Animographe
The Animographe is a machine invented by the researcher of the ORTF Jean Dejoux towards 1961 which was intended to produce Cartoons in a fast and economic way. It was mainly used by Jacques Rouxel to carry out the first episodes of the Shadoks.
Animographe was invented within the research center of the ORTF directed by the type-setter of Concrete music Pierre Schaeffer. This service was constituted of three groups of researchers: the Group of music research, the Group of research image which tried out new concepts of emissions of Télévision, and the technical Group of research which developed new processing machines of the sound and image.
Among these new machines, Animographe was conceived to simplify and accelerate the creation of cartoons, in particular advertizing spots , teaching or different short films of animation. This aircraft was equipped with an optical system making it possible to animate 1 to 8 drawings a second instead of 24 whole while preserving a reasonable fluidity.
The organizers were to draw on some 70 mm broad punched tapes: “not question of making on top White Snow! ” as enjoyed to say it the author-draftsman. On the other hand, the simple drawings of Jacques Rouxel, who had joined the research center of the ORTF in 1965, adapted perfectly to the constraints of this machine. It is besides at the end of the first season of Shadoks (the series DRUNK) that the heart the single prototype of Animographe returned (baptized Caroline ). This model was to become a machine of series once the organizers formed with its use, that is to say after one nine months trial period.
Vis-a-vis the developments in the other technologies of drawing, the draftsmen did not call any more upon this kind of apparatuses.
Several drawings used for Animographe, as well as the plans and the patents related to this machine were given by Jean Dejoux to the museum Nicéphore Niepce of Châlon-sur-saône.