A History of Animation

1900 – 1909 · 6 events

The 1900s

Once film stock could be exposed one frame at a time, the trick film became the laboratory in which animation was invented — often by stage magicians rather than artists.

What changed in this period

The first decade of the century belonged to novelty. Audiences paid to be astonished, and the fastest route to astonishment was a camera stopped mid-shot so that objects could vanish, multiply or rearrange themselves. Filmmakers who had trained in theatrical illusion understood immediately that the shutter was the best trick they had ever been handed.

Two distinct traditions separated out of that novelty. One was drawn: chalk figures on a blackboard that erased and redrew themselves, then true frame-by-frame drawing on paper. The other was dimensional: furniture, toys and household objects photographed a frame at a time so that they appeared to move under their own power.

By 1908 a Parisian artist working for a major studio produced a film composed entirely of drawn, transforming line figures with no live-action framing device at all. It runs less than two minutes, and it is the point at which animation stops being a gag inside another film and starts being its own form.

The decade also established the economics that would shape everything afterward. Animation was labor, sold by the foot, produced for a distribution system that wanted a new reel every week. That tension between handcraft and schedule has never gone away.

The record

Every documented event, 1900 – 1909

Listed in order, with context, technique, sources and related events shown in full.

  • 1900 November 1900

    The Enchanted Drawing brings a cartoon face to life

    A vaudeville lightning sketch artist draws a face on an easel; the drawing changes expression and hands him objects that become real when he takes them.

    United States Hybrid live action Short film
    Artist or studio
    J. Stuart Blackton, Vitagraph Company of America
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    Blackton was a newspaper cartoonist turned performer who co-founded Vitagraph. The film uses stop-substitution — halting the camera, altering the scene, resuming — rather than frame-by-frame drawing.

    Why it mattered

    It is the earliest surviving American film in which a drawing appears to act, and it established the lightning-sketch format that shaped the first decade of American animation.

    What followed

    The device of an artist interacting with his own creation recurs throughout animation history, from the Fleischer inkwell films to later hybrid features.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1902

    Méliès formalizes the trick film

    A stage magician's science-fiction fantasy combined painted sets, substitution splices, dissolves and miniatures into a sustained narrative of unprecedented length and ambition.

    France Hybrid live action Short film
    Artist or studio
    Georges Méliès, Star Film
    Country or region
    France

    Historical context

    Méliès ran his own glass-roofed studio outside Paris and treated film as an extension of theatrical illusion, controlling design, direction and effects himself.

    Why it mattered

    It proved that constructed, impossible imagery could carry a story for an entire film, and made frame manipulation a legitimate creative tool rather than a novelty.

    What followed

    The techniques Méliès systematized became the shared toolkit of early animators, and his approach to designed, non-photographic worlds anticipates the logic of animated production design.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1906 April 6, 1906

    Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is released

    Chalk figures drawn on a blackboard blink, smoke and rearrange themselves, filmed partly frame by frame and partly with cut-paper elements moved between exposures.

    United States Hand-drawn on paper Short film
    Artist or studio
    J. Stuart Blackton, Vitagraph Company of America
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    Vitagraph was among the largest American producers of the period, releasing novelty subjects for a vaudeville and nickelodeon market.

    Why it mattered

    It is widely cited as the first animated film recorded on standard motion picture film, and it mixes several techniques that would later separate into distinct traditions.

    What followed

    The film was added to the National Film Registry and remains the standard American starting point for histories of the animated short.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1907

    The Haunted Hotel exports object animation across Europe

    Cutlery, furniture and food move by themselves in a hotel room, filmed a frame at a time with a precision that astonished audiences and mystified working filmmakers.

    United States Stop motion Short film
    Artist or studio
    J. Stuart Blackton, Vitagraph Company of America
    Country or region
    United States

    Historical context

    The film was widely distributed in Europe, where several producers reportedly attempted to reverse-engineer the method.

    Why it mattered

    It demonstrated single-frame object animation to an international professional audience and triggered a wave of imitation, particularly in France and Spain.

    What followed

    European stop motion of the following decade, including puppet films made in Russia and object films made for Pathé, follows directly from the reception of this short.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1908 August 17, 1908 Full record

    Émile Cohl's Fantasmagorie premieres in Paris

    Roughly seven hundred drawings, photographed on negative so that ink lines read as white on black, produce a continuously transforming stick figure moving through a dream logic of shifting objects.

    France Hand-drawn on paper Short film
    Artist or studio
    Émile Cohl, Société des Établissements Gaumont
    Country or region
    France

    Historical context

    Cohl came to film from satirical cartooning and the Incoherent art movement, and was hired by Gaumont in his late forties.

    Why it mattered

    It is the first film built entirely from sequential drawings with no live-action framing device, and it treats metamorphosis rather than character as the organizing principle.

    What followed

    Cohl's transformation logic became a permanent alternative to character animation, resurfacing in experimental, European and independent work throughout the century.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

  • 1908

    Segundo de Chomón's El hotel eléctrico

    Guests at an automated hotel are undressed, groomed and unpacked by luggage and brushes that move on their own, animated frame by frame with unusual smoothness.

    Spain Stop motion Short film
    Artist or studio
    Segundo de Chomón, Pathé Frères
    Country or region
    Spain

    Historical context

    Chomón was a Spanish filmmaker working for Pathé in France, where he specialized in trick photography, tinting and stencil color.

    Why it mattered

    It shows object animation being used to build a complete comic premise rather than a single gag, and displays a technical control well ahead of most contemporaries.

    What followed

    Chomón's methods influenced European fantasy filmmaking for years, and he later contributed effects work to Italian epic cinema.

    Sources consulted

    Related events

Open this period in the interactive timeline