Early Animation and Its Early Pioneers

Animation is among the forms of visual communication pervading the world. This is seen on TV channels and smartphones among other gadgets. How, when and where it began does not concern many people. With reference to that, below is a brief history of the medium was developed and the pioneers concerned.

1. ÉmileCohl (1908)

ÉmileCohl, a French cartoonist and animator also known to many as “the father of the animated cartoon,” is one of the pioneers of animation dated back to 1907. He did this placing each drawing on an illuminated glass plate and drew the next drawing, reflecting the variations required to show movement. He repeated the procedure until he had 700 drawings. For the animation to like a chalk drawing he went ahead and print black lines filmed on a paper into negative.

2. Georges Méliès (1902)

Georges Méliès, a French filmmaker is known as the first cinemagician because of his early use of cinema with some special effects. He directed 531 films, with each film showing single in-camera effects throughout and each taking between 0-40 minutes between the year 1896 and 1914.

His work can be accessed in Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913).

3. Winsor Mccay (1911)

Winsor McCay (1869-1964) is a times referred to as the fathers of “true” animation. He was a cartoonist and artist. In 1911, he developed a film, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics, having a two minute animation.

His work can be accessed Winsor McCay: His Life and Art for further look on his excellent work on animation.

4. Stuart Blackton

Stuart Blackton is a British filmmaker known for the first animation in America and also first in the whole world to use stop- motion in storytelling.

Blackton sketches a face, cigars, and a bottle of wine, then “removes” these last drawings as real objects so that the face appears to react as shown in one of his films.

His films are included in The Origins of American Animation, 1900-1921

5. Eadweard J. Muybridge (1893)

Eadweard J. Muybridge an English photographer developed visual experiments with moving images. It was not a form of animation but known to form the basis of videography.

Though the work of English photographer Eadweard J. Muybridge isn’t animation, his animal locomotion studies are among the earliest visual experiments with moving images, laying the foundations for later forms of videography.

Muybridge used an early animation device called phenakistoscope to create an illusion of motion to expand his visual studies to animation in the year 1893.

His work and legacy is presented by Hans-Christian Adams in Eadweard Muybridge: The Human and Animal Locomotion Photographs.

Donald Crafton’s Before Mickey gives more information on the history of early animation from the year 1898- 1928