Joseph Plateau
Joseph was a Belgian physicist who attended the university of Liege. After university he became a doctor of physical and mathematical scientist. He is well known for the phenakistoscope as introduced by himself and his sons in 1832. The phenakistoscope uses two discs: the first disc has slots around edges, whilst the second disc has drawings of actions around the disc in circles. The way it works is the discs spin together in the same direction unlike Faraday's wheel which spun in the opposite direction. The phenakistoscope is viewed in a mirror leading to the images on the second disc appearing as though they are moving. However a disadvantage of the phenakistoscope is that it can only be viewed by one person at a time. Also it can't be spun too fast as this can cause a blur. If the discs are spun backwards it means the correct moving image wouldn't be seen. Overall this is considered as a very basic animation, and was only popular for 2 years.
His first major contribution was due to the work of his doctorate on perceptions of colour by the human eye. He discovered that by observing a periodically moving object through a hole in a rotating disk, it was possible to make the object appear as though it was stationary by rotating the disk at a suitable speed. This is the principle which underlies all viewing of moving pictures. He also published work about how an eye retains an impression of a coloured object in the complementary colour.
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William Horner
William was an animation pioneer who was known best for creating the zoetrope in 1834. The zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of actions from a rapid succession. This creation is considered an improvement on the phenakistoscope. From the zoetrope led to the creation of the praxinoscope, and animation began being viewed simpler. The zoetrope contains small slits on the side where a person could look inside, this gave a better effect than phenakistoscope. Designs varied from animals to football players and is still currently in use today.
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Emile Reynaud
Emile was a photographer, teacher as well as an artist. He was the inventor of the praxinoscope as well as the creator of the first animated cartoons. He is considered as one of the pioneers of cinema. He held an apprenticeship where he worked to repair, assemble and develop optical and physics instruments. He also went to Artige & Co where he learnt about industrial drawing. As he continued to develop the praxinoscope into the praxinscope-theatre (with a decor) he also then developed the projection-praxinoscope (projection on a screen). However it was limited to 12 frames. The praxinoscope theatre had a mirror-drum and cylinder set in a wooden box, where there was a glass-covered viewing aperture reflecting a card printed with a background. The moving subjects were printed on a black band thus appeared superimposed on a suitable scene. Whilst the projection praxinoscope used a series of transparent pictures on glass with a oil lamp for illuminated images and mirror reflections passed through a lens onto the screen. The same lamp projected static background where moving pictures were seen in an appropriate setting.
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Edward Muybridge
Edward was known as the father of motion picture. His early photographic experiments laid foundations for modern cinema due to his study. He established a reputation for landscape work where later he was appointed the director of photographic surveys for the US government. Later in life, he began to consider rapid motion photography where he was approached by a racehorse owner, Leland Stanford, due to his wager on an issue to whether a galloping horse was ever airborne. He used wet plats to produce faint, highly underexposed plates proving Stanford''s point in which that all 4 hooves left the ground a the same time. He later returned to his attempts of high-speed photography. He then expanded his experiments on horse movement which led him to set up a series of 50 cameras parallel to a race track, connecting electrically controlled shutters to trip wires lain across the track which ensured each one automatically took their own picture as the horse sped by leading to "The Horse in Motion" in 1882. He also invented the zoopraxiscope. He found a way of projecting his silhouettes in rapid succession on screen as well as developing a new multi-lens camera which produced a celebrated high-speed study into movement of both animals and humans. His contributions to art and photography spurred the works of many inventors as well as his innovative camera techniques which enabled people to see things otherwise too fast to comprehend. In modern day, his sequence images continue to inspire artists.
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Thomas Edison
Thomas is well known for his many inventions such as the electric lightbulb, the phonograph, alkaline storage batteries, the kinetograph (a camera for motion pictures) as well as many other inventions. He made his first invention in New York city which was an improved stock ticker better known as the universal stock printer which job was to synchronise several stock tickers' transactions. He is was an independent entrepreneur who formed numerous partnerships and developed products for the highest bidder. He also founded the Edison Illuminating company which was the first investor-owned electric utility which later became the General Electric Corporation. However he transitioned into the occupation of a industrialist as well as a business manager although was not as successful. He invented the kinetoscope which was a machine for watching movies, although the first movies only allowed one person to watch at the time, or better known as "peep shows". The development of the projecting kinetoscope meant audiences of several people could enjoy silent movies. He also set up a studio which was covered in black tar paper with a roof which opened to the sun to let in daylight. This was due electric lights of the time not being strong enough for motion photography. The studio was set on a turntable so the entire building could be rotated to follow the sun.
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Lumière Brothers
The Lumière brothers were French inventors and pioneer manufacturers of photographic equipment. They devised an early-motion picture camera and projector known as the Cinématographe. They also created he first motion picture known as the “La Sortie des
ouvriers de l’usine Lumière". Louis Lumière worked on the problem of commercially satisfactory development of film. At the age of 18, he succeeded so well that with his father's financial aid, he opened a factory for producing photographic plates, which led to immediate success. By 1894 they were producing approximately 15 million plates a year. Louis Lumière also found a solution to the problem of combining animation with projection. The Lumière apparatus consisted of a single camera used for photography and projecting, with 16 frames per second. Their first films recorded everyday French life, but there were also early comedy shorts, as well as presenting the first newsreel and the first documentaries. Antoine Lumière after noting financial rewards of new photographic processes took on the course of setting up a business which manufactured and supplied photographic equipment. The Cinématographe was much smaller than Edison's Kinetograph as well as lightweight (approximately 5 kilograms) and hand cranked. By being able to have 16 frames per second, it meant that it was much slower than Edison's 48 frames per second which led to less film being used and also the clatter and grinding associated with Edison's device was reduced. The Lumière brothers also opened up theatres to show their films, so within the first 4 months of 1896 they had opened theatres in London, Brussels, Belgium and New York. By 1907, they produced the first practical colour photography process called the Autochrome plate.
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