2. The Techniques
persistence of vision-
Persistence of vision is a commonly-accepted although somewhat controversial
theory which states that the human eye always retains images for a fraction of a
second (around 0.04 second). This means that everything we see is a subtle blend of
what is happening now and what happened a fraction of a second ago.
In film and video, this phenomena is widely believed to account for our ability to
perceive a sequence of frames as a continuous moving picture. However this idea
was debunked in 1912 and there is no scientific evidence to suggest that persistence
of vision works in this way. Rather, it is thought that the illusion of continuous
motion is caused by unrelated phenomena such as beta movement (the brain
assuming movement between two static images when shown in quick succession).
Despite this, persistence of vision continues to be incorrectly taught in schools as the
physiological mechanism behind video's illusion of movement.

3. The Techniques
Stop-frame-
Stop-motion animation (or stop-action) is the painstaking process of photographing
a model, moving it a miniscule amount, then photographing it again. Finally, you
string the photographs together and the tiny movements appear to be action. This
form of animation is the simplest to use and is great for beginners.For instance, Seth
Green, an actor who has a love of action figures but no prior animation experience,
co-created Robot Chicken with Matthew Senreich. They employ toys, sets that are
more like dioramas, dollhouse props and clay (for facial expressions) in their stop-
motion videos to create some pretty hysterical skits.
Though I say this technique simple, because the concept is easy to understand and
execute, that does not mean stop-motion is not time-consuming or cannot be
sophisticated.
In the hands of an artist, stop-motion animation can be very realistic, stylistic and
moving. Films like Corpse Bride by Tim Burton show that stop-motion isn't a genre,
but a medium that allows artists to create whatever they imagine. Each character in
this film has several versions of bodies and heads in order to capture the most
human movements and expressions. The sets are also created with the same
attention to detail, creating a dark, beautiful world.

4. The Techniques
Frame Rates-
In motion pictures, television, and in computer video displays, the frame rate is the
number of frames or images that are projected or displayed per second. Frame rates
are used in synchronizing audio and pictures, whether film, television, or video. In
motion pictures and television, the frame rates are standardized by the Society of
Motion Picture and Television Editors (SMPTE). SMPTE Time Code frame rates of 24,
25 and 30 frames per second are common, each having uses in different portions of
the industry. The professional frame rate for motion pictures is 24 frames per second
and, for television, 30 frames per second
This is the same when it comes to stop motion animation as each difference in the
models action is a separate frame and a general frame rate is used to synchronise
the images with sounds and timing

5. Pioneers
Joseph Plateau-
History…
In 1832, Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau and his sons introduced the phenakistoscope ("spindle viewer"). It was also invented
independently in the same year by Simon von Stampfer of Vienna, Austria, who called his invention a stroboscope. Plateau's
inspiration had come primarily from the work of Michael Faraday and Peter Mark Roget (the compiler of Roget's Thesaurus).
Faraday had invented a device he called "Michael Faraday's Wheel," that consisted of two discs that spun in opposite directions
from each other. From this, Plateau took another step, adapting Faraday's wheel into a toy he later named the
phenakistoscope.
How it works…
The phenakistoscope uses the persistence of motion principle to create an illusion of motion. Although this principle had been
recognized by the Greek mathematician Euclid and later in experiments by Newton, it was not until 1829 that this principle
became firmly established by Joseph Plateau.
The phenakistoscope consisted of two discs mounted on the same axis. The first disc had slots around the edge, and the
second contained drawings of successive action, drawn around the disc in concentric circles. Unlike Faraday's Wheel, whose
pair of discs spun in opposite directions, a phenakistoscope's discs spin together in the same direction. When viewed in a
mirror through the first disc's slots, the pictures on the second disc will
What became of it…
After going to market, the phenakistoscope received other names, including Phantasmascope and Fantoscope (and
phenakistiscope in Britain and many other countries). It was quite successful for two years until William George Horner
invented the zoetrope, which offered two improvements on the phenakistoscope. First, the zoetrope did not require a viewing
mirror. The second and most influential improvement was that more than one person could view the moving pictures at the
same time.

