pioneers of animation

The pioneers of animation came from three original inventions that changed the world of animation for ever. I will explaining the whats, whens, and hows of three animation devices that were most significant to the world of animation.

The first animation device i will be explaining is the PHENAKISTOSCOPE.

The phenakistoscope (also spelled phenakistiscope or phenakitiscope) was an early animation device that used the persistence of vision principle to create an illusion of motion.

The phenakistiscope is regarded as one of the first forms of moving media entertainment that paved the way for the future motion picture and film industry.

The way in which the phenakistiscope works in the form of a spinning cardboard disc attached vertically to a handle. Arrayed radially around the discs center are a series of pictures showing sequential phases of the animation. Small rectangular apertures are spaced evenly around the rim on the disc. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the images reflected in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images keeps them from simply blurring together, so that the user can see a rapid succession of images that appear to be a single moving picture.

The Phenakistoscope was invented in 1841 by Joseph Plateau.

Joseph Plateau was destined to enter the realm of arts. However, his interested were more scientific. Following science and researching/ discovering lead him to create one of the most significant inventions that would change the world of animation for ever.

The second animation device that i will be explaining is the ZOETROPE. 

 A 19th-century optical toy consisting of a cylinder with a series of pictures on the inner surface that, when viewed through slits with the cylinder rotating, give an impression of continuous motion.

The zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins, the user looks through the slits at the pictures across. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together, and the user sees a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion.

The ZOETROPE was invented in 1834 by William Horner.

The Phenakistoscope was quite successful for two years until William George Horner invented the zoetrope, which offered two improvements on the phenakistoscope. First, the zoetrope did not require a viewing mirror.  The second and most influential improvement was that more than one person could view the moving pictures at the same time.  

William Horner at the age of 14, became the assistant master at Kings Wood school in 1800 and Headmaster four years later. He is largely remembered for this method, the Horner method, of solving algebraic equations. He was intelligent and was destined to create greatness. Understanding things on a mathematical level meant he could create an invention that could not be faulted mathematically. The Zoetrope was created and Horner understood persistence of vision too well for it to be below standard. 

The final animation device i will be explaining in the PRAXINOSCOPE. 

The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope.

It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud. 

Like the zoetrope, it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder. The praxinoscope improved on the zoetrope by replacing its narrow viewing slits with an inner circle of mirrors, placed so that the reflections of the pictures appeared more or less stationary in position as the wheel turned. Someone looking in the mirrors would therefore see a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, with a brighter and less distorted picture than the zoetrope offered. 

In 1872 Reynaud took this idea and turned it into theatrical entertainment. Up until this point animation toys had been limited to repetitive images. Reynaud noted this and devised a method of painting a series of pictures on small glass plates which were joined together in a single flexible strip. The animated characters were projected onto a screen from behind.

Charles Emile Reynaud in 1862 was a photographer in Paris. After He read a series of articles on optical toys published in 1876, he created a prototype Praxinoscope out of a discarded cookie box.

From this he entered his own ideas into the invention and created the Praxinoscope.

Eadweard Muybridge 

Eadweard Muybridge was an English photographer important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection.

Eadweard Muybridge, an eccentric inventor, was on the verge of a truly revolutionary discovery when his young wife had an affair. Muybridge killed the suitor in cold blood and was later acquitted on a verdict of "justifiable homicide." He resumed his work and developed a miraculous process for capturing movement on film, laying the groundwork for the motion picture industry.

As Muybridge's reputation as a photographer grew in the late 1800s, former California Governor Leland Stanford contacted him to help settle a bet. Speculation had been going on for years over whether all four hooves of a running horse left the ground at the same time. Stanford believed they did, but the motion was too fast for the human eye to notice. In 1872, Muybridge began photographing a galloping horse in a sequence of shots. His initial findings appeared to indicate that Stanford was right, but due to imperfections in Muybridge's methods, it could not be confirmed with certainty. The experiment lead to combing the sequence of shots together to create the illusion of movement.