Athanasius Kircher began experimenting with magic lantern slides and projections in Rome during the 1640’s. As the above quote suggests, magic lantern shows combined the magic of theatre and legend with the illusionary quality of the projections themselves. How has animation maintained this connection with the idea of the illusion? Find examples.
Magic lanterns were an early type of projector where they used art, paintings and prints along with a light source, glass plates and a lens. I twas developed in the 17th century and was for entertainment purposes.
How has animation maintained this connection with the idea of the illusion?
Animation is when you bring something static to life, so this could be models, drawings or even digital effects. So animation has still maintained its illusion because somethings what you are seeing is not the whole picture!
When you have models like Wallace and Gromet and you watch it on the TV, you don’t realise how much work goes into each frame. If Wallace talks he needs to have numerous different mouths made to get a continuous set of frames so his mouth moves as he is talking, these creates an illusion for the viewer, as they don’t see any of this when watching the program or film back.
This can also be said for company’s like Disney, where they create the animation through drawings and having to draw each frame of something moving to create a seamless movement and strip for the scene.
This has now been up-dated to a digital process with the rise of animation computers, and computer generated images.
Now CGI and 2D animated films are created which creates seamless and complex shots, alongside intricate cinematography.
3D animation is used by concept artists nowadays, like on the making of Moana. Where the artists can now just move one section of the art work digitally, or change an expression slightly for the next frame, it makes it much easier and less time consuming to create.
This all creates the illusion of effortless artwork and design, that the viewer doesn’t even see or know about, the creators keep that secret.
Animation now blurs the line between what is real and what is fake, you cannot tell just by watching something whether its been painted, or digitally animated, the two have both got extremely better over the years and the result it a seamless viewing experience.
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