ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustrating the method of making animated cartoons by cut-outs[Frontispiece]
PAGE
Magic-lantern and motion-picture projector compared[7]
Geneva movement[9]
A motion-picture projector[11]
Illustrating the proportions of light and dark periods during projection in two types of shutters[12]
Section of an animated cartoon film[15]
The thaumatrope[17]
Two instruments used in early investigations of optical phenomena[18]
Apparatus on the order of Faraday’s wheel[19]
An antecedent of the phenakistoscope[20]
A phenakistoscope[21]
Phenakistoscope combined with a magic-lantern[22]
Phenakistoscope with a cycle of drawings to show a dog in movement[23]
The zootrope[24]
Zoetrope of William Lincoln[25]
Reynaud’s praxinoscope[26]
The theatre praxinoscope[28]
Projection praxinoscope[29]
Optical theatre of Reynaud[30]
The kineograph[31]
Plan of the apparatus of Coleman Sellers[36]
The ostrich walking; from MuybridgeFacing page [40]
Marey’s photographic gun[42]
Plan of the kinora[43]
Plan of Edison’s first kinetoscope[46]
Projector and motion-picture camera compared[48]
A negative and a positive print[49]
Plan of a motion-picture camera[50]
Types of camera and projector shutters[51]
One foot of film passes through the projector in one second[53]
“Animator’s” drawing-board[61]
A sheet of perforated paper and the registering pegs[63]
Illustrating the making of an animated scene[67]
Illustrating the making of an animated scene with the help of celluloid sheets[71]
Arrangement of board, pegs, and hinged frame with glass[75]
Balloons[78]
Three elements that complete a scene[79]
Phenakistoscope with cycle of drawings of a face to show a movement of the mouth[80]
Cardboard model of an airplane with separate cut-out propellersFacing page [84]
The laws of perspective are to be considered in “animating” an object[86]
Perspective applied in the drawing of birds as well as in the picturing of objects[87]
Articulated cardboard figures[89]
Illustrating the animation of a mouse as he runs around the kitchen[95]
Successive phases of movements of the legs in walking[101]
Illustrating the action of the foot in rolling over the ground[103]
Successive phases of movements in walking[105]
Phases of movement of a quick walk[107]
Contractions and expansions as characteristic of motion[109]
Order in which an animator makes the sequence of positions for a walk[112] and [113]
Phases of movement of a walk. Six phases complete a step[115]
A perspective walk[117]
Four positions for a perspective run[118]
Phases of movement for a perspective run[119]
Running figure[121]
Phases of movement for a quick walk[123]
Walking movements, somewhat mechanical[124]
Phases of movement for a lively walk[125]
Phases of movement for a quick walk[127]
Walking movements viewed from above[128]
Trotting horse[134]
Trotting horse (continued)[135]
A panorama effect[138]
Galloping horse for a panorama effect[139]
The elephant in motion[140]
The elephant in motion (continued)[141]
Pigeon in flight; from MuybridgeFacing page [142]
Comic walk of a duck[143]
Cycle of phases of a walking dog arranged for the phenakistoscope[144]
Phenakistoscope with a cycle of drawings to show a dog in movement[145]
Running cow[147]
Phases of movement of a walking lion[148]
Dog walking[149]
Various kinds of wave motion[150]
Cycle of drawings to produce a screen animation of a waving flag[157]
Cycle of drawings for an effect of falling water[159]
Cycle of drawings for a puff of vapor[161]
An explosion[162]
The finishing stroke of some farcical situation[163]
Piano practice[164]
Three drawings used in sequence and repeated as long as the particular effect that they give is desired[165]
A constellation[166]
Simple elements used in animating a scene[167]
Symbolical animation of snoring[172]
Series of drawings used to show a baby crying[173]
A “close-up”[175]
Illustrating the use of little “model” hats to vivify a scene[176]
“Cut-out” eyes[178]
Illustrating the making of “in-between” drawings[179]
Illustrating the number of drawings required for a movement[180]
Illustrating a point in animating a moving limb[182]
Making drawings in turning the head[183]
Easily drawn circular forms and curves[186]
Foreground details of a pictorial composition[190]
Making an animated cartoon panorama[193]
Illustrating the apparent slowness of a distant object compared to one passing close to the eye[195]
Distinguishing marks on wheels to give the illusion of turning[197]
Elements used in giving a figure the effect of trembling[198]
Typical arrangement of camera and lights[203]
Part of a length of film for a title[208]
Vignetter or iris dissolve[211]
To explain the distribution of light in a cross dissolve[213]
Illustrating the operation of one type of motion-picture printer[217]
Another plan for an animator’s drawing-board[218]
Canine thoughts[219]
Plenty of movement demanded in screen pictures[224]
The plaint of inanimate things[227]
The pinwheel effect of two boys fighting, elements needed in producing it[231]
Cycle of drawings to give the illusion of a man spinning like a top[235]
A blurred impression like that of the spokes of a turning wheel is regarded as funny[236]
Hats[239]
Radiating “dent” lines[240]
A laugh-provoking incident in an animated cartoon[241]
The Mad Hatter[246]
Detail of a fresco by Michael Angelo[248]
Mr. Frost’s spirited delineation of figures in action[249]
The peep-show[250]
Demeny’s phonoscope[251]
Drawings used in making a film of a gasolene engine in operation[255]
Character of drawings that would be prepared in producing moving diagrams of the muscles in action[258]

