A Basic Summary of Animation: Past, Present and Future. The Past:

The Magic Lantern (1671): The Magic Lantern was classed as the ancestor of the modern day projector. There was no real magic behind this simple contraption. It consisted of a translucent oil painting and a lantern. When put together in a darkened room the image would appear larger maybe on a flat surface. Athanasius Kircher spoke about this originating from China in the 1600’s.

Thaumatrope (1825): A Thaumatrope was a toy used in the Victorian era. It was a disk or card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings were twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image. The creator of this small but yet important invention is clouded.

Zoetrope (1832): A Zoetrope is a device which creates the image of moving pictures. This contraption was produced in 1834 by George Horner. The device is basically a cylinder with vertical slits around the sides. Around the inside edge of the cylinder there are a series of pictures on the opposite side to the slits. As the cylinder is spun, the user then looks through the slits producing the illusion of motion.

Flip book (1868): The first flip book was patented in 1868 by a man named John Barnes Linnet. This was another step closer to the development of animation. Like the Zoetrope the Flip Book creates the illusion of motion. A set of sequential pictures seen at a high speed creates this effect.

The Present:

Stop Motion: Stop Motion is used for many animation productions. The effect that stop motion gives is the illusion of movement, and it does this very well. An object will be moved slightly each time and a picture will be taken of it. When the pictures are played back in normal speed the object will appear to move by itself. This process is used for many productions.

CGI Animation: Computer Generated Imagery changed animated films forever. The first fully computer generated film was created in 1995. “Toy Story” proved that companies were slowly making the transition from traditional animation to CGI animation. The process of CGI animation is still very tedious and similar in that sense to traditional animation.

The Future:

Animated Humans: Most CGI created films are based on animal characters, monsters, machines or cartoon-like humans. Animation studios are now trying to develop ways of creating realistic-looking humans. A film that has made an honorable attempt at this is ‘Final Fantasy: Spirits Within’. However due to the complexity of the human body functions, emotions and interactions it seems currently improbable to achieve a perfect animated human.

Before the cinema Optical Toys - Even if it’s not cinema, they are used to produce an illusion of movement. Optical toys were used since the XVI century by families and to make scientific demonstrations. History of Animation Cinema starts before live-action cinema – with such toys like the Thaumatrope, Phenakistoscope, Praxinoscope, Zoetrope, Stroboscope, Magic Lantern and Mutoscope. XIX Century

in picture: Emile Reynaud Théâtre Optique first presentation – Pantomimes Lumineuses, Boulevard des Capuchin’s, Paris (France) 28th October 1892

The first animated film was created by Charles-Émile Reynaud, inventor of the Praxinoscope, an animation system using loops of 12 pictures. On October 28, 1892 at Musée Grévin in Paris, France he exhibited animations consisting of loops of about 500 frames, using his Théâtre Optique system - similar in principle to a modern film projector.

The first greatest animator was probably Georges Méliès (Dec. 8, 1861 – Jan. 21, 1938), full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès. He was a famous French filmmaker for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest cinema. He was very innovative in the use of special effects - discovering accidentally the stop trick, or substitution, in 1896. He was one of the first filmmakers to use multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted colour in his films. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality with the cinematograph, Méliès is sometimes referred to as the "Cinemagician."

Georges Méliès directed hundreds of films including: � One Man Band / L'homme-orchestre (1900) � The Man With The Rubber Head / L'homme à la tête de caoutchouc (1901) � A Trip to the Moon / Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) � The Music Lover / Le mélomane (1903) � 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea / 20,000 Lieues Sous les Mers (1907) � Baron Munchausen's Dream / Les hallucinations du Baron de Münchausen

(1911) 1900s Animation cinema uses the technical possibilities of film recording devices. “Humorous Phases of Funny Faces” is a silent cartoon by J. Stuart Blackton (United States) in the year 1906. It features a cartoonist drawing faces on a chalkboard, and the faces coming to life. It is generally regarded as the first animated film. It features movements as where a dog jumps through a hoop. The film moves at 20 frames per second.

