Thaumatrope
A circular shaped piece of car or other material has a picture or drawing on each side and is attached to two pieces of string. When both strings are twisted rapidly between the fingers the two pictures or drawings appear to blend together into one picture due to the piece of card moving to quickly for the eyes to detect the movement. This is called persistence of vision
Common Examples of Thaumatropes are a bare tree on one side and its leaves on the other, or a bird on one side and a cage on the other.
They can also contain riddles or short poems, with a line on each side. Thaumatropes were just one of many optical toys that used persistence of vision. They are thought of as the early seeds that have led to modern day cinematography and in particular of animation.
The invention of the thaumatrope is credited to one of either John Ayrton Paris or Peter Mark Roget. Paris used one demonstrating persistence of vision to the Royal College of Physicians in London in 1824.He based his invention on ideas of astronomer John Herschel and geologist William Henry Fitton. Some sources attribute the original invention to Fitton rather than Paris.
In 2012, there was a report that a prehistoric thaumatrope had been discovered in caves in France, particularly the Chauvet Caves.
Phenakistoscope.
This was another early toy that used stop animation. The phenakistoscope used a spinning disc attached vertically to a handle. Around the outside of the disc was a selection of pictures showing different stages of an animation, and cut through it were slits that were evenly separated . The person using it would spin the disc and look into the moving slits at the drawings on the disc's reflection in a mirror. The slits across the reflected images stopped them blurring together, meaning that the viewer would see a succession of images that looked like a single moving picture.
Although this principle had been recognized by the Greek mathematician Euclid and later in tests by Isaac Newton. It wasn't until 1829 that this idea was firmly established by Belgian Joseph Plateau. He planned it in 1829 and made it in 1832.
Zoetrope.
The Zoetrope is made from a cylinder with slits cut straight down in the sides. On the inside of the cylinder is a band with pictures from a sequence on it. As the cylinder turns or is spun, the viewer looks in to the slits at the pictures across. Again the slits stop the pictures from simply blurring together, and the viewer sees a succession of images, giving the illusion of motion.
A device which a historian of Chinese technology called "a variety of Zoetrope" was created around 100 BC by the inventor Ding Huan, but the specific nature of the device, which has been misreported in other reports, and the historian's definition of "a variety of Zoetrope" it's self is inconclusive.
The Zoetrope shape was first made in 1833 or 1834 by British mathematician William George Horner. Aware of the recently made and quite familiar Phenakistoscope disc, Horner's revolving drum also had viewing slits between the drawings. He called it the "daedaleum". The daedaleum however didn't become popular until the 1860s, when a similar device with the viewing slits on a level above the pictures, allowing the use of replaceable strips of images, was made and copyrighted by English and American inventors.. The American inventor William F. Lincoln called his device the "Zoetrope", meaning "wheel of life".
Praxinoscope
The praxinoscope, another animation, and upgrade of the zoetrope. Created in France, 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud. Similar to the zoetrope, it utilised a strip of images located around the inner side of a spinning cylinder. The praxinoscope progressed on the zoetrope by removing its narrow viewing slits and instead implemented an inner circle of mirrors, located so that reflections of the images looked fixed in position as the wheel turned. Looking in the mirrors would therefore show a quick succession of images producing the illusion of motion, with a brighter and less distorted picture than the zoetrope had previously had.
In 1889 Reynaud further improved on the idea creating the Théâtre Optique, an upgraded version enabling the projection of images on a screen from a longer roll of pictures. This in turn enabled him to show hand-drawn animated cartoons to larger audiences. Alas Reynaud's device was soon eclipsed in popularity by the photographic film projector of the Lumière brothers.
Kinetoscope.
The Kinetoscope was an early motion picture viewing device. The Kinetoscope was made so that films could be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole at the top of the device. The Kinetoscope wasn't a movie projector but did create the basic method that would later become the standard for all cinematic projection before the creation of video. By creating the illusion of movement by showing a strip of film with small holes in it having sequential images on it over a light with a high-speed shutter. Described by U.S. inventor Thomas Edison in 1888, it was largely developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson between 1889 and 1892. Dickson and his team at the Edison lab also devised the Kinetograph, an innovative motion picture camera with rapid intermittent, or stop-and-go, film movement, to photograph movies for in-house experiments and, eventually, commercial Kinetoscope presentations.
Part 2- The developers.
George Pal.
George Pal was born om February 1st 1908 and died in May 1980 and was a Hungarian animator and film producer, primarily focusing on the use of stop motion animation with puppets. He became an American citizen after emigrating from Europe.
He was nominated for Academy Awards throughout his life and for seven consecutive years (1942–1948) receiving an honorary award in 1944.
He was most famous for his use of puppets in stop motion animation. Here is an example of his work in Tulips Shall Grow (1942)
Willis O'Brian
Willis Harold O'Brien was born on March 2 1886 and died November 1962. He was an American special effects and stop-motion animation pioneer, responsible for some of the best-known images in cinema history remembered for his work on The Lost World (1925), King Kong (1933) and Mighty Joe Young (1949), for which he won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. He used clay figures that he sculpted and these were featured in the films he made. here is an example of his work in The Mighty Joe Young (1949)
Phil Tippett.
