Events in 1898 in animation.
Events
- November: The German toy manufacturer Gebrüder Bing introduced their toy "kinematograph", at a toy convention in Leipzig . In late 1898 and early 1899, other toy manufacturers in Germany and France, including Ernst Plank, Georges Carette, and Lapierre, started selling similar devices. The toy cinematographs were basically traditional toy magic lanterns, adapted with one or two small spools that used standard "Edison perforation" 35mm film, a crank, and a shutter. These projectors were intended for the same type of "home entertainment" toy market that most of the manufacturers already provided with praxinoscopes and magic lanterns. Apart from relatively expensive live-action films, the manufacturers produced many cheaper films by printing lithographed drawings. These animations were probably made in black-and-white from around 1898 or 1899. The pictures were often traced from live-action films (much like the later rotoscoping technique). These very short films typically depicted a simple repetitive action and most were designed to be projected as a loop - playing endlessly with the film ends put together. The lithograph process and the loop format follow the tradition that was set by the stroboscopic disc, zoetrope and praxinoscope.
- Specific date unknown: The Motograph Moving Picture Book was published in London at the start of 1898 by Bliss, Sands & Co. It came with a "transparency" with black stripes to add the illusion of motion to the pictures in the book (13 in the original black and white edition and 23 in the later color edition). The illustrations were credited to "F.J. Vernay, Yorick, &c.". The book is an early form of stereography.
Births
January
February
- February 2: Billy Costello, American actor (original voice of Popeye), (d. 1971).
- February 8: André Rigal, French animation producer and animator (André Rigal's Animation Studio), (d. 1973).
May
June
- June 7: Earl Duvall, American animator, writer, lay-out artist, director and comics artist (Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Cartoons, Ub Iwerks, directed Honeymoon Hotel), (d. 1950).
- June 18: Dink Trout, American actor, voice artist and radio personality (voice of the title character in Bootle Beetle, Old Bootle Beetle and Balsam in Morris the Midget Moose, the King of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland), (d. 1950).
- June 28: Nat Falk, American illustrator and cartoonist (How to Make Animated Cartoons), (d. 1989).
July
- July 4: Johnny Lee, American singer, dancer and actor (voice of Br'er Rabbit in Song of the South), (d. 1965).
- July 24: Bernard B. Brown, American film composer and sound engineer (composer for Warner Bros. Cartoons, head of the sound department at Universal Studios), (d. 1981).
- July 31: Ken Harris, American animator (Warner Bros. Cartoons, Walt Disney Productions, United Productions of America, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, Hanna-Barbera), (d. 1982).
August
October
November
December
References
External links