The Concept of Motion in Media

It is a common misconception that motion graphics or any form of animated storytelling have only come to light in the past century or so. The truth is that these forms of moving visual art have made their mark on history since the times of early Egyptian and Greek society.

Since then, engineers and creators alike have developed their versions of the optical devices to express their ideas. In the late nineteenth century, these devices made their way onto the cinema scene through the great minds of Eadward Muybridge and the Lumiere brothers.

People’s creative visions slowly grew from people and things to objects and shapes with the help of Swedish painter, Viking Eggeling, who rejected classical representation and took advantage of the movement in instruments and orchestration. From this, Len Lye pushed the use of camera-less, direct-on-film animation through painting and scratching images onto celluloid of 35 millimeters.

The National Film Board of Canada offered Norman McLaren a position to produce experimental animated films. These projects allowed him to gain recognition and fame around the world. The experimental works of sound and imagery through Oskar Fischinger helped ground the concept of music videos and how they are made/viewed today, years before MTV was established.

Almost everything we have today in the ways of motion pictures, sound and imagery were thought of as experimental and wild at one point. Many creative minds investigated and tested different ways to balance computer graphics with screen projection and established aesthetics to make a perfect work of art to share with the world.

Keep in mind, these projects and concepts weren’t created overnight, they identified what they wanted to see in their industry and developed a workable concept that could determine how their project works, looks and sounds. In many cases, they also thought about how their ideas would influence the world and if it didn’t, they would continue experimenting until they felt the direction of where the design was going was complete. This is not a straightforward process, they took many steps forward and backward to make their ideas into a reality for the greater good.