THE BEGINNING OF ANIMATED DRAWINGS

CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNING OF ANIMATED DRAWINGS

The picture thrown on the wall by the magic-lantern, although an illusion, and no more tangible than a shadow, has nevertheless a certain tactile quality. If it is projected from a drawing on a glass slide, its design is definite; and if from a photographic slide, the tones are clearly discernible. It is—unless it is one of those quaintly moving amusing subjects operated by a crude mechanism—a quiescent picture. The spirited screen picture thrown by the lens of a motion-picture projector is an illusion, too. It exemplifies, however, two varieties of this class of sensory deceptions. First: it is an illusion for the same reason that the image from the magic-lantern is one; namely, a projected shadow of a more or less opaque design on a transparent material intervening between the illuminant and the lens. And secondly, it is an illusion in that it synthesizes mere pictorial spectres into the appearance of life and movement. This latter particular, the seeming activity of life, is the fundamental dissimilarity between pictures projected by the magic-lantern and those thrown on the screen by the motion-picture apparatus.

And it is only the addition to the magic-lantern, of a mechanism that makes possible this optical vibration of life and motion, that constitutes the differing feature in the two types of projecting machines.

In the magic-lantern and its improved form, the stereopticon, separate views of different subjects are shown in succession. Each picture is allowed to remain on the screen long enough to be readily beheld and appreciated. But the picture is at rest and does not move. With the motion-picture projector a series of slightly varying pictures of the same subject are projected in quick succession. This succession is at such a rapid rate that the interval of time during which one picture moves out of place to make way for the next is so short that it is nearly imperceptible. In consequence, the slightly varying pictures blend on the screen and we have a phantasmagoria of movement.

The phenomenon of this movement—this semblance to life—takes place, not on the screen, but within the eye. Its consideration, a subject proper for the science of physiology (and in some aspects psychology), has weight for us more particularly as a matter of physics.

Memory has been said to be an attribute of all organic matter. An instance of this seems to be the property of the eye to retain on its retina an after-image of anything just seen. That is to say, when an object impresses its image upon the retina and then moves away, or disappears, there still remains, for a measurable period, an image of this object within the eye. This singularity of the visual sense is spoken of as the persistence of vision or the formation of positive after-images. And it is referred to as a positive after-image in contradistinction to another visional phenomenon called the negative after-image. This latter kind is instanced in the well-known experiment of fixing the eyes for a few moments upon some design in a brilliant color and quickly turning away to gaze at a blank space of white where instantly the same design will be seen, but of a color complementary to that of the particular hue first gazed at.

The art of the motion-picture began when physicists first noticed this peculiarity of the organ of sight in retaining after-images. The whole art is based on its verity. It is the special quality of the visual sense that makes possible the appreciation of living screen pictures.

