The Human Zoetrope
A zoetrope produces the illusion of motion by displaying a sequences of drawings or photographs showing progress phases of that motion. This workshop during creative exchange week was about the human zoetrope. The first part of this workshop was devoted to the drawing of paper animation loops which explored transformation and morphing. For this task, we were split into 6 groups of 3 and given a text to write up each.
1) The
2) Hudders-
3) Field
4) Zoe-
5) Trope
6) #hudgda
My group were given '#hudgda' to write up on 18 frames (pieces of paper) each person wrote the text 6 times using graphite. I was responsible for the fade-in and fade-out part, to do this, I started writing the word very lightly, and gradually began to draw bolder and thicker using the graphite. Once each group successfully completed their frames, we grouped together as a class and organised our frames in order to make the following sentence 'The Huddersfield Zoe-Trope #hudgda' We took in turns to hold up a piece of paper in front of the camera corresponding to the order. Once this was completed, the frames would play at a speed to create an animation of all the frames we drew out, noticing the fade-in and fade-out of each text and the morphing of each frame.
The afternoon session was about animating drawings by making a 'human zoetrope' using timelapse and stopmotion techniques using digital imaging technologies. Individually, we all started drawing each frame of our choice of animation. I decided to draw out a shield and two swords behinds it, the idea of this animation was the slowly move the swords from the behind the shield outwards and inwards resulting the breaking the shield. A couple of my drawings are shown below:
To see the final video, click the following link: https://vimeo.com/189297946/91e2646b1d I really enjoyed this session as it shows how each individuals work can be put together to create a great piece of animation. I liked how the final piece turned out and how it flows between each frame. Below are a couple of screenshots of myself holding up pieces of paper which we drew on along with a couple of pictures of my afternoon's work.
Animation research
Pioneers- A person who is among the first to research and develop a new area of knowledge or activity.Joseph Plateau (Phenakistoscope)
Joseph Plateau revealed an invention called the Phenakistoscope in 1832, which is a device that is considered to be the first mechanism for true animation and relied on the persistence of vision principle to display the illusion of images in motion. It is a spinning disc attached vertically to a handle. Located around the disc’s centre were a series of drawings showing phases of the animation, and cut through it were a series of equally spaced radial slits. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the disc’s reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from simply blurring together, so that the user would see a rapid succession of images that appeared to be a single moving picture.
William Horner (Zoetrope)
In 1834, William George Horner proposed a more convenient device based on Plateau’s Phenakistoscope which removed the need for a mirror and allowed several people to view the device at one time. The idea was to take shape in the form of drum with an open top into which was placed a hand drawn sequence of pictures on a strip of paper. The pictures were placed around the inside of the edge of the drum and could be viewed through slots in the outside of the drum. The images gave the illusion of movement as the drum was spun.Emile Reynaud (Praxinoscope)
Eadweard Muybridge (zoopraxiscope)
The zoopraxiscope, invented by British photographer Eadweard Muybridge and first shown in 1879, was a prehistoric version of later motion picture devices which worked by showing a sequence of still photographs in rapid succession. It is an early device for displaying motion pictures, and it may be considered the first movie projector.