Early Animation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Early Animation - Essay Example Perhaps it is the silliness, the magic, or that it brings out the Kid in all of us. Regardless of the reason animation has become part of the American popular culture, as well as, all over the world. Although there have been a number of â€Å"animation† concepts developed in the earliest years of the industrial revolution, like Emil Reynaud in France at the turn of the 19th century and Thomas Edison. (McLaughlin 1). Peter Foldes, a Hungarian animator and artist demonstrated free hand drawings that represented early animation in Britain. John Whitney, an American inventor and animator invented the idea of placing the images on 3 layers and rotating tables and photographing them as they spin. However, it is true that animation can lay gratitude for its development, at least in part, to an experiment among well-to-do gentleman. In 1872 the Governor of California, Leland Stanford, wanted to prove that when a horse is in a trot or gallop at some point, all four feet were off the ground. In order to prove that scientifically he hired a photographer named Muybridge to photograph the horse’s movement frame by frame. As can be seen below in this famous set of pictures, that Stanford was quite right, there is a point in the horse’s stride where all four feet are off the ground. Much like a flip book we can take the images and speed them up little by little and the motion of the horse is essentially animated before you dependent on how fast the images are flipped (McLaughlin 1). Just about anybody can name dozens, if not hundreds, of cartoons, both television and big screen, however, most people do not know the differences between animation techniques and the styles of the different, famous animator and animation companies. The topic of animation, its history, concepts, formats, and styles from every era is a very broad one. In order, to understand those styles and techniques better it is best to address the