Misplaced Pages

#720279

126-487: Robin Robin is a 2021 stop-motion animated musical short film produced by Aardman Animations , created and directed by Dan Ojari and Mikey Please , and written by Ojari, Please, and Sam Morrison. When a robin grows up raised by a family of mice, her differences become more apparent every time they try to sneak into a Who-Man 's house. Now, she sets off on a daring heist to steal a shiny star and to prove to her family, and

252-473: A Guinea for which Bryant & May would supply soldiers with sufficient matches. No archival records are known that could proof that the film was indeed created in 1899 during the beginning of the Second Boer War . Others place it at 1914, during the beginning of World War I . Cooper created more Animated Matches scenes in the same setting. These are believed to also have been produced in 1899, while

378-451: A 'telephone.' ( Robert Hooke , in his Micrographia , published in 1667, writes: 'I can assure the reader that I have, by the help of a distended wire, propagated the sound to a very considerable distance in an instant, or with as seemingly quick a motion as that of light.' Nor was it essential the wire should be straight; it might be bent into angles. This property is the basis of the mechanical or lover's telephone, said to have been known to

504-473: A big impression in Paris, where it was released as L'hôtel hanté: fantasmagorie épouvantable . When Gaumont bought a copy to further distribute the film, it was carefully studied by some of their filmmakers to find out how it was made. Reportedly it was newcomer Émile Cohl who unraveled the mystery. Not long after, Cohl released his first film, Japon de fantaisie (June 1907), featuring his own imaginative use of

630-491: A combination of the fantascope and Wheatstone's stereoscope . Plateau thought the construction of a sequential set of stereoscopic image pairs would be the more difficult part of the plan than adapting two copies of his improved fantascope to be fitted with a stereoscope. Wheatstone had suggested using photographs on paper of a solid object, for instance a statuette. Plateau concluded that for this purpose 16 plaster models could be made with 16 regular modifications. He believed such

756-453: A comicbook, “Deadrock,” yet to be published, a TV series pilot, called “Alan the Infinite,” whose trailer can be seen here, and “Robin Robin.” “It started out just as an idea of a bird raised by some mice — a Christmas thing with a few ingredients — and then we just worked it up, mostly in one evening, into a one pager. It was like a treatment at that point”. In March 2021, Aardman Animation made

882-406: A complete failure, due to his abhorrence of public speaking. In the rostrum he was tongue-tied and incapable, sometimes turning his back on the audience and mumbling to the diagrams on the wall. In the laboratory he felt himself at home, and ever after confined his duties mostly to demonstration. He achieved renown by a great experiment made in 1834 – the measurement of the velocity of electricity in

1008-440: A dingy little room, lit by a tallow candle, near the booking-office at Euston. Wheatstone sent the first message, to which Cooke replied: and "never" said Wheatstone, "did I feel such a tumultuous sensation before, as when, all alone in the still room, I heard the needles click, and as I spelled the words, I felt all the magnitude of the invention pronounced to be practicable beyond cavil or dispute." In spite of this trial, however,

1134-447: A distance by means of an electric contact made by the mercury. A sound telegraph, in which the signals were given by the strokes of a bell, was also patented by Cooke and Wheatstone in May of that year. Wheatstone's remarkable ingenuity was also displayed in the invention of ciphers. He was responsible for the then unusual Playfair cipher , named after his friend Lord Playfair . It was used by

1260-406: A distance, Wheatstone devised a simple instrument for augmenting feeble sounds, to which he gave the name of 'Microphone.' It consisted of two slender rods, which conveyed the mechanical vibrations to both ears, and is quite different from the electrical microphone of Professor Hughes. In 1823, his uncle, the musical instrument maker, died, and Wheatstone, with his elder brother, William, took over

1386-498: A family of five young children to his care. His domestic life was quiet and uneventful. Though silent and reserved in public, Wheatstone was a clear and voluble talker in private, if taken on his favourite studies, and his small but active person, his plain but intelligent countenance, was full of animation. Sir Henry Taylor tells us that he once observed Wheatstone at an evening party in Oxford earnestly holding forth to Lord Palmerston on

SECTION 10

#1732895270721

1512-596: A feature animated film with a technique other than cel animation was produced in the US. The first was the stop motion adaptation of 19th century composer Engelbert Humperdinck 's opera Hänsel und Gretel as Hansel and Gretel: An Opera Fantasy . In 1955, Karel Zeman made his first feature film Journey to the Beginning of Time inspired by Jules Verne , featuring stop motion animation of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. Art Clokey started his adventures in clay with

1638-546: A freeform clay short film called Gumbasia (1955), which shortly thereafter propelled him into the production of his more structured TV series Gumby (1955–1989), with the iconic titular character. In partnership with the United Lutheran Church in America , he also produced Davey and Goliath (1960–2004). The theatrical feature Gumby: The Movie (1992, released in 1995) was a box-office bomb . On 22 November 1959,

1764-573: A large close-up view of a table being set by itself baffled viewers; there were no visible wires or other noticeable well-known tricks. This inspired other filmmakers, including French animator Émile Cohl and Segundo de Chomón. De Chomón would release the similar The House of Ghosts ( La maison ensorcelée ) and Hôtel électrique in 1908, with the latter also containing some very early pixelation. The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1908, considered lost) by Blackton and his British-American Vitagraph partner Albert E. Smith showed an animated performance of

1890-400: A licensing deal with both MacMillan Children's Books and Aurora World for tie-in books and plush toys, respectively. Stop-motion The term "stop motion", relating to the animation technique, is often spelled with a hyphen as "stop-motion"—either standalone or as a compound modifier . Both orthographical variants, with and without the hyphen, are correct, but the hyphenated one has

2016-441: A maker and seller of musical instruments at 436 Strand, London; but he showed little taste for handicraft or business, and loved better to study books. His father encouraged him in this, and finally took him out of the uncle's charge. At the age of fifteen, Wheatstone translated French poetry, and wrote two songs, one of which was given to his uncle, who published it without knowing it as his nephew's composition. Some lines of his on

