Timeline of the History of Animation

The Magic Lantern - Invented by Christiaan Huygens in 1650. It's thought to be the first projector ever made.
This was the invention that started 2D animation. It uses a mirror at the back of a light source to have as much
light through a piece of glass where the photographed image will be projected into a lens at the front of the
lantern.

Thaumatrope - Invented by John Ayrton Paris and Peter Mark Roget in 1824. It was a popular toy in the
Victorian era that was created with a disk with a picture on each side, and because of persistence of vision
when the disk was spun quickly it gave the illusion of one drawing instead of 2.
Phenakistoscope - Established by Joseph Plateau in 1829. It uses a spinning disk Attached to a handle
vertically. Around the centre of the disk were drawings. Like the Thaumatrope, only instead of 2 drawings there
were more than 2. (13 in the picture on the left) it used more than 2 drawings because it allows for a story to
be told instead of just the appearance of one drawing; because of persistence of vision, when the disk span it
looked like the drawings around the disk were moving.

Zoetrope - Invented by William George Horner in 1833. Horner's creation was similar to Plateau's
Phenakistoscope. It had different images on a paper strip inside a spinning drum, Horner called the drum a
Daedaleum. What makes this better than the Phenakistoscope is that the zoetrope could be viewed by more
than one person at a time.
Flip Book - Patented by John Barnes Linnett in 1868. It was the first method of animation that used a linear
sequence instead of circular like the Phenakistoscope or the Zoetrope. Like the Thaumatrope it relies on
persistence of vision to make the drawings appear animated. Unlike the Phenakistoscope and the Zoetrope the
story doesn't repeat by itself and you would have to flip the book again to see the story again.

Praxinoscope - Invented by Charles-Emile Reynaud in 1872. This invention was an improvement of the
Zoetrope. It added mirrors on the inside to allow people viewing the Praxinoscope to see the animation clearer
(the animation wouldn't blur) and brighter than the zoetrope. The Praxinoscope was created for larger
audiences to view.
Kinetoscope - Developed/established by Thomas Edison and his employees in 1888-91. It was used to create
motion pictures. Only one person could view the films that it created at a time through a window at the top of
the Kinetoscope. The device worked by taking many photos then playing them one after another on a strip of
film to make a film. This would have been used for animation to animate photographs, you could photograph
people and if the photos are in order, when put onto the film the photos will play one after another and it will
appear as if they're moving. Like the flip-book the drawings would be put in sequential order to tell a narrative.

Cinematograph - The device was originally created and named by Leon Bouly in 1892, but sold to the Lumiere
brothers in 1895. The Lumiere brothers used the name "Cinematograph to name one of their own inventions. A
film created by the Lumiere brothers was screened on the first cinema ever, in 1895. The Lumiere brothers
invented the Cinematograph to be an improved version of Edison's Kinetoscope.
Stop Motion - The first film that used stop motion was Humpty Dumpty Circus in 1897. Stop Motion is an
animation technique that is created by taking photos and then playing them sequentially to make the photos
look animated. This is usually the method that you would use if you wanted to create an animation with
objects that can't move through their own volition. With each picture that you took you would move the object
that you're taking a photo of to make it look - when you play it back - like the object is moving by itself.

Cel animation - This is when an image will be in the background of the frame, this image won't move, and then
there will be layers of other images on top of the background that will move. This may also use stop motion
also to make the images that are in the foreground appear as if they're moving. The cel animation method was
used in the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

Rotoscoping - This was invented by Max Fleischer in 1915. He used it in his film "Out of the Inkwell". The
method itself is when you trace over a photograph or a frame in a film to give a "dissolve" effect that gives the
effect of a dream-like motion. This method was used with "Drawing onto frame" discovered 30 years later.

Live Action & Animation - This method was established in 1923. It was used by Disney in their films. The
method is when you combine drawings to live action film to give the illusion that what has been drawn is a part
of the reality. The method was implemented by drawing on frames in a film. This method is similar to Cel
Animation and Rotoscoping because it includes real life, drawings and different layers.
Multiplane Camera - Used by Ub Iwerks - who formerly worked for Disney - in 1933. Used famously by Lotte
Reiniger and Disney it is a camera that captures and creates different effects and animations. This is because
the different cameras that made up the Multiplane camera had different layers, some recorded background,
some foreground and everything else. This was similar to cel animation, but the Multiplane camera was larger
and usually required more people to work it.

Drawing onto frame - A method created by Harry Smith in 1945. As a more updated version of Cel Animation.
Instead of different layers and tracing over photos, Smith decided that drawing straight onto film would be
much more efficient. This was a quicker method and it was more cost-effective. A problem with this method is
that to make what you've drawn onto film look like it's part of the film, you'd have to be precise with drawing.
This was used in Live Action & Animation
Computer Animation (20th Century)- Computer graphics were first used in the 1940s, this was by John
Whitney, the graphics that were available were very limited and not much could have been achieved with the
computers at the time. The first full-length feature film that used full computer animation was the film "Tron"
in 1982. Computer animation has progressed through the years that it's been around. Now it is the most widely
used method of creating animation. In the 1980's when Tron was released Computer animation was more basic
than it is now. It's one of the least time-consuming methods of animation that there is.

Morphing - This method was introduced in 1988. The way that you could use morphs was by getting the
software on the computer to create them. (The software that was used was: Gryphon Software Morph,
MorphPlus, etc.) It allows you to morph more than one frame together. It was used in the film "Indiana Jones:
The Last Crusade" and in the music video for Michael Jackson's "Black and White".

Computer Animation (21st Century) - In the 21st century we have different types of software that can be used
for different types of animation and animation styles. The technology is so advanced that you can essentially
create any type or style of animation that you want to create. It is efficient to use this over hand-drawn
animation because it is less time-consuming and the overall end product will generally look better.