Before the animation

The theater of shadow : In China since the sixth century a form of theater like the animation is presented, the shadow theater. Puppets made of cowhide dried are used to project the shadow of a lantern on a canvas, creating shadows drawn.

Puppets: Puppet theater was in the tradition of Indian circus, she was brought into Europe with the circus tradition by gypsies.

Projected images: In the eighteenth century, the projection of images by using a magic lantern was a popular distraction. The Belgian Robertson showed phantasmagoria where, hidden behind a screen, he projected images of people, monsters or spirits that gave the public the impression of a supernatural apparition.

The start of the animation

The history of animation began long before the film. In the nineteenth century, a variety of different optical toys make their appearance. As the thaumatrope of the English John Ayrton, the phénakistiscope of the Belgian Joseph Plateau, the zoetrope of English William George Horner and the praxinoscope of French Emile Reynaud.

The theater optical :

Emile Reynaud will improve his invention several times to create the optical theater permitting to project a cartoon. He is the only one who knows the running as it is complex.


These films were silent, and thus accompanied by a piano.

Definition of Animation

To begun, we will define the term « animation » because it’s a very vague term

The animation is to give the illusion of movement with the help of a sequence of images. These images can be drawn, painted, digital, photographed.

We have two aspect of this animation which are:

- Images by images: We must represent each movement phase performed and saved image by image whatever the system of representation chosen, whatever the means employed to acquire, whatever finally the restitution process visual animation

- Frequency of restitution: images are returned on a regular frequency basis enough for the brain and the phenomena of inertia within the vision, whose persistence reticence play their role in the illusion. In cinema, the minimum frequency was set at 12 fps. But to avoid an unpleasant flicker frequency of 16 frames / second is the absolute minimum.

The animated film advertising in France

Emile Cohl is considered the father of cartoon. From 1908, he directed many films: short films of performances and numerous advertisements. It shall to Robert Lortac the creation of first French animation studio in Montrouge.

The color
The arrival of color in the late 1920s will greatly extend the kind of animated advertising. From 1937, it is the coronation of Alexander Alexeieff which works volume with puppets or objects. Paul Grimault, he uses the American technique of overlay sheets of celluloid, which allows him to create scenes and universes subtle and complex.

Studios
The Fifties are those of the creation of many studios creating cartoons. The Gemini, Les Films Paul Grimault, The Comet, The Associates Filmmakers, Cinema Nouveau.

Loss of interest
In 1968, advertising makes its debut on the television and marks the beginning of the decline in the animated film advertising. Advertisers prefer the actual shooting.

The major sagas children
In the 1980s, advertisers in the world of childhood include the interest of creating animated characters small. This is the beginning of the great sagas.

The image
The early 1980s also saw the emergence of the first images. A technology that is still poorly controlled the cold record which won't know its real boom before the mid-1990s. This appeared at that time a wave of young directors like French 3D Peter Coffin, Tanguy de Kermel and Pascal Vong. It is also the era of production houses as Wanda or Mac Guff. The 3D, cheaper, better managed, now settled in our advertising.

The industrialization of the animation

The rule to keep
It is an invention of Raoul Barré which revolutionized the world of animation. It is a simple bar with extrusions of different shapes. It was enough then to insert a sheet with holes in places of the rule laid down to ensure that each drawing is exactly the right place on the previous one.

The cellulo
John Randolph Bray (producer) and Earl Hurd in 1914 invented the technology of cellulo that is revolutionizing the cartoon industry in the 1930s. By using a transparent acetate sheet on which characters or animated objects are drawn and colored, it is permited the superposition with the decor which will remain on paper, thus saving much. It was used by the majority of studios since that time until the transition to the digital composition.

The rotoscope
Max Fleischer will invent a device to save time. The rotoscope is a tool for displaying an image of both a film shoot under a table with a glass. By depositing a sheet on this glass, it is possible to copy each image and so can quickly trace the outline of an actor to reproduce a complex movement in animation. This process is called Rotoscoping.

The “Studio System”
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the "Studio System" is developed in the United States by the Fleischer brothers Randolph and John Bray for the production of cartoons for the U.S. Army.
The principle is simple. To divide the work into several independent sections just like an assembly line. Thus, instead of making an animation as a whole, each person occupies a specific position.
They will be the first to produce a feature film - Gulliver's Travels. This film released in 1939, because private rights of exploitation of Technicolor, acquired by Walt Disney for the release of Snow White in 1937, Fleischer must use another technology, the Color Stereo. The synthesis of colors is less precise, thereby forcing the reds to carmine (limit brown).

