LO1: Task 1) Early and Late Pioneers Of Animation

U33 Stop - Motion Techniques LO1: Task 1 - 3

By Kirsty Richardson

Task 1) Techniques Of Early Pioneers of Animation (1800's)

Joseph Plateau - Phenakistoscope
Joseph Plateau was one of the first pioneers in Stop Motion (1801 - 1803). In 1829, the idea of the Phenakistoscope was established by Plateau, his plans were put into motion in 1839 and he invented it in 1841. The phenakistoscope was one of the earliest animation devices, using numerous spinning disks and the persistence of vision to create an illusion of motion. The spinning disk was attached to a handle and around the centre was a series of drawings to show the animation. There were slits around it and the person using it would look at the discs reflection in a mirror to show the images moving. The disadvantage with the Phenkistoscope was that only one person could view it at a time.




Persistence Of Vision is basically how the eye and brain hold a series of images to form a single complete picture. After the image is shown, 1/20 of a second persists on the retina (motion perception).

William Horner - Zoetrope

Around 100BC, an inventor called Ding Huan thought go this idea and described it as "as variety of Zoetrope". However, since it was so long ago, it is unclear what he meant.

The "basic drum like form" of the Zoetrope was created by mathematician William Horner in 1934. Between the pictures, the revolving drum had slits, but this version didn't become popular, when another version was around with the viewing slits above the pictures, so the strips of images could be easily replaced.

The Zoetrope is very similar to the Phenakistoscope but some say is easier to use as it can be viewed by more than one person at the same time. 

Lumiere Brothers - Cinematograph

Invented in the 1890's, the cinematograph was a motion picture camera also served as a printer and film projector. It was first invented by an inventor called Leon Bouly. However, he ended up selling the rights to the Lumiere Brothers as he could not develop his ideas and maintain the appropriate patent fees. He came up with the name 'Cinematograph' as it meant 'writing in movement' in Greek.

The Lumber Brothers wanted to create a camera that was more competitive than the the Kinetograph (Thomas Edison) as that did not have a projector. They saw the flaws in the Kinetograph and Kinetoscope, therefore they developed a camera that had better illumination and sharper images. It could be transported and placed easily as it did not weigh a lot. It was manually operated by a hand crank so was a lot more portable. The Cinematograph was able to project an image onto a screen so a bigger audience could see the images all at the same time. 

They used a glass flask of water as a condenser to absorb heat and concentrate the light onto the film frame. This was a safety precaution more than anything, as the light wouldn't focus on the flammable film is the glass overheated.

The Lumiere Brothers made their first film called 'Sortie de l'using Lumber de Lyon' which was the first public screening of cinematographic films. The device was also exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1900.

George Melies - 
George Melies played a big part in the development of Stop - Motion animation. He was a profesional magician that discovered 'moving pictures' and discovered that he could use stop - motion photography to do 'trick visual' effects. He was one of the first pioneers to use well known transition such as fade in and fade out and dissolve. He made over 500 films and used to project his own creations. His most famous film (out of 500) was a film in 1902 called Voyage to the Moon. He was the first pioneer to create real narrative structured films.

Eadweard Muybridge - 'The Horse In Motion'

Eadweard Muybridge was a pioneer in the 'studies of motion' and was a photographer. He studied photography and motion, how they work together and how a motion picture could also be projected.

His most famous work was 'the horse in motion'. He was hired by the governor of California for some photographic studies. The main question of his studies were whether all for feet of a horse were off the ground whilst it is trotting. As the human eye could not capture this in slow motion, Muybridge decided he needed another way of finding out. He placed cameras in a row with tripwires which in a split second, would trigger a picture as the horse trotted/galloped past. He kept improving his technique and as a result of this, is considered one of the main pioneers of animation.

Emile Reynaud - Praxinoscope
Emile Reynaud was a french inventor who projected the first animated film in public. He invented an animation device called the Praxinoscope in 1877 which was an upgrade to the Zoetrope.

It was a spinning cylinder that used a strip of pictures that was placed in the inner section of the cylinder. It was an improvement to the Zoetrope as it had mirrors instead of viewing slits, which enabled a brighter and less distorted picture so the viewer could see the images more clearly.

Thomas Edison - Kinetoscope

Thomas Edison invented the Kinetoscope, which was an early motion picture exhibition device/projector. It was designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole window at the top of the device. It was introduced as basic approach (rather than a projector) that would become the standard for all cinematic projection.






