SISO / The History of animation

[FIRST YEAR] Animation Context

Covered today:

How to book equipment and rooms (uosmediacityuk.siso.co)

How to book a Stop-motion camera/Studio:

1. Go to the Website.
2. Sign in using Network Log in.
3. Go to Find Stock.
4. Find Canon 500d Stop Frame Camera Kit.
5. Press the Book Button.
6. Select Date/Time for the booking.
7. Change the: Associate Risk Assessment to this Booking + Write who going to pick up the stock + Write any other Booking Notes.
8. Just Press Book then the booking has been made.

How to cancel a booking:

1. Go to the Website.
2. Sign in using Network Log in.
3. Go to My Booking.
4. If there any booking there should be a cancel button next to that looks like a triangle with a line underneath it.

Animation history website (www.dickbalzer.com)

This website shows all the pioneer animation before its time from magic lanterns to Zoetropes. 

Theatre Optique

The Théâtre Optique was an animated moving picture system invented by Émile Reynaud and patented in 1888. From 28 October 1892 to March 1900 Reynaud gave over 12,800 shows to a total of over 500.000 visitors at the Musée Grévin in Paris.

Vaudeville

Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of 1700. it was popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1800s until the early 1930s. It was the beginnings of American Entertainment. A vaudeville is a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation. It was originally a kind of dramatic composition or light poetry, usually a comedy, interspersed with songs or ballets. 

After seeing these Vaudeville Production, I hate seeing how they use the animals.

Phantasmagoria

Phantasmagoria was a form of horror theatre that (among other techniques) used one or more magic lanterns to project frightening images such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts onto walls, smoke, or semi-transparent screens, typically using rear projection to keep the lantern out of sight. Mobile or portable projectors were used, allowing the projected image to move and change size on the screen, and multiple projecting devices allowed for quick switching of different images. In many shows the use of spooky decoration, total darkness, (auto-)suggestive verbal presentation and sound effects were also key elements. Some shows added all kinds of sensory stimulation, including smells and electric shocks. Even required fasting, fatigue (late shows) and drugs have been mentioned as methods of making sure spectators would be more convinced of what they saw.

Georges Méliès

George Méliès was a late 19th to mid-20th Century French illusionist (a conjurer, a master of the illusion). He was in many ways the original filmmaker and filmmaking pioneer with his inspired ideas. He started his own business by buying a projector to present the moving image created by the recently invented camera (cinematograph). He owned and set up a movie theatre and then experimented with studio set design, camera and editing techniques. He was an entrepreneur whom had free-range to film direction as he maintained complete control as a director and studio owner. He was creative in many ways being a master of illusion and the original ‘Movie Star’ as he participated and acted in a lot of his own films. He relied on in-depth planning and in camera editing – but he was a master practitioner of art and skill of the ‘cut’, ‘overlay’ and ‘colour enhancement’. George Méliès influenced the Lumière Brothers and DW Griffith. The secret to his success was his realisation that at the heart of film technology was a mystical and magical fantasy that people enjoyed therefore giving the appearance of  trickery… 

Georges Méliès was the first pioneer of animation to dabble into early Green Screen but in those days it was black screen as they were using black celluloid film then overlapped the two apposing footage like us humans do now but digitally in After Effects or Premiere.

The Man with the Rubber Head – Made in 1901
George Méliès attended a special private demonstration of the Lumière brothers’ film (The arrival of a Train at the Station, he thought the Lumière Brothers’ storylines was basic. So he wanted to improve it so he decided to create a film that was more exciting and adventurous. With this intention in mind the first film George Méliès made in 1901 was ‘L’homme a la tête de caoutchouc’ (Roughly translated – The Man with the Rubber Head):

The Man with the Rubber Head was a silent French fantasy film that stared George Méliès and he also directed it.

The film was about a chemist in his laboratory place upon a table his own head, alive; then fixing upon his head a rubber tube with a pair of bellows , he begins to blow with all his might. Immediately the head Increases in size and continues to enlarge until it become truly colossal while making faces. The chemist, fearing to burst it, opens a cock in the tube. The head immediately contracts and resumes it original size. He then calls his assistant and informs him of his discovery. The assistant, wishing to experiment for himself, seizes the bellows and blows into the head with all his might. The head swells until it bursts with a crash, knocking over the two experimenters. The chemist then literally kicks his assistant from the lab in anger.

A Trip to the Moon – Made in 1902
Another film made by George Méliès made in September 1902, a year after The Man with the Rubber Head, was ‘Le Voyage dans la Lune’ (Roughly translated – A Trip to the Moon)

Follies girls celebrate the trip and a large cannon shoots a spaceship full of scientists to the moon. They hit the eye of the man in the moon, sleep on the moon's surface, and are covered with lunar dust. They discover a cave with giant mushrooms and soil fertile enough to allow their umbrellas to take root. An alien disappears when tapped with an umbrella. The scientists are captured and taken to the moon's ruler, protected by his lobster guard. They escape, return to Earth, land in the ocean, and get picked up by a ship.

Eadweard Muybridge

In lesson Johny told me to research Eadweard Muybridge which here it is:

Eadweard Muybridge was an English photographer in 1878. Muybridge famously photographed a live horse in motion using a sequence of cameras equally spaced to cover the 20 feet of the race track, each picture triggered by one of the horse’s strides. The cameras were arranged parallel to the track, with trip-wires attached to each camera shutter which were triggered by the horse. He then used his Zoopraxiscope to project the photographs in a sequence effectively creating the world’s first movie projector.

Winsor McCay

Zenas Winsor McCay was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip Little Nemo and the animated film Gertie the Dinosaur. For contractual reasons, he worked under the pen name Silas on the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.

107th Anniversary of Little Nemo in Slumberland

Here what google has done for Winsor McCay to celebrate his 107th Anniversary of his Little Nemo in Sumberland comic strip, a rendition of his work in a google doodle.

https://www.google.com/logos/2012/nemo/nemo12.html

Here is Winsor McCay's original Little Nemo in Slumberland:

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)

Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur. McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act; the frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master.