This document provides a history of animation techniques from prehistoric cave paintings to modern computer animation. It describes early animation devices like the thaumatrope, phenakistoscope, and zoetrope which used persistence of vision to create the illusion of movement. Stop motion animation techniques were developed using puppets, models, and claymation. Keyframe animation allowed for more complex movements through the use of inbetweens. Other techniques discussed include rotoscoping, cut-out animation, and the first animated films featuring stop motion characters. The document traces the evolution of animation over thousands of years through these important innovations.

1. Unit 33 Stop Motion Animation Task 1
Animation Timeline
Animation is the creation of a sequence of images drawn, painted, or produced by other artistic
methods that change over time to portray the illusion of motion. Historically there are three types
of animation: Hand Drawn, Stop Motion and Computer Generated Imagery.
Hand Drawn Animation
The Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age – 10,000-28,000 BC
Cave paintings of animals were drawn onto the walls of caves across Europe (especially southern
France and northern Spain). The artists used techniques such as using charcoal and ochre or
haematite to give the impression of different light contrasts on the images in order to create the

2. illusion of volume. They often diluted these pigments to produce variations in thickness to the
drawings. Later drawings contained abstract signs and human figures. They also used the natural
contours in the cave walls and etching around the outlines to give their drawings a three-
dimensional effect. They also used fires as the flickering shadows gave the illusion that the
drawings were moving. These would have been very time consuming to complete.
Kaleidoscope - 1817
This was invented by Sir David Brewster and means to look to beauty in Ancient Greek. It
consisted of a cylinder tube using two mirrors to reflect multiple images of coloured glass pieces
such as beads or bits of glass. As the viewer looks into one end of the tube, light entering the other
end creates a colourful pattern, due to repeated reflection in the mirrors. Brewster chose
renowned achromatic lens developer Philip Carpenter as one of many manufacturers of the
kaleidoscope. It was a massive success with two hundred thousand kaleidoscopes sold in London
and Paris in just three months which proved to be one of the most popular optical toys ever
created.

3. Thaumotrope – 1824
This is pronounced taw-mo-trope and means magic turn. It was invented to test the persistence of
vision, as the perception of an image that the eyes see and brain retains for a small fraction of a
second after the view is blocked or the object is removed. The brain can only process twelve or
fewer images per second to recognise them as separate images. If the images appear any faster,
they begin to merge with one another creating the illusion of movement. Television and movies are
created at twenty four to thirty images per second. The invention of the device is often credited
to Sir John Herschel, but John Ayrton Paris popularised it in 1824 when he demonstrated it to the
Royal College of Physicians. Paris published ‘Philosophy in Sport made science in earnest’ in
1827 and Peter Mark Roget published ‘Persistence of Vision with Regard to Moving Objects’ that
presented the idea that a succession of still images could create the appearance of motion. Paris
believed that scientific learning in children could be stimulated through a combination of enjoyment
and instruction using toys such as the Thaumotrope.
Thaumotrope is a very simple animation in which you have a small disc with different drawings on
each side and is attached by two pieces of string, on the left and right side. When the string is
twirled quickly between your fingers, the disc flips. This causes you to see both sides of the picture
at once, to give the illusion of one picture due to persistence of vision. One of the examples below
is a picture of a bird on one side and a cage on the other side of the disc. When the disc is spun, it
looks like the bird is in the cage.

4. Phenakistoscope – 1831
This was an early animation device. It was invented in 1831 by Joseph Plateau and Simon von
Stampfer. It consists of a paper disk featuring evenly spaced, thin radial slots and a series of
sequential images. When the disc is rotated in front of a mirror, the images merge together
showing continuous movement e.g. horses running. It can only be viewed by one person at a time
and was famous for only two years due to the constant growing technology. It was replaced by the
Zoetrope which was similar to the Phenakistoscope but it had a cylinder instead of a spinning disc.
Zoetrope – 1834