Phil Tippett born 1951 is an American movie director and a visual effects supervisor and producer, who specializes in creature design and character animation. Tippett was born in Berkeley, California. When he was seven, Phil saw Ray Harryhausen's special effects classic, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and knew from that day what he wanted to do. He completed a bachelor's degree in art at the University of California, Irvine. Phil went to work at the animation studio Cascade Pictures in Los Angeles. He also went on to make figurines made from clay used in claymation that featured in films such as Star Wars: A New Hope (1973)
. Ray Harryhausen
Raymond Frederick "Ray" Harryhausen born June 29, 1920 dying May 7, 2013 was an American visual effects creator, writer, and producer who created a form of stop-motion model animation known as "Dynamation."
His most memorable works include the animation on Mighty Joe Young (1949), with his mentor Willis H. O'Brien, which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects; The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963), featuring a famous sword fight against seven skeleton warriors. His last film was Clash of the Titans (1981), after which he retired.
Harryhausen moved to the United Kingdom and lived in London from 1960 until his death in 2013. Here is an example of his work
Otmar Gutmann was a German television producer, animator, and director. He is most known for his long-running creation Pingu in which he crafted out of clay figures in which he would bring to life using stop motion animation. Here we can see his creation in action.
Tim Burton and Henry Selick
Henry Selick is an American stop motion director, producer and writer, best known for directing The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Coraline. He studied at the Program in Experimental Animation at California Institute of the Arts. Tim Burton is the director of all of the above and always works with Henry Selick when producing a film utilising stop motion animation technology. Selick mainly works with clay models as seen in this clip of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Adam Shaheen.
Adam Shaheen is a British animator, television producer and screenwriter. He is the founder and owner of Cuppa Coffee Studios where he develops and produces programming.He is also the executive producer of Cuppa Coffee’s award winning broadcast design and commercial studio.
Shaheen has produced over 200 commercials, winning over 150 International awards - including 3 Gemini's/Canadian Screen Awards for his contribution to Canadian Animation and also the Prix Jeunesse, the prestigious international award given at Annecy. Shaheen is widely considered the single most awarded executive in the field of animation. He mainly uses clay figures and here is a short piece of work produced by Cuppa Coffee Studios.
The Quay Brothers.
The Quay brothers are both influential stop motion animators that work mainly with clay and also real life objects. They have a very gothic eerie style and many of their films are have dark narratives. Here is and example of their work Streets of Crocodiles.
Nick Park
Nick Park is an English director, writer, and animator best known as the creator of Wallace and Gromit. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of six times, and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995), and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005). He works with clay models as we can see here in this clip from Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
Fantastic Mr Fox.
Fantastic Mr Fox is a feature film and uses puppet models for its stop motion animation. The film tells the tale of a group of animals conspiring against evil farmers who are planning to destroy their habitat for farm land and is aimed as children and families. The film uses stop motion animation as it gives the film an authentic real look as opposed to using a computer generated cartoon adding to the quirky identity of the film. It also is an easy fix to having a film where the main character are animals being more easy then using real animals.
Chicken Run.
This film uses clay models for the stop motion and does so to achieve the humor and feel to the film enabled by its use. It also makes possible human movements within the animals featured triggering us the audience to connect with them.
Creature comforts.
This like the previous film mentioned is another creation Nick Aardman but a TV show and therefore many of the reasons are similar. The use of clay enables creatures such as the flees featured in the clip above to have human personalities that the audience can get to know. This show was aimed at adults due to some of the humor included however older children could also possibly enjoy it due to the entertaining visuals.
Clay Kids
Clay Kids uses clay figures and environments to produce movement through stop motion. Its audience is children and the overstated comical features of the clay figurines support this.
McCoys's crisp advert.
This advert utilises stop motion animation to bring the crisps (the product) to life, letting the branded McCoy crisps in to the bag and imitations are barred from entering the bag. This suggests the branded crisps have a higher quality and therefore have prestige. The use of stop motion animation allowed for this narrative to take place.
Xbox Advert
This is an advert for Xbox using clay to create different objects that represent games available for the console. The use of this stop motion animation looks very fluid and impressive and by association this reflects on to the Xbox brand. It also enables the characters associated with the games to be brought to life perhaps subtly suggesting that the only limit is your imagination and that you the player can sculpt your experience.
Moving on music video.
This video uses string environments and figures to tell the story of a person in hospital and their passing. The video being a music video could be aimed at anyone who likes the genre of music however the use of string could be seen as a metaphor for life having a certain length.
Thinking out loud lyric video.
This is stop motion in a very simple form, using paper and drawings to display lyrics and visual cues. Although no the most creative use of stop motion the video is effective and clearly aimed at fans of Ed Sheeran's music.
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| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wB9-rD2WUk |
Shaun the sheep ident.
This is an ident for CBBC featuring Shaun the Sheep. Its audience is clearly children and viewers of CBBC due to the logo appearing multiple times and the graphics depicted in the ident.
Unofficial BBC 2 ident.
Here we see the use of clay to animate the number two. It is a Christmas one taking advantage of the season aiming to create and translate the festive feel to the audience. The audience would clearly be viewers of the BBC 2 channel.
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