Early animation

Animation in its early years was slowly pioneared and developed by 5 men, these men where;

• William Horner
• Eadward Muybridge
• Joseph Platear
• Lumier brothers (Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas & Louis Jean)

Zoetrope & William George Horner

A Zoetrope is a device that produces the illusion of a moving image by showing different pictures in rapid succession. It was invented by William George Horner in 1834. He called it 'Daedalum' that translates to 'The wheel of the devil'. The American developer William F. Lincoln names his the 'Zoetrope', which means 'wheel of life'.

The Zoetrope works by loads of images drawn on a strip of paper and placed inside the circle, there is slits in the sides of it so that the viewer could look in and see the images, when it is spun it looks like a moving image.

William George Horner born 1786 was a british mathematician. he published ways of solving numerical equations known as the 'Horner's method' but he is more known for his invention of the 'Zoetrope'.

Phenakistoscope & Joseph Plateau

The Phenakistoscope is the predecessor of the Zoetrope, It still uses persistence of vision to give the effect of a moving image. The Phenakistoscope needed a mirror to see the motion and only one viewer could see the movement at a time and the speed had to be right or the image would be blured. There where many types of discs with diffent images on them
for the viewers. Joseph Plateau invented it in 1832.

Eadward Muybridge

 Eadward was born at Kingston-on-Thames on April 9, 1830. he had an impact on Animation when he created something similar to bullet time and placed a row of cameras on a racetrack to take pictures of a galloping horse; this was only used to settle a debate about a four-legged animal would leave all 4 legs off the ground when galloping. Muybridge placed the pictures on a glass disc and spun it in front of a light source, this was called the ‘Zoopraxiscope”.