What Is Animation?

Animation is the process of bringing illustrations or inanimate objects

to life through motion pictures.

Animation techniques manipulate photos and drawings to give the

illusion of movement and present a narrative to viewers on screen.

Some consider early Grecian pottery as an early form of animation,

depicting scenes of movement and expressions along its surface, like a

comic strip.

What Is the History of Animation?

This history of animation extends far beyond the history of film, as

early animators throughout the centuries found ways to create movies

without cameras or recording technology. Before Oscar-winning CGI

Hollywood blockbusters like Pixar’s Toy Story 3 (2010) and Academy Award-

winners like Finding Nemo (2003), there was the first animated sequence

captured on standard picture film—J. Stuart Blackton’s The Enchanted

Drawing (1900)—used a live-action actor, props, and stop-motion techniques

to create a two-minute comedic scene.

Animation continued to evolve throughout the decade, with French

cartoonist Émile Cohl’s two-minute stick figure

animation, Fantasmagorie (1908), becoming one of the first cartoons. In

1914, Winsor McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur broke new ground in the animation

industry as the first animated film to use techniques like keyframing,

inbetweeners, and animation loops, which laid the foundation for standard

industry practice for future animation production. Later, Walt Disney’s short

film Steamboat Willie (1928), marked the first time an animated film was fully

scored, popularizing Mickey Mouse, and the use of sound in the animated film

going forward.
6 Examples of Early Animation Devices

Throughout history, there have been numerous devices and toys capable of

depicting active scenes of animated cartoon characters, people, objects, and

events:

1. Magic lantern: The magic lantern was an image projection device

developed in 1603. This device used a mirror in the back of a

light source (originally a candle) that would direct the light

through long glass slides, projecting the slide’s illustrations.

Placing the slides together formed movement, making the magic

lantern the first instance of “moving pictures.”

2. Thaumatrope: The thaumatrope was a nineteenth-century optical

toy that featured a picture disk held by two strings. When the

strings were twirled, they would spin the disk, moving images on

either side of the disk into one by the “persistence of vision,” an

optical illusion that tricks the eye into seeing movement long

after the movement has stopped.

spelled “phenakistiscope,” the phenakistoscope debuted around

1833, featuring spinning, painted cardboard disks reflected in

mirrors, which created the illusion of movement. The

phenakistoscope’s innovative experience could only be enjoyed

by one viewer at a time.

4. Zoetrope: The phenakistoscope’s successor, the zoetrope was a

spinning cylindrical version that presented images in sequential

phases of motion that multiple viewers could watch at a time.

The cylinder contained several vertical slits, which provided a

mechanism for the eye to keep the spinning photographs from

blurring together while in motion.

the flipbook) debuted in 1868. The kineograph is a small book of

drawings, with each page conveying a different form of

movement, so that when the pages are flipped quickly in

sequence, they animate a scene.

6. Praxinoscope: In 1877, the praxinoscope succeeded the

zoetrope, replacing the latter’s narrow vertical slits with an inner

circle of angled mirrors instead. These angled mirrors helped

provide a clearer and more vivid animation than peering at the

moving illustrations through slits.

Émile Reynaud’s Pauvre Pierrot (1892) was created by using a longer

image roll for the praxinoscope, allowing for a longer viewing time. Pauvre

Pierrot is often credited as the first animated film because Reynaud’s picture

roll was hand-painted with 500 individual images (rather than using

photographs). However, film historians argue that Émile

Cohl’s Fantasmagorie (1908), is the first instance of a film produced with

traditional animation techniques, making it the first true animated movie.

Some consider Britsh-American producer J. Stuart

Blackton’s Humorous Phases of Funny Faces  (1906) to be the animation

industry’s first film. Blackton used stop-motion animation to depict a series

of animated characters changing movements throughout the three-minute

movie. Humorous Phases of Funny Faces  was the first animated film

recorded on standard picture film, technically making it the first animated

movie captured on real film.

What Was the First Feature-Length Animated Movie?

The first animated feature film is Walt Disney Studios’ Snow White and

the Seven Dwarfs (1937). This film used the traditional animation process of
cel animation, which involved rendering two-dimensional visuals on a

transparent sheet of celluloid. The cel animation process allowed

transferring illustrations between frames, rather than having to redraw from

scratch each time, speeding up the process, and saving time and labor.

What Is the History of Computer Animation?

People began to experiment with computer graphics as early as the

1940s, for science and research purposes. Composer, animator, and inventor

John Whitney Sr. built a custom computer device from a converted Kerrison

Predictor (a World War II-era anti-aircraft fire-control system). Using

mathematics to control the device in more specific ways, they could produce

precise lines and shapes. Whitney Sr., with the assistance of legendary

graphic designer Saul Bass, animated the opening title sequence for Alfred

Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo. The classic film is considered to be one of the

first live-action films to use computer animation.

By the 1960s, innovative digital graphics boomed as more computers

entered the mainstream, and by the 1970s, many people began using

computer graphics as an art form. Graphic design tools and software for

computers continued to evolve, and government funding allotted to the

University of Utah saw an emergence in groundbreaking animation projects,

notably one produced by Ed Catmull, Hand/Face (1972). The abilities of

computer animation continued to expand, as more people discovered the

capabilities of this new medium, eventually evolving into the CGI

masterpieces that dominate our media today.

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