2142-449: A malicious cat, that she can be a really good mouse. In November 2019, Aardman Animations and Netflix announced they would co-produce the half-hour stop-motion animated musical special Robin Robin , directed by Dan Ojari and Mikey Please from a script written by Ojari, Please, and Sam Morrison and Sarah Cox producing the special. In December 2020, Bronte Carmichael, Richard E Grant , Gillian Anderson , and Adeel Akhtar were cast in

2268-399: A method of sticking needles in a stroboscopic disc so that it looked like one needle was being pushed in and out of the cardboard when animated. He realized that this method provided basically endless possibilities to make different 3D animations. He then introduced two methods to animate stereoscopic pairs of images, one was basically a stereo viewer using two stroboscopic discs and the other

2394-572: A minute; I'll just telegraph to the Governor-General, and let you know.' Wheatstone was knighted in 1868, after his completion of the automatic telegraph. He had previously been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour . Some thirty-four distinctions and diplomas of home or foreign societies bore witness to his scientific reputation. Since 1836 he had been a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1859 he

2520-473: A number of local timepieces. The circuits of these were to be electrified by a key or contact-maker actuated by the arbour of the standard, and their hands corrected by electro-magnetism. The following January Alexander Bain took out a patent for an electro-magnetic clock, and he subsequently charged Wheatstone with appropriating his ideas. It appears that Bain worked as a mechanist to Wheatstone from August to December 1840, and he asserted that he had communicated

2646-767: A presentation of the complete dance with a home cinema projector. Later on, he bought a movie camera and between 1906 and 1909 he made many short films, including puppet animations. As a dancer and choreographer, Shiryaev had a special talent to create motion in his animated films. According to animator Peter Lord his work was decades ahead of its time. Part of Shiryaev's animation work is featured in Viktor Bocharov's documentary Alexander Shiryaev: A Belated Premiere (2003). Polish-Russian Ladislas Starevich (1882–1965), started his film career around 1909 in Kaunas filming live insects. He wanted to document rutting stag beetles , but

SECTION 20

#1732895270721

2772-439: A project would take much time and careful effort, but would be well worth it because of the expected marvelous results. The plan was never executed, possibly because Plateau was almost completely blind by this time. In 1852, Jules Duboscq patented a "Stéréoscope-fantascope ou Bïoscope" (or abbreviated as stéréofantascope) stroboscopic disc . The only known extant disc contains stereoscopic photograph pairs of different phases of

2898-452: A release date of 1908 has also been given. The 1908 Animated Matches film by Émile Cohl may have caused more confusion about the release dates of Cooper's matchstick animations. It also raises the question whether Cohl may have been inspired by Melbourne-Cooper or vice versa. Melbourne-Cooper's lost films Dolly’s Toys (1901) and The Enchanted Toymaker (1904) may have included stop-motion animation. Dreams of Toyland (1908) features

3024-687: A rendition of the legend of the German scholar . Švankmajer's work has been highly influential on other artists, such as Terry Gilliam and the Quay brothers (although the latter claim to have only discovered Švankmajer's films after having developed their own similar style). French animator Serge Danot created The Magic Roundabout (1965) which played for many years on the BBC . Charles Wheatstone Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS FRSE ( / ˈ w iː t s t ə n / ; 6 February 1802 – 19 October 1875),

3150-415: A scene with many animated toys that lasts approximately three and a half minutes. As a means to plan his performances, ballet dancer and choreographer Alexander Shiryaev started making approximately 20- to 25-centimeter-tall puppets out of papier-mâché on poseable wire frames. He then sketched all the sequential movements on paper. When he arranged these vertically on a long strip, it was possible to give

3276-428: A second meaning that is unrelated to animation or cinema: "a device for automatically stopping a machine or engine when something has gone wrong". Before the advent of chronophotography in 1878, a small number of picture sequences were photographed with subjects in separate poses. These can now be regarded as a form of stop motion or pixilation, but very few results were meant to be animated. Until celluloid film base

3402-519: A sitting old lady. American film pioneer Edwin S. Porter filmed a single-shot "lightning sculpting" film with a baker molding faces from a patch of dough in Fun in a Bakery Shop (1902), considered as foreshadowing of clay animation. In 1905, Porter showed animated letters and very simple cutout animation of two hands in the intertitles in How Jones Lost His Roll . Porter experimented with

3528-476: A small bit of crude stop-motion animation in his trick film Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906). The "Teddy" Bears (2 March 1907), made in collaboration with Wallace McCutcheon Sr. , mainly shows people in bear costumes, but the short film also features a short stop-motion segment with small teddy bears. On 15 February 1908, Porter released the trick film A Sculptor's Welsh Rabbit Dream that featured clay molding itself into three complete busts. No copy of

3654-594: A speed of 600 words a minute, and even of 400 words a minute between London and Aberdeen. On the night of 8 April 1886, when Gladstone introduced his Bill for Home Rule in Ireland , no fewer than 1,500,000 words were dispatched from the central station at St. Martin's-le-Grand by 100 Wheatstone transmitters. The plan of sending messages by a running strip of paper which actuates the key was originally patented by Alexander Bain in 1846; but Wheatstone, aided by Augustus Stroh, an accomplished mechanician, and an able experimenter,

3780-667: A string of Academy Award for Best Animated Short Films , including Rhythm in the Ranks (1941), Tulips Shall Grow (1942), Jasper and the Haunted House (1942), the Dr. Seuss penned The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943) and And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1944), Jasper and the Beanstalk (1945), John Henry and the Inky-Poo (1946), Jasper in a Jam (1946), and Tubby

3906-646: A visit from William Cooke at his house in Conduit Street on 27 February 1837, which had an important influence on his future. Cooke was an officer in the Madras Army , who, being home on leave, was attending some lectures on anatomy at the University of Heidelberg , where, on 6 March 1836, he witnessed a demonstration with the telegraph of professor Georg Munke , and was so impressed with its importance, that he forsook his medical studies and devoted all his efforts to

