A History of Animation

The first animated film was created by Charles-Émile Retnaud. He invented the Praxinoscope (an animation system using loops of 12 pictures), he exibited animations at Musee Grevin in Paris. These animations consisted loops of about 500 frames using a Theatre Optique system (which is similar to a modern day film projector)The first animated work on standard picture film was "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" by J. Stuart Blackton, it featured a cartoonist drawing on a chalkboard, and the faces coming to life.

(Above is a Praxinoscope)

The first animated feature length film was "El Apostol" which was made by Quirino Cristaiani in 1917. However, the earliest surviving animated feature is the

silhouette-animated "Adventures of Prince Achmed" directed by Lotte Reiniger and Berthold Bartosch in 1926. Many people think that Walt Disney's "SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) is the first animated feature when actually eight were made before it. However Snow White was the first to become successful and well-known withing the English-speaking world and it was the first to use cel animation. Walt Disney also was the creator of the first animation to use full, three colour Technicolor method ("Flowers and Trees") (shown to the right) which won an Academy Award.

Stop motion is used for many animation productions using physical objects rather than actual images of people. An object will be photographed, moved slightly and then photographed again. when the pictures are then played back in normal speed the object will appear to move by itself. The first example of this would be the 1899 short film by Albert E. Smith and J

. Stuart Blackton called "The Humpty Dumpty Circus" ... another person who made animated short films was Wladyslaw Starewicz who animated and ""The Beautiful Lukanida", "The Battle of the Stag Beetles" and "The Ant and the Grasshopper"
This process is used for loads of productions, for example the most common types of puppets are

clay puppets which are famously used in "Wallace and Gromit" and also figures made of various rubbets, cloths and plastic sesins, such as "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "James and the Giant Peach" (to the left). Stop motion was also commonly used for special eggects work in many live-action films such as the 1933 version of "King Kong" and "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad".
CGI animation (Computer-Generated Imagery) revolutionized animation. The first film that was completely made in CGI was "Toy Story" produced by Pixar. This process of

animation is still very slow and similar in the sanse to traditional animation, and still adheres to many of the same principles. The main difference of CGI Animation compared to traditional animation is that drawing is replaced by 3D modeling, almost like a virtual stop-motion, through a form of animation that combines both worlds which can be considered to be computer aided animation.
Most CGI films are based on animal characters, monsters, machines or cartoon-like humans. Animation studio's have now started to try and create more realistic looking humans to put into films. Films that have attempted this are "Final Fantasy" the series,

"The Polar Express", "Beowulf" and "Resident Evil: Degeneration" However this method of animation is rarely used. This is because the more realisitic a CG character becomes, the more difficult it is to create the nuances and details of a living person. The creation of hair and clothing that moves convincingly with the animated human character is another area of difficulty. Examples of this are "The Incredibles" and "Up" which contain humans as protagonists, whereas films such as "Avatar" (shown right) combine animation with liv

e action to create humanoid creatures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_animation