J. Stuart Blackton is known as the 'Father of American animation', as he was one of the first animators to use stop motion and drawn animation. In 1900, Blackton explored the concept of animation, after appearing in and directing several short films, made with a process created by Thomas Edison. He created a video (featured below) named 'The Enchanted Drawing', which was made using stop motion filming, making alterations then continuing filming. This is the general idea I will be using for my project, except I will be using photography.
In his early years he attempted to make money by performing an act with two friends, where Blackton would rapidly draw and narrate a succession of pictures called 'lightning drawing'. After this failed to earn him a living, he became an artist. This would explain why his next logical step was animation, as he already had the art background that would be needed to make it a success.
The following video is one of the first animations created using lightning art, with an imaginative twist. It features Blackton drawing a face then objects such as a bottle of wine and a cigar, then removing these objects with the character seemingly reacting. I think it's clever how aligned and fluid the motion of removing the objects is, considering the year it was made.
This is generally the type of animation I plan to create, although using photography as well as drawn. I'm interested in how much work and editing it would take to create a fluid drawn animation as I was imagine it would take a lot of shots and a high frame rate for the animation to be a success. This animation has one sound track, which is of a piano playing an upbeat tune. I imagine this was because it was the main and most popular music style of the time.
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