The Animation Timeline

By Chris cooper

Stop motion animation

Pioneers
By Chris Cooper

Joseph Plateau
He was a 19th centaury physicist who investigated the persistence of luminous

impressions on the retina.

He is famous for being the first physicist to investigated into the concept of
Persistence of vision
Invented the phenakistoscope in 1832 a rotating disk with a series of images with
small movements this gave the impression of movement.
Pros a very interesting development in the field of stop motion.
Cons Very basic images were used and very limiting as you could not do large scale
films as it would take to long to do more than 2 people moving.

William George Horner

He was a British mathematician in the 18th and 19th centauries.
He is famous for Horners method (is : (i) an algorithm for calculating polynomials,
which consists of transforming the monomial form into a computationally efficient
form; (ii) a method for approximating the roots of a polynomial)
He invited the zoetrope or Daedaleum in 1834. A series of images showing
movement through stop motion
Pros- One of the many pre-film animation devices, many people could use it and it
was revolutionary.
Cons-very expensive at the time and many people could not afford one

Eadweard Muybridge
He was a 19th centaury photography
He was famous for photographing the American west and many of his images are still used
today to explain the Wild West.

He used 12 cameras to photograph a horse galloping,. It was deemed one of the first stop

motion films ever. He invented the zoopraxiscope in 1879 and was the first movie projector.

Pros-the first movie projector, revolutionary invention and is thought to be one of the
inspirations for Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope.

Cons-it was in black and white owing to the fact that it was printed on to the glass discs and
between 1892 and 1894 a colour version was redone with hand coloured images.

Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison was a 19th centaury inventor and businessman.
He is famous for the invention of the light bulb.
He invented the Kinetoscope in 1891. It was an early motion picture exhibition

device. It was not a movie projector but it was part of the inspiration for most
movie projectors. It worked by showing a set of still images in sequence and created
a stop motion animation.
Pros-it was a great way to show Stop motion animation and led to the development
of the Kinetophone which was the first video camera and add sound.
Cons-it could only be view one at a time.

The Lumiere brothers

Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumire born October 19, 1862 and Louis Jean

Lumire born October 5, 1864

They were the first official Filmmakers ever.
In the winter of 1894 -1895 the brothers developed the Cinmatographe it was
lighter than Edison's projector and it ran at 16 frames per second. It could record,
develop and project film. It was the first video camera.
Pros-It was the first ever video camera and it could be shown to a crowed because it
was a projector and a camera.
Cons-It only ran at 16 frames persceond.

The Developers
BY Chris cooper

Willis OBrien
Born 1886 in Oakland California.
He is known for being the animator of the original for the first King Kong film.
Willis OBrien was a major influence in the world of stop motion animation he was on
of the first to do complex animation alongside live action to create monsters.

Another example of his work is Mighty Joe Young 1949.

Sadly he did not get any fame for his work during his life time but is now a legend
among horror, dinosaur and animation fans.

Random fact he was the first ever winner of the Oscar for special effects.

Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen watched King Kong in 1933 which was created by Willis O'Brien, this inspired him to start making his
own stop-motion animations with dinosaurs created out of clay.

He managed to meet the man who inspired him Willis O'Brien who suggested that the young man studied anatomy to
create more detailed models.

Ray Harryhausen created the first armechers for his models with the help of his father, the revolutionised animation as it
used metal to create a frame for the clay models.

Ray Harryhausens main genre was fantasy, he did this by creating monsters such as Talos and Medusa because stop motion
allowed him to create the monsters and their movement and make it look realistic such as Taloss slow movements as he
was made out of iron and Medusas slithering which could not be done with an actor.

His greatest works were the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Clash of the Titans (1981) however this was the last film
he worked on as an animator as people criticised his work.

In 1992 he won the Oscar for lifetime achievement.

He has been an inspiration for many animators such as Tim Burton and being the inspiration for the special effects in Star
Wars a New Hope.

Random fact he saw King Kong 80 times when it was released and he worked for 4 months on the skeleton scene in Jason
and the Argonauts.

Jan Svankmajer
Is a Czechoslovakian artist who used stop motion to show normal objects to have a magical quality to them
to help to make reality appear doubtful

He studied at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts and in the 1970s join the Czech Surrealist Group.

Many of his films were deemed subversive and dangerous by the communist authorities at the time and was
banned from making any films.

When the iron curtain came down he created many films that showed his view on issues such as capitalism
and communism, relationships and football holaganism.

All of his films use satire to show his surrealist views. In many this done through the use of sound effects.
For example in his film Lunch he exaggerated eating sound effects to make the film comic.

Stop motion allows for comic exaggerations because by using clay and other malleable materials the motions
can be more comic as we can see in Lunch as when the communists mouth opens it is comic due to the fact
that the mans face is also distorted.

Many people find is work disturbing as it challenges common perceptions of many things such as football
and eating.

He inspired the Quay Brothers.

Contemporary work

The Brothers Quay

Stephen and Timothy Quay are a pair of American animators born on the 17th of

June 1947.
They were inspired by Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Svankmajer. Their most famous
film is Streets of Crocodiles.
Their animations are very dark in tone. Most of their story telling is done through
camera movement and what you see in the scene not through dialogue. This means
that the tension is built through music and camera movement.
Their main genres is dark and horror, theses are highlighted by the lack of dialogue.
Stop motion works for this genre as it gives inanimate objects movement and this is
uncomfortable for many viewers.
They work with recycled materials including dolls, screws, pin cushions and parts of
machinery.

Tim Burton

Tim Burton was born in Burbank, California in 1958.

In the 80s Tim Burton created Stalk of the Celery Monster, which got the attention of Walt

Disney, who offered him an apprenticeship. He worked on The Fox and the Hound and did
concept art for the Black Cauldron but it never made it to the final film.
In 1982 he did a stop motion short called Vincent which was based on a poem by Tim
Burton. It was one of his first animations and he created his iconic style that is seen n many
of his later works such as The Corpse Bride. In 1984 he was sacked by Disney who said that
his films were to dark for childrens .
The main genre of Tim Burtons work for animation is light ideas such as children's poems
becoming dark. This is seen in the Corpse Bride with the happy notion of marriage becoming
a dark and sinister with the main character marrying a corpse.
Throughout his career Tim Burtons love of dark work has caused himto be fired from
projects including working at Disney and caused him to be removed from directing Batman
Forever and dropped for the sequel Batman and Robin.

Aardman Animations
Aardman was founded in 1972 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton.
It is a British animation studio which most famous for its Claymation. Aardman is the main

animation company in the UK and is responsible for many popular British animation such as
Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit.

Aardman did the animation for the award winning music video Sledgehammer. Their most
famous creations is Wallace and Gromit which was first created in 1989. In 2005 Aardman
realised the only feature length Wallace and Gromit film The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Aardman now known to provide training and recourses for many aspiring animators, which is
their main contribution to stop motion animators.

The genre that Aardman works in is humour, we see this in Wallace and Gromit when Gromit is

fighting Phillip in The Curse Of the Were-Rabbit, when the plain runs out of money Philip stops
and pulls out a floral purse, This is a typical part of Aardman to add a humours undertone to a
serious film. Stop motion allows for this because you can create very expressive and funny looks
for silent characters such as Gromit.