Assignment One: Development

Pioneers
Introduction:
I will be listing three people who made progress in the animation industry. These people made great inventions and they impacted the animation industry in a positive way.. I chose these three inventors because their work impacted the animation industry and helped us achieve the understanding of modern animation.

Joseph Plateau

Phenakisticope

Joseph Plateau invented the Phénakisticope in 1841. This is the first animation device that created a fluid illusion of motion worldwide. The Phénakisticope comes with a cardboard disc which can spin and has a handle attached to it. The user would spin the handle and the cardboard would move, the image on the cardboard would then move which will make It look like the pattern on the cardboard is moving.

Joseph Plateau's work helped the study of animation as we learned that if images moved fast enough at a constant speed the object on the image will come to life and become a role, this effected modern day animation as animations were used like this to try and show an audience of people an object moving.

William Horner
William Horner invented the Zoetrope in 1834. This is a moveable cylinder box that has holes in the side and photos in the inner wall. When you spin the box and look through the holes it will show an object moving. Depending on how realistic the image looks when moving is dependant on how fast the box is spinning.
The Zoetrope is a 48 frame per second animation, which is fast enough to create the illusion of movement.

This helped modern animation as it helped the progress of moving objects in image form and can be viewed by a person.

Emile Reynaud 

Praxinoscope

The Praxinoscope was invented by Emile Reynaud in 1877. The Praxinoscope is similar to the Zoetrope, but has rectangular mirrors instead of slots. The mirrors are located in the middle of the object and reflects the images moving around it but it would only be viewed in low light and a few people at a time. The Praxinoscope was a toy made to imitate movement and was used to show drawings and paintings. 

This invention helps modern day animation because it was the first movie film projector and gave the ability to display images to audiences, which later on can turn into longer animation that can tell an actual story to the audience.

Developers
Introduction:

I will be showing examples of people who helped to achieve the progress of the animation industry and helped achieve the quality of animations nowadays.

Willis O’Brien (March 1886 - November 1962)

Willis O'Brein was a motion picture special effects and stop motion animation pineer. 

'some of the best known images in cinema history'
-Taken from Wikipedia

Willis O'Brien used Stop Motion Animation to create 'The Lost World' in 1925'. From his method, he made it possible for film makers to create films with CGI and create their work more easily and be more creative with it. 
Examples of people who used Stop Motion Animation are:
Ray Harrausen who made 'The Clash of the Titian's' in 1981.
Tim Burton who produced 'A Nightmare Before Christmas. in 1993.

Examples are:
King Kong - 1933
This animation is about a giant gorilla set loose outside of the jungle, making certain cities unsafe to civilians. Directed by Merian C. cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack.




King Kong Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sil5-kns1c

The Lost World - 1925
This animation was a representation of what Willis O'Brien thought dinosaurs were like. It was directed by Harry O. Hoyt




The Lost World - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6WC1JdLAI0

Ray Harryhausen (June 1920 - May 2013)

Ray Harryhausen is a visual effects creator, writer and producer. He created a form of stop motion called Dynamation.

Dynamation is a form of animation that has a high level of animation that interacts with real life. For example, real people running away from a dinosaur in a city.


Ray Harryhausen's first animation was 'How to Bridge a Gorge'. The 5 minute stop motion movie was about how to build a bridge over a gorge that can stand military equipment.


Ray Harryhausen's first Dynamation was The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms made in 1953 and is about Arctic Circle researchers donate a nuclear device and accidentally unleash a beast frozen for decades and destroys cities and parts of the world.

His invention effected the world of animation because he made it possible for animations to interact with real life. He helped future animators by giving them another form of animation they can improve and be more creative with. Without his work we wouldn't have Jurassic world, jaws.

Some movies that are animated by Ray Harryhausen are:

Earth vs. The Flying Saucers

Earth vs. The Flying Saucers is about UFO's invading earth, but earth is not surrendering.
The special effects are done by Ray HarryHausen.