The idea of it was that film would be placed over a light source with a high shutter speed to create the illusion of movement. in 1888, Thomas Edison came up with the description of it and in 1889 - 92, it was developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson. It was developed by him at the Edison lab (he also helped to devise the Kinetograph). They used a 'stop and go' motion of film.

Techniques Of Later Stop Motion Animators (1900's)

Wladyslaw Starewicz

Wladyslaw Starewicz was an animator that created the first puppet - animated film (The Beautiful Lukandia in 1912). He mainly focused on using dead animals or insects as characters in his films.
His first puppet film had a plot that inspired Agamenon and Menelas. His most influential and well known film was 'The Cameraman's Revenge". It was one of his first animated films and the main characters are realistic looking beetles and was about the infidelity and jealously between the insects.

Willis O'Brien

Willis O'Brien was classed as being responsible for 'some of the nest known image in cinema history'. He specialised in motion picture special effects and was also a stop - motion pioneer. His most famous work was The Lost World, King Kong (1933) and Mighty Joe Young (he won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for this). 

The Lost World (1925) was an adaption of a novel by Arthurs Conan Doyle and is a silent fantasy adventure film. Willis O'Brien created the stop motion special effects for that film, and was an initial test before his work on King Kong. However, King Kong is the filmed that his work is most admired for and is classed as a milestone in stop motion animation history. Ray Harryhausen learnt his skills from Willis O'Brien on the film Mighty Joe Young. He was inspired by him and the next person that continued the values of  his work. 

Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen was a pioneer in Stop - Motion and his most memorable films were Jason & the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. He thought up of an idea called Dynamation. 

He also worked with a lot of other well known pioneers such as George Pal and Willis O'Brien. He got his first commercial job working on one of George Pal's Puppetoons films. It was a project called 'Evolution Of The World' but was never finished. He was also hired in 1947 as an assistant animator on Mighty Joe Young with Willis O'Brien, this was his first time working on what was a major film. His role in the production was to fix the technical problems of the film, so he ended up playing a bit part in the animation process. 

Dynamation was an idea that that allowed live action to be 'split' so a model can interact with others and be inserted directly into the action. Ray Harryhausen had a 'sandwich' of glass paintings to give a 3D effect so characters could look more life - like. He did this in King Kong and Mighty Joe Young but discovered that it was an expensive method for a low budget production and found it very time consuming. He tried to think of a more practical way of doing this that didn't cost as much. and found that the idea of split screens worked.

George Pal - 

George Pal was an animator that was best known for his 'puppetoons' and is classed as 'one of the most gifted directors of cinema in history'. His term for puppetoons is a mix of the two words puppet and cartoon, therefore, puppetoon was created. They originally were 'soft - sell' advertising films but then ended up in the reception areas of cinemas as they were 'a lot of fun to watch'. After Pal and his wife fled to America (because of the stresses of the Nazi invasion), he realised that he could make the puppetoons without any adverts so he got a sponsorship deal with Paramount Pictures. 

His films featured puppets that were usually made and carved from wood and he used his 'replacement technique' a lot.

He pioneered a technique called 'replacement animation'. This was basically a series of puppets (or parts of puppets eg. their heads) that were made to show each desired action or movement that was intended. For example, if the sequence was showing a character sat down and making a lot of facial expression, a new head would be made for each puppet so it easily could be replaced. This idea was well thought out and a simple solution, but did require even more thought, attention and planning than just physically moving or changing the puppet. The advantage with this method was that once the puppets were eventually made, they could be reused throughout the whole film. You could also take photos from more than one camera angle without any trouble. And even now, this technique is still used by animators such as Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas) as it is the most effective.

Oliver Postgate

Oliver Postgate was an animator and puppeteer that was the creator of famous children's shows such as Bagpuss and Ivor the Engine. They were made by the company he set up with Peter Firmin, Smallfilms, and were shown (and still are) on BBC and ITV. 

Initially, he thought that he could produce better work than what he was seeing from the black and white productions on TV. He then wrote Alexander The Mouse, which was about a mouse that turned into a king. He used a magnetic system where the animated characters were attached to a painted background (Peter Firmin painted these for him) and then photographed them through a 45 degree angled mirror. 

Jan Svankmajer 

He is seen as a surrealist filmmaker like a lot of other animators such as The Brothers Quay. He said that “I am interested not in animation techniques or creating a complete illusion, but in bringing life to everyday objects".
He has a reputation of using his unique used of animation techniques and makes entertaining films that are surreal and "nightmarish" but still comedic.
He usually uses exaggerated sounds to create a surreal effect, usually in scenes where people/things are eating. He uses club objects in his films (also known as Claymation).