5. A zoetrope is a pre-film animation device that produces the illusion of motion by showing a
sequence of drawings displaying progressive phases of motion. The name Zoetrope originates
from the Greek words Zoe “life” and tropos “turning”.
The zoetrope was created in 1834 by British mathematician, William George Horner, who was
aware of the recently invented phenakistoscope disc.
Horner’s revolving drum had the viewing slits between the pictures and called it the “daedaleum”
which was a reference to the Greek myth of Daedalus. The daedaleum failed to become popular
until the 1860s, when a variant with the viewing slits on a level above the pictures, was patented
by both English and American makers. The American inventor named his version the “Zoetrope”.
The zoetrope is made up of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of
the cylinder there is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins,
the user looks through the slits on the sides at the pictures across from it. The spacing of the slits
keeps the pictures from blurring together and the user sees a rapid series of pictures, producing
the illusion of motion. This invention works because of the persistence of vision and the phi
phenomenon.
The phi phenomenon is the optical illusion of perceiving a series of still images as a continuous
motion, when viewed in a rapid succession. Persistence of vision is the theory where an
afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one sixteenth of a second on the retina. It’s
believed to be the explanation for motion perception and explains why the black spaces that come
between each image are not perceived.
Disadvantages of the zoetrope are the narrative have to be circular, freeze frames are limited and
you can spoil the illusion by simply looking in the top of the drum. However, the zoetrope is easy
and cheap to use and was a ground-breaking novelty at the time of its creation.

6. Stereoscope - 1838
The Stereoscope was invented by Charles Wheatstone in 1838. It used a pair of mirrors at 45
degree angles to the user's eyes, each reflecting a picture located off to the side. It demonstrated
the importance of binocular depth perception by showing that when the each eye is shown a
picture, views of the same object are presented so that each eye sees only the image designed for
it, but apparently in the same location, the brain will fuse the two and accept them as a view of one
solid three-dimensional object. In 1839, Mr Elliott, a colleague of Sir David Brewster constructed a
simple stereoscope without lenses or mirrors, consisting of a wooden box, which was used to view
drawn landscape transparencies, since photography had yet to be invented. In 1849 Brewster's
personal contribution was the suggestion to use lenses for uniting the different pictures. In 1851 it
was demonstrated to Queen Victoria at the Great Exhibition. Brewster was unable to find in Britain
an instrument maker capable of working with his design, so he went to France, where the
stereoscope was improved by Jules Duboscq. Almost overnight a 3D industry developed and
250,000 stereoscopes were produced and a great number of stereo views, stereo cards and
stereographs were sold in a short time. Stereographers were sent throughout the world to capture
views for the new medium and feed the demand for 3D. Patented in 1939 the View-Master
stereoscope with its rotating cardboard disks containing image pairs, was popular first for 'virtual
tourism' and then as a toy. In 2010, Hasbro started producing a stereoscope designed to hold an
iPhone or iPod Touch, called the My3D. In 2014, Google released the template for a paper craft
stereoscope called Google Cardboard. Apps on the mobile phone substitute for stereo cards. The
underlying technology is otherwise unchanged from earlier stereoscopes. As time went on and
paper was more available, people wanted to make their own animation toys. This introduced the
flip-book.
Flip book - 1868
A flip book also relies on the persistence of vision. John Barnes Linnett patented the first flip
book in 1868 as the Kineograph (moving picture). It is a small book with relatively springy pages,
each having one in a series of animation images located near its unbound edge. The user bends
all of the pages back, normally with the thumb, then by a gradual motion of the hand allows them
to spring free one at a time. The older devices by their nature severely limit the number of images

7. that can be included in a sequence without making the device very large or the images
impractically small. The book format still imposes a physical limit, but dozens of images of ample
size can easily be used. As with the Phenakistoscope and Zoetrope, the illusion of motion is
created by the apparent sudden replacement of each image by the next in the series, but unlike
those other inventions no view-interrupting shutter is required and no viewing device other than
the user's hand is absolutely necessary. Early film animators cited flip books as their inspiration
more often than the earlier devices, which did not reach as wide an audience.
Praxinoscope - 1877
The Praxinoscope was invented in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud, who was a French science
teacher. It was an animation device and the first known animated projection on a screen. It was
the successor of the Zoetrope and like the Zoetrope; it used a strip of pictures placed around the
inner surface of a spinning cylinder. The Praxinoscope improved on the Zoetrope by replacing its
narrow viewing slits with an inner circle of mirrors placed, so the reflections appeared more or less
stationary as the wheel turned. Someone looking in the mirrors as it was spinning would therefore
see a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion. The toy became a great
commercial success and won recognition at the great exhibitions of the period.
On 28 October 1892, he projected the first animation in public called the Pauvre Pierrot, at the
Musée Grévin in Paris. This film was notable as the first known instance of film perforations being
used. His films were not photographed, but drawn directly onto the transparent strip. In 1900, more
than 500,000 people attended these screenings. The invention of photography and moving
pictures aided in the development of animation and Stop Motion animation soon followed.

