Introduction to animation
Updated: May 9, 2020
Kinematics
the branch of mechanics that deals with pure motion, without reference to the masses or forces involved in it.
Stop-motion
The process of filming puppets and other objects one frame at a time while incrementally moving or modifying them, giving the illusion of lifelike motion when the captured film frames are viewed in rapid sequence.
Zoetrope
a device for giving an illusion of motion, consisting of a slitted drum that, when whirled, shows a succession of images placed opposite the slits within the drum as one moving image.
Frame
frames are individual pictures in a sequence of images.
Iteration
repetition of a process in order to generate a sequence of outcomes.
Task: Animation I Like
George Melies
Early French experimenter with motion pictures, the first to film fictional narratives.
Melies was a professional magician and manager-director of the Théâtre Robert-Houdin and was among the spectators of the Lumiere brothers' first showings. Melies saw the possibilities of motion pictures and went on to film over 400 films and discovered and exploited the basic camera tricks: stop motion, slow motion, dissolve, fade-out, superimposition, and double exposure.
Of his 400+ films, the best would combine illusion, comic burlesque, and pantomime to treat themes of fantasy in a playful and absurd fashion.
J. Stuart Blackton
British-born U.S. film director and producer who introduced animation and other important film techniques that helped shape and stimulate the development of cinematic art.
While interviewing Thomas Edison in 1895, Blackton's interest in films was aroused to the point he established Vitagraph, an american film studio. Their first film, The Burglar on the Roof (1897), was followed by a long series of film successes that made Blackton a millionaire. He left Vitagraph for a while but returned to work for the company until it was sold in 1926 to Warner Brothers.
Blackton created motion-picture adaptations of well known fictional stories, such as Sherlock Holmes and Oliver Twist.
Edwin S. Porter
He was a pioneer in Film directing for his use of dramatic editing (piecing together scenes shot at different times and places) in such films as The Life of An American Fireman (1903) and The Great Train Robbery (1903).
"A major problem for early filmmakers was the establishment of temporal continuity from one shot to the next. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903) is widely acknowledged to be the first narrative film to have achieved such continuity of action. The film depicts the robbery, the formation of a posse, and its pursuit and elimination of the gunmen. The Great Train Robbery comprised 14 separate shots of noncontinuous, non-overlapping action and was a major departure from the frontally composed, theatrical staging used by Méliès and most other filmmakers. The film ended with a startling close-up of one of the outlaws firing his gun at the camera." (Robert Sklar, David A. Cook, Britannica.com)
The industry's first major box-office success, The Great Train Robbery is credited with establishing the realistic narrative as commercial cinema's dominant form. The film's popularity encouraged investors and led to the emergence of the first permanent film theaters across the US.
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