History of 2D animation

George Melies

George Melies was a French film maker as well as a Illusionist. George Melies was responsible for the film  A Trip To The Moon which had a scene where the use of stop motion photography makes the  moon  slowly approach the camera and then would then be hit by a rocket. This was the first signs of animation in the film industry.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0617588/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm








Picture from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_M%C3%A9li%C3%A8s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_M%C3%A9li%C3%A8s#mediaviewer/File:George_Melies.jpg

As you can see the moon has a face which moves around and then hit by a rocket. At the time this was revolutionary for its time, paving the way for future animations.

Winsor McCay

Winsor McCay was and American cartoonist who started out working in an American magazine, making small cartoon strips. After four years he made the animated cartoon called 'Little Nemo' which was his first piece until 1913 when he made his most popular animated cartoon 'Gertie the dinosaur' which became a big hit. People were amazed by how McCay could interact with his cartoon while it was being animated. He did this by drawing ten thousand different images while re drawing the background every time. Winsor McCay was inspired the flip book and how that produced animations using lots of images in quick succession.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0565560/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGXC8gXOPoU&ab_channel=ChangeBeforeGoingProductions
At about seven minutes you see the animation interacting with the text which is used to drive the narrative.

Lotte Reigner 

Lotte Reiniger was a German animator who made the adventures of prince Achmed, The HPO and Daumlienchen. She was known as a leading pioneer in silhouette animation.









http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0718201/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

This is the Adventures Of Prince Achmed and is the first film that she made. It was one of the first and most popular silhouette animations of its time.

Walt Disney

Walt Disney is the founder of the conglomerate Disney which has made a large amount of animated and is the most well known animating studio in the west. He is the creator of the iconic figure Mickey mouse which is still relevant to kids in the modern day. One of the first cartoons made with Mickey was the steamboat Willie which is Iconic and is referenced every time western animation is discussed. He went on to make more and more classics such as Snow white and the seven dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi and fantasia, All of which won awards and are still watched to this day.http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000370/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm


http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjIxMTUyNjc5OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjMwNjYwNA@@._V1_SX640_SY720_.jpg

Unlike a lot of cartoons at the time steamboat Willie had pre recorded sounds including whistling.

Zoetrope

The Zoetrope is a device which is used to view pre animated animations. The Zoetrope can only be used to view one animations because there is only one set of pictures on the device. The Zoetrope works in a very similar way to a flip book by presenting multiple images in a quick succession to create the illusion of movement.

The Zoetrope was invented by William George Horner in 1833.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoetrope

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoetrope#mediaviewer/File:Zoetrope.jpg







https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG6ywByMAyE&ab_channel=magicalmotionmuseum Here is a video of one of the animations from a zoetrope playing.

Phenakistope

The Phenakistope is another device which was used to view short animations. To use the Phenakistope you would put the device in front of a mirror and then spin the device to see the images move and create the illusion of a moving image.

The Phenakistope was made by Joesph Plateau in 1941.
http://www.mhsgent.ugent.be/Demoschijf.jpg

http://courses.ncssm.edu/gallery/collections/toys/html/exhibit07.htm

This is a example of a short animation being played from the Phenakistope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenakistoscope#mediaviewer/File:Phenakistoscope_3g07690b.gif

Kinetoscope

The Kinetoscope was an invention by W.K.L Dickson who was an employee of Edison, he was hired to create the Kinetoscope which was used to view short films. The device is driven with an electric motor which would spin the film around a wheel with sprocket holes in the film. A light would be shinned on the film so you could watch the short film. To view the film you would put both of your eyes on the top of machine and look down to view the film.

The Kinetoscope had a prototype released in 1892. 







http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Kinetoscope.jpg
http://www.earlycinema.com/technology/kinetoscope.html

The flip book technique 

One basic form of animation is the flip book technique which to put a different image on every page. The idea is to create the same image but slightly different. Once flicked through quickly you should see the illusion of movement. The same principle is applied in some of the devices listed above such as the Zoetrope and the Phenakistope which revolve around the same idea as the flip book. 

An example of which is used in the film hot fuzz. This shows that you must flick the pages very quickly to produce the illusion of a moving picture. 

Rotoscoping 

Rotoscoping is when the animators will trace over a live action movement frame by frame. This results in a lot of drawing being sped up and played which results in this.

This sort of animation is seen a lot adverts and not so much in films. However rotoscoping can be used to create duplicates of live action people in the same room such as.

