The History and Development of Stop-motion Animation

Who invented the technology?

Phenakistoscope:

Joseph Plateu created the phenakistoscope in 1832. The phenakistoscope is a device where you look through a hole in the middle whilst looking into a mirror. You spin the device and a series of images appear to look like a moving image. 

Thaumatrope:

John Ayrton Paris created the thaumatrope in 1825. The thaumatrope is an optical toy with 2 pictures on either side. At either side of the paper, there is a piece of string, you twist the string and the images will appear to overlap creating a moving image.

Zoetrope:

William Horner created the zoetrope in 1834 and was based on Joseph Plateu's phenakistoscope. Horner originally called it daedalum which means "wheel of the devil". How the zoetrope works is that you draw on a piece of paper and make sure that the first and last picture are the same, once you've done this, you place it within the zoetrope and spin the zoetrope and look through one of the slits on the zoetrope.

Praxinoscope:

Charles-Émile Reynaud invented the praxinoscope in 1877. The praxinoscope was the evolution of the Zoetrope. You places a strip of paper inside a cylinder. In the middle there is mirror and round the side there is a piece you look through. You look through this piece and see the images moving on the glass.

Kinetoscope:

Thomas Edison and William Dickson created the kinetoscope between 1889-1892. They based it on a French inventors design, his name is Louis Le Prince. It works by taking a piece of film and passing it through a lens and electric light bulb, while the person looked through a peephole.

Developers:

George Pal:
George pal was a Hungarian born animator, film director and producer, who was born on February 1st 1908 and became an American citizen after immigrating from Europe. When he was 23, he married Elisabeth "Zsoka" Grandjean and moved to Berlin to create Trickfilm-Studio GmbH Pal und Wittke. In the time he was in Berlin (1931-1933) he created the Pal-Doll technique. In 1934 he was invited by Phillips to make two short ads. He did this in a hotel in Paris. He started using his Pal-Doll technique in Eindhoevn in a butchers. Before 1939 he made 5 films for a British company known as Horlicks Malted Milk. In 1939 he emigrate from Europe to the USA and started to work for Paramount Pictures. At the same time his friend Walter Lantz helped him get an American citizenship. George Pal was famous for a stop motion animation called "Puppetoons" which were made out of wood. Puppetoons was based on world war two and the nazis invading places. 

Willis O'brien:

Willis O'brien was an American pioneer in the animation industry and also was a picture effects specialist. He was born on March 2nd 1886, in Oakland, California, United States. He was known for "King Kong" which was made in 1933, which he was a special affects artist. He was also known for "Son Of Kong", "Mighty Joe Young" and "Last Days Of Pompeii". In 1949, 16 years after "King Kong", O'Brien worked on another Gorilla picture called "Mighty Young Joe". A young Ray Harryhausen, who was O'Brien's apprentice, animated most of the film, but O'Brien came up with most of the ideas and designs. O'Brien was awarded an Oscar in 1950 for best visual effects.

Ray Harryhausen:

Ray Harryhausen was an American-Britsh animator who was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. He was most famous for his technique in animation known as "Dynamation" where he would use two screens, one where the actors were, and the other where the models were. He projected the image of the actors onto the screen so he could put animation, with real life. This was used in one of his films called "Jason and the Argonauts", the best part where this is used is when they are fighting the skeletons. He worked with Willis O'Brien on "Mighty Joe Young" and was mentored by him. 

Phil Tipett:



Otmar Gutmann:

Otmar Gutmann was a German producer, animator and director. He was born on April 24th, 1937 in Germany. He was best known for Pingu, a long running Swiss-British children's animation programme. Pingu was made out of clay, like everything in the Pingu universe. 

