The History of Animation NOTES

Pre-Film - c. 1650-1899

• 1815 - Magic Lantern - early predecessor to the projector (2 slides of glass back and forth)
• 1824 - Thaumatrope - A disc of card that displays an image when it is rapidly spun
• 1831 - Phenalistoscope - A disc with an image sequence on one side and radical slots, viewed in a mirror
• 1834 - Zoetrope - Similar to the Phenalistoscope but a cylinder rather than a disc, this is where animation really started to kick in
• 1868 - Flip Books - A book which when flipped through, generates an illusion
• 1877 - Praxiniscope - An improvement on the Zoetrope using central mirrors instead of slits, neater way to see

Silent Era - 1899-1924 (Artists began to use film to record their animations and were often accompanied by pianists!

• 1899 - Arthur Melbourne-Cooper - Matches an Appeal, this is the first known animation and it was British
• 1906 - J.Stuart Blackton - Humerous Phases of Funny Faces, pioneer American for animation and this is traditional animation using film, he uses chalk and cut outs
• 1907 - Katsudo Shashin - Unknown Author
• 1908 - Emile Cohl - Fantasmagorie, this was considered to be the first narrative animation
• 1910 - Ladislaw Starwicz - Beautiful Lukarida, an early example of puppet based animation
• 1914 - Windsor McCay - Gertie the Dinosaur, Real example of traditional animation where they actually have character design
• 1917 - Quirino Cristiani - El Apostol, 70 minutes of cut out animation. another pioneer of animation as this was the first feature length
• 1921 - Walter Ruttman - Lichtspiel Opus I, pioneer of abstract animation
• 1923 - Walt Disney - Alice Comedies, on the corner of the golden era, this was Walt Disney's first project that composited real action with animation

The Golden Age - 1923 - 1960s (The animation industry took a big hit when television became an affordable alternative to going to the cinema, talkies came in)

• 1924 - Max & Dave Fleischer - Song Car Tunes, the first series of animation to have sound
• 1928 - Disney - Steamboat Willie, first animation with completely synchronised sound
• 1931 - Quirino Cristiani - Peludopolis, the first feature length animation with sound at 70 mins
• 1932 - Disney - Flowers & Trees, brings in colour to animation, RGB three-colour technicolour, and had a very limited colour palette but won the first Oscar for animated film
• 1935 - Tex Avery - Gold Diggers of '49, first animation from Warner Bros
• 1937 - Disney - Snow White & the Seven Dwarves, the first feature length film with three strip technicolour, very popular and demonstrated that animation should be taken seriously as a form of media
• 1945 - Mitsuyo Seo - Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors, first feature length anime