History of Animation: Before Disney Since the outset of time, man has always been interested in capturing a sense of motion in every work of art. Right from the three legged boar that was first present in the Altamira caves in Northern Germany to right alongside the mummified remains of pharaohs long gone, this craze for capturing motion is always evident in every artistic endeavor known to man.
A lovely example of what an ancient comic strip would like can be present in the ancient Egyptian wall decorations. A famous illustration by Leonardo da Vinci depicts how various limbs would look in different positions. Giotto's appear to miraculously be taking flight in their motions, & the Japanese made use of scrolls to tell their tales.
Actual animation can never be achieved without the person first understanding a basic principle: "the persistence of vision". This particular principle was first brought to our notice in the 19th century by a Frenchman with the name of Paul Roget, who also invented the thaumotrope. This particular contraption happened to be a disc with a string attached on both ends. side of the disc had a bird on it & the other an empty cage. When the disc was twirled, the bird would appear to be in the cage. This only goes to show that the human eye can retain images even when it is exposed to a series of pics, after the other.
Since then, there's been other inventions that have gone a long way in furthering the reason for animation: the phenakistoscope by Joseph Plateau & the zoetrope by Pierre Desvignes. The phenakistoscope was a circular card like structure with slits along the edges. When the viewer held this whirling tool up to a mirror & looked through the slits, a series of drawings along the circumference of the card would appear to the viewer as a moving object. The same system was used for the zoetrope, wherein a strip of paper containing drawings was carefully inserted in to a cylinder. The cylinder was then twirled on a spindle & the viewer would gaze through the slots on the top of the cylinder. The figures on the insides of the cylinder would magically come to life.
The invention of the motion camera & projector by Edison was the first actual invention that propelled the idea of animation in to reality. & although, animation became reality with the motion camera, it was still in its simplest of forms. The short film by Stuart Blackton, "Humorous Phases of Comic Faces" was probably the first actual film to bring animation to life. For the film, comical faces where drawn on a blackboard & then photographed, after which they were erased & another stage of expressions would be drawn.
This particular "stop motion" effect managed to captivate audiences by the simple fact that it managed to make basic drawings come to life.
In the early 20's, the hype surrounding animated cartoon began to diminish while film exhibitors began to look elsewhere for other sources of entertainment media. The reason behind this being that the audience was bored stiff of watching animated figurines doing their thing without there being any actual storyline to it. Up until this point, animation was still in its basic form (with the exceptions of Winsor McCay's works like Gertie the Dinosaur). What McCay managed to accomplish was a character in this dinosaur that they brought to life, something which was only seen in Felix the cat by Otto Messmer. The very notion of a dinosaur coming to life was in itself exceptional.
http://www.tiffany100.comThe largest drawback about the animated flicks that came out in the work of this time was the fact that there was never any importance given to plots. The animated flicks in the work of this time were only a series of gags that were haphazardly strung together. & not what somebody today would call comic.
Of work you need to take in to consideration that most of the animated movies were based on stringing primitive gags (& in plenty of cases violence) together. In plenty of movies you would have character beating another character mercilessly. Or, the hero would cut the villain in to tiny slices of ham.
As nonsensical as it may sound to us today, it did work for some time back then, until a massive alter came about in the animation industry towards the mid twenties. The bigger animation studios began to take over the smaller projects & set positive industry standards for animation. Animators got a positive number of drawings to draw per day & cartoons began to be manufactured cheaply & in quantity.
& this is how the animation industry got started before the times of Disney.