as they will have a set standard for this.

Computing drawing software

For a computer drawing software produced animations on software. This was called a computer aided design this was to help improve the animations and to produce the films at a better quality. By having this software has helped the producers with time as it saves time in the long run because they can watch the film without hand moving it and looking through a peephole. By using this type of software it helps the animation quality better and more accurate than it would have been when being hand drawn on translucent paper. The computer drawing software has to be downloaded by the producer to create the animation, this is to get the animations accurate. This is an effective way to produce animations this is because it makes the animations more realistic and will help the producers to get the images accurate. This is because when the animation is getting hand drawn may not have been accurate so it’s easy to use. The drawbacks of this software may be slow depending how much space you have on your computer. Another drawback is that they may have problems with the software when making the animations so this may become time consuming in the long run.

CGI animation

CGI animation means a computer generated imagery. This has been produced to make the animations better quality and by having this software it is going to make the animations is that they can produce this properly. An animation that was produced with this software was Toy Story in year 1995. They use this type of software to produce several of different animation such as making games, films and television programmes. This is showing that using this software was a success because it has produced a lot of different animations over the years. The benefits of using this type of software are that a lot of different producers have used this software so it is showing that it has been successful. The drawbacks of this software are that it may be slow so it may take time to produce the animations so they may have delays of this.

Performance (motion) capture

This performance motion capture is that it will record this can be animation that will make the images look like they are moving. This performance capture is used with several of different sources such as television, films and games. All the producers that make these animations use it as it shows that this software is successful as it is showing that more producers use this.  A film that has been used with this software is The Polar Express by the Warner Brother, in 2004. The benefits of this software are that it is easy and quick to use. The other benefit is that it will make the animation accurate and successful to meet the audience needs. The drawback of this is that it could be slow and this could make the producers meet the deadline of the film or game so it will cost them more money in the long run, as they will miss the deadline date that it is meant to be realised. This makes them be losing a profit as people would expect to buy this on the day it is realised and it gets more people to buy the film if it’s on the date it is meant to be out. Another drawback is that the software is expensive so this may make the producer not be able to afford the software if it may be a new business.