Pioneers of Animation

Lydia Domignuez
Joseph Plateau
Joseph Plateau was a Belgium physician born in 1801.
He invented the Phenakistoscope and was the first person
to think of the idea of making an illusion of a moving image.
William Horner
William Horner was another pioneer of animation, he invented the
Zoetrope.
The Zoetrope was the next step in the evolution of moving images. It
was an improvement on Joseph Plateaus Phenakistoscope and led on
to the Praxinoscope. The Zoetrope was a cylinder with slits on the
inside which then you could look through and see images which when
you then span it, it looked as if the image was moving. This was done
by drawing the image on the inside but changing it slightly to create
different movements or actions which when span to create a
continuous action.
Clip of a Zoetrope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji
tQ06PYh0A
Emile Reynaud
Charles-Emile Reynaud was born in 1844, he was a French inventor who invented
the first animated cartoons. He did this by inventing the Praxinoscope.
The praxinoscope was the next development on from the Zoetrope, it used many
of the same principles as the zoetrope however it used mirrors instead of slits,
this made an improvement because it meant the images were more secure so
when span they stayed in the same position and never became distorted and
were brighter and clearer to see.

Clip of a Praxinoscope
http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=h2nR6p4o1Fc
Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge was born in the 1830s, he was an English photographer.
he is famous for his work in 1872, when he was asked by a race horse owner to
investigate whether at any point whilst the horse was running if all their feet
were off the ground. To do this Muybridge set up 12 camera to take a photo of
the horse as it ran by. The idea worked very well and the images he got showed
that there was a point as the horse ran that it had no feet on the floor.
This makes him a pioneer of animation because as you watch through the images
one after the other quickly it looks as if the horse is continually running. This is
the foundation for further developments for animation.
Clip of Eadweard Muybridges work
of the horse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=IEqccPhsqgA
Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison was born in 1847, he was an American inventor and businessman.
He was responsible for many developments and inventions such as the
phonograph, the motion picture camera, electric light bulb and a device called
the Kinetoscope.
The Kinetoscope was a further development it worked by a strip of film was
passing rapidly between a lens and an electric light bulb while the viewer peered
through a peephole. Behind the peephole was a spinning wheel with a narrow slit
that acted as a shutter, permitting a momentary view of each of the 46 frames
passing in front of the shutter every second.


Clip of Kinetoscope
http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=SRIjUYh3MEs
Lumire Brothers
The Lumiere Brothers were the biggest manufacture of photographic plates in
Europe. It is because of this that they got asked to make a camera that could
record. They called this the Cinematography. Using the Cinematography the
Lumiere brothers filmed the first short film. They filmed it of the factory workers
leaving the Lumiere factory in Lyon. This was the first ever recorded film and
because of that is important to the development and increase in film and
technology. At the time this film was a massive development and many people
would have been interested and want to see it even though it was very simple.


Clip of their work
http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=JGugm8Dzmuc
George Pal
George Pal was born 1908 in Hungary. He was then an American animator and
film producer.
He produced a film call War of the Worlds, it was directed by Byron Haskin from
a script by Barr Lyndon, it was the first of two adaptations of Wells' work to be
filmed by Pal, and is considered to be one of the great science fiction films of
the 1950s. It won an Oscar for its special effects and was later selected for
inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
Clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9
E1zOXarLk4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n
fHhy4Vm3GQ