Phenakistiscope is one of the very first types of animation created by a Belgian physicist called Joseph Plateau. It is a spindle viewer which consist of two discs that spin in opposite directions. This was created in 1829. below is an example of the phenakistiscope showing how it moves and works.

 How do the techniques and early Pioneers impact on the future of stop motion?

Techniques

The techniques are persistence of vision which is referring to the optical illusion that occurs when visual perception of an image does not come to an end. Visual persistence occurs when the chemical representation of an image forms in the eye takes time to fade away. This has impacted the future as one of the very first types of animation was phenakitoscope and without this we wouldn’t have our animation we do today.

Stop frames also known as stop motion animation is a technique used in animation. It brings stationary objects to life on screen. This is done by the object in augmentations while filming a frame per increment. This is then manipulated by the animator. One of the very first animated films to use stop frame motions was made by J. Stuart Blackton called Humorous Phases of Funny Faces created in 1906.

Frame Rates are used in cinema and television images are appeared as single moving images but they are actually composed of single moving images (frames). These frames must be rapid so that the visual persistence and phi phenomenon can take effect this makes it look like the image is moving. Phi phenomenon is when visual persistence creates illusion for a single image, stationary image rapidly repeating images, phi phenomenon creates illusion of motion between images that progressively differ.

Development

Pioneers

I am going to analyse and evaluate Joseph Plateau work who created the phenakitoscope. Joseph plateau was a Belgian physicist. Joseph created the phenakitoscope and it is a spindle viewer which consist of two discs that spin in opposite directions. This was created in 1829. He made the first step towards making movies by demonstrating the illusion of the moving image with his device. Thomas Edison famously known for creating the light bulb he carried on plateau’s work by employing some of his discoveries in the phenakitoscope. Joseph plateau focused on the eye to analyse when we look at an object light is reflected from when it enters our eye.

William Horner who created the zoetrope was invented in 1834 zoetrope depends on the fact that the human retina retains an image for about a tenth-of-a-second so that if a new image appears in that time, the sequence was seem to be uninterrupted and continuous. It also depends on what is referred to as the Phi phenomenon, which observes that we try to make sense out of any sequence of impressions, continuously relating them to each other. The visual effect created by a zoetrope still used today to create animated gifs and video display technologies such as streaming videos, which essentially create an effect of motion by presenting discrete but closely-related images one after the other.

Emile Reynaud a Frenchman, who developed a technical understanding of visual science as photographer’s apprentice. In 1877, he developed the Praxinoscope – the successor to the zoetrope. It consists of a cylinder and a strip of paper showing images at 12 frames for animation. As they cylinder rotates, stationary mirrors in the centre reveal a single image in motion. below is an example of the zoetrope and how it works and looks different to the phenakitoscope.

The Praxinoscope upgraded on the zoetrope by substituting its narrow viewing slits with an inner circle of mirrors, placed so that the reflections of the pictures appeared more or less stationary in position as the wheel turned. Someone looking in the mirrors would therefore see a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, with a brighter and less distorted picture than the zoetrope offered, as with the zoetrope one would have to peep through the spinning slits. If we didn’t have this as an improvement from the zoetrope we wouldn’t have the need to improve for today’s animation so it just shows that this small improvement is one step closer to improving to modern animation and presently it will improve further as technology grows. below is an example of the pranxiscope and you can see how it looks similar to the zoetrope but is also different with improvements.




Developers
Willis O’Brien was born in 1886 and is the person who created the character king Kong in 1933. He is definitely the main inspiration for all adaptations of king Kong and his work is still being used in modern film as there was a film that came out in 2017 so you can see how far just one of his ideas have come.  O’Brien was hired by the Edison company to produce several short films. O’Brien was hired by the Edison company and this links back to Joseph plateau whose work was employed by Edison as well so you can see how far his come. O’Brien has done some short films like: The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy in 1915 and the short film lasting 19 minutes The Ghost of Lumber Mountain made in 1918. So films made in 1915 is in the same company as Plateau’s Phenakistiscope which dates back to 1829. Below is the model for king Kong and next to that is The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy.

Ray Harryhausen was born 1920 is more of a recent producer he was inspired by O’Brien’s work on King Kong and he soon started to develop ideas and interest in dinosaurs and started to make models of them. In 1940 he has landed his first production role as an animator working with George pal he worked on ‘Puppertoons’ which are short animated films of puppets. This could have been an influence to create the Muppets and this shows how the animation of puppets then to now has improve. George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Peter Jackson all hail his film work as indispensable foundations for their own. this means without Harryhausen Star Wars or jaws wouldn't have been created because he was the inspiration to get them started to make their films. Ray once said 'I'm another snowball. Willis H O'Brien started the snowball, then I picked it up, then ILM [Industrial Light & Magic] picked it up and now the computer generation is picking it up. Where it will end, I don't know. Maybe in holography'. he has identified he is a part of a chain reaction of animation improving and will continuously be improved he thinks it maybe one day could lead to holograms and they are in use today as there are Elvis Presley and Amy Winehouse performances today. In 1953 he created the animation The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and below you can see the behind the scenes of him modelling the dinosaur.

Jan Švankmajer After studying at the Institute of Industrial Arts and the Marionette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s he started working as a theater director. But time went by and he started to learn how to animate and started to make short films. He had an ambition to finally make a full length film and that was Alice in Wonderland in 1988. This animated film is popular that they recreated it into live actions films made in 2010 and 2016. Jan is known as a surrealist and his Alice film is a darker reinterpretation of the original made in 1951. He re imagines fairy tales in a different darker way. Other than recreating more surrealistic versions of fairy tales Jan hasn’t been a massive impact with the chain of reaction.