22/10/10 Introduction to the history of Animation

So this is my first in a probably excruciating long series of reflections on the history of animation and etc. we spent a time watching a tweened blob in Flash slide across the screen at different frame rates attempting to find the point that persistent vision kicks in, it was about 12 fps but apparently that is highly debatable. This wasn't riveting, i did however find it interesting that margins of errors occur when something is projected or reflected off multiple surfaces results in a choppier sequence. I was wondering if this could be forcefully installed within an animation so that when viewed with the naked eye makes no sense, but rebound it and becomes feasible the same way a Zoetrope works but without the slats.

Following this we looked into various forms of optical devices that use persistent vision to create animated sequences.This didn't really appeal to me as i have no idea how could apply this to my particular style of animating as i lean towards using computer software to complete my films.

Moving on we were shown some early examples of animation. After sitting through about 5 minutes of Gertie the Dinosaur rocking back and forth and wondering "that was what they called dancing back in the early 1900s" i was disappointing by the awful amount of repetition to pad time. I do however understand that this was because McCay would be standing next to the projector and call out the commands to Gertie adding a magical element to enthrall the audience. This is still done today for example when a new Video Game uses the audience to connect and interact with, there is usually a member of staff that will put on a show and attempt to break the barrier between reality's. The other of McCays films was "The sinking of the Lusitania" this was more appealing for two reasons, the amount of frames 25.000 that is pretty damn amazing and the amount of work that must have gone into it was inhuman. and I loved the water it was so smooth and flowed brilliantly.

After this we looked at a few of Max Fleischer's Films, Pretty much everything looked Rotoscoped which gives a nice effect i just have never tried this and have always used my imagination. I also feel that his ideas for characters were cliché and mundane. Fleischer also used celebrity's of the time in his Felix Movies which is still done now with shows like Family guy, The Simpsons and South Park i believe this to be a big draw to the audience as everyone loves to actually know someone in the scene and especially if the said celebrity get a pie thrown in there face.