Heroic's Aniblog

Aside from a 5200-year-old bowl found in Iran that shows sequential images in rapid succession when spun, the only real invention related to animation pre-1800s came from Chinese inventor, Ding Huan (Ting Huan), in 180 A.D. This device was a precursor to the zoetrope (fig. 1) and the magic lantern, and consisted of a series of drawings which rotated in the rising air when suspended over a lamp, creating the illusion of movement when rotated at the right speed. After this there is no further recorded development of animation until the 1800s. 

From 1900-1906, various filmmakers across the world began using stop motion techniques in their films. This was used mostly for special effects, and most of them did not think of themselves as animators, nor did they go any further with the craft. 

At this time in Spain, Segundo de Chomón filmed El Hotel Electrico (The Electric Hotel), which featured a hotel full of inanimate objects that came to life, using stop motion animation. This was released in 1908 and was a great success, although he was not an animator, and this film was only significant in the use of stop motion. 

Those who many (including myself) would consider to be the true "Fathers of Animation" came soon after the turn of the century. They are as follows:

James Blackton was a British journalist working in the United States. While interviewing Thomas Edison in 1896, he told Edison he was interested in drawing. Edison asked him to draw his portrait while being filmed. Some consider this to be the first ever drawn animation on film. Blackton would film a black line on white paper, then used the negative exposure to make it appear as a white line on black background. By 1900 he had released the first ever film of this nature, called The Enchanted Drawing, which he had created the year prior in 1899. 

Blackton saw massive success with his technique and continued to pioneer the use of stop motion and drawn animation in more series of filmed drawings, the most significant of which was Humorous Phases of Funny Faces in 1906.  

In France, shortly after Blackton's Humorous Phases of Funny Faces was produced, Emile Cohl created the world's first film that consisted solely of drawn animation sequences. It was called Fantasmagorie, which refers to the Fantasmograph, one of the 19th century variants of the "magic lantern." 

Using Blackton's method of negative exposure, Cohl's film contains over 700 drawings (each double exposed, or shown for 2 frames) and ran for two minutes. Cohl made several other animated films, which saw moderate success. However, his work did not receive the recognition of his French filmmaking peer George Melies, and Cohl's career continued to dwindle until his eventual death in 1938. Coincidentally, Melies died a few hours later. 

Wladyslaw Starewicz, a Russian entomologist, should be considered the father of stop motion animation. He created it separately from George Melies, and not by accident as Melies had. 

Starewicz had seen Emile Cohl's drawn animations, and wanted to apply the technique to the insects he studied. Pioneering stop motion animation, Starewicz saw global success from his film The Beautiful Leukanida (1910), which amazed the people of London to the point of the papers reporting that the insects in the film had been trained by a Russian scientist! He went on to make many more stop motion films using insects as the characters. He changed his name Ladislas Starevich to make it easier to pronounce in French, when he relocated to France in 1920.

Widely considered to be the first great classical animator, Winsor McCay takes his place in this list as the final, and most significant of the Fathers of Animation. In 1911, he created an animation based on one of his comics, called Little Nemo in Slumberland. This fully animated film, drawn frame-by-frame, is the first instance of what became the typical style of American animation. This style was later refined, proliferated, and popularized by the likes of the Fleischer Bros, Walt Disney, and many others. McCay created various animated works between 1911 and 1921, the most influential and notable of which is Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). When debuting this film to an audience, McCay interacted with the animated dinosaur as if it were alive and responding to him as a pet would. 

While Winsor McCay went on to make many more films, he always considered himself an animator first and foremost, as that was his true passion. His techniques and styles were the first to make audiences feel as if his characters were really alive and had their own personalities, and his methods would influence almost all animation around the world, for the rest of time.