ABSTRACT
Hand-drawn animated techniques are seldom spoken about in our digital age, but the truth is, CG and visual effects owe their very existence to this art form. The zoetrope, phenakistoscope, and stroboscope demonstrated “persistence of vision,” a principle pointing out the brain’s ability to hold still images together long enough so as to believe the images are actually in motion. These parlor toys from the 1830s required the viewer to look at images through rotating slits, while Émile Reynaud’s praxinoscope used mirrors to reflect drawings inside a revolving drum. Related to this is the traditional animation technique of “flipping through” stacks of animated drawings so as to be able to gauge things like timing and posing, just two of the ingredients that make for appealing animated films. Although today’s hi-end software has the technical ability to “in-between” or interpolate between the key storytelling drawings or CG poses, it is the animator’s artistic talents that really design the fluidity of the motion and the emotional impact of the animation. Photograph of Academy Award and Emmy Award winning director/designer/animator John Canemaker. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780240814407/3554192d-1ee7-4fef-ab75-fe9307d02d8b/content/fig3_1_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