Robin Robin - Misplaced Pages Continue

4032-429: A window looks as if it were growing inside the room. Its purpose was to test his theory of stereo vision and for investigations into what would now be called experimental psychology. In 1840, Wheatstone introduced his chronoscope, for measuring minute intervals of time, which was used in determining the speed of a bullet or the passage of a star. In this apparatus an electric current actuated an electro-magnet, which noted

4158-413: A wire. He cut the wire at the middle, to form a gap which a spark might leap across, and connected its ends to the poles of a Leyden jar filled with electricity. Three sparks were thus produced, one at each end of the wire, and another at the middle. He mounted a tiny mirror on the works of a watch, so that it revolved at a high velocity, and observed the reflections of his three sparks in it. The points of

4284-637: A year later. Although the films and her technique received much attention of the press, it seems she did not continue making films after she returned to New York from managing a YMCA in Paris around 1918. None of her films have yet surfaced, but the extant magazine articles have provided several stills and approximately 20 poorly printed frames from two film strips. By 1920 Starewicz had settled in Paris, and started making new stop motion films. Dans les Griffes de L'araignée (finished 1920, released 1924) featured detailed hand-made insect puppets that could convey facial expressions with moving lips and eyelids. One of

4410-548: Is Snip and Snap (1960-1961) by John Halas in collaboration with Danish paper sculptor Thok Søndergaard (Thoki Yenn), featuring dog Snap, cut from a sheet of paper by pair of scissors Snip. Apart from their cutout animation series, British studio Smallfilms ( Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate ) produced several stop motion series with puppets, beginning with Pingwings (1961-1965) featuring penguin-like birds knitted by Peter's wife Joan and filmed on their farm (where most of their productions were filmed in an unused barn). It

4536-418: Is also incomplete and often insufficient to properly date all extant films or even identify them if original titles are missing. Possible stop motion in lost films is even harder to trace. The principles of animation and other special effects were mostly kept a secret, not only to prevent use of such techniques by competitors, but also to keep audiences interested in the mystery of the magic tricks. Stop motion

4662-635: Is another of his inventions, which gained a prize medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851. He also improved the speaking machine of De Kempelen , and endorsed the opinion of Sir David Brewster , that before the end of this century a singing and talking apparatus would be among the conquests of science. In 1834, Wheatstone, who had won a name for himself, was appointed to the Chair of Experimental Physics in King's College London . His first course of lectures on sound were

4788-425: Is closely related to the stop trick , in which the camera is temporarily stopped during the recording of a scene to create a change before filming is continued (or for which the cause of the change is edited out of the film). In the resulting film, the change will be sudden and a logical cause of the change will be mysteriously absent or replaced with a fake cause that is suggested in the scene. The oldest known example

4914-545: Is propagated by waves or oscillations of the atmosphere, as light was then believed to be by undulations of the luminiferous ether . Water, and solid bodies, such as glass, or metal, or sonorous wood, convey the modulations with high velocity, and he conceived the plan of transmitting sound-signals, music, or speech to long distances by this means. He estimated that sound would travel 200 miles per second (320  km/s ) through solid rods, and proposed to telegraph from London to Edinburgh in this way. He even called his arrangement

5040-477: Is used for the beheading in Edison Manufacturing Company 's 1895 film The Execution of Mary Stuart . The technique of stop motion can be interpreted as repeatedly applying the stop trick. In 1917, clay animation pioneer Helena Smith-Dayton referred to the principle behind her work as "stop action", a synonym of "stop motion". French trick film pioneer Georges Méliès claimed to have invented

5166-547: Is used to measure an unknown electrical resistance, and as a major figure in the development of telegraphy . Charles Wheatstone was born in Barnwood , Gloucestershire. His father, W. Wheatstone, was a music-seller in the town, who moved to 128 Pall Mall, London, four years later, becoming a teacher of the flute. Charles, the second son, went to a village school, near Gloucester, and afterwards to several institutions in London. One of them

Robin Robin - Misplaced Pages Continue

5292-417: The 1862 International Exhibition in London. Desvignes "employed models, insects and other objects, instead of pictures, with perfect success". In 1874, Jules Janssen made several practice discs for the recording of the passage of Venus with his series Passage de Vénus with his photographic revolver . He used a model of the planet and a light source standing in for the sun. While actual recordings of

5418-437: The lyre became the motto of an engraving by Bartolozzi . He often visited an old book-stall in the vicinity of Pall Mall , which was then a dilapidated and unpaved thoroughfare. Most of his pocket-money was spent in purchasing the books which had taken his fancy, whether fairy tales, history, or science. One day, to the surprise of the bookseller, he coveted a volume on the discoveries of Volta in electricity, but not having

5544-534: The speed of light . Wheatstone and others also contributed to early spectroscopy through the discovery and exploitation of spectral emission lines. As John Munro wrote in 1891, "In 1835, at the Dublin meeting of the British Association, Wheatstone showed that when metals were volatilised in the electric spark, their light, examined through a prism, revealed certain rays which were characteristic of them. Thus

5670-421: The stereoscope . He showed that our impression of solidity is gained by the combination in the mind of two separate pictures of an object taken by both of our eyes from different points of view. Thus, in the stereoscope, an arrangement of lenses or mirrors, two photographs of the same object taken from different points are so combined as to make the object stand out with a solid aspect. Sir David Brewster improved

5796-411: The "velocity" of electricity was dependent on the properties of the conductor and its surroundings. Francis Ronalds had observed signal retardation in his buried electric telegraph cable (but not his airborne line) in 1816 and outlined its cause to be induction. Wheatstone witnessed these experiments as a youth, which were apparently a stimulus for his own research in telegraphy. Decades later, after

5922-733: The 'Enchanted Lyre,' or 'Acoucryptophone,' at a music shop at Pall Mall and in the Adelaide Gallery. It consisted of a mimic lyre hung from the ceiling by a cord, and emitting the strains of several instruments – the piano, harp , and dulcimer . In reality it was a mere sounding box, and the cord was a steel rod that conveyed the vibrations of the music from the several instruments which were played out of sight and ear-shot. At this period Wheatstone made numerous experiments on sound and its transmission. Some of his results are preserved in Thomson's Annals of Philosophy for 1823. He recognised that sound

