Humorous Phases of Funny Faces | |
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Directed by | J. Stuart Blackton |
Produced by | J. Stuart Blackton |
Starring | J. Stuart Blackton |
Distributed by | Vitagraph Company of America |
Release date |
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Running time | 3 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | silent |
Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is a 1906 short silent animated cartoon directed by James Stuart Blackton and generally regarded by film historians as the first animated film recorded on standard picture film. [1] [2]
In the cartoon, animated hand-drawn scenes appear on a chalkboard, including a clown playing with a hat and a dog jumping through a hoop. In the beginning, though, the cartoonist's hands are included, too, as he draws the first several lines on the chalkboard in standard live action. From there, the stop-motion technique is used to show what appears to be drawings completing—and then moving—by themselves with no artist on screen.
Stop-motion as well as cutout animation are used, just as Edwin Porter moved his letters in How Jones Lost His Roll , and The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog . However, there is a very short section of the film where things are made to appear to move by altering the drawings themselves from frame to frame.
The film moves at 20 frames per second.
Animation is a filmmaking technique by which still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets (cels) to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animation has been recognized as an artistic medium, specifically within the entertainment industry. Many animations are computer animations made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Stop motion animation, in particular claymation, has continued to exist alongside these other forms.
Koko the Clown is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer. He first appeared as the main protagonist in Out of the Inkwell (1918–1929), a major animated series of the silent era. Throughout the series, he goes on many adventures with his canine companion "Fitz the Dog", who would later evolve into Bimbo in the Betty Boop cartoons.
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James Stuart Blackton was a British-American film producer and director of the silent era. One of the pioneers of motion pictures, he founded Vitagraph Studios in 1897. He was one of the first filmmakers to use the techniques of stop-motion and drawn animation, is considered a father of American animation, and was the first to bring many classic plays and books to the screen. Blackton was also the commodore of the Motorboat Club of America and the Atlantic Yacht Club.
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The silent age of American animation dates back to at least 1906 when Vitagraph released Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. Although early animations were rudimentary, they rapidly became more sophisticated with such classics as Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914, Felix the Cat, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and Koko the Clown.
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Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy is a 1909 five-minute silent trick film directed by J. Stuart Blackton.
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A chalk talk is an illustrated performance in which the speaker draws pictures to emphasize lecture points and create a memorable and entertaining experience for listeners. Chalk talks differ from other types of illustrated talks in their use of real-time illustration rather than static images. They achieved great popularity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, appearing in vaudeville shows, Chautauqua assemblies, religious rallies, and smaller venues. Since their inception, chalk talks have been both a popular form of entertainment and a pedagogical tool.
Fantasmagorie is a 1908 French animated film by Émile Cohl. It is one of the earliest examples of traditional (hand-drawn) animation, and considered by film historians to be the first animated cartoon.
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Live-action animated is a film genre that combines live-action filmmaking with animation. Projects that are both live-action and computer-animated tend to have fictional characters or figures represented and characterized by cast members through motion capture and then animated and modeled by animators. Films that are live-action and traditionally animated use hand-drawn, computer-generated imagery (CGI), or stop-motion animation.
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