Animation Timeline
Max Fleischer
He invented the Rotoscope, by
1914 he made his first animation with it, and by 1915 his invention was patented.
Until 1921 he produced his Inkwell films for Bray Studios, and after that became a producer for his two brothers in Fleischer studios first named 'Out of the Inkwell Films'.
Max was actually a really important figure for animation history due to the fact that his invention was a life changing thing for future animators.
Rotoscope
Zoetrope
The "zoetrope" was the first device invented by William Horner to make images seem like there's real movement in 1834, meaning that it uses still images, and because of the spinning of the cylinder it simulates movement. This device was known as a "daedalum" meaning the wheel of devil. This was because at the time it was totally strange to see images give the illusion of movement. It is an easy object to use, and makes it look like an actual short film. How does it do that? Well, this device is built up as a cylinder with a platform underneath so it allows it to move. The cylinder contain slits along its sides whilst most of it is all black, this works as a image processor, as the retina behind our eyes keeps the image 1/10 of a second, we are able to put all this images together and see it continuously, which is why if we don't look at the images through the holes, then we would just see a blur of images.
This device happens to have pros and cons of course, the pros are the fact that it is a really simple device to use, it works for animation films as we know them and it allows us the creation of other worlds. Now, besides all the good and simple things, the "Zoetrope" allows only a circular narrative only, and only gives you a certain amount of frames, which makes it even harder to draw because you would need great drawing skills to make it look smooth and continuous which makes it really limited.
Eadweard Muybridge (Edward James Muggeridge)
He was born the 9th April 1830. English photographer very known in history for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion. At the age of twenty he moved to America as a bookseller but later on decided to go back to England and take over professional photography. He learnt a really special process called "wet-plate collodion" and also patented two of his inventions.
After learning everything he needed about photography he went to America once again, and his photography made him world famous.
Nowadays Muybridge is known because of his pioneering in stop-motion animation. This type of motion animation was really knew at the time, he had to use different cameras to make this possible, and it made him a really important figure in cinema history.
Later on in the 1880's he got really productive and made over 100,000 images of animals and humans in motion.
Ladislas Starevich
Starewicz was born in the year 1882. Well known for his French stop-motion animation career and author of the first puppet-animated film. His technique for filming was quite special, not only he used stop-motion but used dead insects and animals as protagonists of his films.
In 1910 he was named Director of the Museum of Natural History in Kaunas, Lithuania. He actually made four short live-action documentaries for this museum.
For his fifth film Starewicz wanted to record a battle of two stag beetles, but he realised that every time he would turn on the stage lighting to record they would die. After watching a film made by Emile Cohl he decided to re-create the fight using stop-motion animation, how? by replacing the beetles legs with wires, and creating insect puppets. Finally, this became a success and he created the film called "The Cameraman's Revenge (1912)" and became known for it.
Winsor McCay
McCay was born in the year 1867, he was an American cartoonist and animator. He's known for the famous comic strip "Little Nemo (1905)" and the animated film "Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)".
His early career was based on doing posters and performing for dime museums, and began illustrating for newspapers and magazines in 1898. He was an early animation pioneer and later on, between the years 1911 and 1921 he self-financed and animated ten films.
Gertie the Dinosaur film was first used an an interactive part of McCay's acts, and later on he added a live-action introductory sequence to the film for its theatrical release. After this McCay became known not only by his most famous comic strip "Little Nemo" but also by "Gertie the Dinosaur".
Felix the Cat
In 1919 Master Tom, a prototype of Felix the Cat was presented by Paramount pictures, this short was entitled "Feline Follies" and created by cartoonist and animator Otto Messmer whilst being produced by Pat Sullivan. This short became really successful with audiences. Later on they decided to change the character's name to "Felix" which means both cat and lucky. This name was first used for the third film known as "The Adventures of Felix".
This cartoon became one of the favourites at the time, but due to the fact that it was created in the silent film era, when other cartoons such as Mickey Mouse came out its popularity dropped and became less important.
Nowadays Felix the Cat is still known as an important cartoon character in animation history.
1926 - "The adventures of Prince Achmed" Lotte Reiniger
The style Reiniger used is cut animation (chinese shadows) and stop motion, which I believe made it much more interesting. Mixing this two different styles ended up looking completely amazing because she didn't only have to use stop motion which is quite a long process already but also decided to use chinese shadows which made it look much more special than if she would have used any other type of props.
When talking about smoothness it didn't turn up excellent but at the end of the day, this was produced in the year
1926 (89 years ago) and at that time it was much harder to actually reach the exact smoothness wanted.
The music used isn't commonly known by this generations, but i believe it definitely sets the mood of the story, a bit dramatic but calm at the same time.
Walt disney animations
This studio has produced 54 feature films and is planning to produce more others. Their first production was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the year
1937. This is a known animation till this day and clearly is an important production for animation history.
Oliver Postgate
He was an animator, who was appointed as a stage manager in
1957, and right after the success of Alexander the mouse he had the chance to get a budget for his animations, and started doing stop motion and produced a chinese story called The Journey of Master Ho and that is how he started off.
He was dedicating his life to produce animated films for kids.
Aardman Animations
This company was created in 1972 as a low-budget project. They first produced a segment using clay called Greeblies in
1975, which inspired the creation of Morph, the clay character now a days really known.
After that their best known creation Wallace and Gromit was produced and it is today in history.
