Animation, the method for creating moving pictures from still images, has an early history and a modern history that began with the advent of celluloid film in 1888. Between 1895 and 1920, during the rise of the cinematic industry, several different animation techniques were developed or re-invented, including stop-motion with objects, puppets, clay or cutouts, and drawn or painted animation. Hand-drawn animation, which mostly consisted of a succession of still images painted on cels, was the dominant technique of the 20th century and became known as traditional animation.
Today, computer animation is the dominant animation technique in most regions, although traditional animation, like Japanese anime and European hand-drawn productions, remains popular outside of the United States. Computer animation is mostly associated with a three-dimensional appearance with detailed shading and detailed highlights, although many different animation styles have been generated or simulated with computers. Some productions may be recognized as Flash animations, but in practice, computer animation with a relatively two-dimensional appearance, stark outlines and little shading, will generally be considered "traditional animation" even if it is created on a computer. The first feature movie made on computers, without a camera, is The Rescuers Down Under (1990), but its style can hardly be distinguished from cel animation.
Influence of predecessors
Animated movies are part of ancient traditions in storytelling, the visual arts and theatre. Popular techniques with moving images before film include shadow play, mechanical slides, and mobile projectors in magic lantern shows (especially phantasmagoria). Techniques with fanciful three-dimensional moving figures include masks and costumes, puppetry and automata.
The principle of modern animation is based on the stroboscopic illusion of motion that was introduced in 1833 with stroboscopic discs (better known as the phenakistiscope). These animated discs had an average of 8 to 16 images that were usually designed as endless loops, for home use as a hand-operated "philosophical toy". Although several pioneers hoped it could be applied to longer scenes for theatrical use, further development of the technique throughout the 19th century mostly concentrated on combinations with the stereoscope (introduced in 1838) and photography (introduced in 1839). The breakthrough of cinematography partly depended on the novelty of a technique that was able to record and reproduce life-like motion pictures. During the first years, drawing animated pictures seemed an archaic technique in comparison, until some artists produced popular and influential animated shorts and producers embraced cheap techniques to turn popular comic strips into animated cartoons.
1888–1909: Earliest animations on film
Théâtre Optique
Charles-Émile Reynaud developed his projection praxinoscope into the Théâtre Optique with transparent hand-painted colorful pictures on a long perforated strip wound between two spools, which he patented in December 1888. From 28 October 1892 to March 1900, Reynaud gave over 12,800 shows to over 500,000 visitors at the Musée Grévin in Paris. His Pantomimes Lumineuses series of animated films each contained 300 to 700 frames manipulated back and forth to last 10 to 15 minutes per film. A background scene was projected separately. Piano music, song and some dialogue were performed live, while some sound effects were synchronized with an electromagnet. The first program included three cartoons: Pauvre Pierrot (created in 1892), Un bon bock (created in 1892, now lost), and Le Clown et ses chiens (created in 1892, now lost). Later, the titles Autour d'une cabine (created in 1894) and A rêve au coin du feu (created in 1894) would be part of the performances.
Standard picture film Despite the success of Reynaud's films, it took some time before animation was adapted in the film industry that came about after the introduction of Lumiere's Cinematograph in 1895. Georges Méliès' early fantasy films and trick films (released between 1896 and 1913) occasionally contain elements that somewhat resemble animation, including painted props or painted creatures that were moved in front of painted backgrounds (mostly using wires), and film colorization by hand. Méliès also popularized the stop trick, with a single change made to the scene in between shots, that had already been used in Thomas Edison's The Execution of Mary Stuart in 1895 and probably led to the development of stop-motion animation some years later. It was not until 1906 that proper animated films appeared in cinemas. The dating of some presumed earlier films with animation is contested, while other early films that might have used stop motion or other animation techniques are lost or unidentified.
Printed animation film
By 1897, German toy manufacturer Gebrüder Bing had a first prototype of their toy kinematograph, which they presented at a toy convention in Leipzig in November 1898. Soon after, other toy manufacturers in Germany and France, including Ernst Plank, Georges Carette, and Lapierre, started selling similar devices. The kinematographs were basically traditional toy magic lanterns, adapted with one or two small spools that used standard "Edison perforation" 35mm film, a crank, and a shutter. These projectors were intended for the same type of "home entertainment" toy market that most of the manufacturers already provided with praxinoscopes and magic lanterns. Apart from relatively expensive live-action films, the manufacturers produced many cheaper films by printing lithographed drawings. These animations were probably made in black-and-white starting in 1898 or 1899, but by 1902 at the latest they were produced in color. The pictures were often traced from live-action films (like the later rotoscoping technique). These very short films typically depicted a simple repetitive action and most were designed to be projected as a loop - playing endlessly with the ends of the film joined. The lithograph process and the loop format follow the tradition that was set by the stroboscopic disc, zoetrope and praxinoscope.
