History of Animation

The quest for capturing motion has been a common theme throughout many of mankind's artistic endeavors.

•True animation cannot be achieved without first understanding a fundamental principle of the human eye: the persistence of vision. This was first demonstrated in 1828 by Frenchman, Paul Roget, who invented the thaumatrope. It was a disc with a string or peg attached to both sides. One side of the disc showed a bird, the other an empty cage. When the disc was twirled, the bird appeared in the cage. This proved that the eye retains images when it is exposed to a series of pictures, one at a time.

•Stuart Blackton, issued a short film in 1906 entitled Humourous Phases of Funny Faces where he drew comical faces on a blackboard, photographed them, and the erased it to draw another stage of the facial expression. This "stop-motion" effect astonished audiences by making drawings comes to life.

•The art of animation could accomplish was not yet evident in this period, except for in the works of Winsor McCay such as Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914.

The notion of a dinosaur coming to life on the screen was astonishing.

•Winsor McCay had developed a character in his dinosaur seen in

Otto Messmer's , Felix the Cat.

Felix the Cat developed the strongest screen personality.

•Wladyslaw Starewicz (1882 -1965) Russia/France a 3D animator makes "THE CAMERAMAN'S REVENGE." The 3D characters he animated for this stop motion film were embalmed beetles.

•warner bros and then Disney came into existence....