An interesting matter to bear in mind is the circumstance that the first attempt at giving to a screen image the effect of life was by means of a progressive series of drawings. When photographs came later, drawings were forgotten and only when the cinematographic art had reached its great development and universality, were drawings again brought into use to be synthesized on the screen.

To describe how these drawings are made, their use and application to the making of animated cartoons, is the purpose of this book.

Before proceeding with a sketch of the development of the art of making these cartoons, it will make the matter more readily understood if we give, at first, in a few paragraphs, a brief description of the present-day method of throwing a living picture on the screen by the motion-picture projector.

MAGIC-LANTERN AND MOTION-PICTURE PROJECTOR COMPARED.

The projector for motion-pictures, like the magic-lantern, consists of an illuminant, reflector, condenser, and objective. This last part is the combination of lenses that gather and focus the light rays carrying the pencils of lights and shadows composing the picture and throwing them on the screen. There is, in the magic-lantern, immediately back of the objective, a narrow aperture through which the glass slide holding a picture is thrust. In the motion-picture apparatus, the transparent surface containing the picture also passes back of the objective, but instead of the simple process of pushing one slide through to make way for another, there is a complicated mechanism to move a long ribbon containing the sequence of pictures that produces the image on the screen. Now this ribbon consists of a strip of transparent celluloid[1] each with a separate photograph of some one general scene but each with slight changes in the moving details—objects or figures. These changes record the movements from the beginning to the end of the particular story, action, or pantomime.

Along the edges of the ribbons are rows of perforations that are most accurately equalized with respect to their size and of the distances between them. It is by means of wheels with teeth that engage with the perforations and the movement of another toothed part of the mechanism that the ribbon or film is carried across the path of light in the projecting machine. The device for moving the film, although not of a very intricate character, is nevertheless of an ingenious type. It is intermittent in action and operates so that one section of film, containing a picture, is held in the path of light for a fraction of a second, moved away and another section, with the next picture, brought into place to be projected in its turn. This way of working, in most of the projectors, is obtained by the use of a mechanical construction known as the Geneva movement. The pattern of its principal part is a wheel shaped somewhat like a Maltese cross. The form shown in the illustration is given as a type; not all are of this pattern, nor are they all four-parted.

FOUR PHASES OF THE ACTION OF THE INTERMITTENT GEARING KNOWN AS THE GENEVA MOVEMENT.

It is obvious that while one picture moves out of the way for the next, there would be a blur on the screen during such a movement if some means were not devised to prevent it. This is found by eclipsing the light during the time of the change from one picture to another. The detail of the projector that effects this is a revolving shutter with a solid part and an open section. (This is the old type of shutter. It is noticed here because the way in which the light rays project the picture is easily explained by using it as an example.) This shutter is so geared with the rest of the mechanism that (1) the solid part passes across the path of light while another picture is moving into place; and that (2) the open section passes across the path of light while a rectangular area containing a picture is at rest and its details are being projected on the screen.

It may be asked, at this point, why the eye is not aware on the screen of the passing shadow of the opaque part of the shutter as it eclipses the light. It would seem that there should be either a blur or a darkened period on the screen. But the mechanism moves so rapidly that the passing of the solid portion of the shutter is not ordinarily perceptible.

A MOTION-PICTURE PROJECTOR.

A. Film. B. Upper magazine. C. Feed reel. D. Lower magazine, containing the take-up reel. E. Crank to operate mechanism by hand. F. Motor. G. Where the film stops intermittently to be projected. H. Lamp-house. I. Port, or window in the fireproof projection booth. J. Rotating shutter. K. Lens. L. Condenser. M. Switches. N. Fire shutter; automatically drops when the film stops or goes too slowly.

One foot of celluloid film contains sixteen separate pictures, and these pass in front of the light in one second. One single tiny picture of the film takes up then one-sixteenth of a second. But not all of this fraction of a second is given to the projection of the picture as some of the time is taken up with moving it into place immediately before projection. The relative apportionment of this period of one-sixteenth of a second is so arranged that about five-sixths of it (five ninety-sixths of a second) is given to the holding of the film at rest and the projection of its picture, and the remaining one-sixth (one ninety-sixth of a second) is given to the movement of a section of the film and the shutting off of the light by the opaque part of the shutter.