Émile Cohl (January 4, 1857 – January 20, 1938), born Émile Eugène Jean Louis Courtet, was a French caricaturist of the largely-forgotten Incoherent Movement, cartoonist, and animator, called "The Father of the Animated Cartoon" and "The Oldest Parisian".

1910s * The world first puppet-animated film was made by the Russian-born (ethnically Polish) director Wladyslaw Starewicz (Ladislas Starevich, 1882-1965). For his fifth film, Starewicz wished to record the battle of two stag beetles, but was stymied by the fact that the nocturnal creatures inevitably went to sleep whenever the stage lighting was turned on. Inspired by a viewing of Les allumettes animées [Animated Matches] (1908) by Emile Cohl, Starewicz decided to re-create the fight through stop-motion animation: he removed the legs and mandibles from two beetle carcasses, then re-attached them with wax, creating articulated puppets. The result was the short film Lucanus Cervus (1910), apparently the first animated puppet film with a plot. * Replication of the background: the animator had to draw the background for each frame. Winsor McCay (September 26, 1867(?) – July 26, 1934) was a prolific artist and pioneer in the art of comic strips and animation. His early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set the model to be followed by Walt Disney and others.

Winsor McCay, Gertie, The Dinosaur (1914) Animated film “Gertie the Dinosau”r is classified by film and animation historians as the first cartoon character created especially for film to display a unique, realistic "personality". In the film, Gertie causes trouble and cries when she is scolded, and finally she gives McCay himself a ride on her back as he steps into the movie picture.

Max Fleischer (July 19, 1883 – September 11, 1972) was an important Austrian-American pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon. He brought such characters as Betty Boop, Koko the Clown, Popeye, and Superman to the movie screen and was responsible for a number of technological innovations. Fleischer came up with a concept to simplify the process of animating movement by tracing frames of live action film. His patent for the rotoscope was granted in 1917, although Max and his brother Dave Fleischer (1894-1979) made their first cartoon using the device in 1915. Extensive use of this technique was made in Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell series, which started in 1919 and starred “Koko the Clown” and “Fitz the dog”.

Max Fleischer: Koko the clown (mais tarde Ko-Ko), Out of the Inkwell, Throughout the 20’s the series start to use sound (Ko-Ko Song Cartunes) 3 years before The Jazz Singer and 4 years before Steamboat Willie. 1920s

Charlotte (Lotte) Reiniger (June 2, 1899 - June 19, 1981) was a German (and later a British) silhouette animator and film director. Die Geschichte des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed) is completed in 1926 and it is the oldest surviving animated feature film, with a plot that is a pastiche of stories from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.

1930s 30-ies were The Golden Age of American animation – the period in American animation history that began with the advent of sound cartoons in 1928, peaked during the mid 1940s, and continued into the 1960s when theatrical animated shorts slowly began losing to the new medium of television animation. Many of the most memorable characters emerged from this period including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Popeye, Betty Boop, Woody Woodpecker, Tom and Jerry, Droopy Dog and an incredibly popular adaptation of Superman. Feature length animation also began during this period, most notably with Walt Disney's first films: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi. Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Disney is notable as one of the most influential and innovative figures in the field of entertainment during the twentieth century. As the co-founder (with his brother Roy O. Disney) of Walt Disney Productions, Walt became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation he co-founded, now known as The Walt Disney Company During the early 1930s, the world of animation seemed to be divided into two factions: Walt Disney - and "everyone else." Mickey Mouse's phenomenal popularity put the animated character into the ranks of the most popular screen personalities in the world (ranking alongside Charlie Chaplin), and for a while it seemed that everything Disney touched turned to gold. In terms of quality, Disney's closest competitor was Max Fleischer. The Fleischers continued the innovation and creativity they had developed during the silent film era several of Fleischer's cartoons had soundtracks by (and often live or rotoscoped footage of) some of the leading jazz performers of the time, the films were full of fantasy and surreal.

