Biography: J. Stuart Blackton

There are a lot of wonderful treasures in the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. You can find galleries of images to browse if you click on MEDIA in the masthead above.

Animation is celebrating its 100th birthday.

"The first examples of animation fascinated and delighted audiences and that appeal has never waned in the past hundred years. Animators continue to explore and develop new technology, but the goal of entertaining an audience hasn't changed very much since the days of J. Stuart Blackton." -Leonard Maltin, Film Historian

James Stuart Blackton was a "Lightning Sketch Artist" in Vaudeville billed as "The Komikal Kartoonist". Inspired by Thomas Edison's recent invention of moving pictures, Blackton teamed with Albert E. Smith to form the first movie studio, Vitagraph Motion Pictures.

Smith and Blackton created what were then called "Trick Films"... the camera was stopped for a moment while the scene was changed, making things magically appear and disappear; images dissolved from one to another; and shots were double exposed to create ghostly images. In 1900, Blackton experimented with putting his lightning sketch act on film in a movie called "The Enchanted Drawing", but it was in April of 1906 when he made his most important breakthrough. In a trick film titled "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" Blackton created what is regarded as the first American animated film.

The hand of the artist draws faces and characters on a chalkboard. They come to life- smile and wink- a man smokes a cigar and blows smoke in a lady's face, a circus clown leads a small dog to jump through a hoop... By today's standards, the animation is quite primitive, but to audiences to whom live action films were still a marvel, they were magical. Imagine it... Drawings that move.

Although there were many early films that experimented with stop motion and other techniques related to animation, Blackton was the first to create "drawings that live"... sequential drawings of characters acting and reacting to each other. The word "animate" literally means 'to give life to'. Blackton gave life to a whole new artform with his pioneering efforts.

Take a look for yourself, courtesy of the Library of Congress...

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906)
(Quicktime / 26 Mb)


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On its 100th anniversary, I hope you will take a moment to consider what animation means to you and all of the magical animated images you've seen in your lifetime. I've created a birthday card for animation in our discussion forum. I hope you will sign it. Tell your friends too. the address is...

www.animationarchive.org/birthdaycard

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Please put this button on your website and link it to... http://www.animationarchive.org/animation100

The press release for Animation's Centennial Celebration is at...
http://www.animationarchive.org/animation100press

Thank you
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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