Katsudō Shashin (produced between 1907 and 1912), is speculated to be the oldest work of animation in Japan.
J. Stuart Blackton
J. Stuart Blackton was a British-American filmmaker, co-founder of the Vitagraph Studios, and one of the first to use animation in his films. His The Enchanted Drawing (1900) can be regarded as the first theatrical film recorded on standard picture film that included animated elements, although this concerns just a few frames of changes in drawings. It shows Blackton doing "lightning sketches" of a face, cigars, a bottle of wine and a glass. The face changes expression when Blackton pours wine into the face's mouth and when Blackton takes his cigar. The technique used in this film was basically the stop trick: the single change to the scenes was the replacement of a drawing by a similar drawing with a different facial expression. In some scenes, a drawn bottle and glass were replaced by real objects. Blackton had possibly used the same technique in a lost 1896 lightning sketch film.
Blackton's 1906 film Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is often regarded as the oldest known hand-drawn animation on standard film. It features a sequence made with blackboard drawings that are changed between frames to show two faces changing expressions and some billowing cigar smoke, as well as two sequences that feature cutout animation with a similar look for more fluid motion.
Alexander Shiryaev Alexander Shiryaev was a Russian ballet dancer, ballet master, and choreographer who served at the Mariinsky Theatre who is credited with the independent invention of stop motion animation. From 1906 to 1909, he created the earliest known animated films made in Russia, using puppet animation, hand-drawn animation, and mixed techniques. While some were made as experiments (for example, a 20-minute drawn animation showing the flight of birds in a continuous line), most of his films were made for the educational purpose of showing ballet dancers what their choreography should look like. The puppet animations ranged in length from just over a minute to 10 minutes long. Shiryaev's films were only screened within the Mariinsky Theatre for the performers, not publicly, and were generally unknown until 2003, when Russian documentarist and ballet historian Viktor Bocharov released a one-hour movie titled A Belated Premiere which included fragments of the various films.
Segundo de Chomón Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón made many trick films for French film company Pathé. By 1906, he had used stop motion in several short films, including La Maison ensorcelée and Le théâtre de Bob (both released in the US in April 1906). Blackton's The Haunted Hotel (23 February 1907) contains stop motion elements that are very similar to those in La Maison ensorcelée. If the release dates are correct (and if translated titles have not been mixed up), Blackton must have been inspired by De Chomón's work rather than vice versa, but it has been believed that The Haunted Hotel was a big hit in France and other European countries, and would have been the film that inspired local filmmakers, including Émile Cohl, to start working with the innovative animation technique. De Chomon also made the related short film Hôtel électrique (1908), which includes a short scene with pixilation.
Émile Cohl
In 1907, the French artist Émile Cohl started his filmmaking career with Japon de faintasie, with imaginative use of stop motion techniques. His next short can be regarded as the first animated film using what would come to be known as traditional animation methods: the 1908 Fantasmagorie. The film largely consists of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There are also sections of live action where the animator's hands enters the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look. Cohl later went to Fort Lee, New Jersey near New York City in 1912, where he worked for French studio Éclair and spread its animation technique to the US.
1910s: From original artists to "assembly-line" production studios During the 1910s larger-scale animation studios come into being and solo artists faded from the public eye. The first known professional female animator, Bessie Mae Kelley, began her career in 1917.
Winsor McCay
Starting with a short 1911 film of his most popular character Little Nemo, successful newspaper cartoonist Winsor McCay gave much more detail to his hand-drawn animations than any animation previously seen in cinemas. His 1914 film Gertie the Dinosaur featured an early example of character development in drawn animation. It was also the first film to combine live-action footage with animation. Originally, McCay used the film in his vaudeville act: he would stand next to the screen and speak to Gertie who would respond with a series of gestures. At the end of the film McCay would walk behind the projection screen, seamlessly being replaced with a prerecorded image of himself entering the screen, getting on the cartoon dinosaur's back and riding out of frame. McCay personally hand-drew almost every one of the thousands of drawings for his films. Other noteworthy titles by McCay are How a Mosquito Operates (1912) and The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918).
Cartoon Film Company – Buxton and Dyer