History of animation

By Annie Magner
 Hand drawn (Cell)

Cel animation is a form of animation where each frame in drawn

by hand. A Cel is a sheet of transparent cellulose acetate that is
used as a medium when painting animation frames.

The reason why they are transparent is so that the artist can
draw over any shapes that they want to draw again. Animators
can combine Cels by layering them on top of each other so they
don’t have to redraw the same object if it is used in another
frame. When the Cels have been painted, they are then
photographed.

Even 2D Animators today use these techniques like drawing

sketches at the start of the animation process. However, 2D
animations today are created on Computers so the animation
process can be quicker.

The early Disney animated films such as “Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs” (1937) and “Bambi” (1942) were made by Cel
animation.
 Flick Books

A flip Book is a Book that includes a series of images to create the illusion
of movement when the pages are flipped quickly.

The first flip Book known as “Kineograph” was created in 1868 and was
patented by John Barnes Linnett. The flip Book itself was invented by
Frenchman Pierre-Hubert Desvignes.

They used to be often found as prizes in Cereal Boxes and in Cracker Jack
snack Boxes. Flip Books can still be commonly found and some old flip
Books have been sold for over thousands of dollars.

Walt Disney Animation Studios uses a flip book styled animation of

Steamboat Willie as their production logo at the start of every film and
they have been doing this since 2007.
 Animated cartoon

The first animated film was called “Pauvre Pierrot” and it was created in
1892 by Charles-Émile Reynaud. The first animation to be
photographed was called “Humorous Phases of Funny Faces” and it was
created by J. Stuart Blackton in 1906. “Pauvre Pierrot” lasted for 15
minutes when it was initially created and “Humorous Phases of Funny
Faces” is 3 minutes long. “Pauvre Pierrot” “My Old Kentucky Home”

The first feature film was called “Fantasmagorie” and it was created in
1908 by Émile Cohl. The animated first film to have sound was called “Toy Story”
“My Old Kentucky Home” and it was created in 1926 by Max Fleischer.
Walt Disney Animation Studios was created in 1923 and the first film
created by them was called “Alice’s Wonderland”.

It was released in 1923 and it was the first of a series called “Alice
Comedies”. Walt Disney Animation Studios is probably the most famous
animation company in the world and they later went on to create the
first CGI film “Toy Story” (1995) alongside Pixar.

3D animated cartoons are more common now and they are very
popular since they are more realistic than 2D animated cartoons.
 Animation process

The first type of animation was the Thaumatrope. A Thaumatrope consists of a disc with
one image on one side and one on the other side and when spun very quickly, the two
images appear to combine. It was invented in 1825 and it was a common Toy at the time. A
Phenakistoscope was invented in 1833 and consisted of a Disc that contained images in a
sequence and slits in between the images that when viewed in a mirror and spun around, an
illusion of movement is created.

In 1834, the Zoetrope was invented by William Horner. It is a toy consisting of a cylinder
with a series of pictures on the inner surface and when viewed by the slits, the zoetrope
gives an illusion of motion. In 1868, the flip book was invented.

In 1876, the Praxinoscope was invented. It is a Cylinder that contains strips of Paper inside
and mirrors in the centre. When spun, an illusion of movement is created when the mirrors
are viewed.

In 1879, the Zoopraxiscope was invented. It is like the Phenakistoscope except the images
are drawn on a Glass disc and it is projected. Since the disc is Glass, the images on the
Glass can fit into the background of whatever it is being projected on.

Hand drawn animations came after and a lot of animations are now done on Computers.
3D animation is a common type of animation used today.
 Graphic information file format (GIF)

A GIF is a file format that usually holds bitmap animations. GIF files use
lossless compression, and that means the file size decreases but at the
same time the file does not lose any value.

However, GIFs are not a good file format for images taken on digital
cameras because the maximum amount of colours a GIF file can have is
256. Because of this, pictures taken from a digital camera stored as a GIF
file will not look realistic.

Buttons used for websites can make good GIF files because they don’t
tend to have many colours. Although not all web browsers can support
GIFs, most of them can such as Google Chrome and Internet Explorer.
Most mobile Phones can let Users download and view GIF files and no
other apps are needed to do this.

The website FileZigZag can convert GIF files to files such as PNG and
JPG. Software such as Microsoft Windows Photos, Corel PaintShop Pro
2018, Microsoft Windows Photo Viewer, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
2017, Apple Preview and Adobe Illustrator CC 2017 can show GIF files.