The birth of animation
Persistence of vision is an optical illusion that allows the brain to fill in the gaps between pictures, therefore making it look like they move. This is most commonly used in animation.
A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices. The name comes from greek- Zoe meaning life, and tropos meaning turning, even though historians believe it was invented in 100 BC by a Chinese inventor. The device was a cylinder with vertical slits in the sides and images around the inside of the cylinder.
This is a victorian zoetrope that was recently up for sale online.
A phenakitoscope is another animation device, the first part of the word comes from the greek- phenakizein- meaning to deceive or to cheat, as it deceived the eye into thinking the images were moving.
The device used a spinning disk that was attached vertically to a handle. the disks centre displayed drawings showing the different parts of the animation, and had a series of equally spaced slits. When the disk was spun, people could look through the slits and see the images reflection in a mirror.
<- This is the moving version
of the phenakitoscope that is shown below.
The kinetoscope was made for films to be viewed by one person at a time through an eye hole window at the top of the machine in 1889 by a friend of Thomas Edison. The device created the illusion of movement by moving a strip of film with images on over a light source and a high speed shutter.
The mutoscope was similar to the kinetoscope as it didn't
project the film onto a screen and could only be viewed one person at a time, but was cheaper than a kinetoscope. The machines were coin operated and had a series of cards resembling a flip book, however weren't bound into a booklet, and were instead attached to a circular core- with 850 cards giving a minute of viewing time.
The thaumatrope was an animation technique that was also used as a toy in the 19th century. It is a small disk with a picture on each side that is attached to a piece of string. When the strings are twirled quickly it gives the illusion of the pictures blending together to give the persistence of vision.
of the phenakitoscope that is shown below.
The kinetoscope was made for films to be viewed by one person at a time through an eye hole window at the top of the machine in 1889 by a friend of Thomas Edison. The device created the illusion of movement by moving a strip of film with images on over a light source and a high speed shutter.
The mutoscope was similar to the kinetoscope as it didn't
project the film onto a screen and could only be viewed one person at a time, but was cheaper than a kinetoscope. The machines were coin operated and had a series of cards resembling a flip book, however weren't bound into a booklet, and were instead attached to a circular core- with 850 cards giving a minute of viewing time.
The thaumatrope was an animation technique that was also used as a toy in the 19th century. It is a small disk with a picture on each side that is attached to a piece of string. When the strings are twirled quickly it gives the illusion of the pictures blending together to give the persistence of vision.
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