Unit 53: A history of 2D Animation

A Short History of Animation

Throughout history there have been several forms of animation, some being very simple others not so much. The times in which animation formed can be traced back to Roman origin where soldiers spun a series of pictures on their shields. Some animation examples are; Rotoscoping, Stop-Motion Animation, 2D Animation, 3D Animation, Paint-on-Glass Animation and Flip Book Animation. Each of these animation methods originated from Zoetrope Animation.

Zoetrope animation has been around since early Greek times, where they put images of heroes, gods and stories on to inner rim of a spinning bowl, there were either a slit between the images just wide enough for you to see the animation or a series of mirrors directly in the centre of all the images. An example Zoetrope would be "Subway Zoetrope" which was based on the busy Atlanta Subway System.

Subway Zoetrope

In 2D Animation it is common for designers to hand draw images and details such as, hair and cloth modifications and visuals. An example of 2D Animation would be "Hullabaloo" by James Lopez. this Steampunk based adventure has a lot of simple images as well as some intricate designs on things such as vehicles and scenery. Though it may not be an officially released animation, it has a good story concept and the designs and characters are well composed for a story such as this one.

Hullabaloo

Paint-on-Glass animation was a very obscure method of creating an animation sequence, the method for making the images was either slow dry oil paints on sheet glass or Gouche mixed with glycerine. A couple of examples of some Paint-on-Glass Animations are; "The Mermaid" by Aleksandr Petrov and "The Man With no Shadow" by Georges Schwizgebel.

The man With no Shadow.

The Mermaid.

3D Animations come in a wide variety of types and subsections (some of which are mentioned above). A good example of 3D Animation would be Puppetry for this form of animation is simple to create and manipulate to tell the desired story. A good Puppetry show would be "Punch and Judy" which was derived from an Italian story who were manifested by The Lord of Misrule.

British puppet show of Punch and Judy in 1770.

Flip-Book Animation has been used by people of all ages from all ages, some early Flip-Books which have been found date back to 1894. A good example of Flip-Book Animation would be the internet famous "Goku Vs. Superman" by etoilec1 on YouTube.

Goku Vs. Superman

The art of Stop-Motion Animation has a large role in the Aardman industry as a lot of their finished works are based on "Clay-Mation" which is the manipulation of clay figures while taking still short photographs of them. Each still shot is slightly different from the one before them as after each picture is taken the figure is moves a minuscule amount to represent movement. Another producer who used this method of "Clay-Mation" is Tim Burton who created "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Corpse Bride". Here are some song examples with the animation.

Jacks' Lament "The Nightmare Before Christmas"

Tears to Shed "Corpse bride"

The animation known as Rotoscoping is tracing movements and putting them into a "Real World" situation, the best conveyed form of this I have seen is the A-Ha song "Take on Me". The music video shows a young girl reading a comic which suddenly comes to life and drags her inside of it while still having a connection to the real world.

Take on me "A-Ha"

Last updated 09/09/14