Written by Skulblaka_Shur'tugal :

This is a new series of articles I'm starting to post. I decided it would be fun if you Sourcers could look into the history of animation with me. In this section, I will be discussing how animation existed before modern technology.

You'll have to go on a journey with me back in time--way back in time. Back to the ancient Egyptians.

^This is a mural on a Pyramid wall, depicting a burial.^

The Egyptians stumbled upon animation when they decided to try setting up several images in a row, each slightly different. Then they ran by the images, looking at the wall as they went. The images looked like they blended together, and could actually move. In this way, the Egyptians discovered animation.

But animation didn't take on its true form--the sense of a single picture making movement--until the Chinese invented a special device in 180 AD, called the zoetrope. They drew several pictures in a row on a long piece of paper, and then taped the ends together, so it formed a circle. While shining a light from inside the middle of the paper, and moving the paper along at a rapid pace, the Chinese discovered what they were looking for: true animation. Of course, it remained, simple, such as a man simply walking in one direction. But at least animation had come into existance.

A replica zoetrope, showing a horse jogging.--> 

Over the next 1800 years, this device grew in popularity, and was always being updated and improved. By 1877, with the invention of electicity, zoetropes could be turned by machines, so that a human's hand--which was used to hand-crank the machine--would not get tired. This also allowed longer paper with more images. But then, in 1892, a Frenchman named Charles-Émile Reynaud invented modern animation. Reynaud researched what went into making a motion-picture film, which at the time was still revolutionary technology. He realized that all it took was several images flowing onto a screen at a rapid pace, and decided to make a motion picture of his own--using animation. His first film used only 12 frames--pictures--and ran for less than one second.

<--One of the frames used in the first animated film of all time.

The movie was released in 1906, and paved the way for modern animation. At this time, a young man named Walt Disney was five years old, and when he saw the film, he decided to become an animator when he grew up. He would become known as the most famous of them all.

STAY TUNED FOR PART 2!