6048-603: The 10-minute The Beautiful Leukanida (Прекрасная Люканида, или Война усачей с рогачами) (March 1912), the two-minute Happy Scenes from Animal Life (Веселые сценки из жизни животных), the 12-minute The Cameraman's Revenge (Прекрасная Люканида, или Война усачей с рогачами, October 1912) and the 5-minute The Grasshopper and the Ant (Стрекоза и муравей, 1913). Reportedly many viewers were impressed with how much could be achieved with trained insects, or at least wondered what tricks could have been used, since few people were familiar with

6174-634: The 24th in North America. On 17 June 2021, the official trailer was released confirming the release date. The short was part of the world touring screening The Animation Showcase 2021. It was nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 94th Academy Awards . It was also nominated for Animation at the British Academy Children's Awards 2022 and at the 53rd NAACP Image Awards for Best Short-Form (Animated). In an interview with Variety, Micky quoted “We are currently working on more stories in

6300-758: The Chinese many centuries ago. Hooke also considered the possibility of finding a way to quicken our powers of hearing.) A writer in the Repository of Arts for 1 September 1821, in referring to the 'Enchanted Lyre,' beholds the prospect of an opera being performed at the King's Theatre, and enjoyed at the Hanover Square Rooms , or even at the Horns Tavern, Kennington. The vibrations are to travel through underground conductors, like to gas in pipes. Besides transmitting sounds to

6426-520: The Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy (1915). Apart from the titular dinosaur and " missing link " ape, it featured several cavemen and an ostrich-like "desert quail", all relatively lifelike models made with clay. This led to a series of short animated comedies with a prehistoric theme for Edison Company, including Prehistoric Poultry (1916), R.F.D. 10,000 B.C. (1917), The Birth of a Flivver (1917) and Curious Pets of Our Ancestors (1917). O'Brien

SECTION 50

#1732895270721

6552-640: The Railway Committee of the House of Commons on the feasibility of the proposed line from Dover to Calais . He had even designed the machinery for making and laying the cable. In the autumn of 1844, with the assistance of J. D. Llewellyn, he submerged a length of insulated wire in Swansea Bay , and signalled through it from a boat to the Mumbles Lighthouse . Next year he suggested the use of gutta-percha for

6678-534: The Royal Society, claiming it was his own invention. However, Bain had already applied for a patent for it. Wheatstone tried to block Bain's patents, but failed. When Wheatstone organised an Act of Parliament to set up the Electric Telegraph Company, the House of Lords summoned Bain to give evidence, and eventually compelled the company to pay Bain £10,000 and give him a job as manager, causing Wheatstone to resign. One of Wheatstone's most ingenious devices

6804-669: The Tuba (1947). Many of his puppetoon films were selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry . Willis O' Brien's expressive and emotionally convincing animation of the big ape in King Kong (1933) is widely regarded as a milestone in stop-motion animation and a highlight of Hollywood cinema in general. A 1940 promotional film for Autolite , an automotive parts supplier, featured stop-motion animation of its products marching past Autolite factories to

6930-718: The autumn of 1875, and engaged in perfecting his receiving instrument for submarine cables, he caught a cold, which produced inflammation of the lungs , an illness from which he died in Paris, on 19 October 1875 aged 73. A memorial service was held in the Anglican Chapel, Paris, and attended by a deputation of the academy. His remains were taken to his home in Park Crescent, London, (marked by a blue plaque today) and buried in Kensal Green Cemetery . In September 1821, Wheatstone brought himself into public notice by exhibiting

7056-559: The business. Charles had no great liking for the commercial part, but his ingenuity found a vent in making improvements on the existing instruments, and in devising philosophical toys. He also invented instruments of his own. One of the most famous was the Wheatstone concertina . It was a six sided instrument with 64 keys, logically arranged for simple chromatic fingerings. The English concertina became increasingly famous throughout his lifetime, however it didn't reach its peak of popularity until

7182-472: The calculation of currents and resistances by the law of Ohm . He introduced a unit of resistance, namely, a foot of copper wire weighing one hundred grains (6.5 g), and showed how it might be applied to measure the length of wire by its resistance. He was awarded a medal for his paper by the Society. The same year he invented an apparatus which enabled the reading of a thermometer or a barometer to be registered at

7308-576: The capabilities of his telegraph. 'You don't say so!' exclaimed the statesman. 'I must get you to tell that to the Lord Chancellor .' And so saying, he fastened the electrician on Lord Westbury , and effected his escape. A reminiscence of this interview may have prompted Palmerston to remark that a time was coming when a minister might be asked in Parliament if war had broken out in India, and would reply, 'Wait

7434-485: The coating of the intended wire across the English Channel . In 1840 Wheatstone had patented an alphabetical telegraph, or, 'Wheatstone A B C instrument,' which moved with a step-by-step motion, and showed the letters of the message upon a dial. The same principle was used in his type-printing telegraph, patented in 1841. This was the first apparatus which printed a telegram in type. It was worked by two circuits, and as

7560-645: The creatures wouldn't cooperate or would even die under the bright lamps needed for filming. He solved the problem by using wire for the limbs of dried beetles and then animating them in stop motion. The resulting short film, presumably 1 minute long, was probably titled by the Latin name for the species: Lucanus Cervus (Жук-олень, 1910, considered lost). After moving to Moscow, Starevich continued animating dead insects, but now as characters in imaginative stories with much dramatic complexity. He garnered much attention and international acclaim with these short films, including

7686-491: The credit of having introduced the telegraph as a useful undertaking which promised to be of national importance, and to Wheatstone that of having by his researches prepared the public to receive it. They concluded with the words: 'It is to the united labours of two gentlemen so well qualified for mutual assistance that we must attribute the rapid progress which this important invention has made during five years since they have been associated.' The decision, however vague, pronounces

SECTION 60

#1732895270721

7812-413: The credit of them. The public took to the new invention after the capture of the murderer John Tawell , who in 1845, had become the first person to be arrested as the result of telecommunications technology. In the same year, Wheatstone introduced two improved forms of the apparatus, namely, the 'single' and the 'double' needle instruments, in which the signals were made by the successive deflections of

