This clip shows Thomas Edison’s Films 1894-1896
All of these techniques have evolved and developed from each other. Joseph Plateau’s work using
drawings on revolving disks inspired Eadweard Muybridge to then start capturing images of actual
moving objects, putting them onto slides which where them projected out for people to view. From
this the Lumiere Brothers developed the first film with Louis discovering a new ‘dry plate’ process in
1881. The boys went on to invent the “cinematographe” which was a device that linked a camera
with a printer and a projector. This invention allowed a function that can produced intermittent
movement that allowed them to display motion pictures. These inventions laid the foundations not
just for animation movies, but what was to become the movie industry as we know it today.
Taking the simple ideas of the original pioneers – and making static images look like they are moving,
gave a new set of people – “the developers” an idea to expand on this by using different objects, and
different techniques of taking pictures, and working on making the whole experience better.
This is just a short clip that that explains is more detail the change from the Phenakistoscope,
Zootrope, Praxinoscope.
This new technology gripped the world’s inventors and artists, and with the proper advent of
movies, albeit in black and white, and without sound, animation was pulled along with it.
By the 1920s the film industry was in full flow, with movies being made daily and distributed across
the USA – bringing fame and fortune to the stars. This in turn pulled people from all over the world
to Hollywood not just to try their luck in front of the screen, but bringing their creative idea with
them.
first began his career crafting and creating models, which he used to start making mostly humans or
animal figures. In 1913 he first displayed his sculptures in a display at the San Francisco World’s Fair.
Then shortly after that he started creating wooden figures with joints that moved. In 1914 he came
to the conclusions that he could make short films by slowly moving the figures and taking one frame
at a time.