Joseph Plateau

The theory of stop motion was first explored by the Greek philosopher, Euclid, however the first poneer of stop motion that I am going to mention is Joseph Plateau, the Belgian physicist and the device he created called the phenakistoscope. Although the phenakistoscope was one of the earlier devices to use this technique, there were actually ancient devices, created millennia ago which used the technique first, however these devices were ancient history mostly, and the phenakistoscope helped perfect the technique by making use of modern technology.

The phenakistoscope works by using a disc with slits and different phases on an animation drawn on, a mirror and the persistence of vision theory. The device is operated by using a handle to rotate the disc, and you view the animation by looking into the slits in the mirror, which creates the illusion of movement.

Although this device is one of the first modern animation devices, it was by no means the first. It was preceded by the device known as the zoetrope, which was originally created almost two millennia prior, and it is not without its fair share of flaws either. First of all, the need for a mirror makes it more inconvenient to use, and devices created afterwards, such as the zoetrope do not need one to function properly. Another flaw is the fact that due to the way you need to stand to view it, it is extremely difficult for more than one person to view it at a time. Despite the fact that this device led to many later advancements in animation techniques in the later years, the device wasn’t really that revolutionary, as the technique had already been used in the Chinese zoetrope. In my opinion, despite being the creator of the phenakistoscope, Joseph Plateau didn’t really contribute much to the evolution of stop motion animation, since his device used techniques that had already been explored. To me this calls into question his status as a pioneer of stop motion animation.