6. Pioneers
William Horner Zoetrope
History…
The zoetrope was invented in 1834 in England by William Horner. He called it the 'Daedalum' ('the wheel of the devil). It didn't
become popular until the 1860s, when it was patented by makers in both England and America. The American developer,
William F. Lincoln, named his toy the 'zoetrope', which means 'wheel of life'.
How it works…
The zoetrope worked on the same principles as the phenakistiscope, but the pictures were drawn on a strip which could be set
around the bottom third of a metal drum, with the slits now cut in the upper section of the drum. The drum was mounted on a
spindle so that it could be spun, and viewers looking through the slits would see the cartoon strip form a moving image. The
faster the drum is spun, the smoother the image that is produced.
What became of it…
Both the zoetrope and phenakistiscope provided the break in the images by the black space between adjacent slits in the disc
or drum. However, this design was adapted by Emile Reynaud in Paris in 1877 to form the praxinoscope. It used a drum, just as
the zoetrope had, with the images drawn on a band placed around the inside of the cylinder. However, rather than having slits
through which the images were viewed, the cartoon strip was reflected in a series of mirrors, mounted in a ring set halfway
between the outer edge of the drum and the central axle. When the drum was spun, the viewer watched the progression of
images in the mirrors. A candle set above the axle allowed the images to be seen more clearly.
Two years later, Reynaud developed the design to create the praxinoscope theatre. With the drum now set into a wooden box,
the lid of the box carried a hole through which the viewer saw a background scene that set the images on the cartoon strip in
context.

7. Pioneers
Thomas Edison-
Thomas Edison is best known for his development of the electric light bulb and the
phonograph. He was also the first person successfully to demonstrate moving pictures to the
public. His early experiments followed the same pattern as his phonograph, with the pictures
recorded on to a wax cylinder. However, by 1889, he had passed the project to a young
Scotsman, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, who began work on a camera using celluloid film,
This camera was called the kinetograph.
The kinetograph It used rolls of film about 35mm wide, and these film strips carried rows of
holes down the sides to allow the film to be pulled through the camera at an even rate. These
rows of holes still appear on both ciné-film and films for use in ordinary cameras. Dickson
developed a viewer for the films which was called a kinetoscope. You can see from the picture
that it could only be used by one person at a time, looking through the viewing piece at the top
of the box. The film ran backwards and forwards round a series of pulleys, and was held as a
continuous loop, so that it could be watched over and over again without rewinding.

8. Pioneers
The Lumière Brothers –
Auguste and Louis Lumière came from Lyon in France, where they worked in their father's
photographic factory. In 1894, they saw Edison's kinetoscope in Paris, and decided to design a
camera of their own. By February of the next year they had produced a working model of their
ciné camera, which they called a cinématographe. The machine was in fact not only a camera
but could be used, together with a magic lantern, to project the films which the brothers had
taken.
The films produced by the Lumières' camera were usually about 50 seconds long. They were
taken in one shot, with the camera kept fixed on a tripod, looking the same way all the time.
The first one which was ever to shown to an audience was an image of the workers leaving the
factory in Lyon. (You can see this film at the Stanford Humanities Laboratory.) This showing was
also the first time that an audience had seen moving pictures projected onto a screen, since
Edison's kinetoscope used a peep-show viewer rather than a projected image.
The first public screening of one of the Lumières' films was given on 28 December 1895 in Paris.
This date is often taken to mark the birth of the cinema, although Edison and even Le Prince
and Donisthorpe had photographed moving pictures before then. After the screening, the
brothers began commercial production of their camera, which was soon in demand across the
world. The age of the cinema had begun.

9. Genres And Forms
Animation is used in many sections of the media
For example animation has been used to create TV Animations. These are programmes that use
animation as a type of video format. For example a lot of children's TV shows use animation
and stop start motion, such as Shaun the sheep by BBC and Wallace and gromit also made by
the same stop motion creators.
Cinema- Stop motion animation and just graphic animation has been used throughout cinema.
It has been included in all genres from action to romance. It is used as a way to create a scenes
which are unable to be created in real life, often due to it being too unrealistic i.e including
space features. Or being too dangerous. An example of this is in the modern film avatar. This
was done using CGI a form of animation which allowed the creator to manufacture whole
worlds digitally. On of the first animated films was steamboat willy created by Disney. This was
the first animation which included sound.
Advertising- animation is often used in modern advertisement because it can introduce new
features to adverts to be more innovative, and thus be more successful in advertising. On
advert that used animation or CGI was the lynx Chocolate advert which features a man made of
chocolate. This was all created using animation and CGI but would have been impossible
without it.