7th Voyage of Sinbad

The Hero Sinbad has plans for a wedding but the plans are ruined by the sorcerer Sokurah. He demands Sinbad to give him an item off the island but when he refuses, Sokurah makes Parisa small making Sinbad go through seas to rescue her.

Jan Švankmajer (Born September 1934)


He worked on stop motion animation with puppets and clay sculptures to create an animation movie to tell a story. he wanted to make the audience be entertained with his animations. He effected the world of animation because he is an example of using ma-made objects like dolls, puppets and sculptures and made them into a animation to entertain people. Their work helps other people in the animation industry because he helped the understanding of stop motion on sculptures and puppets, and put everything together to create a fluid and have a film run softly to entertain people. Because of this, we have movies like 'The Muppets' and 'Hoop in a Mood' which are both children based entertainment film.


His first animation:
The Last Trick (1964)

This animation is about two  More of his animations:

Alice (1988)

A little girl follows a rabbit and heads into a magical world filled with things from her imagination.

A Game with Stones (1965)

This animation follows rocks around and tells a story of how a stone lives it's life.

A quite week in the house (1969)

A man who spends a week in a house to watch and witness bizarre things happen throughout the week.

Contemporary

Introduction:
I will be showing you two people who created movies for certain audience types. They used certain animation types to create their movies and used the same type in all of their movies. I will be giving examples of their work and what audiences types they are based on and if they accomplished to attract that audience type.


Tim Burton:
Tim Burton was influenced by Christopher Lee, Paul Whitehouse, Edward Gorey, Georges Meles and Alan Moore. These influences gave Tim Burton the inspiration to create the films he did and with the creative movie ideas that followed. Like The Nightmare Before Christmas. His work was always about happy stories, but he enjoyed getting the audiences sympathy. For example in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he used Willy Wonka's childhood flashbacks to gain the audiences sympathy as well as showing more of the characters backstory and why they act the way they do. Majority of his audiences would be Children, the movies like Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland. However, he also has an audience that are older as he made movies like Batman, Sweeney Todd, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Planet of the Apes and these movies attract more teenagers+ who want a more adult movie, but isn't completely adult and doesn't completely have swearing etc, so it is a good stepping spot. His animations have a age rating of either 'U' or mostly 'PG' as they could be scary for younger audiences


Movies:
The Nightmare Before Christmas - 1993

This is a Christmas animation that has a musical journey following them to go towards the North Pole. Corpse Bride - 2005

This animation is about an arranged marriage which has problems and different sides of the story to discover which makes you sympathise about certain characters.
Alice in Wonderland 2010 


Alice In Wonderland is about a girl who isn't happy in the normal world and has an incredible imagination which leads her to discover a whole new and exciting world.


His animations are popular because he based some of his movies off books and have worked with well known companies like Disney. His work was more successful than Harryhausens because his work had more magical story lines and made younger audiences relate via their imagination more.

Nick park:
Nick Parks movies include: Flushed Away, Early Man, Wallace and Gromit, Arther Christmas and Shawn the Sheep: The Movie. The audience he is trying to get is young children / children / teens as these movies are PG friendly. From looking through the list of movies, you can see he likes to make movies out of things he can control and that are not human like. You can also see his animation skills improve over the years with the newer movies coming out. His most recent animation is called Early Man made in 2018 and his oldest is called 'creature comforts' made in 1989. Altogether his work is to entertain young audiences with the animation type that takes a long time to complete, with the the movement of the eyes and body gestures taking longer than animated as it is done by hand. His animations have an age rating of 'U'. 


Movies:
Chicken Run - 2000

Chicken Run is about a bunch of chickens that try to escape where they live due to a new machine that can kill them and make them into foods faster.
Early Man - 2018

Early Man is about a bunch of people from the Stone Age who are forced to go into a new place which is in the Bronze era and they find a new way to live their life.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit - 2005

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. it about two friends who investigate why certain things are happening and realizing it is because of this new species.

His animations are popular because he made his animations have good story lines and audiences could clearly see how much time he took to make them as they were incredibly detailed. I think his animations were more popular than Harreyhousen because his animations were more detailed and incredible graphics.