Animation, the method for creating moving pictures from still images, has an early history and a modern history that began with the advent of celluloid film in 1888. Between 1895 and 1920, during the rise of the cinematic industry, several different animation techniques were developed or re-invented, including stop-motion with objects, puppets, clay or cutouts, and drawn or painted animation. Hand-drawn animation, which mostly consisted of a succession of still images painted on cels, was the dominant technique of the 20th century and became known as traditional animation.
Today, computer animation is the dominant animation technique in most regions, although traditional animation, like Japanese anime and European hand-drawn productions, remains popular outside of the US. Computer animation is mostly associated with a three-dimensional appearance with detailed shading, although many different animation styles have been generated or simulated with computers. Some productions may be recognized as Flash animations, but in practice, computer animation with a relatively two-dimensional appearance, stark outlines and little shading, will generally be considered "traditional animation" even if it is created on a computer. The first feature movie made on computers, without a camera, is The Rescuers Down Under (1990), but its style can hardly be distinguished from cel animation.
Animated movies are part of ancient traditions in storytelling, the visual arts and theatre. Popular techniques with moving images before film include shadow play, mechanical slides, and mobile projectors in magic lantern shows (especially phantasmagoria). Techniques with fanciful three-dimensional moving figures include masks and costumes, puppetry and automata. Illustrated children's books, caricature, political cartoons and especially comic strips are closely related to animation, with a lot of influence on visual styles and types of humour.
The principle of modern animation is based on the stroboscopic illusion of motion that was introduced in 1833 with stroboscopic discs (better known as the phenakistiscope). These animated discs had an average of 8 to 16 images that were usually designed as endless loops, for home use as a hand-operated "philosophical toy". Although several pioneers hoped it could be applied to longer scenes for theatrical use, further development of the technique throughout the 19th century mostly concentrated on combinations with the stereoscope (introduced in 1838) and photography (introduced in 1839). The breakthrough of cinematography partly depended on the novelty of a technique that was able to record and reproduce life-like motion pictures. During the first years, drawing animated pictures seemed an archaic technique in comparison, until some artists produced popular and influential animated shorts and producers embraced cheap techniques to turn popular comic strips into animated cartoons.
Standard picture film
Despite the success of Reynaud's films, it took some time before animation was adapted in the film industry that came about after the introduction of Lumiere's Cinematograph in 1895. Georges Méliès' early fantasy films and trick films (released between 1896 and 1913) occasionally contain elements that somewhat resemble animation, including painted props or painted creatures that were moved in front of painted backgrounds (mostly using wires), and film colorization by hand. Méliès also popularized the stop trick, with a single change made to the scene in between shots, that had already been used in Thomas Edison's The Execution of Mary Stuart in 1895 and probably led to the development of stop-motion animation some years later.[1] It was not until 1906 that proper animated films appeared in cinemas. The dating of some presumed earlier films with animation is contested, while other early films that might have used stop motion or other animation techniques are lost or unidentified.
Printed animation film
By 1897, German toy manufacturer Gebrüder Bing had a first prototype of their toy kinematograph,[2] which they presented at a toy convention in Leipzig in November 1898. Soon after, other toy manufacturers in Germany and France, including Ernst Plank, Georges Carette, and Lapierre, started selling similar devices. The kinematographs were basically traditional toy magic lanterns, adapted with one or two small spools that used standard "Edison perforation" 35mm film, a crank, and a shutter. These projectors were intended for the same type of "home entertainment" toy market that most of the manufacturers already provided with praxinoscopes and magic lanterns. Apart from relatively expensive live-action films, the manufacturers produced many cheaper films by printing lithographed drawings. These animations were probably made in black-and-white starting in 1898 or 1899, but by 1902 at the latest they were produced in color. The pictures were often traced from live-action films (like the later rotoscoping technique). These very short films typically depicted a simple repetitive action and most were designed to be projected as a loop - playing endlessly with the ends of the film joined. The lithograph process and the loop format follow the tradition that was set by the stroboscopic disc, zoetrope and praxinoscope.
