===== a selection of early animation history =====

(dates are the approximate year of first known work ]

==== 1907 Emile Cohl ====
  * widely regarded as the first animator Combined drawing (using a light box), live action, cutouts and found objects and film. 
    * Fantasmagoria

==== 1920 Walter Ruttman ====
  * First Abstract animations
    * Studied Music and painting, considered cinema to be the future, experimented with painting on glass, and paper cutouts.
    * Lichtspiel Opus 1

==== 1921 Oskar Fischinger ====
  * Worked on special effects for films in germany. First MTV style music video for Electrola Disk #1337, Vaya Veronika. 
    * Moved to LA in 1936 to work for Paramount.
    * Stills from Allagretto and Radio Dynamics.
    * http://www.oskarfischinger.org

==== 1929 Len Lye ====
  * More strictly a abstract film maker than animator, but employed the "cameraless film making" technique of painting directly (using stencils and prints) on the film stock.
    * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Lye

==== 1934 Mary Ellen Bute ====
  * Initially worked closely with musician Joseph Schillinger. She used light and reflectioms of common objects as well as drawing. Her films were the first experimental animations widely shown - and played to millions in cinemas in the US.

==== 1948 Hy Hirsh ====
  * Hollywood cameraman turned animator. 
    * Used ocilloscopes to generate patterns for animation.

==== 1949 John Whitney ====
  * First computer animator. Modified WW2 targetting computer into an animation plotter. Went on to become pioneer of computer graphics. 
    * Sons John jr, Mark and Michael continued his work.
    * http://www.siggraph.org/artdesign/profile/whitney/whitney.html

==== 1952 Stan Brakhage ====
  * Another filmmaker without a camera, although he employed more traditional means occasionally. 
    * My favorite work of his was "Mothlight" 1963:  http://www.fredcamper.com/Film/BrakhageS.html#Mothlight 
    * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brakhage

==== 1959 Stan VanDerBeek ====
  * Pioneer of computer graphics. 
    * Experimented with dance, projection and holographic diplays.


==== 1964 Charles Csuri ====
  * Painter, computer animator using analogue and digital vector plotter computers.
    * http://www.siggraph.org/artdesign/profile/csuri

==== 1967 Jim Blinn ====
  * Worked on early computer animations of the Voyager space craft orbiting Jupiter and Saturn in the 70's. 
    * Invented image and texture mapping, and has a surface reflection model bearing his name.
    * http://research.microsoft.com/users/blinn

==== 1969 Lillian Schwartz ====
  * Began building kinetic scultures, moved into computer animation/programming and contributed to the scientific fields of visual and colour perception. 
    * First computer animator to be in the MOMA. 
    * Resident artist and consultant at Bell Laboratories.
    * http://www.lillian.com

==== 1974 Larry Cuba ====
  * Programmed for John Whitney, Produced his first film using NASA's computers at it's Jet Propulsion Lab. 
    * Produced an animation which was used for "Star Wars".
    * http://www.iotacenter.org/ 
    * http://accad.osu.edu/~waynec/history/timeline.html 
    * http://www.siggraph.org/s98/media/discovery.html



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[[category animation]]