Tim Burton & Henry Selick:

Time Burton is an American Film director, writer and animator who was born on 25th of August, 1958. He is very well known for dark, eccentric films such as "The nightmare Before Christmas", "Edward Scissorhands" and "Bettlejuice". Henry Selick is an American stop motion animator, producer and writer, who is most known for "The Nightmare Before Christmas", "James and the Giant Peach" and Caroline".  He was born on the 30th of November in 1952. Tim Burton and Henry Selick made "The Nightmare Before Christmas together, however, Burton took most of the credit, which forced Selick to step out of Burton's shadow to make Caroline.

Adam Shaheen:

Adam Shaheen who was born on the 13th of October, 1964 is a British-Canadian animator, television producer and screenwriter. He is the founder and owner of Cuppa Coffee Studios. Cuppa Coffee Studios was made in 1992 and since its opening, it has made over 150 hours of animated TV, and has won over 180 international awards.

The Brothers Quay:

Stephen and Timothy Quay who were born on June 17th, 1947 are American identical twin brothers better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. Most of the brothers animations are made out of doll parts and other organic or inorganic materials. In Absentia (2000), The Comb (1991) and Street of Crocodiles (1986) are all films that the two made. 

Nick Park:

Nick Park was born on the 6th of December, 1958, in Preston, England. He specialises in clay figures and is a stop motion animator and director. He is most well known for Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, and Shaun The Sheep. 

Media Platforms and Audiences:

Television:

Shaun The Sheep is targeted at kids as it was shown on a channel called CBBC. CBBC was a channel aimed at people in their early teens and for people coming up to their teenage years.

The Simpsons has a very wide range of their intended target audience. This is usually for people who are both quite young, from about 10, to elderly people. This is because of the cartoon appearance that they characters have, which attract children, and the adult humour that children don't notice makes it funny for people of an older age. 



Feature Film:

Boss baby is animated feature film aimed at children. This is because of the characters of the film which are babies and the colourful scenes. It is also aimed at parents as there is some aspect of adulthood in the movie. This is because the main target audience is young children so they need to have something that will attract adults in some way as they will be paying for their children to watch the film.



The Emoji Movie is a feature film which is also aimed at children. This is again because of the characters which are used which are emojis, and the bright colours which attract children to watch this. The characters being emojis are heavy used by young people which are also turned in the plushies and pillows, which are most commonly bought by young teenagers and children. 

Advertisement:

Tetley's tea makes adverts which are for anyone that drinks tea. The older looking characters suggest that their intended target audience is older people, however, their target audience would end up being anybody that drinks tea. 



Frosties target audience is both parents as they will be the people buying the Frosties and children. This is because of the cartoon tiger which is the cereals identity. How it acts and how it looks is very child friendly and humorous for a younger audience. Also it can seen as being targeted towards people interested in sport, but in this case swimming as the tiger is shown jumping from a high board into a pool. 



Music Videos:

Kanye West's "Heartless" was animated by Hype Willaims to add and old American Pop vibe to the video. The target audience is anybody that is interested in Kanye West. 



Ed Sheeran's "Perfect" was an animated lyric video aimed at anybody who like or wants to listen to Ed Sheeran.



Ident:

Channel 4 created an Ident using one of the TVs shows that they show, The Simpsons. The target audience would be anyone who like channel 4, or likes The Simpsons.



Cartoon Network created an Ident using clay figures. The target audience would be teenagers and children because Cartoon Network is a channel targeted at this age range. 



Conclusion:

Animation is made for anybody that in interested in cartoons or art based things. If you like to make your own stuff and take a lot of time creating your end product, then animation is for you. There are other types of animation were there doesn't need to be any drawings or cartoons involved, and it can just be people. However, you could only pursue a career in animation if you are patient and passionate about animation as a whole.

I believe that stop animation will stay around, however it will be very, very small. This is because computer animation is a lot smoother and appealing to the eye. Also, stop motion animation is becoming out-dated and is becoming something that anybody could do if they had the time an patience. Becuase of this i don't think stop motion will die out. I just believe that computer animation will completely take over as being apart of the youth society in todays culture, everything revolves around computerised technology and is a lot more appealing to members of todays youth society.