Post 12: History of the Development of Animation

One of the first types of stop-motion is the 'Magic lantern' this was a type of image projector. Pictures would have to be painted or printed onto transparent glass plates, a light source would illuminate the drawing from behind and the image would be projected through lenses. This technology was developed in the 17th century, movement of these images was also possible by projecting two images at once, one that was stationary and another that could be moved by a hand to create the effect that the image was moving even though it was actually a fixed picture. (Pfragner, J.), (Luikerwaal. 2015.)


A later, different type of animation is the Phénakisticope it was a spinning cardboard disc attached to a handle. Around the discs centre were a series of pictures, between each of them was a small rectangular hole, when the disc is spun on the handle the viewer looks through these holes facing a mirror and the pictures look like they are moving fluidly because each one is drawn in a slightly different position giving the illusion of movement. "When there is the same number of images as slots, the images will animate in a fixed position, but will not drift across the disc. Fewer images than slots and the images will drift in the opposite direction to that of the spinning disc. More images than slots and the images will drift in the same direction as the spinning disc."(Wikipedia. 2019.), (Prince, S. 2015.)


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These are some of the first forms of animation by  Joseph Plateau & Lotte Reiniger they would be considered to be pioneers of animation as they were one of the first to create it and start the evolutionary process of animation and film as a whole. Lotte was also the first to create a full length animated film and was the first to use the silhouette technique. Joseph was the inventor of the Phenaktiscope this was a key part of the development of stop-motion animation we can see from these two examples how far animation has come, in Plateaus work a single image is animated to move around on the spot or dance etc. The story and meaning in this piece is clearly limited however, each part of the animation is vital to what is being viewed as a whole, without just one drawing the whole animation would be ruined, although it is extremely basic it is the basis for all following pieces of film. Whereas in Reinigers there are several characters and many moving set pieces that have to be animated at the same time an is much more complex however, each scene and shot is still based around one character there have just been improvements in the articulation of characters and the backdrops.

"The Adventures of Prince Achmed" is a film that was revolutionary at its time and still looks like a quality picture even now 93 years later. The creation of the silhouette puppets is especially effective as they don't look as old as the ones used in other pictures that were being made around that time also due to the cutouts being extremely intricate and detailed the production looks like it was created much later than it was. The only negative is that the animation is not fully smooth the characters movements are very stop and start, this could also be due to the variety of moving parts such as when Aladdin descends into the cave (43:00) all his body parts must be moved as well as the ladder swaying as he climbs down it. This is also visible in the scene where prince Achmed greets the servants and drinks with them, when a wide shot is used and multiple characters are animated at the same time along with the swinging bench the animation of the characters is very jumpy but still admirable considering as the scenes where only created by two animators. Another evaluation of this is that the use of different shot types is limited only using wide and close-up shots which can result in the production being less interesting visually than it might be if a variety of shots were present although, this could also be down to the fact that all the characters are two dimensional so some shot types are not possible. 









In the Jan Svankmajers piece the sequence that stands out to me as containing the most meaning is when the head made out of metal utensils engulfs the one made from vegetables this could represent how mans machines destroy what is natural and living in the world to make what they want in this case a shredded version of what was there before. However, when looking at the "Diamentions of dialogue" as a whole it actually conveys a different message, it is split into three parts “exhaustive discussion,” “passionate discourse,” and “factual conversation.” in all of the shorts humanoid heads interact with each other and it always ends badly. The three different entities in the first piece start out as opposite but as they begin to continuously interact with each other they all become the same one identical version of a person. In the second the two clay people who in an act of love destroy their partner over a remnant piece of clay (which can only be assumed to be a representation of a baby), also the parts that are being animated could not be filmed in any other way other than using stop-motion as when they mould together the waves of clay could not be filmed they would have to be animated using CGI. In the last one two older male heads produce ordinary objects from their mouths: shoe and laces, toothbrush and paste etc. the first set of interactions went well between the but after not matching their items again and again in different combinations they exhausted each other. Svankmajer was a surrealist, this picture fitted this title perfectly, I believe one of the messages he is trying to send is the differences in communication not only verbal, specifically I think he was trying to show how messages can be conveyed from one individual to another without the use of words, this is probably the reason why there is no dialogue or sound in the film. One criticism of this is in the first and third section it seems to be very drawn out and unnecessarily long, the same message could have been delivered in a more limited time.      

The short film by Willis H. O'Brien carries less meaning than "Diamentions of dialogue" this is due to it being a comedy so there is no hidden message or something the filmmaker is trying to say. Considering that the film was made in 1915 the animation is quite smooth however, the dinosaur brings the quality of the animation down as it looks as though it could be from a children's toy store as well as this the lighting dips continuously throughout cheapening the shots and obstructing the viewer from becoming drawn into the film. On the other-hand the inclusion of dinosaurs and cavemen was the start of many other narratives of a similar base. This picture was also crude due to it being the first of O'Brien's works where he had little experience in the world of animation. 

When comparing the "Diamentions of dialogue" to a modern stop-motion like "The Nightmare Before Christmas"quite large differences begin to show, the two are quite different types of animation due to the mediums used to create the characters one is completely claymation and the other armature however, the difference in quality is clearly visible the newer stop-motion is much smoother and looks as though it could be CGI due to the amount of detail, the older film is also much shorter due to a much smaller team and lack of resources in comparison to the modern example however, the Svankmajer film is full of implicit meaning which is in contrast to "The Nightmare Before Christmas" that is a liner story aimed at children. Tim Burtons film is also superior but by a smaller margin to the "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" which is much more advanced than Svankmajers but still looks mediocre when put beside Burtons film which is also vast in the number of characters used but looks much more real, this could also be due to the director Lotte Reiniger inventing and utilising the silhouette technique for her animation. Regardless the animation is again much smoother in "The Nightmare Before Christmas".