Animation

The word animation comes from the Latin animare, to give life. Because ordinary film runs at 24 frames a second, an animator shifts a drawing or puppet slightly, photographs one frame, and repeats. Two-dimensional techniques include cel animation, in which drawings on clear celluloid sheets are laid over a background, and cut-out animation, in which cut-out figures are swapped in turn. Three-dimensional puppet animation, also called stop-motion, moves its figures in the same way, one frame at a time. Some makers use no camera and scratch or colour the film strip directly. Moving drawings are older than cinema: Émile Reynaud invented the Praxinoscope in 1877, adapted it for projection, and from 1892 showed it in Paris with more than 600 hand-painted colour pictures. Tate dates computer animation to the 1960s.

Pick a short stretch and watch which parts change from frame to frame and which stay put. In cel animation the drawn figures are laid over a background, so try to tell which is which.