8. Stop Motion Animation
Stop-motion animation is the term used to describe animation created by physically manipulating
real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time. When the photographs
move together in a quick sequence, it creates the illusion of movement. This is similar to the way a
flip-book works. There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually named after the
type of media used to create the animation; these include the early Humorous phases of funny
faces, Puppet animation, Cut-out animation and Claymation.
In 1906 James Stuart Blackton made the first silent short animated film called ‘Humorous phases
of funny faces’ by drawing faces on boards, photographed them onto film and then ran the film
sequentially to show the faces. It was considered stop-motion.
In 1908 a french animated film called ‘Fantasmagorie was produced by Emile Cohl. The film was
created by drawing each frame on paper, then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave
the picture a blackboard look. It was compiled of seven hundred drawings, each was double-
exposed (animated on twos) and ran for almost two minutes.
Puppet/Model Animation - 1908

9. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the
illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Dolls with
movable joints or clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Stop
motion animation using plasticine is called clay animation or clay- mation. Not all stop motion
requires figures or models; many stop motion films can involve using humans, household
appliances and other things for comedic effect. Stop motion using objects is sometimes referred to
as object animation.
The film ‘The Humpty Dumpty Circus’ (1908) created by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert smith
receives credit as the first stop-motion animation film that features puppets. Further pioneer
puppet animator include; Russian Ladislas Starewitch, a film maker who created ‘The
Cameraman’s Revenge’ (1912) and later produced his feature length puppet animation ‘Le Roman
de Renard’ (1929-1930) which translates as ‘The Tale of the Fox’. The story was based on the
11th century tale of ‘Reynard the fox’. More recently, puppet animation is commonly used in
children’s cartoons and films. An example of puppet animation used in cinema is in the film King
Kong (1933). The writer/director Tim Burton often uses puppet animation in his work for Corpse
Bride (2005) which is a stop motion animated horror musical. The Nightmare before Christmas
(1993) is an American stop motion musical fantasy horror film directed by Henry Selick. It used
227 puppets to represent the characters in the film and also 400 heads were used to allow the
expression for every possible emotion.
Keyframe animation - 1911
Windsor McCay was the first person to use keyframe animation in his film ‘Little Nemo’. A
keyframe may define a picture size, position and rotation and must have a minimum of two
keyframes, start and finish, although more complex moves will use more. The drawings are called
"frames" because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film. A sequence of key
frames defines which movement the viewer will see, whereas the position of the key frames on the
film, video, or animation defines the timing of the movement. Because only two or three key
frames over the span of a second do not create the illusion of movement, the remaining frames
are filled with inbetweens.

10. In 1914 Windsor McCay creates the first cartoon featuring Gertie the Dinosaur which is only
approximately 5 minutes long and contained 10,000 drawings using Keyframe animation. He used
registration marks to keep the background aligned from frame to frame, so that it did not appear to
"swim", as often happened in early cartoons. He avoided some repetitious work by re-using
drawings, in what would later be called cycling. He devised what he called the "McCay Split
System", the first occurrence of key-frame animation. Rather than draw each frame in sequence,
he would start by drawing Gertie's key poses, and then go back and fill in the frames between.
McCay was also very concerned with accurate timing and motion; he timed his own breathing to
determine how to animate Gertie's breathing, and included subtle details such as the ground
sagging beneath Gertie's great weight.
To create the film, McCay himself drew thousands of frames of Gertie on individual 6.5 x 8.5 inch
sheets of rice paper. He hired neighbour and art student John A. Fitzsimmons to draw the
backgrounds. Fitzsimmons carefully re-traced the rocks, lake and tree from a master drawing onto
each sheet of rice paper. Gertie the Dinosaur was produced before the introduction of later time-
saving techniques such as Cel-animation.
Rotoscoping – 1917
Rotoscoping was invented by Max Fleischer in 1917. It is an animation technique in which
animators trace over footage, frame by frame, for use in live- action and animated films. Originally,
live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an animator
frame by frame. This projection equipment is called a rotoscope, although this device was
eventually replaced by computers. It has often been used as a tool for visual effects in live-action
movies. By tracing an object, the moviemaker creates a silhouette (called a matte) that can be
used to extract that object from a scene for use on a different background. While blue and green
screen techniques have made the process of layering subjects in scenes easier, Rotoscoping still
plays a large role in the production of visual effects imagery. One classic use of traditional
Rotoscoping was in the original three Star Wars movies, where it was used to create the glowing