ILLUSTRATING THE PROPORTIONS OF LIGHT AND DARK PERIODS DURING PROJECTION IN TWO TYPES OF SHUTTERS.

1. Old single-blade type; caused a “flicker.”

2. Regular three-blade type; light evenly distributed. It is to be noted that while the picture is on the screen two opaque sections of the shutter eclipse the light.

In the last few paragraphs we have referred to the old type of shutter which caused a flicker, or unsteadiness of light on the screen. Nowadays a three-bladed shutter that nearly does away with an unsteady light is in general use. Its operation, approximately for the purposes of description is like this: It turns once in one-sixteenth of a second; one-sixth of this time is taken up with the moving of the film and the eclipsing of the light by one blade of the shutter. During the remainder of the time—five-sixths of it, the following takes place: the film is stationary and ready for projection, then two blades of the shutter and three of its open sections pass across the path of the light.

SECTION OF AN ANIMATED CARTOON FILM .

From this it can be seen that when the picture is viewed on the screen, there are actually two short moments when the light rays are cut off. This is not perceived by the spectator on account of the speed of the revolving shutter and the strong illuminant. Instead, the use of a shutter of this pattern evens the screen lighting by making an equal apportioning of light flashes and dark periods. With the old shutter there was one long period of light and one short period of darkness. It was this unequal distribution that gave rise to the flicker. At times, under certain conditions, a two-bladed shutter is used also.

A reel of film may vary in length for a short subject of fifty feet (or even less), to a very long “feature” of a mile or so in length. In width, the strip of celluloid measures one and three-eighths inches. Between the two rows of perforations that engage with the teeth on the sprocket-wheels and by which a certain part of the intermittent mechanism pulls the film along, are little rectangular panels, already alluded to, containing the photographs. Sometimes these panels are called “frames,” generally though, in the parlance of the trade, they are simply designated as “pictures.” They measure one inch across and three-quarters of an inch in height.

As noted above, these frames contain photographs of scenes that record, by changes in their action, the incidents and episodes of the story of any particular reel. In the case of animated cartoons, the frames on the film also contain photographs, but these photographs are made from sets of progressive drawings depicting the action of the characters of the animated cartoon.

In concluding this brief account of the modern motion-picture, the attention is directed, as the subject is studied, to a few details of the mechanism and to the general procedure that are found to be elementary features in nearly all apparatus used during the round of years that the art was developing. They are as follows: (1) A series of pictures—drawings or photographs—representing an action by progressive changes in their delineation. (2) Their presentation, one at a time, in rapid succession. (3) Their synthesis, directly upon the retina of the eye, or projected on a screen and then viewed by the eye. (4) Some means by which light—or the vision—is shut off while the change from one picture to another is taking place. (Projecting machines have been made, however, in which the film is moved so rapidly, and in a particular way, that a shutter to eclipse the light is not needed.)

Now, as stated before, the phenomenon of the persistence of vision is the fundamental physiological fact upon which the whole possibility of seeing screen pictures rests. One of the first devices made that depended upon it, and that very simply demonstrated this faculty of the retina for holding a visional image for a time, was an optical toy called the thaumatrope. It dates from about 1826. It was a cardboard disk with two holes close to the edge at opposite points. Strings were passed through these holes and fastened and the dangling ends held and rolled between the thumbs and fingers so that the disk was made to twirl rapidly. Each side of the disk had a picture printed or drawn upon it. These two pictures when viewed together while the disk was twirled appeared as one complete picture. A favorite design for depiction was an empty bird-cage on one side and a bird on the other. The designs were placed with respect to each other in the same way as the marks and insignia of the two sides of most coins. (The coins of Great Britain are an exception, on them the designs are placed differently. In reading their marks or looking at the images of the two sides, we turn the coin over like the page of a book.)

THE THAUMATROPE.

Above: How the designs of the two sides are placed with respect to each other.

Below: The combined image when the thaumatrope is twirled.

The thaumatrope illustrates the persistence of vision in a very elementary way. Simply explained, the face of one side of the disk with its design is before the eye, the design impresses its true image upon the retina, the disk turns away and the picture disappears, but its after-image remains on the retina. The disk having turned, brings the other picture into view. Its true image is impressed upon the retina to blend with the after-image of the first picture. In rapid sequence this turning continues and the two images commingle to give the fantasy of a perfect design.