7938-533: The directors of the railway treated the 'new-fangled' invention with indifference, and requested its removal. In July 1839, however, it was favoured by the Great Western Railway , and a line erected from the Paddington station terminus to West Drayton railway station , a distance of thirteen miles (21 km). Part of the wire was laid underground at first, but subsequently all of it was raised on posts along

8064-1031: The earliest clay animation films was Modelling Extraordinary , which impressed audiences in 1912. The early Italian feature film Cabiria (1914) featured some stop motion techniques. Starewicz finished the first feature stop motion film Le Roman de Renard (The Tale of the Fox) in 1930, but problems with its soundtrack delayed its release. In 1937 it was released with a German soundtrack and in 1941 with its French soundtrack. Hungarian-American filmmaker George Pal developed his own stop motion technique of replacing wooden dolls (or parts of them) with similar figures displaying changed poses and/or expressions. He called it Pal-Doll and used it for his Puppetoons films since 1932. The particular replacement animation method itself also became better known as puppetoon . In Europe he mainly worked on promotional films for companies such as Philips . Later Pal gained much success in Hollywood with

8190-480: The early 20th century. In 1827, Wheatstone introduced his ' kaleidophone ', a device for rendering the vibrations of a sounding body apparent to the eye. It consists of a metal rod, carrying at its end a silvered bead, which reflects a 'spot' of light. As the rod vibrates the spot is seen to describe complicated figures in the air, like a spark whirled about in the darkness. His photometer was probably suggested by this appliance. It enables two lights to be compared by

8316-480: The figures from a popular wooden toy set. Smith would later claim that this was "the first stop-motion picture in America". The inspiration would have come from seeing how puffs of smoke behaved in the interrupted recordings for a stop trick film they were making. Smith would have suggested to get a patent for the technique, but Blackton thought it wasn't that important. Smith's recollections are not considered to be very reliable. Blackton's The Haunted Hotel made

8442-563: The film Mighty Joe Young (1949). Harryhausen would go on to create many memorable stop motion effects for a string of successful fantasy films over the next three decades. These included The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) and Clash of the Titans (1981). It wasn't until 1954 before

8568-453: The film has yet been located. It was soon followed by the similar extant film The Sculptor's Nightmare (6 May 1908) by Wallace McCutcheon Sr. J. Stuart Blackton 's The Haunted Hotel (23 February 1907) featured a combination of live-action with practical special effects and stop motion animation of several objects, a puppet and a model of the haunted hotel. It was the first stop motion film to receive wide scale appreciation. Especially

8694-484: The first episode of Unser Sandmänchen (Our Little Sandman) was broadcast on DFF (East German television) . The 10-minute daily bedtime show for young children features the title character as an animated puppet, and other puppets in different segments. A very similar Sandmänchen series, possibly conceived earlier, ran on West German television from 1 December 1959 until the German reunification in 1989. The East German show

8820-522: The horizon, could be determined, and the apparent solar time obtained. The clock consisted of a spyglass, having a Nicol (double-image) prism for an eyepiece, and a thin plate of selenite for an object-glass. When the tube was directed to the North Pole—that is, parallel to the Earth's axis—and the prism of the eyepiece turned until no colour was seen, the angle of turning, as shown by an index moving with

8946-451: The horses passed the winning-post. In 1841 a difference arose between Cooke and Wheatstone as to the share of each in the honour of inventing the telegraph. The question was submitted to the arbitration of the famous engineer, Marc Isambard Brunel , on behalf of Cooke, and Professor Daniell , of King's College, the inventor of the Daniell cell , on the part of Wheatstone. They awarded to Cooke

9072-791: The idea of an electric clock to Wheatstone during that period; but Wheatstone maintained that he had experimented in that direction during May. Bain further accused Wheatstone of stealing his idea of the electro-magnetic printing telegraph; but Wheatstone showed that the instrument was only a modification of his own electro-magnetic telegraph. In 1840, Alexander Bain mentioned to the Mechanics Magazine editor his financial problems. The editor introduced him to Sir Charles Wheatstone. Bain demonstrated his models to Wheatstone, who, when asked for his opinion, said "Oh, I shouldn't bother to develop these things any further! There's no future in them." Three months later Wheatstone demonstrated an electric clock to

9198-415: The instant of an occurrence by means of a pencil on a moving paper. It is said to have been capable of distinguishing 1/7300 part of a second (137 microsecond), and the time a body took to fall from a height of one inch (25 mm). On 26 November 1840, he exhibited his electro-magnetic clock in the library of the Royal Society, and propounded a plan for distributing the correct time from a standard clock to

9324-457: The kind of metals which formed the sparking points could be determined by analysing the light of the spark. This suggestion has been of great service in spectrum analysis, and as applied by Robert Bunsen , Gustav Robert Kirchhoff , and others, has led to the discovery of several new elements, such as rubidium and thallium , as well as increasing our knowledge of the heavenly bodies." Wheatstone abandoned his idea of transmitting intelligence by

9450-490: The line. Their circuit was eventually extended to Slough in 1841, and was publicly exhibited at Paddington as a marvel of science, which could transmit fifty signals a distance of 280,000 miles per minute (7,500 km/s). The price of admission was a shilling (£0.05), and in 1844 one fascinated observer recorded the following: It is perfect from the terminus of the Great Western as far as Slough – that is, eighteen miles;

9576-528: The mechanical vibration of rods, and took up the electric telegraph . In 1835 he lectured on the system of Baron Schilling , and declared that the means were already known by which an electric telegraph could be made of great service to the world. He made experiments with a plan of his own, and not only proposed to lay an experimental line across the Thames, but to establish it on the London and Birmingham Railway. Before these plans were carried out, however, he received

9702-417: The messages it brings, so that if no-one attended to the bell,....the message would not be lost. This is effected by the electrical fluid causing a little hammer to strike the letter which presents itself, the letter which is raised hits some manifold writing paper (a new invention, black paper which, if pressed, leaves an indelible black mark), by which means the impression is left on white paper beneath. This

