Part 2 The history of Animation, Film and VFX
1 . the history of animation
In 1832, Joseph Prato, a Belgian, placed bai on the disk of a machine in order. The disk could be turned by the machine. The machine also has an observation window for viewing moving images.
Driven by the machine, the disc rotates at a low speed. The picture on the disk also rotates with the disk. When viewed from the observation window, the picture seems to move and form a moving picture, which is the prototype of the original animation.
At the beginning of the 20th century, cartoons began to appear. American James Stewart Blackton, a British immigrant working in Edison’s laboratory, used chalk to sketch cigars and bottles to make the enchanted drawing, known as the trick film.
In 1906, American James Stewart Blackton produced a film that approximated the concept of modern animation. It was called the Humorous Aspect of Funny Faces and was hailed as the world’s first animated film.
In 1908, French Emile Cole pioneered the use of negative film to make animated films. The so-called negative film is the film with the opposite image and actual color, just like ordinary film negative. Using negative films to produce animation solves the problem of film carrier conceptually and lays a foundation for the future development of animation. At the same time, Cole is also known as the “father of modern animation”.
In 1909, American Winther McKay used 10,000 pictures to represent the animated story “Gertie the Dinosaur”, which is recognized as the first decent animated short in the world so far.
In 1913, American Earl Heard created a new animation process called celluloid, in which he first drew cartoons on plastic film and then made animated films out of pictures drawn on plastic film. This animation technique has been used for many years.
In 1915, EerlHurd, an American, created a new process of animating by first drawing cartoons on plastic film and then turning the images drawn on that film into animated films. This animation technique has been used for many years.
From 1928, the world-famous WaltDisney gradually pushed animated films to the peak. He not only improved the animation system and production technology, but also connected the production of animation with commercial value, and was praised as the father of commercial animation. To this day, the Disney Company he founded continues to create colorful cartoons for people all over the world. Disney — the greatest animation company of the 20th century.
Today’s animation, with the addition of computers, the production of animation becomes simpler. Computer animation is the product of the combination of computer graphics and art, which provides a new world for people to fully display their personal imagination and artistic ability.
The United States is the first place to develop computer animation, in the late 1970s, the use of computer simulation of character activities. In 1982, Disney launched its first computer-animated film, Tron.
2 . the history of CGI characters
The first film to use CGI was the 1973 science fiction film “Westworld”.
In the sequel, “Future World “(1976), 3d wiring frames were used for the first time, featuring computer-generated hands and faces.
The third CGI film is “Star Wars: A New Hope “(1977). However, the first films to invest in 3D CGI, “Tron “(1982) and” The Last Star Warrior “(1984), failed commercially, leading many directors to stay away from CGI.
It wasn’t until James Cameron’s “Abyss” won an Oscar for best visual effects in 1989 that CGI won recognition from the film industry.
In 1993, “Jurassic Park” revolutionized the film industry by bringing CGI dinosaurs to live action.
In 1995, “Toy Story”, the first fully computer-generated feature film, was a huge commercial success. Since then other digital animation studios have mushroomed like mushrooms, have put into production.
3. the history of Film
The first is the formative period (1895 — 1927). Since Edison and Lumiere invented film in The United States and France, they experienced more than 20 years of history from short film to long film, from single lens to multi-lens editing, thus forming visual language.
Second, the period of development (1927 — 1945). In less than twenty years, the film acquired sound and color, and possessed all the necessary elements of cinematic art. People began to sum up the experience against silent film, and in the use of sound and color, in the exploration of the potential of film image performance have been seriously studied and experimented.
The third stage is maturity (from 1945 to now). After the end of the Second World War, the film has reached a perfect stage in terms of technology. Since then, the development of technology no longer has a significant impact on artistic expression. Since then, the film has entered the stage of artistic excellence, and its relationship with other arts has changed from mere imitation and absorption in the past to a stage of taking and giving up. In addition, it is worth paying more attention that the film is no longer a pure entertainment, but an art category with great social influence.
On October 14, 1888, Louis Prins du used the improved DAO 1653 single lens camera (MkII) to shoot the film The Right to the Scene in Londhead Gardens. It is the first IMDb certified film in human history. The film shows a group of people doing some antics in the garden.
From 1896-1912, lumiere created the earliest film styles, such as newsreel, travel film, documentary and comedy, with his representative works including The Train Arrives at the Station, The Knee-walker, The Water Dragon Goes Out, the Water Dragon Puts out the Fire, and Save the Victims.
At the beginning of film art, Griffith shot the classic silent film “The Birth of a Nation” in the history of world film with the courage of an artist in 1915, and the film “Intolerance” in 1916. These two films are regarded as the classics of the art of film and are the milestones in the history of film.
From 1946 to 1959, some Soviet filmmakers produced a batch of war films with emotional impact and biographical films with certain image appeal. Such as the Young Guards, the Capture of Berlin, the Elbe, etc.
In 1960, irrational as the basic characteristics, is a greater impact on the dramatic film. The film campaign began with the release of Shabbo’s Beautiful Selger and Cousins, Truffaut’s Four Hundred Times, and Aaron Ray’s The Love of Hiroshima, which caused a sensation at Cannes.
4. the history of VFX
Star Wars, 1977, was the first film ever recorded to be filmed using a motion-controlled camera. In this film, Lucas also created a number of far-reaching inventions: he invented a mechanism that could easily synchronize stone plate images with post-production images, which improved the efficiency of many years of only manual hard-coating film technology by dozens of times. It’s definitely a milestone for the film industry.
In 1982, Industrial Light & Magic invented a computer processing method called “source sequence” and applied it to the science fiction film “Star Trek”, which produced the first computer-generated scene in the history of cinema.
In 1985, Industrial Light & Magic created the first computer-generated character in film history, the Stained Glass Man, in the film Young Fulmos, which paved the way for many of the fictional characters in the Star Wars prequels.
In 1989, Industrial light and Magic produced the first ever computer-generated three-dimensional character in the sci-fi film The Abyss, which further paved the way for the creation of Yoda in Star Wars: Episode Iii.
The T1000C, created in 1991 for Terminator 2, became the first computer-generated protagonist in film history.
The satirical comedy “The Overlord” has won the fifth Oscar for the first computer simulation of human skin.
The most notable achievement was Jurassic Park in 1994, when, for the first time in film history, digital technology created breathable characters with real skin, muscle and movement.
Since then, the technology of light and magic has become more and more advanced and the imagination has become more and more extensive, creating countless first in the history of film. The Three-dimensional cartoon character the Mask and the talking Ghost Horse and Elf have also appeared in live-action films. “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Hulk,” “Tornado,” “Saving Private Ryan” and many other special effects are produced by him.