A limited number of subjects only were suitable for demonstration by a toy of this character. Two other subjects were those showing designs to give the effect of a rider on a horse and a tight-rope dancer balanced on a rope.

1837 FARADAY'S WHEEL 1841
TWO INSTRUMENTS USED IN EARLY INVESTIGATIONS OF OPTICAL PHENOMENA.

From The Saturday Magazine of 1837 and 1841.

Later when scientific investigators were busy inquiring into the phenomena of visual distortions exhibited by the spokes and teeth of turning wheels when seen in contrast with certain intervening objects, a curious apparatus was contrived by Faraday the English scientist (1791-1867). This apparatus was so constructed that two disks were made to travel, by cogged gearing, in opposite directions, but at the same speed. Around the circumferences of the disks were cut narrow slots at equal distances apart and so making the solid portions between them like teeth, or spokes of a wheel.

APPARATUS ON THE ORDER OF FARADAY’S WHEEL.

With the disks moving as marked, the disk B will appear to be motionless when viewed through the passing slots of disk A.

When this machine was set in motion and the eye directed through the moving and blurred teeth of the front disk toward the far disk, this far disk appeared to be stationary. Its outline—the teeth, slots, and circumference—were distinctly seen and not blurred.

Then it was found that the same effect could be obtained with the use of one slotted disk by simply holding it in front of a mirror and viewing the reflected image through the moving slots of the disk. The reflection answered for the second disk of the instrument of the first experiment.

AN ANTECEDENT OF THE PHENAKISTOSCOPE.

When the disk is twirled the reflections of its spokes appear stationary when viewed through the moving slots.

From this type of optical toy it was but a step to the contriving of various types of instruments constructed on the pattern of a slotted disk, or some sort of a turning mechanism with a series of apertures, to use in giving the illusion of movement in connection with drawings or photographs. The best-known was the phenakistoscope, the invention of which has been credited to the Belgian physicist, Plateau (1801-1883). This toy was a large cardboard disk with pictures on one side that were to be viewed by their reflections through slots in the disk while it was held before a mirror. The pictures drawn in sequence represented some action, as a horse running, an acrobat, a juggler, or some amusing subject that could be drawn easily in a cycle of actions and that would lend itself to repetition.

Holding a phenakistoscope before a mirror and ready to twirl it around.

The phenakistoscope has some rough resemblance in its plan to a motion-picture projector—the cycle of slightly different drawings represents the film with its sequence of tiny pictures; the slots in the disk by which the drawings are viewed in the mirror correspond to the open sections of the revolving shutter; while the solid portions of the disk answer to the opaque parts of the shutter.

As it only was possible in the phenakistoscope that one person at a time could view conveniently the reflected pictures, the attempt was made to arrange it for projection. A lens was added with a light and mirrors so that a number of people could see its operation at the same time. In another form the pictures were placed on a glass disk which was made to rotate back of a magic-lantern objective.

PHENAKISTOSCOPE COMBINED WITH A MAGIC-LANTERN.

When the number of slots in a phenakistoscope correspond to the number of drawings in the cycle, the different figures of the cycle are in action but they do not move from the place where they are depicted. Only their limbs, if it is an action in which these parts are brought into play, are in movement. But if there is one slot more and the disk turned in the proper direction, the row of drawings will appear to be going around a circle. This is particularly adapted to series of running animals.

PHENAKISTOSCOPE WITH A CYCLE OF DRAWINGS TO SHOW A DOG IN MOVEMENT.

Another method of giving the semblance of motion to a series of progressive drawings, soon devised after the invention of the phenakistoscope, was the zootrope, or wheel of life. It embodied the idea, too, of a rapidly moving opaque flat portion with a row of slots passing between the eye and the drawings.

In form the zootrope was like a cylindrical lidless box of cardboard. It was pivoted and balanced on a vertical rod so that it could be made to turn easily and very rapidly. The slots were cut around the upper rim of the box. Long strips of paper holding pictures fitted into the box. When one of these strips was put in place, it was so adjusted that any particular drawing of the series could be viewed through a slot of the opposite side. These drawings appeared to be in motion when the zootrope was made to twirl.