9828-460: The method would not act, and produced his own experimental telegraph. Finally, Cooke proposed that they should enter into a partnership, but Wheatstone was at first reluctant to comply. He was a well-known man of science, and had meant to publish his results without seeking to make capital of them. Cooke, on the other hand, declared that his sole object was to make a fortune from the scheme. In May they agreed to join their forces, Wheatstone contributing

9954-510: The militaries of several nations through at least World War I, and is known to have been used during World War II by British intelligence services. It was initially resistant to cryptanalysis , but methods were eventually developed to break it. He also became involved in the interpretation of cipher manuscripts in the British Museum. He devised a cryptograph or machine for turning a message into cipher which could only be interpreted by putting

10080-441: The more than 300 short films produced between 1896 and 1915 by British film pioneer Arthur Melbourne-Cooper , an estimated 36 contained forms of animation. Based on later reports by Melbourne-Cooper and by his daughter Audrey Wadowska, some believe that Cooper's Matches: an Appeal was produced in 1899 and therefore the first stop-motion animation. The extant black-and-white film shows a matchstick figure writing an appeal to donate

10206-425: The motion of a machine. Due to the long exposure times necessary to capture an image with the photographic emulsions of the period, the sequence could not be recorded live and must have been assembled from separate photographs of the various positions of the machinery. In 1855, Johann Nepomuk Czermak published an article about his Stereophoroskop and other experiments aimed at stereoscopic moving images. He mentioned

10332-423: The needle telegraph a joint production. If it had mainly been invented by Wheatstone, it was chiefly introduced by Cooke. Their respective shares in the undertaking might be compared to that of an author and his publisher, but for the fact that Cooke himself had a share in the actual work of invention. From 1836 to 1837 Wheatstone had thought a good deal about submarine telegraphs, and in 1840 he gave evidence before

10458-618: The needles towards it. An experimental line, with a sixth return wire, was run between the Euston terminus and Camden Town station of the London and North Western Railway on 25 July 1837. The actual distance was only one and a half-miles (2.4 km), but spare wire had been inserted in the circuit to increase its length. It was late in the evening before the trial took place. Cooke was in charge at Camden Town, while Robert Stephenson and other gentlemen looked on; and Wheatstone sat at his instrument in

10584-508: The needles. Of these, the single-needle instrument, requiring only one wire, is still in use. The development of the telegraph may be gathered from two facts. In 1855, the death of the Emperor Nicholas at St. Petersburg , about one o'clock in the afternoon, was announced in the House of Lords a few hours later. The result of The Oaks of 1890 was received in New York fifteen seconds after

10710-914: The official selection of the 1946 Cannes Film Festival . The first Belgian animated feature was an adaptation of the Tintin comic The Crab with the Golden Claws (1947) with animated puppets. The first Czech animated feature was the package film The Czech Year (1947) with animated puppets by Jiří Trnka . The film won several awards at the Venice Film Festival and other international festivals. Trnka would make several more award-winning stop motion features including The Emperor's Nightingale (1949), Prince Bayaya (1950), Old Czech Legends (1953) or A Midsummer Night's Dream (1959). He also directed many short films and experimented with other forms of animation. Ray Harryhausen learned under O'Brien on

10836-407: The other was applied to the line by means of the key, the current deflected the needle to one side or the other. There were five separate circuits actuating five different needles. The latter were pivoted in rows across the middle of a dial shaped like a diamond, and having the letters of the alphabet arranged upon it in such a way that a letter was literally pointed out by the current deflecting two of

10962-548: The passage of Venus have not been located, some practice discs survived and the images of one were turned into a short animated film decades after the development of cinematography . In 1887, Étienne-Jules Marey created a large zoetrope with a series of plaster models based on his chronophotographs of birds in flight. It is estimated that 80 to 90 percent of all silent films are lost. Extant contemporary movie catalogs, reviews and other documentation can provide some details on lost films, but this kind of written documentation

11088-476: The price, he saved his pennies and secured the volume. It was written in French, and so he was obliged to save again, until he could buy a dictionary. Then he began to read the volume, and, with the help of his elder brother, William, to repeat the experiments described in it, with a home-made battery, in the scullery behind his father's house. In constructing the battery, the boy philosophers ran short of money to procure

11214-539: The prism over a graduated limb, gave the hour of day. The device is of little service in a country where watches are reliable; but it formed part of the equipment of the 1875–1876 North Polar expedition commanded by Captain Nares. In 1843 Wheatstone communicated an important paper to the Royal Society, entitled 'An Account of Several New Processes for Determining the Constants of a Voltaic Circuit.' It contained an exposition of

11340-510: The relative brightness of their reflections in a silvered bead, which describes a narrow ellipse, so as to draw the spots into parallel lines. In 1828, Wheatstone improved the German wind instrument, called the Mundharmonika , creating the symphonium (or symphonion ), a mouth-blown free-reed instrument with a logical layout of button keys, patented on 19 December 1829, prefiguring the bellows-blown English concertina. The portable harmonium

11466-426: The requisite copper-plates. They had only a few copper coins left. A happy thought occurred to Charles, who was the leading spirit in these researches, 'We must use the pennies themselves,' said he, and the battery was soon complete. At Christchurch, Marylebone , on 12 February 1847, Wheatstone was married to Emma West. She was the daughter of a Taunton tradesman, and of handsome appearance. She died in 1866, leaving

11592-399: The scientific, and Cooke the administrative talent. The deed of partnership was dated 19 November 1837. A joint patent was taken out for their inventions, including the five-needle telegraph of Wheatstone, and an alarm worked by a relay, in which the current, by dipping a needle into mercury, completed a local circuit, and released the detent of a clockwork. The five-needle telegraph, which

11718-407: The secrets of stop motion animation. The Insects' Christmas (Рождество обитателей леса, 1913) featured other animated puppets, including Father Christmas and a frog. Starevich made several other stop motion films in the next two years, but mainly went on to direct live-action short and feature films before he fled from Russia in 1918. Willis O' Brien 's first stop motion film was The Dinosaur and