Berthold Bartosch, L'Idée, 1930-1932

1940s Cartoons were never just for children. Cartoons in the Golden Age, such as Red Hot Riding Hood, contained topical and often suggestive humor, though they were seen primarily as "children's entertainment" by movie exhibitors. This point of view prevailed when the new medium of television began showing cartoons in the late 1940s. 1950s Animation was in 50-ies enormously popular in United States and same time getting more audience all over the world, as well in Japan. Norman McLaren, (b. April 11, 1914 - d. January 27, 1987) was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director McLaren created his most famous film, Neighbours in 1952, which has won various awards around the world, including the Canadian Film Award and the Academy Award. Besides the brilliant combination of visuals and sound, the film has a very strong social message against violence and war. The film uses the technique known as pixilation, an

animation technique using live actors as stop-motion objects. McLaren used pixilation effects, superimpositions and animation not only to display the staging of an art school ball, but also to tap into the aesthetic sensations supposedly produced by this event. The term 'Pixilation' was created by Grant Munro, who had worked with McLaren on Two Bagatelles, a pair of short pixilation films made prior to Neighbours. While Neighbours is often credited as an animated film by many film historians, very little of the film is actually animated. The majority of the film is shot with variable-speed photography, usually in fast motion, with some stop-frame techniques. Under the current definition of an animated short, it is unlikely that Neighbours would qualify as either a documentary short or an animated short. His five part "Animated Motion" shorts, produced in the late 70s, are an excellent example of instruction on the basics of film animation. Len Lye, born Leonard Charles Huia Lye (5 July 1901, Christchurch, New Zealand - 15 May 1980, Warwick, Rhode Island), was a New Zealand-born artist known primarily for his experimental (surreal) films and kinetic sculpture.

In “Free Radicals” (1958, revised 1979) he used black film stock and scratched designs into the emulsion. The result was a dancing pattern of flashing lines and marks, as dramatic as lightning in the night sky. Lye continued to experiment with the possibilities of direct film-making to the end of his life. In various films he used a range of dyes, stencils, air-brushes, felt tip pens, stamps, combs and surgical instruments, to create images and textures on celluloid. In Colour Cry he employed the "photogram" method combined with various stencils and fabrics to create abstract patterns. 1960s Pinscreen animation makes use of a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows. The technique has been used to create animated films with a range of textural effects difficult to achieve with traditional cel animation. The technique was developed by Alexandre Alexeieff and his wife Claire Parker. They made a total of 6 very short films with it, over a period of fifty years. The Annecy International Animated Film Festival (Festival du Film d'Animation du Annecy) was created in 1960 and takes place at the beginning of June in the town of Annecy, France. Initially occurring every two years, the festival became annual in 1998. It is one of the four international animated film festivals sponsored by the Association d'International du Film d'Animation (or ASIFA, the International Animated Film Association) The International Animated Film Association (Association International du Film d'Animation) or ASIFA is an international non-profit organization founded in 1960 in Annecy France by the most well known animation artists of the time such as the Canadian animator, Norman McLaren. There are now more than 30 chapters of the Association located in many countries of the world. 1960-ies are arising of the Japanese Anime. Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy (1963) Isao Takahata's Hols: Prince of the Sun (1968) The first Japanese Animation found recently in Kyoto, the film depicts a boy wearing a sailor uniform performing a salute. The film dates back to around the year 1900 and is on 35mm Celluloid, composed of 50 frames put together with paste Dr. Osamu Tezuka (手塚 治虫, Tezuka Osamu, November 3, 1928 - February 9, 1989) was a mangaka (Japanese manga artist) and animator. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. He is often credited as the Father of Anime, and is often considered “the Walt Disney of Japan”. Isao Takahata (高畑 勲 , born October 29, 1935) is one of the most famous directors of anime, or Japanese animated films. Born in Ujiyamada (now Ise), Mie prefecture, Japan, he is a long-term colleague of Hayao Miyazaki and co-head at Studio Ghibli.

