Pioneers of early Animation

Georges Méliès

Some examples of his work are; 

Le Voyage Dans la Lun (A Trip to the Moon);

The Astronomer's Dream;

The Haunted Castle 

Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, known as Georges Méliès 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) ,was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularising such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted colour. He was also the first filmmaker to use storyboards. His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904), both involving strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films, though their approach is closer to fantasy.

Winsor McCay 

Some examples of his work are;

Little Nemo;

Girtie the Dinosaur;

How a Mosquito Operates

Zenas Winsor McCay (September 26, 1869 – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip Little Nemo (1905–14; 1924–26) and the animated film Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). For contractual reasons, he worked under the pen name Silas on the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.
From a young age, McCay was a quick, prolific, and technically dextrous artist. He started his professional career making posters and performing for dime museums, and began illustrating newspapers and magazines in 1898. He joined the New York Herald in 1903, where he created popular comic strips such as Little Sammy Sneeze and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. In 1905, his signature strip Little Nemo in Slumberland debuted, a fantasy strip in an Art Nouveau style, about a young boy and his adventurous dreams. The strip demonstrated McCay's strong graphic sense and mastery of color and linear perspective. McCay experimented with the formal elements of the comic strip page, arranging and sizing panels to increase impact and enhance the narrative. McCay also produced numerous detailed editorial cartoons and was a popular performer of chalk talks on the vaudeville circuit.

Lotte Reiniger

Some examples of his work are;
Cinderella (Aschenputtel);
The Magic Horse;
Papageno

Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger (2 June 1899 – 19 June 1981) was a German film director and the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation. Reiniger made more than 40 films over her career, all using her invention. Her best known films are The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) – the oldest surviving feature-length animated film, preceding Walt Disney's feature-length Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) by over ten years – and Papageno (1935), featuring music by Mozart. Reiniger is also noted for devising a predecessor to the first multi-plane camera.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_M%C3%A9li%C3%A8s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsor_McCay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotte_Reiniger

Here are some video clips

Georges Méliès

Winsor McCay 

Lotte Reiniger

Copyright

Wedding Planner

This is an image from Alamy image library, if you were to use this image then it would cost you £9.99 just to use the image yourself or in a presentation.

This would be a good photo for a wedding planner as it a picture of a church and a lot of weddings happen in a church.

College Party

This is an image from Alamy image library, if you were to use this image then it would cost you £29.99 if you wanted to use the image on a website.

This is a good images for a college party because it shows that people are having fun and enjoying themselves while at a typical place a party is hosted.

Wildlife Photography Exhibition 

This is an image from Alamy image library, if you were to use this image then it would cost you £39.99 if you wanted to use the image in a magazine, newspaper or a book, or in a small business.

This is a good image for a wildlife exhibition because it shows an interesting animal in it's natural habitat.

Persistence of Vision and Early Animation

Persistence of Vision

What is P.O.V?

P.O.V refers to the optical illusion where multiple images are blended into a single moving picture in the brain, This is how modern films and television work to this day.

What criteria needs to be met for P.O.V to work?

The minimum frame rate ( the number of images played back per second ) has to be at least 12 frames per second ( or fps ). However, the professional standard for animation and video in the UK is 25 fps. This is different in America as the professional standard is 29.97 fps. 

How did this come about?

A man called  Muybridge was trying to prove a theory that when a horse runs, all four of it's legs leave the ground at some point. To prove this he set up cameras at intervals of a few feet and when the horse ran by, it set them off. When all the images were put in a strip and viewed quickly you could see that all the legs came off the ground. 

This is the clip of the horse 

Early Animation Devices

There were many different early animation devices such as the Zoetrope

This was a device with about twenty different images in that were drawn on some paper that was slotted into the inside of the wheel, the user would then look at the images through the slits and then spin the wheel, this caused the images to look like they were moving. 

A device called a Thaumatrope had the same principle of moving images 

This device was used by having a disk in the middle of 2 pieces of wood or string and then twisting them really fast, there was an image on each side of the disk so when the user spun the disk they would see the 2 images merged together.

Phenakistoscope

This was a disk that was viewed from above that had different images on and then spun to make the images look like they were moving.

Kinetoscope 

This was the same idea as the zoetrope, you would see lots of images viewed at speed by cranking the handle along the side of this device. Some of these devices even had sound.

The Mutoscope worked in the same way

Pixilation

Stop Motion

This is another Pixilation 

Animation ( tester blog )

Animation

Stop motion Animation

This is an example of stop motion animation

Here is another example of stop motion animation

Stop motion animation is done by taking a photo of an object and then moving it just a little bit and taking another photo. This process is repeated until the animation is complete. The images are then played back at a fast rate to give the illusion of movement.

3D Animation

This is an example of 3D Animation

3D animation works in a different way to traditional animation ( sometimes referred to as cell animation is one of the older forms of animation, where the animator draws out every frame to create the animation sequence. In a nutshell, traditional animations are sequential drawings that are viewed quickly one after another to create the illusion of movement. ). They both require an understanding of the same principles, but the technical skill set is very different for each task. 3D animation is more similar to playing with puppets rather than drawing.