10. Genres And Forms
Music Videos. Some music videos use animation to create un realistic scenes to help portray
the music. One of the first animated music videos was ‘Sledgehammer’ by peter gabrial. This
features peter gabriel as the main character singing to the son, however using stop motion
animation more creative things are added to the scenes.
Computer Games. All computer games are created via graphics. This means
they have all been created as a graphical animation. This is used to create
worlds on which the player, plays in.

11. Developers
Willis O’Brien-
In 1949, 16 years after his ground breaking work on "King Kong", Willis O'Brien worked as Chief Technician on
another gorilla picture for Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Shoedsack called "Mighty Joe Young". A young Ray
Harryhausen would animate most of the animation, but O'Brien did come up with the designs for the film. At
the 1950 Academy Awards, O'Brien was awarded an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. This along with "King Kong",
are often considered his greatest achievements.
Here is an early clip of stop-motion photography used to animate dinosaurs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2PjgxnyyQo
Ray Harryhausen-
Raymond Frederick "Ray" Harryhausen (born June 29, 1920) is an American visual effects creator, writer and
producer. He created a brand of stop-motion model animation known as ‘Dynamation’
Among his most notable works are his animation on Mighty Joe Young (with pioneer Willis O'Brien) (1949), The
7th Voyage of Sinbad (his first colour film) and Jason and the Argonauts, featuring a famous sword fight against
seven skeleton warriors.
Before the advent of computers for camera motion control and CGI, movies used a variety of approaches to
achieve animated special effects. One approach was stop-motion animation which used realistic miniature
models (more accurately called model animation), used for the first time in a feature film in The Lost World
(1925), and most famously in King Kong (1933).

12. Contemporary Work
The Brothers Quay- Stephen and Timothy Quay, identical twins, were born in Norristown, near Philadelphia, in 1947.
After graduating in 1969 from the Philadelphia College of Art, where they studied illustration and graphics, they won a
scholarship to the Royal College of Art, London. At the School of Film and Television they made their first short films
(mostly lost), and met fellow student Keith Griffiths, who first collaborated with them on Nocturna Artificialia (1979),
funded by the BFI Production Board. Working together as Koninck Studios, with Griffiths producing, the Quays have
maintained a steady output of surreal and fastidious puppet animation films, supplemented by design work for opera,
theatre and ballet. To help finance their avant-garde projects they have also worked on TV commercials, channel
identification footage, and numerous music videos, including the Stille Nacht series, and, less characteristically, Peter
Gabriel's Sledgehammer.
The Quays are renowned for their craftsmanlike methods and their unusual sources of inspiration. Apart from their
puppets, which typically look like old dolls abused by many generations of children, they construct their own sets,
arrange the lighting, and operate the cameras. The films draw heavily on twentieth-century European visual and literary
culture, especially the surrealist and expressionist traditions represented by the Polish writer Bruno Schulz, the painter
Max Ernst, and their fellow director of puppet films, the Czech Jan Svankmajer. As with Svankmajer, the Quays' cinema
is short on conventional narrative but long on enigmatic visuals; music usually plays a major part in creating a bizarre,
sinister atmosphere.
Here is a montage video of some of the brothers Quay work -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zedjLOK5uyU
Tim Burton-

13. Contemporary Work
Tim Burton-
Timothy Walter "Tim" Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for
his dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy
Hollow, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 9 and Dark Shadows and for blockbusters such as Pee-
wee's Big Adventure, Batman, Batman Returns, Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland,
which was the second highest-grossing film of 2010, and the twelfth highest-grossing film of all time.
Burton is known for using recurring collaborators on his works; among them are Johnny Depp, who has become a close friend of
Burton since their first film together; musician Danny Elfman, who has composed scores for all but five of the films Burton has
directed and/or produced; and domestic partner Helena Bonham Carter. He also wrote and illustrated the poetry book The
Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, published in 1997, and a compilation of his drawings, sketches and other
artwork, entitled The Art of Tim Burton, was released in 2009.
Here is a link to a video showing the creative and artistic side of Tim Burton and his reasoning behind his films
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mANsedYvsBs