Chapter 1 - 6

06 Film Studies

Listen to a discussion in a film studies class. Fill in the diagram with the information that you hear.

M: OK everyone. We have a big animation project coming up soon. Before we get too far today, does anyone have any questions about the project?

W: Actually, I was looking at the assignment sheet last night, and I’m not sure I understand what we’re able to use for the project. I mean, in terms of animation techniques. Does it have to be computer-based? Or can we do hand-drawn animation?

W: Well, if you’d like to give yourself extra work, feel free to do it all by hand. Otherwise, I’d recommend using the software on the lab computers. It’s really easy to learn. OK, any other questions about that?

Great. Today we’re going to talk about early animation… not like cartoon animation. I mean, er, photographs forming what appears to be fluid movement. You all know what I mean, I hope.

W: You just mean early movies, right?

M: Yes, right. OK, so what I want to do today is talk about three of the earliest machines that helped bring these static pictures to life.

They weren’t movies by any means, but they helped set the stage for movies. Does anyone know what the first one was?

W: The kinematoscope, right?

M: Not quite. That was actually the second… which we’ll get to in a minute. The first was called the Phenakistoscope.

Let me give you a second to write that down. OK, now the technology of these can be a little hard to understand, so I’ll go slowly. Stop me at any time with questions.

Now, with the Phenakistoscope, the animator started with a disk. Different pictures were drawn all around the disk, which would correspond to the frames in the animation.

Good so far? OK, after all of the frames were drawn, the disc was put in a, um, basically in a housing with a handle.

The viewer would rotate the handle, and the disc would spin. In the housing for the disc was a series of slits through which the viewer could look.

As the disc passed the slits, one frame showed up at a time. When the disc spun quickly, it would appear that there was just one moving image.

However, it didn’t look great… It was small, and the image was really jerky. OK, that was a lot of information. Are there any questions?

W: Just to clarify, it’s, um, it’s basically like the movies where they show one frame at a time, but they’re shown so fast that the image looks like it’s moving?

M: That’s right. That’s the basic idea behind all animation, so keep that in mind and the next two won’t be too hard to understand. So the next device is called the Kinematoscope.

Really this was just a more sophisticated version of the Phenakistoscope. It kept the same basic idea: still images on a wheel that rotated. But here, the viewer would look at the inside of a cabinet.

The pictures were mounted to plates of glass, and the plates were moved by a chain connected to a crank that the viewer would turn.

So, the image was bigger and a little clearer… but still jerky.

W: How well did these things work? I mean, it sounds like they’re kind of difficult to operate.

M: You would be right about that. They, uh, they really didn’t work too well. Imagine trying to keep a steady pace turning a crank, all while trying to watch the picture. And it didn’t really allow the animators to make anything particularly complex, since there could be only a few frames in any animation.

OK, I want to leave enough time to talk about the Praxinoscope. It took the same ideas and changed them significantly to make a better product.

Basically, instead of a wheel, the Praxinoscope used a circular drum, in which the pictures were on a long roll on the inside. It also used mirrors instead of slits to help keep the picture steady.

Well, the picture was much steadier−by that I mean it appeared to be one picture staying in place, rather than shifting back and forth.

Anyway, this was the last animation technique before film began to be used for moving pictures, and was the closest anyone got to good animation without the use of film. We’ll discuss that more tomorrow.

1) What is the main topic of the lecture? 2) what aspect of animation does the professor mainly discuss?