11. lightsaber effect, by creating a matte based on sticks held by the actors. To achieve this, editors
traced a line over each frame with the prop, then enlarged each line and added the glow.
Cut-out animation - 1917
Cut-out animation is a technique for producing animations using flat characters, props and
backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs and arranged
on a flat surface and manually moved and repositioned to simulate animation. It can be used to
make photographs of people and animals seem as if they're talking or moving, often resulting in a
2D marionette effect. The world's first animated feature film using cut-out animation was called El
Apostil and was produced in 1917 by Quirino Cristiani. Today, cut-out-style animation is frequently
produced using computers, with scanned images or vector graphics taking the place of physically
cut materials. South Park is an example of this transition since its first episode was made with
paper cut-outs before switching to computer software. However, South Park still pretty much looks
like paper animation.
Claymation
Stop-motion animation using clay is called Claymation. Clay figures are often used in stop-motion
for their ease of repositioning. Each object or character is sculpted from clay or other such
similarly pliable material such as Plasticine, usually around a wire skeleton called an armature,
and then arranged on the set, where it is photographed once before being slightly moved by hand
to prepare it for the next shot, and so on until the animator has achieved the desired amount of
film. Clay-animated films were produced in the United States as early as 1908, when Edison

12. Manufacturing released a trick film entitled The Sculptor's Welsh Rarebit Dream. During the late
1950s and early 1960s Davey and Goliath was a children’s show which featured on television.
Gumby was a show that premiered on Saturday morning television in the 1970s and 1980s for
children. In 1975 Will Vinton received an award for best animated film ‘Closed Mondays’. He also
copyrighted the term 'Claymation' to describe the process of the film production that was built
around using clay models. Morph is another example of Claymation. More recently Wallace and
Gromit were created by Aardman animations. The characters were brought alive by Nick Park
using modelling clay and wire for the characters and then animated using stop motion animation.
A variation of clay animation was developed by Craig Bartlett, for his series of Arnold short films
(also made in the late-1980s/early- 1990s), in which he not only used clay painting but sometimes
built up clay images that rose off the plane of the flat support platform toward the camera lens to
give a more 3-D stop-motion look to his films.
The resources needed for Claymation consist of a camera, plasticine, tools, a computer and
materials for sets such as card and pens. All these resources are easily accessible. As the models
are made out of plasticine, they don’t need to be perfectly made because of the style in which they
are made and the fact they need to be able to move. One of the main issues when using
Claymation is the fact that is it too time consuming as the making, photographing and editing all
take quite a while.
1977 – Morph
Morph is a clay stop-motion comedy animation. He first appeared in 1977 on Tony Hart’s art-
themed television programmes for children, Take Hart and Hartbeat. His final appearance was in
1993.
Morph was first made for the BBC by Aardman Animations, weighs 162g, is 14cm tall and is
painted terracotta. He was also later joined by a cream coloured twin called Chas.
Originally Morph appeared in one-minute shorts that featured throughout Tony Hart’s shows.
Eventually he got his own series called ‘The Amazing Adventures Of Morph’ in 1980.
Morph also attempted to make a 90’s comeback with The Morph Files but failed to capture the
kid’s imagination in the same way and it was soon discontinued.

13. A flash mob of homemade Morphs gathered outside London’s Tate Gallery in 2009 to mark Tony
Hart’s death. This is what inspired Aardman to resurrect the character. Now both characters
feature on their own successful YouTube channel in one-minute shorts.
Morph can change shape, mimic objects or creatures, is funny and silly as he can only speak
gibberish, yet lovable and relatable with his humanlike actions and intentions. I believe these
qualities made Morph popular and added towards the appeal of this new style of animation.
ComputerGenerated Imagery (CGI) animation
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the application of computer graphics to create or contribute
to images in art, printed media, video games, films, television programs, shorts, commercials,
videos and simulators. It is essentially a digital successor to the stop motion techniques with 3D
models and frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations used for creating scenes or special
effects in films and television. It allows animators to create fantasy situations and illusions within
real live action. In the late 1970s to early 1980s CGI was used in film for the first time. The first
mainstream movie that used CGI was The Last Starfighter in 1984. In 1995 the American
company, Pixar created Toy Story. It was the first full-length motion picture to be entirely CGI. In
2004 The Polar Express becomes the first fully-animated film to use motion capture technology to
render all of its characters. In 2009 the movie Avatar uses CGI animation alongside other image-
based technologies to create stunning visual effects. Due to the way CGI is made, the final
product looks extremely professional and can create characters and settings easily, compared to
the other two types of animation. One main disadvantage about using CGI animation is the fact
that it is very complicated and would need practise, experience and the relevant software to be
successful.