THE ZOOTROPE.

This type of optical curiosity, as a matter of priority, is associated with the name of Desvignes, as he obtained a patent for it in England in 1860. Later in 1867, a United States patent was issued for a similar instrument to William Lincoln, of Providence, R. I. He called his device the zoetrope.

ZOETROPE OF WILLIAM LINCOLN.
U.S. Pat. No. 64117, Apr. 23 1867

This cylindrical synthesizing apparatus was sold as a toy for many years. Bands of paper with cycles of drawings of a variety of humorous and entertaining subjects thereon were prepared for use with it.

But the busy inventors were not satisfied with the simple form in which it was first fabricated. Very soon from the zootrope was evolved another optical curiosity that preserved the general cylindrical plan, but made use of the reflective property of a mirror to aid the illusion. This was the praxinoscope of M. Reynaud, of France. He perfected it and adapted its principles to create other forms of rotating mechanisms harmonizing progressive drawings to show movement.

A. REYNAUD’S PRAXINOSCOPE.
B. PLAN OF THE PRAXINOSCOPE.

The praxinoscope held to the idea of a box, cylindrical and lidless, and pivoted in the centre so that it turned. The strip of drawings, and the plan of placing them inside of the box—two features of the zootrope—were both retained. But instead of looking at the drawings through apertures in the box rim, they were observed by their reflections in mirrors placed on an inner section or drum. The mirrors were the same in number as the drawings and turned with the rest of the apparatus. The mirrors were placed on the drum—the all-important point in the construction of the praxinoscope—half-way between the centre and the inner side of the rim of the box. As the drawings were placed here, the eye, looking over the rim of the box, viewed their reflections in the mirrors. But the actual place of a reflection was the same distance back of the surface of a mirror that a drawing was in front of it; namely, at the dead centre of the rotating cylinder. It was here, at this quiet point, that it was possible to see the changing images of the succession of graduated drawings blending to give the illusion of motion.

Reynaud next fixed his praxinoscope with improvements that made the characters in his drawings appear to be going through a performance on a miniature stage. He called his new contrivance the theatre praxinoscope. This new mechanism, was fixed in a box before which was placed a mask-like section to represent a proscenium. Another addition in front of this had a rectangular peep-hole and small cut-out units of stage scenery that were reflected on the surface of a glass inserted into the proscenium opening.

THE THEATRE PRAXINOSCOPE.

Not satisfied with this toy theatre, Reynaud’s next step was to combine with the praxinoscope, condensers, lenses, and an illuminant with which to project the images on a screen, so that spectators in an auditorium could see the illusion. A more intricate mechanism, again, was later devised by Reynaud. This was his optical theatre in which there was used an endless band of graduated drawings depicting a rather long pantomimic story. It, of course, was an enlargement of the idea of the simple early form of praxinoscope with its strip of paper containing the drawings. But this optical theatre had such a complication of mirrors and lenses that the projected light reached the screen somewhat diminished in illuminating power, and the pictures were consequently dimmed.

PROJECTION PRAXINOSCOPE.

(After picture in La Nature, 1882.)

From the time of the invention of the thaumatrope in 1826, and throughout the period when the few typical machines noted above were in use, drawings only in graduated and related series, were applied in the production of the illusion of movement.

OPTICAL THEATRE OF REYNAUD.

(After picture in La Nature, 1892.)

THE KINEOGRAPH.

Drawings, too, were first employed for a little optical novelty in book-form, introduced about 1868, called the kineograph. It consisted of a number of leaves, with drawings on one side, firmly bound along an edge. The manner of its manipulation was to cause the leaves to flip from under the thumb while the book was held in the hands. The pictures, all of a series depicting some action of an entertaining subject, passed quickly before the vision as they slipped from under the thumb and gave a continuous action of the particular subject of the kineograph.

Now when the camera began to be employed in taking pictures of figures in action, one of the first uses made of such pictures was to put a series of them into the book-form so as to give, by this simple method of allowing the leaves to flip from under the thumb, the visional deception of animated photographs.