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