11844-558: The signals of the message are first punched out on a strip of paper ( punched tape ), which is then passed through the sending-key, and controls the signal currents. By substituting a mechanism for the hand in sending the message, he was able to telegraph about 100 words a minute, or five times the ordinary rate. In the Postal Telegraph service this apparatus is employed for sending Press telegrams, and it has recently been so much improved, that messages are now sent from London to Bristol at

11970-592: The special. In November 2019, it was announced that filming would start in 2020 and is the first Aardman project to use needle felting instead of plasticine . In December 2020, The Bookshop Band was revealed as the composers with directors Dan Ojari and Mikey Please doing the lyrics for the songs. The orchestra was composed by the Bristol Ensemble. On 22 November 2019, the special was expected to be released in 2020. The special premiered on 27 November 2021 in Asia, and on

12096-453: The stereoscope by dispensing with the mirrors, and bringing it into its existing form with lenses. The ' pseudoscope ' (Wheatstone coined the term from the Greek ψευδίς σκοπειν) was introduced in 1852, and is in some sort the reverse of the stereoscope, since it causes a solid object to seem hollow, and a nearer one to be farther off; thus, a bust appears to be a mask, and a tree growing outside of

12222-526: The stop-motion technique. It was followed by the revolutionary hand-drawn Fantasmagorie (17 August 1908) and many more animated films by Cohl. Other notable stop-motion films by Cohl include Les allumettes animées (Animated Matches) (1908), and Mobilier fidèle (1910, in collaboration with Romeo Bosetti ). Mobilier fidèle is often confused with Bosetti's object animation tour de force Le garde-meubles automatique (The Automatic Moving Company) (1912). Both films feature furniture moving by itself. Of

12348-474: The stop-trick and popularized it by using it in many of his short films. He reportedly used stop-motion animation in 1899 to produce moving letterforms. Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón (1871–1929) made many trick films in France for Pathé . He has often been compared to Georges Méliès as he also made many fantasy films with stop tricks and other illusions (helped by his wife, Julienne Mathieu ). By 1906 Chomón

12474-645: The subject of the Atlantic cables, and in 1864 he was one of the experts who advised the Atlantic Telegraph Company on the construction of the successful lines of 1865 and 1866. In 1870 the electric telegraph lines of the United Kingdom, worked by different companies, were transferred to the Post Office, and placed under Government control. Wheatstone further invented the automatic transmitter , in which

12600-574: The syndicated television series The New Adventures of Pinocchio (1960-1961). The Christmas TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has been telecasted annually since 1964 and has become one of the most beloved holiday specials in the United States. They made three theatrical feature films Willy McBean and His Magic Machine (1965), The Daydreamer (1966, stop motion / live-action) and Mad Monster Party? (1966, released in 1967), and

12726-439: The telegraph had been commercialised, Michael Faraday described how the velocity of an electric field in a submarine wire, coated with insulator and surrounded with water, is only 144,000 miles per second (232,000 km/s), or still less. Wheatstone's device of the revolving mirror was afterwards employed by Léon Foucault and Hippolyte Fizeau to measure the relative speeds of light in air versus water , and later to measure

12852-446: The television special Ballad of Smokey the Bear (1966) before the collaboration ended. Rankin/Bass worked with other animators for more TV specials, with titles such as The Little Drummer Boy (1968), Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (1970) and Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971). British television has shown many stop motion series for young children since the 1960s. An early example

12978-408: The time, he had only to compare that with the length of half the wire, and he could find the velocity of electricity. His results gave a calculated velocity of 288,000 miles per second, i.e. faster than what we now know to be the speed of light (299,792.458 kilometres per second (186,000 mi/s)), but were nonetheless an interesting approximation. It was already appreciated by some scientists that

13104-493: The tune of Franz Schubert 's Military March . An abbreviated version of this sequence was later used in television ads for Autolite, especially those on the 1950s CBS program Suspense , which Autolite sponsored. The first British animated feature was the stop motion instruction film Handling Ships (1945) by Halas and Batchelor for the British Admiralty . It was not meant for general cinemas, but did become part of

13230-532: The type revolved a hammer, actuated by the current, pressed the required letter on the paper. The introduction of the telegraph had so far advanced that, on 2 September 1845, the Electric Telegraph Company was registered, and Wheatstone, by his deed of partnership with Cooke, received a sum of £33,000 for the use of their joint inventions. In 1859 Wheatstone was appointed by the Board of Trade to report on

13356-629: The war and stayed in China afterwards. Due to the scarcity of paint and film stock shortly after the war, Mochinaga decided to work with puppets and stop motion. His work helped popularize puppet animation in China, before he returned to Japan around 1953 where he continued working as animation director. In the 1960s, Mochinaga supervised the "Animagic" puppet animation for productions by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass ' Videocraft International, Ltd. (later called Rankin/Bass Productions , Inc.) and Dentsu , starting with

13482-567: The well known balance for measuring the electrical resistance of a conductor, which still goes by the name of Wheatstone's Bridge or balance, although it was first devised by Samuel Hunter Christie , of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, who published it in the Philosophical Transactions for 1833. The method was neglected until Wheatstone brought it into notice. His paper abounds with simple and practical formulae for

13608-415: The wire were so arranged that if the sparks were instantaneous, their reflections would appear in one straight line; but the middle one was seen to lag behind the others, because it was an instant later. The electricity had taken a certain time to travel from the ends of the wire to the middle. This time was found by measuring the amount of lag, and comparing it with the known velocity of the mirror. Having got

13734-557: The wires being in some places underground in tubes, and in others high up in the air, which last, he says, is by far the best plan. We asked if the weather did not affect the wires, but he said not; a violent thunderstorm might ring a bell, but no more. We were taken into a small room (we being Mrs Drummond , Miss Philips, Harry Codrington and myself – and afterwards the Milmans and Mr Rich) where were several wooden cases containing different sorts of telegraphs. In one sort every word

13860-602: The work of introducing the telegraph. He returned to London soon after, and was able to exhibit a telegraph with three needles in January 1837. Feeling his want of scientific knowledge, he consulted Michael Faraday and Peter Roget (then secretary of the Royal Society ): Roget sent him to Wheatstone. At a second interview, Cooke told Wheatstone of his intention to bring out a working telegraph, and explained his method. Wheatstone, according to his own statement, remarked to Cooke that

