The History of Film, Animation and VFX
History of Film
The beginning of film history can be due to the actions of certain companies and people in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s. These include Eadweard Muybridge (1872, filming a horse), Thomas Edison (1891, Kinetoscope), Emile Reynaud (1892, praxinoscope animation), Robert Paul and Bert Akers (1895, first British 35mm camera), the Lumiere Brothers (1895/6). Just to name a few.
Early cinema begin in 1895 as black and white, silent, moving pictures projected onto a big screen. The very first few movies in 1985 were Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (the train arriving at the station)…
or The Sprinkler Sprinkled (a boy standing on the hose pipe). Short comedies became popular to entice the new audience and introduce the benefits of moving image entertainment.
During this in film the elements on the screen that astonished people were very simple, such as a dog appearing in a bustle of people. Whereas the level of astonishment in the current cinema world has risen in the past 100 years astronomically in comparison (of course, this is subjective).
Perhaps one of the most famous early influences to the world of cinema was George Méliès.
One day by coincidence Méliès discovered the when he stopped the camera and started it back up again the cars he was filming had moved. He utilised this technique many times in his movies.
He also discovered double exposure. Rerecording over the same film meant that the same person could appear in the same film twice.
During the First World War, movies became obsolete and forgotten, their fast passed upward trajectory quickly diminished. The previously intended audience had worries that limited time and concern for entertainment. It was only after the the wars that they gradually got into full swing again.
Film developed gradually in various ways with the addition of sound and colour, first by directly painting the frames and then coloured film.
History of Animation
The invention of animation came in many various forms such as:
Even before film was invented, theatre audiences in the 19th century enjoyed Magic Lantern shows, these were slowly developed 100s of years before photography or the cinema.
Using the Magic Lantern, people could experience movie-like entertainment with only using an optical lens, candle like and images on slides.
The invention of film, in the1900’s, brought new life to animations. These began with chalk drawing animations such as Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906).
One of the very first big-name influencers of animation was, of course, Walt Disney Pictures. One of Disney’s first animations was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves used Cell animation (known as tradition animation) and other techniques such as rotoscoping. The main implement to these earlier hand-drawn animations was the light box or a multi-depth camera.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Walk Disney’s first full- length feature film with Techni-colour, which raised over 3.8 million dollars.
Clay animation (type of stop-motion) used by Ray Harry Housens to make life like clay skeleton figures in Jason and the Argonauts, 1963. Of course, in todays day there are works of art such as Wallace and Gromit.
Animation has advanced up to now drastically through the aid of technology and technique. Not only this, but its use in advertisement was increased as well, prominent starting in the 1970’s.
Another form of animation is Anime, Japanese animation in a Manga style (Manga is the Japanese version of comics), predominantly handdrawn. The targeted audience is mostly the younger generation. It may have been influenced by Japanese culture, however, it became popular around the globe.
CGI, making animations using computers, making Cell animation unnecessary. Creating your characters in a 3D software and moving small handles on each part of the body. Pixar’s 1995 film Toy Story presented a new stage of animation development. It was he first film o be made entirely from computer animations
Cameron’s Avatar was a milestone in cinema. Around 70% of the footage in the film was built from CGI (Johnson, 2009).
2014, CGI is so prominent in the animation industry that Cell animation is rarely seen, only recently seen in animations such as the Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Kim possible.
History of VFX
Many films that I have already mentioned have been influenced by VFX or SFX such as Jason and the Argonauts, Toy Story and Avatar.
Industrialised Magic (ILM) 1985 brought the first computer-generated character to the screen with Barry Levinson’s Young Sherlock Holmes film in the form of the stained-glass knight.
The Abysse CGI and use of photoshop.
Armatures were used to capture real-life poses into key frames on the computer.
Through the development of technology such motion-capture the computer animations became even more realistic. An example The creature Gollum from The Lord of the Rings: Twin Towers, 2002. While Avatar was ground-breaking, more and more films are using technology to create settings we’ve never seen before. VFX, SFX and CGI are used in many types of media such as video games, music videos, films, television programs and many other digital platforms.
Bibliography
Johnson, B., 2009. The technological secrets of James Cameron’s new film Avatar. Guardian, [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/aug/20/3d-film-avatar-james-cameron-technology> [Accessed 8 October 2021].
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