In this example you can see the different ways of using rotoscoping such as having duplicates in one room as well being a good way to accurately portray humans in a animated way.

Cel Animation

Cel animation is known to be the traditional style of animation where every frame is drawn by hand. These animations normally play at 24 frames per second and normally don't deviate from the standard 2d animation. An example of cel animation would be in the disney film Beauty and the beast as well as cartoons like scooby doo and the Flintstones. 

http://www.slideshare.net/MrRyanSIS/cel-animation

Drawn on film animation

Drawn on film animation is different from other types of animation because they aren't made on paper and aren't photographs. Instead they are made directly on the film strips made to view the animation. The animator can paint, draw or stamp objects and pictures directly on the film. The result looks like this. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjDAepjjop4&ab_channel=JoshuaAbegglen

Photographic stills 

Photographic still animation is similar to traditional animation where you draw each frame and they play it back. However instead of drawn pictures you replace it with photographs which results in this. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLdWBUB9ZLg&ab_channel=lukesully606

Mutoscope

The mutoscope is a cheaper, simpler version of of the kinetoscope. It operates on the same principle as the flip book. It also only allows one person to view the animation at a time. Each card would be attached to a circular core known as a rolodex which has about 850 cards which would last about one minute of film.  

http://www.victorian-cinema.net/mutoscope.jpg

Animation before the 90's

The black cauldron 

The black cauldron is a film 1985 by Disney it is a full drawn film with music, voice acting and color 

South park

Early south park was cut out animation instead of animation done on the computer. it is aimed to a mature audience with more mature themes and crude language

Where can you find animation?

You can find animation in lots of different media forms such as film, tv, internet,games and mobile phones. Some forms of media have different amounts of animation such as games which has lots of animation whether it be cut scene animation or movement during gameplay where as in film some films are live action and some are animated. A different type of animation is popular in Japan and is scene as its own genre of film or tv.

Games

Animation is used frequently in video games as it is more than often the way you see the characters move and do other actions. 

The first super mario game was brought out in 1985 and contained a range of animation from movement (running and jumping) to fire balls. the original game included separate animations for each sprite however there are no cut scenes.

In later mario titles the animations became significantly better with advancement in the details of movement as well as the move to 3d in june 23 1996 which was a massive advancement in terms of animation because it contained higher jumps, 3d swimming and different types of flips as well as flying. It was now that mario had started to include cut scenes into the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QwCjJ_8BQI

Now Mario has advanced alot with better animations and a wider range of animations because of the different power ups in the game ranging from crawling up walls to a cat like animation.

 Games have now advanced to creating cutscenes which are of the same quality of a full feature film

Film

Animation in films are the norm for children in the west and are a very popular medium for children. Films such as Shrek, Frozen and toy story are all very popular films that are aimed at children. The major conglomerate Disney has made over a hundred animated children films which many have become iconic and define the genre of children's films. 

Animated films in Japan are a bit different in the style of animation as well as the art style. The demographic is also different being aimed to older audiences such as teenagers and adults such as Redline, Summer wars and the Evangelion series.

TV

Animation can be found in modern day television. In terms of demographics animated tv shows can have quite a wide range from adults to children. An example of a western adult animated show would be south park of family guy. An example of a children's animated show would be adventure time or billy and mandy. 

Some Japanese shows use accompany animation with a song  as an opening theme for the show.

Internet

A lot of animation can be found on the internet through streaming websites. An example would be crunchyroll which is a legal anime streaming site which has a free use as well as a premium user. Netflix has recently started to stream animated tv shows and keep adding more and more. 

http://www.crunchyroll.com/about

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Netflix_logo.svg

Mobile phones 

You can view animation on you're mobile phones, whether it be watching animated shows, playing games watching animated gifs. You can download animated shows from the official store. You can watch animations on apps like youtube and the two above. 

http://www.youtube.com/yt/brand/downloads.html

Animated techniques

This is one of my animations which was made in adobe flash. It is a hand drawn rocket which was made into a motion tween so it could move across the screen.

This is another motion tween but it has text across the screen that lasts the whole animation. I made a new layer and used the text tool to make the text on the stage.

What I want to make

I would like to make an animation with the two stick men playing a game of baseball. I would like to include the motion of a flying ball and swinging bat. I will use adobe flash to create my 2d animation. I will be using motion tweens to have the ball move across the screen as well as have the arm movements of the different stick men. I will draw the stick men but use a image for the ball and bat.