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Animation The Global History by Maureen Furniss

Ch.1- p.g 12 - Lascaux Caves, southwest France, c. 15,000 BCE

Great Black Bull

“The earliest examples of images that suggest animated movement are found in prehistoric paintings, such as the ones in Lascaux caves in France. These ancient images which include horses and other animals in sequences of slightly altered positions, may indicate that even the earliest humans wanted to set their images in motion.”

Ch. 1 - p.g. 15 - Shadow Animation, fifteenth century

The casting of shadows onto a wall using hands or other objects has occurred worldwide since the earliest years of humanity. The first reference that alludes to magic lanterns was in the fifteenth century by Italian engineer and physician Giovanni Fontana.

Ch. 1 - p.g 13/14 - Magic-Lantern Shows, seventeenth century

Magic-Lanterns were the forerunners to slide projectors that came about in the seventeenth century and served various uses from that point onwards. They worked by pushing a series of hand-painted (or photographic) glass slides into a beam of light which would project the image out.

Ch. 1 - p.g 15 - Chromatrope and Chreutoscope

By the nineteenth century the equipment had and advanced and most acts now incorporated other equipment including a chromatrope which used two, overlapping, colourful, glass plates which where lit with the projection lamp and then spun with a hand crank to create a light show. The chreutoscope held six images which were projected one after the other to create very simple animated movement.

Ch. 1 - p.g 15/16 - Phantasmagoria, eighteenth century

Ghost stories (phantasmagoria) were the most popular Magic-Lantern shows in which portable lanterns were hidden behind a translucent screen on which frightening images were projected. Belgian scientist and artist Etienne Gaspard Robertson is best known for this genre and coined his own term Fantasmagorie

Ch. 1 - p.g 16 - Precursor to Cinema, eighteenth century

Advancements and increasing popularity behind Magic Lanterns made people more familiar with experiencing image screenings which would path the way to the advent of Cinema.

Ch. 1 - p.g 17 - Motion Devices, nineteenth century

Medical advancements throughout the century lead to new findings about how the human body worked. As a means of demonstrating these new discoveries motion devices were created such as thaumatropes, zoetropes and phenakistoscopes. Overtime these inventions found their way into the general public and became forms of entertainment, now they are antiques and collectors items. The Flipbook however which was invented by British printer John Linnett in 1868 remains to be popular and went on to be the core function of drawn animation.

Ch.1 - p.g 18/19 - Automata, eighteenth century

The late eighteenth century saw the introduction of machine manufacturing and automation. It was this same innovation that lead to automata for entertainment and art which would be the early foreshadowing of stop-motion animation. Figures animal or human in nature imitated movement giving one of the earliest impressions of artificial life.

Ch. 16 - The Emergence of Electronic Games

People have always played games. Though primitive and accessible traditionally we have an innate curiosity to try new things, learn and improve. The first computer game historically was made in 1958 in a US-Government-owned laboratory. It was expensive and required massive machines to be run. “Tennis for Two” developed by Willie Higginbotham. MIT created their own game “Spacewar”, a two-player game in which opposing spaceships tried to down one another.

Didn’t become widely accessible until the 70′s when Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney began developing video games for arcade cabinets. “Computer Space” (Spacewar) was completed in 1971, didn’t sell well. Left and formed Atari in 1972 and released ”Pong” a year later. Began the golden age of arcade games.

Don Bluth took an interest in Arcade games and saw the potential for Disney-esque studio animation and narrative. He created two arcade games Dragon’s Quest (1983) and Space Ace (1984) which were stylistically unique and innovative for the time. Used laserdisc for multiple narratives. Furthered videogames.

1972 saw the release of the first home console (Magnavox Odyssey) by Ralph Baer “Father of the video game”. It used television monitors to display the graphics and used cartridges to hold game information.

Further technological advances went hand in hand with advancements in the video game industry. With more processing power came better visuals and audio. With more peripherals came more complex and intuitive gameplay. The major game companies (Nintendo, Sega, Sony) went into competition with each driving the other to advance the technology culminating in 3D animation within the industry.

Ch. 21 - Computer-Generated Animation in Features

By the 1980′s feature films had moved away from art and towards profitability. They were made to be as lucrative as possible. Blockbusters were full of spectacle but lacked complex narrative so they could sell the concept with a sentence or two. This was helped immensely by the Special effects industry creating believable practical effects such as explosions, costumes, animatronics...etc.

Though the industry was aware of the potential for Computer generated imagery there wasn’t the know-how to integrate it into films. It was still far to complex and inaccessible for most. However due to Apples desire to make Computing part of day to day lives they had begun distributing their hardware to schools in hopes of creating customers for life. The effect of this was young people were becoming more accustomed to the technology and more adept at using it.

John Lasseter was inspired by Tron to explore the possibilities of 3D animation. Contacted MAGI and worked on a project together. Looked into developing “Brave Little Toaster” into a CGI Film, was fired from Disney for not consulting. Got a job at Lucas Film as part of a Graphics Group working towards 3D Animation Software. Was bought out by Steve Jobs and turned into Pixar. Began developing character animation.

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