Claymation and Pixilation are two techniques that has been used in one of his most famous films, Food (directed by Svankmajer in 1992). Pixilation is a stop motion technique that allows the director to use live actors frame by frame, they become sort of a 'living stop motion puppet', as usually they would pose whilst the frame is being taken and change pose slightly before the next frame. Claymation is the same technique but with clay models, that are usually made out of plasticine.

Tim Burton

Time Burton is a film director, writer, animator and producer that is famous for his dark gothic and quirky horror films. He heavily relies on Stop - Motion or CGI, as most of his films are animation based. Some of his most famous films are award winners such as Betlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Alice and Wonderland etc.

Vincent, was one of his first films that was a six minute stop motion short about a young person aspiring to be like Vincent Price (and Vincent Price does the voiceover). His main stop motion technique is to use a complex interaction between light and dark, that's why his Stop - Motion films are usually black and white or very darkly coloured. In 1993, Burton made his first feature film that only used Stop Motion called The Nightmare Before Christmas. It took him 3 years to make due to the length of time that it took. He used puppets to create a sense of realism and created hundreds of models that had different facial expressions to create each frame. The film was inspired by a poem that he wrote called 'Twas The Nightmare Before Christmas". 

Ray Harryhousen was his main inspiration as he was inspired by his stop - motion work. 

The Brothers Quay

The Brothers Quay are 2 identical brothers called Timothy and Stephen that are influential animators in the Stop - Motion world. Their films usually feature puppets that are set in a moody setting. They have made a variety of short films such as Punch & Judy, Sesame St (Raindance) and Street of Crocodiles. 

As well as making short films, they have also worked in advertising for companies such as Coca - Cola and Nikon and also work for MTV. They worked on Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer music video (as well as Aaardman Animations). They said that they were 'unhappy' with their contribution as they felt that they were imitating Jan Svankmajer's work rather than making something original.

Later on in their career, they started to expand their skills by mixing stop motion in with live choreography. The Sandman was a televised ballet where the puppets were reproduced in 'jerky staccato' forms of the dancers. 

Phil Tippet - Go Motion

Phil Tippet is a stop motion animator that was inspired by other animators such as Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen (7th Voyage of Sinbad). He worked on the chess sequence Star Wars - Empire Strikes Back and also participated in the film as a member of the monster band. 

He co - developed a technique called 'Go - Motion' with Industrial Light and Magic in 1982. It incorporates motion blur into every frame to make the stop motion look more realistic and less jittery.  Because the main focus point or object is always sharp in every frame, it can create a unrealistic disorientating effect which makes it look like frame by frame. Motion blur is used as real moving objects have a slight blur when they move because they moved when the shutter of the camera was open. Go Motion is a technique that blurs the model to create a real life movement effect. There are 3 main ways to create Go Motion

1) Petroleum Jelly (Vaseline)

The Vaseline would be smeared on the camera lens (vaselensing) to create a blur around the model and then would have to be cleaned and re - applied after every shot. Even though this is a time - consuming process, it works well and is effective. It has been used by many Stop - Motion animators on many famous films/sequences e.g. the terror dogs sequence in Ghostbusters.

2) 'Bumping the Puppet'

This technique is simple and is self - explanatory. To create the Go - Motion effect, you would have to flick or gently bump the puppets before taking the frame. However, this can be a troublesome technique as if it has moved too much, it could destroy or move the props/sets.

3) Moving the table

Moving the table technique is probably the most practical out of the 3. It is simply the art of move the table slightly whilst the frame is being exposed so it creates a slight blur. (This technique was developed by another animator called Ladislas Starevich). This technique has been most recently used by the full length feature film 'Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were - Rabbit'.

Nick Park

Nick Park is a director, writer and best known as an animator that created the Wallace and Gromit and Shaun The Sheep series. He works with the Aardman team and also produces not just the Wallace and Gromit franchises, but also has produced music videos and adverts. His most famous music video was Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video. The Sledgehammer video used the Pixilation technique where Peter Gabriel turns into a real - life puppet whilst each frame was shot and he moved. 

He joined Aardman after they noticed his college project 'A Grand Day Out' and has gone on to direct many films on behalf of Aardman. He has been nominated and has won many Academy Awards and has also won an Oscar for Creature Comforts.