Animators

George Melies

His full name was Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, born on the 8th of December 1861 in Paris. As his professional job George was a magician and an animator. He discovered when he was filming in Paris one day that he could start doing different effects that looks abnormal all in camera as there were no way to do special effects. As he was filming a woman in Paris crossing the road his camera got jammed after he fixed the camera the woman had moved, and in her place there was a horse. As he was watching the film back it looked like the woman had turned in to a horse. He took this idea and realised he could start doing special effects that would not be normal in real life. such as in the film 'The man with the rubber head'. He used him self in the movie and when his head is in the middle of the screen and looks like it is on the table. he rapped him self in a black cloth on a black background and then just filmed over the orignal film. When his head started to grow it was just the camera moving forward towards his head in the same place.

He made many films but most got destroyed as the first world war for the silver nitrate and plastic in the films for bullets and clothing in the war. Also his studio got took over and it was turned into a hospital. After the war was over in about 1923 his studio building was knocked down to make a road. One night after he lost all of his money and went bankrupt because he was not able to make films he went in such a rage he burned all of his negatives, some originals of his films and also his sets. For the next 10 years he worked as a toy maker and a shoe repairer in a train station until some one discovered him again. After that he got accepted onto the French film board but didn't continue to make anymore movies but he gained his respect back. Also he was the firs ever person to add colour to one of his films by actually colouring in each different frame on the film reel. 

Winsor Mccay

Winsor Mccays full name was Zenas Winsor Mccay. He was an American cartoon artist and animator. He was most famous for his character little Nemo and Gertie the Dinosaur. All of his animations were drawings, drawn on paper each picture slightly different from the last. When these pictures were draws they were the photographed and then played back at 25 frames a second. His Cartoon Gertie the Dinosour was around 5 minutes and 30 seconds long this means there would of been 2250 pictures drawn to make it. Most of his animation were based on the books he rote himself. 

Lotte Reinger

Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger was her real name, lotte was just a nick name given to her. She was a woman animator that had a different style of animating. She cut out black cardboard shaped people that were small enough to fit into your hand then she had them layed out infront of her and to make them look like they were moving she shined a light on to them from a background to make them stand out to the camera. When making them move she realised she could cut out individual parts of the character like there arms and legs and move them ever so slightly one after the other then took a photo of it then played back to make it look like they were moving. The animation shown above is Hansel and Gretal and childrens book that has been around for many years.

Walt Disney

Walter Elias Disney or Walt for short was one of the most famous animators and ideas man there has ever lived. He was the first man to actually have sound in one of his cartoon and that cartoon was Steamboat Willie. This was animated the same way as Winsor Mccay but instead of drawing his image on a white peace of paper so it had no back ground, Walt drew his on clear sheets of plastic so he could have a background with drawing a number of them if on the move the background is going to be the same through out and also so he could see better what he had drawn last. There are no actual spoken words in the cartoon as it was not as advanced back then as it is now so they could not sink there mouth up with the words being spoken. But they do make noises and when something happens in it that makes a sound that will be added in to it as well along with the music that is playing in the background.

Persistence of Vision

 Persistence of Vision

Persistence of vision is the key to how see view things in animation, film, video or computer games. With animation, film, video and computer games, the images on the screen do not actually move. What you are actually seeing on the screen is a number of still images, slightly different from the last playing one after another in a sequence. (no less than 1/12th of a second). When the images are played back to you, the eye can not actually tell it a sequence of pictures because the brain and eyes are tricked so that you think that it is moving because they are moving faster one after the other so your brain cannot process them quick enough.

Persistence of vision has been around about 7000 years in ancient china. Also in the Victorian times there was a love for novelty and inventions. There was many toys and gadgets that was made in that age that used the process of persistence of vision.

The Zoetrope

http://zoetropic.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/zoetrope15.gif

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3yarT_h2ws

A Zoetrope is a drum shape with an open top so you can put a piece of paper inside of it with 12 pictures on, each pictures is very different from the last. There are also 12 slots in the sides of the drum where if you look in to them as it is spinning it looks like the pictures inside of the drum are moving around. This is the illusion that it the pictures are moving. 

PES

This animation was made by PES. It uses mostly everyday objects acting like food to pretend it is making a Guacamole dip then he uses poker chips as the crisps that he is dipping into it. Pes normally make animations for different companies such as Coinstar and Orange. to advertise there products. sometimes it doesn't even look like a animations it just looks like a video because of how smooth his hand moves. Pes and this animation won the 'Best Animation Short' in 2013.