Developers: Remember to analyse and evaluate their work how does it link to modern practice?

Willis O’Brien – O’Brien is a stop motion pioneer who is most famous for joining two completely different worlds of film together. These were stop motion and human film. His most famous creation was the original King Kong which was released in 1933, which was also ground breaking technology at the time of release. The idea of combining stop frame animation with ordinary film was only merely something people dreamed of seeing, however O’Brien influenced the film industry forever. By creating a stop motion animation and editing it into the ordinary film gave O’Brien the opportunity to create inanimate objects and add them into inanimate situations. This allowed things like huge beasts to encounter people and if the stop frame was of a good standard, it would look almost real. The scene where Kong is hanging from the top of the Empire Statebuilding has become an iconic scene that people remember, and even re-create today. Peter Jacksons King Kong (2005) included the same Empire State scene because it is a scene people still consider to be incredible. Due to O’Brien’s work, it has changed the way film has been created today.

Ray Harryhausen – harryhausen was an artist and director who was most famous for creating the technique of Dynamation. This was when actors would appear to be interacting with fantastical objects like skeletons or dinosaurs. Dynamation was also known as ‘split screen’ because of how the animation was formed. Two separate films had to be made in order to create the illusion of the actors interacting things. The actors’ expressions had to be captured and then the stop motion animation had to be created. Willis O’Brien was a huge inspiration in Harryhausen’s career as he instigated his desire to make stop-motion his career. This had a huge impact on film-making today because we have used this technology and idea to create actors interacting with animated objects, but in a different way. Motion capture works similar to Harryhausen’s work because they have to film the actor’s movement first and then add the animation onto the actor’s outline later. This technique has been used in films like ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’. Due to harryhausens breakthroughs and art style, he has major links to Nick Park and Tim Burton. This is because he has influenced their art styles and the way they animate. Some of his creatures that he has made have a huge resemblance in Tim Burtons work because they are very eerie and awkward looking. This links to Jack Skellington because this is an example of a eerie character who makes the younger viewers feel uncomfortable and slightly on edge.

Jan Svankmajer – Svankmajer was a filmmaker and artist who was well known for his use of three dimensional stop motion with live action animation. Also he was very well known for his use of action over plot and his dark portraying’s of well-known fairy-tales. He used giant puppets and clay figures to present his slightly darker images.

Pioneers: describe, evaluate and analyse their work

Eadweard Muybridge – this man did kick started the world of film and moving media as he was the inventor of frame rates and he used the persistence of vision to add to his work. His most famous work is the moving horse which was the first ever example of stop frame moving image. He used 100 cameras, all set up in a straight line with wires across the track for the horse to trigger the cameras in order to capture different images at different points of a horse race. Stitching them together then gave the illusion of movement. This was an extremely clever way of doing this because he used the technology which was available to him at the time, to the best of his advantage. By creating this piece of work he allowed other creators to use his work to influence their own. The Moving Horse is still used today as film creators use their understanding of this experiment in order to make their films the best standard for the consumer to watch.

Thomas Edison – Edison was most famous for his invention of the Lightbulb, however one of his best creations is in the area of cinematography. He created the Kinetoscope. This was a device aimed for people to be able to watch a film like piece through a device. It was a tall standing box with a peep hole at the top which looked onto a roll of 18mm film. There were many vertical rollers in the box which allowed the film to quickly run across them, making it look like a moving image through the peep hole. It was unveiled in May 1891. This had a hug impact in film making because hand-held film cameras were later invented, using this invention and the knowledge behind it. It had an impact in the industry even later than this and it was in projection film. A film projector uses the same technique as the Kinetoscope however they implemented a light in order to project the image larger and further. It is a very intelligent way of showing moving image because it uses the historic methods of The Persistence of Vision and Muybridge’s work.

Emile Raynaud – Raynaud was famous for the invention of the Praxinoscope. This was an optical toy which was from the 19^th century (1876). It consists of a cylinder, a paper strip (typically with 12 frames of an animation on it) and some stationary mirrors. When the cylinder was rotated, the mirrors in the centre reveal an image which appears to be in motion. This had an impact on film because it was the first device which allowed more than one person to view the film at once. This then sparked a huge industry of aiming to show media to a group of people, which then later became the industry of cinema. If it was not for the Praxinoscope then we would not have to world renowned animations like Shrek that we have today.

How did these techniques and early Pioneers impact on the future of stop motion?

If it were not for these techniques and pioneers, animation today would not look the same as their knowledge helped us understand more and develop our skills, to get to where we are today.

The Persistence of Vision – this is the theory that when there are slightly different images shown to the human eye in quick succession, it appears to have the illusion of movement. Whenever light reaches the retina of the eye, the brain remembers that light for a brief period (roughly between 1/25 and 1/30 of a second). Once the brain remembers the previous image, the next one is displayed which makes it look like it is moving. A very good example of the persistence of vision is the Thaumatrope which was invented in 1825. This is a device consisting of two images stuck back to back and when spun fast, the brain puts both images into one, making it appear to be on image. This was the start of animation as it is just a few images that appear to be moving, which then gave creators the idea of stop frame animation.




Frame Rates (FPS) – short for “Frames Per Second”, this is the measurement of speed that frames are displayed on a screen. There are many different speeds and they all look different to each other. How fast these images appear on screen decides the quality of cinema that you see. Common frame rates consist of 24, 30 and 60fps. Frame rates originated by Eadweard Muybridge who decided that if pictures were taken in quick succession of each other, then it would appear to be a clear moving image. To achieve this he set up a contraption where he used 100 cameras in one straight line with wires running across a race track that, when triggered, would take a photo. He then used a horse to run down this track to trigger the cameras. Once he had the images he put them together and it created the illusion of movement. This had an enormous impact on film today as early cinema was shown in roughly 24fps, however now technology has advanced, Avengers: Infinity War was displayed at 60fps which had better fluidity. Comparison between frame rates.

Stop Frame – similar to the persistence of vision, this is where inanimate objects are photographed but are mover very slightly between images. When the images are played after each other, it gives the illusion that the inanimate objects are moving. This process would not have been possible without the discovery of The Persistence of Vision as it is used to display motion. The very first example where stop frame animation was used was in 1899 by Albert Smith and Stuart Blackton in the animated short “The Humpty Dumpty Circus”. Emil Cohl was a French cartoonist who brought stop frame to America, he photographed 700 of his drawings and put them together to give the illusion of movement. This was then used to create extremely well known films with much more advanced technology like “Wallace and Gromit” by Ardman Studios.

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