Development of Stop Motion (Pioneers)

Development of Stop Motion

Pioneers of Stop Frame Animation

Towards the start of film making, cameras weren’t used for narratives. Film was just used as a recording device. However, without the early developments made by specific pioneers, stop motion, and film making in general may not exist as we know it now.

Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge, an English photographer, was indefinitely important in the early development 
of motion picture, through his work in 1872 with Leland Stanford. Muybridge was hired for a study in which Stanford wished to know whether all four feet of a horse left the ground. Muybridge set up a series of cameras, each triggered by a trip wire, which would take a photo of the horse in motion. These photos were then put together, which made it seem as though it was moving. People initially had different views about this subject, with artists either extending the front legs forwards and hind legs backwards. Other artists would keep one leg of the horse on the ground at all times. There was a large amount of disparity in belief here, and so it needed to be proven scientifically, this is when Stanford got Muybridge involved. It wasn’t until 1878 that Muybridge carried out this experiment at Stanford’s Palo Alto. Muybridge placed several glass-plate cameras in line along the edge of the track, with the shutter being activated when the horse passed a piece of thread. The images he had taken were then copied onto a disk, which would then be viewed in a machine which he had invented, called the zoopraxiscope. The zoopraxiscope was a projecting alternative to the phenakistiscope, where the disk was spun, and the projected sequence of images showed them to be in motion. This kind of study seems spontaneous, and possibly pointless, however, this paved the way for the future of animation, as it was the first idea of a moving image, this being of a horse in motion.

Joseph Plateau

Joseph Plateau was incredibly important for the development of Stop Motion animation, as he developed and demonstrated the phenakistiscope. To achieve this, he used a series of disks which rotated against one another, with different images drawn across each section of the disk. To create the illusion of movement, it was imperative that each image was not drastically different, but was, instead only slightly different to the previous one. For example, if the phenakistiscope wanted to display a person kicking a ball into a goal, it would be important that it didn’t go from their foot being close to the ball, to their leg then being moved backwards, then forwards again towards the ball, and then the ball ending up in the goal without any other movement. It would need to be made so that, instead of the person’s leg abruptly snapping backwards, it would appear to be in one fluid motion. This was done by the phenakistiscope. The phenakistiscope was the earliest widespread device used for animation, and was able to create the fluid illusion of motion using just images. The phenakistiscope plays a short continuous loop, and is coined as one of the first forms of moving media entertainment. It could be argued that Joseph Plateau is the most influential part of modern day film, despite not being involved in the newer developments, because he invented the phenakistiscope in 1833. Without the invention of the phenakistiscope, there would be no real advancements in the way of stop frame animation and film making.

The Lumière Brothers

The Lumière Brothers are hugely significant in the development of motion pictures. This is because they created the first ever motion picture. This was a short piece titled “La Sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière”. This translates to “Workers leaving the Lumière Factory.” In which workers at the Lumiere factory are filmed leaving. This has absolutely no narrative to it, demonstrating how recording wasn’t used for narratives, and instead was used for just filming whatever they could. As pointless or strange as it may seem to just film a group of factory workers leaving the factory, it ended up being crucial to the development of animation and film in the modern day. People at the time wouldn’t have imagined that the film made by the brothers would have such a huge impact on the future of filmmaking, however impressive it may have seemed.

The Lumiere had a setup of one single camera which was used to project the footage at 16 frames per second. 16 frames per second was enough for the viewer to see the movement of the images in such a way that they could still see the fluid motion of the films. They recorded each film about everyday French life, simple things such as the arrival of a train at a station, a game of cards between two players, a baby being fed or soldiers marching along a path. Other films they created were comedy films and shorts, as well as creating the first “newsreel” and the first documentaries. In 1896, they began to send out skilled and trained workers to cities all around the world, showing films as well as shooting new material.