13986-446: The world of ‘Robin, Robin,’” Please tells Variety. “I think that’s all we’re allowed to say. But that would certainly be our hopes and dreams. We feel like there are loads more stories to tell in this world, so we’d love to do more.” Ojari explains. “We would come in some days and be like: What about this idea? And we had a sort of slate on the wall with 10 different ideas in different stages of development.” Of those, three moved forward:

14112-551: Was an English scientist and inventor of the Victorian era , his contributions including to the English concertina , the stereoscope (a device for displaying three-dimensional images), and the Playfair cipher (an encryption technique). However, Wheatstone is best known for his contributions in the development of the Wheatstone bridge , originally invented by Samuel Hunter Christie , which

14238-446: Was continued on other German networks when DFF ended in 1991, and is one of the longest running animated series in the world. The theatrical feature Das Sandmännchen – Abenteuer im Traumland (2010) was fully animated with stop motion puppets. Japanese puppet animator Tadahito Mochinaga started out as assistant animator in short anime (propaganda) films Arichan (1941) and Momotarō no Umiwashi (1943). He fled to Manchukuo during

14364-763: Was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences , and in 1873 a Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Sciences . The same year he was awarded the Ampere Medal by the French Society for the Encouragement of National Industry. In 1875 he was created an honorary member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was a D.C.L. of Oxford and an LL.D. of Cambridge. While on a visit to Paris during

14490-500: Was established in 1888 and set the standard for the moving image, animation could only be presented via mechanisms such as the zoetrope . In 1849, Joseph Plateau published a note about improvements for his Fantascope (a.k.a. phénakisticope ). A new translucent variation had improved picture quality and could be viewed with both eyes, by several people at the same time. Plateau stated that the illusion could be advanced even further with an idea communicated to him by Charles Wheatstone :

14616-650: Was followed by Pogles' Wood (1965-1967), Clangers (1969-1972, 1974, revived in 2015), Bagpuss (1974) and Tottie: The Story of a Doll's House (1984). Czech surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer 's released his short artistic films since 1964, which usually contain much experimental stop motion. He started to gain much international recognition in the 1980s. Since 1988 he has mostly been directing feature films which feature much more live action than stop motion. These include Alice , an adaptation of Lewis Carroll 's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , and Faust ,

14742-463: Was in Kennington , and kept by a Mrs. Castlemaine, who was astonished at his rapid progress. From another he ran away, but was captured at Windsor , not far from the theatre of his practical telegraph. As a boy he was very shy and sensitive, liking to retreat into an attic, without any other company than his own thoughts. When he was about fourteen years old he was apprenticed to his uncle and namesake,

14868-407: Was mainly, if not entirely, due to Wheatstone, was similar to that of Schilling, and based on the principle enunciated by Ampère – that is to say, the current was sent into the line by completing the circuit of the battery with a make and break key, and at the other end it passed through a coil of wire surrounding a magnetic needle free to turn round its centre. According as one pole of the battery or

14994-480: Was more or less similar to the later zoetrope . Czermak explained how suitable stereoscopic photographs could be made by recording a series of models, for instance to animate a growing pyramid. On 27 February 1860, Peter Hubert Desvignes received British patent no. 537 for 28 monocular and stereoscopic variations of cylindrical stroboscopic devices (much like the later zoetrope). Desvignes' Mimoscope , received an Honourable Mention "for ingenuity of construction" at

15120-559: Was recognized as a technique to create lifelike creatures for adventure films. O' Brien further pioneered the technique with animated dinosaur sequences for the live-action feature The Lost World (1925). New York artist Helena Smith Dayton , possibly the first female animator, had much success with her "Caricatypes" clay statuettes before she began experimenting with clay animation. Some of her first resulting short films were screened on 25 March 1917. She released an adaptation of William Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet approximately half

15246-399: Was spelt, and as each letter was placed in turn in a particular position, the machinery caused the electric fluid to run down the line, where it made the letter show itself at Slough, by what machinery he could not undertake to explain. After each word came a sign from Slough, signifying "I understand", coming certainly in less than one second from the end of the word......Another prints

15372-411: Was the 'Polar clock,' exhibited at the meeting of the British Association in 1848. It is based on the fact discovered by Sir David Brewster , that the light of the sky is polarised in a plane at an angle of ninety degrees from the position of the sun. It follows that by discovering that plane of polarisation, and measuring its azimuth with respect to the north, the position of the sun, although beneath

15498-528: Was the first to bring the idea into successful operation. This system is often referred to as the Wheatstone Perforator and is the forerunner of the stock market ticker tape . Stereopsis was first described by Wheatstone in 1838. In 1840 he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society for his explanation of binocular vision , a research which led him to make stereoscopic drawings and construct

15624-521: Was the most ingenious of all, and apparently Mr. Wheatstone's favourite; he was very good-natured in explaining but understands it so well himself that he cannot feel how little we know about it, and goes too fast for such ignorant folk to follow him in everything. Mrs Drummond told me he is wonderful for the rapidity with which he thinks and his power of invention; he invents so many things that he cannot put half his ideas into execution, but leaves them to be picked up and used by others, who get

15750-491: Was then hired by producer Herbert M. Dawley to direct, create effects, co-write and co-star with him for The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918). The collaborative film combined live-action with animated dinosaur models in a 45-minute film, but after the premiere it was cut down to approximately 12 minutes. Dawley did not give O'Brien credits for the visual effects, and instead claimed the animation process as his own invention and even applied for patents. O'Brien's stop motion work

15876-609: Was using stop motion animation. Le théâtre de Bob (April 1906) features over three minutes of stop motion animation with dolls and objects to represent a fictional automated theatre owned by Bob, played by a live-action child actor. It is the oldest extant film with proper stop motion and a definite release date. Segundo de Chomón 's Sculpteur moderne was released on 31 January 1908 and features heaps of clay molding itself into detailed sculptures that are capable of minor movements. The final sculpture depicts an old woman and walks around before it's picked up, squashed and molded back into

#720279