Animated Realism

CHAPTER 3

Personal Documentaries: John Canemaker

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 praxino-scope used mirrors to reflect drawings inside a revolving drum. Related to this is the traditional ...