Most of Japanese anime consists of adapted techniques of limited animation. In this case, the technique is combined with manga styles and aesthetics, and is a very distinct style. Limited animation in anime is seen most frequently in television serials, but the aesthetic is so grounded in the medium that even bigger-budget feature films make use of it. The process of limited animation mainly aims at reducing the overall number of drawings. Film is projected at 24 frames per second (fps), but no animation studio would ever produce that many drawings. For movements in normal speed, most animation in general is done "on twos", meaning 12 drawings per second are recorded in a way that each drawing is on two frames of film 1970s Single frame video tape animation systems were introduced. Used for pencil testing they were a major development in the production of animation. This era is arising of Eastern European author’s animation. Czech, Ex-Soviet (Russian, Estonian, Ukraine) - main catchword is ”surrealism” Yuriy Borisovich Norshteyn (Russian: Ю́рий Бори́сович Норште́йн, born September 15, 1941) is an award-winning Russian animator best known for his animated short, “Tale of Tales”. Throughout the 1970s Norshteyn continued to work as an animator in many films, as the decade progressed his animation style became ever more sophisticated, looking less like flat cut-outs and more like smoothly-moving paintings or sophisticated pencil sketches. Norshteyn uses a special technique in his animation, involving multiple glass planes to give his animation a three-dimensional look. The camera is placed at the top looking down on a series of glass planes about a meter deep (one every 25-30cm). The individual glass planes can move horizontally as well as toward and away from the camera (to give the effect of a character moving closer or further away). He does not use computers in his work. 1980s

Jan Švankmajer (born 4 September 1934 in Prague) is a Czech surrealist artist. His work spans several media. He is known for his surreal animations and features, which

have greatly influenced other artists (such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, The Brothers Quay and many others.)

Švankmajer has gained a reputation over several decades for his distinctive use of stop-motion technique, and his ability to make surreal, nightmarish and yet somehow funny pictures. He is still making films in Prague at the time of writing. He started already 60-ies, but his best known works are probably the feature films Alice (1988), Faust (1994), Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), Otesánek (2000) and Šílení/Lunacy (2005), a surreal comic horror based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe and the Marquis de Sade.

1980-ies are come-back time for TV-animation. This is time for commercialization and counterculture. Animation on television focused almost exclusively on children, to the point where Saturday morning TV broadcasts on the TV networks were aimed primarily at kids. The tradition of getting up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons became a weekly ritual first for millions of American kids and from there it expanded to Europe and other world. … and the networks were glad to oblige by providing hours-long blocks of cartoon shows, most of which were crudely written and poorly animated. But the children watched these shows anyway Same time is arising time of CGI animation. 2D animation to 3D animation 2D animation: Figures are created and/or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphics. This includes automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques such as of tweening, morphing, onion skinning and interpolated rotoscoping. Examples: Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Jib Jab 3D animation: Figures are created in the computer using polygons. To allow these meshes to move they are given a digital armature (sculpture). This process is called rigging. Various other techniques can be applied, such as mathematical functions (gravity), simulated fur or hair, effects such as fire and water and the use of motion

capture to name but a few. TIN TOY (1989) A.A., John Lasseter,

William Reeves, Pixar.

1990s The new CGI age starting with full length CGI film”Toy story” Toy Story is an Academy-award-winning CGI animated feature film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution in the United States on November 22, 1995 2000s * Rise of digital fansubs outside of Japan, particularly among anime fans in the West * Rise of 3D computer graphics in anime, including anime titles by Hayao Miyazaki and Katsuhiro Otomo. The future is on his way via with film “Final Fantazy” as example. CGI animation films starting to characterize the human being itself. * Rise of cel-shading - the cel-shading process starts with a typical 3D model. The difference occurs when a cel-shaded object is drawn on-screen. The rendering engine only selects a few shades of each color for the object, producing a flat look. This is not the same as using only a few shades of texture for an object, as lighting and other environmental factors would come into play and ruin the effect. Therefore, cel-shading is often implemented as an additional rendering pass after all other rendering operations are completed.

Most of animated serials in TV created trough such way. * CGI animation is started to use enormously widely in live-action films, creating “film worlds” what is like real but are mostly animated.