Technique of the Disney's first movies

In 1928, Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse and for this, he experiments the Cinephone, a whole new system of synchronization sound. “Steamboat Willie”, was the first animated movie with a synchronized sound.



In 1932, he tested for the first time the process “Technicolor” with the animated series “Silly Symphonies”, and won an Oscar for the best cartoon.

Walt Disney has always wanted to be at the cutting edge of technology and do cheers the experimentation of the new technology in his studio. At the end of the 1930s, one of him researchers invented the multiplane camera which allows giving an effect of depth to the cartoon. This technique is tested for the production of the first feature of Disney “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”.

In the 1950’s, Walt Disney interested to a new media expanding: The TV

The Multiplane Camera

The multiplane camera has been invented by Bill Garity, an engineer of the Disney studio in 1933. This system was created to give an effect of depth to the cartoon.



This camera is composed by cellulos who is transparent plastic sheets of acetate of cellulose on which painted with the hand, the different element of the cartoon. Thanks to the transparency of these sheets, we can superimpose several cellulos and create complex scenes without all drawing all the time. This cellulos are placed at different height on a bench under, who him is constituted of one or two columns to make a travelling toward a table where are fixed the drawing.

The cellulo corresponding to the décor is placed behind those corresponding to the different character and mobile element at the plan. So when an element moves, we don’t have to drawing all images intact, but only the element changing. We win times in the production of films and the fixed elements do not feels the vibration which appeared if we redrawing each images.



From 1941, Ub Ymerks increased this system

Computer graphics

The computers graphics is the one discipline of the infography. It’s to create digital images assisted by computer.

There are two categories in function of the method with which images are created:

The 2D : These images are created by techniques working directly on the two dimensions of the images. They can be to create form “ex nihilo” (drawing, painting) or by algorithmic processus.

The 3D:
Images are created by techniques of computers graphics 3D. The main steps of creating 3D are :
- Modeling of objects in the scene in three dimensions,
- The position and trajectory of the camera and the target,
- Positioning and adjusting the lights,
- The creation and allocation of textures,
- Mode of reporting,
- The calculation of images

The Computer graphics in Cinema :

In 1973, Peter Foldes in Canada a number of short computer animated films such as The Hunger.
In 1982, Tron was the first film to combine real images and images created or altered by computer
In 2001, Final Fantasy: Creatures of the mind is the first feature film hopes the photo

Technicolor

This process has been widely used in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952. The director Léonce Perret was the first, in France, to use this technic for his films from 1927.
This technic was often used for musicals (as Singing in the rain) and animated movies (as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fantasia); Technicolor’s process has become famous for his rendering hyper-realistic.
Technicolor uses the shooting of black and white film, the shipper contains three films each receiving which one of three primary colors, whose separation is performed by filters placed behind the aim.
This process hasn’t been used since the 70s and was replaced by Eastmancolor which was invented by Kodak.

The Animes

Anime sometimes « animé » is the short of « animēshon » Japanese transcription of the word “animation”. It’s a borrowed word designating the animation’s movie which Japan is a big producer.

The term of “manga eiga”, in English, “manga’s movie”, was the original term to designate the cartoon of manga inspiration.

The animation was then a more focused it includes movies volumes or other animations movie which aren’t inspired by mangas.

The “anime” history begins early 20th century, done by pioneers following the footsteps of western. After several experimentations, there was a long period where the production was reduced to a few short films.

It was not until 1963 for that Osamu Tazuka perfomed “Astro, the small robot”, the first big series with character recurring in a story or “The King Leo”, Tetsujin 28-Go went also famous in Japan

3D Animation

The 3D animation is a technique for digital animation. This animation depends on the control of multiple processes.
In many cases, objects and characters are built according to three-dimensional models, and computer algorithms handle these models to create the image by simulating an incident light and treating the various effects. The scenery, characters, everything is built from polygons. Then we work the color and lighting.
The motion capture is to place sensors on the body of actors. Each sensor sends its coordinates to a computer. When the actor plays, the positions of the sensors are recorded in three dimensions. These data are then inserted into a program for creating images.

There are several software for 3D animation:

Maya: Modeling software and 3D animation of the mark Autodesk Super.

PackshotCreator : Software for creating animations for the purpose marketing, sales, or quality control.

3dsMAX : Modeling software and 3D animation of the mark Autodesk. It is used mainly in the context of the game, but is increasingly destined to architecture.

XSl : Modeling software and 3D animation of the Avid brand acquired by Autodesk

Massive : Software used to simulate crowds

Blender: 3D modeling software developed by the company NeoGeo and now offered to the community of designers. This software permits to create images and animations of synthesis.

Unity 3D : 3D real-time and multimedia (game engine)Cinema 4D : Powerful software used by semi-professionals.